Entrepreneurial spirit to transform Indian business: C K Prahalad

21 February 2008

Chennai: Perhaps for the first time in the Indian corporate annals a research grant to an educational institution has been made in the memory of a business leader.

The Chennai-based TVS Capital Funds Ltd has instituted a 'chair professorship of entrepreneurship' at the Great Lakes Institute of Management for Entrepreneurship in the memory of the late T S Srinivasan.

Srinivasan is said to have been the moving force behind the phenomenal growth of the Rs16,000 crore TVS Group's move into auto component and moped manufacturing.

TVS Capital Funds has donated Rs.1.2 crore towards the chair to undertake research on entrepreneurship in its entirety.

Launching the chair, noted management authority C K Prahalad divided the Indian entrepreneurship phase into three phases.

According to him, during the first phase (1947-1990), Indian entrepreneurship was swamped under the licence control regime.