PANJIM: The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and KPMG in India, in its report titled ‘Entrepreneurship, growth, and opportunities – 2017’, examined the current trends and key themes that impact the enterprise segment in the country.
Sandeep Naolekar, chairman, CII Entrepreneurship Conclave said, “We hope this report serves as a ready reckoner and a tool that manifests critical advice for entrepreneurs to sustain themselves by adapting to both internal and external changes impacting their business.”
Sanjay Aggarwal, partner and head, KPMG Enterprise, said, “It is essential for entrepreneurs to continuously focus on improving their operations and building scalable and sustainable businesses. Further, they need to focus on investing in business performance improvements in quality and reliability. Adopting new tech, making processes more efficient, continuous skill development and training and continuous innovation is key to success.”
For managing scalable businesses and building excellence in operations, the report highlights the fact that in many entrepreneurial ventures, initial growth period is usually followed by a long period of stagnation. Imbibing practices such as continuous improvement as a short-term process focus, capability building as a long-term process focus, daily management as a short-term result focus can help create a method in the madness if one understands operations excellence. It is important that while managing growth, entrepreneurs focus on a long-term horizon and recruit the right talent that can grow with the organisation.
The report also suggests that innovation today is the near synonym of differentiation. Entrepreneurs do not fear challenging the norm and taking on larger companies head-on in their quest for growth. Innovation was conventionally R&D’s prerogative, but its horizons have expanded from focus on radical changes to products and services. It now also manifests as new business models, novel customer acquisition methods, unique customer experience, alliances, and other avenues.
The report also recognises the fact that digital technology has opened a plethora of avenues for entrepreneurs to reach out to its customers to create an impact, innovate and grow. However, between operating on a restricted budget, entrepreneurs are faced with various challenges on marketing. As a first step, small business owners and entrepreneurs need to get started quickly on a digital bandwagon to reap its benefits.
