New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Ol Rite, ladies and gentlemen, I have an interesting challenge for all you marketing guru’s out there. There is a new TV soap coming on BIG Magic called, Chulbulay Bulbule.

Okay, so what’s the big deal in a TV soap?

There aint a big deal here, but how do you market this ‘another in line’ comedy soap so well, that the audience get engaged and never again forget the name. How do you create a solid brand recall to the name, while keeping the marketing budget low? How do you innovate?

Lets get the marketing folks running their brains now!

So this is where it all begins. Marketing folks on the design table, understanding the TG from the client. Rattling their creative brains, they get together to design a powerful campaign. They advise the client on how to optimally choose marketing spends across print, digital, TV etc. Numbers will be shared and the campaigns will keep coming.

But there’s something still missing: Listen Hard!

Listening skills are great if you have them as a strong point. If you can strongly listen to someone and filter the information and structure it your way, it becomes far more easier and effective to create powerfully engaging propositions.

In the name of the soap above, it’s ChulBulay Bulbulay, the 2 words ‘heard’ mutually exclusively have an interesting product being spoken about which is also an engaging experience to make and anyone can make it actually: bulbulay! Yes, you ‘heard’ me right. Its bulbulay! BulBulay for the English folks are small water bubbles.

The most common of these can be seen each night at the India Gate Lawns.

User Behavior and Engagement

To make a bulbula, you have to pick up that soap filled water and blow a stream of air from your mouth on the plastic holder, which makes water bubbles light enough to float in the air, which you then love to burst!!

Open the IMPACT magazine and you will find something interesting this time!

The IMPACT magazine, printed by the exchange4media group in India, comes with one such plastic tube with soap water inside which upon opening simply gives you the instructions to make water bubbles. The plastic tube is obviously branded with the name of the program to be aired soon.

Interestingly wen you open the magazine, you notice this insert and you open the tube to make bubbles. This is simply such an amazingly engaging activity, which gives you instant results which you love seeing. In this too very complex world of advertising and marketing, a simple proposition which the customer engages with himself/ herself is fantastic.

High recall and stickiness with fantastic engagement in a highly usable manner!

The usability of the water bubble tube is so high that anyone can do it and hence the proposition reaches out from the magazine reader (professional) to his family (wife, kids). They as much engage or even more, with the proposition. Its a good learning from this exercise which effectively makes the marketing campaign absolutely simple and highly engaging. The simplicity and ease of understanding is another.

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Aah sometimes a good evening with a few intelligent brains over some quality wheat beer from Belgium makes for a lot of “common sense”.

While with @1aditithakur recently at the famous Beer Cafe in Delhi, the conversation started with the shopping experience in the mall and it moved onto the limitless gyaan on branding. Finally we started discussing brand and brand names.

Your Name: how does that change the taste of the ketchup?

So we got served these potato chips with a ketchup which read Heinz. Lets say I don’t care a dime whether I am eating a Heinz OR a Kellog’s for my breakfast till the time I am liking what I am consuming. I mean just by naming my restaurant (if I open one) Mc Paritosh OR Mc Whatever will I become a super duper hit? I have this craving for a good coffee badly, Starbucks, does it tops the first thought on my mind, to be honest NO. Starbucks as a name is a no-name when it comes to coffee. Does it sound like one to you?

LG, Samsung, Honda, Maruti how do they sound like a car? Do you hear engines revving up in your ears the moment you hear these names?

I am certain about something, these names don’t drive me to buy them!

Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mO7qCYLnaTc/TZmsjWR-4iI/AAAAAAAACAA/B6KGupGPA98/s1600/halls%2Bapril%2Bfools.png

I believe spending those crucial multi million dollars on creating that ohh so amazing Brand Name is all a bogus concept. Well, yes! those ohh so cool, award winning at Cannes branding majors might disagree with me. But then they have to, isn’t it? The bread and butter comes from there!

What’s my take on this?

• Its simple (not the way Ranbir Kapoor makes it dumb in his Docomo Ads). Its simple in the way that, people buy what gives them performance. So whether it is normal petrol OR some buster muster premium petrol, if my car gives me the best performance with normal, I am okay with calling normal as normal and buying it.
• Brand Logo’s: I learnt this lesson from my 3 year old nephew. He bought this helicopter with a remote control but what appealed to him was not the branding which came with it and not the colors, but he got excited when he saw how fast and high the helicopter actually flew.

