India Venture 2000: COMPETITION OVERVIEW
McKinsey & Company, Inc., has launched India Venture 2000, an initiative
designed to help Indian entrepreneurs kick-start or grow their businesses. Venture 2010
will be focused on IT and e-commerce business propositions. Any
professional, student or entrepreneur who wants to convert his or her idea into a real
business can participate in this initiative at no cost.
Creating An Entrepreneurial Culture
At McKinsey, we believe that a vibrant entrepreneurial culture is critical
to a nation’s economic growth. And India, with its large reservoir of talent and skills,
will benefit enormously from creating such a culture. Indeed, elsewhere in the world,
Indian entrepreneurs have done extremely well. They can be just as successful at home, if
we provide the right environment - an environment that brings together ideas,
talent and financial capital.
Our experience in other countries suggests that contests such as India Venture 2000 often serve as catalysts in creating such an environment. For example,
similar contests held in Munich and Berlin in 1996 gave birth to at least 30
new companies and raised more than $ 65 million in venture capital, while a
competition held in Switzerland yielded 20 to 30 start-ups. In addition to enthusiastic
participation from budding entrepreneurs, the corporate response in these countries was
overwhelming. We hope to replicate this success in India.
The scope of India Venture 2000 competition is IT and e-commerce
related businesses. In the future as the competition is institutionalised, we hope to expand
its scope to other sectors that are likely to be critical for the Indian economy.
How India Venture 2000 Will Work
Three factors will drive the success of this effort: superb execution of the event,
effective publicity about ‘entrepreneurship’, and the enthusiastic participation of the
industry (through coaches and resources). To ensure the first, a full time project
team at McKinsey will run the contest on a pro bono basis. This team will
orchestrate the entire effort: sourcing the ideas, assembling the pool of coaches,
organising the training events and setting up the infrastructure that will make this happen.
It will creatively use the Internet and other communication technologies to connect people
across India in order to make India Venture 2000 accessible to a wide
audience and to maximise the level of contact between participants and coaches. To ensure
effective and widespread publicity, the team will work with a professional PR firm. It will create
a large pool of professionals and entrepreneurs to guide our participants in creating
high-impact business plans.
India Venture 2000 will have a high-powered Advisory Board to provide
direction to the programme and monitor its progress. The Board, which will include select
Indian CEOs, Indian entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley NRIs, world-renowned academics,
financiers and McKinsey partners, will be responsible for ensuring wider participation
from amongst India’s entrepreneurial talent pool and for building a network of coaches that
will help participants develop ideas and sharpen business skills. Among those who have
already joined the Advisory Board are:
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Mr N R Narayana Murthy (CEO, Infosys) |
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Mr Dalip Pathak (Managing Director, E M Warburg, Pincus & Co. (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.) |
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Mr Lakshmi N Mittal (Chairman & CEO, Ispat International) |
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Mr K V Kamath (Managing Director, ICICI) |
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Professor C K Prahalad (University of Michigan) |
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Dr Govardhan Mehta (Director, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) |
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Mr Dewang Mehta (President, NASSCOM) |
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Mr Arjun Malhotra (CEO, Techspan, USA) |
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Mr Rajat Gupta (Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, Inc.) |
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Mr Kanwal Rekhi (President, The IndUS Entrepreneurs) |
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Mr Rajesh Jain (CEO, IndiaWorld Communications) |
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Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal (Chairman, Bharti Enterprises) |
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Mr Ranjit Pandit (Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, India) |
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Mr Manoj Murjani (CEO, Mazaa Media Inc.) |
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Mr Ajit Balakrishnan (CEO, Rediff.com) |
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Mr Anil Ambani |
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