Category Archives: Management

Le Boss fostering Mauritian Entrepreneurship

Posted by Ashesh on

Le Boss

The finals of the competition ‘Le Boss’ was held yesterday night (2 July 2011) on MBC TV (http://www.mbcradio.tv/browse/news/local/finale-du-concours-televise-le-boss/). Its for the first time that on MBC, the Development Bank of Mauritius (DBM) created the initiative for ‘re-boosting’ Mauritian Entrepreneurship and Innovation.  The website of Le Boss can be accessed here: http://www.dbm.mu/leboss/index.html . The Youtube videos have been uploaded by Darkprint ltd on http://www.youtube.com/user/quickdarkness#p/u. And the Facebook page link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/LE-BOSS/107708422646875

There were 7 finalists who were entrepreneurs in a specific industry who had submitted their business plans to a panel of Jury. On the competition, they were given 6 minutes to answer questions of the jury members, who were professionals in their field. The winner of the first edition of ‘Le Boss’ is Ved Luchmun.

Ved (the banana transformation guy’)was very proud of winning this competition and became emotional at the end of the show, as all TV viewers witnessed. Many Congratulations to him and wish him all the best for his entrepreneurial spirit and his journey towards self-actualisation.

My Personal Opinion:

Firstly, It was nice to have Mr. Francois Woo, Director of Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile Ltée (CMT), the leading textile company on TV. He told his personal experience of how he started to become where he is today. On the web there is already a short description http://www.factory-buildings.com/compagnie.htm , however his live ‘testimonial’ had a greater weight. What I will retain is that: 1) one needs at least 10 years of learning and gaining experience in the field that one wishes to do business 2) hard work and sacrifice is essential as during this period (10-year), one will make savings, that will be invested in the new company that will take birth 3) With your own money invested, you will be more careful and this will have an impact on your decision-making process. Mr Woo had also taken the support of DBM for the financing of his projects and today, CMT can aspire to be amongst the top ten in garment manufacturing. For me, personally, Francois Woo is a role model for new Mauritian Entrepreneurs who are willing to compete on a global stage by seizing Government Support (whether in form of a DBM loan or help in business planning etc.).

Secondly, the members of the jury asked questions requiring critical thinking as they need to defend their business plan and be convincing. I appreciate the nice job of the members of the jury. Their questions liked to sustainability, feasibility of the business model- in the form of ‘what’s your strategy to tackle X and Y Challenge? What is your marketing plan? Management questions – Can you define Success? How can you assure Quality in your products? etc.. However, the thing of ‘buzzers’ – euhh , this concept is a bit ambiguous for me.

Thirdly, given I am in the shoes of a Freelance Web Developer (or Mauritian Technopreneur), it was nice to see a young finalist defending his eMarketing Business plan (SEO, Copywriting etc.) Miss Nabiilah is also a student whilst trying to conduct her business affairs. This is very encouraging to see female entrepreneurs emerging. I hope the ‘glass ceiling’ will eventually not exist. Also, Web 2.0 can provide most businesses a competitive edge and this has been outlined by someone in the audience in the TV show. So allez Nabiilah, ‘manz r li’ with your Mauritian Technopreneur spirit. I know its not easy as I had done the same during my UoM days.

To conclude, Le Boss has a good start. I hope that MBC could inspire a bit from BBC Dragon’s Den http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/ for any further editions.

What do you think of the show? Do not hesitate to comment….

when everybody talk in the panel

Posted by Ashesh on

As Yashvin has said, there are very good job prospects in the Web Industry in Mauritius. Web Developers (PHP/MySQL together with a knowledge of usage of CMS and framework).

Furthermore, it is inevitable to skip on essential process in job recruitment and selection by the companies/organisations.

The interview process.

Most of us, at one point in time have to go through the ‘pain’ of answering interview questions. This delicate moment might be either for a new job application or for performance appraisal review.

IMHO, interviews should be  done by HR managers. I think that sometimes company directors or a panel consisting of top management executives might not necessarily succeed in the essential process of recruitment and selection.

Based on my personal experience on applying for jobs for next year, let me shed light on this hypothesis.

Let me explain:
A company director or CEO is someone who carefully crafts strategies and makes sure that these are executed. His management philosophies and leadership style creates an organisational culture.

I think a professional in HR is better suited as he/she understands the current employee workforce and as well which type of personality would be most fitting to the team on long term basis.

Secondly interview done by a group of people or panel. I think if administrative procedures are required to have a panel of interviewers, so be it. The latter is led by a Chairperson. The inconvenience i find that either: everybody wants to ask you questions or when the chairperson cannot control the board given the authoritative power and status of the members of the panel.

At infotech 2010, i met a charismatic HR Manager. I think he has a background in Industrial Psychology as well as a good no of years in IT industry evolving in the field of HR. From all the interiews that i had yet, i think if one day that HR manager would screen me as a candidate, I would get to learn much from this experience.

Well, its only the beginning, lets watch and see..

till then, keep connected!