Since this time, I have connected with many people, from some of the best in the Internet domain to some real sharp entrepreneurs, who have given their comments on the various business models which startups and the established Internet/ Online companies are following.
Scale up or Shut Shop
Out of my interaction a couple of days back with a highly placed and successful Internet entrepreneur, a revelation jumped out, which in a way took me by surprise, as I was always present to it, but not really in the real sense of the action.
Over a cup of coffee, we discussed the following:
Is working with SME’s in India really that easy into Social Media?
Are they good paying customers?
Are they easy to grab?
Do they really have the time and resources?
How, many huge clients (some of the top companies in India and Abroad) are looking for all kinds of services into Social Media and are ready to pay for innovative and rewarding work
Now, I had this idea about how social media campaigns are made for these big fat clients, but never had someone who is doing it in real time, telling me, how much of it is true!
Thus came the BIG realization!
There are these big companies who are asking for partners in the online world, who could do some really innovative stuff. When I talk of innovation and results, I am in a way referring to the likes of Sunsilk Gang of Girls and TATA TEA Jaago Re.
But what I was not aware of was, trivial and almost commoditized offerings in Social Media as creation and seeding of content on the various Social Media channels, these BIG companies are asking for such services as well as an integral part of the offering and are paying good sums for the same.
Many small online marketing companies are offering the same set of services to their clients which represent the SME/ Startup space.
But would the business model sustain?
I am not saying NO, but surely I think its going to be very very difficult. Even if as an online marketing company your differentiation is the market that you are serving, you still have to consider that your market should be sustainable enough and you should have enough resources to crack the market. Some questions that you should answer:
How long is your sales cycle?
Do you have enough resources to hang onto your tables?
Is a low paying and yet more demanding market, the best way for you as a startup?
Moral of the story?
Am I saying that small online marketing companies would not sustain? Well, not really! But surely such companies would find it really hard to sustain. The model over a longer run is surely not sustainable. Moving up the chain and crossing over to the clientle, which is sustainable for your business, is an absolute essential.
Price war?
Not really, in my personal opinion, price is surely not a differentiating factor which smaller companies can establish and fight over. Otherwise the shark will surely eat away the smaller fish.
Finally
There is enough business around, all you need to do is create the right set of expectations with the client and deliver innovations which would help the client get a high over, through short term wins, and will also help you establish long term relationships with your high net worth client!
I am impressed with the fact that the 23 year old kid who turned down $1 Billion from Yahoo and is almost a 4 year old company, who says that my age is a little bit of both an asset and a liability.
A kid who sits on the same desk as his 400 other employees writing codes, who has 240 million dollars from Microsoft for a 1.6 %stake, well, I am surely interested in listening to this guy who says no he is not looking to make facebook public and yes they are working on revenue streams.
Here I bring you the exclusive tid bits from Mark’s interview!
Well, here I am LIVE blogging Transforming India through Technology by Mr. Bill Gates the special NASSCOM CEO’s Forum at Hotel Taj, New Delhi. The room is full to the brim and I am glad to be LIVE blogging one of my inspirations as an entrepreneur.
Okay, so I have the stage set in front of me and Mr. Bill Gates is talking about technology and now he is praising India and the national identity project. Looking at this visionary, his words are making a deep impact to the entire room, he is talking about the technology and the future.
Interesting to know how Microsoft labs is innovating. Where can IT help those, who are in the most need. This is an area where its very easy to go wrong. Its very easy to say that we have the software which will help them. Its easy to fool yourselves that this thing will really count. Therefore all this would take time for the benefits to come out.
Kiosks are an ambitious goal. Interestingly Bill is talking about simplicity of systems and how dramatic changes are happening in coming down the learning curve.
Many of these ideas don’t work, but we need to look at what we can do.
Work Of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
Is very much about the needy. 20% of the children who are born here, don’t get immunized and hence ehty die. They don’t get the right nutrition. I am particularly impressed with Bill’s amazing knowledge and the way he is present to the small things which are making a huge impact to the society at large.
Science is coming up with new vaccines. We have also got the govt to look at more investment in health, education, infrastructure. Broadband, kiosk encouragement. India is taking its confidence and is very innovative. There is even a sense a competition, and Bill says that he thinks its very healthy.
Competition with India and China, we are looking at what they have done good and what we could learn from them. Interestingly, Bill has now touched the word startup and how universities are working along them.
Can we double the number of kids getting immunization?
Education is an area where we haven’t seen much advance,. 100 years ago you had a chalkboard and a teacher writing on it. How different is education today? May you could get notes on the net. But it hasn’t radically changed.
The Microsoft group is working some very innovative ideas and we are taking some of the best teachers globally and creating videos and providing them for free. So the students have the best lectures. By just having the study groups that are lot more interactive, and this is a big part that can be shared and the competition is making it better and better all the time.
Just think of the impact that this will have. Training a farmer on the rice seeds that can be planted. Im particularly impressed with Bills simple but amazingly high vision.
I think we can set very concrete and ambitious targets.
Its okay to be optimistic because , this is a period where we have more and more smart people. It is fantastic that this country has not pulled back the investment on education and technology and we are taking things to the next level.
I am optimistic as ever and next time im here we would see some bright innovations in making things faster than we can predict them.
And now we have Mr. Som Mittal taking the session into the Q&A mode.
Q. India will have the largest youth population in the world over 20 years, and we have to make sure of adequate infra and good teachers. How can tech help?
