PROJECT REPORT ON

(Entrepreneurship management)
M. Com PART II SEMESTER III

Submitted by
(Akash Shah)
ROLL NO. ( 113 )
Under the guidance of
Prof. Sameer Velankar

Submitted to
UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI
In partial fulfillment of the required for the award of degree
Master of Commerce Business Management

GURU NANAK KHALSA COLLEGE OF ARTS, COMMERCE & SCIENCE

Nathalal Parekh Marg, Matunga (E), Mumbai 400 019

2013-14

DECLARATION
I, ( Akash Shah ) of GURU NANAK KHALSA COLLEGE OF ARTS, COMMERCE &
SCIENCE pursuing M. Com Part II specialization in Business Management hereby declare that
I have completed the project on (Entrepreneurship management) in the academic year 2014-15
for the Semester - III programme.

The information submitted is true and original to the best of my knowledge.

Signature of the Student,

(Akash Shah)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
At the outset, I am thankful to the University of Mumbai for offering the project in the syllabus. I
would like to thank the Principal Dr. Ajith Singh of the College for giving me the opportunity for
pursuing M. Com Part II Semester III programme from the esteemed College.
I would like to thank our M. Com programme Co-ordinator, Prof. Sameer Velankar for providing
us the necessary help and support in carrying out our project work.
I would like to thank my project guide, Prof. Sameer Velankar in giving me the valuable
guidance and suggestions in completion of my project work. It would not have been possible for
me to complete the task without their help and guidance.
I must mention my hearty gratitude towards other faculties, my family, and friends who
supported me to go ahead with the project.

I hereby acknowledge all those who directly or indirectly helped me to draft the project
report.

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project titled Entrepreneurship management is true and satisfactory
work done by Akash Shah, M. Com Part II, Semester III, Roll no.113. The project report is
submitted to the University of Mumbai in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of
the degree of M. Com Part I, for the academic year 2013-14.

__________________________
Signature of the Project Guide

____________________________
Signature of the External Examiner

__________________________
Signature of the Co-ordinator

_____________________________
Signature of the Principal

Index
Sr.
No

Particulars

Page
No

Introduction

Meaning

Qualities

5 Entrepreneurs

10

Challenges

27

Venture, Product & Services

36

Financial Performance

41

Conclusion

46

Introduction
Entrepreneurship
5

of

The word entrepreneur has its origin in the French

language. It refers to the organiser of musical or other
entertainments.
Entrepreneurship can be described as a creative &
innovative response to the environment. Such response can take
place in any field of social Endeavour-business, agriculture,
education social work the like.
An entrepreneur is one who organizes, manages & assumes
the risk of an enterprise. An entrepreneur visualizes a business,
takes bold steps to establish under taking, co-ordinates the
various factors of production gives it start.
Entrepreneurs are the owner of the business who
contribute the capital & bear the risk of uncertainties in business
life.
Entrepreneur is action-oriented & highly motivated person
who has the ability to evaluate business opportunities, to gather
the necessary resource to take advantage of them & to intimate
appropriate action to ensure success.
Entrepreneur takes decision regarding what to produce,
where to produce & whom to produce. He mobilizes other factors
of production namely; land, Labour, capital, organization&
initiates production process. He is responsible for either profit or
the loss. Entrepreneur is associated with innovations. He is the
main factor of production.

Entrepreneurial Philosophy
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

To take calculated risk

Willingness to accept responsibility for ones own work .
Failure must be accepted as a learning experience.
Goal oriented.
Acceptable results are more important than perfect results.

6. Personal growth.

Meaning
An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a
small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given
business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. The
entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and
innovator of new ideas and business processes.
Cantillon defined the term as a person who pays a certain price
for a product and resells it at an uncertain price: "making
decisions about obtaining and using the resources while
consequently admitting the risk of enterprise." The word first
appeared in the French dictionary entitled "Dictionnaire Universel
de Commerce" compiled by Jacques des Bruslons and published in
1723. Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to lead a business
in a positive direction by proper planning, to adapt to changing
environments and understand their own strengths and weakness.
Entrepreneur is Someone who exercises initiative by organizing a
venture to take benefit of an opportunity and, as
the decision maker, decides what, how, and how much of a good
or service will be produced.
According to economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950),
entrepreneurs are not necessarily motivated by profit but regard
it as a standard for measuring achievement or success.
Schumpeter discovered that they
7

1.

Greatly value self-reliance,

2.

strive for distinction through excellence,

3.

are highly optimistic (otherwise nothing would be

undertaken), and

4.

Always favor challenges of medium risk (neither too easy,

nor ruinous).

Qualities
Successful businesspeople have many traits in common with one
another. They are confident and optimistic. They are disciplined
self starters. They are open to any new ideas which cross their
path. Here are ten traits of the successful entrepreneur.
1. Disciplined -These individuals are focused on making their
businesses work, and eliminate any hindrances or distractions
to their goals. They have overarching strategies and outline the
tactics to accomplish them. Successful entrepreneurs are
disciplined enough to take steps every day toward the
achievement of their objectives.
2. Confidence -The entrepreneur does not ask questions about
whether they can succeed or whether they are worthy of
success. They are confident with the knowledge that they will
make their businesses succeed. They exude that confidence in
everything they do.
3. Open Minded-Entrepreneurs realize that every event and
situation is a business opportunity. Ideas are constantly being
8

generated about workflows and efficiency, people skills and

potential new businesses. They have the ability to look at
everything around them and focus it toward their goals.
4. Self Starter-Entrepreneurs know that if something needs to
be done, they should start it themselves. They set the parameters
and make sure that projects follow that path. They are proactive,
not waiting for someone to give them permission.
5.

Competitive-Many

companies

are

formed

because

an

entrepreneur knows that they can do a job better than another.

They need to win at the sports they play and need to win at the
businesses that they create. An entrepreneur will highlight their
own companys track record of success.
6. Creativity-One facet of creativity is being able to make
connections between seemingly unrelated events or situations.
Entrepreneurs often come up with solutions which are the
synthesis of other items. They will repurpose products to market
them to new industries.
7. Determination-Entrepreneurs are not thwarted by their
defeats. They look at defeat as an opportunity for success. They
are determined to make all of their endeavors succeed, so will try
and try again until it does. Successful entrepreneurs do not
believe that something cannot be done.

8.

Strong

people

skills-The

entrepreneur

has

strong

communication skills to sell the product and motivate employees.

Most successful entrepreneurs know how to motivate their
employees so the business grows overall. They are very good at
highlighting the benefits of any situation and coaching others to
their success.
9. Strong work ethic-The successful entrepreneur will often be
the first person to arrive at the office and the last one to leave.
They will come in on their days off to make sure that an outcome
meets their expectations. Their mind is constantly on their work,
whether they are in or out of the workplace.
10. Passion-Passion is the most important trait of the successful
entrepreneur. They genuinely love their work. They are willing to
put in those extra hours to make the business succeed because
there is a joy their business gives which goes beyond the money.
The

successful

entrepreneur

will

always

be

reading

and

researching ways to make the business better.

