Mentoring startups to innovate, and sell online – B. Shrinivas, founder of PPP Group of companies

What gives happiness to B. Shrinivas, the founder of PPP Group of companies, is to talk about innovation and mentoring. “I motivate startup entrepreneurs through an organisation called BYST, Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust. It’s a voluntary organisation providing mentoring support for new business units, what we call MSMEs or micro, small and medium enterprises. We support them financially as well as give them guidance on their business,” begins Shrinivas. He goes on to talk about innovation, and selling online, in this interaction with YourStory.

Innovation

Innovation makes an entrepreneur. Anybody can innovate, in any product or service. Innovation is just a rediscovery, and I am just trying to demonstrate what innovation is. For example, we have seen many clocks throughout the world. Here, in Tamil Nadu, we have Tamil numerals, and I have rediscovered the clock using Tamil numerals, and made a product called a Tamil numeral clock. And now I am able to export this clock throughout the world, apart from selling in India.

Job givers

Fresh graduates come out of colleges. Of late, because of economic downturn throughout the world, we see dearth of campus interviews. That’s the reason many colleges have started entrepreneurship development cells. Going for a job is where you are searching for a job, but I am searching for the people who can provide jobs. We create job providers rather than job seekers.

Mentorship

We can convert existing small and medium businesses to a large enterprise by providing not only financial assistance through nationalised banks but also giving them mentorship both, technical and managerial. We have expert panels. For example, I come from the IT industry, having been in products from 1995, and help new entrepreneurs with IT inputs.

Marketing

Any business can be expanded, promoted, and marketed through online methods. SMEs lack marketing. They may have a good production system but they lack marketing. Successful businesses, in today’s world, use ICT (information and communications technology) for marketing. For marketing products, and solutions, we mentor SMEs, therefore, on using ICT to sell online.