Amrita alumnus Pradeep Menon, Co-founder, Quadrant Risk Management, United Arab Emirates, shared his experience with members of Amrita Center for Entrepreneurship (ACE) on August 5, 2014. Pradeep Menon graduated from the Amrita’s Coimbatore campus in 2000 with an MBA degree.

The invited talk was aptly titled as, Taking up the Entrepreneurial Journey, wherein Menon began by recounting his three entrepreneurial stints– computer redistribution business prior to his MBA from Amrita; a second enterprise in the area of information security- Quadrant which was later acquired by Sify in 2004 and the third venture Quantum Risk Management in Dubai. Currently, Menon serves as the Vice President– Business Transformation at Isyx Technologies, after Quadrant was acquired by Isyx.  Highlighting the importance of perseverance, self-belief, self-confidence and cash-flow management, Menon spoke about how India ranks at the top in the Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) Index as computed by the World Bank, London Business School, GEM, etc.

Quoting Credit Suisse International, a bank domiciled in the United Kingdom, he shared interesting facts such as:

• Half of India’s GDP and 90% of employment is informal, i.e., economic activity by unincorporated entities,
• Self-employment contributes to 30% of the GDP in India and contributes more than 45% in Income Tax and
• India dominated the world economy in terms of GDP for 1700 years as per British economist Angus Maddison.

Referring to the Harvard Business study by Dr. C. K. Prahlad and Dr. R. A. Mashelkar titled Innovation’s Holy Grail, and other studies on caste-based entrepreneurship development, Menon pointed out how a self-regulatory mechanism existed in India– giving us an Economy of Permanence.

Directing the attention of the audience towards the study of incorporating corporate governance by Vikramaditya Khanna of University of Michigan Law School, Menon elaborated how value-based system, as seen in Arthashastra, Sreni Dharma, etc., drove the entrepreneurial economy in India. “This is the best time and place for entrepreneurship”, he detailed. He concluded that there is great impetus from the current budgetary allocation for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) development and societal contribution with social entrepreneurship opportunities abounding.

August 6, 2014
Coimbatore Campus