5 Entrepreneurs
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
"Basically, our goal is to organize the world's information and to
make it universally accessible and useful."
--Larry Page
"To me, this is about preserving history and making it available to
everyone"
--Sergey Brin
10

Co-founders of Google
Founded: September 1998
Like all good genius start-up stories, Larry Page and Sergey Brin
founded Google Inc. in a friend's garage in Menlo Park, Calif. Since
its incorporation on September 4, 1998, the company has grown
to nearly 20,000 full-time employees worldwide, and with a
steady stream of new product developments, acquisitions, and
partnerships, has extended its reach far beyond its modest
beginnings as a web search engine. Perhaps even more
impressive is Google's image as the pinnacle of cool, with a
reputation for being hip, innovative and wildly successful--all
without compromising its "Don't be evil" philosophy.
Larry Page's interest in technology began when his father, the late
Carl Page--Michigan State professor and pioneer in the fields of
computer science and artificial intelligence--gave him a computer
at the age of six. Page graduated with honors from the University
of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in engineering and
concentration in computer engineering. He achieved his
undergraduate claim to fame by building an inkjet printer out of
Lego blocks.
Page worked for a few years in the technology industry before
deciding, at the age of 24, to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science
at Stanford University. It was there, as a prospective student, that
he met Sergey Brin, who was assigned to show him around the
campus. Brin, originally from Moscow, moved to the U.S. with his
family when he was 6 years old. He received his bachelor's
degree in mathematics and computer science, with honors, from
the University of Maryland, where his father taught mathematics.
At Stanford, he was studying ways to extract patterns and
relationships from large amounts of data.
Google's own website implies that the two disagreed "about most
everything" during this first meeting.
But their friendship was given the chance to blossom in 1996,
when Brin joined Page in his BackRub research project, exploring
backlinks--links on other websites that refer back to a given
11

webpage--as a way to measure the relative importance of a

particular site. The pair then developed the PageRank algorithm
(named after Page), hypothesizing that using this tool, they could
produce better results than existing search engines, which
returned rankings based on the number of times a search term
appeared.
They tested the BackRub search engine later that year on
Stanford's servers. Without a web developer, they kept the search
page simple, but were challenged to find enough computing
power to handle queries as the search engine become
increasingly popular.
"At Stanford we'd stand on the loading dock and try to snag
computers as they came in," Page said in an interview with
Technology Review in 2000. "We would see who got 20 computers
and ask them if they could spare one."
Page and Brin eventually renamed the search engine Google, as a
play on the word "googol," a mathematical term represented by
the numeral one followed by 100 zeros--a reflection of their
mission to organize the seemingly infinite amount of information
on the internet.
Reluctant to leave their studies, the duo ran the operation out of
their dorm rooms. But by mid-1998, Google was getting 10,000
searches a day; so, finally convinced, they maxed out $15,000
worth of credit cards to purchase a terabyte of disk space and
drafted a business plan.
Things have gone well since then. In August 2004, Google went
public with an IPO that raised $1.67 billion, and in typical Google
fashion, became the first and only company to allocate its stocks
using computers rather than Wall Street bankers. For the quarter
ending June 30, 2008, the company reported revenues of $5.37
billion, an increase of 39 percent compared to the second quarter
of 2007.
The famous Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., is
also something to boast about. Known for its relaxed atmosphere
12

and envy-inducing employee perks like subsidized massages, onsite stylists, and three free gourmet meals a day, the campus
currently spans 2 million square feet of office space, and a recent
acquisition will soon add another 1 million square feet.
Google's "Milestones" page reads more like a novel than a series
of highlights, but there's still more to come. In a 2005 interview
with Financial Times, Brin stated, "There's a lot of room for
improvement, there's no inherent ceiling we're hitting up on." And
so far, that's been the case, from the $1.65 billion purchase of
YouTube down to the continued development of the ubiquitously
popular GoogleMaps and Picasa photo applications.
To say that Google has had a tremendous impact on the internet
is the definition of understatement. After all, the company has
already found its way into the vernacular--as a verb, no less. In
2006, the word "google" was added to the Merriam Webster
Dictionary as, "to use the Google search engine to obtain
information on the World Wide Web."
Page and Brin are both on leave from Stanford, but success has
kept them busy. They are still involved in daily operations at
Google as president of products and president of technology,
respectively.

13

Rana Kapoor
For Dr. Rana Kapoor, founder, MD and CEO of YES Bank,
entrepreneurship has no retirement age. He believes that a lot of
perseverance and risk-taking are what makes a successful
company. He should certainly know as he has succeeded in
setting up a modern institution in an age old sector such as
banking. Along with a team of owners, managers, and partners,
he and his partner, the late Ashok Kapur, established YES Bank in
2004 with the sole objective, from day one, of building a futuristic
bank of global standards in the Indian milieu.
He built the bank around five key brand pillars growth, trust,
human capital, technology, along with transparency and
responsible banking. Since incorporation, the bank has grown well
and has maintained a consistent net interest margin between 2.7
per cent and 3.2 per cent over the past five years through periods
of rising and declining interest rates. With over 350 branches and
600 ATMs throughout the country, it has reported a net interest
income of Rs. 1,616 crore and net profit of Rs. 977 crore for the
financial year ending March 2012. In a span of nine years, the
bank has received significant national and global recognition and
accolades. It was recognized as Indias No. 1 new private sector
bank at the Financial Express Best Banks Awards 2011, and the
fastest growing bank in the Business Today-KPMG Best Banks
Annual Survey 2008, 2009 and 2010. YES Bank received the Rank
1 sustainable bank of the year (Asia/Pacific) award at the FT/IFC
Sustainable Finance Awards 2011, London, and in 2008, was
ranked the Emerging Markets Sustainable Bank of the Year.
Kapoor believes that entrepreneurs go through a lifecycle during
which one has to redefine the original vision with which they
started out to build their company. There have to be orbit
changing interventions when one goes through a lifecycle of
entrepreneurship, he says. When he started YES Bank, its version
1.0 (named in retrospect today), covering a period from its
incorporation to 2010, was to set up a small bank with innovative
strategies to survive among the much established and powerful
players while maintaining a low cost base. Kapoor then had to
redefine the banks original goal, and shifted the banks journey
14

to the next gear and YES Bank is currently going though its
version 2.0 (read more about version 2.0 in pg.26) growth phase
defined by the need to scale up its operations to meet the
opportunities seen in the space.
Kapoor shares with us the 10 things he did right during this initial
period at YES Bank, which form the strong foundation on which
the bank will continue its growth journey.
1. Fulfilling a dream
It all started with a dream, recalls Kapoor. In 1979, when he was
a summer trainee (while studying at Rutgers University) in New
Jersey, U.S., he used to go to New York City often and was
awestruck by the big banks and its buildings towering over the
skyline. He wanted something like that in India. I think the dream
was born there. Those were, of course, the early days, he adds.
As he progressed in his work life, starting as a corporate banker in
Bank of America, then an investment banker in ANZ Grindlays and
later, as an entrepreneur in Rabo India Finance (which was on a
build, operate, own and transfer basis) in partnership with
Rabobank in India, he felt that he would eventually get to build a
bank of his own. When he got the right opportunity, he
evangelised his dream to a group of people, thus evolving a
common platform for sharing a dream and making it a collective
proposition and YES Bank was born in 2004.
This was also the time when a new category of players called the
professional entrepreneurs evolved. This is an oft used term now,
but back then it was not common to read or discuss professional
entrepreneurship, says Kapoor. The term perfectly described
people like Kapoor, who got an opportunity to embark on an
Indian banking venture, after serving as an executive in a couple
of foreign banks for 18 years. The concept of professional
entrepreneurship struck the right chord and it helped build
professional chemistry around this point, recalls Kapoor.
2. Create ownership