A. Bill: there are some of these wireless approaches that will get more economic overtime. Interenet cafes are a big resource that we can look at. We also need to keep in mind as the cell phone becomes more and more powerful, we can look at taking this device to a new level while still keeping it in a price range that is still attractive.
Quality teacher, that is a tough problem. It’s a personnel system and we need to be good about testing them in terms of their ability. We have got a crisis in the US. The country has done well partly becoz we educate the best students. Education was a thing that pushed US into such a strong position and now we need to renew that.
And this surely is not a easy problem. Keeping in mind how important education is, which in India is a much eager issue, I do think that in terms of measurements and training some technology would facilitate it, but it’s the system which thrives on quality.
Q. Does Bill gates want to completely shut of all the tech?
A. And the room laughs. I am not a 24/7 computer person. And I read a lot. I am not that big on text messaging and am impressed with young people who do it. I love e mail. Ideally a lot of great ideas when I go off right reading articles when I am completely isolated from everything, even emails.
All these tools of technology let us waste our time if we are not careful we have to be disciplined in using them and not get offtrack.
Overall I never feel overwhelmed with technology.
Q. Sangeeta from the audience: one of the more fascinating aspect is your ability to combine the knowledge of technology into healthcare and especially in India, I would like to know more about it?
A. Bill: a half of what the gates foundation does is more of healthcare related. Bill is talking about, Indian companies and how these are great participants in the network. In healthcare delivering through technology is very difficult. This requires reaching out to communities and creating an environment of trust and this is difficult.
Over last 5 years we have learnt a lot and have created a model that we can apply to the presnt challenges. Heavy business intelligence is surely one of the many practices which are coming out of the work. Some of the statistics are surely showing progress, including the work of keeping HIV in this country leveled, though small, but surely it is happening.
Q. Mr. Mittal is now posing a question about how technology is coming and if there is something going to come which would dramatically change that?
A. Bill: The dream of healthcare has always been to have the person with the expertise be in the same location where the patient is. For a lot of things, the idea pf connecting the cell phone being used for a simple thing like blood test and al lthe data is sent in somewhere where it could be worked upon. The cell phone can also be turned into a microscope….i am amazed at the things Bill are talking about.
What we need is a combination of drugs and vaccines which are critical. By having these virtual systems with which we can turn and reach to patients. In US we have developed a model and how to manage and develop these systems.
Q. I am overwhelmed with the coverage given to the topic of healthcare. Chairman batra hospital with his two questions:
in a country like this, where I have the privilege of participating in the national decision making, I have the problem of having access to patient records at the point.
how does technology bring in a change in attitude where observing and putting information in the reocrsds and how clinical research could be worked upon through IT?
A. Bill: I think the first application that the ID system might have is getting the immunization up. The idea of just carrying your cellphone and get to know who is missing the immunization in this area and surely it does require a lot to be done for this. But I think it could be piloted in a large area within three years. It seems reasonable enough to me. Those workers are very open minded. There are also lots of privacy issues, which would need to be tackled as well. And privacy laws in the US says we don’t want medical records.
So in the more complex systems the task would be difficult, but things could be thought through very carefully.
Q. President Obamas’ Bangalore to buffalo? In a global world can artificial barriers be created?
A. Bill: well, im sure Indian politician can rather create jobs in Bangalore than buffalo. Fortunately job market is not a zero sum market. The total number of jobs will grow. If we were sitting in 1800 we will not have been able to say that there would be lawyers and other professions. But we do know that as innovation goes full speed, then jobs get created as the society gets rich, even though we cannot predict in advance.
If a country does not let smart people let into its region with immigration laws, its damaging to that country. In the long run the smart people that we took from the IIT’s a couple of years back, we got bad press in the US and in India.
The US congress is very tough in immigration, but I think there should be differences for smart people. The Canadian govt has a policy that a person with MS with hundred thousand a year, they want the person.
Who knows that the things may change and I cannot predict it. Microsoft is very vocal that it would be a huge mistake. In case of India the country is not restricting the cross movement of smart people.
Q. You did mention about the UID project, that we just launched. What will be your advice to Nandan.
A. Bill: I am seeing him tonight. And I’ll be fascinated to know what he is looking at. MS will be surely interested in associating to the project. We need to make sure the technology is used in the perfect way in this project. There are ways to do inexpensive cards, the digital chip technology is one method.
There are though pluses and minuses of these things though and MS labs is working on some innovative projects in the direction. In the US the computers might know a lot about you.
The banking and the healthcare should be two applications should be at the top of the list that we would like to see.
Q. Mr, Munjal from the auto industry? I would like to address the issue of distribution to the needy, the govt does a lot but we all know that most of it does not get to the user. So in India how are you facing this issue?
A. Bill: We are not just in India. But we are also in Africa, and there what really lacks is the roads and it’s a disaster. The green revolution could not have had a broad impact it had if it had not been for the roads. The basic infra investments, you just cannot get away from that. There is nothing like in the magic world of IT that will make the physical things go away, but food, cars, will always be the physical things which are the most efficient things to reach out.
There would be innovative models that would be followed in India. Today the inefficiencies in the distribution is fairly high in India.
Medicine is easier than Money
It’s a very tricky issue to get involved in looking that the money gets to the people who need it and not to the already based. It’s a tough problem. The govt here has to act in various ways of reporting back information.
