India is fast making a transition from a nation of corporate drones to a nation of entrepreneurs. Today, entrepreneurship has become a popular aspiration for well employed corporate stalwarts, who are ready to forgo their six digit income, a comfort zone that brings position and recognition, a financial stability achieved after many years of grit and struggle to change their career course to fulfill their financial, social aspirations unrequited in their corporate avatar.

A Step Down for a Startup
Ravi Mehta with top education and 16-year plus corporate career, one evening, told his lawyer wife, who had given up her job a few years ago to manage their young children, to resume work as he had been called by his entrepreneurial epiphany. Though Mehta’s corporate drone of managing a growing retail chain was always very entrepreneurial in spirit, he wanted to undergo the framework of making the business idea go from his head into the market, if the brand was his own, versus a corporation's.

The Great Indian Business Dream
Indian business environment is getting marked by an entrepreneurial age fueled by social change, new sources of capital and new technologies, which are much similar to what US had undergone back in 1970’s, when people armed with both first rate job experience and sophisticated education, set out to start their own businesses born out of an underlying dream to be their own boss. Today, Indians in metros are seemed to be possessing the same spirit. Many in such a position, in India, would agree that Ravi Mehta has much to lose but still enough to gain in his entrepreneurial pursuit.

Thinking Big
Unlike Ravi Mehta’s good friend Ajay Gupta, who runs five CDIT stores in a metro city, Ravi Mehta’s ambition is to build a brand and run a large chain and that has been holding him back from taking a plunge. So what gives with Ravi Mehta and people in similar profile is that today there is enough reason for them to start an enterprise but they do not want to start small. While Mehta has all the strategic, management and operational bandwidth, he fears that his personal capital will fall short of taking his business to the prime. So what are his options to de-risk his savings, ensure maximum return on time and still build a big brand?

The Franchising Fit
Ravi Mehta has an edge today which comes from his years of corporate experience. He is better placed to identify the right business opportunity or a gap in the market that makes a great business idea, knows how to get the appropriate talent in a new organization at the right cost, and his own special knowledge or technical skill acquired over years of work put him in a more strategic position where he can assume calculative risk and lot of investors who have seen his apparent corporate strengths over the years would be ready to back him financially to create his dream chain. Franchising can become a strategic fit here because it needs strategy, business format, management and capital. Mehta brings strategy and business format and a lot of small entrepreneurs by subscribing to unit franchise or high net worth investors by acquiring regional or master franchise in the proven format of his brand will therefore bring an opportunity to scale up and size the enterprise and ensure his enterprise will find its feet within a far shorter timeframe.

Unlike Ravi Mehta, whose ambition is to build a large chain, there are corporate professionals who are keen to embrace entrepreneurship for other reasons too. A professional may want to call quits to the life of corporate stress and pursuit a career he is passionate about, here taking a unit or master franchise depending upon individual goals may give him the lifestyle which he may not have achieved in a job. Women Professionals who opt out for reasons of hitting the glass ceiling or starting a family or need flexi times can find franchising a suitable fit. On the other hand, a high on the ladder professional who either retired or opted out can also look at becoming a business or management consultant and don the role of a mentor for start-ups looking to scale–up and thus monetize his/her return on time by creating an equity value, in a small business on its way up maybe through JV.

Money Follows a Good Business Case
New regulations by the Government of India and the Reserve Bank encouraging small & medium enterprises have opened doors for entrepreneurs, who had previously faced high hurdles to business ownership, particularly when it came to funding. Both Banks and PE funding companies are looking to invest in profitable Business Ideas and Franchising concepts are becoming hot favorites because they have proven brand appeal and are consumption driven, which is the greatest Indian economy driver today.

What is Your Story?
If your story is similar to Ravi Mehta’s and you are looking to leave a corporate profile to build your own brand; if you are in a similar situation as Ajay Gupta where you have a few profitable stores but need real-time strategy to grow to a bigger brand; or if you are interested to:

§         Build a Pan–India brand

§         Control the way the brand stands in the market

§         Understand the kind of support and assistance to be offered to those who will be operating under your brand

§         Know how would you be remunerated for the support offered,

Meet us at the 28th FRO show in Mumbai on May 22-23, 2010, wherein our International experts will help you take an entrepreneurial plunge or scale up your business.

By Ritu Marya, editor@franchiseinda.com, Twitter