New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

So, we have Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw post lunch at The Leaders In India 2009. I have always admired Kiran as a woman entrepreneur. She has proven words with actions! My respects Mam

Talkign about the Global Biotech sector Kiran says that it is a business size of over 90 billion dollars globally. Each of the past decades have triggered a new growth of innovation. Interesting to know how the entire Biotech industry has evolved over time. Though Ihave not really understood the Biotech industry much, but sure, I am intrigued!

My own journey of Biocon has been that of experimenting and learning! I call myself an accidental entrepreneur!

I was always interested in brewing. I have had to overcome countless challenges over decades. We started small with simple technologies we built and also partnering has helped me build my own entrepreneurial vision. I started my entrepreneurial journey when I had the provilige of starting India’s first Biotech company, which had its own large number of challenges. People were very skeptical of success and at my time, India was still a developing company and we had sub-optimal structure that we have today and it was the time of the license raj than today. I was a 25 yearold first generation woman entrepreneur!

All I had was foolish courage!

There was no access to VC all I could avail of was very expensive debt based funding which I accepted. I was very driven by green technology at that time. But there were very few takers at that time and one of the BIG challenges I had was, the space I was getting into, was based on one very important need, which is: high quality uniterrupted power supply which India does not have even today.

I started my business from scratch opting for less evolved technology. We focused on a niche opportunity, as I had to be very real about the infrastructure and the environment I was working in. I always knew that India was a very small market for me and hence I had to operate in a niche which gave me some kind of advantage. Also in my starting years, what helped me was, I started this as a JV with a small Irish partner, and they provided me with assistance to market, my product to Global markets and this is what helped my business started.

Up until 1980′s we were still loners in Biotech in India

It was really abotu building this company step by painful step and slowly the Biotech sector started gaining acceptance in India when the govt realized the importance. Creating the skill based that we need to drive this industry has paid us fairly well in time. Thankfully because of the success of the IT and software sector, the VC had taken root in India. Since this happened, we started looking towards VC funding, when we tried to scale up. It also allowed to develop sophisticated products and I was able to compete due to our cost base.

By late 1990′s I had a fermentation unit which could handle all sorts of enzymes

The cluster effect that had started in Bangalore really helped us. the boom in Bangalore had many innovative start-ups in the space which also helped the entire industry as such and hence we were benefited. We had international players coming into India setting up operations which helped gain confidence and many are now building scale into what they were doing. Biocon had started gaining market leadership in the niche segment we were looking at.

As an entrepreneur I felt that enzyme segment was going to be limiting to our growth and we had to take some hard decisions

We hence applied our technology to develop into bio-pharmaceuticals. We were the first to cut across the IP barriers hence defining new opportunities.

“We are the world’s first and only company i manufacturing Insulin and Insulin analogs and I am proud to say that”

Overtime we have become bolder in saying that lets innovate in the Bio-pharmaceuticals now. We can today afford to innovate, we can afford to build programs around new products. Innovation in the field of Bio-tech is something we must surely take very seriously. We tend to opt for low risk services and generic versions of drugs and vaccines.

In India the cost of risk is very affordable and hence we must back innovation

What is happening to companies in the western world, is an opportunity for us. I think India really has a good opportunity to cash on in what is happening in the western world. There is a whole new emerging opportunity in Bio-generics. We will pursue Innovation led mantra to grow and that is really my goal as a company and myself as an entrepreneur! All along e have constantly challeneged ourselves and tracked new technologies.

An important learning that I have learned as an entrepreneur is challenging the status quo and moving ahead

We are trying to develop world’s first Oral insulin and its going to be a game changer for us, if it happens

We have really made a lot of conscious effort in partnering with companies, which has actually helped us leapfrog, and it has been a great business tactic for us. In our journey there is one inflection point, I had a tough and emotional call to make! Enzyme was going no where as we were not really investing enough in it, the reason being we had limited resources. And hence we finally said, we must dis-invest and divested into our competition and they have invested and grown this business fr more than we were doing it at that stage. But we surely benefited out of the IP and knowledge we had built over time. We bought a company in Germanhy which will help us start our operations in Europe.

