HOW KIRAN MAZUMDAR SHAW FERMENTED BIOCON

Companies and businesses can be built into great institutions, which are more than engineered processes; they are living organisms with emergent conditions, which bring an institution alive. However, few entrepreneurial leaders break the mould of prevalent thinking and set an organization onto a growth trajectory. They operate with the rainforest rules, which are different from the model of cultivated agriculture based on control, efficiency and replicability. In the rainforest, you accept the environment and within that, you seek effectiveness and novelty. The narrative of Biocon, India’s first and only modern bio-technology institution, led by its founder, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, an accidental, yet immensely successful entrepreneur, resembles the application of these rainforest rules. This book is a first-hand account of how Biocon evolved to become an exemplary institution valued at $6 billion, with 11,000 knowledge workers. In a series of personal interviews with Kiran and her team, the authors trace the options that opened up during Kiran’s journey, how she made her choices and the outcomes that impacted the growth trajectory taken by the institution. How Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw ‘Fermented’ Biocon is the third book in the series, Shapers of Business Institutions, which offers instructional and inspirational perspectives for aspirants in the fields of management and entrepreneurship.