Innovation & Diversification: A Major Focus to Remain on Growing Market Needs to Emerge Successful

An immense dedication or problem-solving activities to be the driving force behind the success of Entrepreneurs or Businessmen.  Taking a cue from Indian Business stalwarts such as Sunil Godhwani, M G George Muthoot, Prathap Reddy could facilitate a diversified market base in the nation.

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur today? Is it a new idea, creative thought or new imagination in the form of a device or method? From mastering the smallest screen to making people awestruck, to putting India on the fast track, brands such as Hotstar, Zomato, Ola Cabs have brought about a transformation with their innovative approach in the market.

Innovation, of late has become a facilitator of entrepreneurship — a way to empower people to take charge of their lives and strive for economic prosperity. It helps stimulate general business sector growth in a nation. That said, it’s not an easy thing and requires immense dedication or attentiveness to pull off something remarkable.

In today’s world, where companies of all sizes are expanding their operations in the foreign markets, it’s important to understand that innovation doesn’t happen overnight and requires time and effort to create something which is unique and beneficial for the customers.

It’s not a “Bazinga!” moment, where you do something innovative and have a great result in front of you, it’s actually a more complex process than that.

Just look at the Indian market today, almost every Indian now owns a mobile phone, a far-cry from early 2000s where having a mobile phone was considered a luxury. Who has made this plausible? Is it just a single brand or is the impact of globalization and good internet access, where people, in general expect good, unique, dynamic products, which are not just limited to electronics.

Diversification in services is important? Take an example of Samsung. What started as a television brand is now a conglomerate, which offers multiple electronic items such as mobile phones, fridge, etc.

Companies often choose to grow as a conglomerate as diversification in the product portfolio helps in meeting the growing market demands. From health and food-based “Patanjali Ayurved Limited”, to education and logistics based “Chettinad Group”, all are successful examples of diversified establishments.

One good example in this backdrop is of the diversified financial groups in India, i.e. Religare. A New Delhi based company which started as a stock brokerage firm has now become an entity offering loans to SME’s, Affordable Housing Finance, Health Insurance, owing to its former Managing Director Sunil Godhwani. His strategy of getting into foreign mergers & acquisitions gave Religare a good expansion at the international market and perhaps set the stage for the finance market in India to play big.  Sunil Godhwani was responsible for leading and managing all the business units, where his ambitious approach gave the company a global & diversified shape and form.

Similarly, we have M G George’s Muthoot Finance. At the time he took over the operations at Muthoot, the Group had just 31 branches in four states. Owing to his solution centric skills and vision, there are 4433 branches today and the Group has an annual turnover of Rs. 255 billion.

Demand growth is likely to accelerate with rising disposable incomes and easy access to credit.

Being innovative and catering to diversified market needs of the people may seem difficult upfront. There will be bumps along the way, however the person who can solve the problems, will go a long way.