Babson defines entrepreneurship as 'thinking or acting in a manner that is opportunity obsessed, holistic in approach, and leadership balanced.' Please describe how, in your own experiences, you have met some or all of that definition.

Growing up in a family full of successful professionals from fields as diverse as medicine, social service, engineers, entrepreneurs, finance experts as well as politicians has helped me to observe their  roles and responsibilities from a very close quarter. This kept me abreast with the latest happenings in diverse fields. The virtues of punctuality, importance of making the right decision in a business and the life changing implication of some of our actions has honed me to be a successful businessman with a progressive and positive mentality. Add to this my diverse, in depth, hands on business experience in – real estate, education and automobile sectors and a sound interpretation of financial management gained from working alongside astute chartered accountants has enabled me to come up with innovative ideas in critical situations. I can gladly say that most of the companies I am involved with has taken a 360 degree turn after I joined them. When I joined them, the work structure was unorganized as most of the employees were from the labor class. I succeeded in shaping the work pattern so as to yield better work satisfaction to them as well as to the company.

My Experiences, Challenges and Learnings:

XYZ, my family owned business is a dealership company for Bajaj Auto Ltd. having turnover of 40 crores. We were involved in the sales and service of Bajaj bikes in our area of command. Before I joined it in 2008, my father’s said, “ Use your constructive imagination to find out how much more you can make out of the rupee before you try and find out how much little you can give for the rupee.” His words of wisdom have been eternally etched in my mind and have helped me shape a successful career for myself. With this tenet in my mind, I assumed responsibility of our diverse business ventures. Within a short span of 2 years, I was in a position to undertake complete control of our business endeavors. Today, 4 years down the line, I am solely responsible for the 40% growth it has achieved.

From 2008, I am with XYZ Women’s College as Director of the College. I ensured smooth functioning of the college by drafting and implementing more stringent guidelines for fee payment. This reduced the number of defaulters from 30% to 15% and was a booster to improve quality education.

At XYZ Women’s College, I also encountered one of the most challenging situations in my career. The management along with the student community were discussing the ouster of the HOD of Interior Designing in lieu of his perfunctory attitude toward syllabus completion resulting in a below par exam performance of students, coercing students into opting for personal tuition and iniquitous mismanagement. However, the HOD successfully managed to cajole 70% of the faculty to resign overnight. Faced with a crucial problem of imparting quality education to my students I had to cross all barriers in terms of hindrances like limited time, scouting for the right candidate and irate and nervous students as well as parents. The efficient handling of an emergency threatening to burgeon to volatile proportions wreaking havoc on the future of budding careerists was thus handled without panic. Calm, strategic and calculative assessment of the crisis allowed us to bring about a definitive change in the functioning of the institute. Currently, we a more refined and assiduous faculty.

Growth in any business is of paramount importance and this happened to be my primary motive when I joined XYZ  in 2008.  I re-defined the credit policies for sub dealers and customers adhering to stricter time lines, introduced more rigorous HR policies to downsize distribution of salary advances and laid down more conducive terms with accessories and exchange business partners alike which translated into more profitable sales generating a turnover of USD 10 million. 

My stint as Director at XYZ began in 2008. Here I learnt to be conservative in my approach with new partners and to safeguard our professional interests.  My strategies helped frame a better master planning of the new mixed-use real estate development project. I personally audited the company accounts and effected reversal of inappropriate expenses. This resulted in   reduction of loss from USD 250000 to USD 120000.This unhindered inflation took place primarily due to lack of monitoring from our end majorly because the project is in pre-launch stage.

In conclusion, the academic and practical structuring at Babson will help me deduce financial decision implications better, in turn enhancing my proficiency at handling the financial organization of my business. Babson will help me improve this figure with better systems besides facilitating better HR management, which will augment my ability to better all the above verticals of business.