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LIVE Photo Blogging the MVAS SUMMIT 2009
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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.
Paritosh Sharma speaks on Social Media and Mobile 2.0 at OMCAR 2009
I take pride in presenting my talk at OMCAR 2009, a hugely successful event which was held by OM Careers in association with TiE, Delhi at Amity University, Noida.
I am humbled by the response received by the delegates and some amazing insights from the fellow speakers.
Sharing my talk which I delivered at OMCAR 2009 – The Online Marketing Summit, New Delhi. I am glad to get the feedback that the talk was well received and thanks to all the people who shared their feedback!
This session was blogged LIVE by: Deepanwita Chatterjee, from team OMShare.
Post tea, peppered with some avid networking, we gather for the next session, ‘Making SEO, PPC, SMM & Mobile Work Together’, presented by Mahesh Murthy, CEO Pinstorm and Paritosh Sharma, (SMM Evangelist, OMLogic). I am LIVE Blogging the session and I can’t help notice the excitement that has been generated in the room at the announcement of the session
Paritosh starts the session by explaining that he will be discussing his views about SMM and how business can benefit from SMM.
He starts by displaying a slide with a picture of a colorful grocery store with blue and red boxes.
I specially like the story telling method by which he makes his point. He says that once he went to buy a product of his favorite brand and that brand was not available so he had to settle down for his second favorite brand. So inspite of being a brand loyalist he had to settle with his second choice.
SMM can be explained in two words – message and media.
Paritosh makes the session very lively by citing an example of advertising for a bicycle manufacturer. He quotes 3 example campaigns
A description of the specifics of the bicycle
A picture of the bicycle
A video of a woman riding a cycle showing how easy to ride
No need to mention the third method clicked. What really worked is the content, the message, and the media.
He cites another example of the inventor of sliced bread. The person patented it, advertised it still it didn’t catch up for 15 years. Another bread manufacturer came along and packaged the sliced bread in the right manner and it appealed to the user.
He rightly makes a point that there is no single rule for marketing. Advertising on SlideShare may work for a business and YouTube for another. It is important to understand the needs of the client and the client’s client.
He is explaining that the way to go about it is to create a message and target it to the right set of consumers.
He goes on to cite another example which triggers a lot of laughter – TataSky did an adult site, the moment anybody clicks on the site the questions like age and gender comes up which create the impression of the contents within. But the moment you click it it says ‘dude a paap hai’. The campaign sure has been done in a very witty manner which creates a huge recall value.
He also cites the example of jaagore.com and the ‘pappu pass ho gaya’ campaigns about which we all are well aware of. Both the campaigns and the were huge successes and the radio campaign ‘dot is hot’ was a runaway success as well. Jagore.com was a purely online site, and the message ‘chai peke jaago’ was very intelligently done. Kudos to the tata guys!
Television is a passe. There was a time people bought advertising space. But now people are spending more time on the internet on Orkuts and FaceBooks.
The audience silently agrees to that.
Paritosh says that SMM is more about customizing, customizing according to the needs of the customers.
He goes on to elaborate the four steps of creating a campaign.
The first step is to listen and learn. Even the customer is not clear about what he wants from SMM.
The second step is to audit and analyze the customer’s business model, whether SMM will be good or PPC.
The third step is to develop and test.
The fourth step is to execute and monitor. Metrics are difficult in SMM. But it is not that difficult if you understand the business perspective of the client. And till the time there is no metrics, one can always customize metrics for the clients.
He adds
Position your brand right. Do it with the right medium and to the relevant section of the audience online. And that’s where the PPC and SEO’s come into action.
He is now telling us about Skittles where every page is a social media, on one page there is twitter, on another YouTube and FaceBook on yet another. There is nothing good or bad it is about.
He then shares about Webchutney.com. On the home page, there are two tabs saying ‘I have 5 mins’ , and ‘I have plenty of time’, clicking on either takes the user to separate pages. He cites an example that if one sees a YouTube video of a bicycle gear that she likes and on clicking on it she is taken to the home page of the bicycle website, then one wouldn’t be too happy about it. The concept of separate landing works. I can’t help thinking that yes, that has happened to me many times!
He makes a point by reiterating that markets have evolved overtime and its time that one starts marketing to the innovators and early adopters. They are the ones which will take to your product and will do a much better viral campaign on the internet rather than the late adopters.