15

His team members were evolving as owners-managers-partners in

this shared proposition. The top management realised that this
was almost a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a brand new
bank in modern India at a time when the Indian economy was
picking up, says Kapoor. India was entering a five-year economic
boom between 2003 and 2008 then. And Kapoor created an
ownership structure amongst his top executives (who were mostly
ex-colleagues or people recruited from large private and foreign
banks in India) in the form of a good salary structure, bonus and
ownership stock options. He had the long term commitment of his
people by granting stock options, which was motivating his team
to conduct themselves as owner-manager-partners. It was the
best-of-breed combination, consisting of people with different skill
sets in different areas which helped in setting up the plumbing
lines of the bank, says Kapoor. The systems, processes,
procedures and controls are a very important aspect of a banks
architecture. And this has kept the bank in good stead even as it
is scaling into its version 2.0.
3. Its all in a name
What I didnt realise then, but now I do in retrospect, is the
simplicity, positivity and the service proposition that the brand
YES signifies, says Kapoor. He believes that the banks
differentiation and ingenuity begins with its services and the trust
it creates. Above all, the name YES implies this fundamental goal
of being a service-oriented institution. This apart, the idea was to
create and convey an institutional image with a name that has
pan India recognition as a new age Indian bank. Most of these
points synergise in the name itself and when we did our
qualitative research, the name YES resonated very well, he says.

The art of banking is the management of risk. You run a risk if

you do something, but you run a bigger risk if you dont do
anything. We have a moderate risk appetite but are very
proactive with management systems, red flags, trouble-shooting
actions, well-orchestrated strategies in terms of regulatory
processes. Its not like we dont have problems. Its just that the
16

risk and credit culture of the bank is part of our blood stream. A
bank has to be built around risk management.

4. Governance and transparency

Strong governance and transparency in the business model, right
from the beginning, has built confidence with the team, in the
market place and with the regulators. In fact, from its inception,
YES Bank has had a strong governing board, with more than 50
per cent being independent directors. This was just around the
time (in early 2004) when the Ganguly Committee
recommendations to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Clause
49 from SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) had just
come into effect stating such a proposal besides others. We were
way ahead when it came to appointing our independent directors
and we have maintained it that way so far, says Kapoor. At
present, the bank has over 70 per cent independent directors.
Independent directors are expected to be independent from the
management and act as the trustees of shareholders. This means
that they have to be fully aware of and question the conduct of
the organisation on relevant issues.
5. Institutionalise the bank
A very good validation of our business and financial model was
the fact that instead of getting granular investors, we chose to
institutionalise the bank from the very inception, says Kapoor. He
got the AAA-rated Rabobank to take a 20 per cent stake at par
value (it has since then sold its stake in 2010 and 2012) and at a
very nominal premium, he brought in three private equity
investors CVC Capital Partners, a division of Citibank (10 per cent
stake), AIF Capital from Hong Kong (7.5 per cent stake),
ChrysCapital (India and the U.S. for 7.5 per cent stake). All three
PE firms monetised their investment in 2007 / 2008 with a gain of
15 per cent to 17 per cent, shares Kapoor. Even though the bank
was founded by Kapoor and his partner, the late Ashok Kapur (the
non-executive chairman), who were both professional
entrepreneurs, they actually went on to evolve an institutional
17

organisation. The two partners gave 45 per cent stake away and
of their remaining 55 per cent, three per cent was given to top six
managers who joined them at inception. The institutionalisation of
the bank started right then.
6. Outsource the technology
The bank took the first major innovative decision to outsource its
entire technology requirements to Wipro Infotech, an IT services
organisation with presence in India, APAC and Middle East.
Gartner India (its strategic advisor to develop a comprehensive IT
strategy) and YES Banks in-house innovation team (business
management, innovation and strategy team was conceived right
at its inception) along with the stakeholders collaborated to work
on a first-of-its-kind outsourcing solution for a bank in India.
While Wipro Infotech was doing similar work overseas, they got
their first outsourcing Banking contract in India from us and that
partnership is almost 7.5 years old today, shares Kapoor. The
bank has outsourced the core IT infrastructure and hardware,
networking, managing the data centre and backup support for
disaster recovery, hardware procurement and servicing of
network. After us, a number of other private and public sector
banks replicated this model, says Kapoor. This outsourcing
partnership has resulted in cost savings of almost 30 per cent for
the bank, and has enabled it to focus fully on its core business of
banking and strategic initiatives.
Building excellence in service delivery is critical for Kapoor and his
team, and the bank partnered with leading edge technology
providers to do so. It was the first bank to use treasury trading
solution from a French firm, Murex, in India and has first-of-its-kind
service technologies like Money Monitors, which aggregates all
the financial information. In 2006, YES Bank was invited by Intel
Technologies to Shanghai to visit a mock-up of the bank branch
of the future powered by Intels technologies. After the visit, the
bank partnered with Intel to put up a live, proof-of-concept bank
branch of the future in India. Spread over 15,000 square feet, the
branch is located in South Extension in New Delhi and is called
the YES-Intel Global Innovation Center. Intel launched its first WiFienabled bank branching network from the location. It has also
18

partnered with Nokia for the global launch of mobile money

transfer.
7. Driven by knowledge
Yes Bank has a knowledge-driven culture. A critical differentiator
in its business acquisition and risk management strategy has
been the knowledge banking platform (identifying specific growth
sectors and developing customised solutions for industry
verticals) that was created through sharp segmentation of
industries, of geographic spread and size. Our relationship
managers, product managers and risk managers have a
diagnostic and prescriptive approach to their clients in a particular
industry, shares Kapoor. This approach was very much in sync
with Indias economic condition then as the country was evolving
and taking centre stage as the knowledge economy of the world.
While other banks do have specialised banking in small parts, it
is not embedded in the genetics of their bank, says Kapoor.
Historically, traditional banks have a universal banking approach.
Be it a steel company, healthcare, or hospitality, they probably
have the same person taking care of the sectors. In Yes Bank, if
its agribanking, we hire agricultural management graduates; in
healthcare, we get people from the healthcare industry, Kapoor
points out. They work with the general management professionals
to multiply the knowledge pool. The bank is now deepening and
widening this strategy and, moving forward, Kapoor expects this
strategy to become a bigger differentiator as the bank scales.
8. Make it public
The really bold decision of the bank, apart from naming it YES,
was to come out with an initial public offering (IPO) within nine
months of its inception. We had to launch the bank, states
Kapoor. So, to do it most effectively, he wanted to build the best
internal and external confidence, implement the highest levels of
governance, transparency and accountability, and also in a way
make it responsible, literally, every day and definitely every
quarter, to the public. After all, a bank by very definition is a
public trust institution. And, according to Kapoor, an IPO does all
of this. It launches a bank, gets governance, builds the report
19

