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:
Execution is strategy
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.
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.
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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
What’s the point of looking outside if you can’t do anything with your assets?!
