Courtesy: Dailymirror
Nayana Karunaratne, one of the most well known faces in the Asian hair and beauty industry was recognized as the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2007, at the awards ceremony organized by the Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce on August 26, 2008. She was also the winner of a gold medal for the Business category - large.
The Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 awards ceremony takes place on an annual basis, with a focus on evaluating the performance of women in business. The winners were selected from four categories – Large, Small, Medium and Micro, along with an overall award to outstanding professional women from the large category.
Speaking on her achievement, Karunaratne said, “I am greatly appreciative of winning this award but in perspective I am more overjoyed that someone from my industry has been recognized for the hard work and dedication put in to become a success story. I am essentially a hairdresser, and have been a businesswoman for the past 28 years. It has been long road to get to where I am today but I have perservered, because I knew at a very young age that this was what I wanted in life.”
Adding on, she said, “The key to my success is because I am very focused, goal oriented, hard working, disciplined and extremely organized in what I endeavor in. This has been a progressive growth for me, starting with the opening of my salon, and its expansion within Sri Lanka as well as into India. What has driven so far has been my passionate sense of personal commitment to the services offered at Salon Nayana. This goes hand in hand with the fact that I have dedicated my career in helping both men and women to look their best and to elevate the profession of hairdressing in Asia to global standards.”
Nayana Karunaratne has been instrumental in revolutionizing the concepts of beauty culture among Sri Lankans for over two decades. The success of Salon Nayana is attributed to a team of over 150 dedicated professionals comprising of cosmetologists, stylists and nutritionists who bring in their uniqueness and expertise, with an unrivalled, passionate sense of personal commitment to the services offered by Nayana and her reputed network of salons.
Established in 1980, Salon Nayana has come along, becoming an enterprise has evolved and positioned itself as a contemporary leader in the hair industry with a chain of 12 salons in Sri Lanka and India, and has produced many winners at both nation and international hair and make up competitions.
In addition to her chain of unisex hair and beauty salons in Sri Lanka and India, she is the founder of the Image Academy of Hair and Beauty as well as the Image Academy of Personality Development. The professional hairdressing and beauty therapy courses conducted by the academy are recognized by the Immigration authorities of Australia and Canada.
It also works in association with Pivot Point International, issuing certificated recognized by the European Union. The Image Academy of Personality Development provides personal development programmes for corporates and individuals on self worth, grooming, corporate dress sense, team work and stress management among others.
She is also the founder of the Sri Lanka Association for Hairdressers and Beauticians (SLAHAB) in 1996. Reflective of her commitment to elevate the profession of hairdressing in Sri Lanka to international standards, today the organization has a 3000 strong membership and represents Sri Lanka in the Organization Modiale de la Coiffure (OMC), also known as the World Federation of Hairdressers to represent Sri Lanka. She has also organized the Hair Asia Pacific, the international Hair and Make up competition for ten years to develop the Asian industry.
At present she is a board member of the World Federation of Hairdressers (OMC) and the President of the OMC Asia Zone. This position enables her yearly access to attend and host six training events all over the world.
Her working partnership with the best creative talent in the world and the experience gained judging OMC Zone and the World Championships has widened her creative and teaching horizons immensely. Today she is one of the most respected and experienced hairdressers in the world.
She is also an international trainer, in her capacity as OMC Asia President, where she travels extensively nationally and internationally, inspiring future stylists and make up artists.
Her vast experience includes training programmes in Hair and Beauty, Chennai, Hair India People, Mumbai, Hair and Beauty Association of Thailand as well as Sino Beauty, China.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Indian Harvard grads turning biz plans into success stories
Courtesy: Economic Times
Back in 2005, Ashwin Damera, a student at Harvard Business School (HBS), had a bright idea. What India’s booming e-commerce industry lacked, he believed, was a comprehensive travel portal. His idea won him second place in the classroom business plan contest; the winner of which was a proposed plus size lingerie company. He doesn’t think that one came through, but a year later Travelguru did, thanks partly to generous cheques from three unexpected investors - Damera’s own classmates. Meet Ankur Daga, one of Damera’s angel investors, and himself an entrepreneur. Fresh out of HBS he founded Angara, an online jewellery company that emerged from watching friends struggle with purchasing jewellery. Despite his family background in jewellery, Daga wasn’t expected to follow suit. “The question was always ‘You’re highly educated, shouldn’t you be working for a private equity or a consulting firm’ ?” he says. But Daga doesn’t feel deprived. “I’ve done the McKinsey stint; I wanted to start something on my own, and the earlier the better.” Daga and Damera aren’t the only ones to go against the grain. More and more Indian graduates from HBS are rocking the boat by ditching traditionally espoused careers on wall street or in consulting for entrepreneurship , ending up with cross-border businesses and bifurcated lives. They include people like Naveen Tewari (Class of 05), a McKinsey consultant who returned to India to start mKhoj, a mobile advertising network . “When I went in to HBS all I wanted to be was a partner in McKinsey . That disappeared in exactly three months,” he says. According to William Sahlman, Senior Associate Dean at HBS who teaches a second year course on Entrepreneurial Finance, after 10-15 years, almost 50% of graduates are involved in entrepreneurial settings. India has seen its share of successful HBS entrepreneurs from Ashish Dhawan of ChrysCapital to Avnish Bajaj and Suvir Sujan of Bazee (later gobbled by eBay). Lately, though, they are jumping into the water and getting their feet wet earlier, sometimes , while still in school. Kapil Vishwanathan’s was a case of campus entrepreneurship. He floated Pre-Media Global, a Chennai-based leading vendor providing content services to the US publishing industry , while still at HBS, along with his sister Kami, also an HBS alum. He’s wanted to become entrepreneur as long as he can remember. “It had to be a cross-border enterprise . It was just a question of when,” he says. He even tried to support other young business leaders pursue their entrepreneurial dreams by starting the Entrepreneurship Club at HBS. “Of course, the investing and banking clubs were larger,” he jokes. Entrepreneurship has never been more in vogue than now. Paresh Vaish, a partner with Boston Consulting group and HBS Class of ‘86, says, “The top quartile of the class got jobs in investment banking and the rest aimed for corporate jobs.” Since his time, the number of electives in entrepreneurship has gone from three to 20, and number of dedicated faculty from five to 32, the largest faculty contingent focused on entrepreneurship at any business school in the world. “In the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, HBS was all about propelling you the quickest to make partner in McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. It’s no longer the case,” says Sumeet Narang, batch of 06, who rejected an offer from Goldman to start Samara Capital, an India-focused private equity firm. For Narang, this was his second management degree; he’s also an alumnus of IIM Lucknow. His second stab at it was largely driven by the fact that HBS offers one of the most “international and diverse candidature among business schools” . With a history in private equity and investment banking in his six-year career with Citibank, Narang says the tug to turn entrepreneur was always there, but