Entrepreneurial Leader and Native Intelligent Achiever with a Vision for Future India: Yatra of Shanmugappa
International Conference on Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation: International Models and Benchmarks, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India, December 8-10 2011
24 Pages Posted: 23 Nov 2011
Date Written: December 9, 2011
Abstract
“I was happy and privileged to sit by his side to understand further about his dreams. India needs many leaders like Shanmugappa”- Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Former President of India. These are the words about Shanmugappa. He started his career as a porter in Banglore Railway station after failing in secondary school certificate examination and left his native place with two rupees given by his father with virtues of dignity of labour. This narrative will bring to life different phases of journey of his life to become Chief Executive Officer and leading one of the largest industry association in the world. His first lesson of engagement is on learning loading and unloading. His organization has world class manufacturing facility that caters to the needs of forty different countries with no vision or mission statements or use any of the modern management practices. The world class machinery is designed by him and by his workers who have only school education. This paper analyses the entrepreneurial success factors using phenomenological approach to unravel the native intelligence achievement. While agriculture is the largest employer and backbone of economy in India, however what is not known is the fact that next largest employer is truck industry and contributions made by truckers. It is estimated that 1,60,,000 crores is the finance requirement of the industry and mostly done by private financiers. As mainstream financial institutes shun it as informal sector applying traditional economic analysis ignoring latest theories of self organization economics. The industry had a legal frame work created in 1865 and continued till 2010 without reaching consensus with different stakeholders. The total corruption in the truck industry is estimated to be 35,000 crores (7 billion dollars) creating bottle necks to the growth of the economy. Human resources are least considered and drivers are beaten to death, if they fail to pay bribes. life’s learning by going to jail, sleeping on pavements and feeling the suffering of families of drivers who lost their lives and threats from mafias made him stronger to live with values and not bending to corruption. At the end of the case study there are a set of answers for which you are required to deliberate; to question; to discern the cultural artefacts; philosophy of living and appreciate different ways of doing world class business in Indias; consisting of both rich man’s India and poor man’s India. This story of this extraordinary person following context based research methodology is likely to inspire everyone who would like to take up “ hard work revolution” and an yatra with no expectation. The truck industry is generally deemed to be unorganized sector according to majority of the Indian economic literature. However, this characterization is contested by suggesting the industry as self organized system which can be transformed by an invisible choreographer.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial success factors, invisible choreographer, native intelligence, phenomenological approach, truck industry
JEL Classification: B31, L91
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation