Passion Matters, Not IQ Or Certificates

Says leading businessman V.P. Nandakumar, as he shares some tips for budding entrepreneurs

- Shri V.P.Nandakumar MD & CEO

It has been estimated that one fifth of the world’s youth are in India. Their aspirations are vastly different from that of their parents and they are not worried about basic needs unlike their forbears. This gives them the courage to take risks and it is not just a government or corporate job that many of them are after nowadays but they want to be entrepreneurs and job givers.

Most successful businessmen do not have an IIT or IIM background. Their entrepreneurial mindset was shaped by the challenges they had faced in their early life. In fact, many of the big names are college dropouts.

What then goes into the making of a successful businessman? Which are the qualities that lift them to the dizzy heights of success?

If you ask me, there is only one prerequisite: a deep desire to build a business and the passion to do whatever it takes to execute the plan.

If we look at a few successful businessmen from our part of the world, we can see that they did not learn their strategies from biz schools or management institutes. I remember Mr K M Mammen of MRF telling us during a management association meet how his granddad, Mr K M Mammen Mappillai, was against pumping in money earned from their plantation business in Kerala into their tyre business in Chennai. At best, there can be a seed fund to be leveraged on, was his advice. Similarly, leading businessman Yousuf Ali once recalled how he learned the intricacies of logistics during his initial days in the Gulf when he personally delivered goods in a career vehicle to his clients. Indra Nooyi has talked about her mother teaching her and her sister to dream big and write those dreams down. All these are home-grown strategies and not picked up from institutes or books.