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.

India market and the SaaS/Cloud Computing landscape – NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave, Session 3 – LIVE Blogging the EMERGEOUT 3

August 28th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

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.

Confessions of a DOT Com entrepreneur – Deep Kalra, at NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 37th session

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

“We won’t leave the room, till we answer all the doubts”
One of the success strategies shared by Mr. Deep Kalra, a man who made planning your journeys easier, faster and cheaper, and the process, a whole lot enjoyable, in the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, 37th meet at New Delhi.

Mr. Deep Kalra, the founder, MakeMyTrip.com shared his learning’s, challenges faced, business models, entrepreneurship, the Internet, team, regrets, achievements and a turnaround story!

The session kick started with a welcome address by Mr. Ankur Lal, Founder and CEO Infozech Software. We had a gathering of around 33 people, which added to the diversity in experience and learning’s.

Deep started the session with an approach, expected of a seasoned entrepreneur. He divided the session into 3 buckets which contained a story which he started and towards the finish had motivated the participants.

  1. Detailed discussion about MakeMyTrip
  2. Challenges faced along the way
  3. Learning and Takeaways

“Everyone in the world after achieving a certain level of education and experience wants to be an entrepreneur, the reasons may be many”
- Deep Kalra

Deep started with his journey, wherein he discussed about his life as a learner (a student) who started as an economist and “tumbled into a B-school”. He shared his thoughts on the emergence of B-schools introducing the process of taking in laterals from the industry who bring along with them practical experience which helps while you understand the management concepts relating to your experiences.

An IIM-A graduate of the 1989 batch, Deep belongs to a batch of graduates who are today some of India’s most reckoned success stories.

With a career start with a reputed multi national bank in India, Deep got his first learning’s which impacted his life immensely. A confession he made “all this while earning handsomely and learning from immensely successful people, he was always clear that banking was not his defining career choice”. As with every entrepreneur, a strong urge to free himself from the straitjacket, Deep started his stint as an entrepreneur by representing a multinational company dealing into Bowling Alley equipments in India. He was convinced the concept would catch on and the product was sellable.

Soon came the first learning: The product was great, the money was there, but the market was not ready! Hence Deep shared a learning that however specialized a product or service you may have, a solid market research is without any doubts necessary.

An intelligent speaker, Deep had the audience in splits with his wits of presenting his experience doing business with Delhi Businessmen, who are smart!

A very important issue of “Peer pressure” was touched upon by Deep with extreme subtleness. He shared his version of how peer pressure affected him as:

“I was not affected by how much
my peers were making, but about the fact
that I was losing out on my own personal development”
- Deep Kalra

Filling the Vacuum!
Deep, in order to fill this vacuum in life went ahead and joined a multinational as the Head Business Development. Innovation was his motto and Deep proved with his grit and determination, which were properly backed by facts and figures, that the company could be a successful turnaround using the Internet as a tool, which at that time was not something that the Indian consumer would have been very comfortable with!

After a brief stint of 15 months, Deep found his calling!

Before everyone in the room, could hop onto the fast paced F1 that Deep’s interesting life was emerging out to be, he smartly put the brakes and shared a few crucial lessons, which acted as tickets for the participants to hop on for the ride ahead!

“Big companies won’t get on the internet, I realized
change was difficult for them to introduce within
the existing processes. The moment you become large the chips get scattered”
- Deep Kalra

Be Lean, Be Fit!
Vision is never static; in fact the corporate vision should always keep changing with the changing structures of the corporate, as per the market conditions.

Nimbleness and Change, is necessary to be incorporated into the business model.

“You slow down somewhere down the way”, said Deep while he was explaining the growth of a venture and of the entrepreneur.

1999 was the year Deep was struck – with an idea!
After extensive research into the market conditions, Deep was convinced about the idea of either an online Financial Stock trading business or something to do with travel. With a flexible vision and all the life’s learning’s, Deep’s vision took shape with a venture capital funding of $2million for a 70per cent stake in MakeMyTrip.

A lucrative offer, a good salary, a dream getting fulfilled, life could never have been better, was Deep’s first reaction. It was a Win-Win situation for him.

A smart team to be supported by, Deep started off with a website and a vision of defining the travel space in India by becoming the largest company in the travel space. The company was earning good with a sound bank balance, what better for an entrepreneur right?

WRONG said Deep!
A majority of their business was coming from the NRI market and in India; consumers were only lookers and not buyers! Hence the Indian operations were making not much sense as the market was just not mature for such a concept. Deep could have pumped in more money easily but he decided otherwise, and said to his top management “We won’t leave the room, till we answer all the doubts” to where we are wrong! The decision was not an easy one, but was taken and the India model was put on hold for sometime.

