Celebrating Entrepreneurialism

 TiE, Chennai Chapter recognizes that the spirit of entrepreneurialism is at the core of business. The creative spark of the entrepreneur provides the engine of growth that propels even the largest of organizations or the start-up of yesterday. It is also true that entrepreneurs constantly face the danger of death of their enterprises, particularly so at the beginning of their journey. Yet they continue on their quest, many of them rising from failure to go after their dreams.

The TiE, Chennai Entrepreneur Awards, 2008 are primarily meant to celebrate this never say die spirit of adventure by recognizing the efforts and success of entrepreneurs from the city of Chennai. The ground rules of eligibility for an award are as follows:

• The entrepreneur should hail from Chennai, be a resident of Chennai or his/her organization must be substantively based in the greater Chennai region (although it may have spread its wings to other areas)
• The organization must be a privately owned and ‘for profit’ enterprise engaged in any lawful business or social activity
• The enterprise must have a track record of viable operations with perceptible value creation. Financial sustainability of the enterprise is an important criterion, which could be relaxed in the evaluation for certain categories
• The business enterprise should have had a demonstrable impact in one or more ways:
• It should have enabled consumers to experience a product or a service in a new manner – e.g. the product/service itself, the way the product/service is delivered to or experienced by a consumer
• It should have created / increase employment directly / indirectly in and around Chennai
• It should have enhanced the quality of life for consumers, residents or the community at large
• The entrepreneur and the business enterprise would have conducted itself with integrity and in a lawful manner
• The candidate for the TiE awards would either be a first generation entrepreneur or a scion of an established industrial house with a radical departure in the type of enterprise created so as to make it similar to a first generation entrepreneurial risk.

Categories of Awards

TiE, Chennai Chapter proposes to institute eight categories of awards to recognise the achievements of entrepreneurs of Chennai city. The eight categories of awards are as follows:

• Entrepreneur of the Year Award
• Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award
• Start-up Entrepreneur of the Year Award
• Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award
• Life time Entrepreneur Award
• Extreme Entrepreneur Award
• Serial Entrepreneur Award

The first four categories recognize recent period performance with an accent on the latest year, while the last four categories, by their very nature are based on achievements of the entrepreneurs over several years.

Description of each category of award

Entrepreneur of the Year: This award recognises successful entrepreneurs who have created a business enterprise and nurtured them to financial stability. Such enterprises would typically have been in business for at least five years and the sustainability of the enterprise would not be in question. The awardee would have played a key role not only in the creation of the enterprise but would have spearheaded the stabiliisation of the business model, and created a capable top management team. Preferably the entrepreneur would have taken the company public during the period or have brought in new shareholders who would have reason to be satisfied with the subsequent performance of the company.

Woman Entrepreneur of the Year: This award recognises successful entrepreneurs who have created a business enterprise and nurtured them to financial stability. Such enterprises would typically have been in business for at least five years and the sustainability of the enterprise would not be in question. The awardee would have played a key role not only in the creation of the enterprise but would have spearheaded the stabiliisation of the business model, and created a capable top management team. Preferably the entrepreneur would have taken the company public during the period or have brought in new shareholders who would have reason to be satisfied with the subsequent performance of the company.

Start up Entrepreneur of the Year: This award recognizes start up entrepreneurs who have succeeded in setting up a business enterprise around an idea, grown the business to a stage where it has gained acceptance of customers and started generating revenue, and importantly, created perceptible (even if not directly measureable) shareholder value in a short period of time (typically less than 3 years). The enterprise should have achieved some kind of a breakthrough in business – which could be one of new technology introduction, innovative application of technology, adapting a radically different business processes or model that achieves either reduction in cost or improves customer satisfaction levels in a perceptible and repeatable manner. The core business proposition should have gained acceptability, and the enterprise would possibly be on its path to a sustainable future. Also the method of starting-up can be assessd for the sgree of innovation involved in it.

Social Entrepreneur of the Year: This award recognises a stellar performance by a Social entrepreneur –someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. While the venture may not score high on the metric of shareholder value creation, it wouldnonetheless be a for profit venture and would score highly on the impact on society in terms of the objectives of its business. The right candidate would have started and scaled an enterprise which serves a social purpose (core / significant part of the organisation operations or activities), while being a “for profit” sustainable enterprise. The awardee’s actions and achievements should have perceptably created and / or markedly raised public awareness of a major social issue in and around Chennai (and maybe even beyond) and encouraged other people to contribute either by direct/indirect participation in the venture, or by taking up similar causes in their environs.

Life time Achievement Entrepreneur award: This award recognizes entrepreneurs who have created enterprises that have not only created value for investors, but have also transformed them into enduring organisations which have had a deep beneficial impact on a wider community and society at large. Over the years, the business organisation(s) under the leadership of such an entrepreneur would have blossomed into an iconic institution that has gained global recognition for being world class, and the entrepreneur in question would have become role models for other entrepreneurs for organisation building, entrepreneurship, business ethics, innovation and governance.

Extreme Entrepreneur of the Year: This award recognizes entrepreneurs who have created successful organizations and grown them for about 10 – 15 years to a stage where they have gained global recognition for their achievements. Such an entrepreneur would have navigated his/her venture through periods of success and tough times, and perhaps fallen down several times before picking up the threads again to resurrect the organisation. The awardeee could be also unconventional in ther start, like an executive from a large firm/government at a late stage in their career (like Morris Chang starting Taiwan Semi at age 55). The awardee will showcase attributes such as perseverance, grit and resolution under trying circumstances and would have demonstrated the capabilities of overcoming such hurdles along the way in an exemplanary manner.

Serial Entrepreneur Award: This award recognises entrepreneurs who have been successful in creating multiple ventures one after another and importantly, having succeeded in creating shareholder value in a majority of them. The awardee would exhibit the uncanny knack to spot a business idea, set up a venture to commercially exploit the idea, demonstrate the ability to scale up the business, and have a track record of value creation by roping in later stage investors or taking the IPO route for the business, and most importantly, still have dollops of energy and enthusiasm to do it all over again.