innovative entreprenuers in asia

8/8/2019 Innovative Entreprenuers in Asia

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CRITICALEXAMINATION OF

INNOVATIVE

ENTREPRENUERS INASIA

Submitted by:

KanikaGoyal

08105028


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INTRODUCTION

GURCHARAN DAS, an Indian venture capitalist, consultant and author,tells a story about stopping at a roadside caf in southern India andchatting to a 14-year-old boy who was waiting at tables. The boy said thathe needed the money to pay for computer lessons. His ultimate ambitionwas to run a computer company just like his hero, Bilgay, the richest manin the world. He may have got the name slightly wrong, but the sentimentwas spot on.

Over the past couple of decades India has been transformed from alicence Raj into a land of uncaged entrepreneurs. Everybody knows aboutcompanies like Infosys, but there is more to Indian entrepreneurialismthan software. Bollywood produces 1,000 films a year that are watched by3.6 billion people (the figures for Hollywood are 700 and 2.6 billion). TheNarayana Hrudayalaya hospital, founded by Devi Shetty on the outskirtsof Bangalore, is turning heart surgery into a Wal-Mart-like business.Kingfisher beer is popular wherever spicy curries are eaten. The globalslowdown will no doubt pose serious problems for India. But the countrysmood has changed fundamentally since the government began opening up

the economy in 1991: fatalism has been replaced by can-do optimism.

India has drawn heavily on its expatriate population, particularly the 1mwho live in America, to kickstart its entrepreneurial economy. Rajat Gupta,a former head of McKinsey, did as much as anybody to create the IndianBusiness School in Hyderabad. Gururaj Deshpande, who sold his company,Cascade Communications, to Ascend for $3.7 billion, is a ubiquitouscheerleader for entrepreneurialism. Draper International, which in 1995became the first foreign venture-capital fund to invest in India, relied onmoney from Silicon Valleys Indian community.

India has now begun to reverse the brain drain, summoning its prodigalchildren back home. In 2003-05 some 5,000 tech-savvy Indians with morethan five years experience of working in America returned to India. Suchpeople have helped to fill some of the skills gaps created by the countrysrecent boom. They have also reinforced Indias already numerous linkswith high-tech America.


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Indias other advantage is its higher-education system, the top end of whichis very good at discovering and developing first-class brains. The British

introduced the ideal of meritocracy to India; Jawaharlal Nehru gave it atechnocratic twist by launching the Indian Institutes of Technology; andIndias natural love of argument did the rest. These institutes, sooversubscribed that only one in 75 applicants gets in, are now as bent onproducing entrepreneurs as they were once determined to produce Fabiantechnicians.

New Ground Zero for Innovative Entrepreneurs:

The Asian region is showing some of the strongest signs of economic

life. China's economy is on track to grow more than 8% this year, fueling a

revival around the region. The Singapore economy grew an annualized

20% in the second quarter, and other parts of Southeast Asia as well as

India, Taiwan, and South Korea are looking up, too. Even Japan is officially

out of the recession, with gross domestic product increasing 0.6% in the

second quarter.

For all the recent good news, though, there's no denying these arechallenging times for Asian entrepreneurs. With the economic climate so

uncertain, they need patience, innovative ideas, and entrepreneurial spirit.

Of all the qualities that entrepreneurs possess one you will always seen invarying degrees is the ability to be innovative. You will see entrepreneurs:

coming up against a problem and actively deciding to find a solution

to solve it

subconsciously struggling with one of lives irritations only to have a

'eureka' moment when a better way suddenly strikes them

using a service or product everyday and starting a business by

adding a slight twist to make it even better than before


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A. Incredible India!!!

India is definitely the hub of entrepreneurs worldwide. More than 100companies start every year, irrespective of the fact most of them do not

survive the competition, and die out sooner. But one cannot deny the fact

that people in INDIA are more risk-taking. Especially the distinct marwari

class, here where people make it as a status symbol, and take pride in

doing business.

