Case Study: Gender and International Entrepreneurship

Part A:

Kiran Mazumdar-shaw: An international Biotechnologist

and entrepreneur
Kiran manzdar is one of the successful entrepreneur and the chairperson of India’s leading
biotechnical company. She is the great motivational and influential personality among the young
entrepreneur (wikipedia, n.d.).Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the richest business women, known as
Accidental entrepreneur by the leader of time magazine and Biocon. Kiran Mazumdar is chairman
and managing director of nations leading biotechnological firm Biocon Ltd. Headquarter of the
firm is in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), which is the capital state of Karnataka (india, cilicon,
n.d.) (my heritage, n.d.) (wikipedia, n.d.).

Background:

Chairperson and managing director of India’s leading firm was born to Gujarati parents on 23rd
march 1953 in Bangalore, India. She was very much inspired by her father. She completed her
initial schooling from Bishop Girls high school in 1968.she wanted to continue her career as doctor
but she ended up doing her BSc in zoology (honors) from mount caramel college of the Bangalore
University in 1973. (wikipedia, n.d.) (MBArendezvous, n.d.) (you sucess, n.d.)after two years she
graduated from Ballarat College, Melbourne University qualifying as master brewer. She started
her career as trainee brewer at Carlton & united beverages. After working for four years she
switched her job to Biocon biochemical which was based in Ireland. (bw business world,
2019)Later in the same year she founded Biocon in India with an initial capital of 10000 rupees.in
2014 she was awarded with the “Othermer Gold Medal “for outstanding contributing in the field
of science and chemistry .she is also in the list of top 50 women in business list of “Financial
Times” Kiran was listed as 85th powerful women in the world by Forbes in 2015, and she was
listed again in 2016 and 2017 at the 77th and 71st position respectively. She married to a scoot man
john Shaw, he was fond of collecting art works and had huge collection of painting. Kiran also
like to write and has written several books like “Ale and Arty” (wikipedia, n.d.)

Financial worth:

As of September 2014 with the net worth of $1.2 billion, she is India’s 81st richest person and
powerful women world list she is at 91 .as per 3/12/2019 her net worth is $3.5 billion. (you sucess,
n.d.)

Entrepreneurial journey:

When she start Biocon in 1978 with the seed capital of 10,000 rupees, in the garage of her rented
house in Bangalore. She faced many challenges like credibility issues due to her age, gender and
untested business model. She faced funding problem because no banks allows to lend her money
without guarantee or guarantor. (you sucess, n.d.) Even no one was ready to work with startup
business .the first employee was a retired garage mechanic. Other than that she faced some
technological challenges as well like unstable infrastructure, unhygienic labs, poor quality water,
and low quality research labs and most importantly unskilled labor. But in spite of giving up, she
overcome all the challenges within 1st year of inspection .then become India’s leading firm to
manufacture enzymes and export them to united states and Europe. (wikipedia, n.d.)

Other than that she is an active member Governing council of ministry of the corporate affairs,
national foundation for corporate governance. Government of India and honorary member of the
union commerce ministry –instituted committee to advise the government on export promotion
strategy of the country. (fessler, 2018)

International Theory of Entrepreneurship:

The concept of globalization creates the new business opportunities to achieve high level
competency. entrepreneurship is a vast area that has many rooms to play .as per the case of women
entrepreneur it can be said that the entrepreneur or the business both had the potential to go globally
.to enter into international market there should be some personality traits that should be present in
the entrepreneur and after studding the case of Kiran Shaw I must say that she has all the traits
that good entrepreneur have .for example as she cater with the cultural differences and challenges
she faced by financial institutions and the labor force challenges within one year and even start
exporting enzymes to united states and Europe also ,that al shows the capabilities that match with
the international theory of entrepreneur for international comparison. Her successful attempt to
enter into us and Europe market shows her potential and competence to deal with international
affairs.