In my view what in reality leaves a strong recall with your consumer is your product/ service. If you are in the services industry you ought to understand the experience which your customers derive from your service. The experience is what drives him to ‘choose to buy you again’. If you are a product business then, making a Kareena bath in a bathtub with lots of soap on will not sell your soap. that’s DUMB. Your product must in all manner fulfill the promises you are making with your customers.

And the beer ended: the result

While we ended with the binging, we both (had to) agree with each other (he he) that brands must invest in places where it counts for the customer and in creating an experience. Yes, you can always be a Godrej basking in the glory of the brand re-organization drive which says that their brand is valued at a few billion dollars (I need to check the number again). But lets keep it at bay for now.

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The Youth! Yes! that’s what this one is all about. The Youth Marketing Power Panel by TiE Delhi- NCR was recently announced and has already started garnering some good response from all quarters.

Another event on marketing: NO

This one comes with a difference (as they all say, but this one does). For records, there is a Taxi Driver from Varanasi as one of the awaited speakers and I am not kidding about it. I have confirmed news from many in-house sources

And not just that, though this is not a public news, some of the Power Panel speakers, I have gotten to know about are major names in the Industry and have proven their might with innovative products and service offerings which have powerfully engaged the Indian Youth.

The news of the event is all around on the TiE Delhi- NCR Official website, facebook, Linkedin and twitter and its buzzing with action on all accounts.

Where is the event and How do I register?

The event is to be held on 13th may 2011 at the PHD Chambers of Commerce, August Kranti Marg, Hauz Khas, New Delhi. Registration is simple, all you need is to click on this link: REGISTER HERE! Currently the only mode of registration for the event is through online payment.

Would I get to network?

Another one of those internally confirmed news that I keep getting, the event will host the one of its kinds, speed member mixer, wherein you will be allowed to meet the panelists one on one with a 30 second pitch of your business. Who knows you might just crack the lucky pot!

Can I see who all are coming to the event?

This is a public news, so I can surely say, yes you can. All you got to do is, become the part of India’s largest entrepreneurial network called: Entrepreneurs-Ship, where you have to RSVP for the event and once done, you will be able to see who all are coming to the event and hence pre-network with them!!

So, REGISTER NOW, as I know for sure, only a few seats are left!

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In my endeavor of establishing transparency and clarity in the, Ohh so amazing and new world of Social Media and Online Marketing, I am sure the series of posts I am doing now, will surely be an eye opener for clients.

Just sometime back, my strategy team did a search on the keywords, Social Media and India, and what we got were people who have sometime or the other in their professional lifetime, related to the Social Media industry. And since Social Media is not an age old concept, thus we started looking at the profiles of people who are currently into the profession.

To my UTTER AMAZE, the profiles, I was given were an absolute NO, if they were to handle my brand strategy not just on the internet but everywhere else. Interestingly, these people are recruited by not just the small Social Media ‘shops’ but the biggies in the business as well. Positioned highly, these guys are given fancy terms and well, the customer is sold!

Let me bring more clarity by looking at certain aspects of what my strategy team gave me, post the data analysis:

• Education
  • Majority of these people have not done management (which I am not suggesting is necessary)
  • 80% of them, do not have the words, Branding Consultant, Marketing, Positioning, Product life cycle, etc in their summary/ profiles
• Current
  • The current profiles are all Social Media Strategist, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Executive
• Past
  • There are people from BPO, from Technology, Adventure Tourism, Operations who are handling your So called Social Media Branding and Online Branding and Brand Creation and what not
• Experience
  • Most of these people are fresh (1-3 years) of experience and are running the show

In my personal view, I completely agree that innovative thinking, creativity are needed, but is it that you will hand over your brand in the hands of someone who does NOT even understand what Brand stands for?!

This revelation by the team, surely opened my eyes towards how is the New Media industry being structured and shaping up. We are playing on chances and one of running successes.

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Well, I am back from a very good trip to Bangalore. Met some old entrepreneur friends, some interesting people. Connected with some very established people and re-fueled my engine for my entrepreneurial journey ahead!

