Entrepreneurship Case

Introduction

Some people become entrepreneur; some have entrepreneurship in their blood. The entrepreneur we interviewed falls in the second category. Born and brought up in the entrepreneur family and watching his brother following the footsteps of his father, his childhood dream was to start his own venture. Gaurav Sharma is a 28 years old budding entrepreneur who already has 2 businesses under his hat which he is proud to have started successfully.

His first venture was in hospitality industry. He opened up a guest house with 30 room facility. The guest house employees 6 people and is located in the heart of Gurgaon. Most of the bookings are done for the corporates in the form of monthly booking. This gives the company revenue of more than INR 4 million. The expansion plan under consideration is to purchase the adjacent land to increase the capacity to 3 fold.

The second one that happens to be his more enduring venture is in telecommunication industry. The business surrounds around the concept of providing value added services. Telecommunication companies offer services such as ring tones, VOIP, WAP, etc and the companies acts like intermediaries between end users and telecommunication companies. They operate the services and also provide the maintenance to such services. He started this venture in a partnership with an industry expert and currently employees 25 people for handling 4 companies.

Early Life

Gaurav Sharma belongs to a family that operates the business of manufacturing sheet metal components for some of the biggest Automobile companies in India. From his childhood, his father cultivated in him the entrepreneurial qualities along with the ethical values and the desire to be a useful citizen for the society. As he grew up his attitude to drive the changes in his own ways, instead of following the guidelines made, precluded him to join a job.

He completed his Mechanical Engineering from Institute of Technology and Management, Gurgaon in the year 2005. As expected from him, he joined his family business thereafter. But the eagerness to learn more about the business nuances made him to do a MBA course from IIPM, Delhi just after one year. He rejoined his family business in the year 2008 with the burning desire to start up his own venture. Most of the time was devoted in formulating the strategies and planning for his newly born idea of opening up a guest house in Gurgaon. It didn't take him much time to realize his dream. By 2009 the business started flourishing. The success in is first venture boosted his confidence and he started to look for other opportunities. Some of the methods followed by him were to follow the economic surveys, studying the market trends and talk to industry people to realize the existing gaps in the industries. During such studies, he came across an opportunity that he mentions as the most interesting and most promising idea he can think of.

Entrepreneurial Venture

Growing up in family business environment, Gaurav Sharma had always the inherent attributes of the businessman. Though he had a family business to rely on, he wanted to stand out and develop a brand for himself. Gaurav Sharma searched for opportunities in the market that he could exploit to set up a profitable business.

Opportunities always exist at all places at all times. Yet, it is entrepreneur's unique ability to sense such opportunity, make best use of it and transform his start-up into a roaring business.

Likewise, Gaurav sensed such an opportunity when he saw the booming business in Gurgaon. He saw the growing number of corporate offices. Hence, Gurgaon was becoming a fast paced business hub. Here he realized that corporates would be travelling often to and fro from various parts of India and decided to cater to this need.

Hence, he opened up a guest house with 30 rooms facility, in the heart of Gurgaon, with only 6 people. But as he had opened it to cater to corporates, hence most of the bookings were done for the corporates in the form of monthly booking. It is also to be noted, that he realized that this would be a constant source of income. Such corporate inclined business will also not be much hit by recession.

He ensured that the high levels of customer service standards were met at the guest house. It was more to do with the friendly environment than the usual formal approach used by many corporate oriented hotels. He used his ability of developing good interpersonal relationships with corporates to ensure steady flow of customers. Slowly and steadily it became a success and gave the company revenue of more than INR 4 million. As it grew, hence there was a need of expansion. The expansion plan currently under consideration is to purchase the adjacent land to increase the capacity to 3 fold.

From past success of the guest house and entrepreneurial skills of Gaurav, it is rest assured that the expansion would fuel the business further and reach new heights.

Indian telecom industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, second only to China. The market penetration in India is over 140%. This is considering the fact that only 25% of the population is connected through mobile phones. This immense potential attracted a flurry of mobile service providers to enter India. The competition is extreme and a huge price war exists. With the introduction of number portability across the industry, competitors needed to service extremely well to attract and retail customers. Tata Docomo's 1 paise per second call rate