Harsh Mariwala On How Entrepreneurs Can Make India A $5 Trillion Economy Mariwala firmly believes that entrepreneurs can add a lot of value to India's economy and that a substantial part of the growth for the country to become a $5 trillion economy would have to come from the entrepreneur community.
By Kabir Singh Bhandari •
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Founder and chairman of Marico, Harsh Mariwala, is one of the most influential businessman on the landscape, who has gone onto help countless entrepreneurs in their own journey. Mariwala firmly believes that entrepreneurs can add a lot of value to India's economy and that a substantial part of the growth for the country to become a $5 trillion economy would have to come from the entrepreneur community.
"There is a level to which the government can invest in new businesses. However, beyond certain areas, the region of growth has to be take undertaken by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs create a lot of value for all the stakeholders including providing jobs, leading to taxation and adding to India's economic growth. At the same time, based on my interactions I realized that many entrepreneurs were struggling. They had a very good business idea, but didn't know how to scale up. When you're a small size business, then you're doing things on your own. And when you grow the business, you're getting things done from others and which is completely different. So how do you recruit good talent? How do you empower people? How do you delegate? These were all the areas where I thought entrepreneurs can learn from each other," Mariwala had said during a gathering of ASCENT members, a not-for-profit founded by him in 2012 to identify high-potential, growth-stage entrepreneurs and leaders and enable them to grow their enterprise and enrich their journey.
Mariwala is very clear about the fact that in order to succeed, we have to constantly learn from each other. Many a time through these interactions one can discover a blind spot which on our own we would not have been aware of.
It was in earlier in August this year that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that India would soon become a five trillion-dollar economy, when talking at the BRICS Business Forum in Johanessberg, South Africa. Hailing sectors such as IT, AI, semiconductors, telecom and Fintech, he had said how India is promoting the vision of 'Make in India, Make for the World'.
"India's success is accredited to the nation's ability to transform adversity into an economic reform opportunity, with an emphasis on reducing compliance burdens and facilitating the ease of doing business," he said during his speech.
"In the past few years, the reforms we have undertaken in mission mode have led to consistent improvement in the ease of doing business in India. We have reduced the compliance burden. We are replacing red tape with a red carpet," he said.
With all these transformations happening and the start-up culture blossoming in India, entrepreneurs are one of the keys to the success story that India can become in the next few years.