Though while on the way I connected with some online marketers on the flight back and here I am writing a piece which I have wanted to since sometime now!

Let me start by saying: Branding and Obscenity are Pretty Much the Same

Why do I say this? Well, the guy sitting right next to me looked at a book I was reading, which was about Branding and how radical concepts have changed consumer perception overtime. I was reading a few case studies and making notes, for a couple of Offline Branding Campaigns I am working on. Now suddenly this guy shoots, about how he is an Online Marketer and does handles campaigns online and how his firm has been doing lots of work.

Without an introduction, I heard him as a client, and asked queries, and he started telling me about how Google helps, SEO, PPC and SMM works. Especially SMM, which we also know by Social Media Marketing. Since I was in the Case Study mode, I posed a question:

Give me 4 solid case studies with the ROI that you have generated for the client or where you have actually gone back to the client telling him that he needed offline/ other marketing techniques as well, and how did you execute it!

And this gentleman starts discussing the best works he has done. A viral campaign, which had x number of hits…Helped a company generate these many leads online (which he had no ideas, of how much was the conversion).

Anyway, being a good listener, I patiently heard him, and then asked another question:

What is the difference between Branding and Marketing and why did some of his campaigns did not survive and what he then suggested to those clients?

I am NOT generalizing this, but I have been interacting with Online Marketers, majority of them in their late 20′s and early 30′s who have had no experience of raising a brand. Who have not seen the entire cycle, boasting about serving the Indian SME in scaling up.

I have been into the Social Media scene, since sometime now, and have struggled with the statistics, which I could really go back with, to a client and suggest him, this is where you should increase/ decrease your marketing spend and this is what you should look at diversifying.

I have NEVER heard from an Online Marketer that they have ever gone back to the client telling them, that look you product needs this, as this is what you customer is looking for on the internet

Majority of Online Marketing companies optimize campaigns according to what the clients are searching a product/ service with. Well, I challenge this thought. How do you that it was the right consumer who was searching this term which you just took from suggestions which Google Adwords provide you.

Branding – YES, Social Media helps You do Just That

Okay, so now I have my Branding lessons on. I get to know how Branding is established, online:

• a page/ profile on facebook
• an account on twitter
• targeted Ads on blogs/ sites
• ghost writing on discussion forums etc.
• videos on YouTube
• ppts on Slideshare
• photos on flickr

And if you still cannot achieve traffic numbers, well, go and post this content on various multiple platforms which are identical, so your content will be looked upon by more and more people an chances by simple probability to achieve are higher.

Okay, so I understand probability, but I am still not convinced with this number generation method, I remarked.

I am a Social Media guy and I have a problem with how things are going in India today

Okay, so for all those, who feel I have a personal bias, I have explored the online media to a good extent and hence I write my thoughts here. Majority of bloggers, social media experts/ evangelists/ marketers, strategists, have not had any Branding experience and talk Brand all the time. I have a particular issue with this, as many a times, what they dont realize is they can grow only if their client(S) grow.

Online is the new thing – you have to get on Social Media coz DELL made 3 million dollars from twitter

This is what I have heard from every religious online marketer, I have interacted with, who is pitching to any business from technology to holiday to whatever. Coz DELL did it, hence the opportunity exists and as in India, a small company thinks, even if I can achieve 30% of this, at a low cost, well I will make decent numbers.

And what happens month on month when you go ahead with Online Marketing for your business

• MONTH 1
  • Both the online marketing agency and the client are excited, many things happening around, online training, blogs building up, google ads, higher listing on search engines WOW
    • The marketer goes back and shares the numbers:
    • number of blogs, number of blog posts, google ads numbers, how they got the company(s) site(S) listed high on search engines on specific keywords
• Month2
  • Create content | POST it – HOST it – Virality!
    • Lets do it! Pictures, PPTs, Blog posts, Videos and what not
    • We will post it here – there – everywhere and wallah this will happen and this
  • Conversations are not happening – says the client!
    • Lets do ghost writing
    • Lets do ghost profiles
    • Lets do ghost comments
• Month3
  • Houston We’v got a PROBLEM
    • Firefighting mode

What did you till now, after a quarter?

