A Healthy Workforce is the Key to Run a Profitable Business

In developing markets, especially in India, companies have had a tendency to focus on illness rather than wellness. This is despite the fact that issues of absenteeism, and presenteeism, have assumed alarming proportions,thus causing a negative impact on bottom lines. A predominantly sedentary lifestyle is resulting in high levels of stress, physical illness and low levels of productivity.
What evolved employers realize is that a healthy workforce is key to running a profitable business. Physical and mental health is critical to improving the top and bottom line. Leadership is responsible for profitability and a critical way to increase it is by protecting and providing for their most important asset - human capital.
Companies should focus on providing a simple, fun and relevant solution to maintain and establish a healthier and happier lifestyle - this gives employees who do not enjoy regimented exercise schedules, an opportunity to invest in their health. It was recently reported that almost 65 per cent of young adults in India have blood pressure within the prehypertensive and hypertensive range, and 60 pert cent of Indian companies have no strategy in place to ensure the good health of their employees.
Until recently, employer-initiated wellness programmes commonly included having a gymnasium in the office premises, with perhaps a couple of posters near the elevators to encourage employees to take the stairs instead. Organisations that value their employers are the ones that will invest in their employees' well-being: they are helping employees maintain a good work-life balance and, as a result, helping the employees deliver better performance. 

Stories of Successful Entrepreneurs

Stories of Successful Entrepreneurs – 3

Most Inspiring female entrepreneur of our time

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw



Kiran Mazumdar-shaw is an Indian business women. She is the Founder chairman and Managing Director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company situated in Bengaluru, India.
She was born on March 23,1953 in Bangalore, India. Shaw completed her graduation in Zoology from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore University. She completed her post-graduation in Malting and Brewing from Ballarat College, Melbourne University.
She worked as a trainee brewer in Carlton and United Breweries, Melbourne and as a trainee master at Barrett Brothers and Burston, Australia.
She started Biocon in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore in 1978 and spearheaded its evolution from an industrial enzymes manufacturing company to a fully integrated bio-pharmaceutical company.
Today Biocon under Shaw’s leadership has established itself as a leading player in bio medicine research with a focus on diabetes and oncology.
Her pioneering work in the sector has earned her several awards, including the prestigious Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005) from the government of India. She was recently named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. She is on the Forbes list of the world’s 100 most powerful women and the Financial Times’ top 50 women in business list.

Firing: A Tough Jo

A severance package requires careful consideration and when the employer has any intention of replacing the employee, these actions cast a question mark on the employer’s credibility. There often comes a point in the employer-employee relationship, where the relationship of the employer and the employee begins to sour and distances start to become larger. Always get a second opinion on a problematic employee situation – this goes a long way to prevent any termination decisions that are made out of anger or frustration. It is important to remember that you’re only human and it is entirely possible that a frustrating employee may cloud your judgment. Terminating any of your employees is never a pleasant task, your company should always avoid the employment landmines during the termination process. Even if you have a rapport and sympathy attached with the employee to be terminated, keep in mind that in most cases, firing them will make things worse. One should not expect that this type of conversation will be easy, or even necessarily to go well. One should go into this conversation with a positive attitude, but should be prepared for the employee to become disgruntled or defensive, this preparation will help to keep him cool throughout this difficult conversation. If you can keep this process consistent and in line with previously stated guidelines, all parties involved will benefit. The step of the termination process should never be overlooked. You and your business can’t afford to overlook any potentially harmful legal situations. This may seem obvious but, in the heat of the moment, self-control is paramount. A cooling-off period may not change one’s mind, but it will provide time to evaluate the decision and plan the termination. This idea would be better if one doesn't sugar coat or frame the conversation in a way that reflects anything but the truth. A well thought out termination can provide you and the employee with a clean slate moving forward. There are some points which should be considered when firing like determining if there is an ability problem or an attitude problem and the actual reason why an applicant left a former position because employees have a right to know what the consequences of their actions are. Remember that ability problems can be solved but Attitude problems are more difficult to deal with.

