SIMULATIONS IN STRATEGY

Assignment 1

Part 1 - Critique of the 3 Strategies for the case Pioneering Strategies for Entrepreneurial Success
The Abstract of the article clearly gives an idea who is an entrepreneur and what strategies should he/she adopt to drive
his/her business to great heights. Entrepreneurs are, by definition, pioneers in that they innovate new products/services,
create new processes, open new markets, or organize new industries. Dramatic changes in the global environment
suggest that successful entrepreneurs must master three key strategies:
(1) develop a clear vision
(2) manage cash creatively, or learn to "bootstrap" and
(3) be able to persuade others to commit to the venture using social skills.

The article explains the three major strategies that any entrepreneur should follow in his quest for success. These three
strategies have been explained in a much descriptive way below:
(1) VISIONING –
The author talks about visioning as a strategy for Entrepreneurial Success in a very modest way giving various definition
of the word visioning along with examples. It dictates the importance having a vision of where the venture will go in the
future, what will be its possible success factors and trademarks in the future world.
The article also talked about how entrepreneurs physically and mentally prepare themselves before-hand keeping in mind
the future. Bird and Bush talked about more of a psychological perspective of having vision as a strategy for success. In
addition, the example of Google was referred which gave entrepreneurs a motivation showing that even such a successful
firm as Google follows this way of assessing the future.
One of the biggest challenges in building a venture is to establish a business plan to provide framework and guidance. As
the article talks about giving direction through ‘vision’ which is based on individual’s perspective that can guide oneself
and the others to reach thee shared goal. Setting out a well-planned business strategy will ensure your entire organization
is working towards the same goals and instills a sense of shared responsibility amongst employees.
But the article does not tell about the most overlooked factor in a vision i.e. how to define an actionable vision and
implement it on an individual level. It isn’t enough for leaders to define the vision of an organization.
Today’s leaders need to actively participate in the effort to make their vision a reality. Before implementation can begin,
it’s important for a leader, to understand his or her role. Executing strategy takes commitment from people at all levels.
Leaders who can break down corporate strategy across the organization so it is directly relevant at each level—corporate,
department, team and individual—help everyone to focus on the organization’s key activities. Companies that recognize
and embrace this level of collaboration strengthen their chances of success.
Leaders need to clearly articulate the company’s vision in a way that motivates, inspires and excites employees to commit
to their individual work. The key to success is to communicate the vision through multiple channels:

 Hardcopy
 Company’s Intranet
 Speeches, Interviews and Press release
An operating model is also a necessary tool used to define how the organization will implement its strategic or tactical
plan into its operating environment according to its vision. It encompasses all core work, competencies, tools and
technologies, organizational structure and processes needed to execute the organization’s strategies.
By communicating successfully, developing implementation plans and creating operating models that makes sense, your
organization can take the loftiest of visions and transform them into a profitable, fulfilling reality.

(2) BOOTSTRAPPING –
Bootstrapping is a strategy to finance your firm during its initial days without raising equity or debt. As the article
suggest it is the practice done during earlier growth phases for venture development as in the development of an
incubation process, the ideas require efficient management of resources and adequate funding it is very important to resort
to creative technique for the same. It talks about the need to save funds in the initial stages of growth and launching to be
able to use them for more important things needed to sustain a business. It also very rightly talks about how most of the
new startups shut down because of shortage of funds.
To overcome these challenges, entrepreneurs do need to manage their funds efficiently. Carter’s research on bootstrapping
further solidify the importance of bootstrapping giving 4 different ways of the same:

 Product Development – financing research and development with the help of suppliers and customers
 Business Development – usage of personal cash for operational agility
 Conserving Cash – increasing the cash conversion cycle
 Meeting cash needs – financial help from friends and family

The major drawback of bootstrapping is it is not unique to the company or individual. The business model of Pioneering
Bootstrap can be easily replicated by players in the industry. Entrepreneurs who use their own money or personal assets
to get their startup going incur a huge financial risk, especially if the business fails.
In bootstrapping all the profits are yours but in case the business goes topsy-turvy then the losses are yours too. Also, the
profits earned from most bootstrapping company will mostly not be adequate to meet all the expenses and cost. It might
not be adequate for expansion mainly depending on the nature of the business. For example if you start a home based
lunch delivery service for 10 people and you suddenly receive a bulk order for additional 20 people; you may have profits
from the previous billing just enough to cater to the initial ten people but no funding to cater for the new 20 order that
you’ve received.
Several entrepreneurs who seek funding from venture capitalists or banks have money at their disposal to make payrolls
and pay bills even if there is any delay in receiving the payment from customers or other sources. Such delays for a
bootstrapped business can become cause of concern. Sometimes bootstrapped entrepreneurs tend to get sucked into
extreme bootstrapping that they tend to lose out on the window of opportunity for growth. As long as the business model
is viable seeking funds from external resources should not be a concern even for a business that started off on
bootstrapping. Bootstrapping too soon can lead to lower valuation for the company and the financial risks to bootstrapping
are also huge, so entrepreneurs must have a plan for moving forward.

