SAAS for the mobile world at the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave

August 28th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Migrated the software services to VAS products

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Third Edition of The NASSCOM EMEGREOUT Conclave – Bringing You EMERGEOUT LIVE, Officialy from the Horses mouth

August 28th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

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.