smarttechie dec 10 issue
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EMPOWERING TECHNOLOGY LEADERS OF TOMORROW thesmarttechie.comDecember 2010
` 25 only
Guru talk: Upinder Zutshi, Infinite Computer Solutions VC Talk: Venetia Kontogouris Trident Capital
Sanjay Nayak, CEO, Tejas Networks Deep Kalra, Founder & CEO,Makemytrip.comArvind Kajaria,Co-found er& MD, 123greetings
Anupam Mittal, Chairman & MD, Shaadi.com
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Vol 6 Issue 12 December 2010
Publisher Alok ChaturvediEditor-in-Chief Pradeep Shankar
Deputy Editors
Christo Jacob Jaya Smitha Menon
Editorial StaffEureka Bharali Hari Anil
Vimali Swamy
Sr. Visualiser Raghu KoppalCirculation Manager Magendran Perumal
AdvertisingVirupakshi Pattar Shakuntala Vikram
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Copyright 2010 SiliconMedia Technologies Pvt Ltd, Allrights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any text,photography or illustrations without written permissionfrom the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes noresponsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs orillustrations. Views and opinions expressed in thispublication are not necessarily those of the magazine andaccordingly, no liability is assumed by the publisher.
EMPOWERINGTECHNOLOGYLEADERS OFTOMORROW
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The January Issue
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The Smart Techie |6|O c t o b e r 2 0 1 0
Contents - December 2010
COVER STORY
[Leadership] 28Great Leaders take Calculated Risk
By Binu T Paul
[Management] 30Birth of a Leader through Experience
By Pragyan Acharya
31Identifying Leadership early is thesecret of Success
By Kukil Bora
32Traits of a Successful Leader
By Renjith VP
50DLP Prevention is Better than a Cure
By Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Check Point
[Business] 34Preparing for the Rise of IndianProduct PowerHousesBy Juby Thomas
[Management] 36How do CEOs think?By Dr. Anand Deshpande,Persistent Systems
38Leadership requires continuousreinvention of yourself and your companyMarket at MACBy Walden C Rhines, Mentor Graphics
40Controls and EmpowermentBy Sandeep Dhar, Tesco HSC
42Focused Leadership is the Key to CreateKiller Products for Global MarketsBy Ram Narayanan, Yahoo! India
[Guru Talk] 8Winning through Differentiation:A CEOs PerspectiveBy Upinder Zutshi,Infinite Computer Solutions
[In Focus] 10
[Tech Buzz] 14
[VC Talk] 16Entrepreneurial Leadership
By Venetia Kontogouris, Trident Capital
[Company Spotlight] 22iYogi: The first Consumer Servicesbrand from IndiaBy Vimali Swamy
[Management] 26Manage your most talented Employeesand they will manage the restBy Pragyan Acharya
[Business] 27Why is Innovation still a challenge inIndia?By Anonya Roy
Upinder Zutshi
20
Indias New Breed of
Entrepreneurs:They came,They saw,
They conquered!
44IT Leadership
From Projects to Value Creation
By Ramesh Loganathan,
Progress Software
[Business] 46The Man with a Mission for Masses
By Jaya Smitha Menon
[Management] 48Strategy in the New World
By Satya Prabakar, Sulekha
[Business] 50Change is the only Constant
By Pradeep Kar, Microland
[Buyers Perspective] 52
[Technology] 55Intels AppUp to meet the changing
phase of App Development
By Juby Thomas
[Events] 56Siliconindias SoftTec Probes
Deep into IT Testing
By ST Team
[Tech Products] 58
[People Manager] 60What they dont teach at the B-Schools
about Leadership!
By C. Mahalingam,
Symphony Services
[Venture Beat] 62
Sanjay Nayak
Arvind Kajaria
Anupam Mittal Deep Kalra
By Hari Anil
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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |8|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
enue. The client can then shift its re-sources and energies from these ma-
ture products and focus on their coreinitiatives.
The way it works is that the serv-ice provider obtains the license of
the product, injects additional R&D
funds to enhance it and eventually breathes new life into a mature
product. This collaboration allows aclient to continue to grow its strate-
gic initiatives, without sacrificing
mature lines. Interestingly, in thissystem, the vendor does not makemoney from its immediate customer,
but recovers it from the end cus-
tomer from the market.A successful long term relation-
ship with the client is a key factorhere, as it enables a service
provider to understand aclients portfolio in totality
and identify products with
significant installed base.The client in turn also
needs to build a deeplevel of trust in the ven-
dors capability of de-livery and continued
partnerships.However, a solid
value proposition re-
quires significant duediligence before a
vendor actually com-mits to taking over
the entire life cycle
of supporting andenhancing the prod-
uct. Factors like thelevel of investment
required, expectedgrowth over the next
few years, addressing
the buyers concernson change of owner-
ship, realignment ofclients R&D expendi-
ture, feasibility to shiftwork offshore and the
future roadmap ofthe product need to
be addressed.In a majority of cases, a substan-
tial investment is required by theservice provider to generate growth
in these products.It is imperative tofactor in the people cost, infrastruc-
ture cost and other operating costs.
Pricing on the basis of real costs en-sures profits dont needlessly have
to be trimmed. As these productshave a proven revenue record, an
outsourcing model helps to better
manage their costs.The products need to resonate
with the needs of the customers and
have a significant differentiating ele-
ment. The pricing should also be seg-mented for altered markets to
leverage a better competitiveadvantage.
Once executed, this is a win-win
situation in effective relationshipmanagement. It results in reduced
costs, ability to focus on core prod-
ucts, new market opportunities beingaccessed, better productivity, manual
processes being automated and im-proved time to market. It also gives
the client access to IT skills which arenot affordable in-house or not avail-
able and thus reduces their capital ex-penditure. The end customer is happy
due to the continuity of the product,
the client is pleased due to its re-sources getting freed and the vendor
is thrilled because of the share in therevenue it gets as well as ownership
of the IP.For the successful establishment
of an outcome based pit is essential that there
laboration and sharing between the two partie
provider needs to ubuyers landscape per
sure that measures tak
the strategic business relationship works
grounds, with the buyetion to succeed, the su
mitment to the buyer
way effective communin-depth understandingmatter.
These creative and
nership models create tives for the service
change their thinkingtheir risk taking appe
avenues of revenue.
competitive advantag plete understanding
ecosystem. Strong go
relationship managemeparties is essential. Ove
the next five years, opricing is predicted to e
50 percent of the contraonly 5 percent curren
ning and budgeting mufluctuating nature of re
of these products.
Significant value hto businesses with out
the past few years, andbased pricing, outsour
a full circle to its initiahancing value.
The key is to not reinvent the wheel but make a differentiated
space for oneself. This would require a series of strategic decisionsand a conscious effort to steer away from the trodden path. Oppor-
tunities not only need to be identified but also captured and exe-cuted in a novel and innovative way. Despite the challenges, the
solutions should enable one to be distinguished from the pack and
create building blocks for success.
A risk / reward sharing model is one such differentiated pricingmodel that encompasses all the essential elements of volume, usage,
business processes, customer satisfaction, cost savings and revenueshare, thereby creating a win-win situation for all the parties in-
volved i.e. the client, the service provider or vendor as well as theend customer.
This model enables a vendor to take over those products of a
client which have a limited shelf life, but continue to be essentialto many customers due to their proven record of generating rev-
The transition of a startup to a small cap organization andits eventual progression into the midcap space is markedby its vigilance and ability to identify and tap profitable
businesses.
Winning through Differentiation:
A CEOs Perspective
By Upinder ZutshiThe author is MD of Infinite Computer Solutions
The key is to not reinvent thewheel but make a
differentiated space for oneself
Over the course of the five years, outcome baspricing is predicted to e
compass 40-50 percent of the
tracts, as against only 5 percencurrently
GURU TALK
Upinder Zutshi
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The Smart Techie |10|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
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in
India will have its own Sili-
con Valley in five years,
said Vivek Wadhwa an Ad-
junct-Professor at Duke University.
