Future companies for the adventurous

Before I begin, my heartfelt tribute to the man who saved us all - the father of the Green Revolution - Dr Norman Borlaug. His fantastic story can be read here!
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Across B-school campuses, it is placements time. Or it will be, soon. And the same questions will haunt students and professors alike - Which companies are the best to be chosen as role-model employers? Which companies are to be skipped? 

But a little reality check, and context-setting first. The terribly rude shocks of the past 12 months have destroyed most of the artificial intellectual arrogance that had gotten built across B-school campuses. In the period 2002-2007, even otherwise ordinary institutes with average output were on a high. The upward swing of the market was being construed as the lift generated by their own hard work and talent (which was not the case). Since placements were happening anyway (as companies were desperate to recruit anyone resembling a human being), everyone was consistent in one belief - markets have been tamed, vagaries are under control, and anyone with an MBA tag attached is hot property. Naturally, students and institutes alike were very choosy about companies and packages.

Those rah-rah years are gone for good. They won't return in a hurry. Maybe they won't ever return. And personally, I feel it is a great thing. Sanity always is.

So let me try and answer the question "which company to join". From all my experience, this is what I feel.. take this as "my advice for all young leaders/managers" -

1. The choice is personal - safety v/s growth
   This truly is tough. For a young person, the safety of a large corporation is quite attractive, especially when loan instalments are to be paid. But look beyond the first few months, and for some of you, maybe a different (and unexciting) picture may emerge. For many, however, a large corporation is the final call, with safety and predictability taking precedence over everything else. That's not wrong, it's just a matter of personal choice. So when you  make a certain choice, please accept in good humour the baggage that comes with it. No point whining.
2. If you want growth (and adventure), the best bet are small, upcoming companies
   The way the world is going, one can say that the most disruptive ideas will emerge from the least likely quarters. Since scale is no longer a prerequisite - in fact in many cases it positively hinders ideation - it is likely that the next killer idea is being shaped by a garage entrepreneur right now! Small, unknown companies are the best places where great ideas are getting nurtured today.
3. Companies that are unheard of today, will be masters of the world tomorrow
   This sounds cheeky, but is the truth. There are strong reasons for this. i) Extremely cheap and almost free computing power (clouds), ii) large-scale global collaborative work tools (e.g. dimdim.com), and iii) crowd-sourcing. All these were simply absent 10 years ago. Smart entrepreneurs are making full use of these tools.^
4. Ten hot sectors to look out for
• Renewable energy
• Education services
• Services management for services-sector
• Bottom-of-the-pyramid microfinance
• Bottom-of-the-pyramid FMCG & Telecom
• Micro-medicine (Nanotech)
• Low-cost mass housing
• Budget hospitality solutions
• Africa!
• Personalised media services

So before you decide, think carefully. The world is a beautiful place, with multiple opportunities. To understand this better, you may wish to view Venture Capitalist John Doerr's views on Entrepreneurship (and hence the way companies are run), and Disruptive technologies.

Disruptive technologies - click here 

Enterpreneurs are missionaries - click here

Choose wisely!


* at most b-schools, they used to have a "week" for placements
** Witness a typical scene in the corner office - "Get me 500 post-graduates", thundered the boss of an MNC subsidiary in India. "We have aggressive growth plans". The HR head meekly nodded his head. He had to get 500 heads, anyhow.
*** remember Google? In 1997, no one had heard of them. That's a mere 12 years ago. A mere 12 years! I distinctly remember a colleague of mine asking "what is this google thing? many students are talking about it.." In those days, the first set of employees to have joined this company have reaped the richest rewards of the company's blistering growth over the years. It's always that way. But not everyone can be Google. So what did you expect? That's how the world is. Most die. Some flourish. Few are blockbusters.
^ The tools, per se, do not guarantee success. They accelerate it, facilitate it, make it cheap. But luck, political sense and right timing are needed in equal measure to become a market success.
^^ Entirely my personal opinion. These are all relatively new or unknown sectors, with few talented people contributing. Take renewable energy for example. That's a sector whose success will determine the fate of the planet! Imagine!! And what do we have to show for that? How much coverage does media offer this sector? Relatively less. Another Google is waiting to emerge in this sector. It will happen suddenly. Out of the 6 major areas that companies are working in - Wind-energy (Esp. High-wind, using turbing bearing balloons), Algae fuel, Wave farms, Nuclear fusion, Geothermal systems, Solar satellites - anyone can be the winner. And the potential is boundless. Fossil fuel companies are truly dinosaurs. We have together destroyed much of our beautiful planet, and it's time for big change. Change so big, we cannot contemplate its size now. The only problem is no one knows "when" the change starts to happen. It can be tomorrow, or 20 years later! Well, that's the price of adventure. A word of caution - Bio-tech was touted as a gamechanger 10 years ago. Billions of VC dollars later, nothing much has emerged. It takes time.
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