Hiring: A Big Responsibility

Reading people isn’t quite as easy as reading cards. A good employee is almost always worth a big bet; they are like the pocket aces of the poker world. If someone is good enough to find one, do what one needs to do to get them on board and keep them engaged. One of the most common mistakes that leads to failure involves hiring too many employees or too often. The hiring process is complex and should never be approached without proper consideration.

The journey starts with the hiring; most ideal situation can be stressful, but there should be a hope for the future of a potential employee. Good employers lead by example.  Promoting and motivating can be the valuable ways to build a robust workforce and motivate your employees to succeed. It would be positive step if one sets the tone early on and is consistent, will definitely create a working environment where employees will feel like they can work hard and thrive. Sometimes firing employees is not due their poor performance, but rather your own poor decision-making and understanding. The situations when you need to hire an employee are when you don’t have the skills and expertise to do a job, when it will cost you more to do the job yourself than to hire someone else to do it and when you hate doing a task that must be done. Hold all employees to the same standard and the best way to ensure you are treating all employee behavior equally is to have some sort of accountability.
Realistically, consider the high cost of turnover in personnel. It would be great if one checks on references and verify past experience listed of the employees and identifies the short-range and long-range personal and professional objectives. Betting large is a good thing, but only if you’ve taken the steps to figure out what kind of hand you’re holding.

A step by Government of India

It is critical that it is leveraged well through innovative initiatives. The Government has taken several very proactive steps to encourage entrepreneurship. We await to see how the implementation of some of these initiatives is going to be planned, especially the plans of start-up fund corpus. In order to create a conducive eco-system for the venture capital in this sector it is proposed to establish a 10,000crore fund to act as a catalyst to attract private Capital by way of providing different type of capital for start-up companies.” A “District level Incubation and Accelerator Programme” would be taken up for incubation of new ideas and providing necessary support for accelerating entrepreneurship. The proposed outlays for start-up funds and enabling processes for different categories of the population and industry sectors are a welcome initiative.
The government deserves to be commended for addressing the funding needs of upcoming entrepreneurs. The Rs. 10,000crore venture capital fund for start-ups is a great beginning for the financial architecture of small and medium-sized enterprises as they can be referred as the backbone of the economy. A fund, if structured well, could create the much needed ‘real early-stage’ funding support that start-ups in India need today and play a strong role in creating a much more seamlessly integrated funding mechanism as also in helping mature the funding ecosystem for start-ups. However, allocating money, being very positive signal, is only one of the key challenges in realizing the benefits from a start-up fund. The quality in the implementation of the fund, the government’s structure, the knowledge, professionalism and experience of the funding committees will all determine the quality and scale of outcomes and impact from this initiative. Private investors are ready to invest three times that of Government of India. Something similar will have to be implemented to make the fund efficacious. As in the fund, the participation of the key stakeholders would be critical to make the best of these proposals.
Additionally, another major challenge in the ecosystem is the ability of large numbers of entrepreneurs to access high-quality mentoring and training in order to grow their skills to tackle start up challenges. And some adequate and systematic efforts are required to tackle this gap if we expect that the fund would have a high-quality pipeline of entrepreneurs. However, India still ranks low in ease of starting up and doing business, as multiple registrations and clearances are required. A single window clearance mechanism would be a great step. We would be leveraging half of India’s population that has tremendous potential for significant contribution to the country’s GDP.
Then there are impact start-ups that work on solving social problems through entrepreneurship. These are different aspects requiring a large patient capital with a longer return horizon and some outright grant as seed capital. The actual value is embedded in how the programs will be implemented to suit the needs of each group. But the announcement of the fund is a step in the right direction since India’s economic future lies in creating millions and millions of jobs for the aspirational youth.
Additionally, the exit regulations and compliance for start-ups is immense. Any type simplification is welcome and will hugely benefit start-ups that are struggling to set up businesses and struggling to exit if they have failed. So this would pave way for easier “exits” for start-ups and smoother life after exits to entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneur as a problem solver

Basically entrepreneurship means a problem solving ability and an entrepreneur is a problem solver. Entrepreneurs are sometimes said as a businessmen which is quite true, They are the one who organize a business by utilizing the resources. Not only in our India but into all over the world there are many successful entrepreneurs who have been started their business from a very low level but today they are one of the most popular entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is like an art, which comes from the heart. Some people misunderstands that without knowledge entrepreneurship is like “to chew iron pellets” which is spurious. Because the most important thing for being an entrepreneur is to take decision. No doubt life is full of risk but without taking risk we can’t even go one better. And once you have taken a decision everything will come in a flow. And very well said that “ You may be dishearten if you fail but, you will be dead as alive if you don’t try”.

