"Businesses are built on customer insights”
This phrase captures the essence of the seminal address given by Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge and creator of successful web portals such as Naukri.Com, Shiksha.com, and Jeevansaathi.com to the students of IIM Lucknow IPMX course as part of theIPMX -Leadership Talk Series.
Throughout the close to 3 hour session, Mr. Bikhchandani enthralled the students as he shared his experiences on his entrepreneurial journey. Info Edge started as a company which performed entry level salary surveys, and moved on to build a market a database of pharmaceutical trademarks.
Mr. Bikhchandani, spoke about identification of a customer need and working towards addressing the need gap. An idea would have a good chance to succeed as a business venture if there is a critical mass available to consume it.
Info Edge was conceptualized on this oft repeated and simple concept, as Mr. Bikhchandani, working out of a room at his parent’s home along with his partner started with performing entry level salary surveys and sharing it with the HR Managers, followed closely by building and marketing a database of pharmaceutical trademarks and sharing it with the pharmaceutical companies.
On these initial successes Mr. Bikhchandani laid the foundation of Naukri.com as India’s first and premier job website; another idea, which started with creation of a database which matches the needs of HR Managers and candidates. Furthermore this database was made available on the World Wide Web.
Naukri is a prime example of addressing a need by creating a differentiated product which was a pioneer in its area, coupled with a competitive pricing strategy and wide reach to a captive potential market.
It’s not every day that students get a chance to bounce off their questions from the leaders of the corporate world and in the question and answer session that followed the students inquired about the key elements required to come up with a successful entrepreneurial strategy.
Overall, the session was an enriching experience where the students saw the concepts of customer insights and strategic advantage being brought to life by a wonderful orator and a mesmerizing business leader.
-Saurabh Kukreti
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