Xcelerator Ludhiana – Sadda Karobaar, Punjab Di Shaan(program led by Government of Punjab, CICU (Chamber of Industrial andCommercial Undertakings) and GAME- Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship),is paving the way for participants to become local success stories. The 6-monthbusiness accelerator program for catalyzing growth of businesses in Ludhiana,has started showing promising business growth for entrepreneurs who signed upfor the program. “After the first session of Xcelerator on customers, I wasable to strike better conversations with my end retail customers, and was ableto fetch new orders by talking about my products and my business valueproposition. This has helped me scale up my business, in very little time,”shares Siddhant Pruthi, Entrepreneur, Robin International, an entrepreneurassociated with the Xcelerator Ludhiana programme.
Similar growth stories are now regular at the XceleratorLudhiana. Jasjot Virk, Director, WePay Finance, decided to take his leadgeneration onto social media platforms. “Our aim is to help people realize thatWePay Finance could help them fulfil their dreams of owning a house and a car.With taglines such as ‘Rent ko Kaho Bye, Apna Ghar Banaye’, and ‘Drive yourDream, we were able to increase the weekly leads from 6 to 60, in the firstweek of being a part of Xcelerator Ludhiana and have ever since multiplied ourleads to 600,” said Jasjot Virk.
Officially launched on 5th January 2021, in presence of Mr.Manpreet Singh Badal, Hon’ble Finance Minister, Government of Punjab, Ms. ViniMahajan, Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab and selected MSMEs, seniorbureaucrats, GAME founders, Ludhiana district administration, GAME PunjabTaskforce and key leaders from the Ludhiana ecosystem, the cohort has alreadycompleted close to a third of the program.
With sessions spread across 6 months, the program isfacilitating hands-on training with the best trainers and practitioners fromIndia, peer-to-peer learning, and mentorship focused on ‘3Cs’ - Customer,Capacity, and Cash. The mentoring sessions so far have been hosted by industrystalwarts like Sachit Jain, MD & Vice Chairman of Vardhman Special Steelsand GAME Punjab Taskforce Chair, Upkar Singh Ahuja, President of CICU, and RomiMalhotra, ex-MD, Dell India, and DXC India.
“The sessions helped me train the sales team to identify andquantify the value while working with new prospects. It also helped us win abusiness that was stuck for quite some time,” shared Tarvinder Singh, Founder,Technocrat Horizons, an entrepreneur at Xcelerator Ludhiana.
“Basis the mentoring sessions, we segregated the sales andproduction department, which has led to increased sales and higher output. Wealso introduced a new incentive scheme for dealers to motivate them to increasesales, while incentivizing timely payments instead of penalizing latepayments,” said Deepjyot Singh Sethi, Founder, Vellbond Industries, on theimpact of the mentoring sessions on his business. Inspired by the talk with Mr.Sachit Jain, he also started automating processes at Vellbond Industries, inorder to increase their production output.
Speaking about the success of the entrepreneurs, AlokShekhar (IAS), Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce and InformationTechnology, Government of Punjab said, “The program had received 450+applications from growing businesses across Ludhiana and after a rigorousselection process, 27 entrepreneurs were invited to participate in the firstcohort of the Xcelerator Ludhiana program. It is heartening to see thatentrepreneurs have started noticing the growth in their business in such ashort period. With over 70% of the program yet to be completed, there is ampleroom for all participating entrepreneurs to grow and turn Ludhiana into theentrepreneurship capital of Punjab.”
The Xcelerator Ludhiana includes workshops on customers,techniques on working with large clients, building an energetic team, andgetting international collaborators for their businesses. With an emphasis onscaling up, the entrepreneurs are also trained on understanding their currentbusiness reality to create a 2-3 year business plan, training on hiringprocesses and onboarding of the new people into the organization.