We have started building global scale in our businesses

Our strategy has been always to develop products, leveraging India’s cost base and using affordability as our competitive edge and we are determined to do it at an affordable rate.

My message to other companies from developing world(s) is, who are stretching hard to fight against odds, we have:

• Dont hesitate to partner when you want to pursue certain business opportunities, it allows you to grow faster
• Its important to start simple and start local, be realistic about matching your skill sets w.r.t technologies you are trying to develop

I started my life as a brewmaster looking to brew beer, your journey can take you anywhere, but your life should be an inspiring hope

It was great to listen to you Ms. Mazumdar Shaw as usual! The fire of entrepreneurship has surely gotten a needed kick from you!

Now we have the session int he Q&A mode!

Share on Facebook

So here I am Live blogging the Day two of Leaders In India 2009, with the first keynote being delivered by Mr. Adi Godrej.

I am sure this is going to be a great learning session with immense value for all present.

Our group has a fairly long history, we are 112 years old, Our sales turnover is a little over a 100 billion rupees

Interestingly Adi is sharing keen information about the Godrej business and they have grown till date. In 1991 we clearly felt that we had to give a boost to our competitiveness. We partnered global companies in our existing businesses, which were GE and P&G as Joint Ventures, though they dont’ continue today.

We learnt a lot from these great International organizations, which we have implemented over the years and they have learnt a lot about India, from us

Each of our companies and businesses, has a non family managing director or president who runs the company, I am surely interested in learning this.  We have a rather strict rule which has that only professionally qualified family members can join the business.

I am the third generation in the business and the fourth has already been inducted into the business

One of the major values we believe in is, that people are our strongest assets. We go out of our way to LIVE the value that people are our strongest assets. We have a constitution of a young executive board, one’s with great future potential and their job is to look at strategy, corporate governance, HRD etc, and then advice the Group CEO’s. Hence we get a tremendous bottom up response. I am very intrigued with the learning from Mr. Godrej.

Being a family business, as a professional and entrepreneur, I am so glad to hear and learn about the functioning of the Godrej group and how it is constituted at various levels. Very interestingly the structure provides the company a very strong bottom up feedback in runnign the company and in my view provides them with a great leadership development tool, creating a very scalable structure.

We have very emphatic programs on diversity within the group

Whenever we have emphasized diversity, the talent we get is much better than the average, Eg: if you go out of the way to recruit strong women, you get great talent, in cases much better than men. We have a very strong E-MBA program within the group. People who have not yet done a management degree, are eligible and promoted to do so. We insist on a 5 day learning schedule.

I myself make sure that I at least spend 30 days a year for learning

We follow a process of forced ranking in our group, we force ranks into non-performers and extra-ordinary achievers. The bottom non-performers which we get everytime in ranking, as it is relative. What this process doe sin a country like India is to strongly improve the working of the team, as everybody does good to work to be in the top 20 per cent.

I get evaluated by my sub-ordinates on a 360 degree basis regularly, and this is only a self evaluation tool

We re-assess our portfolio on a very regular basis and in the last years we have had several strategic acquisitions. We hired a British branding partner called Interbrand to re-launch our brand and it helped us great way in re-positioning our brand and leverage the brand asset value and equity towards achieving growth!

Interestingly we have Mr. Godrej talking about the various succession plans in the company.  Talking about succession planning, Mr. Godrej talks about what if you tomorrow come down a bus, well, we are planned for it, and I remember having the similar conversation with a friend, while running an Incubation Consulting company.

Share on Facebook

So here we are with the second session of Day 1 of The Leaders In India 2009. This is a panel discussion with a very impressive moderated panel, and the discussion will revolve around Mergers and Acquisitions which surely is an interesting discussion to be in.

We have the resident editor from Mumbai for Outlook magazine moderating the session for the gathering and he talks some very interesting numbers.

70% of acquisitions fail

Company like Cisco which has done more than 135 acquisitions till date, we have the Chief Globalization Officer from Cisco, talking about how Cisco has mastered the art of acquisitions. He says the majority of our acquisitions came from our customers. This is the Go To Market anc business strategy for Cisco. We differentiate in market enetering, expansion and acceleration. Our success rate is 70%. We are very high on retention as well.