I think cell phones are a great way to know that the service was not delivered to the right people. We can create a database that somehow people would start believing that there would be a strong follow up and it would not be as easy executing the same and not many have thought of this yet.
Sachin Pilot: the real trouble lasts in the last mile distribution. If you have things digitized where you need to have social audits and you would have things transparent. You would have to create ways like federal govts, state govt, panchayats.
Leakages are there, but we need to keep innovating and have more transparencies.
Q. Social Networking? You see it moving where for business?
A. Bill: SN is kind of a buzz word to be honest. Electronic communication has had many versions and now we have got in the framework of who are my friends, this is highly assymetric. Those relations but are not really flexible. There are 10,00 friends at facebook and I let it go.
We are working with facebook and now Bill mentions twitter. This stuff continues to evolve. An equivalent is taking place in the business world where you can be connected with you team. There is some sort of crossover happening. Your community and company are somewhat separate. You may have a fairly different persona at your workplace than what you are.
Its not such a big boundary connecting it with the cell phone. I think there are lots of innovations happening in the space.
Q. The mobile in India, how can you simplify the message to adopt of a Rs. 5 polio vaccine than a 10 cent ringtone?
A. Bill: People probably know that it looked almost different 3 years back, but now we are almost eradicating polio in India. If mothers know they are protecting their child from paralysis and we really spread the word and generate the general demand.
We generally educate people and how we reach out to communicate that with all the clutter of the promotional campaign. It’s a challenge. What I see is young people doing a lot of these things both in India and in the US. And I feel we need more people like this, and there is massive room for innovation, in making sure these issues get the right promotion they deserve.
Q. Would be great to hear your views on bringing everybody together sharing the common goals to make something big happen?
A. Bill: I think that there is a lot of cases gathering people with similar skill sets is not difficult. When you mentioned energy, it’s an area im putting a lot of time recently. Getting cheap energy is highly crucial. We need low cost energy. We want energy that costs a quarter that it costs today and it has no bad effects on environment.
I met GE CEO last week, talking about the same. I am also backing a lot of startups working on these ideas into energy. There are lots of innovative guys who are working on these solutions and some which I am backing.
All we need is need 3-4 of them to create big breakthroughs and fortunately we have a lot of talent in India, US, China and we need to get the govt in dialogue in promoting these innovations. Only innovation is gonna let you have create such possibilities.
The more time I spend on these innovations, the more optimistic I get.
Q. Pradeep from Cybermedia….factors making Bill move from foundations to MS?
A. Bill: NO. I love the work happening and I spend some of my time in this great stuff. But the idea of health is still in the earlier stage. How do you take successes and built structures around them.
This is a field that’s more or like computing in the 1970’s. its not a case where the framing of a entrepreneur is not as necessary than healthcare and reaching out to the people who need it the most. And I am loving my work with no second thoughts. That was my attitude when I was at MS and now I am fanatical full time about the foundation.
MS needs to take their own decisions now.
Q. What is the future of search?
A. Bill: its Bin. Search is not the ultimate today. The 10 links are not what people want. Even though its cool, search should still be dramatically better and its great that MS has signed up higher grade people and do innovative work.
Q. 30 years back did you see yourself doing the same work that you are doing today? What was your inner voice? What motivated you to get this off?
A. Bill: Great question. There are several things that put me on the path.
If you see the circumstances that people live in are so disparate. My view is if you give these things to your kids, its bad for the society and not just for your kids.
A big influence on me were my parents who exposed me to some amazing things.
Warren buffet cemented me on such things. And due to him we have double the resources that we had otherwise. And thankfully while I was at MS we had a team of dedicated 600 people who were working smart. I am having a lot of fun doing it.
I hope that there is something here that wil l have an impact whether on the rich people in the US or rich people here.
The Indo International Business Achievement Awards at The Leaders In India Business Forum 2009 are going to be one of the most extravagant awards ceremonies involving the stalwarts of the Business World globally and honoring the Global Indians who have created a niche for themelves and have displayed exceptional entrepreneurial and innovative talent and effective and responsible leadership and management.
Setting new standards within Indian and global business, the awards also acknowledge organisations that have spearheaded meaningful socially responsible practices within India, and internationally.
Leaders In India
The IIBAA are presented by Informa which is the brains and soul behind The Leaders In India Business Forum 2009. Leaders in India is a two day forum dedicated entirely to the business community, and is expected to be India’s largest single meeting point of global and Indian corporate leaders. In addition to providing an excellent opportunity for peer-to-peer networking, the ‘Leaders’ team prides itself on providing the most thoroughly researched and solution-focussed points of discussion in its series of interactive audience Q&As with key business leaders.
Categories for the IIBAA
Indian Business Leader 2009
International Business Leader 2009
Indian Company of the Year 2009
International Company of the Year 2009
Young Business Leader 2009
Leader In Corporate Social Responsibility 2009
Nominees for the IIBAA
To VOTE for your favored in each of the category click on the image above
Here I am Live Blogging the second Un-conference session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 at the NASSCOM HQ in New Delhi. This session is the second in the series of the initiative by NASSCOM for creating a common ground for the Product companies in India. The topic we are discussing today is: Solutions by Product Companies.
We have Ankur Lal, CEO Infozech Software, leading the session along with Arvind Jha of Movico Technologies. We also have Mr. Sharad Sharma – Chair, NASSCOM Product forum.