According to Wadhwa from the 250
firms he met this year, 25 to 30 per-
cent are bringing out world-class
products. As of now there is no
Google coming out of India, but that
will happen in the next five years, he
added. The spurt in products is a
spillover from services.
People with deep domain experi-
ence from services business are set-
ting up products firms in India and so
are the U.S. returnees. The countrys
growth is not limited to IT; pharma-
ceutical R&D space and aviation are
fields of strength to India. The coun-
try is also playing in the next gener-
ation consumer appliances market.
Indian government has made very
little effort to encourage
R&D business, but
multinationals such as
Cisco, EMC, IBM and
Microsoft are doing
high-end work in the
country. India is suc-
ceeding despite poor in-
frastructure, security
concerns and crippling
educational system. The
secret recipe of Indias
success is high work-
force development pro-
grams followed by major IT services
companies. They have sophisticated
recruitment system that involves a
series of psychometric tests. They
then invest in training employees
throughout the different phases of
their career,
says Wadhwa.
He believes that
the next big
thing in Indian
tech will come
from smaller
product and not
larger services
firms. His re-
search also
shows that 85
percent of In-
dian students in
the U.S. wish to return to India as
they feel that companies in India
offer them better prospects.
Vijay Jay C. Gandhi became
the first Indian American fed-eral judge in the Central Dis-
trict of California, the largest federaldistrict court in the U.S. by population,
when he took oath of office in a cere-
monial courtroom in the U.S. federalcourthouse. Gandhi is the second In-
dian American federal judge in U.S.history and the first in California.
Gandhi will have jurisdiction overa district covering seven counties in-
cluding Los Angeles and Orange, withan estimated 19 million residents.
Gandhi was selected to the post on
merit and will be serving an eight-year
term at the end of which he will besubject to reappointment to his post.Gandhi previously worked 12 years as
an attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky& Walker LLPwhere he was a partner
and Vice-Chairman of the firms Or-
ange County office. A graduate of the
University of Southern California Law
School, Gandhi had also clerked forU.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt
in the Southern District of Texas, be-fore joining Paul Hastings.
The oath of office was adminis-tered in front of nearly 200 people by
Judge Audrey B. Collins, the chief
judge of the district. Shortly aftertaking his oath, Gandhi was officially
enrobed by his mother, Uma Gandhi.
Several speakers shared thoughts on
Gandhis integrity and character mo-
ments after the ceremony. GeorgeKing, a federal judge in the Central
District, spoke of Gandhis publicservice record and commitment to
the community and Former PaulHastings partner and current judge
Peter Stone offered his views on
Gandhis work at the firm as well asthe cases they had worked on to-
gether.
Indian Silicon Valley in 5 years: Vivek Wadhwa
Vivek Wadhwa
Jay Gandhi, California First U.S. Indian Judges
Jay Gandhi
in
42 percent of the Indian compa-nies of Gartner surveyed said
that they have no immediateplans of investing in cloud technolo-
gies. According to Gartner, thesecompanies are unsure of investing in
the technology throughout 2011. Aspart of their global research the com-pany surveyed a total of 1,004 com-
panies, in which 148 are Indiancompanies. Indian average is a little
lower when compared to the globalaverage, where about 45 percent of
the companies said they were either
unsure or had no plans of setting upcloud infrastructure.
Cloud computing is an Internet-based facilitates sharing of techno-
logical resources, software anddigital information. The emerging
field functions on a pay-per-usemodel helping technology compa-
nies to bring down thehuge initial in-
v e s t m e n t . D e s p i t e
the bene-fits ofc l o u d
computing,lack of technol-
ogy maturity hasemerged as the top inhibitor to adop-
tion of cloud technology, said Sid
Deshpande, Senior Research Ana-lyst, Gartner.
The study was conducted acrossthe U.S., the UK, Germany, Aus-
tralia, Brazil, Russia, India andChina. Gartner also revealed that 21
percent respondents frsider cloud computing
the top three highest-pment through 201
about 25 pedents feel th
top drivers vestments aagility, capit
savings, and cloud models as
overall enterprise dataformation strategy, sa
In a previous study
Zinnov Management R&D Globalization c
said that the present $1dian Could Computin
expected to grow to ois the next five years.
42 Percent Indian CEOs Have No Plans to Invest in C
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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |12|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
At a time when the country is
being rocked by a number ofscams, some students of In-
dian Institute of Management-Ahmad-abad have decided to launch a helpline
on corruption to deal with this threat.
A group of six IIM-A students pro-posed the idea of starting the helpline
to former President A.P.J. AbdulKalam and IIM-A professor Anil
Gupta, which was appreciated bythem.
When the students mooted theidea of starting a corruption helpline, I
thought that the idea was excellent in
present context when the situation inthe country is such that common peo-
ple think that their work cannot bedone without giving bribes, said
Gupta. The country re-
cently got shook by2G spectrum scam,
Commonweal thGames scam and
Adarsh society
scam, which have brought the issue
of corruption infocus. At present,
most people do notknow where to com-
plain against the corruptofficials and some of
them even fear that if
they complain theirwork will never be
done. It is a verycomplex issue,
added Gupta.
The complaints will be scruti-nized thoroughly to avoid any fab-
ricated ones. According to RaviYadav, who is a part of the
project, In our proposed
model, the complaints re-ceived shall be pre-
screened by retiredofficials, before being fed
into our on-line complaint database. Other than Yadav, the stu-
dents who are part of the project areUdit Goyal, Saurabh Singh,
Nikhil Bhaskar, Shantanu
Sekhar and Daniel De Luna,an exchange student from
Italy.
India is developing its own radar-
based Electronic Warfare System
(EWS) with two test ranges in
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to
equip its armed forces for modern
wars. An indigenously developed
radar-based EWS will be ready by
2013, with test ranges at Chitradurga
in Karnataka and at Tandur near Hy-
derabad in Andhra Pradesh, said
Prahlada, Chief Controller of the
State-run Defence Research and De-
velopment Organisation (DRDO).
Cost of each test range is esti-
mated to be about 200 crore. Prahlada
said the radar-based sophisticated
communication system would useelectromagnetic spectrum for attack,
protection and warfare support to de-
stroy the combat capabilities of an
enemy. The prowess of electronic
warfare system was amply demon-
strated by the U.S. armed forces in
Iraq and Afghanistan. A prototype
EWS has been integrated with MiG-
27 fighter for test flights, Prahlada
said at the first India National Elec-
trotnic Warfare workshop, organized
by the India chapter of Association of
Old Crows (AOC), based at Virginia
in the U.S.
The Chitradurga aeronautical test
range for communication-based EWS
will be completed in 2012 at the
DRDOs 4,000-acre campus which is
about 200 km from Bangalore, while
the Tandur range will be used for non-
communication EWS. Currently, EWSystems are being tested in the IAF
range at Gwalior in Central India.
Our goal is to develop the
fourth-generation EWS by 2012 be-
cause without electronic warfare, you
cannot win a war. Once you have it
(EW capability), you have to test it,
you cant wait for a war to test it, he
added. The fourth-generation EWS is
being developed by the state-run De-
fense Avionics Research Establish-
ment (DARE) and Defense
Electronics Research Laboratory
(DERL). The naval and army ver-
sions of EWS will be developed si-
multaneously after the air version
gets integrated and becomes opera-
tional.
The defense scientist said the
countrys defense research and de-
velopment (R&D) establishmentsare able to meet about 50 percent of
defense requirements indigenously
and will scale this up to 70 percent
by 2020.
IIM-A Students with Helpline Against Corruption
India Developing its Own Electronic Warfare System
An electronic platform for gov-ernment payments to and from
individual households couldsave an estimated Rs 100,000 crores for
India, says a McKinsey report.
Saving this much money an year
could mean a reduction in the countrysfiscal deficit by more than 20 percent,or it can boost its welfare spending by
over 25 percent, or fund the entire costof the Food Security Act.