HBS intensified it. Like Narang’s , many of these startups were based on business plan entries in the second year business plan contest. Georgia-born , Gujarat-raised Abhi Shah, founder of Clutch — voted top Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) company from among 80 LPOs worldwide — says he and a classmate came up with 38 different business ideas during Think Week, a concept they borrowed from Bill Gates. A part of the plan generating process was to have them be thrown out the window. Anshul Arora (MBA 04) followed neither of the two plans he submitted for the contest. Instead, with an “atypical” career at McKinsey with exposure in developmental work, Arora pursued his dream of a business with a “clear social mandate and a commercial motive” . The result was Edvance Learning, an inventive education model that spots gaps in the education and training landscape, and designs products to fill the lacuna. For Arora the choice was between Harvard and Stanford which, he says, also has a great entrepreneurial flavour to it, along with physical proximity to Silicon Valley, the birthplace of aggressive entrepreneurship. A key Harvard advantage, he says, lay in its international leaning. “HBS with its general management perspective naturally has a strength in entrepreneurship vis-à-vis business schools like Wharton or Stanford that have strengths in finance and strategy ,” says Ashish Singh, MD Bain Consulting and HBS alum. Another trump card for the school, according to Tewari, is its famed case study methodology. “The case study method means there is no structure and no formula. Life is like that. You’ll never get a situation that is a replica of what you learn,” he says. Every week, he recalls, the class was introduced to the case of a thriving entrepreneur, ranging from Narayana Murthy (Infosys) to Jeff Taylor (Monster) and Andrew Viterbi (Qualcomm). “I began to realise that I could be just like them and it didn’t involve rocket science,” he says. That’s a sentiment everyone felt at some point in the course of two years , says Daga: “In a class of 900, at least 200 think seriously about entrepreneurship .” Those that do act upon it have a common starting point — the HBS alumni network — deemed one of the world’s most powerful networks with over 70,000 members. “The best part about graduating from HBS is that you can get a meeting with anyone at anytime. And as an entrepreneur that’s the hardest part,” says Daga. “We have more than a 20% share of the global venture capital business with examples like John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins and Tim Draper at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. That kind of network is hard to replicate ,” says Sahlman. A significant part of mKhoj’s $7 million Series A investment was landed through the HBS connection. “There is immediately a connection and the first question is, ‘Which section are you from’ ?” says Tewari. In fact, HBS has made such a success out of institutionalising its network that Vishwanathan didn’t require an investment banker when he raised $18 million for PreMedia ; he knew exactly who to call. For Shah, on the other hand, the HBS advantage wasn’t just about fund-raising . Having built a political advocacy group for the Indian American community with 65,000 members , and a successful summer internship with Jerry Rao at Mphasis, meant his network of influence was fairly extensive and with deep pockets. “For me the choice was going the Bobby Jindal way or coming to India and making an impact as an entrepreneur ,” he jokes. Where the HBS connection did come to play was in his endeavour to recruit the best and the brightest. “It’s the credibility that comes from a school with pedigree,” he says.
Opening doors If there is one thing the school doesn’t provide, it is in first-hand startup operational exposure, but that is acquired by candidates over their summer internships, typically spent shadowing first generation entrepreneurs. When Damera was torn between BoozAllen, London and assisting the CEO at Jet Blue in New York, he chose the latter. “I realised I want to be this guy, taking all the decisions,” he says. Daga got a bird’s eye view of mining operations, manufacturing and wholesale when he interned with the CEO of Rosy Blu. The CEO promised he would be the first investor in Daga’s venture, and Rosy Blu emerged the largest of four. There’s something also to be said of affluent classmates. Narang wangled a $1000 cheque from a classmate as well as the use of his father’s office in New York for the few months before setting up office in Mumbai. Daga himself “successfully” invested in more than one friend’s venture; in some cases followon rounds have come from top-tier VCs or have received substantial offers for acquisition. And where chequebooks didn’t count, the collective intellect in the classroom certainly did. Vishwanathan recalls a classmate who, at 26, sold his first company — an auction site — to eBay for 75 million and he wasn’t the exception. “It really helps to have a peer group with such varied perspectives. HBS is very focused on that in its selection process,” says Nandu Madhava (Class of 06), who himself deferred a job with Goldman Sachs after his undergraduate degree to volunteer with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic as a medical and teaching assistant . He saw the transformation in the city of Bangalore while on a vacation and chose it to launch mDhil, a medicare information portal. Sometimes, as those same classmates start giving in to the trappings of a job in consulting and i-banking, even the bravest of resolves waver. Vishwanathan recalls hanging out in shorts and loafers while friends attended recruitment day. “When they were talking about their signing bonuses, it wasn’t always easy,” he says. Most graduates exit HBS with substantial debt and the economics of rejecting a $175,000 job with a $50,000 debt doesn’t always work out. People like Shah chose to skip recruitment entirely so that he “wouldn’t have a back-up to tempt him to cop out”. Rahul Aggarwal, class of 05 and ex-Bayers , did the same because his heart was in returning to India. He started Red Earth, a hospitality company that turns around underperforming assets and converts them into branded two and three star properties . According to Madhava, this trend of US-raised HBS grads of Indian origin coming to India to start ventures coincides with macro factors. “Our year (2004) was the tipping point. Not only has the number of students coming directly from India gone up but the HBS India research center has come to life bringing richer case studies to the school and world class executive education to India,” says Arora. Still, with all the conviction they had, some say there was nothing that prepared them for start-up growing pains. The hit they have to take on their lifestyles often comes as a shock. “Conceptually one knows what entrepreneurship is about, but living it is a whole different ballgame,” says Daga. Shah recalls how his first employee landed up in the emergency room before finalising his contract and his first client passed away one day before signing the contract. He’s not especially unhappy to have to take a hit in lifestyle — flying economy and taking rickshaws is not a problem, maybe because he understands he may not have to do that for long, given his ambitions to take Clutch public for a billion dollars in five years. And if that doesn’t go according to plan, he says Harvard is the best insurance policy you can get. “I know that at the end of the day if I don’t succeed, I’ll get a $200,000 job,” says Damera, who admits that it might just be thanks to the safety net of HBS that he took the leap. Luckily, nobody believes they’ll ever need it. “Harvard forces you to think big, which unfortunately is not part of the Indian middle class mentality. You just realise that just working for a large company is not making full use of your resources,” says Tewari. Madhava believes that the most important lesson learnt at HBS is not how to cope with failure but a strong moral code. He recalls how an entrepreneurial professor once told him - “You’re so fortunate to be at Harvard, the only thing that you can ever do to jeopardize your future is something unethical or illegal”. Those futures are being written. For most going back to consulting or banking would be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. “I think most of my section wishes they had done what I had done,” says Daga. For Tewari nothing could top being summoned to the entrepreneurship class of 2020 as a case in point.