Well, Sir, look at your brand, look at how many people came to this landing page, look at all of this. Sales will start happening soon.

Lets See – the client now is thinking of how to convert the contract into a pay for performance?

Well, and this is where problems start. Retainership goes down and performance kicks in, knowing well, you dont even know what GAP EXISTS (if any) between the following parties:

• Senior management
• Existing (employees and clients)
• Prospective (employees and clients)

The majority of online marketers, go ahead with no such GAP analysis, and without knowing what exists in the market and what needs to be addressed, just go ahead because they have a medium to connect people with, because out of the 300 million plus people on facebook, there will always be some who will be looking for your product/ service.

Well, I have no inherent bias against anyone, but if I strongly feel, if you are not clear of something, well, dont fluke and sell, coz what you don’t realize is anyway, after 3 years, there are only the better ones, who will be having the repetitive business, because you will be out of market to which you have been marketing.

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There are many Buzzwords in the Social Media industry today and each day one evangelist is harping on a new one. Much clutter gets created due to the same and hence the diluton of your Brand Equity, as each Brand is pitched these high flying Buzzwords by the marketing agencies.

Corporate Blogging though not a Buzz word, but has been so messed up that many a corporate have lost value rather than generating it. There have been instances of big corporate entities using fake blogs and many other tactics to boost up terming them as “so called social media campaigns”.

I have been LIVE blogging some of the most major corporate conferences in India since over an year now and have been approached by Corporate to support their initiatives. Am I averse to it? NO! But would I go ahead and support just about anything? NO!

Through this post, I intend to cut through the clutter which has been created and make the Corporate present to how they can successfully integrate Corporate Blogging in seamlessly in their marketing effort and with much ease!

First the numbers:

According to JupiterResearch (via Search Engine Watch), 34% of large companies and 15% of Fortune 500 companies blog.

Though these may not be the absolute latest numbers, but with respect to the industry growth, this surely is a number to reckon with, stand up and make a note of, I believe. In the current times corporations large and small are increasingly taking the “being different” and “with the times” route. Blogging has suddenly taken the mainstream route and is one of the factors in the Corporate overall marketing mix and budget.

There may be many people giving much gyan, but what I present here is the on the field reality and of my experience, hence there may still be better ideas, which I would be glad to listen to and incorporate.

What should you do before you decide on that oh! so blog!! ??

• Put in black and white, your marketing objectives both in the short and the long term
  • Determine if blogging is a good fit for your company

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, is almost true for all, but why are you generalizing the apple with a blog in the social media space? Blog for one company may work wonders for them, for the other it may not work!

Just being cool using blogs, is already a passe! Social Media space is changing and growing at a much faster pace and is much complex. Just having a corporate blog may not be of any tangible return.

• Are you ready to invest on a blog?
  • The last time I was sitting in this major corporate HQ, I asked them a question, are you ready to invest on a blog and well they were a bit off the track. Blogging they said is easy, we will leverage a free platform like wordpress or blogger. Well, yes, I agree, but you need to invest much focused time and energy on customizing the design of the blog as it represents your Corporate sentiment. Today blogs are as much a part of the entire corporate image as were websites sometime back!

• Don’t be afraid, Create a solid strategy
  • Strategy for a blog? Well, YES!! For a Blog! As a corporate you may have a single blog for all your functions/ verticals or you may choose to go ahead with multiple blogs representing each of them. Now this is the first stage of your blogging strategy.
  • Positioning: You need to be clear in a properly documented form on the positioning that you would like to create with your blogging effort. Who are you positioning the blog to? What is your target group?
    • you may just create a blog to attract the best talent in the industry
    • you may have a focused blog on thought leadership to position yourself accordingly int he industry
  • Branding: the branding strategy that you intend to establish with the emerging of the blog should be clear. What campaigns (if any) would you intend to run on the blog. Would the CEO/ CFO/ Senior management participate on the blog? Are you trying to make a point?
    • Are you open to external content on the blog other than your own? And are you willing to be open to comments from the external environment?