Okay so we have Mr. Sharad starting the session with a few laughs. Like many of you Im in the mode of becoming an entrepreneur again! I am also currently an entrepreneur in residence with CANNAN PARTNERS.
Sharad, is now sharing his thoughts on how the community can come together in creating an ecosystem. We as NASSCOM ahould also be looking at the other side of the table. i.e. he demand side and not just the delivery side of the equation. Sharad shares an interesting side story of 3M. In the early days of the CD media becoming popular this man he went to the chair and showed the CD and he was turned down. But the next time he did by positioning it the way that its the surface and not the CD/media that is there. Wallah, the rest is history.
What’s Cooking?
Mr. Sharad is now sharing on how NASSCOM is looking to create possibilities for the industry. interestingly Sharad is sharing some very bright ideas which he and the team at NASSCOM are trying to implement specifically aimed at SME’s and SMB’s. Sharad is surely sharing some really good ideas which if given life, could surely lay down a good path and make the journey smoother.
And since this is an Un-conference session, we now have the participants sharing their thoughts on what Sharad just shared with the community.
Sharad: One of the request that often comes back to NASSCOM from product companies is “Can you help us get buyers”. What we have found is, ther real value that NASSCOM can bring is to really grow the market and hold events where buyers and sellers could meet. What we can do is examine on behalf of these companies we could promote the voice.
Lack of project management and product marketing talent in India is a point shared by one of the participants in the room. Its because of the ecosystem. I definitely dont want NASSCOM to sell my product, I need help in developing the ecosystem.
Sharad: Our buyers are afraid of buying products from the small companies.
“No product that I know of has been successful, that has not been developed in the shadow of friendly sophisticated users”
Sharad: What is happening is that we dont have traction to the products, services are not present like force which could help us reach out.
Arvind: Product management and marketing is going to come out of your domestic customer knowledge. I believe that we will have the largest success for a product in the mobile side as we are the largest user base of mobiles.
Participant: Why not think about launching the next Google/Yahoo from India.
Arvind: There is nothing restrciting us from being there.
Ankur: We are the leaders in terms of these 400 million users. I would not be surprised if we have these small Google(s) coming out of India in another couple of years from now.
Participant: I see more and more companies fading out to the more lucrative services space. The DNA of the Indian industry to reamin/focus into the services domain is something which impacts the product.
Ankur: The challenge is that a small product company has to be dealt with safe hands. In the US there is this small companies fund. the government there supports these small businesses. What you need is a forgiven customer.
Challenges faced by Product Companies
So now we are discussing the challenges faced by product companies which we also did discuss the previous session on the product companies here at NASSCOM. Arvind is leading this part of the session, with the entire room being concentrated to the challenges and surely everyone in the room is agreeing to the same.
Arvind: In the spirit of what has worked, we should look at what companies can look at from these successes.
And now we have companies sharing with the room, their products and experiences
Participant: The planning that we do for the product business cycle is not complete. We dont really understand what to do after we have built the product.
So we have Tarun Anand, CTO, mScriber, its s speech training application. Tarun shares how they have been working on the same for the past 2 years and how they realised that its just the tip of the iceberg. We were lucky to get some early customers, but its harder for us to get the second set of customers.
You just have to wait it out and you have to watch what happens
What we realised, is that even if you have an engine, you still have to go to the customer with the 4 wheels, and the rest so that the customer just plugs in the key and moves on. So we partnered with companies which helped us achieve our objectives, and since we did not have the complete product stack, and hence these partners helped us reach there.
Its really important to see what your route to market is
Our biggest challenge right now is cash flows and we need to address the same.
And now we have RateGain, a company into the Hospitality and Travel Technology Products Company and we have the CEO and Founder sharing his thoughts.
We operate in these niche areas, these products have these niche requirements as a result of which we are pretty successful. And now we have RateGain sharin gthe various offerings they have.
While we were gaining knowlegde, we found that every hotel was published on some website, and we took the intelligent way out, which was more of creating a channel in between for the hotels to reach out with their information.
Sharing the Business Model
We have something called the rate tracking tool, so anybody selling anything online, you would want to know if there are competitive products on competitive prices available? Well, we customized this for the hotels. We found one commercial use of this technology and hence we started with hotels, but now we are launching it for different variants.
Interestingly what we now have is a screen shot of the reports that the product generates for the user. And I must say, is pretty interesting for a good competitive analysis.
How did the product come about?
In the US at a point when I returned from there, there were travel sites emerging, and I wanted to build the technology targeting the US consumer and build a metasearch site. And we flipped the Bmodel and created the product for the hotel industry.
If you are working on something new and innovative, customers in the US are pretty collaborative and understanding
Why did it work?
Emerging market need
Niche area/ No limited competition
Recommendation for others:
MR, Market sizing
Test market the product
Agile in bringing product to the market
Greenfield opportunities
SME on board
Passion
We leverage a great great Channel Strategy. We have identified strong players in the hospitality domain and tied up with them.
Okay and now we have RAWZOR standing at the line
Our’s is a product which is similar to winzip but for photographers. We spoke to all the photo editing softwares, to add support to our format, though there was no money involved, but it helped us gain industry support.
There was a lot of resistance from the market, you cannot go on day 1 to Adobe and expect them to support you.
Why did we try this?
First few friends looking to join a startup.
Where did it fail?
Lack of experience
Lack of discipline
What worked and Why?