You have a great product…. You have identified the target market…
and people are talking about u….. and before the fizz goes out, market it…
Paritosh wraps up the session saying
The riskiest thing that you can do for your brand is to be safe.
Even if anybody writes anything bad about your brand, one can be alerted by a google alert and can pacify them.
Thanks for the useful insights Paritosh, it was great listening to you.
One of the most interesting sessions I have blogged. Thanks Paritosh
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.
Okay, so after a sumptuous lunch and networking around with people, I must say I have connected with some pretty young and amazing entrepreneurs. Good to be connecting with people with similar interests and background
And now we have the session being led by Jonathan, post lunch and the room is full of people enthused!
So, we start by discussing User centered Design and the User Centered Design process. I can very well see the interest level rising in the room. People are now coming up with queries related to their sites and other queries on how to really design according to the user, how to keep your design centered around the users psyche. I know of a few people in this room who have still not launched their sites, and I think this discussion would be of high value!!
What focus groups wont tell you?
Jonathan raises an intriguing point for the audience to comment upon, that is what’s there, that a focus group meeting won’t ever tell you, there are various viewpoints here, and Jonathan answers:
Well, what they wont tell you is whether someone would buy your site/product or not!
Usability Test happening LIVE
So now we are looking at a Usability testing happening LIVE on a web site hotelly.com. We have a participant who has not seen the site before and he would now be interacting with the site LIVE. So we are looking at the home page and asking the participant that what does the web site does? Well looking at the home page, you could not even realize there is a scroll!
The site is being analyzed with huge insights for the girl who represented hotelly at the workshop. I can see people in the room eager to share their inputs on the topic, but what I think is, we have this habit of acting as if we are the experts and we know it all, and that is what is happening in the room. There are all sorts of comments flying around, I personally feel hotelly guys have an amazing content value. The site is content rich, its just that they are not being able to leverage upon the content. I would advice hotelly on:
Branding and Positioning their content right
And now we have a scenario by Neha, given to the participant leading the charge, “your family is going to London and you visit this web site and you want to compare the prices of the various hotels. What would you do at this website?”
So the guy is pretty confused and is not able to understand how to really navigate through the site. Okay so we are pretty much over with the test and wallah, we still are not very clear about the site. And now Jonathan is talking about how to define your target market in terms of sites who are in the recruitment space.
We pay people to get the do this research for us. But we do it keeping the task in mind and we track what the person is doing and whether he/she has completed the task or not.
Why does Motorola puts the alarm function under the settings option?
So after a brief tea session we have an exercise which tells you about how to really use persona as a technique and create a solid site map, creating a sense of priority from the content elements that you have for your web site. Jonathan says it’s a very powerful thing as far as SEO for your site is concerned and also really fasten your goto market strategies with a beta phase for your site.
I don’t mind how many clicks do you want me to do, till the time they are mindless clicks
Earlier the home page used to be the main navigation page for any website, but now due to Google we can land up in internal pages as well. So we need to understand the navigation intuitiveness from a users perspective.
Seduction points while designing a site
Its not a bad idea in travel to really give a separate window to the users to cross sell. I would not open this information in a separate window though, answers Neha to a question raised by a member of the team makemytrip.com. The question was realted to the fact that at times travel sites give supporting extra information on a flight search as a new pop up/window opening. Is this the right approach?
Squint test
Whatever you see at the first go after you squint your eyes, well that is what your users will see 90% of the times
Provide a quick access point to the user: 10 second is the frustration limit.
I must confess, this was one activity in the workshop which I really found useful amongst others. Squinting your eyes really tells you what 90 per cent of users would see at the first go. Amazing results, I am taken aback!! I think this would really help many a people to define and refine their designs.
We are almost towards the end of the workshop now and Jonathan now shares attributes of a good search results page
Position the best hits at the top
Indicate the number of results
We are now almost at the close of the workshop and well, I found the entire workshop highly useful and my interaction with various participants has gotten me the same feedback. Majority of people said that it was amazingly simple a technique in which Neha shared thus making the entire topic of Design and UI easy to understand by the audience.
I would love more such workshops, probably more focused, with integrated product reviews, as to why does a product work and how does the message on it/shape/design/color/packaging affects the perception of the message by the end consumers.
We now have certificates being distributed to the participants and I appreciate, Neha writing and signing the certificates singularly herself.
"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
