Inside the Khemka Forum on Social Entrepreneurship 2011 – ‘Accelerating the business of social change’

This post is written by guest writer Jaidip Patel, who has led a sports for development programme, Ahmedabad Ultimate, and is currently based in Hyderabad. 

This year’s Khemka Forum on Social Entrepreneurship leapt new bounds for India’s development sector as pioneers, leaders and delegates converged in Hyderabad on 17-18^th November, 2011. Hosted on familiar ground at the Indian School of Business, the overall theme was: ‘How do social entrepreneurship efforts move from being islands of excellence to ecosystems of change?’

The Dean of ISB, Ajit Rangnekar, opened the proceedings with a cautionary note for the delegates, urging everyone to learn from the microfinance crisis in India and to tread carefully when posed for scaling an enterprise.

Building Ecosystems of Change

With the stage set on the key theme for the forum, the panelists kick-started by sharing diverse and valuable experiences from their organizations. Asher Hasan, Founder and CEO of Naya Jeevan, shared his unique model, which provides micro-insurance to the urban poor in Pakistan. He summarized the model as ‘providing low-income people with a multitude of services at highly discounted prices which were previously inaccessible.’ While Nalini Gangadharan from CAP Foundation reminded us that ‘in India, it’s inevitable that if you want to scale, you have to think government.’

Learning from India’s microfinance fallout

The highlights of this discussion focused around a background of what happened with MFIs in India this year and why. Then the discussion shifted gears to the future and what has been learnt through that experience. The panel deduced that:

• Social enterprises must maintain the balance of profitability vs. social good.
• Involve more people earlier, namely the government.
• It’s the people that matter in your organization. You need people who have passion and align with the values of the institution.
• Stay close to the customer; assess their needs regularly.
• Don’t compromise on social objectives when scaling up.

Parallel Session: Large Corporations and Social Entrepreneurs – Building Alliances

(Hosted by EdelGive Foundation and FSG Social Impact Consultants)

Drawing upon evident success of GE Healthcare with Embrace and SBI with EKO Financial Servies India Ltd, these two partnerships presented key learning and tips to the attendees. The most significant of which were the importance of having a ‘champion’ on both sides who is responsible for seeing projects through and bridging the gap between the two parties and secondly, working to both strengths without compromising on your own values.

People, People, People

Accenture’s top level managers hosted this session and presented ideas on ‘Issue Based Problem Solving’ which identified 4 areas of concern when dealing with human resources: leadership, talent, organization and culture. With their 75,000 strong workforce in India alone (hiring 10,000 whilst losing 3,000 annually) the lessons shared resonated with every member in the room. Another major sharing was the idea of assessing your needs as an organization 3 years in advance; the concept of ‘Skills & Competency Planning’.

New Media & Social Change

As social media continues to remain in the limelight of the business world, many of the delegates came to get the latest update and new developments within this industry. Shubhamoy Sengupta took the stage with fantastic statistics on India’s usage of social media and significant statements such as: ‘social media is built around the individual – the brand is YOU’ and ‘social media marketing is a dynamic communication channel that gets built over time. It is not a campaign or tactic.’ He cited examples such as Ushahidi as using social media to great effect. Ravi Sundarajan, VP of Marketing with SMS Gupshup, stated ‘what makes a brand is stories, the stories you create. When you start a campaign, think about the stories which change people’s lives.’

Micro-Franchising: A Scale Up Strategy?

Gyanesh Pandey (CEO of Husk Power Systems), Vikas Shah (COO of WaterHealth India) and Anish Thakkar (Co-founder of Greenlight Planet India) led the discussion and thus the delegates witnessed a healthy conversation about the best method and approach to micro-franchising. Dealing with people on the ground who steal because the money they handle is less than their salary was just one tip of many icebergs. Vikas talked about how a smart hire process worked for his enterprise, based on integrity and attitude. Anish put forth that one must provide long-term local support for a micro-enterprise to work. But yet again, everyone agreed that the biggest investment is people.

Social Impact – Philanthropy and Investment Joining Forces

For the closing plenary Don Mohanlal, CEO of Khemka Foundation, led a panel to leave the delegates with a few final messages. Sonal Shah (Former Head of the Office for Social Innovation and Civic Participation with the White House) stressed the need to focus on outcomes and allowing for hybrid models (non-profits and businesses) to exist. She followed by stating, ‘The number one question is leadership. The next is partnership, civil society and business’ role.’

Overall, the forum lifted the delegates higher than they could have imagined with a solid platform for discussions, much needed knowledge sharing and a chance to tap into a network otherwise out of the reach of many. Building upon the strong ties developed from previous years, we can only imagine how future forums will continue to invigorate and stimulate social entrepreneurs all over India.