A dream gone sour?
With the markets not doing well and the DOT COM Bubble already creating ripples in the subcontinent, Deep was faced with a situation which few had ever imagined. The VC’s backed out and the additional $1million promised never came.

Deep and the team had two choices, either to shut down or else have faith in their concept and buy back the 70per cent equity stake and keep the ball rolling!

As they say “When you set out to do something with all your heart and passion, everything around you supports you”!

Deep got funds from Angels who really proved right to their title “Angles” and bought back the 70 per cent stake, with a team which was not the same as it was sometime back.

How easy is it to take a 100percent cut in your earnings and for the top management a 50percent cut in their salaries? Ask Deep and the team at MakeMyTrip, and they will tell you what sailing on the boat named faith and confidence is when you have nothing else.

The Build-Operate-transfer model was touched upon by Deep and he advised everyone on the “Lure of Lucre”!

You cant Do It Alone!
A team which takes Serious Equity, a prospective for you who is ready to take cuts into hard cash for ESOPS, is the best employee for you!

2004 was the year of reckoning and establishment for MakeMyTrip in India, when the market opened to new models of online travel.

TRY!
Deep was of the suggestion that an entrepreneur should at least TRY! It was this attitude which made him get into the online travel space in India, with a fact backing his belief, that an ordinary Indian gets onto the Internet to book 5000 tickets daily using his/her credit card, in the Indian railways!

Learning’s
- Challenges
“Bootstrapping was the best time during the venture, when we had put all our life’s savings”

– Scaling up
Scaling up is a big challenge for any emerging venture which is looking towards a strategic expansion

Nicely heated up debated sessions have been regular features at MakeMyTrip.

There’s no Hiding!

  1. Get good guys
  2. Share your wealth (ESOP’s)
  3. Hire guys who truly challenge you

“All your Yes-Men are truly useless. It’s about management by exception”

Failures
“The biggest regret and failure was that we outsourced our technology”

None of us knew how to build a web site!

The session drew to a close with an interactive platform for the participants to get their queries answered by Deep himself, which was of a big help.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/07/14/confessions-of-a-dot-com-entrepreneur/

How Startups and Emerging companies can benefit from Social web and Enterprise 2.0 – NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 (39th session)

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

WEB 2.0, Yammer, Mashup, Dapper, Pipes, Widgets, Open API’s, WOMM…

Greek, does it sound?

Well, the 39th session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 (Emerging Companies Forum – Marketing) was a big draw, which had people belonging to a wide strata of the industry, participating with varied interests.

The session was chaired by Mr. Jay Pullur, the Founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies Pvt. Ltd. a technocrat and visionary, building teams from the scratch has been a key trait that helped Jay in establishing Pramati technologies, a company known for its innovation and quality.

The session started with Jay introducing innovative products from Pramati in the form of widgets which they evangelized as integral tools for building simple yet highly efficient methodologies for leveraging WEB 2.0

A formal kickoff then followed with Jay presenting the participants with a presentation which was a two sided discussion, with the participants engrossed.

Jay started with defining young companies. A statement which laid the foundation for the discussion “big companies already do all the old stuff well and in good scale”, made quite an impact in the participants and the focus hence shifted to how startups and emerging companies (young companies) could leverage WEB 2.0?!

WEB 2.0 and that too in 2 hours, well Jay smartly divided the presentation into Three (3) parts -:

  1. What is this new WEB?
  2. What does it mean to us?
  3. Why is it challenging?

WEB 2.0, a new style of working!

WEB 2.0 is more about user participation, peer production and not just simple one way publishing.

Social Media
Two simple words, yet they made every mind in the room actively interact and participate. Well why someone would not be interested when you hear “the traffic on my web site has grown 25times over the past 20 odd days, due to the implementation of this FREE widget”!

‘FREE’ strikes! And it struck!

The greek words which we started this post with now started making sense, Mashups, Dapper, Intel Mash maker, Yahoo Pipes are all WEB 2.0 tools which are the most innovative and effective tools in leveraging WEB 2.0 for the organisation.

Marketing Opportunity – Widget

How does FREE stuff adds value?
-    Social Networking Applications
Jay provided with examples from some applications that Pramati did for the recently concluded Olympics at FaceBook, which generated quite a response all across.

Open social platforms were again an interesting topic of discussion which generated quite an interest in the room. Various platforms were discussed. Including the free google platform, open API’s and web services.

Extending the discussion, Jay proved how widgets could be effectively used in the promotion of products.