E-payment will ensure that around
80-100 million poor households inIndia will have unparallel access to se-
cure and convenient benefits directlyfrom the Government without the in-
terference of intermediaries. Accordingto the report titled Inclusive growth
and financial security, the present cost
for the implementation of national e-
payment infrastructure stands at Rs70,000 crores and so the system could
theoretically pay for itself in just oneyear.
A national e-payment system is acritical step in achieving Indias long
standing and fundamental goals of in-clusive growth and financial security
for its poor. The benefits to all stake-
holders of a modern, reliable and wellfunctioning payment platform are nu-
merous and substantial, the report
said. According greater penetratio
ment set-up is likage greater partici
rural poor citizen
central governme
goal of reducinhunger through itand housing subs
The McKinsey & Csuggests that electroni
tems improve the effect
ernment services to theimproved efficiency in
ment functions such asmaintain law and order
business opportunities bdelivery of new produc
E-Payment Systems Can Save $22 Billion
Indian Medical Industry tobe $14 Billion by 2020
Indian medical industry may touch
$14 billion by 2020 on account ofhigher private investments in the
sector and strong economic growth.According to the study by Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce &
Industry (FICCI) and Pricewater-houseCoopers (PwC), the market
stood at $2.7 billion (Rs 12,350 crores)in 2008.
Strong economic growth, in-creased burden of diseases, higher
public spending and private invest-
ments in healthcare and increased pen-etration of health insurance are the key
drivers for the growth in the sector,the study said. The report reveals that
there is a huge scope for innovation in
the industry, as there is a big demandfor it in the local market.
The study said that the epicenter ofthe innovation in this field is shifting
towards emerging economies like
India and China, since the advancedeconomies like U.S., UK, Germany,
France and Japan do not have the needfor frugal innovation. Also, the
emerging economies will have ahigher spending on R&D in the future,
which will provide the trigger for in-
novation, therefore witnessing morefunding from venture capital, private
equity, states the study.The report said, besides the suc-
cess in medical technol
would depend on fact portive investment com
ing capacity for qualitdemand and supply of h
The study also sug
the growth of the sectorthat the government i
spending in healthcare tof the countrys GDP fr
one percent and evolvenology clusters with com
for calibration and test
benefit small entrepren
in in
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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |14|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
ANSYS India partnerEntuple TechnologieATeN Systems &TechnologiesANSYS India recently announced two
partnerships with Entuple Technologies, a
tems and Technology. Entuple Techno
ANSYS sales channel partner in India foics design products suite where as ATeN
PAN India educational product distributo
ANSYS is a global innovator of simul
and technologies designed to optimize p
opment processes and these new partnersh
them to widen their reach and to serve c
prospects efficiently and effectively. To al
ple to use our software and get better resu
engineering, ANSYS continues to expan
its network of channel partners and direc
Together we are working to delive
ANSYS engineering simulation solutions
growing customer base. Entuple Techn
ATeNs solid sales and support capabili
ment to the engineering simulation ma
broad geographical coverage make them
ners for addressing opportunities in one
growing economies in the world, says Y
Regional Sales Director for ASEAN, Aust
and channel director Asia Pacific, ANSY
SAP & ISB provide benchmark-ing for Indian companiesBenchmarking is an established practice in several coun-
tries around the world. The U.S., UK and Japan, have
their well established practices of performance bench-
marking.
Realizing this SAP India, a subsidiary of SAP AG,
launched a comprehensive performance benchmarking
program for Indian companies in association with the
ISB. This program helps the organizations to assess the
impact of SAP on their businesses and understand thevalue of adopting best practice business processes. They
offer above 30 types of tailored benchmarking and best-
practice surveys and they are the only enterprise bench-
marking application software provider in India, as of
now.
More than 150 companies covering 20 industries in
India have already made use of this program. Other play-
ers in the global scenario are Winning Moves, Malaysian
Productivity Corporation, Global Benchmarking Net-
work, Best Practice Institute and Harvard Business
School.
Silvan Innovations Lab launchesBrahma, Dhruv & ShivSilvan Innovations Lab, an electronic product develop-
ment company that specializes in video surveillance an-
alytics and home automation solutions, launched new
products and unveiled their new logo in Bangalore re-
cently. Brahma, Dhruv and Shiv, the three IP based cam-
eras are built keeping in mind the problems faced in India
like power outages and weak internet connectivity and
so are equipped with inbuilt backup battery and data stor-
age.
Silvan also introduced their home automation solu-
tion, Smart Home Automation Systems, which handles
visitor management, home safety and home manage-
ment. Their new logo concept is infinity and the blue
color represents technology which together implies in-
telligent technology plus innovation multiplied to the
power of infinity.
The company also has plans to provide surveillanceas a service in the future and is presently concentrating on
the Indian market. We are on track to achieve a turnover
of 2 crores in 2010-11 and in the next quarter, our rev-
enues are expected to touch 12 crores in 2011-12, said
M. Giridhar Krishna, CEO of Silvan.
Tata DOCOMO launched3G in nine circlesBy launching 3G service in nine circles across India last
month Tata Docomo became the first private telecom
company to do so. "We have chosen Bangalore city asthe launch pad for our 3G services, which will also be
available across nine circles from Friday in phases. We
will complete the nationwide launch by December,"
said Anil Sardana, Managing Director, Tata Teleser-
vices.
Tata Docomo is also in talks with other service
providers in circles where it does not have spectrum for
3G service to its subscribers. "We are investing about
$500 million ( 2,250 crore) for the 3G rollout in all the
nine circles where we have secured airwaves in an all-
India bid early this year (May)," Sardana said.
Its 3G services would be available in Karnataka,
Kerala, Madhya Pradesh-Chattisgargh, Rajasthan, Gu-
jarat, Uttar Pradesh (West), Punjab, Haryana and Ma-
harashtra. Tata Docomo offered one-week free trial for
its 2G customers to try out its 3G services since the dayof launch and a week later announced the tariff plans
too. The 3G offering includes applications such as
video-SMS, video-streaming, mobile television (50
channels), ultra-high-speed data transfers and route-
finder.
Compiled By Hari Anil
Prakat partners with MitraJyothi to opens SoftwareAccessibility LabPrakat Solutions, a Bangalore-based Independent ServicesCompany, has partnered with Mitra Jyothi, a charitable
trust for assisting people with visual disability, to set up a
software accessibility lab at Mitra Jyothi. The aim is toimprove the usability and accessibility of software, web-
sites and mobile applications by people with disabilities.
By setting up an accessibility lab at the Mitra Jyothicampus, we are able to train the differently-abled to per-form software testing thereby providing them a permanent
means of employment. Secondly, we are also building our
capability for performing large scale and complex acces-sibility testing assignments. This partnership with Mitra
Jyothi endorses our belief that globally, software must bemore inclusive,said Anuradha Biswas, CEO, Prakat So-
lutions.Prakat will provide the infrastructure, training and as-
signments to the Mitra Jyothi community. The lab will
provide accessibility testing training to many of our stu-dents and will enable them to find employment and start
a new life, said Madhu Singhal, Managing Trustee ofMitra Jyothi.
Yahoo unveils Yahoo Messen-ger App for Android UsersYahoo! launches yahoo messenger app for android users
and updated their yahoo mail app for the same. Yahoo!
has added video calling capabilities to its yahoo messen-
ger and the messenger will work in harmony with the up-
dated mail, which lets users know when their messenger
contacts are online, have IM conversations and make
video calls from the mail app. These video calls have to
originate on the users computer and then can be contin-
ued on their android phone, which makes it a little incon-
venient.
The updates in the mail app include the ability to mul-
tiple Yahoo Mail accounts within the app, browse photos,
synchronize contacts on phone with mail and messenger
contacts, and chatting. Probably the biggest request wehad from users was for the ability to add multiple Yahoo
Mail accounts. Well we heard you loud and clear! You can
now add accounts and swap seamlessly between them,
says Lee Parry, Product Manager of Yahoo Mail, through
his Blog.