Entrepreneurship and your Future

Today everyone Is concerned about their future. When it comes to  future people find ways to earn money to secure their future, in this race some of them want to be an engineer, a doctor, banker, teacher etc.  What about an entrepreneur????

Entrepreneurship will lead you towards a bright future, the only need is of your decision, determination and your risk taking ability. Won’t it be so good if you are not bounded to do anything, you are your own boss. No one to tell you if you are not coming to your office at time, many employees are working according to you. Yeah!! It is possible if you are an entrepreneur. But in today’s scenario many people are not entering to this path, some of the reasons are as following  :

1.       Lack of motivation

2.       Parental pressure

3.       Lack of determination

4.       Fear to take risks

Basically an entrepreneur is a businessman, but we can’t address a businessman as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is the one who  doesn’t stay at one place only but expands his business always. An entrepreneur will always be an entrepreneur, no one can stop him.

Business plan for an Entrepreneur

For a business plan, the first and foremost thing is set your goals and ideas as to what i have to do. There are various ideas but to execute that one idea makes all the difference. It is key to starting a new business.

Second thing is that before getting too excited and start investing time and resources into that idea, we have to find out if there is a real need for it. My own idea may sound good to me but we got to share our idea with such people who could be honest with us and tell the flaws of that idea also.

Third thing is that we got to find whether our that idea serves a market that is big enough with opportunity for growth. It is very important as it happens that our idea may be good one but the market may not be big enough for execution of that particular idea. So in such case, survey and research can help us know that whether our idea to start that business is worth our time.

Fourth thing is “Man Power”. What kind of people we should hire in our business so that they could cope up with a new start­up?

Finally is the “Money Power”. How can we arrange our own capital to start with the business? In this case, our relatives,friends can help to a great extent.

Tools for successful Entrepreneurs

1. Enjoy the work you do:

If we don’t enjoy what we do then that will be totally reflected in our business and chances are there we won’t succeed.

2. Work should be done seriously:

We should have faith in our goods and services that we sell and truly believe in our own business.

3. Plan everything:

By planning, it makes us to analyze each business situation, research, compile data and make conclusions based on that research.

4. Wise management of money:

For business to run effectively, the flow of cash must be managed well. Money matters a lot for implementing any business.

5. Know your customers well:

Customers are the people that will ultimately decide if our business goes boom or bust. So, everything we do in the business should be customer-focused.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Poornima Group of Institutions

Entrepreneurship is always about the risks and in this competitive world, everyone wants safe and secured life. But the question is “why will one take that risk which left him in the midway.” It’s been a long time that our country is talking about entrepreneurship and revolving around its merits and demerits. The same stories are carried out in the colleges of our country. There was a survey conducted by circulating Google forms online in our college and we reached to the conclusion that a proper orientation and guidance is needed. Students are having great ideas and business plans, but the academic and parental pressure are the hurdles that they are facing in their road to success. Imagination and innovation are important parts but without execution and implementation, these ideas are worthless. Students do not know that what steps should be taken initially and what type of research should be done. We know that being an entrepreneur along with the academics is tough, but it is not difficult to carry things related to entrepreneurship along with the same. As our college is an engineering college and things revolve around the technical aspects of the world so the students are not taking interest in entrepreneurship. Two batches have passed out from our college in which many students were having the same vision but different ideas. Many of them showed their dedication to their dream and owing the pride of hiring and firing others. And many of them due to lack of dedication, planning and orientation failed at that time but succeeded when they realized the importance of being an entrepreneur. The e-cell of our college realized the problems that students are facing and a new model has been planned to help the students from the grass root level. Even the students from 1st year will be guided by the experts from the industries and will be made aware about the market and customers so that they can initiate from the starting of his career and at the end of degree, he/she will be ready for execution of his ideas practically. Most of the students want a job with good package in Multinational Companies, so, it’s risky to turn their steering to another track. The e-cell of our college is doing a great job in this context. Several programs had been conducted for previous years and more events, activities and expert sessions have been planned for this year too. So, ignoring the idea of using elevator we will use stairs and move towards success step by step.