Motivation theory:

Support systems, particularly from family, parents, spouses are appear to be critical for an
individual success. The more you get into your work or business the more your personal life suffer
,this is the time when your supporting elements plays vital role in your journey to success they
work as driving force that lead your behavior either positive or negative towards your job or
business . Same happen in this case when despite of facing many frustrating challenges Kiran was
supported by her family. So (fessler, 2018)this theory can be well defined from above scenario
because in this scenario. She followed intrinsic motivation factor where she drives herself and
determination for her upbringing.it has also been observed that right from the beginning she was
very much impressed by her father, who was well known named in brewing industry.it was her
father who motivates her to take the road less traversed and a confidence to pursue her path for
entrepreneurship .her father prodded her to persist and do not give up in the face of difficulty. She
said that she learnt the lesson from her father, which then become her business hallmark. She was
also inspired by her Irish collaborator who infused a tremendous sense of confidence in her, which
enable her to start Biocon in 1978. (MBArendezvous, n.d.)

Sara D sarasvaty’s theory:

The beauty of effectuation is that if you succeed, the chances of something noble happening is
very high but if you fail the cost of failure is low:.(Sara D sarasvathy) I think nothing can best
describe Kiran Mazumdar that Sara’s theory where she gave an example of her student “Kiran
Mazumdar Shaw “as her student who had effectively used effectuation to great success and she
mentioned Kiran Mazumdar as the “accidental entrepreneur”. These statements by the most
influential people proves the ability competency and the potential the entrepreneur has.
(MBArendezvous, n.d.)

Part B:

Lesson learnt:
There are five lesson that we have learnt from the above case of Kiran Mazumdar:

1. Fight against the stream:

Kiran Mazumdar never decided to become an entrepreneur. Instead she had plan to become
a doctor then perusing brewing career. In spite of leaving her path because of facing so
many hurdles, like technological problems, economical problems and social problem .she
continue her journey to a less travelled road, Biotechnology and start an enterprise. (india,
cilicon, n.d.)
2. Choose the differentiator:
It’s been said that consumers are being attracted to something new from what is actually
there in and around the market even in the market term people like more innovative ideas
and like to try new thing .so choosing a differentiator as biotechnology was her good
decision to start with. Because once the idea or business is experienced by consumers it
become the matter of qualities and high end capabilities. (india, cilicon, n.d.)
3. Make the required changes:
Considering the dynamic environment, the dynamicity of business model and effective
business plan ensure the longer lifespan and less failures. Sticking to the same model for a
longer period of time soon become a entrepreneurial/business /company’s most expensive
mistakes.as in this case she explains that after going into biopharmaceutical business they
increase their business size from $25 million to $100 million ,when they went public by
IPO inflection point. (you sucess, n.d.)
4. Focus on R&D innovation:
 Research and development work as backbone of any business and it must be given priority.
Because the more you focus on R$D the more innovation it will be. (india, cilicon, n.d.)
5. The emotions in investment:
It is important for an entrepreneur to emotionally involved in the business .one of the
important lesson learned from this case is being emotionally driven about investing, but
being emotionally detached when divesting. (india, cilicon, n.d.)

Conclusion:
We can conclude this case by remarks that there are so many factors that can influence
one’s behavior but motivation is one of the important factor that can lead an individual to
perform throughout its life .there are some triggers that form a behaviors ,and some factors
that contribute in an individual life .these factors seems to be very minor, it could be the
learning and lesson from life ,it could be the situation we are in etc. but they play a very
important role in designing one’s life .as we seen in the case Kiran was inspired by her
father then her father motivates her in all the situation she faced ,in the end by taking baby
steps towards success in the light of her father guidance she ultimately formed her self-
determined and focused to achieve her goal. And at the same time these learning allows
her to face the challenges she had and cover them all with positive attitude towards life.
Same like Kiran we all have some hidden talents that can only be nurture by exploring
yourself, taking risk and positive attitude towards life and allow ourselves to explore new
opportunities.
 Reference

1. https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2011/01/top-10-women-entrepreneurs-and-leaders-of-india/
2. https://qz.com/work/1177710/biocon-chairperson-kiran-mazumdar-shaw-was-denied-her-first-
job-for-being-a-woman/
3. http://www.naukrihub.com/career-builder/journey-of-women-entrepreneurs-kiran-mazumdar-
shaw.html
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiran_Mazumdar-Shaw
5. https://qz.com/work/1177710/biocon-chairperson-kiran-mazumdar-shaw-was-denied-her-first-
job-for-being-a-woman/
6. https://www.yosuccess.com/success-stories/kiran-mazumdar-shaw-biocon/
7. https://www.financialexpress.com/archive/lessons-for-the-laity/133828/