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By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 3:28:38 am

When agreement kills growth

In the early stages of building a business, growth is often driven by clarity, speed, and conviction. Founders make decisions quickly, rely on their instincts, and push forward with a strong sense of belief in their methods. This decisiveness is not only necessary, it is often the very reason the business begins to grow. However, as businesses cross certain thresholds, particularly beyond the Rs 5 crore mark, the nature of growth begins to change. What once created momentum can quietly begin...

When agreement kills growth

In the early stages of building a business, growth is often driven by clarity, speed, and conviction. Founders make decisions quickly, rely on their instincts, and push forward with a strong sense of belief in their methods. This decisiveness is not only necessary, it is often the very reason the business begins to grow. However, as businesses cross certain thresholds, particularly beyond the Rs 5 crore mark, the nature of growth begins to change. What once created momentum can quietly begin to create limitations. In many professional environments, it is not uncommon to encounter business owners who are deeply convinced of their approach. Their methods have delivered results, their experience reinforces their judgment, and their confidence becomes a defining trait. Yet, in this very confidence lies a subtle risk that is often overlooked. When conviction turns into certainty without space for dialogue, conversations begin to narrow. Suggestions are heard, but not always considered. Perspectives are offered, but not always encouraged. Decisions are made, but not always explained. From the outside, this may still appear as strong leadership. Internally, however, a different dynamic begins to take shape. People start to agree more than they contribute. This is where many businesses unknowingly enter a critical phase. When teams, partners, or stakeholders begin to hold back their perspective, the quality of thinking around the business reduces. What appears as alignment is often silent disengagement. What looks like efficiency is sometimes the absence of challenge. Over time, this directly affects the decisions being made. At a Rs 5 crore level, this may not be immediately visible. Operations continue, revenue flows, and the business appears stable. But as the organisation attempts to grow further, this lack of diverse thinking begins to surface as a constraint. Growth slows, not because of lack of effort, but because of limited perspective. On the other side of this equation are individuals who consistently find themselves accommodating such dynamics. They recognise when their voice is not being fully heard, yet choose not to assert it. The intention is often to preserve relationships, avoid friction, or maintain a sense of professional ease. Initially, this approach appears collaborative. Over time, however, it begins to shape perception. When individuals do not express their perspective, they are gradually seen as agreeable rather than essential. Their presence is valued, but their input is not actively sought. In many cases, they become part of the process, but not part of the decision. This is where personal branding begins to influence business outcomes in ways that are not immediately obvious. A personal brand is not built only through visibility or achievement. It is built through how consistently one demonstrates clarity, confidence, and openness in moments that require it. It is shaped by whether people feel encouraged to think around you, or restricted in your presence. At higher levels of business, this distinction becomes critical. If people agree with you more than they challenge you, it may not be a sign of strong leadership. It may be an indication that your environment is no longer enabling better thinking. Similarly, if you find yourself constantly adjusting to others without expressing your own perspective, your contribution may be diminishing in ways that affect both your influence and your growth. Both situations carry a cost. They affect decision quality, limit innovation, and over time, restrict the scalability of the business itself. What makes this particularly challenging is that these patterns develop gradually, often going unnoticed until the impact becomes difficult to ignore. The most effective leaders recognise this early. They create space for dialogue without losing direction. They express conviction without dismissing perspective. They build environments where contribution is expected, not avoided. In doing so, they strengthen not only their business, but also their personal brand. For entrepreneurs operating at a stage where growth is no longer just about execution but about expanding thinking, this becomes an important point of reflection. If there is even a possibility that your current interactions are limiting the quality of thinking around you, it is worth addressing before it begins to affect outcomes. I work with a select group of founders and professionals to help them refine how they are perceived, communicate with greater impact, and build personal brands that support sustained growth. You may explore this further here: https://sprect.com/pro/divyaaadvaani In the long run, it is not only the decisions you make, but the thinking you allow around those decisions, that determines how far your business can truly grow. (The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

Hedging Desk: A New Era in Indian Agricultural Marketing

In a first-of-its-kind move, the Government of Maharashtra, under its flagship SMART Project, has established a dedicated ‘Hedging Desk’ that has a potential to transform agricultural marketing by empowering farmers against the volatilities in farm prices. Initially, the initiative is aimed at providing price risk management to Farmer Producer Organisations through agricultural derivatives markets, i.e. futures & options in commodities.