Stories of Successful Entrepreneurs

Stories of Successful Entrepreneurs - 2
Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal 

Initial Investment- Rs. 20,000

Born on June 15, 1950, in Ludhiana, Punjab, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal graduated from Punjab University with a degree in Bachelor of Arts and Science. His father Mr. Sam Paul Mittal was a Member of Parliament but he didn't want to follow his father’s footsteps and wanted to do something on his own.

Due to his inclination towards business, he teams up with his friends to form a bicycle business. After this, he moved to Mumbai to start a full-fledged business of selling generators imported from Japan. Here Mittal learnt the basics of marketing and advertising. After a ban on import of generators Mittal clinched a deal with the French Telecom Group Vivendi for the Delhi Cellular Circle. He introduced electronic push button phones in India in1982. The year 1986 witnessed the launch of Bharti Telecom Limited (BTL) and the brand “Airtel” and as is said the rest is history.

After this there was no turning back for Mittal and within a few year Bharti became the first telecom company to cross the 2-million mobile subscriber mark.

Stories of successful Entrepreneurs

Stories of successful Entrepreneurs - 1
Dinesh Agarwal's IndiaMart
Initial Investment: Rs 40,000

 It is said that entrepreneurs always search for change, respond to it and exploit it as an opportunity and so was the case with DINESH AGARWAL, an engineer in computer science from Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur. After completing is B.Tech, he got a well paid job at HCL Technologies as system analyst. Bbut an entrepreneur by choice, he chose to quit the job and move to India to bring new technology to small and medium enterprises. He built a platform for businesses to display their products via web-pages and named the venture IndiaMart.
The idea behind the act was to help the small and medium enterprises in the country to promote their products and services. His company IndiaMart is now an Indian enterprise in the country market and is headquarted in Noida. It has around 1.5million suppliers listed on its website with as many as 1 crore buyers every month.

Problems faced by Upcoming Entrepreneurs

While trying to become an entrepreneur, one has to overcome many social and financial obstacles.
Many a times, the family members boycott the up comer or are ridiculed by their social contacts. People may try to demotivate them and make them deviate from their path. These obstacle are just a way to show class superiority of one fellow over another. The people are just incompatible with persons who think differently and whose attitude to things of different nature is varying.

The financial problems are much more common as up comers don’t actually know from where to start. They just dream of how they will carry on a business after break-even point but they have no idea of how they will generate their first product or carry on their first service or operation.
The patience in today’s generation is also a major factor. Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before tasting success but today’s generation cannot afford to fail more than a few times. They don’t have the will to learn from their past mistakes and take risks in future. They don’t have inner will to go all out on achieving their dreams and complete the task with flying colors.
One should always remember that the man of tomorrow is forged by his battles of today.

Identity of "ENTREPRENEUR"

Often we come across the word 'entrepreneur' and ponder' Who are they?' In simple language, they  are  someone who creates a new business of their own. The term 'Entrepreneur' has been derived from a French word 'Entreprendre' meaning to undertake certain activities. It may sound simple that someone is an entrepreneur but reality is that they are the ones carrying high risk. They got to invest lots of money to make more money.We can call them the 'risk bearer'. For facing uncertainities he may get profit or incur loss. It is not easy to become an entrepreneur. He must have some qualities or skills like ability to organise various factors effectively, understand all the ascepts of the business. He should be professional in approach and should adopt modern techniques of production rather than outdated ones. The most important quality is that an entrepreneur must be quick in his/her decisions or we can say 'right decision at right time'. An effective communication is also equally important as an entrepreneur comes in contact with various persons like consumers, workers, some dignified authorities and government officials.

