Star Entrepreneurs and Future Leaders all descended at TieCON Chennai 2009

TiECON 2009, the annual flagship event of TiE Chennai with the theme Enterprising India – Creating Tomorrow’s Entrepreneur, was inaugurated by N. Srinivasan, Vice Chairman and MD, India Cements and Secretary, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on 27 November at the Chennai Trade Centre.

The event included entrepreneurial awards, keynote speeches, panel discussions, business plan competition, pitch to VC sessions, and exhibition zones.

Awards

TiECON Chennai 2009 entrepreneurship awards seem to represent the character of Chennai city, which is an interesting mix of the old and the new. The awards went to businesses that represent the changing times of the economy and the traditional family businesses that contributed to growth of the economy. The mainstream media (non print), publishing services, and social entrepreneurship, or even the sales of branded mobile phones that were once considered unconventional businesses and relegated one rung below the ladder are increasingly becoming mainstream businesses because of their impact on the economy.

The awards to Kalanidhi Maran, MD, Sun Network (Entrepreneur of the Year 2009—media), Kami Narayan, Co-CEO, PreMedia Global (Woman Entrepreneur of the Year—publishing services), M.V. Nirmal, MD, Exnora (Social Entrepreneur of the Year—environmental concern), Satish Babu, MD, UniverCell (Extreme Entrepreneur of the Year—branded mobile phone sales), and P. N. Vasudevan, MD, Equitas (Startup of the Year—microfinance to poor) showcased the increasing importance of the business sectors, the winners represent, in the economy.

Alagappa Group, one of the respected family business houses in Chennai now headed by the respected business person M. V. Subbiah, won the Family Enterprise of the Year award. Ravi Appasamy’s (Appasamy Real Estates) long stint in real-estate business and his contributions fetched him the NextGen Entrepreneur of the Year award. This category represents the family business heirs who have survived changing times and have made a difference.

The Lifetime Achievement Award to N. Srinivasan, who wears many hats as an entrepreneur of old and new economy businesses [India Cements and the ownership of Indian Premier League cricket team, the Chennai Super Kings] and sports administrator [BCCI Secretary, President of Tamil Nadu’s cricket, golf, and chess associations] kept the line of thought of the awards committee that duly recognized both old and new economy businesses.

The awards committee chairman Gopal Srinivasan, MD, TVS Capital, likened entrepreneurs to freedom fighters, but of the 21^st century. “TiECON Chennai 2009 is a celebration of entrepreneurship,” he said.

Gopal Srinivasan engaged the chief guest N. Srinivasan, who presented the awards to winners, on a tête-à-tête before announcing each winner. In a discussion on start-ups, N. Srinivasan said boldness is an important trait an entrepreneur must have when he starts something new. He recounted his experiences with his own new-age startup, the Chennai Super Kings of the Indian Premier League cricket team. When various investors and analysts questioned his rationale for investing a huge sum of money in Chennai Super Kings, he managed to convince them of the success of this innovative format of cricket, and in a change of stance, one investor wanted 1% of the stake in Chennai Super Kings.

N. Srinivasan quoted a research study by Ashish Bose on India’s population, which is likely to have a large number of 18- to 35-year-olds employable in the next years to come and naturally the problem of employment for them would arise. Entrepreneurship could be one of the solutions. He regretted that India ranks 134^th in the world when it comes to ease of starting a new business and it takes 35 days to set up a company in India and 13 procedures have to be fulfilled, which shows the unfriendly nature of government policy. He called upon the universities to change their curriculum with changing trends and to create centers of excellence. He quoted the creation of Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), an initiative of IIM-Ahmedabad, to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. More networks like TiE should be formed and more funds should be put in ventures that are non-IT, he felt.

Keynotes

T.T. Rengarajan on Leadership

T.T. Rengarajan, founder, Alma Mater, delivered a keynote address on leadership. Again TiE Chennai innovated this time by inviting a respected spiritual guru Rajan, as T.T. Rengarajan is affectionately called, to speak on leadership. Janakiraman, CEO of BharatMatrimony.com, said he was a proud Almanite [who has undergone a training program in Alma Mater] and has benefitted from the spiritual programs of Alma Mater that are aimed at holistic living and recounted how Rajan’s spiritual guidance made a difference when he was going through a rough patch.

Rajan’s reverberating and inspiring engagement lasted close to 40 minutes. In his characteristic style, he focused on the individual entrepreneur, who is the flagship of the organization and stressed upon how transformation of the pivotal leader would lead to great organizations. A business demands an enormous amount of emotional energy and also enormous enthusiasm of the leader that should be infectious. The leader can find emotional reservoir in the family and many successful business leaders have led a very happy family life, he said.

Based on a research of 500 successful people across all walks of life, he listed seven characteristics that were common to all these successful people, which included the likes of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, and Leonardo da Vinci. The seven characteristics are: (1) passion, (2) mastery in communication, (3) team [a strong team to propagate/execute the vision of the successful person], (4) high energy levels, (5) faith, (6) value-based life, and (7) methodology of their own. His anecdote on how Infosys concentrated on internal brand building on perceived competition from IBM highlighted the importance of businesses creating value for employees. He related the story of Mother Teresa who only had faith in god when started her Missionaries of Charity stood a testament to the fact that faith can move mountains. It is amazing that the system created by Mother Teresa feeds 4 million poor people today despite having no formal organizational structure characteristic of an organization of the size of Missionaries of Charities. He called upon employers to have employment goals [no. of people recruited] as charity only feeds poverty and employment leads to prosperity. He concluded saying the future of India needs entrepreneurs.

