Paper Title
Business Management and Social Innovation
Abstract
Birth of Indian social entrepreneurship From time immemorial, there have always been a few individuals who
have risen above mere personal gain, to devote their lives to solving pressing social and environmental ills plaguing society.
They did this by employing innovative new methods that were hitherto unknown, or known but not applied. Going by that
definition, the Father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, can be considered as one of India’s first social entrepreneurs.
In this age of digital disruption, one would have least expected that a yoga guru with no formal education to shake the roots
of established FMGC majors ,using a brick & mortar model, forcing them to rethink on their strategies. It’s intriguing as to
how Patanjali managed to achieve so much in such a short time, basically the last 5 years. Among brand sagas, the one,
which is firmly etched in the annals of marketing, is Nirma which took on Hindustan Lever in the 1980s displacing the
multinational to become the largest in the detergents space. Formal Business Management Education teaches you to
concentrate on your core competence but for Ramdev, core competence doesn’t seem to be yoga, nor Ayurveda or FMCG –
It’s about selling anything and everything. How else can one explain the ever growing SKUs as well services? The group
continues to surprise with entry into unrelated areas such as textiles, restaurants, security services and now movies. A few
more sectors which may be under consideration could be airlines, telecom, infrastructure…..there is no limit for imagination.
“Start-ups are more than commercial success stories. They are powerful examples of social innovation. “- Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
Keywords - Patanjali, FMCG, Innovation, Business, Ayurvedic,