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Firms for people with entrepreneurial spirit
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Firms for people with entrepreneurial spirit
22 Dec 2008 Bangalore:In times of a global meltdown, when businesses are downsizing and employee morale is at an all time low, it is the ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ that can help businesses identify and create new market opportunities, experts say.
Entrepreneurs, companies believe, set very high exit barriers for themselves and are ready to take on seemingly insurmountable problems and situations. A company requires entrepreneurship not just at the leadership levels but at every level.
“It is up to the team leaders to excite every employee to think like an entrepreneur. In recessionary times, it is this mindset which will help a firm survive and thrive in tough times,” senior VP of Symphony Services Madhusudan Reddy says.
Microsoft says it looks out for techies who are change agents and can challenge the status quo.
“Change agents are people who bring us the ‘outwardin’ perspective, which helps us define and create new markets. We are not interested in hiring techies who are mere order takers. We want creative, innovative and lateral thinkers who symbolise the very essence of the never-day-die, entrepreneurial spirit,” general manager of Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India Moorthy Uppaluri says.
Experts appear to be expanding the traditional definitions of entrepreneurship — while it would originally imply the practice of starting new organisations, now it could mean revitalising even mature firms.
Scott D Cook, chairman of software solutions firm Intuit, for instance, believes entrepreneurship would mean finding and seizing opportunities that others totally miss. “Entrepreneurs see things first hand that others don’t see; their innovative thinking solves big customer problems. This in turn creates customer delight which drives positive word-of-mouth for the solution,” he says.
Intuit, he explains, is a classic example of a small start-up that almost shut shop. Now, it has grown to a $2.67 billion global enterprise because of the “sheer spirit” of entrepreneurship in its founding team.
“We are looking for entrepreneurial engineers to ramp up our existing R&D headcount in India. These are typically people who have an intense desire to make a difference in the world through their ideas and will have the power to understand and empathise with customers. Such people will not restrict themselves to simply writing code that someone tells them to,” says Cook.
While the economic downturn gives organisations access to a much wider pool of talent, the entrepreneurial mindset is the single biggest differentiator that can make one candidate stand out from others, says Priya Chetty Rajagopal, VP of global executive search firm Stanton Chase International.
Agrees Pradeep Moondra, senior manager, Technology Consulting, Oracle India: “As a team leader, I am always on the lookout for engineers who can own a problem and a solution completely, innovate on the job, with the intrinsic belief that the work they do is aligned with their individual aspiration. These are qualities that every entrepreneur has in his DNA,” he says.
Source:
http://www.dc-epaper.com/dc/dch/2008/12/22/index.shtml?ArtId=016_009&Search=Y
Entrepreneurs, companies believe, set very high exit barriers for themselves and are ready to take on seemingly insurmountable problems and situations. A company requires entrepreneurship not just at the leadership levels but at every level.
“It is up to the team leaders to excite every employee to think like an entrepreneur. In recessionary times, it is this mindset which will help a firm survive and thrive in tough times,” senior VP of Symphony Services Madhusudan Reddy says.
Microsoft says it looks out for techies who are change agents and can challenge the status quo.
“Change agents are people who bring us the ‘outwardin’ perspective, which helps us define and create new markets. We are not interested in hiring techies who are mere order takers. We want creative, innovative and lateral thinkers who symbolise the very essence of the never-day-die, entrepreneurial spirit,” general manager of Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India Moorthy Uppaluri says.
Experts appear to be expanding the traditional definitions of entrepreneurship — while it would originally imply the practice of starting new organisations, now it could mean revitalising even mature firms.
Scott D Cook, chairman of software solutions firm Intuit, for instance, believes entrepreneurship would mean finding and seizing opportunities that others totally miss. “Entrepreneurs see things first hand that others don’t see; their innovative thinking solves big customer problems. This in turn creates customer delight which drives positive word-of-mouth for the solution,” he says.
Intuit, he explains, is a classic example of a small start-up that almost shut shop. Now, it has grown to a $2.67 billion global enterprise because of the “sheer spirit” of entrepreneurship in its founding team.
“We are looking for entrepreneurial engineers to ramp up our existing R&D headcount in India. These are typically people who have an intense desire to make a difference in the world through their ideas and will have the power to understand and empathise with customers. Such people will not restrict themselves to simply writing code that someone tells them to,” says Cook.
While the economic downturn gives organisations access to a much wider pool of talent, the entrepreneurial mindset is the single biggest differentiator that can make one candidate stand out from others, says Priya Chetty Rajagopal, VP of global executive search firm Stanton Chase International.
Agrees Pradeep Moondra, senior manager, Technology Consulting, Oracle India: “As a team leader, I am always on the lookout for engineers who can own a problem and a solution completely, innovate on the job, with the intrinsic belief that the work they do is aligned with their individual aspiration. These are qualities that every entrepreneur has in his DNA,” he says.
Source:
http://www.dc-epaper.com/dc/dch/2008/12/22/index.shtml?ArtId=016_009&Search=Y