• Are you selling/ marketing? STOP…..Start ENGAGING!
  • Since Corporate blogs are generally an effort of the PR department of a company, they have a restricted vision, and hence it reflects on the way they PUSH content on the blog. PUSHing is not the key, ENGAGING is! Your content will speak for itself. If you have smartly invested into content creation, in terms of videos, pictures, etc. you will break the ice much faster with the prospective target audience.
    • its fairly simple, you get unsolicited calls on your cell phone. Would you refer such a company to your circle? Probably NOT, but a genuine follow up and feedback conversation at a preferred time, well yes you would and WOMM is bound to happen

• Provide Value
  • This is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful blogging effort. VALUE creation.
    • why do you think would I (either your prospective employee or client) spend 5 minutes in going through things which are not adding any value to me in terms of knowing more about you or the industry? Even if I land up and stick to your blog for a couple of minutes the first time, with no VALUE I will not bookmark it for my future reference, leave aside following you on my Google reader.

• Take Feedback, Build Relationships
  • This is one aspect of Corporate blogging which many a Corporate think of and include in their agenda, but their focus shifts from this objective to the exclusivity of presenting and design. Looks do matter, no doubts, but you need to understand that each feature of the blog would essentially be leveraged towards achieving a particular business objective!

• Remember YOU are a HUMAN and the person reading yoru blog is a HUMAN too!
  • Many a times, the Corporate get so consumed in their vision of presenting their best foot forward and trying to arrive the best way in their client’s perception, that they lose the basic essence of the fact that WE ARE STILL HUMAN. And business is all about relationships.
  • Write the blog as if you are expressing yourself to your target market/ group!

• Select Bloggers
  • Yes! I know everyone can write and that you hire the best of class human resources in your company, still blogging is an art and hence I suggest my clients to select a team of bloggers who are honed in their skills and trained further by the company. This team should essentially consist of the following people:
    • PR professional from the company
    • Group of employees trained on company’s social media./ external communication guidelines
    • Social Media agencies

• NO, your “Corporate Blog” DOES NOT need a SINGLE VOICE
  • Dont be afraid and get only one person to be writing/ punching the keys for you. He/ she will have a certain perception of the company and may as well be limited in the scope. Go ahead involve people. Give them a platform to express what you want to. More hands on deck make the experience for the client all that worth it!!

This is one of the many posts that I would be doing on the correct measures and tips and tricks of the trade of blogging, not out of what people say, but what I have experienced in real time on the field. And I would not be a common voice, but I would say, it works for me!!

To devise a Corporate Blogging Strategy for your company, CONTACT ME

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Sometimes I ponder over life and who things are moving. Its a Sunday and I am in deep thought about my company, where are we moving and how are we placed.

The question(s) which I want to get answered is: as a services company, are you defining productivity the right way as your clients deliverable(s) require? Do your employees really understand your business?

Thanks for Calling Yellow, Have a Nice Day

Case Study: Yellow Corp, a Fortune 500 company in the trucking business was going in a deep nose dive, which was found by Bill Zollars, who became the CEO of Yellow Corp at that time.

Problem Statement:

1. What he found was that the company had no account-abilities and statistics for customer satisfaction.
2. Employees did not understand the value and were just acting on the given orders

Current State of YRC:

This is the link to the amazing turn of events that have turned the fortunes of YRC

How did it happen?

Bill, understood one thing clearly, that the company is nosediving and competition was building up. People used to ask him, if the company will be around another couple of years? Bill had a strong look at the business and finally came out with the solution which had him telling the employees that they are no more competing with the competition in the trucking business, they are not a LTL/ trucking company.

We are a services company and need to strive to create systems to reach to what Starbucks does for its customers

Confused?

Well, Yes, Bill changed the entire positioning of the company for the employees, for them they had become a services company and hence the entire conversation with the customer changed. The entire focus shifted to the customer. People started listening to the customer and hence the products evolved there from.

Eg: On one of the occasions Bill went to a customer care centre of the company to hear the calls and he heard one of the agents answer a customer who wanted to truck his shipment from place A to B in 2 days. And the agent answered “We can do it in three days”. The customer again said but I want it to be done in two days. The agent had the same answer again. The customer finally remarked, I’ll call up someone else to which the agent said: Okay, thanks for calling yellow and letting us serve you. Have a nice day”

Well, if this is what you call serving, sure you are nose diving!