Anil Sardana, Managing Director,Tata Teleservices
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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |16|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
Author is Senior Managing Director of Trident Capital
VC TALK By Venetia Kontogouris
As a venture capital in-vestor, one of the first
things that I look for ina potential investment
is the entrepreneurial
qualities of the founders. Do they
have the intelligence, the drive, thevision, the skills and the persever-ance to take an idea or concept and
develop it to the point where it willbe accepted and even demanded by
the market? There are many charac-
ter traits common to successful en-trepreneurs that allow them to see
possibilities that others cant, thatmake them work harder and longer
than most, and that allow them to juggle many different tasks at the
same time. Many people believe that
entrepreneurs are born with the in-nate abilities required to be success-
ful and that it is something thatcannot be learned in school. While I
believe it is possible to learn t he spe-cialized skills and get the required
knowledge to invent new products
and processes, it is difficult to start anew venture without the unique abil-
ities of the born entrepreneur. For in-
stance, many universities developvery important and interesting new
technologies that lie dormant untilthey are rediscovered by someone
either within the university, or more
likely from the outside who sees the
commercial opportunity in the con-cept, and more importantly is willingand able to take the idea, dedicate
100 percent of their time and effort,and convert it into a viable product.
Once a concept has been in-
vented and developed, and personal,seed or angel funding has been se-
cured and a skeleton crew hired toprove the commercial viability of the
venture, one can get a good idea ofwhether the concept will be success-
ful. By this point the product is usu-
ally developed enough to getvaluable feedback from potential
customers regarding their willing-ness to purchase the product. This is
usually the stage at which a large in-stitutional investor, or venture capi-
tal firm, will get involved with a
potential Series A funding. The in-stitutional investor will now typi-
cally require that the young company
start behaving more like an estab-lished corporation with all of the re-
quirements expected of similarcompanies including such things as
more detailed financial statementsand controls, a formal hiring policy
and programs, an organization chart,
well defined allocation of time andduties, sales pipeline and budgets,
and more.Unfortunately it is usually very
difficult for the typical entrepreneurto make the required transition at this
stage in leading the company for-
ward. The personality traits thatmade him or her a good entrepreneur
are usually not the same ones foundin a person who has the right leader-
ship skills to take the company to thenext step. Some academicians have
examined the concept of entrepre-neurial leadership as a crucial com-
ponent of successful companies and
have studied ways of teaching it in a
university environment. What are thebehavioral characteristics that allow
someone to motivate and instill theirvision in a group of followers? The
challenge for a successful companyis to find a leader who can instill the
drive to succeed and excel among his
or her employees, combined withgood corporate governance, while at
the same time nurturing the entrepre-neurial drive and
spirit of innovation that made thecompany a success in the first place.
One of the few people who havemade the transition successfully is
Steve Jobs at Apple, who has beenable to become an inspirational
leader not just to his employees, butalso to the many consumers whohave made Apple such a global suc-
cess. Apples board of directors un-fortunately did not appreciate Jobs
leadership skills when they replacedhim with a corporate manager, only
to ask him to return when it became
clear a few years later that the com-pany desperately needed his particu-
lar brand of entrepreneurialleadership.
Several academicians have in factidentified three traits that exemplify
successful entrepreneurial leadership:
proactiveness - not waiting for cir-cumstances to define what you are
able to do but rather anticipatingchanging currents in the market before
they happen; innovativeness - theability to recognize changing needs
and develop new ideas and solve newand old problems in new ways; and
prudent risk taking - thecalculated risks in dev
idea or going after aThere are many establis
that have tried to systemtutionalize one or all o
teristics and the most s
been able to embrace albecause the CEO is hi
preneurial leader. Howamong the three is ver
there are many examplpanies have failed throu
phasis on one of these AIG and Enron com
having tried to be too taking too many risks.
The successful CEwho not only embodithese characteristics, b
one who can adapt to avironment and temper
and sometimes dictatrequired of a leader.
time, a CEO needs to
and drive among the emare more responsive to
demand consensus group empowerment ra
ply being told what to itous that many o
technology innovatio
Facebook, Twitter, thforces chatter, and clo
to name only a few, macompanies to foster in
risk taking within thewhile at the same time
discipline and accounessential for long term
Entrepreneurial
Leadership
Venetia Kontogouris
Severalacademi-cians have identifiedthree traits thatexemplifysuccessfulentrepreneurialleadership:proactiveness,
innovativeness andprudent risktaking.
The personality traits thaone a good entrepreneur usually not the same one
in a person who has the right leadersskills to take the company to the nex
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The Smart Techie
Afew decades earlier an in-
trepid breed of Indian entre-
preneurs made quite a
killing in the Silicon Valley.
These entrepreneurs Vinod Khosla,
Kanwal Rekhi, KB Chandra Shekhar,
Gururaj Deshpande and several others,
today no less than legends of the Val-
ley, are the epitome of fearless, tech-
nology wizards who made a mark in
the global IT scenario. Though much
of their success has been attributed to
the startup ecosystem of the West, onecan not over look the sheer grit, deter-
mination, confidence and mostly the
passion that drove them to achieve the
dizzying heights they reached.
A similar wave is ready to rise in
India today. The foundation of Indias
entrepreneurial ecosystem was laid
and led by stalwarts like Azim Premji,
NRN Murthy and Shiv Nadar, who ob-
served the opportunities in the IT serv-
ices space and went on to build global
giants like Wipro, Infosys and HCL.
They were responsible for bringing the
potential of Indian IT industry to the
forefront, albeit a services one. Now
post the outsourcing wave, a newbreed of young and dynamic entrepre-
neurs are trying to make a killing in
India, highlighting the potential of the
country as something much more than
a mere IT service provider. Heralding
the new wave of Indian entrepreneur-
ship this new generation is unorthodox
in their ideas, quick to assess opportu-
nities and most importantly unafraid of
failure. Further more, they are on the
threshold of creating a few legends of
their own starting a unique venture,
nurturing it and taking to the peak of
glory that not many have managed to
attain. Observing this change, in this
Leadership special issue, we bring to
you the story of four entrepreneurs,
who explored new avenues and man-
aged to grow their ventures from a
startup to renowned leaders in their re-
spective space.
The Trailblazers:In the last decade, India saw several
changes in its economic policies; a lib-
eralization wave which brought in sev-
eral positive changes for
entrepreneurs. The countrys ecosys-
tem is blooming with growth in infra-
structure, manpower, and finance.
Today, the countrys government has
risen to be one of the biggest support
systems for entrepreneurs.
But this was not the scenario in the
country when Anupam Mittal, ArvindKajaria, Sanjay Nayak and Deep Kalra
started with their entrepreneur dreams.
They literally had to create a market of
their own as the markets for what they
initiated did not exist in the country
then. The infrastructure present was
poor and there was lack of reputation
for the country in the global market.
The hardships they faced and how
they managed to survive in a highly
competitive and financial recession
prone market comes down right to
their total belief in their products and
companies and their sheer passion to
succeed.
Anupam Mittal,Chairman and Managing Director,Shaadi.comPost an MBA from U.S. when Anu-
pam Mittal came back to India he saw
that the internet industry has started
blooming here. In realization of this
huge potential he start
Solutions, a web deve
pany while also maki
portal.
During this period M
to meet a priest and th
choice for a life part
solely on the number
priest could carry and
individuals he would
Mittal. He wanted to
about it and that is wh
taking this on to an Intstruck him. Hence, Sh
launched. Back in 199
much competition, hi
professionals was in
thus he only required
ment to start the site.
technical professional
entire portal. During th
tomer feedbacks playe
in shaping of the websi
today.
Initially, the reven
subscription based; one
pay as per the number
wanted to receive. But
alized that Indians be
conscious were hard toline, the U.S. e-com
would not work. Users
pay until they fully re
from it. A different busi
to be set up and that i
Mittal did. For example
one can look at profil
proposals to the best
and only when someon
offer one would have t
payment one can con
communication with
party.
The growth had no
the initial few years. I
withdrew from web dev
ness and focused c
shaadi.com. By 2002 , t
brand was built. By 2
was set on building m
and as a result launche
Indias New Breed ofEntrepreneurs:
They came,They saw,They conquered!
