February 15th, 2010 § § permalink
We have overtime seen many initiatives go high on the fuel of thoughts and vision but not really seeing the light of the day, when it comes to affecting positively, not just a group of people, but an entire ecosystem, which involves you and me.
Especially, its amazing to see how the Indian Corporate and Industry Associations like NASSCOM have come together towards creation of an interesting ecosystem, which is improving not only the lifestyle for many but also is a big and a bold investment in India’s future.
Recently we came across this campaign called the CyberCity Welfare Society, which is been driven by NASSCOM and major corporate members based out of Gurgaon (the Cyber City) which aims at making life easier, smooth and greener on the roads of Gurgaon.
What caught our eye was the fact that not only the corporate, but this time around, the Police and the Municipal Associations have been actively involved in the campaign, hence making sure that the voices are heard at the highest levels. Such an initiative has not been head of before and we are sure, such steps will go a long way in the future towards creating effective change.
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November 13th, 2009 § § permalink
As the Official Blogger for the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, many people ask me, that I would surely have a plethora of knowledge with me, as I have the opportunity to attend all the sessions and also since I LIVE blog the sessions, I must be highly attentive.
Today I again am excited to bring forth the high worth and value knowledge which gets created at the NASSCOM EMERGE Friday’s 2.0 and am glad to be making it alive for all of you who could not be present at the session, though we would love to have more participation along and expand the community.
Today we have Ulrich Bäumer, Partner, Osborne Clarke and BITKOM representative and Asha-Maria Sharma, Senior Manager, Service Industries, Germany Trade and Invest GmbH, giving us an insight into the German ICT environment and business verticals for partnership as identified by Germany Trade And Investment (GTAI) for Indian companies and important aspects of What works and what doesn’t in M&A, overview of the legal and practical ways of doing business in Germany.
The room is full and well, its interesting to know how many people in the room want to understand the German market. So we have the session with a brief introduction on what Germany Trade and Invest is.
- Promoting Germany’s advantages as a prime location for foreign investors in hi-tech industries
- Collecting and processing economic data and information about industries, tender procedures, legaal frameworks etc.
Interestingly, the investors consultancy part of the company, is into much diversified scope:
- Renewable Energies and Resources
- Chemicals and Healthcare
- Mechanical and Electronic
- Service Industries
We are now getting to know what it is all about being in Germany, with the geographical location to the travel time. To know how blackberry and Vodafone and such large companies are actually settling in Germany. Pros and Cons of different places for your business ill be different and you need to understand that, with relevance to your business.
We are talking clusters in Germany now, I am interested to know this space, as its pretty big a space in India as well and some really interesting work is on with respect to them.
Germany offers different incentive packages to re-imburse an investment project’s expenditures
With the market volume of above 133 billion Euros Germany’s ICT industry ranks second in Europe. These are interesting figures. in 2008 German companies closed a good number of BPO and IT deals, hence there is a plenty of space.
Germany is the most lucrative software market in Europe, accounting for 26.1% of the EU market value. We are talking about the diversification of software market in Germany.
There is a good presence of the SME industry in Germany and it could surely be of interest to many of you
Talking Green!
Green ideas in IT and Green through IT, is what we are working on this and should you have products under this umbrella, you should definitely explore Germany.
Software Security is one area which we are really concerned about. We have had cases with data loses with social networks and as anyone, we Germans are surely much sensitive about our personal information, hence there is good space in the domain. Embedded systems market is of a fairly good size in Germany and you will also find clusters in the Southern part related to the domain.
Germany has by far the highest number of internet users in Europe creating large potential for business
- E-commerce
- Gaming market
- Online Advertising
I am personally amazed with the numbers on the slides, especially for the gaming and online advertising, which is showing a huge surge. German companies are moving from Print to Online.
- Market growth areas: Green IT + E-Energy + E-health
- Mobil apps: Increase in non-voice-services
- Embedded systems
- IT Services and Software
And now we are talking about the automotive industry in Germany, which to mention also is the home for Mercedez. The small manufacturers are spread across Germany and there is no one hub/ cluster.
I suggest the best way to get in touch is to attend conferences and other events to know the suppliers and other specific information you require about your business.
And now we have Ulrich, thanking everyone in the room, for whom this is the 12th visit to India. I advise SME’s in Germany also to get to India. And Ulrich shares the agenda for the session:
Interestingly we are going to discuss, Co-operation between Indian and German Companies. We have a very different law in Germany and its completely different in almost every way than what you have in India. Hence you need to understand the basic laws which are very important before you sign up your first customer in India.
You must definitely thank your peer Indian IT companies, who ventured into Germany 10-15 years back, coz they had to persuade German people, for the price and quality and hence for you guys its easier now to reach out to the German companies, which buy Indian IT not just because of the price, but for the quality as well.
