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By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 3:28:38 am

When Growth Confuses Markets

In business, growth is often associated with expansion. As companies evolve, founders naturally begin exploring additional services, new verticals, and complementary offerings that can strengthen revenue and create larger opportunities. From a business standpoint, this progression appears logical. The entrepreneur sees the connection clearly because the new service often emerges directly from existing expertise. However, markets do not always interpret expansion the way founders expect them...

When Growth Confuses Markets

In business, growth is often associated with expansion. As companies evolve, founders naturally begin exploring additional services, new verticals, and complementary offerings that can strengthen revenue and create larger opportunities. From a business standpoint, this progression appears logical. The entrepreneur sees the connection clearly because the new service often emerges directly from existing expertise. However, markets do not always interpret expansion the way founders expect them to. Recently, during a conversation with an entrepreneur, this reality became particularly evident. She explained that despite putting significant effort into growing her business and introducing additional services connected to her current work, she was struggling to attract clients for these newer offerings. What surprised her most was not the lack of effort being made, but the lack of understanding from the market itself. People were becoming uncertain. Existing clients no longer clearly understood what exactly she should now be known for. And in business, the moment perception becomes unclear, trust begins weakening faster than most founders realise. The services were related, the value proposition made sense internally, and from her perspective the transition felt natural. Yet externally, the audience struggled to clearly understand what exactly she now represented. Existing clients knew her for one thing, while her newer positioning was attempting to communicate something broader. This is becoming increasingly common among founders and business owners operating at substantial levels of turnover. At earlier stages of business, growth is often driven by activity. More services, more offerings, and more visibility appear to create momentum. But as businesses scale, particularly beyond the ₹5 crore mark, perception begins playing a far more significant role in determining growth. The challenge is not always capability. Very often, the challenge is clarity. Many entrepreneurs underestimate how quickly confusion weakens trust. Audiences today process information rapidly and make judgments even faster. They do not spend long periods trying to decode a founder’s positioning. The moment the messaging feels inconsistent or overly broad, attention begins to drift elsewhere. This creates a hidden business problem that many founders fail to recognise immediately. The entrepreneur continues investing more effort. More meetings are scheduled, more marketing is executed, more content is created, and more explanations are repeatedly given to the market. Yet despite all this activity, conversions remain inconsistent because the underlying issue has not been addressed. The market does not clearly understand where to place the individual. This is where personal branding becomes a business necessity rather than a visibility exercise. A strong personal brand creates strategic clarity. It allows people to immediately understand not only what an entrepreneur does, but why the additional services make sense within the larger identity of the founder and the business itself. Without this alignment, even valuable offerings begin to feel disconnected. Over time, this confusion creates broader consequences. Opportunities become slower to materialise. Referrals reduce because people struggle to explain the business clearly to others. Premium positioning weakens because clarity is directly connected to authority. In many cases, founders begin questioning their marketing strategies when the actual issue lies in how their positioning is being perceived. This becomes particularly dangerous in today’s environment where visibility is abundant but attention is limited. The founders who continue to grow are rarely the ones trying to communicate everything simultaneously. They are the ones who build a clear identity first and then strategically expand around it. Their audience understands not only what they currently offer, but also why future offerings naturally belong within their ecosystem. This distinction changes everything. Because in business, people rarely buy what confuses them. They buy what they can quickly understand and confidently trust. For founders and business owners who feel they are putting in increasing effort yet still struggling to position newer services effectively, this may be an important moment for reflection. Sometimes the issue is not the quality of the offering, but the clarity of the perception surrounding it. I work with a select group of founders and entrepreneurs to help them identify these positioning gaps, refine how they are perceived in the market, and build personal brands that create stronger authority, trust, and business growth. Those who wish to explore this further may book a complimentary 30-minute Founder Brand Audit here: https://calendly.com/divyaaadvaani/founder-brand-audit In the end, businesses rarely lose only because of weak services. Increasingly, they lose because the market understands someone else faster. In a world overwhelmed by options, clarity is no longer just a branding advantage. It is becoming one of the strongest competitive advantages a founder can build. (The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

Plastic Waste Amendments Aim to Rein in Pollution

The latest plastic waste management amendments aim to reduce long-term plastic pollution through safer, more complete decomposition of plastics.

The Plastic Waste Management Rules have undergone several amendments over the years to address emerging environmental concerns and implementation challenges. The changes introduced in 2018 and 2022 focused on issues such as multi-layered plastics, registration systems, thicker carry bags, recycled plastic packaging, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). These amendments sought to balance environmental protection with practical and industry-related concerns.


Building on these earlier reforms, the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2024, were notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on March 15, 2024. The latest amendments introduce stricter regulations for biodegradable plastics, redefine key stakeholders such as importers and manufacturers, strengthen EPR provisions, and place greater emphasis on the management of microplastics. They also prescribe stricter standards to ensure that biodegradable plastics degrade without leaving behind toxic residue or microplastics.


The significant amendments to the Plastic Waste Management Rules in 2024 include a revised definition of biodegradable plastics, with emphasis on their ability to degrade without leaving behind microplastics. The Rules also specifically define microplastics as solid plastic particles of certain dimensions, recognising their growing environmental threat.


Further, the scope of the term “importer” has been expanded to cover a wider range of plastic-related materials, while the definition of “manufacturer” now includes those involved in different stages of plastic production. These changes reflect a stronger attempt to tackle plastic pollution in India through stricter standards and greater regulatory clarity.


Biodegradable plastics are defined under the amended rules as materials capable of breaking down through biological processes in specific environments such as soil and landfills, without leaving behind microplastics. The Rules also define microplastics as solid plastic particles of a particular size range that do not dissolve in water. These definitions are significant because they bring greater clarity to the regulation of plastic waste and its environmental impact.


Plastic Pollution

The focus on biodegradable plastics is aimed at reducing long-term plastic pollution by encouraging the use of materials that can decompose more completely and safely. At the same time, the recognition of microplastics as a separate category is important because these particles are a growing source of water and soil pollution. Microplastics not only harm aquatic ecosystems and marine life but can also enter the food chain and pose risks to human health.


The revised definitions also encourage industries to adopt more sustainable practices in plastic production, packaging, and waste management. By setting clearer standards, the Rules seek to improve accountability and ensure that manufacturers and producers follow environmentally responsible practices. Clearer definitions further make it easier for regulatory authorities to monitor compliance and enforce environmental standards more effectively.


The 2024 amendments therefore strengthen the overall framework for plastic waste management in India. They represent an important attempt by the government to address plastic pollution through better regulation, improved waste management practices, and greater emphasis on sustainability and resource conservation. The changes also align with the broader goal of reducing environmental degradation caused by excessive plastic use.


Another important provision introduced through the amendments is that manufacturers producing carry bags and commodities made from compostable or biodegradable plastics must obtain certification from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) before marketing or selling such products. This provision is intended to prevent false or misleading claims regarding biodegradable plastics and to ensure that only approved materials enter the market.


The amendments also promote the recycling and reuse of plastic packaging waste by prescribing mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) targets and encouraging the use of recycled plastic content. These measures seek to create a circular economy in which plastic waste is continuously reused and repurposed instead of being discarded after a single use. In the long run, such measures are expected to reduce environmental damage and strengthen sustainable waste management practices in India.


More on this in my next article. Till then, have a great weekend!


(The writer is an environmentalist. Views personal.)

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