A journey through entrepreneurship.The journey through entrepreneurship
The 3 /s
Idea.
Implementation.
Impact.
Avantika University was very fortunate this month to host Dr. Satyajit Majumdar & Mr. Raviraj Durwas from Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Dr. Satyajit Majumdar is an undergraduate in Electrical and Industrial Engineering. He has a postgraduate degree in Management. He has a Ph.D. from BITS, Pilani, India. He teaches entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, strategic management, strategic human resource management, growth and technology strategy, corporate social responsibility and service operations management. He has More than 35 years of experience, previous engagement with Coal India Limited in maintenance and projects, with Indian Statistical Institute as a consultant, with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Madhya Pradesh as an advisor on Small and Medium Enterprises (SME).He has won several awards as a case writer in the field of entrepreneurship and management of the business.He is an expert with UNESCO - Asia-Pacific, UNCTAD - Geneva, British Council - India.He has visited several countries as visiting faculty and fellow researcher.He is a Member and expert advisor to Academic Councils, Boards of Studies and Committees of several academic institutions in India
Mr. Raviraj Durwas is a Programme Manager at the Incubation Centre at Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He is the Sr. Brand Executive of the Water Department in Hindustan Unilever.
Entrepreneurship is the act of setting up a business. We, at Avantika University, are taught in a way where we are trained to be an entrepreneur and not an employee. We were opportune to have Dr. Satyajeet and Mr Raviraj, to enlighten our minds with the concepts, terms, and theories of entrepreneurship.
When they entered the room, they infused the air with their positive and pragmatic approaches. After a short introductory session, they began the session with queries we had regarding entrepreneurship.
This made the session more interesting since youngsters like us have more to ask than to listen. The answers to the questions posed were rather very interesting.The experienced personnel spoke about capital investment and how one can judge what a good idea is.His approach in terms of a good idea was a rather enthralling one. In his opinion an idea is not good or bad, it is only resourceful. If an idea is useful to any customer, it becomes resourceful. Since designing is all about pleasing the client, this approach helped us all think from a different perspective.
An idea's originality lies only with the thinker of the idea, no person has the ability to steal somebody's original idea. The speakers further addressed failure as a part of the learning process. When one fails, one must go back to the drawing board and refine the idea or scrap it and start fresh.
A good entrepreneur is someone who takes failures as a lesson, is honest with himself and others, trusts and believes in his skills and capabilities and has the knowledge of balancing the three Is- Idea, Implementation, and Impact.
In Patna, the village folk gets electricity only for 4 to 5 hours in a day. An entrepreneur devised a cheaper electricity plan which provided electricity for 16 hours in a day. Though the plan was exceptionally advantageous, the villagers disapproved it because they were in no requirement of 16 hours of energy. The speakers recited this story with the moral of an idea being of zero value unless it satisfies the customer's needs.
We then saw a short film of a student (of the Incubation Centre) who started his own business of organic farming. He acquired his capital by taking advances from his customers. He started his business by selling organic crops. After he started earning a few profits, with financial aids from one of his customers, he started selling hybrid cow milk.The speakers spoke about how this story teaches anybody the importance of goodwill for an entrepreneur.
"You should have started yesterday", said Prof. Mazumdar, marking the most important statement of the session. Competition no more exists between two identical products but exists between similar products. For instance, a typewriter was replaced by the desktop and not a better typewriter. Whatsapp replaced blackberry phones. The speaker highlighted on how a totally different product with better utilities replaced the existing product.
The speakers talked about how entrepreneurial thinking is a necessity for both a job and a startup. If one masters entrepreneurial thinking, doing a job or being an entrepreneur, he will still achieve success.
The session concluded with the speakers talking about their experiences in their journey of becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Written and Edited by,
Swarali Hindlekar & Chandvi Khetan,
The Public Relations team,
B.Des.
Avantika University.