Alumni give lessons in entrepreneurship at IIM

When Basab Pradhan, head of global sales, Infosys quit to take up his own venture, not many were willing to back him.

Opting to establish his own company, Gridstone Research, meant that he was giving up on a probable CEO position in Infosys.

Lessons in entrepreneurship, learnt by Pradhan and many of his batchmates from the class of 1983 and 1989, formed the crux of an interaction with students of the PGP and PGPX batches at the Indian Institute of Management- Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

The discussion, led by IIM-A alumni like Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO, Naukri, Rahul Bhasin, CEO, Barings, Basab Pradhan, CEO, Gridstone Research, Deepta Rangarajan, CEO, myirisindia.com, Sachit Jain, CEO, Vardhaman Group and R Subramanian, CEO, Subhiksha, saw them take students into the nitty gritties of setting up an own venture.

R Subramanian, CEO, Subhiksha spoke on the challenges faced by the company at a time when retail as a vertical of economy had yet taken off in India.

"Keeping our margins low has been the biggest challenge. We have set up 600 stores in the last few months and will take it to 300 more stores in the next three months and a further 300 stores in the next six months," said Subramanian.

Speaking on challenges and power equations between family members and professionals in a family-owned business, Sachit Jain, CEO, Vardhaman Group said that it was his time in IIM-A that prepared him to face early hurdles.

He added that IIM-A's post graduate programme, which admits close to 45 per cent freshers should start accepting more candidates with some work experience.

The first batch of PGPX, the one-year programme for executives, which graduated in March this year had shown a lot of interest in opting for their own ventures which has been the case with the second batch as well.

"We plan to invite more entrepreneurs in the coming months to speak to students on challenges in opting for entrepreneurship, "said Arvind Sahay, Chairperson, PGPX.