Needs in Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is defined by the overall attributes of a person and his/her dedication towards own work. It doesn’t require a business plan from a person, it requires the knowledge of how to carry out the first operation. The entrepreneurs are the job generators of today’s era. They can generate revenue from wrecks and have the composition of vision, speed, discipline, social skills, budget control and determination to go for a change with adaptability to changes.
Their leadership quality should be renowned as the jobs and livelihoods of several people depend upon them. They should be able to handle pressure and be flexible to psychological impacts. It was Varun Aggarwal’s valor of overcoming his family barriers, Don’t Give Up and Don’t Think, Just Do It attitude, Steve Job’s win over his psychological traumas and Larry Page’s capitalist nature that took them to heights.
It’s not about how you fail after your first start, it’s about your ascent to zenith from point zero on the graph.
Let’s see what different attributes mean in entrepreneurship:

1) Vision
A well-defined vision is a skill that every company leader needs in order to cross the finish line. It will be the major force behind an entrepreneur’s success and will serve as a compass in tough times. A startup needs to envision how to monetize from the very beginning. The first dollar counts, especially for potential investors.
2) Speed
Getting things done in a quick manner is one of the many reasons why startups are able to reach their goals and milestones. It makes a difference when a startup is able to launch on time or when it’s able to move much faster than competitors. We believe that the faster you can make the mistakes, learn from them and improve your offering, the better.
3) Budget Masters
A successful startup is efficient in managing its finances and able to operate very lean. Every angle should have its own budget assigned and unnecessary expenses should be avoided. It is important to know what the company needs in order to accomplish milestones and budget accordingly. When resources are limited, and time is of the essence, companies need to master the skill of doing more with less.
4) Social Skills
Networking is another reason for startup success. A founding team that knows powerful and influential people in the business is completely priceless and can open the doors to partnerships. On the other hand, startup leaders need to inspire people and give them reason to follow them through the uncertain journey
5) Discipline
Discipline starts with self-control and is a product of a strong self-imposed personal standard. Without discipline, startups fail to succeed in business even if situated in the best economy. Self-discipline leads to positive work ethic, and work ethic leads to getting things done effectively and efficiently. It is critical to have all the team members aligned and working together to get to the finish line.
6) Determination
Strong determination is always necessary for success to take place. A successful startup emphasizes the significance of determination when building a business and never quits, especially when the road gets bumpy and scary.
7) Ability to Adapt to Changes
The best startups are always willing to adapt to new technologies.  Adapting to change can lead to major breakthroughs.
8) Fundraising Skills
Cash flow is the blood line of any business.  This means that businesses can be ruined with inadequate capital. Successful startups are the ones that have sufficient capital to run their business operations.
9) Unwavering Belief 
Every business’s success revolves around taking risks. Successful startups are prepared to take risks. As they say, the most profitable investments usually require high amounts of risk. However, such decisions need to have a solid due diligence in order to avoid as much as possible the downfall in the event things don’t turn out as they were expected, which is often the case.
10) Master of Time Management
Startup life can be rough, between the mountain of things to do and limited staff and resources, the company’s success hinges on the team’s productivity and effectiveness to do more with less.

11) Execution
Lastly, having an idea is just the beginning and really, execution is 98% in determining each business’ success.  For this part, the experience of the team is critical as their backgrounds will help towards making more good decisions than bad ones.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE FIRST STEP

An entrepreneur is who searches for change, responds to it and exploits opportunities. First of all, customers are the people that will ultimately decide if your business goes boom or bust. A good entrepreneur should always remember that it’s all about the customers. This journey starts from the generation of a new idea and never ends because the road to the success is always under construction. A great example of this field is Mark Zuckerberg , who started the FACEBOOK in his college life and now he is listed in 100 Wealthiest and Most Influential People in the World. Having a positive business image and a forward looking approach, an entrepreneur should start his journey with a small but strong team. An entrepreneur should have leadership qualities and innovative and influential communication skills which will help him in building a rock solid reputation and a good relation with the customers. A good entrepreneur needs to be able enough to turn every obstacle into an asset and that obstacle is RISK. It is all about the risk therefore one should have risk tolerance abilities and for this, an entrepreneur should limit the number of hats he wears. An effective entrepreneur is who invests in himself and becomes a shameless self-promoter because entrepreneurs are non-fixed income earner who pays known cost of production but gets uncertain incomes.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

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