Krishnamachari Srikanth, Chairman of Selectors, Indian Cricket Team, on entrepreneurial lessons from sports

As flamboyant and unconventional that Srikanth is, he delivered a “quickfire keynote post lunch,” as J. Krishnan, Conference Chairman of TiECON 2009 put it, to keep the audience at their wit’s end and also deliver some valuable lessons. He stressed upon believing in yourself, passion, and decision-making as lessons from sports for entrepreneurs. For each of this trait, he had a story to relate.

Starting from 1983 World Cup, where believing in yourself made all the difference to Kapil and his devils, to Sachin Tendulkar’s passion for cricket, and to his own unconventional decision as captain of sending Chetan Sharma up the order in a one-dayer against England that paid rich dividends, Srikanth summed upon saying following heart is important in decision-making rather than following the mind. He completed his valuable knock by saying be positive and be determined.

Srikanth also gave a sneak-peak into the mindset of Indian cricketers prior to World Cup in 1983. The team had planned a holiday in the United States right after the World Cup, assuming that they did not have the slightest chance of making it even to the semi-finals. Then before the first match against West Indies, captain Kapil Dev called a team meeting in which he called upon the team to show determination to win the match despite self-doubts of the team members. He exhorted his team to perform and the first match win against the West Indies culminated in the ultimate historic title triumph. Srikanth found the Punjabi trait of never giving up in Kapil Dev and said Punjabis developed this attitude because they were always invaded for thousands of years and never giving up in face of adversity helped them.

C.K. Ranganathan on yesterday’s basics for tomorrow’s entrepreneurs

The typical success story of starting up, making mistakes, learning, and following the basic rules of the game that made C. K. Ranganathan, MD, Cavin Kare, the inspiration that he is today for young entrepreneurs delivered his keynote with panache. His simple demeanour belied his stature of a successful and innovative entrepreneur, and his sincere expression of his life’s lessons made this keynote on timeless principles worthy. He started with differentiating for success. Then he went on to show how his style of “armchair” leadership did not help. By venturing into field and getting hands dirty provided right pointers and helped him grow is a valuable lesson from the man who had humble beginnings. He dwelt upon in detail his struggles to establish the right mix of talent and his struggles to keep the team’s morale high despite salary disparity among staff of equal rank showed the hard work and tenacity of C.K. Ranganathan in not giving up.

The most valuable lesson he delivered was on tax evasion. When generally people in low-margin, high-volume retail business believed in evading the exorbitant 105% excise tax and a high 20% sales tax, C.K. Ranganathan stood a class apart by paying the taxes without evading. This helped him secure a loan without collateral from a bank manager who found his tax credentials worthy. Then when people had faith in him, he soared to heights.

The sachet pioneer [he bought sachet into shampoo by marketing Chik shampoo in a sachet for the first time to differentiate] also explained the importance of involving all ranks of staff in decision-making as each one of them could bring insights that would not be available at the top. He wished all the budding entrepreneurs all the best in their venture in conclusion.

Panel discussions

The leadership panel discussion was moderated by T.C. Meenakshi Sundaram, founder, IDG Ventures and members of the panel were Sanjeev Bikchandani, founder, naukri.com; Prathip Mohapatra, Chairman, Coaching Foundation of India; P.N. Vasudevan, MD, Equitas; and Madan Nagaldinne, director, HR, amazon.com. The discussion centered on various leadership challenges and panelists quoted examples from their own experiences. Sanjeev Bikchandani narrated how he had bootstrapped naukri.com for 10 years before raising venture capital.

The lessons from sports, media, and entertainment discussion was moderated by Bala J. Raman, Co-founder and President, Congruent Solutions and members of the panel were K. Srikanth, chairman of selectors, Indian cricket team; Anil Arjun, CEO, Reliance Media Works; and P. Jayendra, Real Image Media. Among the important lessons from this sector, creativity was considered important for innovation.

The yesterday’s basics for tomorrow’s entrepreneur discussion was moderated by Aarthi Sivanandh, Partner, Universal Legal and included B.A. Kodandaraman, MD, Vivek; Hemu Ramiah, MD, Shop 4 Solutions and founder of Landmark, Lankalingam, Chairman, Lanson Group. The uniqueness of the panel was that all the panel members started business when venture capital funding did not take off in a big way. They struggled through their business models to establish themselves. Hemu Ramiah dedicated her life to business before taking the exit route. Hemu Ramiah and Lankalingam were accessible to customers and Lankalingam felt customers who complain directly are free consultants for the business. Kodandaraman stressed upon the need to constantly scale up and expand as retail business operates on small margins.

Venture Capital

Amit Chandra, MD, Bain Capital delivered the keynote on Funding Opportunities and narrated the growth of venture capital industry in India. He also gave away the prizes to winners of the LIBA-TiE Chennai business plan competition.

Funding for the entrepreneur discussions were moderated by Sandeep Singhal, MD, Nexus Capital and included Kumar Shiralagi, MD, NEA-IndoUS Ventures; Vishal Vashisth, MD, Song Investments; Samir Kumar, Director, Inventus Capital Partners, and Kami Narayan, Co-CEO, PreMedia Global in the panel.

In the exhibition zone, Kindle eBook reader was available at the amazon.com booth.

- Event covered by Venkatesh Krishnamoorty