Back in 2005, Ashwin Damera, a student at Harvard Business School (HBS), had a bright idea. What India’s booming e-commerce industry lacked, he believed, was a comprehensive travel portal. His idea won him second place in the classroom business plan contest; the winner of which was a proposed plus size lingerie company. He doesn’t think that one came through, but a year later Travelguru did, thanks partly to generous cheques from three unexpected investors - Damera’s own classmates. Meet Ankur Daga, one of Damera’s angel investors, and himself an entrepreneur. Fresh out of HBS he founded Angara, an online jewellery company that emerged from watching friends struggle with purchasing jewellery. Despite his family background in jewellery, Daga wasn’t expected to follow suit. “The question was always ‘You’re highly educated, shouldn’t you be working for a private equity or a consulting firm’ ?” he says. But Daga doesn’t feel deprived. “I’ve done the McKinsey stint; I wanted to start something on my own, and the earlier the better.” Daga and Damera aren’t the only ones to go against the grain. More and more Indian graduates from HBS are rocking the boat by ditching traditionally espoused careers on wall street or in consulting for entrepreneurship , ending up with cross-border businesses and bifurcated lives. They include people like Naveen Tewari (Class of 05), a McKinsey consultant who returned to India to start mKhoj, a mobile advertising network . “When I went in to HBS all I wanted to be was a partner in McKinsey . That disappeared in exactly three months,” he says. According to William Sahlman, Senior Associate Dean at HBS who teaches a second year course on Entrepreneurial Finance, after 10-15 years, almost 50% of graduates are involved in entrepreneurial settings. India has seen its share of successful HBS entrepreneurs from Ashish Dhawan of ChrysCapital to Avnish Bajaj and Suvir Sujan of Bazee (later gobbled by eBay). Lately, though, they are jumping into the water and getting their feet wet earlier, sometimes , while still in school. Kapil Vishwanathan’s was a case of campus entrepreneurship. He floated Pre-Media Global, a Chennai-based leading vendor providing content services to the US publishing industry , while still at HBS, along with his sister Kami, also an HBS alum. He’s wanted to become entrepreneur as long as he can remember. “It had to be a cross-border enterprise . It was just a question of when,” he says. He even tried to support other young business leaders pursue their entrepreneurial dreams by starting the Entrepreneurship Club at HBS. “Of course, the investing and banking clubs were larger,” he jokes. Entrepreneurship has never been more in vogue than now. Paresh Vaish, a partner with Boston Consulting group and HBS Class of ‘86, says, “The top quartile of the class got jobs in investment banking and the rest aimed for corporate jobs.” Since his time, the number of electives in entrepreneurship has gone from three to 20, and number of dedicated faculty from five to 32, the largest faculty contingent focused on entrepreneurship at any business school in the world. “In the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, HBS was all about propelling you the quickest to make partner in McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. It’s no longer the case,” says Sumeet Narang, batch of 06, who rejected an offer from Goldman to start Samara Capital, an India-focused private equity firm. For Narang, this was his second management degree; he’s also an alumnus of IIM Lucknow. His second stab at it was largely driven by the fact that HBS offers one of the most “international and diverse candidature among business schools” . With a history in private equity and investment banking in his six-year career with Citibank, Narang says the tug to turn entrepreneur was always there, but HBS intensified it. Like Narang’s , many of these startups were based on business plan entries in the second year business plan contest. Georgia-born , Gujarat-raised Abhi Shah, founder of Clutch — voted top Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) company from among 80 LPOs worldwide — says he and a classmate came up with 38 different business ideas during Think Week, a concept they borrowed from Bill Gates. A part of the plan generating process was to have them be thrown out the window. Anshul Arora (MBA 04) followed neither of the two plans he submitted for the contest. Instead, with an “atypical” career at McKinsey with exposure in developmental work, Arora pursued his dream of a business with a “clear social mandate and a commercial motive” . The result was Edvance Learning, an inventive education model that spots gaps in the education and training landscape, and designs products to fill the lacuna. For Arora the choice was between Harvard and Stanford which, he says, also has a great entrepreneurial flavour to it, along with physical proximity to Silicon Valley, the birthplace of aggressive entrepreneurship. A key Harvard advantage, he says, lay in its international leaning. “HBS with its general management perspective naturally has a strength in entrepreneurship vis-à-vis business schools like Wharton or Stanford that have strengths in finance and strategy ,” says Ashish Singh, MD Bain Consulting and HBS alum. Another trump card for the school, according to Tewari, is its famed case study methodology. “The case study method means there is no structure and no formula. Life is like that. You’ll never get a situation that is a replica of what you learn,” he says. Every week, he recalls, the class was introduced to the case of a thriving entrepreneur, ranging from Narayana Murthy (Infosys) to Jeff Taylor (Monster) and Andrew Viterbi (Qualcomm). “I began to realise that I could be just like them and it didn’t involve rocket science,” he says. That’s a sentiment everyone felt at some point in the course of two years , says Daga: “In a class of 900, at least 200 think seriously about entrepreneurship .” Those that do act upon it have a common starting point — the HBS alumni network — deemed one of the world’s most powerful networks with over 70,000 members. “The best part about graduating from HBS is that you can get a meeting with anyone at anytime. And as an entrepreneur that’s the hardest part,” says Daga. “We have more than a 20% share of the global venture capital business with examples like John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins and Tim Draper at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. That kind of network is hard to replicate ,” says Sahlman. A significant part of mKhoj’s $7 million Series A investment was landed through the HBS connection. “There is immediately a connection and the first question is, ‘Which section are you from’ ?” says Tewari. In fact, HBS has made such a success out of institutionalising its network that Vishwanathan didn’t require an investment banker when he raised $18 million for PreMedia ; he knew exactly who to call. For Shah, on the other hand, the HBS advantage wasn’t just about fund-raising . Having built a political advocacy group for the Indian American community with 65,000 members , and a successful summer internship with Jerry Rao at Mphasis, meant his network of influence was fairly extensive and with deep pockets. “For me the choice was going the Bobby Jindal way or coming to India and making an impact as an entrepreneur ,” he jokes. Where the HBS connection did come to play was in his endeavour to recruit the best and the brightest. “It’s the credibility that comes from a school with pedigree,” he says.