Sanjay NayakDeep Kalra
Arvind Kajaria
Anupam Mittal
Be careful when youraise the VC funding,do not raise toomuch or too little.
Too little is ne asthat teaches you tobe smarter and
wiser the next time.
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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |20|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
a dating website and Mauj.com, a mo-
bile content provider. At the same time
Mittal wanted to see how he could ex-
pand the market for people looking for
a marriage. As per our analysis and
observation, Internet targeted only a
particular sector of the market and
most of the people coming to us were
from the age group of 21 to 35. This
age group majorly included individu-
als who were searching for partners
themselves instead of having their par-
ents or siblings looking for them. Thuseven after having newspaper classi-
fieds and marriage bureaus there was
still a need for match making solution.
We wanted to come out with a solution
which would encompass the tradi-
tional rituals and the modern culture.
Hence, we launched Shaadi Point,
explains Mittal. Shaadi Point, a net-
work of matrimonial centers across
India offers one-stop matrimonial
services from matchmaking to wed-
ding planning. It caters to parents and
helps combine traditional rituals and
modern culture together.
Over the years, the portal has
grown by leaps and bounds. Today it
has partnered with leading internetplayers like Yahoo, MSN, Rediff and
have expanded their presence pan
India and in the U.S.
Looking back, his learning from
building Shaadi.com, Be careful
when you raise the VC funding, do not
raise too much or too little. Too little
is fine as that teaches you to be smarter
and wiser the next time. Whereas rais-
ing money in excess is very dangerous
as one starts substituting capital for
revenue and making it your business
model, he says.
Determination is probably one of
the biggest valuable trait required for
an entrepreneur. But determination
without perseverance is useless. One
needs to be persistent as sometimes
things may not go in your stride. Thus
one must continue to strive, work hard
and come back into action. An entre-
preneur should be prepared to accept
failure, get up and be ready to take an-
other punch of failure he adds.
The bottom line: Entrepreneurs
who learn it the hard way attain wis-
dom and maturity faster as they learn a
lot from their experience.
Arvind Kajaria,Co-Founder and MD, 123greetingsArvind Kajaria once read the quote
There is nothing more powerful than
an idea whose time has come by Vic-tor Hugo, and these words literally
changed his life. His younger brother,
a technologist, was doing a research
back then in late 90s, when one of his
colleagues put out an e-greeting card
and sent one to Kajaria for the Christ-
mas of 97. He forwarded it to some of
his friends in the U.S. and in 16 days
this card had been sent and received
more than 32,000 times, which was a
big high. Coming from the advertising
background and having worked in the
U.S., Kajaria saw his calling in the In-
ternet space. He lost no time and
grabbed the idea of the greetings and
thought of merging it with the Internet
platform.
Thus we started
123greetings.com. The whole idea
was driven by sheer gut feeling and the
zeal to do some thing new says Ka-
jaria. Back in 98 the internet infra-
structure in India was not dependable
and all the advertisers were based out
of the U.S. and thus he shifted the
companys headquarters to New York.
During the years 1998-99, 123greet-
ings.com saw good business, and
scaled up rapidly. The fact that we
were in the heart of the market work-
ing with people who understood the
technology, and were surrounded with
advertisers who were eager to invest
in internet businesses was an advan-tage, he adds.
But good times did not last long
for this savvy entrepreneur. The dot-
com bust followed by 9/11 left the
company with high expenses and no
advertisers to support to dive revenue.
A lot of investment had already been
made towards technology, and Kajaria
and team were left high and dry. The
revenues fell by 15 to 20 percent of
what in was in the 99 and 2000. De-
spite all odds against him, nothing
could bring down Kajarias passion
and belief in his product. Thus instead
of closing down, he moved it back to
India. It was a monumental decision
but it helped us to reduce the cost atthe right time and to keep our focus on
product development, because if you
lose your focus on the user, it does not
matter what you do or where you are,
eventually you are not going to suc-
ceed, explains Kajaria.
But just like sun shines after a
stormy night, the journey for 123greet-
ings.com since then has been very
good. To cut a long story short, the
company ended last year by servicing
100 million users worldwide.
His take on his tumultuous journey,
Remember it is your dream, so do not
depend on someone else other to turn it
true. But at the same time you have your
limitations and cannot do everything. You
will have to depend on your team at some
point of time. The idea is to achieve the
balance of what to take control of and
what to let go.
Sanjay Nayak,CEO, Tejas NetworksBangalore headquartered Tejas Net-
works is one of the finest examples of
a successful product company from
India. Sanjay Nayak started Tejas to-
gether with Arnab Roy and Kumar
Sivarajan in the April of 2000 with $5
million funding from telecom entre-
preneur Gururaj Deshpande. But for
Nayak the journey began with a rocky
start. Soon after the inception of Tejas,
the 9/11 catastrophe happened and to-gether with it the world economy
came down and new telecom compa-
nies sank without a trace. As a whole
the telecom field encountered huge
loses, a whopping $ 1000 billion glob-
ally. It was an almost impossible situ-
ation for them.
But Nayak followed a simple
motto, control the controllablesand
so he and team decided to focus on the
controllables; build a good product, a
good team and conserved cash. He
also shifted the focus to domestic tele-
com market and which in the hindsight
saved the company. Today Tejas is one
of the major players in the Indian mar-
ket. They invested in new technologyand R&D unlike most global telecom
players and this turned out to be Tejas
biggest advantage.
The company has played a major
role in establishing credibility for In-
dian telecom products in the global
telecom market. In our early days,
many potential customers did not be-
lieve that an Indian company could
create a telecom product. It was diffi-
cult convincing them, but today we are
a great brand name in the market,
beams Nayak proudly.
Deep Kalra,Founder and CEO,Makemytrip.com
Makemytrip.com journey is that of anugly duckling turning into a beautiful
swan. After working with ABN Amro,
AMF Bowling and GE Countrywide
Deep Kalra realized Internet would be-
come the fundamental game changer
in coming years. The years 1999-2000
were a great time for startups. A dot-
com business could easily be started as
it required very little capital and VCs
were ready to invest in them so Kalra
started his company on the first of
April 2000. The venture started out as
India Ahoy - a high leisure travelers
site that later changed its priority to
what it is today makemytrip.com.
Neeraj Bhargava, Managing Part-
ner of eVentures helped with a $2 mil-lion funding for which a nave Kalra
gave away 70 percent of his company.
Luckily for him, with the dotcom bust
eVentures left India and made a dis-
tress sale and Kalra bought his com-
pany back. The belief in the business
was so strong that he went on, without
drawing a salary, for 18 months and
also encouraged two of his senior col-
leagues to do the same and they were
elevated to co- founder status.
In 2001 it became clear to him that
Indians were not buying tickets online.
The company struggled very badly in
financial terms, shrunk to half its pre-
vious strength and came reallyclose to
closing down. It wastheir belief in the
company and their passion that made
Kalra and his team to go forward.
Kalra eventually realized that there
was a huge NRI market in the U.S.
that could use its servi
focusing on them and
saved the company.
By 2005, with the i
e-tickets by Indian Rail
mon Indians started buy
line. Realizing this K
MakeMyTrip.com ba
September 2005 and in
any competition becam
of online travel in the
tus it still enjoys. The h
journey was when thelisted on Nasdaq this y
pany achieved sales of
in the financial year
2010. MakeMyTrip wa
daq on August 12 and
tion double to $900 mil
of listing. It sold for $2
against the listing pri
share on the opening d
opening for any compa
Nasdaq. The company
perfect example of wh
verance and belief can
They say fortune
brave. They treaded the
ativity, risk-taking attit
or flexibility, perseveran
as the five key skills
their armoury. Today th
glory and is inspiring a
way for many to follow
In our early days, many po-
tential customers did not
believe that an Indian com-
pany could create a tele-
com product. It was
difficult convincing them,
but today we are a great
brand name in the market
The venture
out as India A
a high leisure
elers site tha
changed to wis today
-- makemytri
It was a monumental
decision but it helped us to
reduce the cost at the right
time and to keep our focus
on product
development, because if
you lose your focus on the
user, it does not
matter what you do or
where you are,
eventually you are not
going to succeed
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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |22|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
Brands are not created every-
day. And the attributes thathave created successfulglobal brands like Fedex,
Starbucks and Nike are driven by reli-ability and consistency, while creating
an emotional engagement with theconsumer.