Multiple discoveries of the right things to do
I believe we should look inside the team. If you are not good enough in what you are doing, then the level of integrity, honesty and discipline takes a hitm which surely was a challenge for us. People dont know the right things to do and the right things. Its putting people in the right framework to get the right things out of them.
And now we have the founder of Busy Software, Mr, Dinesh, sharing his success story. We have never had big hurdles, though profits have not been huge but somehow things have been moving smoothly.
The problem that we have is that of scaling up. Our challenge is that this market is dominated by Tally which is almost similar to the market and it is available at Zero price.
Now there are benefits to this situation and there are the problems. Such a situation increases the market size, which was good for us. Our pricing strategies is being focused on what Tally has dictated till now. Now the difficult thing is how to sell and how to get into the considerable field of the consumer.
How to get into the consideration set of people – this is our major challenge
Initially we kept the price very low almost 50% of what Tally was. We were not the smartest marketing guys around, but we were sure that we could get the product replicated and we were fool enough to replicate a free software. For us the differentiating factor was getting “Sales Tax” as an inclusive offering.
Our objective was to make people use the software, and we started spreading 90 days free software trial with full functionality on. People tried our software because he has a pain point, thus we pointed on this aspect of the consumer thought process.
Did Tally not include those features?
Well, yes they did, more than 8o% of the features are available, but since we are architectured right from the beginning, and hence that gives us the edge over Tally.
Ankur is now leading the discussion, and we have a request from participants for Ankur to share his story!
What is it that keeps your customer awake at night, if you know this and your product answers the call, well, you have your business – Ankur Lal
And now we have Ankur Lal, sharing his experience. The big problem is, its ironical, software development costs are cheaper in India, if they were expensive, we would not have been discussing this. If you can replicate and duplicate, that is product business.
Participant: we purely lack strategic planning, you begin with a myopic vision in starting out. Interestingly we have people sharing through product management and project management.
The discussion in the room has now shifted to how the ecosystem is getting shaped and it finds people like us at these platforms. And now we have Ankur concluding the session introducing the EMERGE community, and the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave which is also the 50th session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0.
I am glad to be LIVE blogging the 49th session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, as today I complete one complete year, LIVE blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, surely all thanks to Avinash, NASSCOM
As the Leaders In India, one of the biggest events, bringing together the creme de la creme of the India Inc and the decision makers is nearing, the excitement for the event has been building up and steady. With some of the top global decision makers, to share the space with and learn from, Leaders In India is surely one event I am personally looking forward to.
Allan Leighton in Leaders In London on – How Leaders Kill Companies
What is Leaders In India?
“Leaders” is the world’s largest and most respected series of leadership events to India for the very first time this year. “Leaders” has built an indisputable track record of providing the most meaningful, timely and balanced information from those whose ideas, achievements and words define inspiration .
Seeking a focused business seminar that is able to cut across all key sectors and verticals within the burgeoning Indian economy has for long been a challenge for many major firms wishing to regain their confidence and inspiration-especially in today’s environment. Leaders in India is a two day business forum that will be held from 9th – 10th October 2009 in Mumbai, and is expected to be India’s largest single meeting point of global and Indian corporate leaders. In addition to providing an excellent opportunity for peer-to-peer networking, the ‘Leaders’ team prides itself on providing the most thoroughly researched and solution-focused points of discussion in its series of interactive audience Q&As with key CXOs. Topics discusses will range from corporate Governance to foreign investment in India, and from emerging markets business strategy to HR.
A conglomeration of some of the biggest names in the industry
Sharing space with the leaders of the industry is not an everyday possibility. Leaders In India is delighted and proud to present a genre of speakers which boasts of people who have created and carved a niche for themselves in the industry and are defining the sliver lining for the India Inc.
Adi Godrej, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Tom Peters, Shashi Tharoor, Steve Forbes, Kishore Biyani, Tejpreet. S. Chopra, Simon Galpin, Ravi Venkatesan, D Shivakumar, Raman Roy, Dharti Desai, Dinesh A. Keskar, Pramod Bhasin, Donald Trump Jr., Sharon Bamford, Abhinav Bindra
The delegates shall be sharing space with such eminent speakers at the Leaders In India.
“Leaders” past success stories
The Leaders In London, Leaders In Dubai, Leaders in Abu Dhabi have all created success and the generous and motivating feedback received from the participants and the speakers resounds in our vision of taking “Leaders” to India. Leaders In India is happening for the first time, with India emerging out to be a major contributor to the global economy this proves to the be the best ever time for the Leaders symposium to enter India.
Have you ever thought of the fact that why things become unpopular?
While searching on this topic on the internet, I stumbled across this recent study which shows trends which define consumer behavior towards brands. The study reveals how brands become unpopular.
What triggered this thought in my mind?
Interestingly enough, what triggered this thought is a telecast I was watching on Fox History on how the concept of SuperMarkets emerged and how it has revolutionized the way people looked at buying and hence emerged brands which connected with the consumer.
“But at the same time there were brands which lost in the race, they were there, but somehow became invisible to the consumer”
While studying these trends, what I found out was that in todays fast paced times, the consumer is being hit with so many messages across each second that its normal for a human to remain with some and the rest are given the slip.
Fast and the Furious
Shopping in a retail supermarket where you have multiple choices of any given item is surely the best way to get lost.
So how do brands in these times keep up?
