Building
Entrepreneurs – Thought Leaders for Tomorrow
25th October 2009: IIM Indore
IIM
Indore in association with NEN (National Entrepreneurship Network)
and iBranch.in organized a day-long workshop on “Business Ideas and
Opportunity Evaluation” on Sunday, 25th October 2009 at IIM Indore.
The workshop, which was conducted by Prof. Vasanti Venugopal, saw
participation from over a 100 students across Indore.
Prof.
Vasanti Venugopal from the Department of Commerce & Management at
Mount Carmel College, Bangalore has over 24 years of teaching
experience across various areas such as Entrepreneurship, Services
Marketing and Cost & Mgmt Accounting. Currently the mentor of MCC’s
E-cell, “Initium”, she has been a driving force for startups such as
“Creative - line Solutions Co Ltd.” and “Myriad Co. Ltd.”. She has
co-chaired the Women Entrepreneur Committee, FKCCI in the year 2006.
“Prof. Venugopal’s pedagogy for the workshop was truly
extraordinary”, quotes Harshil Adesara from IIM Indore.
On the
occasion, IIM Indore’s Director, N. Ravichandran, laid emphasis on
the need for entrepreneurs of tomorrow to be visionary and to act as
social change agents, making meaningful contributions to the society
and environment. According to him, the opportunities are not same
across the board due to various forms of inequalities existing in
the country and hence when the opportunity arises, we must show
compassion and social relevance while implementing our ideas.
The
workshop started off with a group activity on idea generation using
newspaper articles as an aid. Through this activity and a subsequent
presentation, Prof. Venugopal expressed the importance of the flow
of new ideas and various avenues available to assist us with the
same. Through certain videos, she also highlighted the need to keep
in mind the “bigger picture” and also how it may be wise to get away
from the problem when you face a complete block. She also mentioned
that very few (3%) ideas are novel and are not necessary to launch a
successful venture.
During
the post-lunch session, each student in his/her respective group was
asked to take up one entrepreneurial idea and present it to his/her
peers. Each group was finally asked to finalize one idea and present
it to the entire audience. Mr. Raghvendra Pandey, Founder and CEO of
iBranch.in, also provided valuable inputs on various practical
aspects which creep in while starting an enterprise.
The
final leg of the workshop concentrated on opportunity evaluation by
understanding the macro and micro factors which need to be studied
for both the market and the industry. Prof Venugopal explained the
significance of networking and building a strong team for any
enterprise. She showed how an entrepreneur could use “Mullins 7
Domain Framework” to assess attractive opportunities.