For Jai, a tech support executive, a
day at work means handling multiplesessions from customers in the U.S.,
Canada, United Kingdom and Aus-tralia that are challenged by the in-
creasing complexity of technology intheir home. He is true to his name and
background -- he is Jai Sharma from
India who is happy and proud to helpcustomers around the world. This is
the case with each of the 4500 techsupport executives working with
iYogi, across its eight delivery centersin India, providing tech support di-
rectly to customers. It is the first di-
rect-to-consumer services brand from
India, providing remote tech support
services to home and small businesscustomers.
Indian outsourcing gathered steam
when large teams of Indian call centerstaffers with made-up names and per-
sonalities would answer your cus-tomer service call for big charge on
your credit card. It took the world by
storm and saved millions of dollars formany western companies. But no
more. Now a new company, iYogi, istaking the global tech support market
by storm with a different businessmodel that embraces its Indian roots
and brand, while leveraging superior
tech sophistication, expertise and itsproprietary platform to remove user
frustration. The end result is great techsupport at a great price. We were
clear from day one on our goal to buildthe first global consumer services
brand from India, says Uday Challu,
Co-founder and CEO, iYogi. Using
the powerful combination of remote
Internet access and our global deliveryplatform, iMantra has enabled us tomake a real difference as our own
brand, not as a disguised third-partyservice under a big-brand umbrella.
Today when a customer in the US callsseeking technical support he/she
knows that she is talking to someone
from iYogi about 14,000 kilometersaway in India.
According to the U.S. Census Bu-reau data, 117 million Americans who
are above the age of 45 present a readymarket for direct-to-consumer tech
support. iYogi, a tech support startup,
spotted this need early and cashed inon it. Founded by techie Uday Challu
and marketing professional VishalDhar in 2007, iYogi is the first direct-
to-consumer services brand from Indiaand recognized as the fastest growing
remote tech support provider in the
world. iYogi deploys a 4,500-person
iYogi
ConsumerServices
India
the first
brand from
Uday Challu, CEOBy Vimali Swamy
operation on its global service deliv-ery platform answering tens of thou-
sands of complaints every day fromtechnology users, mostly in the U.S.
The company has managed more than
two million tech support sessionssince inception and today it handles
around 20,000 support inquires everday. iYogi has more than 325,000 cus-
tomers in the U.S., UK, Canada andAustralia, who have subscribed to an-
nual contracts for round-the-clock
service for their PCs and multiple de-vices that are serviced across eight de-
livery centers in India includingGurgaon, Pune, Hyderabad, Ben-
galuru, Chennai, Chandigarh, andKolkata
The Genesis
The company was founded when
Challu and Dhar met on a flight andquickly found they could work to-
gether on entrepreneurial ventures.Challu had earlier run a third-party
desktop support business in the 1980s
but shut it down because it proved to be ahead of its time. But now, he
sensed the emerging opportunity in re-
viving that business in a modern form.Borrowing from the outsourcingmodel of charging dollars per hour of
work, the two created iYogi as an In-
dian brand that sells tech support serv-ices online to users of computers and
other gadgets in the developed world.They also used the cost advantage to
compete with several US firms such asGeek Squad. Providing a subscription-
based service, a first-time caller is of-fered a one-year package costing from
$10 per month per computer to a flat
rate of $399.99 per year for multiplecomputers in a home or small busi-
ness. The service available anytime,allowing unlimited on-demand access
to tech experts that are extensivelytrained to manage almost every situa-
tion. iYogis platform-as-a-servic e of-
fering is delivered through iMantra,which integrates complex layers of
technology, processes, services, and a
unique proprietary knowledgebase fora seamless experience for customers.
The Differentiation
So how is a four-year old startup dis-
rupting the outsourcing space that hasbeen dominated by the likes 24/7, Pro-
geon, Genpact or companies like Ac-centure who have had their support
centers set up in India. For one, youwont find a technician adopting a
false persona while handling customer
calls. Secondly, it has invested inbuilding a scalable delivery platform
that provides a consistent experiencein a new service category third-party
vendor independent tech support.iYogi offers comprehensive support
for a wide range of technologies, in-
cluding hardware, Windows operatingsystems, software, peripherals and
multi-functional devicFor iYogi, the bus
the individual customenot a US headquartere
like an outsourced cu
centre for computer vcians at iYogi take su
cause subscribers havcomprehensive one-s
says Challu.iYogis service off
subscription-based tec
for digital homes annesses. Its global deli
iMantra, combines a sapplications called Sup
on-demand tech supthrough proprietary te
structure and its
processes which provand a consistent expe
tomers. Highly optimcombine iYogis uniqu
with tools that proactechnology for its cus
duce time for delivery.
Support Dock is atop applications that
mand tech support an
access to manage, optimcomputers and netwotively manages the he
chine, explains
Co-founder and PresidiYogi.
Through its proprithe company addresse
ever-growing market pendent consumers
The basicdistinction be-tween iYogi and itscompetitors is one
will not find atechnicianadopting a falsepersona whilehandling customercalls.
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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |26|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
W
hat comes to yourmind when you
hear the termLeader? Proba-
bly, you would
reply at the spur of the moment that, heor she is someone who can make peo-
ple work and combine their efforts andtalent to achieve certain goals of an or-
ganization. It might be the whole ideabut that is certainly not everything to
define a leader. Today, we live in aworld where talent is everything to sus-
tain an organization.
To manage every talent is a differ-
ent task altogether. In such a case, the
approach towards every talent is a
challenge for every leader and manag-
ing the most talented is the biggest
challenge because if they are managed
properly, the entire organization or a
large chunk of it gets managed. Vikram
Shah, President and Director, NetAppIndia believes, Nearly, 30 percent of
the people in an organization are the
most talented ones. Once these 30 per-
cent are managed properly, the rest of
the organization will get managed by
them. Deriving the maximum value
for the organization from the highly
talented people is the most important
key to a leader and to keep their moti-
vation level elevated all the time oneneeds to massage their ego, adds Shah.
Based on his experience, Shahidentifies some of the traits of highlytalented people and suggests solutionsto deal with them. It is not only the or-ganization which expects from them
but even their expectations from theirown caliber and from the organizationis much higher. Their performancemay have a high impact on the organi-zational growth but there is high main-tenance required for such talent as theyare usually seen to be more impatientand need attention from the authoritiesof their organization. There is hardlyany need to motivate them as they are
a highly motivated group of people andat times their motivation level discom-forts the management.
As the highly talented people think
differently, they put their ideas into ac-
tion and do not want to follow
processes and organizational hierarchy.
Though they have the capacity to deal
with complexities, they are complex
themselves but if a leader can under-
stand them as they express themselves
easily when they slip into frustration.Since the most talented employees are
often tagged as high maintenance
people, many might perceive that they
look for more income. If you ask me,
salary is immaterial to them. All they
need is appreciation and recognition in
their organization, says Shah.
The greatest challenge for any
leader in managing the most talented
employees is to identify the needs of
the organization and align them with
the target of the employees, so that the
needs of the talented people and the or-
ganization are balanced.
Talented people are the ones who
own the outcome, says Vijay Anand,
Vice President, India Development
Center, Intuit. For a leader, it is very
important to understand the mass ef-
fectively, so that the talented people are
not overlooked by the organization.
When Watts Humprey
defined innovation
as The process ofturning ideas into
manufacturable andmarketable form, he subtly maintained
the worthiness of ideation only when itcan be actuated in real world scenes. At
a broader level, the goal of innovation
is to do something better, invent some-thing new. The end ultimately is not for
the sake of producing new things butenabling an efficient and effective way
of solving problems and addressing so-cietys needs.