Well, you need to create a differentiation (No, I am not talking about a differentiation in your product) that is surely a crucial part for your product anyway, what I am reffering to is the differntiation in terms of catching hold of your consumer who has lesser time than he ever had. You need to make your brand be there with your consumer not aiming to be holding onto them, but simply make sure that you emply factors enough which give you the right place and the right time!
“Don’t try and buy the loyalty of the consumer in such a short time, get their attention“
All of this may sound pretty obvious and familiar, but I wonder why marketers have not been concentrating on just this one factor?! I fail to understand that why are brands after me in buying my loyalty. I shall become loyal to you if I get you at the right time and in time! Coz, what I am is short of time!
LIVE Blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 48th session, and well we are going to make it interactive says the session lead Mr. Kumud Goel who is also one of the founding members of NASSCOM and the founder KLG Systel a leading power solutions company in India.
Incidentally its a great day, coz the NASSCOM EMERGE Community turns one today, I must congratulate Avinash (NASSCOM) for the same and now we have the session underway
Mr. Kumud Goel a technology veteran for over 25 years, is leading the session. We have Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech Software introducing to the audience and well as usual we have the participants introducing themselves to the entire audience.
I am surely glad to be LIVE blogging the 48th session and well, always get excited to feel as we near the 50th session. Interestingly we have quite a diverse audience related to the product space today.
I am a case study of failures – shares Mr. Kumud and though this was said at the end, I would want to start my blog with it.
Kumud is interestingly sharing an incident from his life and my respects to the man as for young entrepreneurs like me, its surely highly invigorating and a great learning to interact with learned people like Kumud. And well, let me not keep it a secret anymore. Kumud is sharing the story of NASSCOM.
When we went to COMDEX years back, nobody used to talk to an Indian
That is when this desire of fighting these people came in me and I had a lot of experience in programming and I started my company which had only emotions behind it and no business plan.
On my first wedding anniversary my father told me that you have no money in the back and hence I gave away my dream of creating software for the rural India. At that time most Indian company did the right thing by making things for the foreign market but we were again at the step when we were looking at a product for the Indian market.
After 25 years of my experience I today feel taht what is more important out of a business model and a feeling is feeling, coz I believe that the business model shall follow
Once you have made an emotional decision of making a product for India, there were two drawbacks…I was at the Silicon Valley two weeks back and I met this guy who is regarded as one of the best deal makers in the tech space, and he told me that Kumud what you are doing is worth 500 million dollars and since you are sitting in India it is worth 20 million dollars. I had to go to the IBM’s of the world and get a recommendation that my technology is good.
All the great companies in the US have come about and have based out of the fact that the government has helped them. The SME’s in India who innovate do not have their path as easy.
The tendering system in Government of India is such that an SME cannot ever go up.
Today US is making money out of innovation and not selling someone else’s goods. Kumud now shares a highly interesting insight into the Chinese government way of working and wow I am amazed. Well, I think this is an applausible moment and I am saying this for the first time in a NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 session, Kumud has broken the wall and is now talking about what NASSCOM should really be doing for the SME’s.
Start-ups and small companies have to get reservation in the government and NASSCOM should take care of that
There Is NO CORRUPTION in INDIA
Do what they want you to, don’t fight them…its your dream, coz you are giving them a poison which will kill them automatically. Corruption is not a hinderance, it is a way to survive. And for the first time I am supporting Kumud on this coz he shows tthe audience the bigger picture.
Your cash flow has to be positive, your spirit should not go negative, you have to live through those initial years. for sometime you need to live like a rat if you want to survive.
And now Kumud shares a story on a book he read “the saga of Dharampuri”, which he is relateing to the Indian IT industry. We have so gotten accustomed to the white man that we cannot think of anything out of it.
This life for ME is so shameful that after being 25 years into the industry, I still don’t have a world class product
The govt. of India will spend 5000 crores dollars to the MS’s of the world and lets say there are 5000 SME’s from India, now if I divide 5000 what do you get? But how many companies are standing today for it?
Psychologically we need to start thinking of ourselves as better people than the foreign lands. We need to just break out of this trap, coz we actually are better than anybody. If you need to create the best OS from India, you need to have that feeling into you and only then it would happen.
The Indian out there is GOD shares one of the participants from the audience.
You have a dream, great! But you anyhow need money to make sure that you survive and take your dream further. You need to somehow find a way by hook or by crook, to reach that 50-100 crore level, otherwise your so called innovation would die.
I made 3 websites when I had 15 crores in the bank and I wen t overboard, we advertised like hell and people came to us. But because we believed into our stuff so much, we never realised the internet bust, and I went bankrupt. So now we had no money, but we had a dream!
Audacity, Audacity, Audacity and Arrogance
We raised money for about 11 million dollars and that came to us only because we had audacity.
The next I thought what is the next problem in India. And I chanced upon power. You need to be like the James Bond, who would take it the way as if the world wont be no more if my software wont be there. I went and borrowed 137 crores and I developed cleantech technology. And I bet my life on this.
And I bought myself a BMW, because I was going to change the world.
Personally I was broke, my stock is pledged, house with a bank, my wife and kids were the only tangible assets I had. And then I happened.
Innovation is like a black Hole, after a certain time you are dead. But once you are dead what can you do – STOP WORRYING!
You have created the aura of being the biggest player in the power industry and since you have already invested into it, you can demonstrate what you have already implemented. For 25 years you have been waiting to say it and when the big companies of the world come for you, to partner, what do you say…Go to !@#!
If you want to be an Innovator, You have to be a great Gambler as well
Anybody who does not listen to you has to become irrelevant!
