 What I call my session today is doing good and doing well because I know we have many, many entrepreneurs joining in today from various parts of the country, all of whom are extremely bright. I've been of course privileged to be a part of the jury this time as well and so I read through a lot of the nominations and the details so clearly very, very exciting work all around and what was amazing to see was the spirit with which people sort of approached their business even in the midst of this crisis. But having said that, what I want to talk about today is the need for us to dramatically change the way we do business, not get out of the businesses that we are in, not lose sight of what matters to our consumers but what really, really matters today for me and I think for all business leaders around the world is whether our heart and our mind is aligned and whether we create a new normal rather than waiting and hoping to go back to the way things work because if we go back to the way things work, I think that will be one of the large best opportunities that we have to make a correction that we do have gone waste. So these times are unprecedented times and clearly one thing that has come together quite clearly is that we are all connected, none of us are isolated in an island by ourselves but at the same time this is not just an economic crisis, it is a social crisis, the humanitarian crisis and more importantly it's a crisis where our planet is in crisis too and unless we recognize that we will not be able to deal with some of the problems. At the same time we've become a very unequal world, these are some startling statistics of how unequal the world has become, 3,000 corporations around the world are causing 2.2 trillion dollars of environmental damage every year, the rich are getting richer even in the countries like the United States let alone emerging markets like India, the inequality hasn't been as high as it is today in the last 100 years and that has led to civil unrest, it is leading to slash points on various ends of the spectrum and it's not just it's but at the same time it's something that has been building up for a while, Paul Polman the famous CEO of Unilever pointed this out years ago and my current colleague William Bissell who's the current chairman of Fab India, he keeps talking about the need for a circle economy as well and is it any surprise that today's work is the number one cause of stress and stress is the leading factor to 80% of our deaths, now in this environment then as entrepreneurs, as people who are building businesses as you look out on to the next 20-30 years of your life and you're trying to create a business, what do we need to do differently? What is our plan? Well first of all hope is not a plan, we can't hope that things will be different that actually we're creating businesses and we are most of the time running businesses in a way that is very short-term and short-term does not mean just quarter on quarter actually even if we look at businesses in a 5 to 10 year perspective I believe it's and I've begun to realize that more and recently that those are very very short-term targets because if the underlying resources, if the underlying you know environmental and planetary needs are not met we'll have a crisis on our hands. Now there are lots of companies which are beginning to make a difference, they're doing various things but at the same time the stock realization is that this response is an absolutely inadequate response. In a positive move the United Nations came out with these SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals but the hard reality is or the bad news is that it's going to take three and a half trillion dollars a year to be able to meet these SDGs and in that we've got a 2% conundrum what I call the 2% conundrum is that you know most companies in India even the profitable ones are dedicated about 2% of their profits towards a corporate social responsibility scheme but the problem with that is with just 2% of the money going in less than 2% of management time and a fraction of the leadership time actually goes into trying to trying to acknowledge these problems trying to find solutions around it and trying to create a world that is dramatically different from the way things have been so far. Now therefore what is it that needs to happen? What needs to happen is doing well in terms of creating profitability and doing good in creating social impact and a deep social impact around us has to come together. It cannot be that we are in a unidirectional run of creating profits and we just take 2% of our time at best and try to see how we can create some good around it or you know find a purpose to our business. So what is our one big objective? Well let's go back to even businesses that I've been I've been involved with in the past. When somebody talks about Indigo they keep thinking about the largest airline the most profitable airline and the best on time and so on and so forth but actually our purpose our one big objective was something very different our one big objective was to prove that low cost has nothing to do with low quality and that ability to work in a very purpose-driven way is I think the secret sauce to some of the successes that I have seen in my life and I've been blessed to work with people who are equally driven behind passion and then there are examples like this around the world take a take a 200 year old baking company called King Arthur in Vermont in the northeast of the United States it's 100% employee-owned it is profitable it garners a price premium for its products in in the marketplace it has an extremely you know loyal customer base they make these really high quality products at the same time it is a beacop you know organization and which tries to is absolutely centers itself around trying to create a socially conscious business as entrepreneurs the bits that you will have to do is we have to all make some very very hard choices do we look at only creating shareholder value or do we start focusing on stakeholder value which is a much larger you know pie do we only talk about what is now or do we kind of start planning for what's going to come and hit us later do we only talk about what matters to me or do I also look in the context of what is happening around the world because things will get worse before they get better and unless we start waking up to this reality the world will change on us the planet will change on us the consumer will change on us and