As many had expected, the just concluded Express Awards for Women Entrepreneurs, with its stellar jury and trailblazing winners, turned out to be an evening of unblemished celebration. But beyond the trophies and the ballroom full of brilliant achievers cheering mightily, it was also designed to be a moment to reflect and for some timeless takeaways – both for the established and budding entrepreneurs. And, therefore, while the awards wind up on the mantelpiece of some of India’s most successful women entrepreneurs, here are some thought-inducing pointers from a very interesting and insightful conversation that Anant Goenka, executive director, The Indian Express Group had with two distinguished business leaders that many entrepreneurs look up to – Zia Mody, a highly regarded corporate lawyer and Ronnie Screwvala, a trailblazing entrepreneur, philanthropist and a celebrated film-maker.
Zia Mody: The world is not equal without us (women). If we hold up half the sky and we are the two wings of the dove, if we are not there, you (men) are inadequate and less equipped.
Or as Ronnie Screwvala, liked to call them “conscience keepers.”
Zia Mody: I think both the men and women have not figured out that most of the corporate problems are because men are on the boards. If you see traditional boards which are consisting of men you will find those corporates have serious problems, so what is this woman thing? Why is it that we have to select a great woman and can have an average man?
We need our benchmarks and mindsets to change. It is not a man or a woman, it is good, intelligent, reasonable and committed human being.
Set goals and KRAs for middle managers with financial incentives and disincentives and question them on how many men and women remain and leave and why? How many left and how many brought in? It works, money talks!
Ronnie Screwvala: The younger startups, from day one, need to double down on understanding the consumer more, where to find them, how to communicate with them beyond the channels that come with a five second search element. On mediums that provide only five to ten seconds communication, how do you sell a brand, a service or a product. There you are not selling a brand but only creating awareness.
I think we spend too little time trying to understand the customer. We are already starting to figure out what are the search words, social media and the herd mentality comes in. I have found nine out of 10 companies less focussed on understanding the consumer.
Zia Mody: (Regulations will come in but ) have your own sense of good advocacy, rationale and logical reasoning… regulators will rarely do things overnight, (you can see it coming).
One bad apple should not spoil the other thriving apples in the sector.
Ronnie Screwvala: Regulation today is becoming more reactive than proactive that this is because things are changing so fast. We need to be realistic and know that for the next decade or two regulations will be little more reactive than proactive. (Therefore, self-regulation matters).
Today, the optimism is phenomenal but it needs to come with a sense of realism. We will get to be $ 5 trillion economy but the income divide in the country is something we all should be concerned about. If income disparity grows we cannot be an absolute developed country. We need some more sense of wealth balance and some sense of income parity.
Zia Mody: It is our (India’s) decade unless we do something wrong ourselves. I think just as demography, democracy, aspirational set of youth with their world in their hands through their mobile, we just need to stay the course and the course has to be one of governance.
Ronnie Screwvala: Governance is an issue and I think it comes with maturity but it also should come with the investors who come into a company. It is a two-way street.
Self-conviction is the only reservoir you have. Two things, I always worry about: 1, a sense of entitlement – today’s generation of entrepreneurs start with a little sense of entitlement and that worries me. I have survived 30 years of more failures than successes primarily because I don’t start with an attitude of entitlement. 2, When success overtakes your perception of life, it worries me.
Today, the whole spirit of the nation is ‘tomorrow is going to be better than yesterday.’
Zia Mody: Today, there is a mindset (change) and there is more backing from the family for both men and women and the risk-taking mindset is much higher than when I started out.
Ronnie Screwwala: I used to look for people who could solve problems. Today, you have to be problem spotters frankly because you do not have the time to solve the problems and you are successful if you can spot a problem before it can happen.
Zia Mody: Our entrepreneurship journey, as a nation, has got global recognition – the fact that we have foreign money coming in to back young people and the interest will continue.