EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND AN ENTREPRENEUR
understanding an entrepreneur is an interesting process.
What motivates them to take risk?
Why do they identify the need to do business?
What are the characteristics found in them?
What are the issues faced?
Having these questions in my mind I tried to understand,Amrutha Latha, an women entrepreneur who founded Vijay group of institutions at Nizamabad.in this write up.
Everyone at Vijay group of institutions celebrated
the grant for medical college at Nizamabad in early 1990’s.But the celebrations
did not last for more than a couple of days because the court cancelled the
approval due to the clash between ruling and opposition parties. This did not
deter Amrutha Latha, the founder and promoter, from her aim of serving the
people of rural area in the field of education. since then she established
seven engineering and P.G colleges in the Nizamabad district.
"Entrepreneurship is the process of
identifying, developing, and bringing a vision to life. The vision may be an
innovative idea, an opportunity, or simply a better way to do something. The
end result of this process is the creation of a new venture, formed under
conditions of risk and considerable uncertainty."
- The Entrepreneurship Center at Miami University of Ohio
It all started back in 1979.she was working as an
English teacher in Zilla parishat high school, Armoor , a government school in
the rural area. while she was teaching, she noticed that the class rooms were
very crowded .She identified that the students were unable to understand what
she was teaching due to the huge number of students in the class. She also
identified the need for quality in education and English as a medium for
instruction in rural areas.
With the above aim she thought of starting a school
in Armoor village. She pooled up an initial investment of 3000 rupees through
her savings and the rest through her relatives and friends. Being a well-known
writer of the region people had faith in her. Huge spending over promotion was
not needed. She just had to send people to circulate pamphlets . The word
spread. She rented an asbestos house. With an initial strength of 120 students
Vijay high school was started at Armoor village.
She also started one more branch at Nizamabad the
very next year. Since then the schools grew in its operations. Within 15 years
the schools had their own establishment. Initially there were not sufficient
local teachers to teach in English. so
teachers from Kerala were called. But the parents were apprehensive regarding
the accent of those teachers. They
feared that their children would catch up the same accent. Amrutha had to
convince the parents.
There were also agitations regarding the charging of
high fees. since it was the only private English medium school in the entire
district people had no other players to compare the value . Amrutha Latha has
good convincing skills. According to one of her employee when she is faced with
agitated group of people ,she does not argue with them. She first tries to
divert them from the issue and smartly puts her opinions across softly. After a
few years many new schools were started in that region.
“Not having competitors at times can be a curse”
-Amrutha Latha
Now the parents had some criteria to compare and
realise the value proposition and were satisfied with the value delivered by
the Vijay high school. In this context Amrutha Latha says that people feel that
being a single player in a particular region has so many advantages. but not
having competitors can also become a bane at times. Parents cannot understand
the value being delivered and perceive the cost to be high as there is other
player to compare.
When private schools started coming up in the
Nizamabad district with a promising campaign, students started moving out to
those newly established schools. The principal of Vijay high school was worried
and approached Amrutha with some promotion and prevention plan. But Amrutha did
not took up any measures. Instead she strengthened the academic curriculum. by
the next year students who left the schools started coming back. Amrutha told
not to take those students admissions. The word spread and the parents became
cautious of the limited number of seats in the school. since then Vijay high
school gets its admissions filled by the end of march every academic year
without any promotion campaign.
Mean while in 1995 she started Amrith Kiran , a
value based magazine for which she was awarded ‘the best outstanding women
entrepreneur’ award in small scare industries from honourable Chief minister
Sri Nara Chandra Babu Naidu for the year 1997-98.Amrith Kiran was an ideal
magazine with vigour and values. but it had to be closed down. the success of a
magazine depends on its printing, editing, advertising and marketing. for a
magazine the expenditure is more than the recipients . to balance the payments
and receipts, it’s a must for any magazine to depend on advertisements.
naturally it becomes a crux of the matter for a new comer to get the
advertisements. Also there was a similar issue in the marketing of the magazine
.to get advertisements ,the only option left was to grab the essential things
by hook or by crook. Amrutha felt that it was
ridiculous and suicidal to print morals by foregoing them in its
establishment. this lead to close down of Amrith Kiran.
The Vijay schools were expanding in operations. Amrutha
had to include more sections in the schools. But she did not do it until she
found out reliable supervisors within the administrative department. She
identified dedicated teachers and faculty of the schools and encourage them to
partner. She says that once you recognise the right people and motivate them
they themselves take the values forward.
She accredits the growth to the collective efforts.
After Vijay high schools she established Vijay rural engineering college in 1997,Srinivasa Reddy institute of technology in 2007, Vijay Institute of Technology & Sciences in 2004, , Vijay College of education for Women in 2007,Vijay College of Engineering for Women in 2009 ,Vijay College of Pharmacy in 2011 and Vijay college for D.Ed for women,2012. There are 10419 students studying in these institutions every year with generating employment of 607 teaching and non teaching staff. She looks forward improve the engineering and other P.G colleges and making them autonomous .she also is aiming at more foreign collaborations in the field of higher education.
She says that there is nothing like incipient success.
its taking ones first step, accompanied by the infinite unflinching steps. Her
employees feel that they are able to learn the work and lead it quickly as it
is very difficult to satisfy her in terms of work. she expects perfection.
The
characteristics identified in her is the hard work, soft nature, patience
,emotional stability,risk taking and knowledge. She deals with people in a soft manner. she
does not argue with people. she gives them instances and examples and somehow
manages them to look the situation from her perspective and convince them. This
is generally seen when she deals with agitated driver unions, parents and also
the share holders. As a promoter for institutions she needs to get investments
from people of different nature. people invest with the only motto of profit.
but being in education field you can’t just aim for profit. It is really
challenging to convince such people. She reads a lot. even at the age of 62 she
is pursuing her PhD. Her employees feel that until they learn to see a broader
perspective of the work, she offers them a challenging situation to look 10
more steps forward. she has very hard working nature. She emphasizes the
importance of hard work and sincerity. She says she can involve in any kind of
work continuously for 12 or more hours with dedication, the quality which is
not much seen the youth of today.
Sources :
1. Based
on the interview with Amrutha Latha conducted on 19th august,2012.
2. Focus-silver
jubilee magazine of Vijay high school,Nizamabad,2005-2006.
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