The next area of big growth for the Indian economy will happen mainly through innovation and entrepreneurship across various sectors keeping the requirement of consumers in rural as well as urban India as the central focus.
That was the message from successful industry leaders from across the sectors at the inaugural of the TiE ISB Connect 2017 with the theme “The Next Trillion - Where and How to Create’ organised at the Indian School of Business here on Thursday.
At a time when then the IT and ITES services jobs were shrinking to mere 40 % in the wake of automation, 80 % of untapped rural economy will be where majority of Indian youth will be turning to for opportunities. With huge investments to be made in the infrastructure, road, railway, port connectivity projects and economy tipped to grow at seven %, entrepreneurs should look for opportunities in health care, education, pharma, food processing, electronics manufacturing, leisure sector. That is where business opportunities will abound, they said.
Tweaking old
Dean Indian School of Business Rajendra Srivastava said that innovation did not mean creating a new product or developing a new technology alone. It also meant improving an existing product or service by reading the consumers’ requirements. The Indian companies so far had been good at solving problems but the time has come for understanding frustration and finding the new requirements of customers.
Participating in the panel discussion of successful leaders in various sectors who turned around their businesses and prospered in various sectors by looking at the emerging opportunities, MD ILabs Group Srini Raju said that if the IT sector earned 60 to 65 billion dollars, an equal amount was spent on imports from China. The focus should be for import substitution, mainly in the health and pharma sectors, and manufacturing of electronic equipment and goods like mobile phones to begin with.
Big potential
Food processing was another big potential area, he said adding that Pepsi and Coke were no longer growing in India but Paper Boat products by local players who challenged existing players by promoting Indian beverages.
Former president (HR) of Asian Paints and a seasoned entrepreneur Jalaj Dani said their company grew from ₹1,000 crore turnover to ₹1.1 lakh crore company in 25 years by understanding what the customers needed in the paints sector and by focusing big on human capital.
MD of Biological Evans Mahima Datla said they grabbed the opportunity in the public health care which the governments across the world focused by investing big on vaccines and conforming to the WHO specifications. The company did not hesitate to lower the price of pentavalent vaccine and supplied to countries across the world when others had hesitated.
Rajiv Kumar of Microsoft shared the success of the integrated Chat App Kaizala, which was the result of extensive research for two years to understand the customers’ needs who wanted their smartphones to help them in their work and businesses.
The purpose of TiE-ISB initiative is to create a platform for startups to learn, network and meet multiple pan India venture capitalists, investors, angel investors from across the country.