Opening doors If there is one thing the school doesn’t provide, it is in first-hand startup operational exposure, but that is acquired by candidates over their summer internships, typically spent shadowing first generation entrepreneurs. When Damera was torn between BoozAllen, London and assisting the CEO at Jet Blue in New York, he chose the latter. “I realised I want to be this guy, taking all the decisions,” he says. Daga got a bird’s eye view of mining operations, manufacturing and wholesale when he interned with the CEO of Rosy Blu. The CEO promised he would be the first investor in Daga’s venture, and Rosy Blu emerged the largest of four. There’s something also to be said of affluent classmates. Narang wangled a $1000 cheque from a classmate as well as the use of his father’s office in New York for the few months before setting up office in Mumbai. Daga himself “successfully” invested in more than one friend’s venture; in some cases followon rounds have come from top-tier VCs or have received substantial offers for acquisition. And where chequebooks didn’t count, the collective intellect in the classroom certainly did. Vishwanathan recalls a classmate who, at 26, sold his first company — an auction site — to eBay for 75 million and he wasn’t the exception. “It really helps to have a peer group with such varied perspectives. HBS is very focused on that in its selection process,” says Nandu Madhava (Class of 06), who himself deferred a job with Goldman Sachs after his undergraduate degree to volunteer with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic as a medical and teaching assistant . He saw the transformation in the city of Bangalore while on a vacation and chose it to launch mDhil, a medicare information portal. Sometimes, as those same classmates start giving in to the trappings of a job in consulting and i-banking, even the bravest of resolves waver. Vishwanathan recalls hanging out in shorts and loafers while friends attended recruitment day. “When they were talking about their signing bonuses, it wasn’t always easy,” he says. Most graduates exit HBS with substantial debt and the economics of rejecting a $175,000 job with a $50,000 debt doesn’t always work out. People like Shah chose to skip recruitment entirely so that he “wouldn’t have a back-up to tempt him to cop out”. Rahul Aggarwal, class of 05 and ex-Bayers , did the same because his heart was in returning to India. He started Red Earth, a hospitality company that turns around underperforming assets and converts them into branded two and three star properties . According to Madhava, this trend of US-raised HBS grads of Indian origin coming to India to start ventures coincides with macro factors. “Our year (2004) was the tipping point. Not only has the number of students coming directly from India gone up but the HBS India research center has come to life bringing richer case studies to the school and world class executive education to India,” says Arora. Still, with all the conviction they had, some say there was nothing that prepared them for start-up growing pains. The hit they have to take on their lifestyles often comes as a shock. “Conceptually one knows what entrepreneurship is about, but living it is a whole different ballgame,” says Daga. Shah recalls how his first employee landed up in the emergency room before finalising his contract and his first client passed away one day before signing the contract. He’s not especially unhappy to have to take a hit in lifestyle — flying economy and taking rickshaws is not a problem, maybe because he understands he may not have to do that for long, given his ambitions to take Clutch public for a billion dollars in five years. And if that doesn’t go according to plan, he says Harvard is the best insurance policy you can get. “I know that at the end of the day if I don’t succeed, I’ll get a $200,000 job,” says Damera, who admits that it might just be thanks to the safety net of HBS that he took the leap. Luckily, nobody believes they’ll ever need it. “Harvard forces you to think big, which unfortunately is not part of the Indian middle class mentality. You just realise that just working for a large company is not making full use of your resources,” says Tewari. Madhava believes that the most important lesson learnt at HBS is not how to cope with failure but a strong moral code. He recalls how an entrepreneurial professor once told him - “You’re so fortunate to be at Harvard, the only thing that you can ever do to jeopardize your future is something unethical or illegal”. Those futures are being written. For most going back to consulting or banking would be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. “I think most of my section wishes they had done what I had done,” says Daga. For Tewari nothing could top being summoned to the entrepreneurship class of 2020 as a case in point.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Inspiring conversation for aspiring women entrepreneurs
Courtesy: Desi Critics.org
Shibani Jain is the CEO of Craftsbridge India Pvt. Ltd. A first generation woman entrepreneur, she has stuck through a lot of ups and downs to build a very unique and inspiring business - bringing India's traditional crafts and arts to a wider market, using the Internet and direct marketing as tools to ensure the craftsmen get their right recognition and dues. I interviewed her online a few weeks ago, and gained some significant insights into a woman's entrepreneurial journey.
1. Could you brief us about your company's main offerings?
Shibani: We offer designer and special skill products which map current corporate requirements. We work with special skill groups across the country and our sales help these small rural urban groups to generate income.
We offer corporate promotional and motivational products like desktop products and office accessories.
We arrived at this focus after a lot of trial and error. We tried many other things at first - home textiles which we were exporting; retail sales for domestic markets (garment apparels, etc). We even had our own stitching unit. But then, we realized it's not possible to do so much; especially since they were all virtually different businesses - with separate infrastructure requirements, different markets and different production bases. We decided to cut down and we focused on the business where we had the strongest market traction.
2. Since your website is one of the primary marketing channels, what strategies would you advise to promote one's website and make it more productive in terms of customers and revenues?
Shibani: Our website is only 7% of our total business today. I would advise the following for similar ventures:
Unique offerings
Decent strategic tie-ups/partner sites to ensure you get the eyeballs
Constant renewal of offerings and content
The web site is more a promotional tool for us, today than bringing in real business. But we find it useful to refer our customers to our site.
3. What prompted you to begin your current venture? What thought process led to this idea, and what initial challenges did you have to face?
Shibani: I was a web and multimedia designer and always interested in handicrafts. We thought that we could make a difference to this business (even if it was done in a small way to start with) with our ability to understand current market norms, design and bring in professional inputs.
We were also excited by the concept of "customized crafts". Being handmade product, it is relatively easier to customize a product with a special message or specification or color, even in small quantities. We thought of how a "grain of rice" can be packaged nicely with a hand written message and magnifying glass and sent off anywhere in the world.
And we were excited about the fact that we could be the one middle point between the end buyer and the end producer. It was exciting to visualize a situation where we could be the bridge between the rural/grass roots producer who has no market access and the end buyer who has no idea about the craft producer and their stories. It was interesting from a social and creative perspective.
We felt this was possible with a dot com model - with producers on one end and buyers on the other. In fact, we were incubated as a dot com. We made it through incubation funding, but were late in the dot com boom. The bust ensured that no one even heard us out as a dot come investment. The choice before us was either to shut down or change the model. We changed the model and started selling directly to corporate buyers.
4. When the chips are down, how do you deal with those kinds of situations?
Shibani: We have had many times when the chips were down. And we persevered. I did not give up. We evolved and sharpened our model in terms of cutting costs, reducing overheads, sharpening our focus, building systems and processes. We had to go through really tough transitions, like when I closed down the home textiles exports business - it was a harrowing time. We had to let go of trained staff, say no to customers who had started initiatives with us and manage all excess raw material fabric stock which was left over. At this time we simply stuck to our guns, gave ourselves a time line and swallowed our losses on this.
Another transition happened when my partner who headed the corporate business suddenly decided to quit after five years of managing this business. We then had to transition and learn many things afresh. The knowledge of the business went with him. We had a huge struggle just to re-educate ourselves about our customer requirements, vendor capabilities and issues and so many other things. But this transition actually resulted in us moving from a one man show into a 'team' approach. We built a team and dependence on one person is much reduced today. We also focused on more documentation, systems and processes at this stage.
5. What plans do you have for the future for your company?
Shibani: We have many dreams - of them one is that of having our brand recognized in the form of retail stores of our own. The other picture is to take our gifts offerings to foreign shores.
6. If you had to do it all over again, what would you differently?Shibani: We had very high costs when we started up - manpower, office, etc. I would now start like a garage operation if I had to restart. I would also focus, focus and focus from day one.
7. What drives you to work everyday?
Shibani: The thought that there is so much more to do, that we have only scratched the surface. The fact that I have something new to learn every day some new idea to pursue.
