FMS Seminar on Local Entrepreneurship Demystifies Bottom of the Pyramid
Post-event Press-release
'Bottom of the Pyramid': B-School Students: Job Seekers or Job Creators?

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Mr. William Bissell, CEO, FabIndia gave an extempore on his radical business model. FabIndia has 30 odd stores, with branches in Rome and Dubai as well. It has 700 procurement centres. FabIndia's turnover has grown five fold in the last five years. Their weaver employees have also increased proportionately. He opined that to be an entrepreneur, you need to identify the opportunities and know how to "beat the system". He cited how as a small player, he was charged higher rates in Dubai malls to subsidize bigger local players.
He set up shop opposite the mall and expects consumers who intended to visit the mall to flock there. He felt that good social responsibility and profits go hand in hand. Companies can negotiate with credit players more efficiently than artisans. He described how the weavers have become stakeholders in the company. They have seen the shares they bought at Rs. 100 go up to Rs. 852 at today's prices. In fact, for two years there were no sellers of the shares! He defined an entrepreneur as "one who converts capital more efficiently than others. In fact, this is a national and social responsibility as capital is scarce."

The interactive session which followed saw the full house of Delhi University post graduate and under graduate students engaging in lively discussion with the panel with questions ranging from role of India Inc in Rural Areas on employment generation to the practice by companies to champion corporate social responsibility through the rural schemes and change their existing image. Mr. Bissell warned us that just as poultry in India no longer tastes good as it is made as per international norms, if vegetables are also grown using chemicals, India could lose a potential source of competitive advantage. Mr. Kashyap spoke of how employment generation can only be a by product of corporate activity. 'Corporate India has not added to the eighteen million jobs it created last fifteen years.' The audience, which had a majority of MBA students, was addressed by Mr. Kashyap - 'B School students all over India are jobseekers, not creators.' The students answered that the efforts like Entrepreneurship Cell at FMS with the National Entrepreneurship Challenge had already addressed this paradigm. The panelists were unanimous in their opinion that the ultimate goal of an entrepreneur is to generate profits and what matters while formulating a business plan is Return on Capital Employed and everything else including job creation comes as byproducts during the process.

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Contributed by -
Lijo Isac,
Secretary,
Media Relations,
FMS, Delhi University.