Entrepreneurship Opportunities in Emerging India: Logistics and E-commerce

Mr. Rajesh Pednekar, who has rich industry experience in Supply Chain and Distribution, gave a guest lecture to the students of SJMSoM about the opportunities and avenues of entrepreneurship in an emerging market like India.

The session was presented in two parts. First part was about the basic introduction for the students on how to make the most out of an MBA course. It focused on the general guidelines and the best practices.

The speaker described the four E’s of life as follows:

1. ·         Education,
2. ·         Employment,
3. ·         Engagement and
4. ·         Entrepreneurship 

Mr. Padnekar urged the students to attend all classes and gain knowledge. “Education is something that opens up your mind and sets you free”, he said.

“If you do what you love, you will not have to work single day”, he said. He suggested us to connect with our seniors, mentors and alums using social media. “Work for learning, earning will come later. If required work for free. Be in ‘Gemba’ i.e Japanese term for Workplace. Go out meet real people and engage yourself in solving real problems.”

Engagement is a very important aspect of life. If one is not happy at ones’ home, then one can’t give ones’ best at work. He spoke about 5 M’s of Marriage – Mind, Money, Manners, Meals, Maturity.

Entrepreneurship is continuous pursuit of opportunity without regards to resources currently controlled. He urge the students to make materialism irrelevant; enhance knowledge through continuous education; manage relationship expectations; practice emotional self-awareness; commit to physical ideal; make networks; adhere to code of ethics and focus on time efficiency.

The second part of his guest lecture was targeting the logistics and the supply chain management in Indian e-commerce.

The session started with the Jobs business model. JOB – Just Over Broke. An employee is only paid that much that he can come to office the next day. He described the pros and cons in the JOBs Business Model as follows:

Limited Upside

1. ·         No capital invested
2. ·         Work as a cog in other system

Unlimited Downside

1. ·         Universal Constraint – Job is selling time for money(Max 24 hours are available )
2. ·         No price freedom
3. ·         Usage increase is always lesser than actual
4. ·         Can sell to only one customer
5. ·         All innovations/inventions belong to the company.

Mr. Padnekar also discussed about the current state of Indian Logistics – challenges and Opportunities. Quoting one of the challenges in Indian logistics, Mr. Padnekar described the lack of efficient cold chains to transfer pharmaceutical products which require strict temperature controlled environment.

He said that the prospects for budding entrepreneurs are looking positive considering the huge budget allocated for entrepreneurship in the recent financial budget. The session ended with discussing some important Taxation tips.

It was a knowledge enriching session wherein the students of SJMSoM got more insights on how an entrepreneur can save more money as compared to an employee in taxation. The session included valuable inputs on the ground realities of best practices for MBA and Entrepreneurship. This session enabled us to learn something which we do not learn in books.

Written by,

Udit Kataria

SJMSoM’16