8. What three things would you advise aspiring women entrepreneurs?
Shibani:
Be courageous. Do not worry about the fact that you are a woman and chances are that others will not worry about it either. Very often the problem is not external if it's not internal.
Find and use external support. Today women entrepreneurs have a lot of external support- special funds, working capital loans, network groups- find them & use them well. Am not exactly aware of which ones, but banks like SIDBI, women's cooperative banks are women friendly. To be honest I have not had to find one myself- but they are there- on the net/banking community/funding groups.
Manage your guilt well. If you also have a family to look after. Guilt is not good for you/your family/your business. You might as well realize that this is what you love to do and your family might as well realize this too! Honesty is the best policy here in more ways than one!
9. What books or events have inspired you the most?Shibani:So many books! From Ayn Rand (We the living, The Fountainhead) at 16, to Herman Miller (Siddhart) at 20 to Celestine Prophecy (colin wilson?) to Conversations with God recently.
I was also influenced by books like All Paths Lead To Gold and Winning by Jack Welch.
On events - I did a course in Vipassana meditation in the mountains of Igatpuri- this is a 10 day silent course- and it changed my life. It taught me to view life in perspective- and the fact that mind control is the most important control to have. The mind must not dictate you, you must control your mind.
Also every time I see street children in India, I feel compelled to do something. Anything to alleviate the suffering that so much of mankind seems to have. I feel outraged that so little is done and about the unfairness of it all.
I feel sad when I see beautiful, skilled products, sold in a shabby way, at shabby prices and in a shabby manner. I feel bad that the artist who created such a beautiful product is not getting his/her due- neither price nor recognition. I just feel that it's all a criminal waste.
10. What advice would you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in general, and women entrepreneurs specifically?
Shibani:
Out of 10 start up businesses only 3/4 survive. The trick is to persevere and to believe in your picture.
Being at the right time and at the right place is important when you start- a good idea is not enough- a hard look at viability is a must.
Being an entrepreneur is very tough- it's even tougher if you are trying to do something different/not done before/charting a different path. I would advise all young people trying to start a business to go in with their eyes open, but also with dreams in their mind.
For women I would say- your job is even tougher- like it or not, the family looks at you to keep the home fires running-but the flip side is that you may not have to be the bread earner! Enjoy this freedom and do something that you truly want to do. This is not to say that your success is not important- it is just as important, but you may have the option to choose!
For women I would also say, that consider the logistics of your life as a serious matter - like how far is your office from home? How much support do you have (family and otherwise), good help at home!!! These are small, practical and according to me imperative tips for the women entrepreneur. I could never have run Craftsbridge, if these logistics were not in my favor.
KK: Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into answering this long list of questions! Would it be OK, if readers of this blog wanted to get in touch with you?
Shibani Jain is the CEO of Craftsbridge India Pvt. Ltd. A first generation woman entrepreneur, she has stuck through a lot of ups and downs to build a very unique and inspiring business - bringing India's traditional crafts and arts to a wider market, using the Internet and direct marketing as tools to ensure the craftsmen get their right recognition and dues. I interviewed her online a few weeks ago, and gained some significant insights into a woman's entrepreneurial journey.
1. Could you brief us about your company's main offerings?
Shibani: We offer designer and special skill products which map current corporate requirements. We work with special skill groups across the country and our sales help these small rural urban groups to generate income.
We offer corporate promotional and motivational products like desktop products and office accessories.
We arrived at this focus after a lot of trial and error. We tried many other things at first - home textiles which we were exporting; retail sales for domestic markets (garment apparels, etc). We even had our own stitching unit. But then, we realized it's not possible to do so much; especially since they were all virtually different businesses - with separate infrastructure requirements, different markets and different production bases. We decided to cut down and we focused on the business where we had the strongest market traction.
2. Since your website is one of the primary marketing channels, what strategies would you advise to promote one's website and make it more productive in terms of customers and revenues?
Shibani: Our website is only 7% of our total business today. I would advise the following for similar ventures:
Unique offerings
Decent strategic tie-ups/partner sites to ensure you get the eyeballs
Constant renewal of offerings and content
The web site is more a promotional tool for us, today than bringing in real business. But we find it useful to refer our customers to our site.
3. What prompted you to begin your current venture? What thought process led to this idea, and what initial challenges did you have to face?
Shibani: I was a web and multimedia designer and always interested in handicrafts. We thought that we could make a difference to this business (even if it was done in a small way to start with) with our ability to understand current market norms, design and bring in professional inputs.
We were also excited by the concept of "customized crafts". Being handmade product, it is relatively easier to customize a product with a special message or specification or color, even in small quantities. We thought of how a "grain of rice" can be packaged nicely with a hand written message and magnifying glass and sent off anywhere in the world.
And we were excited about the fact that we could be the one middle point between the end buyer and the end producer. It was exciting to visualize a situation where we could be the bridge between the rural/grass roots producer who has no market access and the end buyer who has no idea about the craft producer and their stories. It was interesting from a social and creative perspective.
We felt this was possible with a dot com model - with producers on one end and buyers on the other. In fact, we were incubated as a dot com. We made it through incubation funding, but were late in the dot com boom. The bust ensured that no one even heard us out as a dot come investment. The choice before us was either to shut down or change the model. We changed the model and started selling directly to corporate buyers.
4. When the chips are down, how do you deal with those kinds of situations?
Shibani: We have had many times when the chips were down. And we persevered. I did not give up. We evolved and sharpened our model in terms of cutting costs, reducing overheads, sharpening our focus, building systems and processes. We had to go through really tough transitions, like when I closed down the home textiles exports business - it was a harrowing time. We had to let go of trained staff, say no to customers who had started initiatives with us and manage all excess raw material fabric stock which was left over. At this time we simply stuck to our guns, gave ourselves a time line and swallowed our losses on this.
Another transition happened when my partner who headed the corporate business suddenly decided to quit after five years of managing this business. We then had to transition and learn many things afresh. The knowledge of the business went with him. We had a huge struggle just to re-educate ourselves about our customer requirements, vendor capabilities and issues and so many other things. But this transition actually resulted in us moving from a one man show into a 'team' approach. We built a team and dependence on one person is much reduced today. We also focused on more documentation, systems and processes at this stage.
5. What plans do you have for the future for your company?
Shibani: We have many dreams - of them one is that of having our brand recognized in the form of retail stores of our own. The other picture is to take our gifts offerings to foreign shores.
6. If you had to do it all over again, what would you differently?Shibani: We had very high costs when we started up - manpower, office, etc. I would now start like a garage operation if I had to restart. I would also focus, focus and focus from day one.
7. What drives you to work everyday?
Shibani: The thought that there is so much more to do, that we have only scratched the surface. The fact that I have something new to learn every day some new idea to pursue.
8. What three things would you advise aspiring women entrepreneurs?
Shibani:
Be courageous. Do not worry about the fact that you are a woman and chances are that others will not worry about it either. Very often the problem is not external if it's not internal.
