Keeping 'customer centricity’ as the purpose of business, staying relevant in a changing environment and being flexible to cope with the change are necessary ingredients for a successful venture, said R Ramaraj, Senior Advisor, Elevar Equity.

Apart from technology, disruptive change can be driven by business models which “will be the biggest shaker and mover”, and regulations.

For instance, the kind of change brought on by online cab hailing services such as Ola and Uber which put customer service and technology ahead of capital intensive approach in a traditional fleet operation business is a demonstration of what a novel business model can do.

Addressing management students at Insight ’17, a national symposium on management organised by the Loyola Institute of Business Administration on Saturday, he said regulations too can cause major disruption.

“If you think all is going well in the world, look to the government,” he said.

Following demonetisation on November 8, 2016, people “could not touch their own cash in the bank.” But that opened up opportunities in cashless transactions. The way companies respond to disruption can decide success.

To stay relevant, continuous learning can help anticipate disruptions in the offing and enable organisations prepare for change, Ramaraj said.

Girish Mathrubootham, Founder & CEO, Freshdesk, said ensuring a happy work environment for the employees and the customers can be a telling factor for success.

“Work should make you happy” and it is this approach that makes Freshdesk, a fast growing player providing cloud-based customer support platform for companies, he said. It is now a company with a global technology product with potential for an IPO.

Tracing the company’s growth from conception in 2010 to product launch a year later and growing to the present 900-employee organisation with over one lakh customers globally, he said identifying a customer need and grabbing the opportunity is important.

From being an employee, with a family to support and a huge home loan, he had jumped into entrepreneurship after he identified a business opportunity, partnered with a friend and launched Freshdesk.

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