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Entrepreneur is not a synonym for a businessman, an Industrialist or a Technologist.聽 An entrepreneur is not necessarily an investor. An entrepreneur is one who uses economic resources to achieve higher productivity and greater yield.聽 Running an inherited or existing business successfully or expanding the same activity, is not entrepreneurship. Enhancing the value chain and developing new strategies is entrepreneurship.

Innovation is the means for entrepreneurship. Innovation is a discipline which can be learnt and practiced. An Entrepreneur is constantly in search of opportunities for successful innovation.聽 The existing business, being run successfully for years, has to one day or other face competition and decline in value. Examples:

(1) Process Change or Equipment Re-location:
A simple change in the process flow or equipment re-location may sometimes bring about significant increase in the product output, due to stream lining of the process.

(2) Debottlenecking: Debottlenecking is often nothing but discovering聽 constraints in output due to imbalances in the sizing聽 of the equipment or utilities or storage capacities, which were inherent but went聽 unnoticed during several years of business operation.聽 Innovation is one of discovering such imbalances and taking corrective action, which greatly enhances the product value.

(3) Packaging: Packaging offers great many opportunities for innovation. Change in the appearance of a package makes it more presentable and increases the product value and enhances customer satisfaction.聽 Some packages are so attractive that one may like to keep them as trophies or in a showcase.聽 May be one can get a premium price for the product in such a package and satisfy an elite customer.

(4) Pack Size: The size of the pack, the ease with which the product can be used by the consumer either all at a time, or in graduated 鈥渘o spill鈥澛� transfer etc., are some of the聽 innovations which may significantly enhance the value and also beat competition.

(5) Product Delivery: Product delivery and availability are areas where many innovations are possible.聽 Take the product to the consumer, deliver the product at his door step,聽 replenish the supply on time, every time,聽 you have a satisfied customer for a life time. You have created a brand for generations.

(6) Chain Restaurants: To serve whole some food at affordable prices quickly and in hygienic conditions in multi location chain type restaurants, was conceived and started 60 years ago, based on the original 鈥�Udipi鈥� model restaurants. The concept ballooned into a massive gigantic operation.

These chain restaurants are operated today like industries. There is centralised procurement of vegetables, fruits and condiments, and their preparation for cooking.聽 Such prepared stuff is transferred to central cooking houses where hundreds of servings can be made every hour, hygienically, using the best quality equipment.聽聽 The cooked material is then transferred hot, to chain restaurants in different locations, 鈥渏ust in time鈥� for service.

In some restaurants as many as 2000 people eat their meals in 2 to 3 hours at least two times a day, every day all through the year.聽 The magnitude of these operations and complexity of the coordination are mind boggling.聽 Some restaurant chains in a single city employ upto 1000 men, handle 1000 tons of food-stuff every month.聽 The meal served is wholesome and clean.

A stream of guests will be continuously trooping in and out of the dining halls.聽 A fixed menu meal is served in quick time using stainless steel cups and plates. The guests eat their meal in 15 to 20 minutes and vacate the table. The used plates and cups are removed from the tables, are sterlised and the table cleaned. The table is now ready for the next guest.

By applying management techniques, standardizing the product, designing the process, equipment, facilities, on the job training and a disciplined system has increased the value of the product, created a new market, and also offered better value to the customer.

One often wonders whether self-service restaurants like Lyons in U.K. in late 50鈥檚 and the present day Mcdonalds are not copies of Indian chain restaurants minus table service.

The drinking water and washing water were supplemented with R.O. (reverse osmosis) plants, water softening and disinfection.

Table cleaning, floor mopping, using disinfectants has been stream lined.聽 During the night times when the restaurant is not open for service, the rooms, furniture etc., are disinfected.聽 The floors, walls and roof are cleaned.

A fleet of trucks move raw materials and cooked stuff in bulk containers, dedicated for each commodity. Steam operated mini kitchens keep the food hot. House keepers are on constant vigil in the dining rooms to monitor and ensure quality service. Left over food and biological waste is composted or used for biogas generation but not recycled, a pernicious habit among smaller restaurants.

That there has been no food adulteration or food poisoning case over decades of serving foodstuff to lakhs of people, speaks volumes of the hygienic practices.

These chain restaurants cannot boast of d茅cor, style or ambience, but serve one a wholesome meal, in a jiffy at a fraction of the price one has to pay elsewhere.

(7) Food Kitchens: In religious shrines and centers and charitable institutions in India, a large number of people are supplied food either free or at a subsidized price every day.

Ramakrishna Mission鈥檚 free meal centers,聽 common kitchens of Aurobindo Ashram鈥檚,聽 Sikh Gurdwars, Sai Baba centres and the biggest of all, the Tirumalai Temple are examples of day in day out round the year, food preparations, food kitchens聽 and food service.聽 These are fine examples of disciplined systems, management with continuous innovation and value enhancement.

(8) Tirumala Temple: The temple at Tirumalai in South India is the richest and the holiest Hindu shrine.聽 The temple is on a hillock, which is reached by an 8 mile road across some hills.聽 The temple has a vast complex of cottages, and rooms for the devotees to the temple, who invariably spend at least one night in the complex.

The visitors to the temple on any day in the year are not less than 30,000 and on festival days, this number may go upto 100,000. Getting into the sanctum sanctorum of the temple for a glimpse of the deity in the temple, the main object of the visitor, may take between 2 to 40 hours, depending on the length and size of the queue of devotees.

The management of such mass of humanity in a most orderly manner in such a gigantic queue, the facilities provided during transit in the queue聽 complex for rest, food and even emergency medical attention are real marvels of crowd management.

