Rashmi Bansal has always been interested in entrepreneurs. Whether it's women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs from Dharavi's (Mumbai) slums or those from India's small towns like Belgaum and Meerut. The IIM Ahmedabad graduate has spent the last decade or so researching and telling the stories of different kinds of entrepreneurs and now she's back with a new book - one about intrapreneurs. Her latest book is titled 'Shine Bright' and it aims to tell the stories of managers turned intrapreneurs.

Who is an intrapreneur?

We caught up with the author over the phone to chat about her new book and the experiences that came with writing it. First off, she clarified the difference between an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur. "An entrepreneur is a person who starts their own company from scratch. They're also called start-up founders. An intrapreneur is someone who is not the founder of the organisation and yet, he thinks and works like an entrepreneur," she explained.

She elaborated that intrapreneurs typically have a sense of ownership, even though they don't own the company and that this sense goes beyond a paycheck. "They have that bigger passion and purpose and a real passion for their work. They will take the initiative to be problem solvers," she said.

Bansal has been writing books for a decade. Her first book - Stay Hungry Stay Foolish - was released in 2008, this will be her tenth. The book contains stories from notable names such as Manu Jain (Global VP, Xiaomi and MD, Xiaomi India), Nitin Paranjpe (Global CEO, Unilever) and Amitabh Kant (CEO, NITI Aayog). Apart from the stories of these intrapreneurs, the book is also peppered with insights for young managers that can be found between each chapter.

We asked her about Manu Jain's story and she elaborated -

Somewhere in 2013, Manu stumbled upon a blog about a company called Xiaomi (pronunciation: Shao-me). The company was just 3 years old, had started selling phones in 2012, but was already one of the best-selling brands in China. The author of the blog stated-'this is one of the most incredible companies in the mobile space. 3 months later, Manu was still figuring out what to do, when the Xiaomi team pinged him. "Hey, we are in India, would love to catch up with you over a coffee." That's when Bin Lin shared the company's plans to enter India. Hence, they were looking for an India business head.

"We know you and think you understand our philosophy. Will you set up this venture for us?" Manu was surprised. He'd been thinking of the mobile space but more in the area of an app or a service. Not selling phones themselves. Clearly, he lacked the domain expertise. But that was precisely the reason Xiaomi found him attractive. A person with mobile handset sales experience would have a certain mindset, ki aise bechna hai. Whereas, Xiaomi did things very differently.

They could be right but, Manu reasoned, there was no harm in trying. He went ahead and imported 10,000 Mi3 handsets. Why 10,000? Because, at that time, Xiaomi India had a Facebook page with 10,000 followers. These folks knew about the company, they just might buy the handset. 22 July 2014 saw the first ever sale of Mi phones on Flipkart. A good amount of traffic was expected. But nobody-not Flipkart, not Xiaomi-was prepared for what actually happened. More than half a million customers attempted to log in and buy the phone. For the first time in its history, the Flipkart site crashed. Sachin and Binny Bansal posted an apology on Twitter: "Working on getting this fixed ASAP." The Xiaomi team in China-and its 1-man army in India-were ecstatic. We have arrived.

About HUL's Nitin Paranjpe, she agreed that his story too, was quite remarkable. Paranjpe joined HUL as a management trainee straight out of college and rose up the ranks to CEO at 46. His chapter focuses on how he grew the business to the place that it currently is, despite all the challenges that came his way.

An edited excerpt from Paranjpe's chapter -

Back in the year 1999, Nitin had met the late Prof C K Prahalad as part of the Millennium project. The good professor asked, "What do you think HUL needs to become an even greater organisation?" Nitin replied, "We should become more entrepreneurial." "Okay," said Dr Prahalad. "Tell me, what is the difference between a manager and an entrepreneur?" Nitin rolled out the obvious stuff: risk-taking, ambition, innovation. The professor shook his head.

He went up to the blackboard and wrote two alphabets:
A and R, A and R.
In the first line he wrote:
A >> R
In the second line he wrote
A <= R

What was this mysterious formula... it made no sense to Nitin. Dr Prahalad then wrote the word 'entrepreneur' next to A >> R. And the word 'manager' next to A <= R. "A stands for aspiration or ambition and R for resource," said the professor. The only difference between an entrepreneur and a manager is the mindset. Managers manage resources, that's what they have been taught, so a manager will have A = R. You give me a little more budget, I'll do more, you reduce my budget, reduce my target. That's the conversation that happens when managers talk about what it takes to get results. But for an entrepreneur, the ambition and aspiration have no correlation to the resources. Set goals with your heart, find ways to get there with you head, don't do it the other way round. A guy with barely a penny in his pocket would be dreaming of 'changing the world'.

"It is this mismatch between ambition and resource which causes him to do things differently," said Dr Prahalad. This conversation impacted Nitin deeply, and at this time of crisis, he was struck by a thought. How can an organisation like HUL consciously create A >> R? How do you raise the bar, set audacious new goals? Most people are happy living in their comfort zone, they resist change. But desperate times call for desperate measures... Thus began the first experiment...

Westland Publications published the book 'Shine Bright' this year and it is available on Amazon, Flipkart and with other offline booksellers too.

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