Being part of the Internet industry (read: social media) in India today and connecting with the leading players, I think, the flood of small companies which are creating ruckus in the market by introducing cheap services and setting wrong expectations with the client, will consume such companies itself.

The leading companies which have already set the Social Media ball rolling with the creme de la creme of the clientle would create an entry barrier for the smaller companies, strong enough which would take a good time to surpass and in such a time if these smaller companies dont scale up, with the right HR mix, I see them failing.

Thus the Social Media companies need to position themselves right in the market and itnernally with their employees aligned towards achieving the same goal seeing the same BIG picture!

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There already is so much of Brand Clutter out there, that reaching out to the relevant market and getting the right eyeballs for the sufficient time is becoming increasingly difficult.

In the race to make easy money, advertising platforms are becoming more and more cash unfriendly and provide not much of an option to the advertiser to really showcase the BRAND DIFFERENTIATION and ENGAGE his target audience.

ParitoshSharma.com cuts through the clutter

paritoshsharma.com announces exclusive Brand Showcase opportunities for Brands to showcase their entirety and engage and start a meaningful dialogue with their audience.

• How?
  • Limited Advertising Space – Only TWO (2) brands at any given time
    
    • ParitoshSharma.com limits the advertising space to only two advertisers at any given time on the Home Page of the blog
  • No Google Ads – Only targeted and specific advertising
    • We dont do Google Ad’s just to earn a few bucks. We believe in creating value for the customer and help our advertisers engage their customers

• How can you advertise?

Ohh, so what’s the big deal? Ad’s are given by everyone?

That’s right and that’s why ParitoshSharma.com provides you access to eyeballs as there is no Ad clutter. Only limited space with unlimited access and focused eyeballs.

Do you provide something else other than this?

Yes! We have 3 advertising packages, which can be further customized:

1. HORN (package 1)
   • Advertising Space (Banner Advertising) + 2 Blog posts about your brand/ PR/ Announcements a month + Brand pormotion on facebook and twitter by Paritosh Sharma
     • INR 24,999
2. OK (package 2)
   • Advertising Space (Left Sidebar Advertising) + 2 Blog posts about your brand/ PR/ Announcements a month + Brand pormotion on facebook and twitter by Paritosh Sharma
     • INR 16,999
3. PLEASE (package 3)
   • Advertising Space on (HORN – OK – PLEASE – The Digital Foreplay (The Freshest Dope from the Digital Advertising and Marketing Industry)) + 2 Blog posts about your brand/ PR/ Announcements a month + Brand promotion on facebook and twitter by Paritosh Sharma
     • INR 7,999

Since this is exclusive access and focused advertising, the brands advertising, shall be entertained only post strong brand check on social media.

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I know, there aer going to be many a people who are going to rip this post off! After all for so many years banner advertising has been a proven model. People see it – People click it – and You sell!

Well, I am not here to contest or challenge. All that I want is to take your vision to a whole new space of marketing, which the marketers should look at.

During a discussion with one of my friends, this is what struck me and I call it – The WaterPond Marketing

In todays connected world, there are consumers all around you? And they are connected! Dont you forget that! Hence its possible that the person you just interacted with knows the others you are going to interact with, so you always need to project your “RIGHT SIDE”!

Now in this far and wide connected world, you cannot go to every other person and tell someone one thing and someone other the other story and want them to believe you. Other way round, they all would know what you spoke to about, to the first person as they are connected!

So you cannot go about running the same Banner Ads on all the sites, with a thought that the visitors on the site are prospects. Well, they might be and I certainly dont contest that, but you are trying to tell everyone who is already connected that this is ME and look at running these Ads for all the people on the site, which includes both the unique visitors and the Returning ones.

Its no longer smart to burn the note and push your way into the lead to reach to your customer

Your customer is anyway knowing about you from somewhere or the other and creating perceptions and taking decisions based upon the recommendations of his influential friends and known contacts.

So, essentially you are in a Pond of Water, which is filled with similar need mongers and this is the place you need to market.

So just burning your money, I dont think would make a lot of sense. Instead my advice would be, go connect and bring out the Zappos model, which simply is that every interaction is the best opportunity to delight the consumer and serve him right.