You need a culture in a company to be able to do M and A

We also do acquisitions to enter new business models. Our learning with acquisitions is that you have to have that culture in your company and today we have an entire team to do these acquisitions. Last but not the least, its a process. Now we are talking India in specific and interestingly Cisco has so far done 6 new investments in India.

Key takeaway: M&A can be a key part of your strategy and it can become your culture

Now we have Mr. Charles from wattson wyatt, giving the Human angle to M&A. What I have learned working with clients, there is no standard template for culture. It has to be something which is central to all parts of your transaction. In terms of due diligence, if you really dont understand the culture of the organization that you are buying, you should not think of buying them.

I was very impressed with the amount of expertise and process and real hard work which went into due diligence when I was working with clients in India

But the whole diligence was on the financial part and not the cultural or Human part. One of the things you need to accept about M and A, is that you need to be better at it.

Interestingly we have an expert talking about post integration and acquisition and she says, when you are in the midst of your deal, how much attention have you paid to the fact that what would happen to the organization after merger and what would form out of it?

You need to have the systems integrated to get the right prioritization, post acquisition integration. The key thing for you is to get the right internal team together. You need to bring all the elements together with common objectives and right prioritization, as you cannot do everything in 30 days, hence you need to have the right planning which will definitely pay dividends in the long run.

By bad post acquisition realizations, and if not planned well, you could inherit losses and other issues. Hence plannign the right internal team with the right objectives is the right thing.

Bad M&A?

Sure, there is bad M&A there, but it is also the time for opportunity. Governments are going to have to raise money in the near future and taxes are the way to do it and hence this is the time to have a strategic look at your group structure and if you have your IP rights at the right places in your organization and if you are exploiting them fully.

Q&A:

Now we are in the q&A mode with the moderator of the session leading with the questions.

Very interesting discussions happening about Indian family businesses and also how Cisco does the right things by setting the right expectations, while discussing business Integration across verticals and internal employee cultures.

Money is a Motivation – setting the right financial structure post integration:

We now are discussion how compensation structures change and how they are controlled and managed over time, post integration. You need to structure the deal looking at the fact that anybody who has set up a business has a huge amount of emotional attachment with the business. What we have found is: if you can intelligently find out the right roles for people post integration, looking at what they are doing, they love, you can have a successful post integration team merger and integration.

Share on Facebook

Here I am, LIVE blogging Mr. To Peters, Management Guru and Author at The Leaders In India 2009.

We said somethings 25 years ago about basics and we are in this mess today. I said to a MIT graduate, that shut down MIT and we can go a long way in bettering. Since 1996 of my time, I have focused on the issue on women in leadership and women in management. Now it is not an issue of social justice, but its that woman buy things!

I am pretty much able to give a guarantee that I will dissapoint you this morning

If you have reached the age of 66, you know for sure that the only secret is there are no secrets! Tom starts by giving an example of Conrad Hilton’s answer to “what was the most important lesson you’ve learned in your long and distinguished career” and he said, remember to tuck the shower curtain inside the bath tub!

The art of war does not require complicated maneuvers; the simplest are the best and common sense in fundamental. From which one might wonder that how it is that generals make blunders; it is because they try to be clever – Napolean

Interestingly Tom shares how he has learned from his life and the neighborhood talking about one of the issues that India faces today with its growth, which is continuing the growth.

I am often asked by would be entrepreneurs seeking escape from life within hgue corporate strcutures, How do I build a small firm for myself? The answer is: Buy a very large one and WAIT – Paul Ormered

If you are not pursuing incredibly aggressive strategy, your days are numbered. And Tom shares his experience of working with Mckenzie with one of his colleagues. Interestingly Tom shares some very amazing statistics from the US and how companies have failed over years. if you look at the world’s largest exporters:

• No.4 is Japan
• Tie for 2nd and 3rd : American and chinese
• No 1: Germans

I am a strong strong strong believer of middle sized companies. I believe that medium sized enterprises are the future for us. I think if you look at the US economy, which continues to have a significant productivity lead than the rest of the world, fundamentally every automobile plan has the same productivity!