Find and use external support. Today women entrepreneurs have a lot of external support- special funds, working capital loans, network groups- find them & use them well. Am not exactly aware of which ones, but banks like SIDBI, women's cooperative banks are women friendly. To be honest I have not had to find one myself- but they are there- on the net/banking community/funding groups.
Manage your guilt well. If you also have a family to look after. Guilt is not good for you/your family/your business. You might as well realize that this is what you love to do and your family might as well realize this too! Honesty is the best policy here in more ways than one!
9. What books or events have inspired you the most?Shibani:So many books! From Ayn Rand (We the living, The Fountainhead) at 16, to Herman Miller (Siddhart) at 20 to Celestine Prophecy (colin wilson?) to Conversations with God recently.
I was also influenced by books like All Paths Lead To Gold and Winning by Jack Welch.
On events - I did a course in Vipassana meditation in the mountains of Igatpuri- this is a 10 day silent course- and it changed my life. It taught me to view life in perspective- and the fact that mind control is the most important control to have. The mind must not dictate you, you must control your mind.
Also every time I see street children in India, I feel compelled to do something. Anything to alleviate the suffering that so much of mankind seems to have. I feel outraged that so little is done and about the unfairness of it all.
I feel sad when I see beautiful, skilled products, sold in a shabby way, at shabby prices and in a shabby manner. I feel bad that the artist who created such a beautiful product is not getting his/her due- neither price nor recognition. I just feel that it's all a criminal waste.
10. What advice would you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in general, and women entrepreneurs specifically?
Shibani:
Out of 10 start up businesses only 3/4 survive. The trick is to persevere and to believe in your picture.
Being at the right time and at the right place is important when you start- a good idea is not enough- a hard look at viability is a must.
Being an entrepreneur is very tough- it's even tougher if you are trying to do something different/not done before/charting a different path. I would advise all young people trying to start a business to go in with their eyes open, but also with dreams in their mind.
For women I would say- your job is even tougher- like it or not, the family looks at you to keep the home fires running-but the flip side is that you may not have to be the bread earner! Enjoy this freedom and do something that you truly want to do. This is not to say that your success is not important- it is just as important, but you may have the option to choose!
For women I would also say, that consider the logistics of your life as a serious matter - like how far is your office from home? How much support do you have (family and otherwise), good help at home!!! These are small, practical and according to me imperative tips for the women entrepreneur. I could never have run Craftsbridge, if these logistics were not in my favor.
KK: Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into answering this long list of questions! Would it be OK, if readers of this blog wanted to get in touch with you?
The dream of change
Courtesy: Financial Express
Insurance, to most amongst us, would have seemed extremely complicated at some point in time. Now imagine explaining health insurance to, say, your vegetable vendor or maidservant who in most likelihood is also educationally deprived. Explaining the premiums and the benefits would still be relatively easier a task. Try convincing them to buy one. Think it would be difficult? Not for Mukti Bosco who has convinced 45,000 people to insure their health for less than a rupee a day. The promise: a health cover of Rs 20,000 for a family of five and personal accident benefits of Rs 25,000 each on member and spouse. If plans go well she would have extended insurance cover to 50,000 families by the end of the year. Commendable? But success hasn’t come easy to her. It took her two years to design a plan for them. The product, Parivar Suraksha Bima (Family Insurance Scheme), is recognised as the first of its kind by USAID and ILO. What makes it revolutionary is the state of healthcare in India. Nearly 90% of India’s population does not have any access to healthcare financing. 77% amongst them struggle to survive just above the inefficient measure called ‘poverty line’. Not to forget our rural brethren. Believe the estimates if you will — just 2% of them are insured. For a daily wage earner who earns just enough to survive the day, it is a difficult task to save. According to the World Bank, about one fourth of hospitalised Indians fall below the poverty line as a direct result of the hospital expenses. “It’s not just about creating awareness. It’s rather about creating an association. The community has to begin to trust you. Life insurance is simpler, micro health insurance far more complex,” says Bosco, the founder of Healing Fields Foundation. For a service fee of Rs 101 per policy, the Foundation is indeed doing credible work. “We wanted a revenue generation model that could make the project sustainable,” she reasons with complete conviction.
The concept of a social entrepreneur has been afloat in the US for a long time now. In India too it has been around for a while now. Dr Verghese Kurien (Amul) and Ela Bhatt (Sewa) can well be called the pioneers in India. They tested the waters way back in the early 1970s. “Eight years ago a mention of ‘social entrepreneur’ only drew blank stares. Today it has become a brand wagon that people want to ride, whether they are really social entrepreneurs or not,” says Sohini Bhattacharya, director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka Innovators for the Public. Ashoka, a global association of social entrepreneurs, has since 1981 encouraged over 1,800 entrepreneurs through fellowships. “Entrepreneurship has new frontiers of possibility. And this is just one of them,” feels Sushmita Ghosh. She leads the Global Academy of Social Entrepreneurs and is also the chairperson of Changemakers.net. “This is an extremely timely phenomenon for the business and the social sector to look at. Given the increasing potential of India in the global eyes, definitely,” Ghosh adds.
It is equally imperative to consider the different connotations of entrepreneurship. “At Ashoka we don’t just consider revenue models — we look at a range of systemic efforts for social change. Things are changing, but funding still remains a problem. We need to work closely with the mainstream financial sector. Until that happens, the challenge beckons,” says Sohini Bhattacharya, director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka Innovators for the Public.
Bosco is not the only one to subscribe to the philosophy of social entrepreneurship. There are several others who share her desire to bring change…they have the vision and also the entrepreneurial skills to achieve it. Like craft activist and industrial designer Neelam Chhiber. More than a decade back, in 1994, she decided to tap natural fibre crafts by setting up Industree. The turnover in the first year was non-existent and the labour largely made of unpaid voluntary workers. Today its turnover has touched Rs 40 million. Recently it turned down retail giant Ikea’s offer due to production issues. “We realised that our small business would have turned into a large scale factory in Bangalore city. This did not gel with our philosophy. We started to promote rural livelihood and wanted to continue doing it,” says Chhiber. The enterprise has tested Chhiber’s balancing skills a number of times — whether to have the product at 100% mark up price or more; whether to globalise completely or also cater to the booming domestic market; how to sell the products. “Typically, craft shops had the reputation of being government funded, with products collecting dust on shelves. By attracting contemporary furniture shoppers, we felt that we could catch clients in a different frame of mind and this selling strategy proved to be successful. And selling goods is an expensive venture. So, currently we sell our products in our own shops and also in partnership with an additional 50 retail points,” she adds. The perk of her job: to feel the difference created to 5,000 lives across India — right from Tamil Nadu to Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Considering that artisans and craftspeople constitute the second largest employment group in India, Chhiber’s step comes across as extremely commendable.