2.    Strategy needs understanding of distribution models and uptake of new offerings

“Marketing is changing faster than ever”
-    Jay Pullur

“Usefulness is no longer the only thing that matters, it’s the experience that does”
-    Jay pullur

“Indian startups have not really kept the waves”
-    Jay Pullur

An interesting discussion ensued within the participants, which had WEB 2.0 researchers’ sharing their experiences into what they felt was lacking in the Indian startups and how could the power of WEB 2.0 still be leveraged.

Jay mentioned the Enterprise 2.0 platform which he simply explained as a very complex combination of openness and privacy.

The change in the WEB 2.0 space was very intelligently put across which had the participants in splits and was really a thought provoking idea…”who thought a simple application like twitter could ever work”?
Well, since people today are interested into other people’s lives, thus it’s not just working; in fact we all are Tweeting, day in, night out.

Yammer, Crunchbase, Semantic Web before the participants could say why English suddenly has become out of focus again, Jay explained the various tools and how they spell magic!

PART TWO
The session was now much more interesting as now Jay kept his point through which he gave what the audience wanted…good, but what does it mean to us?

1.    Specialize and grow on the fast track, remarked Jay

With a reference to the blue ocean strategy and other such methodologies, Jay was instrumental in providing the audience with methods of marketing new products and service offerings through WEB 2.0 tools.

PR2.0, Blogs, WOMM (word of mouth marketing) etc. were the cited examples

Beat the downturn, commoditization and Market pressures, remarked Jay

PART THREE
Why is it challenging?

1.    Competency bar is growing up

Before the participants could voice their concerns of implementing such WEB 2.0 strategies, Jay was quick in adding the various challenges that could be faced.

“Invest little to gain a standing” – the statement clearly reflected Jay’s long term standing in the IT industry. The experience was speaking for itself.

Post the formal discussion, Jay shared his experiences with the audience. What was engrossing was Jay’s openness in coming out with the go to market strategies that Pramati implemented while they were in the process of launching their Enterprise 2.0 solution.

Lesson well learnt, and such discussion was received with great response by all present.

The session concluded with a Q&A session and the forum opened for networking which also had Jay interacting very openly.

RocSearch also has done a report on Leveraging User Generated Content – An anecdotal assessment on what works for marketers and what does not…download the report at Rocsearch_leveraging-social-media_may-2008

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/15/how-startups-and-emerging-companies-can-benefit-from-social-web-and-enterprise-20/

Who Dares Wins! – The valedictory session @ the NASSCOM EMERGE OUT Conclave!

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

The valedictory session @ the NASSCOM EMERGE OUT Conclave!

Its been a good long day of learning and a multitude of valuable lessons for startups and emerging companies.

What better than Mr. Kiran Karnik and Mr. Raman Roy delivering the session. A fiery charged up entrepreneur, discussing his Four ventures! Four ventures one may say, well he dared and created 35000 jobs! An answer worth to people who challenged Raman!

I cant write a great business plan, do you think DELL, Microsoft knew precisely all the problems? Did they know all what the problems could be? Well, I respect simple thought dare, and all these companies did dare, says Mr. Raman Roy, the founder Quattro BPO.

Initiating his talk by defining the word ‘WIN’ for the audience, Raman took the whole room to a different high! Sharing his story on how he stormed out of his American Express office and still be in touch with the HR guy who dropped the shell by daring him to either be successful or be sacked! Well a true spirited guy, Raman evolved! And today Quattro is the proof.

With strong learnings in the presentation, Raman has effectively conjured up the thoughts of all the business concepts.

Talk about Ford motors, well did you know they grew trees? Implementing quality control is an absolute essential today.
- Raman Roy!

Answer to one of the questions from the audience on in-sourcing.

Somebody stood up and dared to say, I’ll make a one lakh car with the words, a promise is a promise, point well taken Raman. Well when Mr. Tata said it, it was taken as stupid, silly…well, look at it now!

Nowhere in the world KFC offers full Veg meals, call it silly? Pretty revolutionary says Raman!

The session is being concluded by Mr. Karnik by re-iterating Raman’s high energy words which have truly inspired people in these difficult gloomy times for the markets, to which Raman simply replies yeah they are going bad, but there is still money to be made out of it! Somebody would have to go security by security leveraging something. There is an opportunity. The needs have undergone a change and we have to be nimble enough to understand. In the short term there is an issue, I agree, says Raman, but now the kind of opportunities that will now EMERGE are different.

Its time for new opportunities says Mr. karnik to the issue.

Video to be uploaded soon.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/29/who-dares-wins/