Everything in existence tends to Deteriorate – Norberto Odebrecht

If you have to make a sizeable company, you have to go to war against yourself. The only thing that beats a company is ITSELF PERIOD! I have read Tom before, and I feel this is an absolute truth, which was also supported by Mr. Subroto Bagchi yesterday at NASSCOM.

Giant mergers destroy value. PERIOD

Execution IS strategy – Fred malek

The three magical words that are crucial for an enterprise. And Tom is giving this perfect example referring to the Blue Ocean! I am impressed Tom What’s the point of looking outside if you can’t do anything with your assets?!

Two point strategy by Tom in life:

1. Execution is strategy
2. You only find OIL if you drill wells

**My apologies for not being able to blog the entire session by Tom, due to an urgent call by the Co-founder of my company!

But here I am again covering the question and answer round with Tom.Tom just spoke about the lessening of the cultural differences and how we should be working towards getting the systems right! The CEO is NOT teh best strategist, but he is the guy who would get the best Strategist on board to do the right work.

Tom very strongly puts how the best of the projects fail due to lousy execution specs in the proposal. The Chrysler Americans and the Daimler Germans may not be the best strategist in the history! It is the little stuff that matters with significant multiplier effects, says Tom, giving a very interesting example of surgeons.

A professional listener is as same as a professional pilot

Business schools are a scurge of the world! Many of you went to Bschools and so did I, but I like thinking of the fact that I outgrew it!

In my perfect world you should have someone on Board your company under the age of 25! Things are changing and you I can challenge, dont realize it! You are as good as the people you spend your time with.

Share on Facebook

Listening to Steve Tappin from Yorkshire, and he pushes the ambitions of CEO’s to be the best and be more inspirational which is his day job and his night job is the book he is writing, which is secrets of CEO’s.
Interestingly, Steve says that two thirds of Global leaders that we have at the moment are not big enough, two thirds are managers at best and they don’t have the leader’s qualities. Steve gives areas for CEO’s:
1.    Business performance
2.    Business leadership
3.    Personal performance
4.    Personal leadership
5.    Talent

And after a good networking energy filled opportunity, we have Peter Rigby, Chief Executive of Informa Group plc, Non-Executive Chairman of Electric Word plc. Peter starts the day with introducing the Leaders In India and how the contribution of such platforms can make a meaningful difference to the communities we serve and as the community as a whole.

We now have Steve again talking about the TRUMP group and here we have Donald Trump. And Donald starts with the resilience of the Indian marketplace and Donald will be talking about the emerging markets in specific the Real Estate Market. WSJ has dubbed Real Estate as India’s new Tech.

It takes an outsiders perspective to look at the things that can change

Donald is sharing his experience of a conference he attended at Dubai and well how the buying patterns are evolving.

To move things forward we really have to get things back to basics.

My father was teaching me abotu business and about focus and he told a story in the early nineties which explained to Donald what focus really is. you can’t be all things to all people. One of the biggest pitfalls every one has seen over the last few years is that all are going the same direction, but in my view we have to understand the subtleties. We hence lost track of basis, we lost track of cost, margins shrunk. Its time to ge trealistic!

Why India today?

interestingly, Donald is talking about the India story and what things can you do differently and what new things can you do to move forward. In 27 years India has only had 1 year of negative growth.

Fluency in English in India is a great advantage, which I see as a great potential, as it still is the language of business

There is a level of aspirational wealth here, that you don’t see anywhere else in the world. The desire here is so much stronger that I have not seen anywhere lse in the world! People here really love try and do things. And you have to love what you do to be successful. You never will out-perform anyone else in the company if you don’t love what you do.

Urbanisation is another thing which is very rapidly growing and is a mind boggling statistic which has applications everywhere

I have always heard of the American Dream, even in Obama’s speech, but today listening to Donald Trump, creating the amazingly HUGE Indian DREAM! I am a proud Indian (as always) !

Opportunities:

• People wanna know what they are buying
• They wanna know who they are dealing with
• Creating a risk adjusted level playing field

The biggest issue in my mind in investing into any emerging market, is the lack of transparency

Certainty creates value. Without transparency its going to be difficult to create continued investment. When my own backyard is getting interesting, it creates good competition for not just the emerging markets but for everyone.