card, shows people that there is some wealth that is being

created due to hard work in the inception stages and there is a
trajectory to all of this. The bank came out with an IPO of 70
million shares in July 2005 raising Rs. 315 crore of capital at a
price of Rs. 45 per share. It got oversubscribed 30 times.
9. Be responsible, socially
One other thing which has been mission critical is as we were
born in 2004, we conceived our corporate social responsibility
strategy both at a corporate level (through Responsible Banking)
and at retail level (via YES Community Banking), says Kapoor.
Responsible Banking has an objective of developing innovative
business solutions to social and environmental problems. It
comprises of three business verticals agribusiness, rural and
social banking; microfinance and sustainable investment banking,
which addresses sustainable ventures such as social, alternative
energy and environment.
In 2008, the bank launched YES Community, a Responsible
Banking initiative across its retail branches nationally. YES Bank
has won many accolades as a sustainable bank in India in 2012,
2011 and 2008. Kapoor has received the Godfrey Phillips Bravery
National Special Social Award for actively driving the vision of
Responsible Banking.

10. Thin, lean and agile

Simple as it may sound, a thin, lean and agile team with good
management frameworks has been instrumental in maneuvering
YES Bank to where it is today. This has been a very important
factor in building the agility, productivity and cost
competitiveness in the institution. I even presented cheetah
20

desktop statues to 500 members of my team so that they think

and believe in agility and seize the opportunity that comes along
their way. In difficult times, we need well-defined management
teams with clear focus, vision and strategies, says Kapoor.

Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal

21

It was meant to be a portal that compared different e-commerce

websites, only there weren't enough of them to be compared.
Thus was born Flipkart, making sure that online shopping would
never be the same again in India.

From a two-member embryonic idea to a 4,500-member

company, the Flipkart story is not just about stupendous success
and mind-numbing numbers. Much more than that, it's about
redefining customer experience and breaking online shopping
inertia.
Started in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal -- both from
the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT) and with prior
experience in Amazon -- the Bangalore-based firm ships close to
30,000 items per day.

Or, in other words, 20 products per minute.

"We are clocking daily sales of Rs..2.5 crore ($ 5 mn). Our growth
rate has been 100 per cent quarter on quarter," Sachin Bansal,
CEO of Flipkart, told IANS.
But the interesting part is that around 60 per cent of Flipkart's
orders are cash or card on delivery.

"Indian consumers are much more cautious about shopping

online as compared to the West. They are reluctant to divulge
credit card details. The cash on delivery service has helped a lot
of traditional consumers turn to online shopping," he adds.

22

Also, the model has unbolted the lock to a whole new customer
base, which hasn't been exposed to the benefits of plastic money
as yet or those with a default technological handicap.

"I've never understood how to pay by card online. The best I can
do is use an ATM. I wish more websites had the cash on delivery
option," says Sneha Anand, a school teacher.
Sonal Nangia, senior vice president (retail) at Technopak,
attributes Flipkart's success to the "superior customer experience
it offers".
"Right from browsing to delivery, you can track your order. You
can pre-order an unreleased book, get good prices, even the
customer service is very strong. Raise any issue, it's efficiently
resolved," Nangia told IANS.
Adds Sachin Bansal: "When we started, the customer experience
offered by e-commerce sites was below average. Our aim was to
address this. We feel that it's this focus on customer satisfaction
and ownership of the customer experience that has worked in our
favor."
The superior customer service notwithstanding, Flipkart's biggest
draw has probably been the huge discount it offers -- much to the
envy of offline stores.
"I was waiting to lay my hands on Haruki Murakami's new book
'1Q84'. But it was way too expensive at Rs..1,000. But Flipkart
had a flat 30 percent discount, and I got it inRs..700," says
Madhura Vishvakarma, a Delhi University student.
Though all bookstores get up to 50-60 per cent discounts from
publishers, the low overheads -- one of the numerous virtues of
online stores -- enables Flipkart to pass on the savings in the form
of discounts.
Flipkart started with books, but now deals in 12 product
categories.
23

The company stocks nearly 11.5 million titles, "making us the

largest book retailer in India. As per data, we have 80 per cent
share of the online book market", Sachin Bansal says.
So will this trend spell doom for offline bookstores?
"No," believes Anuj Bahri of Bahrisons.
"There's a huge market for everyone to co-exist. Besides,
Flipkart's market is totally different, young people of 20-25 age
group buy books from them. Some 80 per cent of their business
is chic literature. The more sensible and mature readers will
always go to a bookstore," Bahri told IANS.
But Nangia of the Gurgaon-based Technopak begs to differ.
"The traditional stores are to suffer. Internationally also that has
been the trend."
She believes the increasing "access to internet, more iPads,
smart phones, sophisticated technology that gives 3D view of
products, time poor consumers, increasing costs of real estate,
will all lead to a shift to digital commerce".
But with Amazon, considered a big shark in online retail space,
already knocking at India's door, will that result in dwindling
fortunes for Flipkart?
"No, India is a huge market, there is much more space for more
e-retail stores," says Sonal.
Bahri, however, feels there is a palpable danger. "Flipkart works
because of discounts. Amazaon can offer greater discounts as it
can take bigger losses being a bigger company. That will change
the dynamics," he said.
Already, there are players like Infibeam, Naaptol and Letsbuy in
the market.
According to an Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry
of India (Assocham) survey, the online retail market in India may
24

grow to Rs..70 billion (over $1.30 billion) by 2015 from Rs..20

billion in 2011 as internet access improves.

Mark Zuckerberg
"Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and
make the world more open and connected."
--Mark Zuckerberg
One might assume that information would abound on the founder
of a high-profile, multi-billion-dollar social networking site. Wrong.
Information on Mark Zuckerberg is surprisingly scarce. Maybe
that's just because the 24-year-old Harvard dropout has only ever
held one job: CEO of Facebook.
Zuckerberg grew up in the New York City suburb of Dobbs Ferry,
N.Y., and attended the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
His father is a dentist, his mother a psychiatrist, and he has three
sisters. He taught himself how to program computers, and during
his senior year in high school, he and fellow hacker-programmer
Adam D'Angelo caught the interest of AOL and Microsoft by
creating a Winamp plug-in that could build customized playlists.
25

But both turned down job offers in order to attend college in

2002--Zuckerberg to Harvard and D'Angelo to CalTech. But
Zuckerberg's undergraduate career in computer science wasn't
destined to last. Not content to just study programming, he
created a photo-rating site called Facemash, using photographs of
other Harvard students from the school's online facebook (a
yearbook-like publication designed to introduce students to one
another). But he created his program by hacking into student
records and using photos without permission, and was
reprimanded by the administration for violating privacy rules and
breaching computer security.
Zuckerberg, however, wasn't deterred. He eventually finished the
platform for "The Facebook" (sometimes at the expense of
attending class), combining the concept of traditional facebooks
with large-scale social networking sites like Myspace and
Friendster.
In February 2004, Zuckerberg launched the program from his
dorm room with co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and
Eduardo Saverin. In just a few weeks, more than half the school
had opened accounts. The group quickly expanded to more
universities and colleges, and that summer, Zuckerberg and his
team moved to Palo Alto, Calif., renting a sublet and hooking up
with investors like PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Napster cofounder Sean Parker.
By August 2005, Zuckerberg had officially changed the company's
name to Facebook, and after raising $12.7 million in venture
capital, was ready to move the company to the next level.
The site gradually expanded from college networks to include
high school and work groups, and in September 2006, anyone
with an e-mail address was allowed to join. Today, there are more
than 110 million active users, and according to comScore Media
Metrix, which tracks Web activity, Facebook rates as the Web's
top photo-sharing site, and is the fourth most-visited site in the
world, accounting for more than 1 percent of all internet use.