The last lesson would be – your dream has to be bigger than the world, you will create the biggest product, all you need to do is to make sure that you get some cash in.
Kumud ends the session with some NASSCOM bashing, which he started the session with on a lighter note. I am certainly with Kumud, as this would surely be great for the entire SME community in India.
Small companies should file for patents and should do them religiously. This shall make sure of a winning road for you.
Now we have the participants sharing their thoughts on the entire topic and I can see the thoughts coming in together in the similar direction.
And now we have the session in the Q&A mode.
Thanks Kumud for an amazing session, I have been blogging the NASSCOM friday’s 2.0 for long, and certainly find you one of the best speakers, sharing from the heart.
LIVE Blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 47th session, with Paul Shoker speaking on The Essential Tools of Sale at the NASSCOM Headquarters, New Delhi. The room expectedly is full to the brim and well, this is one of the most heavily attended session I have seen in my 10 months blogging the sessions LIVE!!
Okay so we are a go with Paul shaking hands with the entire audience and glad to start the session with Ankur Lal (Founder and CEO, Infozech Software Ltd.) Im always amazed with Ankur’s persona
“We always seek to go in front of a customer but when we are there, the heart bumps….we fall short of words”
- Ankur
So here we are starting with the session, interestingly enough we already have some real interesting questions by the participants. I wanna know what my clients are telling me, I wanna know what my customers are saying, I wanna know what my customers customers are saying…says Paul
When I first started selling I was 21 years old….and I still sell.
Im going to take you back to basics…Im in for the ride Paul!!
Where do you play
DNA of a consultative sales professional
Value proposition attribute you are competing on
Common sales cycle vs Consultative approach
Sales planning – approach and tactics
Suspect – prospects weighting
Common mistakes a sales professional can make
Well, this is what Paul is really going to share with the room! I have worked in almost like 20 countries. Everytime there’s been a different culture and a different sales cycle. So Paul is gong to share it all with the audience today!
There are four stages and at the end of the day we need to make a simple call:
Intent
Focus
Relationship
Value
The chart moves from left to right from Transactional (at stage I) to Collaborative (at stage 4)
Paul explains the pointers with an example! That of a telephone line. I was collecting 50 compliment slips from 9 to 6 in the evening when I was selling in London! Now i had to call each one of them the next day and I miserably felt shocked. And then I thought out of the box! And Paul shares some really amazing points here at this stage!
I went and met the finance head for Rolce Royce and I sold him nothing but, business issues!
It took me 18 months to close a 250million dollar deal…its does not come easy, trust me
DNA of a sales professional, Paul shares the real Gold now!
Confidence, self belief and passion
Hunger and have he ability to move out of a comfort zone
Pro active and self motivated
Focus and execution – too many people working on too many opportunities
Dream big and have a prize you wanna shoot for. Make it personal!
It took me 3 years to be a millionaire, I drove the best cars, lived in the best houses – why, because i made it personal
Believe in your company, propositions, its values etc.. and that all these things add value to your customers entire value chain
Professional, articulate and personal
People aren’t punctual in India, and I have seen this!
Speak the customers language
Network
To effectively listen and communicate value
You go listen to your client and dotn say anything, you will be chocked what you will learn
What is the biggest attribute you will link your value proposition to?
Are you trying to sell on Quality
Are you trying to sell on Service
Are you trying to sell on Cost
What is the differentiating that you are offering around, questions Paul to the room. This will help you to effectively set your sales strategy says Paul, and the entire room is listening with pin drop silence!
Paul is now sharing the difference between a common sales cycle and a Consultative approach
The Consultative guy:
Qualifies the need
He knows what are their business drivers | Qualify yourselves | establish customers business drivers
Sales strategy and relationship mapping
How do I need to get to a decision maker – and Paul answers the question that you do not need to reach to the decision maker, there is probably an all together different person that you intended to reach out to
Setting traps and Mines
How do you think BT, IBM, Capgemini are winning these multi million deals, coz their guys are doing the real consultative selling, they are reaching out to the influencers
Let your customers BUY YOU first and then your product!
Accelerate or De-accelerate
Paul is sharing the real code book of the high flying consultative sellers!
Negotiate, close or walk away
The art of a sales guy is to articulate his value
Sales Planning
Consultative sales professionals approach
Do we have a value proposition linkable to the customers business objectives?
Qualification analysis – analysis of opportunity from 4 points of view, each answering different questions:
Can we add value
should we pursue
can we compete
are we aligned to win
Competitive sales strategy
identification of the four types of sales strategy
direct
indirect
divisional
containment
development of a strategic opportunity plan
development of a competitive counter tactics
We were competing with IBM on a big deal and we knew we cant go head to jead, thus the only thing we had was an indirect approach which meant changing the rules of the game! Which also meant that there is only one par of the deal that you want! We said lets just divide and counquer. I have actually sold purely on value, shares Paul!
Leveraging politics
separating influencers from authoritarians
identifying the key influencers
how to develop a political sales strategy
Have we tried to identify the right influencers and design a god strategy around the politics, which by the way, every company has, big and small!
Some key internal questions you need to ask yourself, shares Paul
How is the competitive landscape changing?
What service could be under threat, why and which accounts?
You need to understand do I have a satisfied customer, and if not, well why not?
