Abstract

The case “Entrepreneurship Journey of Sridhar Vembu of Zoho: Taking Silicon Valley to the Village” discusses the path-breaking entrepreneurship journey of Sridhar Vembu, Founder and CEO of India-based multinational technology company, Zoho Corporation. Born into a farmer’s family in India, Vembu was a bright student who, after attaining his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, took up a job in Silicon Valley as a software engineer. In 1995, with a strong inclination to become an entrepreneur, he set up his first venture in Chennai, India, that offered end-to-end network management solutions. Over the next decade, keeping abreast of the changes sweeping through the IT industry, Vembu’s venture, re-named as Zoho, launched a series of cloud-based productivity tools. Zoho’s Software as a Service (SaaS) model – with applications mostly targeted at individuals and small businesses and at highly competitive prices – took off. Business success prompted Vembu to fulfil his lifelong mission of reversing the trend of rural-urban migration and bring his employees back to work near their hometowns. Vembu then not only shifted his office from Silicon Valley to a small Indian village, but also opened several Zoho offices in rural India. Vembu gradually evolved to become a social entrepreneur, taking up the cause of technology led rural development. He received accolades for his pioneering entrepreneurship from the Government of India and private institutions. Can Vembu and his work ethos serve as the inspiration for budding IT entrepreneurs and other companies?

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand entrepreneurship in India.
• Analyze the various schools of entrepreneurial thoughts.
• Recognize the factors that drive a person to become an entrepreneur.
• Scrutinize financial management in entrepreneurship.
• Examine the factors that influence the growth of an enterprise.

Keywords

Entrepreneurial Thoughts; Entrepreneurship in India; Leadership Style; Growth of an Enterprise; Successful Entrepreneur; Entrepreneurship Leadership; Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Four-Stage Growth Model of Entrepreneurship; Business Attractiveness; Managing Finance; New Venture Management; and Social Entrepreneurship; Bootstrapping; Technology-led rural development