Sumita Ghose has chosen a similar area of work but in a different place — largely western Rajasthan. Rangsutra, her project, is an extremely thought-provoking one. After lot of deliberation on different organisational models — cooperative, society, charitable trust, company — she decided to settle for the company format. And to ensure that the craftspeople get a substantial part of the wealth they create, she decided to make them shareholders. “The idea was to build up social capital with economic viability,” she says adding, “one can adopt a balanced approach. Empowerment of artisans and increase in sales can coexist.” Three-year-old Rangsutra has been able to achieve a three crore turnover — a gradual approach to Ghose’s 10-year vision which is to have at least 1,00,000 artisans as shareholders.
Anita Ahuja’s field of work is absolutely different from Ghose’s and Chhiber’s. She probably is one person in the capital who can afford not to feel guilty about indispensable plastic (the ‘menace’). Consider this: According to a study, recently released by the Canadian International Development Authority, New Delhi is imbued with solid waste. Of the 4,000-odd tonnes of waste, which the capital generates everyday, nearly 60 ton comprises plastic. To some extent Ahuja has been able to tame the plastic. Her entrepreneurial model, Conserve, is working with nearly 300 rag pickers to convert waste plastic into a range of commercially successful products — umbrellas, diaries, bags, raincoats... supplied to the likes of Benetton and Unicef. She noticed how the rag pickers were reduced to a mere footnote in the entire system and decided to mainstream them. The least her effort has done is to restore dignity to their job. The rag pickers now proudly take back a salary of Rs 3,000 every month. She even helps the rag pickers set up their own fabrication groups that use her patented technology to make plastic sheets. “Training them wasn’t an easy task,” she says. When she found that most rag pickers couldn’t identify colours, she used Bollywood to bridge the gap. So, Pink became Kareena and Shah Rukh became black. Five successful years of operation have made Conserve a social brand now. How successful exactly you may ask. Well, the brand that barely managed a breakeven in its first year of operation, registered a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore in the last fiscal.
Here are people who did not wait for things to change on their own. They knew that would not happen ever — someone had to take the initiative to change them. And they decided to become that ‘someone’. Chetna Gala Sinha, the founder of Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank is mention worthy in the same breath. Social Entrepreneur ‘07 finalist for Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, Sinha’s is an interesting story. Reserve Bank of India rejected her application for a bank because there were more thumb impressions than signatures on the proposal note. The rural women, determined, attended adult literacy classes and approached the chief general manager soon after. They were technically literate now. But they drew their real confidence from their level of social intelligence: “we can calculate the interest for any amount without using a calculator. Can any of your employees do that?” Gala-Sinha, an economist-activist herself, humbly shares the Bank’s genesis. “You need to understand how it works at the grassroots. Why do people approach moneylenders but not banks despite the significant difference in the rates of interest? We tried to understand what they really needed and took banking to their doorstep. These people are bankable too. We gave loans to street vendors for sun umbrellas when we found that due to sunstroke they were losing their daily income,”she adds. In less than 10 years the Bank has been able to earn 72,000 women clients. It has four branches in Satara district (Maharashtra) alone. Credit Gala-Sinha, also for setting up Udyogini, a rural business school for women. “We learn from these women. They tell us what they need…like when they told us that selling prepaid vouchers for cell phones can help them earn, we taught them to do that,” she says. In the last fiscal, it posted net profits of Rs 2,31,000 and reported a loan recovery rate of 97%.
Vineet Rai couldn’t have agreed more. He found his calling in helping rural innovators set up their enterprise. That led to the creation of Aavishkaar India, a social micro venture capital fund. “The banks weren’t interested in giving loans to them because they found it too risky. But there was definitely a need, and a market. And I don’t see any problem with the for-profit format,” says Rai. Eight of the 14 investments he has made so far are making profit.
However, the above instances are in no way an attempt to be hypercritical about NGOs. They too have managed to sustain themselves economically. Like the Sesame Workshop of the Galli Galli Sim Sim fame (the multi platform education initiative.) “We have been non-profit for 40 years in the US and in India too we run on the same format. “We primarily sustain ourselves through philanthropic grants, corporate social responsibility funds, donations, licensing of our products across toys, publishing, home videos, broadcast fees, content development and training,” says Sashwati Banerjee, executive director, Sesame Workshop India. Sustainability, she feels, is not just about being economically viable. It is defined by capacities we build for the development process to continue.”
Insurance, to most amongst us, would have seemed extremely complicated at some point in time. Now imagine explaining health insurance to, say, your vegetable vendor or maidservant who in most likelihood is also educationally deprived. Explaining the premiums and the benefits would still be relatively easier a task. Try convincing them to buy one. Think it would be difficult? Not for Mukti Bosco who has convinced 45,000 people to insure their health for less than a rupee a day. The promise: a health cover of Rs 20,000 for a family of five and personal accident benefits of Rs 25,000 each on member and spouse. If plans go well she would have extended insurance cover to 50,000 families by the end of the year. Commendable? But success hasn’t come easy to her. It took her two years to design a plan for them. The product, Parivar Suraksha Bima (Family Insurance Scheme), is recognised as the first of its kind by USAID and ILO. What makes it revolutionary is the state of healthcare in India. Nearly 90% of India’s population does not have any access to healthcare financing. 77% amongst them struggle to survive just above the inefficient measure called ‘poverty line’. Not to forget our rural brethren. Believe the estimates if you will — just 2% of them are insured. For a daily wage earner who earns just enough to survive the day, it is a difficult task to save. According to the World Bank, about one fourth of hospitalised Indians fall below the poverty line as a direct result of the hospital expenses. “It’s not just about creating awareness. It’s rather about creating an association. The community has to begin to trust you. Life insurance is simpler, micro health insurance far more complex,” says Bosco, the founder of Healing Fields Foundation. For a service fee of Rs 101 per policy, the Foundation is indeed doing credible work. “We wanted a revenue generation model that could make the project sustainable,” she reasons with complete conviction.
The concept of a social entrepreneur has been afloat in the US for a long time now. In India too it has been around for a while now. Dr Verghese Kurien (Amul) and Ela Bhatt (Sewa) can well be called the pioneers in India. They tested the waters way back in the early 1970s. “Eight years ago a mention of ‘social entrepreneur’ only drew blank stares. Today it has become a brand wagon that people want to ride, whether they are really social entrepreneurs or not,” says Sohini Bhattacharya, director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka Innovators for the Public. Ashoka, a global association of social entrepreneurs, has since 1981 encouraged over 1,800 entrepreneurs through fellowships. “Entrepreneurship has new frontiers of possibility. And this is just one of them,” feels Sushmita Ghosh. She leads the Global Academy of Social Entrepreneurs and is also the chairperson of Changemakers.net. “This is an extremely timely phenomenon for the business and the social sector to look at. Given the increasing potential of India in the global eyes, definitely,” Ghosh adds.
It is equally imperative to consider the different connotations of entrepreneurship. “At Ashoka we don’t just consider revenue models — we look at a range of systemic efforts for social change. Things are changing, but funding still remains a problem. We need to work closely with the mainstream financial sector. Until that happens, the challenge beckons,” says Sohini Bhattacharya, director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka Innovators for the Public.