26

Of course, Zuckerberg's success hasn't been without some

controversy. Some of his college peers have accused him of
stealing the code for Facebook, and that court case is still
pending. He also caused a media furor when he introduced the
Newsfeed function, which shared all activity updates between
people in their respective social networks--at first without a
privacy option.
In response, Zuckerberg said in a New York Times article that
"Facebook has always tried to push the envelope. And at times
that means stretching people and getting them to be comfortable
with things they aren't yet comfortable with. A lot of this is just
social norms catching up with what technology is capable of."
Regardless, the tech titans took notice. In 2006, Zuckerberg
astonished the world by turning down Yahoo's offer to buy
Facebook for $1 billion. A year later, Microsoft purchased a 1.6
percent stake in the company for $240 million.
No one except Zuckerberg probably knows where the company is
going, but even he has said that the site is a "work in progress."
Recently, though, prominent Google executives have made a
career move to Facebook, which implies the company will be
going seriously corporate--and soon, maybe public. But one thing
is for sure: Zuckerberg will be a major player in the tech industry
for years to come.
And in case you're wondering, you can't friend Zuckerberg on
Facebook. That function's been disabled.

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani

A true rags-to-riches story, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, has been
undisputedly India's most enterprising entrepreneur. Born in a
gujarati family Dhirubai moved toYemen at the age of 16, where
he worked as a dispatch clerk with A. Besse & Co.

27

After working in Dubai for sometime he later returned to India

where he founded the Reliance Commercial Corporation with a
meager capital of Rs. 15000. He set up the business in
partnership with Champaklal Damani from whom he split in 1965.

Dhirubhai started his first textile mill at Naroda, near Ahmedabad

and launched the brand "Vimal". He later diversified into
petrochemicals and sectors like Telecommunications, Information
Technology, Energy, Power, Retail, Textiles, Capital Markets and
Logistics.

He rose from humble beginnings to create India's largest

industrial empire, and in the process, became one of the world's
richest men. He rewrote India's corporate history for which he was
featured among the select Forbes billionaires list. He also figured
in the Sunday Times list of top 50 businessmen in Asia.

Credited for starting the equity cult in India, Dhirubhai was

praised for his key role in shaping India's stock market culture by
attracting hordes of retail investors to a market monopolized by
state-run financial institutions.

He never followed the traditional way and was often targeted for
his business strategies due to which he courted controversy all
throughout his life. The 'Dhirubhai school of management' firmly
believed that the only thing which mattered were the end results
and the benefits which infiltrated directly to the shareholders.

He won many awards and accolades during his lifetime. In 2000,

he was conferred the 'Man of the Century' award by Chemtech
Foundation and Chemical Engineering World for his contribution to
28

the growth and development of the chemical industry in India. In

1998, he was awarded the Dean's Medal by The Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania, for setting an outstanding example of
leadership. Dhirubhai Ambani was also named the "Man of 20th
Century" by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FICCI).

A perfect amalgamation of grit and determination, Dhirubai

believed in his dreams and he lived it. He was of the belief
Dhirubhai will go one day. But Reliance's employees and
shareholders will keep it afloat. Reliance is now a concept in which
the Ambanis have become irrelevant.

In 1986 after a severe heart stroke he handed over Reliance

Group to his sons Mukesh and Anil. After his death, the colossal
corporate group was split into Reliance Industries, headed by
Mukesh Ambani and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
(ADAG), led by Anil Ambani.

A visionary by birth, his life has been an inspiration for many and
will serve as a beacon light for the generations to come.

29

Challenges
Rana Kapoor
It was the high noon of liberalisation. The dismantling of the
Licence Raj had unleashed a new wave of energy. Mumbai banker
Rana Raj Kapoor was restless. Having worked with Bank of
America for 15 years, the last two spent overseeing its lucrative
wholesale banking business, Kapoor wanted to break out of the
executive mould and turn entrepreneur.
In mid-1995, Kapoor, a Delhi University graduate with an MBA
from Rutgers University, flew to the United States to make a
presentation to the top brass of an American insurance giant. "My
plan was to set up an NBFC, or a non-banking financial company,
in India," he says. The insurer hinted it would be willing to take a
majority stake in the proposed NBFC with a $5 million (Rs 22.5
crore) capital. On his return to India, an excited Kapoor shared his
plan with his brother-in-law Ashok Kapur, then Country Head of
ABN AMRO Bank. Though Kapur liked the plan, he felt the
proposed NBFC would be too small. He convinced Kapoor to angle
for a bigger NBFC, and introduced him to friends at the Dutch
financial services player Rabobank NV.

30

Yes Bank
Founder: Rana Kapoor,
53
Wife: Bindu
Daughters: Raakhe
works with YES Bank,
Radha runs her own
business, DoIt Creations,
Roshini is studying
Why I did it: "I was very
restless. I wanted to start
something
entrepreneurial."
Total turnover: Rs
2,369 crore in 2009/1

Soon Kapoor quit Bank of America

and joined ANZ Grindlays Investment
Bank as Country Head in India. During
his two years at Grindlays, Kapoor held
hush-hush meetings with Rabobank
representatives. "Finally, we locked
ourselves in a hotel room and
hammered out an agreement," says
Kapoor, recalling how he, Kapur and
Harkirat Singh, former Country Head of
Deutsche Bank, sealed the deal for a
25 per cent stake in an NBFC, Rabo

India Finance, to be set up in partnership with Rabobank.

