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‘The most powerful driver for an entrepreneur is faith in the business idea, faith in oneself and an incredible passion to be successful in whatever you do.’

Entrepreneurship is gaining ground and creating a positive impact on our society. Indian entrepreneurs differ from their foreign counterparts in a number of ways, as the entire business scenario in India is driven by a very different set of criteria. Hard work and adaptability tops the priority list of most Indian entrepreneurs as the system here lacks proper structure as well as ethics.

Most basic processes are not streamlined, so the complications related to any work doubles. During my student days in India, something as simple as opening a bank account used to be full of hassles whereas in the U.S.A. such things were already developed by then. Indian entrepreneurs work harder than most entrepreneurs around the globe, as they need to tune their minds to find an alternative to everything they do.

After witnessing the abundance of opportunities, I think it’s extremely important for most Indian businesses to make optimum use of the available resources, which according to me has been efficiently done by most businessmen here. Compared to any other higher-cost society, India has been excelling at making optimum use of its resources.

The problem of overspending has been prevalent in most overseas ventures and after facing the consequences, the risk management concept of ‘drip feeding’ was introduced. Although most people here cry over the lack of infrastructure, nevertheless India has been an efficient resource user. Most of these concepts are relative as every entrepreneur, at some point, needs to be well-acquainted with the basic ideas, but in the Indian context, entrepreneurs get exposed to such ideas regularly, which takes them to a whole new level.

Walking into a family business definitely made it a little easier for me as some things such as ‘goodwill’ and cash flow were already sitting on the platter, but that doesn’t make me less of an entrepreneur as every stage of establishing a business and sustaining it comes with its own set of challenges. I agree that starting from scratch requires a different level of hard work and dedication, and my grandfather completed this level. But every generation that followed strived to achieve the subsequent levels of success and we continue to do so.

So every distinct situation demands a different amount of effort and carries certain challenges, therefore it’s difficult to compare entrepreneurs standing at different levels and draw conclusions about their contributions in establishing a company, setting judgments and calling someone more or less of an entrepreneur.

For us right now, as a business house, the main focus is to scale up the business, it’s not about what happened in the past few years but it’s mainly about what can happen in the coming decades. Each generation wants to be called trendsetters and we are mainly looking at sustaining our business for as long as possible. Initially, after working from 1997-’99, I decided to start up something different from my family business and soon after, I started a business related to the internet systems. In those five years, I learned a lot as I realized starting from scratch is always the most difficult part.

Eventually, reverting to my family-found business was necessary but I still miss the creativity that came with the internet business. Personally, my heart is with services though today we are completely into manufacturing, but at some point we will evaluate what can be done in the services side. The future of the Indian entrepreneurial landscape looks bright as business of every kind is thriving; people are exploring something new every other day.

Small and medium enterprises producing an array of ideas are mushrooming; you name any product today and you can find it being manufactured in India. A large number of people in India carry an entrepreneurial spirit, even at a rural setting people are trying to do anything they are capable of.

Tips for aspiring entrepreneurs:
1. Have conviction in your idea and don’t get discouraged by people’s remarks.
2. Perseverance is the mantra to success as ups and downs in the business world are unavoidable.
3. It’s important to have the right set of people around you, since no individual can achieve everything single-handedly; forming a strong ‘core team’ is an absolute necessity; sharing an idea and purpose adds on to its strength.
4. Honesty is a must; having the courage to face real situations helps a great deal. Co-associates and clients have a different respect for businesses that have the sincerity to confront their problems.
5. Keeping calm and avoiding over-excitement or overstress is the ideal mindset to maintain during a disappointing phase.

PUNEET DALMIA is the Managing Director of Dalmia Cement. An IIT Delhi graduate and a gold medalist from IIM Bangalore in strategy and marketing, Puneet jumped headlong into entrepreneurship early in his career when he co-founded JobsAhead.com and served as its Chairman.

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Dalmia Cement, Puneet Dalmia