No technology development is a re-
sult of fling of seconds, rather its an in-cessant effort of years that develops
into a good product. Millions of invest-ment on a glitzy product will have no
impact on the hi-tech advancement. Itis the qualitative investment that mat-
ters than quantitative capital invest-
ment. For better quality we need bettertalent-pool. A look into the industry will
witness a growing tendency of majorMNCs flocking the Indian market to
get their R&Ds in shape, all thanks tothe low-cost talent-pool. The report re-
leased by NASSCOM and Zinnov
Consulting states that the major frag-
ments of the MNCs Indian subsidiaries
that are engaged in R&D and engineer-
ing operations make up $4.8 billion inexport earnings. But is that enough?
Cost-effective talent pool will not bethe ultimate USP for India in the long
term. The need of the hour is qualitytalent-pool, and a good number of
PhDs from the country, the number of
which is immensely low in the country.40 years back, almost two-thirds of
the graduates from the premier engi-neering institutes in India were seen
rushing to U.S. for their furthereducation and almost half of
them pro-
ceeded to do aPhD. The case
is no more samein India today. The
interest in higher edu-cation itself has reduced
to one-third, as everyone
has a job in hand even beforethey are out of the grad-
schools. Our success iscoming in the way of our
innovation. In the quest ofsmall time gratification
we are missing out on the
larger picture. The U.S.
produces about 1,500
puter science annually a3,000. By stark compari
nual computer science Planguishes at roughly 1
is slightly higher as thattion with roughly five pe
population size.
The biggest challengtry is the lack of indus
Research gains more ping the academic level,
tutes do not have enomaterialize the ideas. T
need of better flow of co
into the academia and grads build-up on thei
renew their interest on fTalk about industry inve
than 20 Indian firms sttop 1500 R&D investo
with of course Tata Gro
innovators standing at all the Indian firms. Th
even a single firm featuTop 50 in the lis
be an in
shake bedustry
throu
gram
ing moreresearch p
recognizinto encoura
tive minds
Being a
technology and dev
must for India, as Har
don said the worl
novation and
also be w
everyth
now it i
industrytakes n
towar
goal
coming f
Why is
Still A Challenge in India?Innovation
There should be an increasing
hand-shake between the industry andacademia through intern programsand facilitating more publications ofresearch papers
MANAGEMENT By Pragyan Acharya BUSINESS By Anonya Roy
i
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The Smart Techie |28|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
T
aking risks is not necessarily about dealing with un-
certainty as most of us tend to believe. Risk is an op-
portunity, an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to
prove ourselves. And being a leader, a person needs to findout the right kind of people to take risks with, this is what
Sridhar Jayanthi, Vice President of Engineering and Head
of India Operations, McAfee truly believes and follows.
After working for 14 to 15 years in the U.S., when Srid-
har moved back to India, his boss decided to take a risk with
him. Though Sridhar had not been employed in India be-
fore, his boss took a chance with him and decided to start
McAfee in India. That was a risk that s omebody took with
Sridhar, which proved to be a turning point in his whole ca-
reer.
But why do people take risks, while there are alterna-
tives? According to my own personal belief, all leaders in-
herently do take calculated risks all the time. Sometimes it
is according to the nature of the person and sometimes its
the nature of the position he is in that makes the person take
risks, says Sridhar.As a person, a leader may take a lot of risks, but com-
ing back to the organization, there are certain risks that he
is not ready to take. Sridhar, who has worked for startups
pretty much his whole career, has not done a startup in life,
and this, in his own words, is one of the biggest risks in the
industry that he hasnt taken yet.
Inherently even though there is so much of entrepre-
neurial spirit in India, risk is still not a very common thing
within organizations. Somebody who is an out of box
thinker, quite often is s ubdued, telling him, thats totally
crazy, you cant do such crazy things. So when somebody
decides to start up a new company, thats actually a huge
risk that one can take, because we all have come from a
background of conformity, says Sridhar.
Organizations in India, which is the hub of emerging
market and where startups are coming up every other day,
have almost everything undefined. Hence, companies here
in India need to open new doors and thereby taking risks in
order to achieve their desired goals. Risk is a necessity.
Its not even an option, everybody has to take risks if he
wants move ahead, he adds.
When it comes to taking risk in an organization, a sig-
nificant aspect is that what kind of a culture to be set up in
the organization that supports risk taking decisions. Tak-
ing risks with somebody in the organization is not onlyabout giving them responsibility, its also a matter of trust.
While the leader should show his trust on the people he
hires, the employees, at the same time, should be bold, gen-
uine and should have visibility, so that their employer can
take risk on them without any sort of hesitation, says
Rakesh Singh, Vice-President, Products and Managing Di-
rector, Citrix R&D India.
There was a time when Rakesh was heading the prod-
uct marketing department at NetScaler and when he joined
Citrix after that, he was asked by his CEO to head the R&D
center in India. At that point of time almost all the R&D
centers in India were headed by people from engineering
track, but despite from being a marketing head, Rakeshs
CEO decided to take the risk and it worked well for them.
Rakesh recalled this incident as one of the biggest risk that
somebody has ever taken with him.From a leaders perspective, according to Rakesh, a per-
son should have certain traits in him to win the respect of
his peers as well as his seniors. They have to showcase
some key characteristics that will put them in such a situa-
tion that their CEOs would like to take risk on them. Rakesh
said if a person wants to be seen as a risk taker and a bold
person, he got to be a risk taker and a bold person. After
that comes visibility, which means that the person should
come forward to take responsibilities. These are traits, said
Rakesh that employees in an organization need to have if
they want to be looked upon by their bosses.
While taking risk is necessary for both individual and or-
ganizational growth, it doesnt mean that we should step in
to something without having a look at it. One has to assess
what kind of a risk he is going to take, which means that it
has to be a calculated one, and if its not, its just negli-gence. As Sridhar often believes, Risk taking doesnt mean
that you go jump headlong into something that you dont
know. You have to assess what you are jumping into for
sure.
Great leaders take
calculated risk
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The Smart Techie
Lot of people talk about their
success stories and highlightupbeat instances from their
career which substantiate theirsuccess. But a person cannot
truly understand, appreciate and reit-
erate success unless they know failure.Failure, which in other words success
we have not seen, plays an importantrole in every successful leadership.
Shouvick Mukherjee, Vice Presidentand CEO Yahoo! India feel that the
biggest thinking and learning comesfrom failures.
Failure helps a true leader to en-
vision success. In fact, for a goodleader there is no such thing as failure.
Its a redefinition of success. Real suc-
cess awaits the one who admit failureand try to advance to the next level
without repeating it and instead learn-ing from it says Dr. P Anandan, Man-
aging Director, Microsoft Research
India, talking about how successfulleaders think.
A good leader always walks thetalk. He embraces the value and orga-
nizational culture and acts accord-ingly. Every organization nurtures a
work culture. In our organization weused to send boxes of alphonso man-
goes to the family members of each
employee specially mentioning theirnames. A particular year, I was abroad
on the occasion when things got
messed up and the mango boxes werenot delivered properly. So queries
came from the families asking why theboxes were missing this time. Simi-
larly we used to provide our team
members, employees and customerswith umbrellas during the rainy season
in Mumbai. So once you come with-out or forgetting the umbrella, even
the security right at the front gate askswhy you forgot your umbrella. All
these little things add to the work cul-ture and fun element at the work
place observes Amit Chatterjee, Vice
President & country manager, CAIndia, pondering how important value
system of a firm should be for a leaderin creating success stories.
Amit added that there should besomething extra in a leader which ca-
joles the people to follow him while ad-dressing the summit. During his talk he
pointed out that a good leader should
posses individual character traits likeability to objective listening, picking
the valuable points, good emotionalcontrol, a never say die attitude and the
ability to excite and bring energy tomembers of his team. He underlined
the fact that every leader should havethe gut and believe in playing it very
hard. He or she s hould not show bias.
