Media release

Bengaluru, Sep 8: “Excellence is outsmarting your competition” is one definition that was brought forth during the talk on ‘Enterprise Business Excellence’ by K Rajeshwar Rao at the members meeting of Kanara Entrepreneurs held at Hotel Grand Magrath in city recently.

To the audience, comprising mostly of entrepreneurs in various domains of industry, he said “Excellence is a point in time when an individual or an organization is way above competition in the field and gets outstanding respect. This may translate into revenue or position or several other benefits. Then the particular individual or organization would become a ‘Reference Point’ in the field or Industry.”

Talking on what constitutes Excellence, he said it involves the these actions, namely: Set highest standards and drive continuous improvement, Sustain outstanding levels of performance, Optimize the use and effectiveness of all their resources within the overall organization,.

“Entrepreneurs are extremely passionate about their organization and business; not going to easily let go their successes or failures; are accountable for their own decisions and hence cannot point fingers at others and have a vision for their enterprise so that they could leave a legacy.” he added.

“Most businesses will face crisis, especially related to finance, labour, social, competition, etc. and resources may be constrained. But how the entrepreneur or the organization responds and organizes itself during such crisis to deliver beyond expectation and the respect it gets for this, is Excellence.” he said.

He advised entrepreneurs to set a core or fundamental values for their organization as Excellence is also based on the impact of the organization on Humanity. The systems and processes of the organization should keep the society in mind and creating value for humanity should not be an after-thought but a core Business Strategy.

Drawing an example of Infosys, he recollected the advice by the company’s chief Executive Narayana Murthy to his team during the dotcom burst in 1999-2000, to do everything to protect the interests of the shareholders, especially the minority shareholders, as they will not be able to sustain or recover from any loss during such a crisis.

According to him Business Excellence therefore can be defined as outstanding practice in managing the organization and achieving outstanding and sustained results, all based on a set of fundamental concepts or values. It is the DNA of every walk of life, including business.

Differentiating Excellence from Perfection, he informed striving for Excellence motivates you but striving for perfection is demoralizing. Excellence is striking a balance between Perfection and Efficiency i.e. striking a balance between operational execution and resources, while trying to be doing your best at any point in time.

Excellence requires confidence in one’s ability and is a very powerful and natural quality, as it cannot be faked. It involves taking calculated risks and also requires humility, the willingness to be wrong. But it is also about how fast you can recover when you fail.

Stating that Excellence should be a perfect blend between Mission and Vision of the organization, Rajeshwar Rao advised entrepreneurs not to be just an order-taker, but to innovate on behalf of the customer and add-value to the customer. And a culture of achieving Excellence in all activities should be created.

To achieve and sustain Excellence, he said organizations should have and should identify their Core Competencies. Organizations should not move away from their Core Competencies. They should not get into business only because it has revenues.

To achieve Excellence, it should be a part of strategy of the organization. There should be a set of objectives to achieve Excellence. Execution is the face of Excellence. It may involve recruiting people better than the entrepreneur himself. Hope is definitely not a strategy. Further discussing strategies for Excellence, he recalled the various definition of strategy in the words of Michael Porter - “Strategy is about making choices, trade-off; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” “Strategy is about setting yourself apart from the competition. It’s not a matter of being better at what you do – it’s a matter of being different at what you do.”

Admiring Wal-Mart’s success strategies and tactics he said they are easy to understand and yet hard to duplicate as it is deeply entrenched within the organization.

To achieve Excellence he enlisted main characteristics -Infinite Love – Love what you do; Discipline- Excellence is a state of mind; There should be constancy in purpose, which requires Patience & Persistence; Finally, Entrepreneurs must learn to let go when required.

He summed up Excellence saying it can be obtained if you....Care more than others think is wise; ....Risk more than others think is safe; ....Dream more than others think is practical; ... Expect more than others thinks is possible ... and never fail.

Peter Anil Rego, president of KE Bangalore, in his welcome address expressed the importance of excelling in whatever we do. This, he said, would differentiate the successful people from others. The President mentioned that the sponsors of the meeting - Victor Barboza and team of Sarah Foods Pvt. Ltd were a true example of how excellence can take a person or company to greater heights.

Naveen D’Souza, director membership inducted six new members into the fold of KE - Sarita Fernandes, Sunil Menezes, Agnel Basil Pereira, Roshan Lionel D’Silva, Santhosh Sequeira and Noel Fernandes.

Aaron Watson compered the meeting enthusiastically. Cletus Mathias thanked the sponsors and all members for attending it in large numbers.