The TRUMP organization has developed a model over the last few years to do business across the globe. We dont assume that we know all things about all markets. The first emerging market which cracks the transparency code will WIN – Donald Trump Jr.

I just love the so much home grown talent in India, but that doesn’t still mean that you dont want to attract foreign talent.

You don’t get anything that you don’t ask for. And this is one of the biggest lessons I have learnt in life, which took me three years. Transfer of knowledge creates clarity. International players have not been able to get in touch with the legal system in India.

Donald Trump Jr. is now talking about Infrastructure and I agree to him on this, as an emerging market, we do need infrastructure, not just in terms of rail and roads, but also agriculture, education etc. Someone has to bite the bullet and it has to be done says Donald.

Cultural Differences

Donald Trump talks about talks about business and how it is done globally. And how people do need to understand that there has to be a common understanding in doing business. A times I go losing 3 hours on a business call which should effectively get closed in 5 minutes for me. Trump talks about creating a level play, a level playing field and I agree no less to himi on this. Business in India has to become this.

Donald, closes with his remark the potential for this country is amazing if some of these things are changed and now we are in the Q&A mode.

Share on Facebook

Here I am LIVE Blogging, Ankur Lal one of a closely related NASSCOM EMERGE community fellow and Sanjiv Mital from Saarthi Enterprises and Alok Mittal from Cannan Partners. this is surely going to be an interesting session.

Ankur Lal, CEO Infozech Software leads the session with Alok Mittal – Partner, Canaan Partners, Sanjiv Mital – CEO, Saarthi Enterprise.

Ankur starts by giving the example of a company which has grown from a 10 employee to a 400+ employee company with a revenue over 100 crores.

We have Ankur sharing abotu how the mobile industry is attempting the SaaS based model. Telecom procurement is what Ankur is talking about. What was it like 10 years back, Ankur takes the delegates back in time.

there was lot of outsourcing in procurement, but there was not much in management

SaaS kind of came in and changed all that and something of the similar sort happened in the mobile world. People started sourcing managed services rather that procurement and hence the story of someone like Airtel in India happened. when CAPEX combines with delivery capability it becomes better.

Last year Airtel went out to outsource customer care. It surely was a BIG step as when outsourcing started in the mobile world it was just the back end which was getting outsourced. Interestingly Ankur now talks about the VAS outsourcing space.

If you are selling into a telco, the picture in front of you is that you cant say I have equipment or software

We are now getting a good insight into where this all is heading by Ankur. A very major point that Alok has touched is the platform now. What it delivers, what value does it create etc. Alok says it all int erms of the evolving developer context. And well, there is the entire ppt which shows everything from the 80′s to 90′s and now the 2000 and what has happened, in terms of the technology.

Discussing technology how could have iPhone not have gotten mentioned, we have Alok talking about the iPhone and how the technology has leveraged Open Source. I am particularly interested in knowing more about this space.

With his closing remarks, Alok closes the session. I have been listening to Alok since a good time now and this was surely an interesting piece of gyan.

We now have Sanjiv Mital – CEO, Saarthi Enterprise, talking about The emerging business model. Interesting to know that Sanjiv invested into Bharti telesoft when it was going through a tought phase in 2001 and went ahead with a management buyout. What did he do which gave it the major push?

1. Migrated the software services to VAS products

Sanjiv is talking about the traditional software business model which is followed generally. This is soemthign that I call a cost Plus model. When you do the same in a software as a service model, what you do is value based pricing.

You are not just worried about developing the product, installing and its over. You not only get revenue but you get high revenue. In bharti Telsoft we hence started a new revenue enhancemenet department. Sanjiv is essentially talking about hwo the entire businessm odel changes with SaaS, which is less to do with cost ad more to do with what value you deliver to the customer.

Interestingly, in my personal opinion, the cash Flow implications that Sanjiv is showing is surely an eye opener. Each bit is supported by the phases of the various steps yoru product goes through in the SaaS model.

As the consumers keep on using your service, your revnue goes up and in a small time your revenue could be a good part of your client’s earning

SaaS, is much easier to sell. What you are sayign is, I’ll make money only when you do. But the risk that you are taking is much more. It could be years when you start generating good profits. It could take fair amount of time when significant revenues start coming in.