Even though the talks had coincided with the South-East Asian
currency crisis of 1997, an undeterred Kapoor went ahead and set
up the NBFC in early 1998. "I believe it is always a good idea to
start in times of adversity," says Rana, adding: "It makes the
entrepreneurial journey much more challenging."
The challenges did not end with the setting up of the NBFC. "I
consumed whatever I had saved in my 17 years of service," he
says. Initially, no money was coming in, and he had three young
daughters to raise. By 2000, Kapoor had begun eyeing a banking
licence. But he had trouble raising the seed capital for the bank.
"We made the rounds of private equity funds to invest in our
31

venture," he says. Then, barely a year after the Reserve Bank of

India gave an "in principle" nod to their greenfield banking
venture, YES Bank, one partner, Singh walked out, citing
differences, in April 2003.
After the RBI granted a formal approval to YES Bank in 2004, the
next big challenge was doing a successful initial public offering, or
IPO, to raise funds from the market. Here, Kapoor succeeded
beyond market expectations, with his bank netting Rs 315 crore
with the issue oversubscribed 30 times. "The YES Bank brand was
actually born with the IPO," says Kapoor, "We initially decided to
do only corporate banking where we didn't need a branch
network, as against retail banking," he says.
Today, YES Bank has revenues of Rs 2,369 crore and a market
capitalisation of Rs 9,500 crore as of March 31 this year. But now
Kapoor is working hard to build the bank's retail side as well. YES
Bank currently has 185 retail branches across the country and is
in the process of opening many more. "We are entering a new
stratosphere," he says of the bank's transformation plan for the
next five years after which he would like his bank's portfolio to
consist of 40 per cent wholesale banking, 30 per cent midcorporate commercial banking with small and medium
enterprises, and retail banking accounting for the rest.
Meanwhile, the daughters had grown up. Raakhe, the second
32

among them, joined YES Bank just before the IPO,

and found it a great learning experience. An
Economics graduate and MBA from Wharton
Business School, Raakhe is currently Business
Manager of Strategic Initiatives in the CEO's office.
"I want to evolve as a financial entrepreneur," she
says.
Eldest daughter Radha is an entrepreneur already,
but has nothing to do with YES Bank. Her holding
company, DoIt Creations, owns two operating
companies, one for dry cleaning premium clothes
and the other for creating interior and exterior arts
in the commercial spaces. The youngest daughter,
Roshini, is still studying.
Kapoor, however, has lost brother-in-law Kapur,
who played a key role in building YES Bank and
was formerly its Chairman. Kapur, who was dining
in one of the restaurants at the Oberoi-Trident in
Mumbai on November 26, 2008, was a victim of
the terror attack that night.
Kapoor and his bank have won several awards
over the past five years. The latest was from the
Bombay Management Association in March which
33

felicitated Kapoor as the entrepreneurial banker of

the decade. He is perhaps the first Indian
professional to have successfully set up a
greenfield banking venture, which is now the
fourth-largest private sector bank in India in terms
of total assets.
What's next? "I want to give an institutional
character to YES Bank," says Rana. That should
not be difficult. Rana and his family are spreading
their wings to emerge bigger and bigger in the
decades to come.

Mark Zuckerberg
As Facebook stands set to file for its historic initial public offering,
CEO Mark Zuckerberg faces some pretty monumental leadership
demands. There are the internal ones: Retaining newly minted
millionaires. Keeping employees focused on great products, rather
than just high stock prices. Hanging on to a startup vibe and an
entrepreneurial feel even as the social network company balloons
in size.
But Zuckerberg will also confront a host of tricky challenges with
customers, too. For one, the company has long infuriated its users
when changes to its privacy policy are made with little fanfare.
Because Facebook was a young startup company, users were
34

angry when such modifications took place, but seemed willing to

absolve the company and move on. If theres a sense that such
moves are being made solely to increase profits, benefit Wall
Street and boost share prices at the expense of customers,
however, users could be much less forgiving.
Second, Zuckerberg himself will be faced with a shift in how hes
expected to manage external relations. This is already an
extremely wealthy young man who does not exactly have a
reputation for being warm and fuzzy. He is about to get
exponentially wealthier. Yes, he made a massive gift to education
reform and seems a little more willing to open up about his life
with the press. But as one of the few, if only, current public
company CEOs to have been the star of an unflattering Oscarwinning film about him and the founding of his company, expect
Zuckerberg to be asked to do more reaching out to users and the
public to help soften his image.
Finally, Zuckerberg could ruffle feathers with users if theyre not
let in on the IPO action. When Google went public in 2004, the
company held an unusual Dutch auction style IPO that allowed
the public to participate, even if the process itself wasnt very
smooth. Some are speculating that Facebook could do the same,
or at least do so for its 800 million users. This is a company, after
all, whose power is built on the fact that all those millions of
people have been willing to post their baby pictures, like their
favorite businesses and share their most intimate thoughts so
that marketers can turn around and advertise to them. You can
see how they might like to get something in return.
Being the CEO of a public company is a very different job than
being an entrepreneur of a privately held startup. There are
requirements from the SEC, of course. But there are also
heightened, if less scripted, expectations that you will be more
open and transparent with your customers now that you must be
so with your public investors, too.
This is especially the case with Facebook. The companys power is
in its users willingness to share, to open up, to tell the world what
they are thinking, doing and potentially buying. If Facebook goes
35

public and its CEO doesnt provide the same kind of transparency
with its customers it is now expected to offer its investors, it could
be even more troublesome for a company fundamentally built on
the premise of sharing.

36

Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal

In 2007, when Indian software engineers Sachin Bansal and Binny
Bansal were starting their online bookstore Flipkart.com out of a
two-bedroom apartment, they faced a
challenge Amazon.com (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos never had: how
to collect payment. At first the two, who arent related, accepted
credit cards, but because few Indians use them, they needed a
way to conduct e-commerce in cash. Payment-on-delivery was the
obvious solution, but Flipkart didnt want third-party couriers to
carry large quantities of its money. So in 2010 the company
decided to remake itself as a version of both Amazon and United
Parcel Service (UPS).
Becoming a delivery service brought a slew of infrastructure
problems. India has no standardized street address system, and
road conditions are rough. Often a building name, street, and
series of landmarks are needed to locate a house. And customers
have to be home to receive a package. You cannot leave
anything outside the door, because it will just disappear, says
Ashok Banerjee, Flipkarts former vice president for logistics, now
chief technology officer for e-business at Symantec(SYMC) in
California.
The entrepreneurs looked at distribution as a technology problem.
The advantage we had was we were not a logistics company
trying to do e-commerce, says Mekin Maheshwari, head of
human resources. Because we were creating the systems
completely in-house, we could actually solve it. With venture
funding from Tiger Global Management, Flipkarts engineers
developed systems to determine the best warehouse locations; it
has six across the country. It alerts customers by text several
hours before a scheduled delivery and has a lab dedicated to
37

improving the final stage of deliveries, from local warehouses to

buyers.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Google is the dominant player in Internet search and
one of the most important technology companies.
But it still faces major challenges.
Googles Amit Singhal, senior vice president of
search and Google Fellow, was asked in a talk
at South By Southwest what Googles biggest
challenges are to solving its mission.
Those four technical challenges are: the knowledge
graph, speech recognition, natural language
understanding and (understanding) conversation, he
said. These four areas are technical problems that,
despite Googles improvements, are still not
solved, Singha said.
The knowledge graph is about understanding the
world as you and I doin other words, the
connections between things and ideas and how they
relate to each other, which underlies Googles core
search focus. Speech recognition is translating the
human voice into text, which is key to things like
searching
by
voice.
Natural
language
is
understanding the nuances of language, which
38

allows the conversion of voice transcription into

meaningful information. Conversation is related to
natural language.
Still, Singha says search has progressed much faster
than he thought it would have when he was in
graduate school studying the problem 20 years ago.
When I was starting out as a graduate student in
search we would struggle to figure out apple is a
company and also apple is a fruit, Singhal saidin a
talk about the future of Google search and mobile
with Guy Kawasaki.
Today however, you can type church address in
Google and the search engine will know youre
looking for a physical map address. But if you type
Feedburner address Google will know youre
looking for a URL.
Singhal, who joined Google 12 years ago,
emphasized a vision of search based on the sci-fi
vision in Star Trek. In the show, Captain Kirk would
ask the computer any question and the computer
would spit out an answer. Singhal pointed to Google
Now, which is designed to send users information
before they even search for it, such as flight delay
information, or when someone should leave for a
meeting, taking into account traffic.
It should tell you things when you dont ask it. If
your flight is delayed you shouldnt have to ask
whats the status. It should just know. Or you have a
meeting an hour away and theres bad traffic.
Google should tell you, youd better leave now. Our
vision of Google is things you need to know just
come to you Our dream is for search to become
39

the Star Trek computer. Thats what were building

today.

