The session was addressed by Mr Niraj Bajaj, CMD, Mukand Ltd; Mr Prashant Tewari, MD, USV; Mr K Ganesh, CEO & Founder, TutorVista, and Ms Divya Modi, Global Director Finance, Spice Corp.
Mr Niraj Bajaj said, "An out of the box thinking, full of energy, thoughts and new ideas with open mind makes an entrepreneur manager. As change is continuity with businesses, an entrepreneur manager needs to embrace change."
Mr Prashant Tewari identified the main challenge for the companies which grow big from a start-up is move from being an entrepreneurial organization to a managed organization. He said that the main issues faced by any organization to maintain and continue as an entrepreneurial organization is:
- Entrepreneurial spirit cannot be taught to the employees.
- It is very difficult to find a fool-proof mechanism of rewarding entrepreneur manager. There are some methods like EPA & BSC but none without problems.
- The third issue is that of speed; speed of thought and response to changing business environment and the speed of decision.
Mr K Ganesh said, "Traditionally a manager is trained to be specialist in a particular function and is expected to complete the job assigned to him by the organization, rest of the job is completed by the 'system' of the organization. An entrepreneur is a generalist who completes the jobs; end-to-end without any support of the system."
MBAs are taught to manage and mitigate risks, rather than taking risks; which is must for any entrepreneur, said Mr Ganesh. He also cautioned that one should not mistake entrepreneurship with adventurism. While both involve risks, adventurism is covered for any down-sides, entrepreneurship exposes the entrepreneur and does not give any coverage.
Ms Divya Modi said that companies need to create culture of innovation and risk taking capacity.
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