So we have started with the introduction for the Law company which is Osborne Clarke. Very ineresting to know how many people they have helped set up in Germany. There are surely some very interesting and Big Indian names on the list that we have on screen.
Co-operation in Germany
- Merger
- Acquisition
- JV
- Partnership
- Build Operate Transfer – It Outsourcing
- Indo-German Strategic Alliance
Many of our M&A’s have been extremely successful and have been running for 10-15 years. Ulrich is sharing the previous success stories that they have created, and these also include some real big Indian corporate names.
So now we are discussing Common Law and Civil Laws in Germany which are surely an absolute necessity for you to set up in Germany.
Common Law (inductive)
Problem -> Judgement -> Ratio decidendi
Civil Law (deductive)
Statute -> Problem -> Application
I am very impressed with the way, Ulrich has simply explained the entire difference between the Common and Civil Laws and how can you in simple measures look at what you can expect when you reach the German shores, or establish out of India. Ulrich is very interestingly raised the awareness of the people in the room and sure all are all ears!
Now we are getting an insight into the European Legal System. Well, sure the German Law is definitely different from how we operate in India. And now gets answered the question, of many a people who wanted to know about Branch offices and how to set them up in Germany.
The outsourcing market is growing in Germany and I think in 2010 the curve will continue to grow up
Good to see how the Indian IT Services industry has grown and set foot in Germany. And well this figure has raised since 2007. Service providers have now crossed out to the other side.
Have you ever thought about off-shoring: 27% of the part said to this that they have larger projects already LIVE which have been off-shored. If we do off-shoring, we do it to India, is what the 67% of the people who answered this sample survey said. Some really interesting figures, being shared by Ulrich.
I personally dont see a single Chinese company, to overtake any of the large Indian IT service companies. China will NOT be a challenge in the near future for the Indian ITeS market.
In the Non Voice market, I dont see players as large as those in India, challenging the Indian players.
Language barrier is a comfort issue, in my experience it has been like: 80% of the deals across the table have happened in English. Its always good to have a native speaker, but its not a necessity.
Ulrich again shares the 8 key issues which you can face in your outsourcing contract in Germany.
- warranty
- Liability
- Acceptance
- Delay
- Change requests
- etc.
Talking about warranty, liability and guaranty. Well, yes the entire room is interested in this conversation. Ulrich presents the whole idea of liability with very simply presented examples. Well liability without any limitation under German law, implies fully, if you have not mentioned anything about it in your contract. Eyes get raised at such a point.
The data protection laws in Germany are surely something to learn from. The labour laws are surely pretty strict in Germany. The session is interactive and there are good questions coming from the audience.
And now we end with the session with the audience still very interested and questions pouring in with respect to IPR and other related to the IT services.
Its been a good session and I feel good to know about Business in Germany, thanks to Asha and Ulrich for their precious time.
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August 28th, 2009 § § 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?
- 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.
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August 28th, 2009 § § 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
- Feet on street
- traditional model is beguiling
- Partners
- “pull” more important than “push”
- Mobile client software
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.
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August 28th, 2009 § § 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.
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July 24th, 2009 § § permalink
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.
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July 14th, 2009 § § permalink
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?
- Emerging market need
- Niche area/ No limited competition
Recommendation for others:
- MR, Market sizing
- Test market the product
- Agile in bringing product to the market
- Greenfield opportunities
- SME on board
- 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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June 13th, 2009 § § permalink
LIVE Blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 48th session, and well we are going to make it interactive says the session lead Mr. Kumud Goel who is also one of the founding members of NASSCOM and the founder KLG Systel a leading power solutions company in India.
Incidentally its a great day, coz the NASSCOM EMERGE Community turns one today, I must congratulate Avinash (NASSCOM) for the same and now we have the session underway 
Mr. Kumud Goel a technology veteran for over 25 years, is leading the session. We have Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech Software introducing to the audience and well as usual we have the participants introducing themselves to the entire audience.
I am surely glad to be LIVE blogging the 48th session and well, always get excited to feel as we near the 50th session. Interestingly we have quite a diverse audience related to the product space today.
I am a case study of failures – shares Mr. Kumud and though this was said at the end, I would want to start my blog with it.
Kumud is interestingly sharing an incident from his life and my respects to the man as for young entrepreneurs like me, its surely highly invigorating and a great learning to interact with learned people like Kumud. And well, let me not keep it a secret anymore. Kumud is sharing the story of NASSCOM.
When we went to COMDEX years back, nobody used to talk to an Indian
That is when this desire of fighting these people came in me and I had a lot of experience in programming and I started my company which had only emotions behind it and no business plan.