This makes the game easier and much focused and brings out the best in you each time and you dont wander around! Relating the same to the online world, I think Banner Ads and popups are making lesser of a sense today as the market dynamics and reaction levels are changing.

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Here I am Live Blogging the second Un-conference session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 at the NASSCOM HQ in New Delhi. This session is the second in the series of the initiative by NASSCOM for creating a common ground for the Product companies in India. The topic we are discussing today is: Solutions by Product Companies.

We have Ankur Lal, CEO Infozech Software, leading the session along with Arvind Jha of Movico Technologies. We also have Mr. Sharad Sharma – Chair, NASSCOM Product forum.

Okay so we have Mr. Sharad starting the session with a few laughs. Like many of you Im in the mode of becoming an entrepreneur again! I am also currently an entrepreneur in residence with CANNAN PARTNERS.

Sharad, is now sharing his thoughts on how the community can come together in creating an ecosystem. We as NASSCOM ahould also be looking at the other side of the table. i.e. he demand side and not just the delivery side of the equation. Sharad shares an interesting side story of 3M. In the early days of the CD media becoming popular this man he went to the chair and showed the CD and he was turned down. But the next time he did by positioning it the way that its the surface and not the CD/media that is there. Wallah, the rest is history.

What’s Cooking?

Mr. Sharad is now sharing on how NASSCOM is looking to create possibilities for the industry. interestingly Sharad is sharing some very bright ideas which he and the team at NASSCOM are trying to implement specifically aimed at SME’s and SMB’s. Sharad is surely sharing some really good ideas which if given life, could surely lay down a good path and make the journey smoother.

And since this is an Un-conference session, we now have the participants sharing their thoughts on what Sharad just shared with the community.

Sharad: One of the request that often comes back to NASSCOM from product companies is “Can you help us get buyers”. What we have found is, ther real value that NASSCOM can bring is to really grow the market and hold events where buyers and sellers could meet. What we can do is examine on behalf of these companies we could promote the voice.

Lack of project management and product marketing talent in India is a point shared by one of the participants in the room. Its because of the ecosystem. I definitely dont want NASSCOM to sell my product, I need help in developing the ecosystem.

Sharad: Our buyers are afraid of buying products from the small companies.

“No product that I know of has been successful, that has not been developed in the shadow of friendly sophisticated users”

Sharad: What is happening is that we dont have traction to the products, services are not present like force which could help us reach out.

Arvind: Product management and marketing is going to come out of your domestic customer knowledge. I believe that we will have the largest success for a product in the mobile side as we are the largest user base of mobiles.

Participant: Why not think about launching the next Google/Yahoo from India.

Arvind: There is nothing restrciting us from being there.

Ankur: We are the leaders in terms of these 400 million users. I would not be surprised if we have these small Google(s) coming out of India in another couple of years from now.

Participant: I see more and more companies fading out to the more lucrative services space. The DNA of the Indian industry to reamin/focus into the services domain is something which impacts the product.

Ankur: The challenge is that a small product company has to be dealt with safe hands. In the US there is this small companies fund. the government there supports these small businesses. What you need is a forgiven customer.

Challenges faced by Product Companies

So now we are discussing the challenges faced by product companies which we also did discuss the previous session on the product companies here at NASSCOM. Arvind is leading this part of the session, with the entire room being concentrated to the challenges and surely everyone in the room is agreeing to the same.

Arvind: In the spirit of what has worked, we should look at what companies can look at from these successes.

And now we have companies sharing with the room, their products and experiences

Participant: The planning that we do for the product business cycle is not complete. We dont really understand what to do after we have built the product.

So we have Tarun Anand, CTO, mScriber, its s speech training application. Tarun shares how they have been working on the same for the past 2 years and how they realised that its just the tip of the iceberg. We were lucky to get some early customers, but its harder for us to get the second set of customers.

You just have to wait it out and you have to watch what happens

What we realised, is that even if you have an engine, you still have to go to the customer with the 4 wheels, and the rest so that the customer just plugs in the key and moves on. So we partnered with companies which helped us achieve our objectives, and since we did not have the complete product stack, and hence these partners helped us reach there.