What is the key challenge that you may face to deliver?
the biggest of the companies make this mistake which is fundamental
What help do I need from executives or board member in the next 1-3 months
How to QUALIFY an account history?
customer name
established
market share
financials
customer base
who is their biggest competitor
how are they structured
what is their overall strategy
business drivers
Opportunities, Qualification and Tactics
qualification
do we have a value proposition linkable to customer business objectives?
how do we intend to differentiate
who will be our competitors
what is the size of the opportunity – at times too many assumptions are made
so we have the financial resources to pursue
can we compete
are we aligned to win
who are the key influencers
who are the decision makers
who are the show stoppers
what sales tactic will you deploy
Impact selling
understanding the customers business INSIDE OUT and OUTSIDE IN
Mines and Traps – Paul is now sharing an interesting example which comes from his life, a client that he dealt with! I have set the mines because I knew the features that my competition could never give. I made it a point that I ask my customer who all are you seeing, and I liked to be the last one to approach the client, as I had to know my competition and I knew it as I am an expert in the domain, and well I was clear in my approach that I was here to sell in just a meeting and not ask for another session, and this is how I scaled up!
How your proposition can make an impact to the top or bottomline
Tactics
Mines and traps…eg so that could be an important feature?
Accelerate….speed up the sale to close
Decelerate…slow down…you need to change the ground rules
This is where the art of negotiation comes in says Paul
Interestingly, Paul is now sharing about Proactive engagement! The slide on the screen is giving clarity on what a good sales guy is all about and Paul shares three fundamental magical words: Re-qualify, Re-qualify, Re-qualify
– this is the philosophy that I have used over the last 20 years
This is what I use – Suspect, Prospect weighting and this is especially for startups
0% fact findings
linkable propositions and realtionship mapping
10% opening (Suspect or Prospect)
20% qualification
how serious, budgets, decision makers
30% defining SOR
lay the traps and write the RFQ
40% bid proposal
50% proposal presentation
75% LOI (letter of intent)
85% Contract negotiation
100% signature win
Paul is now sharing with the room the most common mistakes sales professionals make:
they fail to listen – trust me shut up and listen
ask the right question and look at the body language
they fail to re-qualify
they fail to ask for an order – people fail to ask
negotiate
be an entrepreneur, there would be more respect for being straight
i cant give you a discount but perhaps I can increase this on the service levels
walk away – learn to walk away, the fear of loss for the customer, will make him ask you, what to do, dont be arrogant and just humbly walk out
Never knock your competition
The session is now in the Q&A mode and well, I must add, I loved the session, coz I started as a sales entrepreneur and I share some pieces with Paul. Thanks Paul!
Nikhil Sarup from Solutions Digitas – shares on Web 2.0 means business, and he shares a concrete iron clad framework for implementing web 2.0 in your company, as Nikhil puts it for the audience.
I particulary like Nikhil’s initiation to the session. Its interesting to see a real guy out of the crowd! Sharing his point of view on how social trends are happening in B2b space! Generally when I have interacted with people, the implementation of Social Media in the B2b space has always been a greater concern as compared to the B2c space.
Nikhil has come as a breath of fresh air for the audience here. After listening to some very interesting thoughts by Kiruba and others on Social Media’s impact and how can we classify consumers and look at their behavior, having Nikhil open the session with some very thought provoking 1.5 joke(s) makes an impact which I can sense and see in the audience. The ease with which Nikhil puts across his point and clarifies the clutter around Social Media for a business is worth your and your businesses’ while
Showing the audience the need for being there where your consumers are, Nikhil not only is forcing out of people the urge to know, how they can best leverage Social Media for their business and how can they really create a successful strategy around it, but he is also sharing some real practical insights, which can be modeled and shaped to suit your business requirements and create a successful Social Media presence.
Since much emphasis has already been given to the traditional methods of Social Media and how and why’s of its importance to business, giving a practical outlook to the entire game makes the entire talk a much intriguing affair. Now we have Nikhil giving a practical display of a dummy site and how his company makes Social Media, accessible to their cleints on their web sites, and hence the clients’ client does not have to really go anywhere else on the internet to talk his heart out.
The first engagement touchpoint happens on the web site itself
I am personally much interested to know, how Nikhil and his team decide upon the information flow and how dealing with different business verticals, they decide upon the site design? Is there a standard template, which proves that the visitor to your site would interact in this manner, if the content is made accessible right at the web site?
Proving his point to the audience, who is listening with much interest, Nikhil’s demonstration of the site is surely giving many a ideas to the audience present. I am sure we are going to see some really interactive sites coming up in the near future! Talking about Web 2.0, I am quite amazed with the way Nikhil has made content accessible to the client where he lands up on your web site. With all what I want present to me in different sorts of content, white papers, Videos etc, I would surely be able to hold onto my visitor onto the right section of my web site, for a good time, hence the probability of conversion increases!
I personally am very much on the similar page as Nikhil, and surely appraise of the ideas that he has shared, in the manner that he has! Way to go Nikhil!
The session is now wrapped up, within time and we are open to QandA offline.
"We thought we understood social media marketing and seo optimization fairly ok but after our one on one session realized many of the fundamental mistakes we were making plus learnt many new tools. Overall an investment I would recommend every entreprenuer to make"
- Nidhi, Founder CEO, Pinnacle Works
LIVE Blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 48th session, and well we are going to make it interactive says the session lead Mr. Kumud Goel who is also one of the founding members of NASSCOM and the founder KLG Systel a leading power solutions company in India.