On my first wedding anniversary my father told me that you have no money in the back and hence I gave away my dream of creating software for the rural India. At that time most Indian company did the right thing by making things for the foreign market but we were again at the step when we were looking at a product for the Indian market.
After 25 years of my experience I today feel taht what is more important out of a business model and a feeling is feeling, coz I believe that the business model shall follow
Once you have made an emotional decision of making a product for India, there were two drawbacks…I was at the Silicon Valley two weeks back and I met this guy who is regarded as one of the best deal makers in the tech space, and he told me that Kumud what you are doing is worth 500 million dollars and since you are sitting in India it is worth 20 million dollars. I had to go to the IBM’s of the world and get a recommendation that my technology is good.
All the great companies in the US have come about and have based out of the fact that the government has helped them. The SME’s in India who innovate do not have their path as easy.
The tendering system in Government of India is such that an SME cannot ever go up.
Today US is making money out of innovation and not selling someone else’s goods. Kumud now shares a highly interesting insight into the Chinese government way of working and wow I am amazed. Well, I think this is an applausible moment and I am saying this for the first time in a NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 session, Kumud has broken the wall and is now talking about what NASSCOM should really be doing for the SME’s.
Start-ups and small companies have to get reservation in the government and NASSCOM should take care of that
There Is NO CORRUPTION in INDIA
Do what they want you to, don’t fight them…its your dream, coz you are giving them a poison which will kill them automatically. Corruption is not a hinderance, it is a way to survive. And for the first time I am supporting Kumud on this coz he shows tthe audience the bigger picture.
- Your cash flow has to be positive, your spirit should not go negative, you have to live through those initial years. for sometime you need to live like a rat if you want to survive.
And now Kumud shares a story on a book he read “the saga of Dharampuri”, which he is relateing to the Indian IT industry. We have so gotten accustomed to the white man that we cannot think of anything out of it.
This life for ME is so shameful that after being 25 years into the industry, I still don’t have a world class product
The govt. of India will spend 5000 crores dollars to the MS’s of the world and lets say there are 5000 SME’s from India, now if I divide 5000 what do you get? But how many companies are standing today for it?
Psychologically we need to start thinking of ourselves as better people than the foreign lands. We need to just break out of this trap, coz we actually are better than anybody. If you need to create the best OS from India, you need to have that feeling into you and only then it would happen.
The Indian out there is GOD shares one of the participants from the audience.
You have a dream, great! But you anyhow need money to make sure that you survive and take your dream further. You need to somehow find a way by hook or by crook, to reach that 50-100 crore level, otherwise your so called innovation would die.
I made 3 websites when I had 15 crores in the bank and I wen t overboard, we advertised like hell and people came to us. But because we believed into our stuff so much, we never realised the internet bust, and I went bankrupt. So now we had no money, but we had a dream!
Audacity, Audacity, Audacity and Arrogance
We raised money for about 11 million dollars and that came to us only because we had audacity.
The next I thought what is the next problem in India. And I chanced upon power. You need to be like the James Bond, who would take it the way as if the world wont be no more if my software wont be there. I went and borrowed 137 crores and I developed cleantech technology. And I bet my life on this.
And I bought myself a BMW, because I was going to change the world.
Personally I was broke, my stock is pledged, house with a bank, my wife and kids were the only tangible assets I had. And then I happened.
Innovation is like a black Hole, after a certain time you are dead. But once you are dead what can you do – STOP WORRYING!
You have created the aura of being the biggest player in the power industry and since you have already invested into it, you can demonstrate what you have already implemented. For 25 years you have been waiting to say it and when the big companies of the world come for you, to partner, what do you say…Go to !@#!
If you want to be an Innovator, You have to be a great Gambler as well
Anybody who does not listen to you has to become irrelevant!
The last lesson would be – your dream has to be bigger than the world, you will create the biggest product, all you need to do is to make sure that you get some cash in.
Kumud ends the session with some NASSCOM bashing, which he started the session with on a lighter note. I am certainly with Kumud, as this would surely be great for the entire SME community in India.
Small companies should file for patents and should do them religiously. This shall make sure of a winning road for you.
Now we have the participants sharing their thoughts on the entire topic and I can see the thoughts coming in together in the similar direction.
And now we have the session in the Q&A mode.
Thanks Kumud for an amazing session, I have been blogging the NASSCOM friday’s 2.0 for long, and certainly find you one of the best speakers, sharing from the heart.
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May 16th, 2009 § § permalink
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:
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
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!
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February 18th, 2009 § § 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.
- Detailed discussion about MakeMyTrip
- Challenges faced along the way
- 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!
- Get good guys
- Share your wealth (ESOP’s)
- 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/
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