According to research, INDIA ranks second in terms of innovation and the

entrepreneurial viewpoint or approach. The list is led by Thailand and to

my utter surprise the last name is JAPAN. Who would believe that? Even

US, Germany, UK are in the middle league of the race. But the concept in

INDIA is also changing today. People are encouraging their next generation

to look for service options. They find it more lucrative, more relaxed (god

knows how!) and a much more safer and secure life. It is indeed a fact that

majority population of INDIA is in the service industry, taking INDIA to the

global positions.

A lot depends on many other factors in constituting this. For example, the

background of the parent, the approach of the individual, the friend circle,

hes bred in (one of the most important factors), the people you stay with,

your upbringing, the education today plays a very important role today and

faces a serious challenge in creating more successful, powerful leaders.

The role of entrepreneurs has to be clearly understood in the present

scenario. A distinct difference between an entrepreneur and a businessman

has to be drawn. Working as a manager and working for a manager is a lot

different. Then again individuals have their own ideologies. I have friends

of all kinds. Versatility is the best traits! But you never choose your friends

based on whether hes doing service or he is a businessman. However

interestingly you can always strike a distinct difference of opinions between


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both types and contrast them to each other. Thats what amazes me, and

supports my personal effectiveness of being an entrepreneur!

Innovation is the key to sustainability today, in any regional or global

scenario. One has to understand that managers or employees who think

innovatively have the traits of an entrepreneur. What lacks in them, or

resists them from achieving that is RISK taking ability. This can again be

attributed to the fact that the person has never had an opportunity to take

risk, or has never taken an initiative. And India was ranked 2 in a research

for people with most innovative thinking. I believe this is true in a context

because the kind of development India has had in the past 5-10 years is

beyond what we dreamt of, and also in the future its going to be a super

power by 2010. Cheers to Indian Entrepreneurs and the workforce of

INDIA.

B. Progressive Russia:

The recent events signalled that Russia is growing its importance on theglobal innovative landscape. On 10th December 2009, the leading Russianstock exchange announced the opening of trading in the market forinnovations and investment.

A full scale of the current innovation activity in the country and its futurepotential has become visible through a number of innovation-relatedevents. For example, the Russian Innovative Convent in Saint-Petersburgin December was filled with more than 2,500 Russian scientists andtechnical entrepreneurs who develop compelling products & technologies.Projects ranged from technologies allowing evaluation of toxic elements inwater to active nanomembrane technologies and to devices which alloweasy identification of cancer. Again, the significant attention was driven byforeign companies and investors. Some projects did receive the

acknowledgement from multinational corporations and a number ofprojects were distinguished by Mercedes-Benz for the ecologicalinnovations in the automotive industry.

Russian innovative life is most prominently driven by talented scientistsand technical entrepreneurs which focus on the prospective areas such asbiotechnology, medical instruments, security systems, nanotechnology,water and energy technologies, information technology including green IT.Russians have been traditionally very strong in math and natural science aswell as in the IT space. The majority of innovative activity is happening in


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Moscow, Zelenograd, Saint-Petersburg, Tomsk, Novosibirsk which are richin a number of innovative entrepreneurships, research institutes, centres ofinnovation and technology. For some cities such as Tomsk, innovationbecame the backbone of the regional development. This is why a numberof international IT-related corporations have already opened the centres ofinnovation in these cities like f.e. the Centre of Innovation of Microsoft inSaint-Petersburg.

The Russian innovative community has already become an increasingsource for R&D activities of the foreign companies and research institutes.We come across the facts that Russian innovative entrepreneurs moreoften collaborate and sell their ideas to foreign research institutes,international corporations and venture investors. One of the reasons of thisintensifying collaboration is the fact that the market potential of thesetechnologies in the home country is often limited. The reason for this is thecurrent limited presence of technology-intensive industries in Russia whichcould absorb these new technologies and innovative products as well as the

weak bridge between innovation and production. This is why technologiesdeveloped by Russian scientists and entrepreneurs often find theirappliance in foreign markets which are closer to the end-user industries.