Sanjiv is now talking about RBT, and how the moel got up. Interestingly Sanjiv is talking all surprises…how a large number of the consumers in the country subscribe to this concept. I can no less agree to Sanjiv as I am closely realted to a major telecom company which used RBT as a major concept.

Sanjiv says surely in the longer run SaaS pays off. All the companies we have talked about grew very significanlty in the longer run.

Share on Facebook

India market and the SaaS/Cloud Computing landscape – Session three of the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave

Speakers: Kishore Madhyam – CEO, ImpelCRM, Sharad Sanghi – CEO & Founder NetMagic Solutions, Chandra Prabhakar – Global Head, OnDemand Solutions, Ramco Systems

Moderator: Ibrahim Ahmed – Chief Editor, Dataquest, Cyber Media group

Now we have Mr. Ahmed moderating the session, adding a quick point, I think one of the earliest propagators of cloud computing was an Indian professors in the US. The entire mindset about cloud computing and on demand computing is rising and therefore I am very very positive about the same.

We are glad to see the rising interest and concepts like this are going to be very very powerful. Ibrahim is now introducing the speakers on stage.

Interesting to understand from Mr. Sharad Sanghi from netmagic solutions on how netmagic understands cloud computing. I am particularly interested in knowing how easy it is to scale up and scale down applications using cloud. Making things simpler for the delegate to understand, we have Sharad simplifying the cloud and showing us the silver lining with it, along with some very interesting numbers.

Driving factors in india:

• Low cost
• High operational efficiency
• Elasticity
• Scalability

Sharad is creating the picture of how start-ups and emerging businesses are adopting the technology and what factors really are pushing the same out.

As long as you do your capacity planning well, cloud computing surely works

Energy efficiency is a crucial point Sharad has taken up, with cost of power going up every-time, Cloud is surely a solution. Sharad now ends his session with an introduction to the architecture.

And now we have Kishore from PK4 software. Kishore is a friend and I surely have seen him EMERGEOUT connected through the NASSCOM EMERGE community. Kishore starts sharing some very interesting numbers showing the delegate the Indian market. There are phenomenal names to follow in the saas space.

I personally like Narasimhan’s way of sharing his own learning’s saying that he may not be an expert but he has learnt

And we’re still not talking of the bottom of the pyramid says Narasimhan. Its amazing what people can do with software out in the field.

Narasimhan is now talking about how they as a company operates. We have got one of the largest optical brands in the world. Interestingly Narasimhan is now sharing his companies sales model.

• Adwords
• Website
• Eva
• Purchase
• Renewal

Being a Social Media evangelist myself, I can surely agree and connect to what Narasimhan is talking about. Sharing an example how the bounce rate to his site drastically reduced with a redesign of his website.

We dont have the freemium model, but yes you can have a free eval fo 15 days

Pricing is always an issue says Narasimhan. the biggest issue in this model is that companies don’t pay periodical. systems don’t exist in these companies. Training is a big issue, its critical but its expensive. There are always engineering choices to be made.

Narasimhan is actually creating the real picture for the delegates. I am particularly likeing the way he has simplistically made sense of the challenges and the headroom both which is available in the space.

What we don’t know:

• Decisions happen very quickly here
• Web – 2.5 % EVAL – 2.5 % purchase
  • us or the market?
• Feet on street
  • traditional model is beguiling
• Partners
  • “pull” more important than “push”
• Mobile client software
  • Not enough uptake

Now we have someone from Ramco Systems sharing theri experience as how did they deploy the technology. We have been focusing predominantly in the ERP space since its inception. We have been in the business with the SaaS model since the last 2 years making it available to the SME segment specifically.

Sharing his learning’s, he speaks of the challenges SME’s go through.

• Business challenge
• IT challenge

There is a lot of SME segment who are looking for such applications to counter these challenges

We are now seeing what the Ramco OnDemand ERP has for the enterprise scale operations. Talking about numbers, we are now understanding how Ramco has expanded with over 1500 customers who are satisfied with the deliverable(s). We have our own data center in Chennai.

