International Entrepreneurship Conference on 'Moving Beyond the Metros' Held at Great Lakes

International Entrepreneurship Conference on 'Moving Beyond the Metros' Held at Great Lakes
Post-event Press-release

Chennai's premier B-school, Great Lakes Institute of Management, organized its first Entrepreneurship Conference to further the cause of free and private enterprises. Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, VC & CEO of Cognizant, inaugurated the one day conference. Dr. T. V. Somanathan, Secretary to the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, was also present. The conference brought together thought-leaders from academia and real entrepreneurial eco-system providing a platform to exchange and share the knowledge among the various players like entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, academic researchers, angels, VCs, and others.

Inauguration of Entrepreneurship Conference at Great Lakes Institute

Speaking at the inauguration, Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan said, "We can emerge much stronger by learning from each downturn and flexibly changing our policies in the right direction." He said, "Be tough and competent, failure should not be an option and leverage technology and you can set any outrageous goals." He gave the example of how Progressive Insurance Inc. reduced the cost of processing claims by introducing technology. These were the mantras that Cognizant practices.

Dr. T. V. Somnathan in his address defined entrepreneurship as spotting and assessing opportunities at the right time and then taking it forward with hard work and ambition. In his opinion, it is not the role of government to mass produce entrepreneurs. Government can only catalyze the culture of entrepreneurship by removing the blocks that obstruct smooth flow, such as regulatory changes to facilitate setting up business like single window policies, reducing the number of approvals required, etc., to encourage the process. Simultaneously, subsidies provided to industry for setting up business in Tier I cities should be removed or restructured so that industry realizes the true price of input costs in Tier I cities. This would leave them with no option but to explore opportunities in Tier II / Tier III cities.

Dr. Bala Balachandran, Founder & Dean, Great Lakes, said, "There is a strong need for entrepreneurial ventures to fill the gap created by the closure of several companies due to the global meltdown." He stressed on the need for a focused MBA program for entrepreneurship in the SME sector and mentioned about undertaking the plan forward in India with Kellogg School of Business through collaboration.

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* Contributed by -
Ranjit Shankar (Campus Associate),
Class of 2009,
Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

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