The thousands of the visitors to the temple have at least one meal, if not more during the time they are on the hill. The most modern canteen, which is run by the temple authorities, serves as many as 50,000 to 120,000 persons every day in two periods of 5 hours each.聽 This is not a self service restaurant but a table service system.聽 All that has been narrated earlier on chain restraunts is in practice here and much more.

The canteen, the kitchen, the surroundings are sparklingly clean. It is a marvel of engineering and man-management on a scale unparalled anywhere. Tremendous entrepreneurship and continuous innovation is key to this.

(9) Big Bazar: A recent example of innovation and聽 entrepreneurship聽 is the 鈥淏ig Bazar鈥�, an off shoot of Pantaloons, conceived nurtured and developed by聽 Kishore Biyani from a small 鈥淛eans鈥� tailoring shop in a garage to massive retail stores across India in a number of Towns and Cities. This has brought about a revolution in retail marketing which is now the flavour of the day and many organisations like Trinethra, Food World, Reliance, Metro, Choupal etc., have joined the band wagon

These are giant enterprises handling myriad varieties of articles in thousands of nos. with hundreds of聽 employees, strict quality control,聽 packaging, accounting and handling thousands of customers courteously.

(10) Dabbawallahs: Another remarkable example of innovation and enterprise is the 鈥渄abbawallahs鈥� of Mumbai, who carry 鈥渄abbas鈥� containing lunch to lakhs of people working in Mumbai from any corner of Mumbai to their respective places day in day out without a single mis-delivery or delayed delivery. Hundreds of people transfer the dabbas in a chain operation such that no single person is solely responsible for carrying the dabba from pick up of a meal to delivery point.

Yet with hardly any recognisable system of identification of dabbas the entire operation is done smoothly.聽 With zero defect, A聽 6 sigma operation.

Dabbawallahs system in Mumbai has been in operation since more than 50 years and is considered a marvel of logistics and management and acclaimed by Presidents, Kings and Prime Ministers. The duke of Edinburgh had even travelled with the dabba wallahs to find out how the system works.

(11) Genghis Khan: About 950 years ago Genghis Khan, acclaimed as the greatest warrior of all time had organised a system of communication from Mongolia to Hungary, a distance of over 3000 miles in a period of few hours.聽

Horse riders were stationed at intervals of 1 to 5 miles equipped with bugles and trumpets.聽 Message like an (SMS) was conveyed by bugle or transport (akin to Morse code in Telegraph system of聽 yesteryears) from rider to rider and the message travelled indeed at the speed of sound from across Asia and Europe. A marvel in innovation and enterprise.聽

No wonder he is acclaimed as the greatest warrior and conqueror in history.

(12) Henry Ford: The greatest engineering innovation of the 20th century is the system of manufacturing parts in thousands and carrying out the assembly of such parts and shell to make a car, called assembly line which enabled the industry to turn out thousands of cars in a day, exactly identical to each other.聽 The inventor and the innovator is Henry Ford, who revolutionized the engineering industry.

(13) Dhirubhai Ambani: In recent years, late Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of Reliance Industries, a matriculate, innovated a wonderful engineering operation in erecting in 24 months a Terpthalic Acid plant at Patalaganga, a plant supplied by Dupont. As against the industry norm of 36 months for erection of such plants, the erection was completed in 24 months.

He changed the practice of first doing Civil works followed by erection of equipment and then piping, cabling and instrumentation.

Instead, along with civil works, piping, cabling and instrumentation was done and got ready before the equipment arrived at site. This involved a great engineering feat and saved the company 12 months in erection time and cut down the plant cost by 30%, a neat 180 cr. Rs. in 1980s.

(14) Reliance Industries: Innovation and entrepreneurship continues even now in Reliance Industries where a grass root 28 million ton/year refinery is about to be commissioned in a month or two. This was conceived 3 years ago, and over a lakh of people were employed with thousands of contractors and problems of logistics solved by employing a fleet of planes and helicopters.

It may be mentioned that Kuwait National Petroleum Co., a giant petrol company in the world, also conceived a similar refinery at the same time as Reliance, but it has yet to ground the project. The completed project cost of Reliance is estimated at 6.4 billion USD and the cost of Kuwait Refinery still on paper as on today聽 is 13.3 billion dollars.

This is what can be achieved by innovation and entrepreneurship.

(15) Capt. Gopinath 鈥� Deccan Airlines: A very recent example is the advent of a low cost airline named Deccan aviation. (This is now taken over by Kingfisher). Deccan conceived connectivity of small towns with major cities and fares were kept so low that the air travel has become competitive with Railway Travel. This brought about an explosive growth in air travel across India, and in a very short time.

Deccan captured nearly 40% of the air traffic, eclipsing Air India, Jet airlines etc. Many more airlines came on the scene with Deccan as a model.

This is a revolution in air travel in India.聽 The promoter Cap. Gopinath, an ex-pilot himself, has sold his share for hundreds of crores even though the airline itself lost heavily. He opened a great market for others聽 to follow.

(16) Unsung Heroes: Most books and speakers on innovation and entrepreneurship, cite eloquently examples from USA, Germany, U.K.聽 etc. No doubt it is true that the great economic prosperity of the West is due to thousands of such innovators who converted their innovations into a business. However, in recent years the innovation and entrepreneurship culture is flowering in India too.聽

In this short presentation I have mostly dealt with a few examples of such Indian cases.

This does not mean that there are no other examples in India. There are hundreds of similar examples.

Conclusion: Entrepreneurship is continuous innovation to add value to the product and to the customer. It is a dynamic business management. It is a game of creating new values, new products, new markets, higher quality, greater satisfaction to the customer, and keep the competition at bay.