The inability of the SME segment in deploying solutions in their own premise, creates a reference for us

We are now looking at the industry wise break up and how ramco is present across the various business verticals. Talking about the benefits in the various verticals, its interesting to know how technology is spanning across the business arena and how value is getting created far across.

This particular product will always be evergreen

We are now in the Q&A mode after a very comprehensive session. I am glad to be blogging the session and create value for many followers who are reading this blog.

Share on Facebook

Here I am once again LIVE blogging the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave at Le Meridien in Delhi. And as always I am glad to bringing to you one of the largest Corporate conference in the IT industry LIVE from where the action is.

A warm welcome to all at the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave, we bring you EMERGEOUT LIVE. We have Mr. Som Mittal and Mr. KrishnaKumar Natrajan from MindTree on stage.

We have Mr. Som Mittal welcoming the delegates and the hall is filling up to its brim. Talkign about the period of uncertainty, Mr. Mittal is referring to growth and how entrepreneurship is taking a leap in India. There are positive changes that are taking place says Mr. Mittal.

We are focusing on things that we have never done before

From an EMERGING companies point of view, its interesting to seehtat over the last couple of years our focus on emergign companies has increased. Mr. Mittal is sharing some very interesting numbers.

We have had almost 150 best practices sessions in the last year. We have had more than 25 companies which have gotten mentored.

People joining us in the delegations in the past year have majorly been from the emerging companies. Mr. Mittal is giving some very interesting examples of how emerging companies are truly EMERGING OUT! When we had our Innovation awards, no surprise 40 % of the companies were from this strata.

Mr. Mittal is talking about the recent trends that NASSCOM studied along with a major research firm, and they have identified some really interesting opportunities. And 80% of the opportunities have come out from the market that exists in areas that we still haven’t explored.

The business done in IT outside fortune 500 is more than what gets done in the fortune 500

I think there is a huge opportunity ahead in the domestic market as it grows from t10 billion dollars to 50 billion dollars. The charter for us in the next 10 years is laid out and we have a road ahead.

Mr. Mittal announces the summit open by thanking the member companies and talks abotu competing and collaborating fiercely to bring out opportunities. Inviting KK on the podium, Mr. Mittal takes his seat.

And now we have KK from MindTree talking about how small and medium companies are the stars of tomorrow. I always love listening to KK, as I was a previous MindTree Mind. Talking about how the entire EMERGE community has grown up with the increasing extent of participation.

EMERGEOUT Conclave is a result of all the deliberations that have happened with all of you contributing

Collaboration is a very integral part of how all of us become successful. For the Indian IT industry to be successful its not just the largest companies to be acknowledged at the Global scale. If we see tens and humdreds of you be successful, that is when the real power would come out.

KK is really inviting participation from the delegates in the local events and pushing the sharing of knowledge.

A key focus of the EMERGE forum has been, how do we enhance the visibility of the EMERGING companies. I personally am of the view that the entire EMERGE forum has definitely enhanced the standing of the EMERGING companies. KK talks about the EMERGE awards and congratulates th group which has made this all happen.

A lot of our own success depends on how can we as a community decide how we collaborate. The industry needs a tremendous number of people amongst you on a global scale.

Now we have the EMERGE 50 AWARDS being handed over. I am sure we are going to have more of such companies and more EMERGING entrepreneurs along. I congratulate all the winners and look forward to be on the receiving end myself soon.

Share on Facebook

Its 5:40 in the morning and I have just woken up…have to reach work little early today as I am working on a BIG pitch for obviously a BIG client, which can end all the so called recession woes for a startups like us..

This is a quickie and what I have in mind to introduce a concept which has been there for ages. You shop and you buy anything today, on the big flashy banners/ posters/ ads, you get for example big discounts but at the bottom end, there comes a small, almost unreadable line which says Terms and Conditions apply.

Okay, so since I am a Social Media Evangelist, while looking at my industry and the marketing industry overall, what struck me was T and C in our case really is Time and Content!! (c) myself

Now you would feel why does the post title contain a name called Saarthak HIT 95FM? Well, let me create a context. There is this FM channel called HIT 95 FM in Delhi, which is one of the best channels there is on air. And then there obviously have to be the RJ’s there…..and wallah you have someone called Saarthak (I dont know if Im spelling it right, or I have added an extra ‘a’).

