Rethinking the Rules of Business Growth

How can businesses sustain growth in a competitive market while keeping pace with changing customer expectations? At the Entrepreneur 2026 panel discussion Reinventing Growth from Within, business leaders explored how technology, customer data, and artificial intelligence (AI) can help companies improve products, strengthen customer relationships, and adapt to changing markets.

The panel, led by Aradhana V Bhatnagar, Managing Editor, Entrepreneur Lifestyle Media, featured Shaily Mehrotra, CEO & Founder, Fixderma, Vidit Taneja, Co-founder and CEO, Bruised Passports, alongside insights from Gaurav Gupta, Co-founder and CEO, Gabit, and Soumya Kant, Co-founder, Clovia, on how businesses can leverage technology, customer data, and a deeper understanding of consumer needs to drive growth and stay competitive.

Making Health Tracking Easy

For Gabbit, the focus is on making health tracking a regular part of everyday life. Its smart ring monitors health indicators related to sleep, stress, and fitness, while its platform allows users to combine wearable data with blood reports for a more comprehensive view of their health.

Garauv Gupta said, “The company’s broader ambition is to encourage more Indians to track their health consistently”. Its representative shared how a family member who had little interest in technology began changing her sleep routine after seeing her scores. The example showed how personal data can motivate behavioural change more effectively than instructions alone.

Gabbit has also responded to requests from people living abroad who wanted to keep track of their parents’ health in India. It developed a consent-based feature allowing users to share health information directly with family members, doctors or coaches, making the process more convenient while respecting privacy.

Data That Drives Change

At Clovia, technology has helped manage the complexity of lingerie design, sizing and inventory since the company began in 2013. With many systems unavailable at the time, the company developed its own solutions to manage operations and work with manufacturers on smaller production orders.

Soumya Kant mentioned, “Clovia now analyses around 140 million data points every night, using customer feedback to understand preferences for colours, prices, designs and product features. These insights help the company decide which products to develop further and which to discontinue.” With around 2,000 designs listed online across 54 sizes each, inventory management is particularly important. The company has kept inventory below 45 days, with technology and customer insights helping it make more informed decisions.

Vidit Taneja of Bruised Passport also highlighted the importance of building technology around an existing customer community. He explained that “the business was using its experience, content and accumulated data to better understand what its audience wanted and turn those insights into products, rather than relying solely on a website or social media page.” As he put it, social media offers “rented reach”, while lasting customer relationships require a more direct connection.

Thinking Like a Startup

Shaily Mehrotra, founder of Fixderma India Private Limited, emphasised that established businesses could learn from the speed and adaptability of startups. Having operated in India for 16 years, the skincare company has seen how quickly newer businesses can test products, launch them and assess market response.

Mehrotra said, “Larger enterprises often rely on established processes and systems, which can slow decision-making and make change difficult. Startups, by contrast, tend to move faster and are more willing to discuss failures, learn from them and take corrective action.”

She also highlighted the role of data and AI in startup decision-making. For established companies to remain competitive, she suggested, they need to become more open to experimentation and less constrained by bureaucratic structures.

Rethinking Business Growth

The discussion showed that reinvention does not always require an entirely new business model. It can begin with listening to customers, using data to identify unmet needs and responding quickly to changing expectations.

Whether through health tracking, product development, customer communities, or faster decision-making, technology creates value when it helps businesses act on what they learn. Companies that combine customer understanding with adaptability and a willingness to experiment will be better positioned to sustain growth.