With the current intensification of the innovative activity in the country, weenvision that Russia would become an increasingly important part of theglobal innovation system. At the same time, whether these innovativeideas would be utilized within the country or would be more utilizedglobally would depend on a number of factors. Most prominently, it woulddepend on the success of the localization of technology-intensive industriessuch as pharmaceutical industry, manufacturing of medical devices orindigenous equipment manufacturing. Also, the intensity of modernizationof service-related industries such as utilities and telecommunicationservices which could absorb these technologies is another importantcontributing factor.

C. From knock-off to innovation: India V/s China

India and China are the two economies which have been growinghandsomely in times when even global superpowers like America have hada roller-coaster ride.

Communist Chinas conversion to entrepreneurialism is even moresurprising than Fabian Indias. When Wu Yi, the countrys then vice-premier, visited America in 2006, she took more than 200 entrepreneurs


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with her. About 60 Chinese companies are now traded on NASDAQ. TheCentral Party school even offers special courses for entrepreneurs, knownas red capitalists.

In some ways China has had a more difficult task than India. The CulturalRevolution destroyed the countrys intellectual and managerial capital. Few

Chinese speak good English. The state is more interested in grand projectsfrom state-owned companies to giant infrastructure schemesthan inletting a hundred flowers bloom. But China shares one importantadvantage with India: the army of overseas Chinese who have made theirhome in America, particularly Silicon Valley. China has used them well.

The Chinese authorities are fully aware of the part that the overseasChinese played in Taiwans economic take-off. Since the late 1990s theyhave been doing everything they could to tempt expats back, upgrading

their universities, often working with foreign institutions, setting up scienceparks and welcoming foreign companies. So many Chinese expats havereturned in the past few years that Valley-slang has given them a specialname, B2C (back to China).

Many of Chinas most successful entrepreneurs have done little more thanproduce knock-offs of American companies, mostly those they studiedwhen they first went to America. Baidu is a Chinese Google; Dangdang is aChinese Amazon; Taobao is a Chinese eBay; Oak Pacific Interactive is a

mishmash of MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Craigslist; Chinacars is aChinese American Automobile Association. But even producing knock-offstakes skill, particularly when the original companies are determined tocolonise the Chinese market. And imitative Chinese entrepreneurs canbring innovative management methods to China. Baidus founder, Robin Li,raised funds from American venture capitalists and offered stock options tohis earliest employees.

China is also producing some genuinely innovative entrepreneurs. Jack Mauses a website, Alibaba, to sell goods from Chinas thousands of cornershops to other businesses. Mr Ma has also created a college forentrepreneurs. Jeff Chen has developed an internet browser which hasattracted venture capital from Denmark and is available in 20 languages.

Some of the most innovative entrepreneurs are working with mobiletelephony, which is even more important in China than it is in the West. LiuYingkui is selling insurance, mutual funds and bank services over the


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mobile internet. Charles Wang is trying to get subscribers addicted to hisfree text-messaging service, PingCo, so that he can start signing them upfor premium services such as backing up address books, selling astrologicalcharts and providing weather updates.

Watching this space (Analysis):

Both India and China have a long way to go. The Indian government is alumbering elephant riddled with favouritism, the countrys legal processesmove at glacial speed, much of the infrastructure is a mess and over a third

of the people are illiterate.

As for China, Yasheng Huang, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,has shown how Chinese capitalism is being distorted by the influence ofpolitics. Some 40% of entrepreneurs are members of the Communist Party.State-backed businesses receive a disproportionate share of capital. Evensound businesses are frequently opaque: the Chinese reportedly maintainthree sets of books, one for their bankers, one for their accountants and onefor the government. Businessmen often neglect their firms because they

spend so much time cultivating political connections.

But both countries have already come a long way. HBSs Tarun Khannapoints out that the entrepreneurial spirit is beginning to breathe new life intoIndias public sector. Bangalore has replaced its dilapidated airport with asplendid new one, with the help of some private money. As for Chinas redcapitalists, however much they are being held back by the party, they inturn are forcing the party to change.

The opening up of China and India is releasing millions of new entrepreneursonto the world market. Many of them have already shown themselves ablenot just to translate Western ideas into their local idioms but also to drivetechnological advance of their own. The world has only just begun to feel theeffects.

innovative entreprenuers in asia

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