(3) SOCIAL SKILLS –

As described by the article Social skill is a type of “social competence” which is the ability to handle social interactions
effectively. In other words, social competence refers to getting along well with others, being able to form and maintain
close relationships, and responding in adaptive ways in social settings.
Previous studies stated that the higher social capital (in a form of desired reputation, a larger social network, etc.) will help
an enterprise by giving them an important access to reach its success. Nevertheless, if an access is tightly kept, social
competence which is owned by an entrepreneur will influence the performance. Entrepreneur's ability to make use
resources capital to build a social relationship will be the venture’s competitive advantage. There are four key dimensions
that are mentioned in the article that comprise social skills –
  Social Perception – ability to listen and absorb what the audience expects and assess their reception towards a
presentation
 Impression Management – ability of create a lasting impression by your passive communication skills
 Persuasion and Social Influence – ability to persuade people to join you and commit to your objectives
 Social Adaptability – ability to meet the needs of the situation

It may occur, since ventures or business could be started by a family business management which has strong business
relationship by using a network which is based on family value. Empirical study has not clearly differentiated among
information, social and business interaction. Many interactions especially in social relationship will influence the
business performance. The ability to build social relationship will yield some benefit such as the larger business
information, the strengthening business network and the adaptability with business environment, so as to compose
unique resources in a company to reach its successful business performance. Furthermore, it can be said that a person
who has high social competence will be able to express more social attention, will be more sympathetic, more helpful
and more loveable. These traits will ease them to have a smooth interaction, create a social relationship, and also
create closed communication flow that will influence the business performance.

Part 2 - Brief note on Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) and its venture PayAgri
IIM Ahmedabad's Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) is one of India's leading centres for
catalyzing the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country through its various interventions and initiatives. CIIE was set-
up by IIM Ahmedabad in association with the Government of India and the Gujarat Government to provide seeding
and incubation support with a focus on technology and mass impact areas. Since 2007, CIIE has accelerated over 500
startups across various sectors. CIIE's journey so far has had enormous contributions from IIMA alumni who have come
forward and supported the cause in multiple ways.
With the aim of having CIIE as the top name associated with entrepreneurship, they continuously strive to deliver
disproportionate impact to entrepreneurship in India by backing purpose-driven entrepreneurs harnessing the power of
technology to solve some of India's toughest problems using business models that are specific to India. We know that it
takes more than just early stage risk-capital to get a company off the ground - CIIE enable most of what may be required
by entrepreneurs through seed-funding, incubation, mentoring, training, knowledge dissemination and best practice
research. Through all these interventions, CIIE helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable businesses.
Innovation Continnum
Incubation Acceleration Investment Insights
The main objective is to produce successful firms that will leave the program financially viable and freestanding. These
incubators “graduates” create job, commercialize new technologies, and strengthen national economies. Incubator tenants
not only benefit from business and technical assistance, they also benefit from official affiliation with the incubator, a
supportive community with an entrepreneurial environment, direct link to entrepreneurs, and immediate networking and
commercial opportunities with other tenant firms.CIIE has several initiatives across the entrepreneurial and innovation
value chain which includes
- the Power of Ideas (India’s largest b-plan competition)
- iAccelerator (India’s first accelerator for IT, web and mobile start-ups)
- INFUSE Ventures (cleantech-focused VC fund)
- MentorEdge (a nation-wide network of 400+ mentors).

PayAgri
An agri fintech organization that orchestrates the entire agri-value chain in order to bring inclusive growth. The focus is
on optimizing returns and creating value for every player by leveraging technology and agri expertise. A full stack Agri
Ecosystem platform, driven by Real-time data & AI, orchestrating all the actors in agri value chain in order to bring
inclusive growth. The focus is on optimizing returns and creating value for every player in the value chain by leveraging
technology and agri expertise.

 Vision: To transform agriculture and optimize value for farmers through the power of payAgri by orchestrating every
player in the agri value chain
 Mission: To optimize return and create value for every player in the Agri Value Chain by leveraging technology and
agri expertise, keeping farmer interest as core.
 Agri Value Engine: Traceability, Technology, Technical Expertise, Big Data Analysis – your agricultural experience
will never be the same! Enter our Agri Value Engine (AVE)™ portal, and explore newer dimensions in agriculture.

What do they believe in?

We believe that the only way to create a sustainable environment in agriculture is by keeping the farmer interest at core.
We at payAgri constantly strive to ensure that the farmers reduce cost of cultivation & wastages, get better price and do
cashless transactions so as to build their financial profile based on real time data. It is our vision to provide the latest agri
techniques for small and marginal farmers so that they get the benefit of large-scale farming.
How it works?