Venture, Product & Services

Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google)

40

Google Inc. (Google), incorporated on October 22, 2002, is a

global technology company. The Companys business is primarily
focused around key areas, such as search, advertising, operating
systems and platforms, enterprise and hardware products. The
Company generates revenue primarily by delivering online
advertising. The Company also generates revenues from Motorola
by selling hardware products. The Company provides its products
and services in more than 100 languages and in more than 50
countries, regions, and territories. Effective September 16, 2013,
Google Inc acquired Bump Technologies Inc. Effective October 22,
2013, Google Inc acquired FlexyCore, a developer of software.
Effective December 6, 2013, Google Inc acquired the entire share
capital of SCHAFT Inc. Effective December 14, 2013, Google Inc
acquired Boston Dynamics Inc. Effective January 15, 2014, Google
Inc acquired Impermium Corp, a developer of SaaS application
software. Effective February 7, 2014, Google Inc acquired the
remaining 88% interest in Nest Labs Inc. Effective February 21,
2014, Google Inc acquired Spider.io, a provider of online fraud
detection services. Effective March 12, 2014, Google Inc acquired
Green Throttle Games. In April 2014, Google Inc acquired Titan
Aerospace, a Moriarty-based manufacturer of solar-powered
drones. Effective May 5, 2014, the Company acquired Rangespan,
a provider of information technology services. Effective May 6,
2014, the Company acquired Adometry Inc. Effective May 7, 2014,
the Company acquired Appetas Inc, a provider of Website
development and design services, and Stackdriver Inc, a Bostonbased provider of prepackaged applications software in cloud
platform. Effective May 16, 2014, Google Inc acquired Quest
Visual Inc. Effective May 20, 2014, Google Inc acquired Enterproid
Inc, doing business as Divide. In June 2014, Google Inc acquired
mDialog Corp. Effective June 25, 2014, Google Inc acquired
Appurify Inc, a San Francisco-based developer of mobile bugging
application software. Effective 23, July, 2014, Google Inc acquired
drawElements Oy, a Helsinki-based developer of 3D graphics
software. Effective August 6, 2014, Google Inc acquired Tinker
Square Inc. Effective August 22, 2014, Google Inc acquired Gecko
Design Inc. Effective August 26, 2014, Google Inc acquired Zync
Inc. Effective September 10, 2014, Google Inc acquired Lynx

41

Design Inc. Effective September 11, 2014, Google Inc acquired

Input Factory Inc.

The Companys enterprise products provide Google technology for

business settings. Through Google Apps, which includes Gmail,
Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Sites, among other
features, it provides hosted, Web-based applications that people
can use on any device with a browser and an Internet connection.
In addition, the Company provides its search technology for use
within enterprises through the Google Search Appliance (real-time
search of business applications, intranet applications, and public
websites), on their public-facing sites with Google Site Search
(custom search engine), and Google Commerce Search (for online
retail enterprises). The Company also provide versions of its
Google Maps Application Programming Interface (API) for
businesses (including interactive Google Maps for public and
internal Websites), as well as Google Earth Enterprise (a behindthe-company-firewall software solution for imagery and data
visualization). Its enterprise solutions have been adopted by a
variety of businesses, governments, schools, and non-profit
organizations.
Motorola
The Companys Motorola business consists of two segments:
Mobile segment and Home segment. The Mobile segment is
focused on mobile wireless devices and related products and
services. The Home segment is focused on technologies and
devices that provide video entertainment services to consumers
by enabling subscribers to access a variety of interactive digital
television services.
The Company competes with Facebook, Inc., Twitter Inc., Yahoo!
Inc., Microsoft Corporation, eBay Inc., and Amazon.com, Inc.

42

Sachin

Bansal

and

Binny

Bansal

(Flipkart)
Flipkart went live in 2007 with the objective of making books
easily available to anyone who had internet access. Today, we're
present across various categories including movies, music,
games, mobiles, cameras, computers, healthcare and personal
products, home appliances and electronics, stationery, perfumes,
toys, apparels, shoes and still counting!
Be it our path-breaking services like Cash on Delivery, a 30-day
replacement policy, EMI options, free shipping - and of course the
great prices that we offer, everything we do revolves around our
obsession with providing our customers a memorable online
shopping experience. Then there's our dedicated Flipkart delivery
partners who work round the clock to personally make sure the
packages reach on time.
So it's no surprise that we're a favourite online shopping
destination.

43

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

44

When it comes to social networking, it's wise to put your best face
forward. Facebook, the social networking juggernaut, lets users
share information, post photos and videos, play games, and
otherwise connect with one another through online profiles. The
site, which allows outside developers to build apps that integrate
with Facebook, boasts more than a billion total users. The firm
was launched in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg as an
online version of the Harvard Facebook. (The name comes from
books of freshmen's faces, majors, and hometowns that are
distributed to students.) In 2012 Facebook began publicly trading
after filing one of the largest IPOs in US history.

45

Rana Kapoor (Yes Bank Ltd)

YES Bank Limited provides commercial banking products and

services. The company engages in the corporate and institutional
banking, financial markets, investment banking, corporate
finance, branch banking, business and transaction banking, and
wealth management businesses. YES Bank provides financial and
risk management solutions to corporates and groups,
multinational companies, central and state governments,
government bodies, and public sector enterprises; and
knowledge-based advisory and financial.

46

Financial Performance
Google
Google earnings showed hopeful signs this quarter, after the
fundamentals were negatively impacted in 2013 with the acquisition and
merger of Motorola. GAAP earnings per share were $8.22 and
matched the prior year QE December 2011, but were short of the QE
March 2013 record of $8.75. However, Non-GAAP earnings per share
of $10.65 and cash flow per share of $13.94 were all-time highs.
Google sees the world as a global cloud plus a multi-screen
environment from the user side. People now have a variety of
47

devices to connect to the Internet and use more than one device
per day. These can be a smartphone, tablet, notebook, desktop,
etc. Google plans on being on your screen, your window to the
Internet and the global cloud, via their products, regardless of
device. Google would also like to build your device.
There is still some damage to repair in the earnings per share
growth rate. The revenue growth rate continues healthy, but
needs an assist from gross margin for the bottom line.
The reversal of the downtrend in gross margin (56.91%) is the
most positive metric for this quarter. Operating and net margins
responded accordingly. Last quarter, gross margin reached an
abysmal and multi-year, if not all-time, low of 53.52%.
Revenues rose to an all-time high of $14.42 billion, powered by
record regional revenues across the board: the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Rest of the World. Operating income inched
up to an all-time high of $3.39 billion. Net income of $2.886 billion
just missed the record high of $2.890 billion in the QE March 2014.
"We ended 2013 with a strong quarter," said Larry Page, CEO of
Google. "Revenues were up 36% year on year, and 8% quarter on
quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last
year not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half. In
today's multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a
technology company focused on user benefit. It's an incredibly
exciting time to be at Google."

