“Entrepreneurs launching products that require consumers to modify behavior should be cautious of the resistance to change,” advised Professor Arun Pereira in his talk on “Ten tips for the Entrepreneur in you.” Professor Pereira, Clinical Associate Professor of Management Education and Head, Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Case Development (CTLC) at the Indian School of Business, was addressing an enthusiastic audience of mostly students at the Mohali campus.

Professor Arun Pereira In his talk, Professor Pereira highlighted the risks and challenges involved in an entrepreneurial venture. Based on his entrepreneurial experience, he shared interesting insights on the most-frequent mistakes and the best practices that entrepreneurs make when starting a venture. “When the original business idea is not really feasible, try and adapt to use the technology to address some other customer need in a related industry. Most entrepreneurs who are ‘sold’ on their own original plan do not course correct and change quickly enough when needed,” he said.

Professor Pereira stressed on the importance of identifying customer needs, building brand loyalty, being innovative and adaptive, and having a contingency plan in place among many other aspects. Citing examples, he reiterated the importance of being customer-centred and using market research for the growth of newly-incubated ventures.

He also spoke about the use as well as the diminishing returns of technology for a business.

The session ended with Professor Pereira answering students’ queries on entrepreneurship.