Monday, May 31, 2010

Social Entrepreneurship, Social service and Business

Gaurav kumar

Entrepreneurship has been as widely confused with business as Social entrepreneurship with social service. As entrepreneurship has business value in its core or as main output, social entrepreneurship has social service as its main deliverable. But these minute relationships have been largely mapped to major confusions.
Social entreprepreneurship is percieved by many entrepreneurs as a balancing act between generating revenue and creating social value at same time but it is not so. As the term sustainibility defines entrepreneurship, social enterprising also demands for a sustainable effect with prolonged value creation. If you work on 10 ideas and your 10th idea succeeds, you will be recognized as as "Serial entrepreneur" and if you stop at 9th you without any success you will be classified as a "Risktaker".
The word which differentitates the two sides of coins are "Leadership" and "Activism". A social entrepreneurship should lead to a leadership activism which gives start to a trend of uplifting the conditions of underprivileged or ameliorating a social stigmatic condition. If not so, it should be only termed as localized social service.

Social entrepreneurship differentiates itself from business in terms of utilizations of profits generated. While a business creates opportunities for revenue generation, a social enterprising does so by restricting the loss of resources or avoiding the non utilization of resources at the same time. A business creates a value which benefits the consumer in a better way, a social enterprise makes better consumers for better necessary consumptions.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Diversity needs a DARE


Gaurav Kumar

"India- Unity in Diversity"
It might look as one of the most repetitive and banal affirmation for anyone who has grown up reading in and about indian culture.
I do not know how many people agree with my questions on this adage.
Aren't we done with just boasting of what all we have and how did we manage to remain a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY (I am sorry for being rude).

I beileve it's time to act , time to use this diversity towards development. We are land of innumerable cults and religions, almost 1600 languages including dailects. We are a country where a significant population of the land doesnt understand national anthem.Do you know why do we have cloth stiching business going on in India.. because how many types of dhoti, lungi, ghagra, bandhez will you form readymade companies for.

Having all this retiterated, lets face some bitter facts:
-India ranks 114 out of 134 countries on gender gap which calls for a reality check on equality complaince in employment, health and education.
- There are no mandates on diversity as such for companies in India
- only 14% of disabled population has an employement
- There are still no mandates on reservation for disabled people in private companies.

Keeping the discussion with context to diversity at workplace
Diversity refers to the variety arising out of educational, cultural, racial, ethnic, age, religious and gender differences. The essence of diversity is the acceptance, exploration and leveraging of these differences in a safe, positive and nurturing environment. That means having an open mindset, being inclusive, giving legitimacy to these differences and accepting them with a positive mindset.

Many companies look at diversity from a very narrow perspective. They focus on helping disadvantaged groups, essentially with the objective of being politically correct. That is unfortunate because diversity is a much more powerful concept that if leveraged effectively can yield tangible business benefits. Indeed, diversity initiatives will not be sustainable unless they are designed to make an impact on the business.

Extending to it, at all our companies we should be awarness how a differently abled person makes it to sit next to us, why should we not put one step ahead to ensure his/her inclusion and why should the disability empowerment not only be limited to recruiting a miniscule percentage at work places, rather than how we build a barrier free world around us with all of us being sensitized to the difference , the Diversity around us.

DARE INDIA has accounted of the historic statement and wish to modify it to "Development with Diversity"

Monday, May 24, 2010

Inspirational