48

Flipkart
Flipkart India Pvt. Ltd reported a loss of Rs 281.7 crore in the year
ended March 2013, up from Rs 109.9 crore loss it reported in the
previous year, despite a five fold increase in revenue to more
than Rs 1,180 crore from Rs 204.8 crore it reported in the
previous year, reports Mint.
49

The companys expenses jumped more than five times to

Rs.1,366 crore from Rs.265.6 crore last year and its cash balance
dropped to Rs.166.2 crore on 31 March from Rs.236 crore a year
ago.
The auditors however noted that the internal controls for
purchasing of goods needs strengthening in proportion to the size
of the company and nature of its business. In our opinion, this is
a continuing failure to correct a major weakness in the internal
control system, the auditor noted.
Earlier this year we had reported that WS Retail, Flipkarts
retail arm had reported a total income of Rs 480.65 crore for
the financial year ended 31st March 2012 (FY12), up from around
Rs 49 crore for the year ended 31st March 2011 (FY11). The
company reported a profit for the year, of Rs 80.92 lakh up from
Rs 65 lakh. It also issued 90,000 equity shares worth Rs 10 each
during FY-13.
It needs to be noted that Flipkart India sold its technology
platform and related intellectual properties to another entity
called Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd for an agreed consideration
effective on 31 December 2012. The value of the sale of business
to Flipkart Internet was Rs.94.15 crore, according to the its filings.
In 2012, Flipkart raised $150 million from Naspers and Tiger
Global. This year, the company raised $200 million from
existing investors like Naspers, Accel Partners, Tiger Global,
and ICONIQ Capital in July. It also raised an additional $160
million investment from new investors Dragoneer Investment
Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina and
Vulcan Capital and existing investor Tiger Global in October
2013. Till now, Flipkart has raised a total $541 million from five
rounds.

50

Facebook
Second Quarter 2014 Operational Highlights

Daily active users (DAUs) were 829 million on average

for June 2014, an increase of 19% year-over-year.

Mobile DAUs were 654 million on average for June 2014, an

increase of 39% year-over-year.

Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.32 billion as of June 30,

2014, an increase of 14% year-over-year.

Mobile MAUs were 1.07 billion as of June 30, 2014, an

increase of 31% year-over-year.
Second Quarter 2014 Financial Highlights
Revenue - Revenue for the second quarter of 2014 totaled $2.91
billion, an increase of 61%, compared with $1.81 billion in the
second quarter of 2013. Excluding the impact of year-over-year
changes in foreign exchange rates, revenue would have increased
by 59%.

Revenue from advertising was $2.68 billion, a 67% increase

from the same quarter last year. Excluding the impact of yearover-year changes in foreign exchange rates, revenue from
advertising would have increased by 65%.

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 62%

of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2014, up from
approximately 41% of advertising revenue in the second quarter
of 2013.

Payments and other fees revenue was $234 million, a 9%

increase from the same quarter last year.
Costs and expenses - GAAP costs and expenses for the second
quarter of 2014 were $1.52 billion, an increase of 22% from the
second quarter of 2013. Excluding share-based compensation and
related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP costs and expenses
were $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2014, up 18% compared
to $1.02 billion for the second quarter of 2013.
Income from operations - For the second quarter of 2014,
GAAP income from operations was $1.39 billion, up 147%
compared to $562 million in the second quarter of 2013.
Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax
expenses, non-GAAP income from operations for the second
51

quarter of 2014 was $1.71 billion, up 116% compared to $794

million for the second quarter of 2013.
Operating margin - GAAP operating margin was 48% for the
second quarter of 2014, compared to 31% in the second quarter
of 2013. Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll
tax expenses, non-GAAP operating margin was 59% for the
second quarter of 2014, compared to 44% for the second quarter
of 2013.
Provision for income taxes - GAAP income tax expense for the
second quarter of 2014 was $595 million, representing a 43%
effective tax rate. Excluding share-based compensation and
related payroll tax expenses, the non-GAAP effective tax rate
would have been approximately 36%.
Net income and EPS - For the second quarter of 2014, GAAP net
income was $791 million, up 138% compared to $333 million for
the second quarter of 2013. Excluding share-based compensation
and related payroll tax expenses and income tax adjustments,
non-GAAP net income for the second quarter of 2014 was $1.09
billion, up 124% compared to $488 million for the second quarter
of 2013. GAAP diluted EPS was $0.30 in the second quarter of
2014, up 131% compared to $0.13 in the second quarter of 2013.
Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax
expenses and income tax adjustments, non-GAAP diluted EPS for
the second quarter of 2014 was $0.42, up 121% compared
to $0.19 in the second quarter of 2013.
Capital expenditures - Capital expenditures for the second
quarter of 2014 were $469 million.
Cash and marketable securities - Cash and marketable
securities were $13.96 billion at the end of the second quarter of
2014.
Free cash flow - Free cash flow for the second quarter of 2014
was $872 million.

52

Conclusion
Successful entrepreneurs require an edge derived from some
combination of a creative idea and a superior capacity for
execution. The entrepreneur's creativity may involve an
innovation product or a process that changes the existing order.
Or entrepreneur may have a unique insight about the course or
consequence of an external change. Entrepreneurship is the
vehicle that drives creativity and innovation. Innovation creates
new demand and entrepreneurship brings the innovation to the
market. Innovation is the successful development of competitive
edge and as such, is the key to entrepreneurship.
Creativity and Innovation are at the heart of the spirit of
enterprise. It means striving to perform activities differently or to
perform different activities to enable the entrepreneur deliver a
unique mix of value. Thus the value of creativity and innovation is
to provide a gateway for astute entrepreneurship-actively
searching for opportunities to do new things, to do existing things
in extraordinary ways. Creativity and Innovation therefore, trigger
and propel first-rate entrepreneurship in steering organization
activities in whatever new directions are dictated by market
53

conditions and customer preferences, thereby delighting the

customers to the benefit of the stakeholders. Innovation also
means anticipating the needs of the market, offering additional
quality or services, organization efficiently, mastering details, and
keeping cost under control.

Bibliography

www.entrepreneur.com/tsu/index.html

yourstory.in/

www.youthkiawaaz.com/.../top-10-entrepreneurs-and-leaders..

bx.businessweek.com/social-entrepreneurship/

www.muhammadyunus.org/

www.iseek.org/.../green/.../what-green-entrepreneurship.

www.forbes.com/.../business-tips-from-college-dropouts-

54

55