Bosco is not the only one to subscribe to the philosophy of social entrepreneurship. There are several others who share her desire to bring change…they have the vision and also the entrepreneurial skills to achieve it. Like craft activist and industrial designer Neelam Chhiber. More than a decade back, in 1994, she decided to tap natural fibre crafts by setting up Industree. The turnover in the first year was non-existent and the labour largely made of unpaid voluntary workers. Today its turnover has touched Rs 40 million. Recently it turned down retail giant Ikea’s offer due to production issues. “We realised that our small business would have turned into a large scale factory in Bangalore city. This did not gel with our philosophy. We started to promote rural livelihood and wanted to continue doing it,” says Chhiber. The enterprise has tested Chhiber’s balancing skills a number of times — whether to have the product at 100% mark up price or more; whether to globalise completely or also cater to the booming domestic market; how to sell the products. “Typically, craft shops had the reputation of being government funded, with products collecting dust on shelves. By attracting contemporary furniture shoppers, we felt that we could catch clients in a different frame of mind and this selling strategy proved to be successful. And selling goods is an expensive venture. So, currently we sell our products in our own shops and also in partnership with an additional 50 retail points,” she adds. The perk of her job: to feel the difference created to 5,000 lives across India — right from Tamil Nadu to Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Considering that artisans and craftspeople constitute the second largest employment group in India, Chhiber’s step comes across as extremely commendable.
Sumita Ghose has chosen a similar area of work but in a different place — largely western Rajasthan. Rangsutra, her project, is an extremely thought-provoking one. After lot of deliberation on different organisational models — cooperative, society, charitable trust, company — she decided to settle for the company format. And to ensure that the craftspeople get a substantial part of the wealth they create, she decided to make them shareholders. “The idea was to build up social capital with economic viability,” she says adding, “one can adopt a balanced approach. Empowerment of artisans and increase in sales can coexist.” Three-year-old Rangsutra has been able to achieve a three crore turnover — a gradual approach to Ghose’s 10-year vision which is to have at least 1,00,000 artisans as shareholders.
Anita Ahuja’s field of work is absolutely different from Ghose’s and Chhiber’s. She probably is one person in the capital who can afford not to feel guilty about indispensable plastic (the ‘menace’). Consider this: According to a study, recently released by the Canadian International Development Authority, New Delhi is imbued with solid waste. Of the 4,000-odd tonnes of waste, which the capital generates everyday, nearly 60 ton comprises plastic. To some extent Ahuja has been able to tame the plastic. Her entrepreneurial model, Conserve, is working with nearly 300 rag pickers to convert waste plastic into a range of commercially successful products — umbrellas, diaries, bags, raincoats... supplied to the likes of Benetton and Unicef. She noticed how the rag pickers were reduced to a mere footnote in the entire system and decided to mainstream them. The least her effort has done is to restore dignity to their job. The rag pickers now proudly take back a salary of Rs 3,000 every month. She even helps the rag pickers set up their own fabrication groups that use her patented technology to make plastic sheets. “Training them wasn’t an easy task,” she says. When she found that most rag pickers couldn’t identify colours, she used Bollywood to bridge the gap. So, Pink became Kareena and Shah Rukh became black. Five successful years of operation have made Conserve a social brand now. How successful exactly you may ask. Well, the brand that barely managed a breakeven in its first year of operation, registered a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore in the last fiscal.
Here are people who did not wait for things to change on their own. They knew that would not happen ever — someone had to take the initiative to change them. And they decided to become that ‘someone’. Chetna Gala Sinha, the founder of Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank is mention worthy in the same breath. Social Entrepreneur ‘07 finalist for Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, Sinha’s is an interesting story. Reserve Bank of India rejected her application for a bank because there were more thumb impressions than signatures on the proposal note. The rural women, determined, attended adult literacy classes and approached the chief general manager soon after. They were technically literate now. But they drew their real confidence from their level of social intelligence: “we can calculate the interest for any amount without using a calculator. Can any of your employees do that?” Gala-Sinha, an economist-activist herself, humbly shares the Bank’s genesis. “You need to understand how it works at the grassroots. Why do people approach moneylenders but not banks despite the significant difference in the rates of interest? We tried to understand what they really needed and took banking to their doorstep. These people are bankable too. We gave loans to street vendors for sun umbrellas when we found that due to sunstroke they were losing their daily income,”she adds. In less than 10 years the Bank has been able to earn 72,000 women clients. It has four branches in Satara district (Maharashtra) alone. Credit Gala-Sinha, also for setting up Udyogini, a rural business school for women. “We learn from these women. They tell us what they need…like when they told us that selling prepaid vouchers for cell phones can help them earn, we taught them to do that,” she says. In the last fiscal, it posted net profits of Rs 2,31,000 and reported a loan recovery rate of 97%.
Vineet Rai couldn’t have agreed more. He found his calling in helping rural innovators set up their enterprise. That led to the creation of Aavishkaar India, a social micro venture capital fund. “The banks weren’t interested in giving loans to them because they found it too risky. But there was definitely a need, and a market. And I don’t see any problem with the for-profit format,” says Rai. Eight of the 14 investments he has made so far are making profit.
However, the above instances are in no way an attempt to be hypercritical about NGOs. They too have managed to sustain themselves economically. Like the Sesame Workshop of the Galli Galli Sim Sim fame (the multi platform education initiative.) “We have been non-profit for 40 years in the US and in India too we run on the same format. “We primarily sustain ourselves through philanthropic grants, corporate social responsibility funds, donations, licensing of our products across toys, publishing, home videos, broadcast fees, content development and training,” says Sashwati Banerjee, executive director, Sesame Workshop India. Sustainability, she feels, is not just about being economically viable. It is defined by capacities we build for the development process to continue.”
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Startup Saturday_12_07_08
The schedule of July edition of Startup Saturday is as follows:
Date: July 12th, 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 10:30 AM - 1 PM
Venue: Indian Institute of BangaloreThe agenda for the meet is as follows
10:30 AM - 11 AM : *DEMO* by Yusuf Motiwala on Tring Me Enterprise Solutions
11 AM -12 pm: *TALK* by Bharti Jacob of Seedfund
12 PM - 1 PM: Networking with Bharti Jacob
Its is a free event hosted by NSRCEL, IIMPlease register at http://startupsaturday.in/index.php?title=Registration
Date: July 12th, 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 10:30 AM - 1 PM
Venue: Indian Institute of BangaloreThe agenda for the meet is as follows
10:30 AM - 11 AM : *DEMO* by Yusuf Motiwala on Tring Me Enterprise Solutions
11 AM -12 pm: *TALK* by Bharti Jacob of Seedfund
12 PM - 1 PM: Networking with Bharti Jacob
Its is a free event hosted by NSRCEL, IIMPlease register at http://startupsaturday.in/index.php?title=Registration
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)