CII YUVA: Leadership and Brand Building Summit

Dr Rahul Mirchandani, one of India’s most celebrated CEO graced the Bhawanipur Education Society College (BESC) to share his wealth of knowledge and hard-earned experience with the students, particularly those with the streak of entrepreneurship in them and those wanting to move forward and chart their trails in the world of trade, industry and commerce.

Prof Minakshi Chaturvedi welcomed the distinguished guest on behalf of the Bhawanipur Chaupal the BESC collective for entrepreneurial pursuits apart from the army of BESC students who have their own start-up ventures, celebrities in their own rights. Prof Dilip Shah, the Dean of Student affairs of the College felicitated the guest and introduced him to the audience of about a hundred students who had gathered to hear the CEO speak.

“Do not allow the fear of asking silly questions restrain yourselves. What is silly to one, may actually be sensible and you should never impose restrictions in your search for all that you seek”

He started, only to enthral his audience for the next couple of hours as the students and the members of the faculty who were present got a rare insight into the mind of the achiever.

He talked about customer satisfaction – how businesses are ultimately about building satisfying experiences for the customers, which will not only draw them back to the business time and again, but will also turn them into the ambassadors, whose word of mouth will help the business spread its wings.

He also laid an inordinate amount of stress on the need of businesses to follow the instincts, to not be governed by the ruler book alone and experiment consciously and continuously. “There are no set rules that are sacrosanct. No one size that fits all” he said adding that it naturally follows that businesses have to be on their tows and to evolve with the market and its needs, ever willing to meet the emerging demand of the consumers. “Complacency”, he said, is akin to death in business situations as life itself, equates to evolution, to constant change.

The biggest threat, the spoiler to success he said is the fear of losing, which inhibits creativity, which hinders experimentation, which constraints risk taking – all of which constitute the very essence of business. Risk adverseness is a kind of inertia, which does not go well with businesses – it is like hiding behind closed doors. “Yes, the ships are safe in the harbour” he alluded “but we must remember that ships are not built to remain safely anchored in the harbours”. Therefore, he urged the entrepreneurs to be, one must venture out and take calculated risks – follow one’s instincts and innovate to establish businesses. Again, once such businesses are established it won’t mean that the risk-taking and inventiveness will come to an end, for one must constantly evolve, to innovate top be able to keep up with the changing times to be relevant, to continue on the path of success.

This report has been filed by Komal Choudhary with camera person Vishal Chatlani of the Expressions collective of the BESC.