Articles 1 to 15 of 89
Entrepreneurs Meena and K. Ganesh: Looking for the Next Disruptive Business Model
Meena and K. Ganesh are India's best-known entrepreneur couple. Over the past two decades, between them they have built and exited four successful ventures at a total valuation of US$300 million. Currently strategic investors in five e-commerce start-ups, the couple is also contemplating a new venture in retail health care delivery. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, the duo said that they are "looking for the next disruptive model using technology and the Internet."
MokshaYug Access: Providing Opportunities and Income for India's Rural Poor
India is the largest producer of milk in the world, but its yield per cow is extremely low. MokshaYug Access (MYA), a Bangalore-based rural supply chain solutions company, is educating farmers on best practices in dairy farming and animal husbandry, and helping them to increase the yield, as well as improve the quality of milk. With deep farmer engagement, a strong R&D focus and market access, MYA leadership say they can provide income certainty for the rural poor. Experts tell India Knowledge@Wharton that MYA could be a new role model for the dairy segment.
MyndGenie: Taking Mental Fitness to the Masses
MyndGenie, a Bangalore-based start-up, is offering phone-based coaching for mental fitness. Its objective is to make the techniques of behavioral sciences simple, accessible and affordable enough to be offered as a consumer service. But, in a country where any coaching to do with the mind has an element of stigma attached to it and is viewed with suspicion, can MyndGenie weave its magic? Experts tell India Knowledge@Wharton that MyndGenie's biggest challenge is in articulating its value proposition and breaking through this mindset.
Spurred by Economic Liberalization, India's Entrepreneurs Grow Increasingly Youthful
The two decades of India’s economic liberalization have seen the country pass through a number of ups and downs. In his book, Boar in Boots: A Business Travelogue, Parthasarathi Swami, managing editor of India Knowledge@Wharton and Business India magazine, takes readers on a journey through these years. The book gives the views of industrialists who have been in the thick of the battles, entrepreneurs who have braved the new world and academics who have studied the process of liberalization. Leavening it are the author’s own views. The book is scheduled for release this month.
Menu and Restaurant Listing Sites Search for Scale in India
Even amid a general economic slowdown, the restaurant sector is booming in India. Internet businesses such as menu card and review listing companies Zomato and burrp! are riding the boom. But will their business models work? The key, experts tell India Knowledge@Wharton, is in having appropriate product differentiation and building sustainable revenue streams.
GE’s Gopichand Katragadda: Building Capacity to Solve India's Toughest Problems
The John F. Welch Technology Center in Bangalore is General Electric’s (GE's) largest research and development center worldwide. Earlier this year, Dr. Gopichand (Gopi) Katragadda, who has been with GE for 10 years, took over as managing director of this center. In a conversation with India Knowledge@Wharton, Katragadda talks about his priorities for the center, global trends in research and innovation, and the direction in which India needs to move.
In a Quake's Wake, Hunnarshala Builds Homes -- and Entrepreneurs
The devastating earthquake in Gujarat in 2001 brought death and misery to many. It also brought Hunnarshala, a nonprofit that was established to help people rebuild homes -- and lives. By preferring local materials, such as mud, stone and wicker, the organization has given a boost to local artisans and entrepreneurs. Hunnarshala has also expanded to deploy its disaster-management skills to stricken areas all over the world.
HarVa: Creating Value within Rural India
HarVa, a social enterprise, believes that it is a huge mistake to treat rural India as a consumerist economy. Instead, what is needed is to create value within that sector. Experts say that HarVa is on the right track, but they warn that given India’s diversity, a flexible approach is required. Scaling the organization could be also a challenge.
Shaadi.com’s Anupam Mittal: A Bachelor Finds Success as an Online Matchmaker
Anupam Mittal is founder and CEO of shaadi.com, the world’s “oldest and most successful” online matrimonial service. Shaadi.com recently celebrated its 15th anniversary. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, Mittal discusses his journey and his dream of matching 1,000 people every day.
A 'B-school' in India Reaches out to Rural Women
The Mann Deshi Business School in India is a unique initiative: It seeks to provide rural, illiterate women with business and management skills, and to help them become entrepreneurs. In the past six years, the school has empowered 40,000 rural women. It aims to reach 100,000 women by 2015. Experts tell India Knowledge@Wharton that the challenge lies in scaling the organization effectively and making it financially sustainable.
Vijay Govindarajan: How Reverse Innovation Can Change the World
During his two-year stint at General Electric, Vijay Govindarajan, now a professor of international business at Dartmouth College, gained insights that led him to become a pioneer in developing the concept of reverse innovation. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, Govindarajan shares his thoughts on what is driving reverse innovation and how it can change the world.
Can YES Bank, India's Youngest and Fastest-growing Bank, Be a Model for Newer Entrants?
Banking is fundamentally a simple business: You borrow money at a low rate of interest and lend it out at a higher rate. And yet so many financial institutions -- in India and across the globe -- have proved unsustainable. YES Bank, one of the beneficiaries of the Reserve Bank of India's new licenses in 2004, seems to have bucked the trend and has an ambitious plan for growth. But the institution's exposure to some troubled companies and sectors could be a roadblock, observers say, and YES will have to become more aggressive and react even faster to get ahead of some of its larger competitors.
Snapdeal's Kunal Bahl on Creating a 'Discovery Platform' for Indian Consumers
In less than two years, Snapdeal, a group discounting site in India, has grown to become one of the leading e-commerce sites in the country. According to co-founder Kunal Bahl, deals are only an entry point into the customer’s life. The vision, he says, is to build a brand that participates in consumers' lives every day, across product and service categories.
Ignighter’s Adam Sachs: Making an Impact on India's Dating -- and Start-up -- Scene
India wasn't even on Adam Sachs's radar when he and two friends founded Ignighter, a dating site that allows users to organize group dates. But the site quickly attracted the most traffic from India and other Asian countries, where one-on-one dates are still not the norm and young people going out in coed groups is more widely accepted. Ignighter has now turned its focus to India and recently set up an office there. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, Sachs discussed the company's growth plans and how it is negotiating the ins and outs of navigating India's cultural landscape.
Husk Power Systems: Generating Electricity from Waste for India’s Rural Poor
Entrepreneurs Gyanesh Pandey and Ratnesh Yadav have designed a system that generates electricity out of rice husk, a waste material. Their company, Husk Power Systems, is providing power to more than 35,000 rural households in Bihar, a state where around 85% of the population does not have access to reliable electricity. Pandey and Yadav are hoping to light up one million households by 2014. Experts are bullish about the company, but warn that scaling up operations will not be easy.