Now is this an advertisement for the channel? NO!!

But I am making a point here. Saarthak comes on air pretty early in the morning and goes upto some 12pm in the afternoon giving you amazing dollops of music. But what I have been seeing over time in his journey of 6-7 hours on air, that he manages his time juggling in between the LIVE talks, contests, music and other stuff that keeps people like me hooked, pretty intelligently.

He manages the content he has and the time he works for in such a neat manner, that you never feel a hitch. For a client these are short term wins and keeping him on a high all throughout!

Looking through the Social Media glasses, I felt this is it, in our industry, content is the king as it is for Saarthak and the team, time for them is as crucial and what they sell and who they sell it to is again an important consideration as they have a niche concentrated target audience, which is the office goer in his/her vehicle. (Now being an entrepreneur, I have multiple business ideas running in my mind for HIT 95 guys to increase their revenue with) anyway… going ahead this is the ultimate gyan!

What does a Solid placed Social Media Company need in the times evolving?

The times of seeding content on the internet are so over and the offering has now become a commodity. Its time to get campaigns flowing in with creative juices flowing and help the client processesize the entire Online Marketing gig for their business. This is the time for establishing your stand on what’s NEXT really!

Build a high team of creatives who are executioners as well and you have what you would call the NEXT WAVE in Social Media. Deliver to the client and have flawless execution and you are set for a long innings with a clientele which would include the best of the class in the industry, as flawless and responsible execution and project management is what these biggies are looking for and you will have the revenues flowing in and if you are not in deep S**t, then you can always get cash positive pretty quickly.

**and now for the self promotion part, well, I will be LIVE on air at Saarthak’s morning show between 8:20 and 8:30 today called the battle of the sexes. I hope I win, otherwise, I am telling Saarthak to at least give me a hamper…(LOL) coz I have been almost awake for 3 days and nights now and am almost like a dead man walking, so something other than coffee and vodka, needs to get inside to get me waking up and having my senses.

Share on Facebook

Well, Yes I have a problem.

I discuss Social Media with some of the established brains in the domain in India and have had discussions with Social Media thinkers sitting thousands of miles across the seven seas.

And now I do have a problem!

Before I put my problem down, let me put some questions for you to ponder upon:

• Almost every business today needs to reach out and the Internet becomes one of the best mediums. But does every business have the same objective in terms of (Branding, Outreach, Lead generation) etc.?
• Is it necessary that a solution which has worked for an IT company (as an example) would fit great for a BPO?
• Is it necessary that YOU as an Online marketing company would be able to understand everything from a product business to an IT to a BPO to a Chocolate product company?
• Is marketing universal and do the same rules apply for all on Social Media?

Well, now let me put forth my problem!

One of the biggest lacking points that I see with online marketing/ social media companies today is lack of good human resources. In my experience, you need three core and basic qualities to be even thinking of creating social media strategies for a business (client). These are:

1. Solid understanding of Business/ Products/ Services/ Industry
2. Solid understanding of the consumer who consume these products/ services online
3. Solid understanding of marketing

My experience of the industry says that majority of Social Media companies, talk about all the major tools and all the great jargons, but what they dont understand is how to customize a solution for the client. Each business (may be from the similar domain) will have a different set of problem statements to answer. Each business will have different objectives to achieve.

When so much is different, how can you just go along with jargons and pitch the same solution to each client?

I have interacted with many a Social Media people who if spoken to, would not have the required level of knowledge/ understanding of the product/ industry/ consumer behavior they are pitching to, but will keep circling around their choice of words which are: branding, positioning and lead generation (amongst the many others)

To scale up as a Social Media company – My way would be

The human resources that I recruit would surely have these three above mentioned qualities. Also, since time is an essential factor in the Internet business, I as a small company cannot afford to keep training my employees and wait for them to grasp business and start delivering. Hence what I need to focus on is getting the right people on board who take the ownership of work and understand the criticality of client delivery and execution.

Share on Facebook