Though the concept of charisma seemsclichd at this point, it is something that
is inevitable in successful leadership.He cited the example of Arjun Malho-
tra, co-founder of HCL, who madeeveryone close to him feel special with
his charisma. He also remembered
Mark, founder of a semi-conductorfirm in Noida, who impressed him with
his mannerisms and style.He called for sincerity of purpose to
be a major trait for anyone who aspiresto be a great leader. He or she should
believe in the mission and should be
committed to the rest of the team. Hereminded the audience that not only
success matters but the journey youtake to reach that success. Leaders in
any industry domain must also see to itthat they hire and work with people
better than them. If they are good in
communication they should hire peo-ple good in creativity and hence forth
adding complimentary values to yourorganization. He should not be giving
just a sermon but should set the exam-ple by enacting it, he repeated adding
that the guts to do it is something that
one develops over a period of time andwith experience. People need feed-
back. So if you under communicate itwill create perceptions which doesnt
do good. A leader shouldnt mind overcommunicating which will only return
positive results at the end added Amit.P Anandan took the occasion to
highlight leaders from outside the in-dustries for according to him 99 per-
cent of life lies outside industries andmost leadership can be seen outside in-
dustry. He cited the example of
Viswamitra, one of the saptarishis of
ancient Hindu mythology to underlineaspirational leadership. Once a king,
Kaushik instilled the aspiration to pos-
sess saintly virtues and becomeViswamitra after getting defeated by
Vasishta, another great rishi. He was adogged fighter and attained what he en-
visioned. Anandan also quoted the ex-amples of Akbar and Ashoka who
dominated the leadership quality by
embracing the opposites. WhileAshoka lived the message of peace
apart from fighting the violent battle ofKalinga, Akbar promoted Hinduism
and other religions, being a Muslimruler. He said that Gandhi and Budha
were also great leaders who never gave
up a bit for tehri goals of ultimate lib-eration.
Shouvick Mukherjee reminded thepoem which he learned at his childhood
named Chand aur Kavi which inspiresthe reader to follow his dream. He said
that the three things leadership,
dream and vision, are all important as-pects. He quoted an instance of his fail-
ure to explain his experience witheffective handling of success. After
coming back from U.S., Shouvick de-cided to create a product which worked
abroad assuming that it will work inIndia since it had great leaders, man-
agers, innovators, resented people. Howeve
not find success even ayear of hard work spe
him the lesson that ityou build cons
that a leader cr
dependent of ples needs or d
you are driving point B, you
more inclusivependent tells Sh
Amit Chspected an in
business unit
mode at this poof the company
ket value wasone day he briefed hi
goal of six million months. Every six mo
arrange a leadership gr
did detailed market scamps in hill stations
helped them to gainthose six months. W
firm, the leadership wall levels. He said tha
sion and the ability to
from the current stateare vital for any leader
ple, one should plawork the plan says A
This is the rigchange. The Indian tea
sible to the fact that
global since a businedeed global. In a glob
ductive developmenhead quarters level. Y
with them instead them. answered Ana
about when will Indiatus from that of a c
strategic up instead of
cisions from global ofconcluded with the
with the immense pot produce eminent lea
come one of the top thten or twenty years.
Traitsof aSuccessful
Leader
A good leader must possesindividual character traits likeability to objective listening,good emotional control, a
never say die attitude andthe ability to excite and bringenergy to members ofhis team.
MANAGEMENT By Renjith VP
BUSINESS
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8/8/2019 Smarttechie Dec 10 Issue
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The Smart Techie
The entrepreneurial scenario continues to grow rapidly. In1996, the global software market was worth $95 billion. Ac-
cording to International Data Corporation (IDC), in 2000 itwas estimated to be worth around $180 billion. This growth
in itself has had a number of important implications both forthe industry and more generally in terms of economic development. This
rapid growth, however, has also created problems for the industry. The in-
dustry remains chronically short of skilled manpower. In Europe alone,
it is estimated that the industry is short of about 500,000 skilled workers.Japan and the U.S. are also severely short of computer service person-nel. This shortage continues to provide good opportunities for countries
like India to take-up this slack and provide skilled people to fill the gap.
Even the R&D sector is becoming much more globalized and U.S.
R&D in particular is being externalized more and more of it taking
place outside the wall of big companies within their own R&D labs. All
these have provided a platform for countries like India to grow innova-
tively and increased the demand for leading innovation driven organiza-
tions in the country. Companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and others who
made use of the opportunity have come a long way. There are also sev-
eral organizations that are mushrooming in every corner of the country.
Even though the entrepreneurs in the country have got several ideas ma-
jority of the ideas remain just as ideas due to the difficulties in their exe-
cution.
Since 1999, innovative leaders and
entrepreneurs in India have dreamt of
creating a software product powerhouse,
moving away from the labor-for-hire
services model to create own products
that are winners on the global stage. Fi-
nally such a dream came true in 2008,
when India headquartered Zoho, a
provider of on-line business, productivity
& collaboration applications, was short-
listed as one of the top 10 enterprise
products of 2008. Zoho had only 10 peo-
ple in America and yet they managed toachieve big enterprise accounts in head
to head competition with Microsoft and
Google without taking a dime of exter-
nal money - having bootstrapped it from
the start. Thus was the stepping stone and
within 2 years of time India managed to
bring a drastic change in its entrepre-
neurial scenario.
Talking about the crux at which in-
novation in Indian ecosystem standstoday, Sanjay Nayak, CEO& Managing
Director of Tejas Networks says, Thetime has come to unleash the creative
potential of our scientists and innova-tors at grassroot level. Only then we can
makeIndia truly self-reliant and a leader
in sustainable technologies. India hashuge opportunities ahead and electron-
ics itself has got $400 billion by 2020.Even if it goes upto 2022 that doesnt
matter, what matters is the growth from$45 billion to $400 billion.
During his visit to India, Bill Gates
once said that India needs to move awayfrom low-cost labor toward high-end re-
search and development work. He sawthat the future for the Indian IT sector lies
in expanding its capability to handlehigh-end R&D work. And now we can
see his vision come true.
Today, technology is transforminginnovation at its core, allowing compa-
nies to test new ideas at speeds and pricesthat were unimaginable even a decade
ago. The price of failure has come muchlower now and in return that has become
an advantage for the companies who arewilling to try new things.
There is a huge shift in the globalmarket as well. Innovation will shift to
global locations where it is more effi-cient. The emerging markets like India &
China are driving the growth today. In-novation needed to address emerging
market needs, like bringing products that
are affordable, should also be able tomeet high-quality solutions. Multina-
tional companies also require new scaleat speed approaches to penetrate the de-
veloping worlds increasingly prosperousconsumer markets.The rapidly growing
ranks of middle-class consumers spanacross a dozen emerging nations, not just
the fast-growing countries which include
almost two billion people, spending atotal of $6.9 trillion annually. Next
decade this will increase onto $20 tril-lion. This will be about twice the current
consumption in the U.S.
This offers an opportunity for earlywinners to gain lasting advantages. To
become winners they have to be distinc-tive, companies need to figure out how
to grow, sharpen their brand image, andat the same time improve their return on
investments. We should develop a com-
mon feeling that if someone else in theworld can do why cant we do? There
may be cases where 99 percent willspeak about why we should not do. But
we should search for the 1 percent ofpossibility and explore it, adds Nayak.
This might be most challenging but there
are also certain advantages to take upthese challenges. As per him, there are
three Ms that are critical in this context.Market: Among the major
economies in the Asia-Pacific region,Indias private domestic consumption as
share of GDP, at 57 percent in 2008, wasthe highest, according to an analysis by
the McKinsey Global Inprivate consumption-to-G
that domestic consumptiservices is a major cont
real GDP. In India, domtion is one of the key re
economy was able to reg
level of growth, a good efor both domestic and ov
Manpower: India hapool in the world, got
workforce both in technmanagerial fields. As c
developed and some of countries India has high
people in the working ag