we entrepreneurs will suddenly find ourselves with a business model that doesn't work anymore so Marshall Gans who's who's a senior lecturer at Harvard said that you know leadership needs to engage the hands which means the skills that we require to solve a problem our heads to try to find a solution to and find a different way of thinking and our hearts because that is what inspires us and those around us to look at things dramatically differently because what I'm telling you to do today is very different from what any other venture capitalist or most of the venture capitalist will tell you it is very different from any other mentor will tell you what I'm telling you to do today is dramatically change the way you do business and where there is a will there is a way and there are giant companies who have been able to make a difference Lipton for example you know they went through a massive crisis ten years ago and then they realized that unless they go and fix problems that they have created for a long long period of time and impact for the better the lives of you know small tea producing farmers around the world they will have a problem on their hands where the very resource material the raw material of tea will disappear and now they they they you know now source a hundred percent of their tea from sustainable resources or for example another you know Unilever example where they where they've tied where they partner not just with Walmart but with with many other detergent manufacturers in the United States many years ago was when they came up with this thing called small and mighty this is a detergent which could create three times more washes in in one third the amount of detergent so the package was smaller you know the amount of raw material was less they were able to bring down the logistics cost they were able to bring down the cost of of distribution was able to bring down prices but they were afraid that when the consumer comes in and looks at all these larger bottles from all the competitors will they ever choose this small little bottle for the same price and then they did something which is pre-competitive which means they put everybody in the industry together and forced everybody to move towards a more denser detergent solution or for that matter Patagonia which kind of said you know there is a true cost of accounting where in the immediate terms in the in a very sort of basic or legacy way you can look at cost and look at cost of your product and say you know if I if I work towards a more sustainable work towards more sustainable practices then it's going to cost me a higher on dollars but actually there's an externalized cost which is going to impact the future of the business so therefore you start earning towards looking at at your business from an externalized cost perspective and then take long-term you know bets which will create sustainability not just for the planet and the people around you and your employees and your communities that you serve but actually make sure that your business actually does survive after a few years and it and and and this is actually from a Jewish rabbi who said that you know the values we align with are something which is internal to us and then there are things that we do and when those things come together and cross cross together that's where our calling is and I think you know I'm at that stage in life now where I truly believe that I think my calling is to try to create businesses and try to get involved in businesses which create deep social impact and and there are many such examples like rainforest alliance like the B Corp where where the economy is being designed very differently this is something William Bissell introduced me to a concept that you know that our design of our economy the way things have happened so far it's just it's just faulty it's it's kind of broken and the way we need to do things differently is where we need to meet the basic human needs of the planet and that's what for example Fab India an organization which is celebrating its 60th year in 2020 has created India's most profitable and largest and and most loved you know retail brand but done it in a purpose driven way which is committed to service committed to to their associates and partners and producers of goods and and look at this amazing example and I'm so proud that I've got involved in something like this and I mean and and William puts it in a very interesting way that that that the new way of looking looking at life and he calls it new enlightenment is this alternative framework which kind of cares about the future of humanity and makes a commitment to taking this journey and raising our own state of consciousness where we start aligning with what the context is Rebecca Henderson the Harvard Professor who who teaches a course in sustainable businesses and she's been working in this area for over 20 years says that there's a wheel of change now where there are shared values which are coming together with industry wide cooperation consumers are making more conscious choices regulations are coming in and and and that is what is creating these this kind of wheel of change which is going to lead us to a completely different sort of economy and it's not just that these new ways sustainable business types but even Larry Fink the the the chairman CEO of BlackRock the the almost one of the largest private equity firms in the street has been saying this now for years and and now more and more emphatically that purpose is the engine of long-term profitability so to people like you and me especially for all those people listening in the young entrepreneurs or award winners today congratulations to you the opportunity staring at us and it is the top it is now our task to create something which is fundamentally different from what has happened before and those who separate themselves from the back and realize that this is a true true opportunity and that's where lies the potential of your business you will see that you can use technology to solve really hard problems to solve and that will make which will make a deep social impact and if you're looking for the next billion dollar you know unicorn idea drive out on the streets of India look out of the window find a hard problem to solve use technology to solve it and make a social impact while while doing so and just to remind ourselves even years ago the first dean of Harvard Business School said that the purpose of the Harvard Business School and and since we're talking