The ‘Hedging Desk’ is established in collaboration between NCDEX Institute of Commodity Markets and Research (NICR), a fully-owned subsidiary of India’s top agricultural commodity exchange National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), and the World Bank-assisted Balasaheb Thackeray the State of Maharashtra Agribusiness and Rural Transformation (SMART) Project.


“This is an innovative market-linked approach to mitigate price risks for farmers in Maharashtra,” said Dr. Hemant Vasekar, Project Director, SMART, at an inaugural session in Pune. “It’s about equipping our farmers with the same financial tools that institutional traders use, but in a way that’s accessible and farmer-friendly. It will ensure the handholding of farmers and FPCs in the initial stage and eventually help them to asses risks and take informed decisions about marketing of their farm produce,” Vasekar said.


While India’s agricultural production has leaped multi-fold in the last three decades, depressed farm prices remained the contentious issue in the country, leading to severe stress in the agricultural sector that provides livelihood to around 60% of the 1.4 billion population in the country. For long, the central policy support remained focussed on increasing the production, while marketing of surplus commodities is still dominated by a skeletal and six-decade-old Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act, a fragmented and monopolistic market structure in the digitally integrated world. This has made the Indian agricultural marketing infrastructure vulnerable to frequent changes in the international market dynamics.


In the domestic market too, farmers are exposed to various risks from weather, pest attacks, policy flip-flops and geopolitical events that can affect the production. Overall poor post-harvest management infrastructure also hurts farmers’ interests, thereby burdening the economy of the nation. The production risk can be mitigated via crop insurance and agronomic solutions. However, managing price risks — particularly after harvest — remains a significant challenge. Farmers often fall prey to distress sales due to sudden price crashes at harvest due to their poor financial conditions amid lack of real-time price information and lack of access to formal markets such as futures & options or electronic auction platforms.


This is an area where agriculturally advanced economies have largely succeeded in protecting their farmers by providing them price risk mitigation opportunities through robust derivatives markets. In simple words, farmers in the US, Brazil or China can lock his one or two-year forward prices by selling his anticipated production today, called as Hedging in the financial markets.


The SMART had already taken a step by creating a Risk Mitigation Cell a few years ago and the Hedging Desk, located in Pune, will act as its core operational arm. The desk has been mandated to create awareness, capacity building and handholding FPOs in using commodity futures & options. Promoting e-Negotiable Warehouse Receipt (e-NWR) ecosystem, which helps farmers to hold their product for better prices, will also be a major function of the desk. More importantly, the entire capacity building and knowledge sharing activities about the complex derivatives market will be made available in Marathi, to ensure accessibility and acceptability across rural Maharashtra.


The concept is rooted in the findings of a comprehensive study by Deloitte India under the SMART project, which underscored the advantages of exchange-traded tools in enhancing price realization for farmers. The study strongly recommended the institutionalization of a risk mitigation framework at the state level. The project faced many hurdles post Covid-19 epidemic. However, it has gained significant momentum under the able leadership of the state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who has taken the implementation of this initiative seriously.


Hedging Desk is the need of the hour and one will not be surprised to see many Indian states following the example of Maharashtra under the able leadership of Shri Devendra Fadnavis hinting at shift to the new era of proactive market-linked farming from reactive subsidy-based models in Indian agricultural marketing, Mr. Vasekar said adding that in the first phase, Hedging Desk will concentrate their operations around cotton, maize and turmeric which are important for the farmers in the state.


(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai.)

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