Its really important to see what your route to market is

Our biggest challenge right now is cash flows and we need to address the same.

And now we have RateGain, a company into the Hospitality and Travel Technology Products Company and we have the CEO and Founder sharing his thoughts.

We operate in these niche areas, these products have these niche requirements as a result of which we are pretty successful. And now we have RateGain sharin gthe various offerings they have.

While we were gaining knowlegde, we found that every hotel was published on some website, and we took the intelligent way out, which was more of creating a channel in between for the hotels to reach out with their information.

Sharing the Business Model

We have something called the rate tracking tool, so anybody selling anything online, you would want to know if there are competitive products on competitive prices available? Well, we customized this for the hotels. We found one commercial use of this technology and hence we started with hotels, but now we are launching it for different variants.

Interestingly what we now have is a screen shot of the reports that the product generates for the user. And I must say, is pretty interesting for a good competitive analysis.

• How did the product come about?

In the US at a point when I returned from there, there were travel sites emerging, and I wanted to build the technology targeting the US consumer and build a metasearch site. And we flipped the Bmodel and created the product for the hotel industry.

If you are working on something new and innovative, customers in the US are pretty collaborative and understanding

Why did it work?

1. Emerging market need
2. Niche area/ No limited competition

Recommendation for others:

1. MR, Market sizing
2. Test market the product
3. Agile in bringing product to the market
4. Greenfield opportunities
5. SME on board
6. Passion

We leverage a great great Channel Strategy. We have identified strong players in the hospitality domain and tied up with them.

Okay and now we have RAWZOR standing at the line

Our’s is a product which is similar to winzip but for photographers. We spoke to all the photo editing softwares, to add support to our format, though there was no money involved, but it helped us gain industry support.

There was a lot of resistance from the market, you cannot go on day 1 to Adobe and expect them to support you.

Why did we try this?

First few friends looking to join a startup.

Where did it fail?

• Lack of experience
• Lack of discipline

What worked and Why?

Multiple discoveries of the right things to do

I believe we should look inside the team. If you are not good enough in what you are doing, then the level of integrity, honesty and discipline takes a hitm which surely was a challenge for us. People dont know the right things to do and the right things. Its putting people in the right framework to get the right things out of them.

And now we have the founder of Busy Software, Mr, Dinesh, sharing his success story. We have never had big hurdles, though profits have not been huge but somehow things have been moving smoothly.

The problem that we have is that of scaling up. Our challenge is that this market is dominated by Tally which is almost similar to the market and it is available at Zero price.

Now there are benefits to this situation and there are the problems. Such a situation increases the market size, which was good for us. Our pricing strategies is being focused on what Tally has dictated till now. Now the difficult thing is how to sell and how to get into the considerable field of the consumer.

How to get into the consideration set of people – this is our major challenge

Initially we kept the price very low almost 50% of what Tally was. We were not the smartest marketing guys around, but we were sure that we could get the product replicated and we were fool enough to replicate a free software. For us the differentiating factor was getting “Sales Tax” as an inclusive offering.

Our objective was to make people use the software, and we started spreading 90 days free software trial with full functionality on. People tried our software because he has a pain point, thus we pointed on this aspect of the consumer thought process.

Did Tally not include those features?

Well, yes they did, more than 8o% of the features are available, but since we are architectured right from the beginning, and hence that gives us the edge over Tally.

Ankur is now leading the discussion, and we have a request from participants for Ankur to share his story!

What is it that keeps your customer awake at night, if you know this and your product answers the call, well, you have your business – Ankur Lal

And now we have Ankur Lal, sharing his experience. The big problem is, its ironical, software development costs are cheaper in India, if they were expensive, we would not have been discussing this. If you can replicate and duplicate, that is product business.

Participant: we purely lack strategic planning, you begin with a myopic vision in starting out. Interestingly we have people sharing through product management and project management.

The discussion in the room has now shifted to how the ecosystem is getting shaped and it finds people like us at these platforms. And now we have Ankur concluding the session introducing the EMERGE community, and the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave which is also the 50th session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0.

I am glad to be LIVE blogging the 49th session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, as today I complete one complete year, LIVE blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, surely all thanks to Avinash, NASSCOM

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