about purpose today is to educate leaders who will make a decent profit which is doing well but decently which is doing good so I wish you all the very very best and I hope that you know you you chart out a new course congratulations to all the winners and best of luck and kudos to all of those who you know were nominated and I'm so glad to be here and thank you again the entrepreneur. Thank you Mr. Ghosh that was really interesting to know from you so before I you know pick up questions some of the questions from the audience that we have I would really want to understand something from you so yesterday night I was talking to a friend who runs a small business in West Bengal really good you know so I told him that you know if we have to get the demand back what we have to do is whatever benefits are calculating we have to get it down to you know the last person on the road so if if banks are giving you a benefit you pass it on to your employer and then you know he spends and the demand gets back but he told me very important very interesting thing and I would want to understand from you he said that listen we do not pay for someone from my heart I do pay but more than that why I pay is because the value that he is creating for me and that is because that value that he's creating for me is helping me serve the demand so now there is no demand so you know he's not been able to serve I'm not able to do so this chain is going to be there so how do you see it and how do you see that you know a person who's who's gotten to such kind of a trap how can he a businessman or entrepreneur can help himself well you know the long subject but a quick answer to that is first of all if you are in the business of satisfying a fundamental need of the consumer then don't get the sartan because that market is still there in the pocket is going to come the bit that I would say that we need to take a good hard look at it that how can we deliver those same products at a different cost structure and using technology using an online delivery of that and the third is that this is the time to have an as a leader to have an open and transparent communication with your with your workforce and with your partners and if they truly believe in your mission and and they truly believe in that purpose I have seen this many times over in my life that everybody kind of comes together and you're able to see the light of them and I was having a similar discussion only this morning with another organization who are who are working with some of the poorest of poor you know women manufacturers around the country and and and you know we came up with with a similar kind of solution if you're serving the fundamental need of the consumer that market is not going anywhere so I'll take a couple of questions that have come to us so and someone has wished you a belated happy but they seem to be very much he seems to be a very big fan of yours and he's asking you that I know you're a big fan of books so what books are I've helped you to become such a super inspiring and token that if you can share to be honest I kind of alternate between fiction and nonfiction so and I try to read as much as possible but if I have to be truly honest to everybody here you know even the times when I don't get to to read much I'll probably watch a tech talk or I'll probably watch a little video and these days audio visual is is a great medium and as much as I love reading and as much as I'm a big one on books I also don't want to sit on a ivory tower and say you should only read there's a lot of great documentaries gave information out there so whatever is the source of information that you can that you can get access on code code right ahead you know yeah okay but if there was one book then I mean there's a there's a book by a Clayton Christensen called how will you measure your life I think that's a very interesting book for people to read right now okay so you know it said that your past never leaves you so there is a question for you that what is happening with the AV industry and what do you eventually eventually be back I know it's a very indefinite question but what's your view you know yeah the airline business yeah the airline business yeah so what you what I think I think the affordable segment of the market will recover pretty quickly and I also think that right now there is an artificial restriction on people not being able to travel and not being able to fly so so you know so this part of the business is going through a unnecessary shock but but travel the fundamental need for people to travel is not going to go but people will also have a fundamental need to conserve cash so therefore I think I think the affordable segment of the market will recover first okay okay all right and what about the hospitality industry you've been both in the both the places the industry which have been affected both due to this pandemic I think it's a very symbiotic relationship but but we are at even in the hospitality business in oil where I'm involved we've now seen about we were back to about 30% of what the pre-covid you know occupancy rates were there are some green shoots of recovery in China there are some green shoots of recovery in the United States Europe is doing you know much better than than any of the other markets so clearly goes to show that as as these markets open up I mean I think the traffic will start coming back so you know we had Ritesh a few days back for one of our webinars and he said that you know he thinks that you know intra like travels within the country to places where you can take your car and go and these things will recover very fast and will be the remain the norm for some time to come to you agree with that yes and yes yes to some extent in the sense that yes that will that will actually recover faster because but at the same time what I'm also seeing is that people are being able to fly in and out of airports much easier than having to go through these various checkpoints and and things like that so Ritesh and I were actually talking about this on Saturday and and we were exchanging notes and I and I said that you know I think the moment the the network restrictions on the airline goes away right now they can only fly 35% here and 45% there moment that goes away I think you'll see much you know freer flow of traffic but naturally hospitality and the airline business are pretty pretty symbiotic and there's going to be a positive impact on that and in retail as well where like in fact