NASSCOM Emergeout Conclave 2009

In the NASSCOM Emergeout Conclave 2009 that happened today in Taj Connemara, Chennai following were discussed.

Focus, Sales & Marketing tips

• Compare AppLabs (Won’t do anything other than Testing) and FxLabs (Yes to everything)
• Latch on to your customer’s cash flow, not back office, not to cost centre
• email and call prospects from India, but meetings face to face in USA (or your target market). Tradeshows don’t work (50-100 out of 1500 people in a tradeshow should be targeted before the end of it at minimum). Direct presence is very important.
• Webinars are effective, quality of leads are very high
• Google Ads are only for contacts. Converting contacts to prospect is a very labour intensive task
• Focus more margin business (Not on topline alone). Everyone has a pain, you should have a painkiller you can sell
• Customers abroad are now open to working with SME. Use data from your own last quarter, not last quarters
• Entrepreneurs have Zero Business or Marketing Knowledge (in general), yet they spend not more than 5% on Marketing & Sales.
• Salespeople can do repetitive business only, that leaves some else to do the game-changing thoughts & work out strategy
• IT Leaders should learn from Politicians
  • Politicians always Play to their galleries
  • Politicians ensure they get themselves to most attractive position
  • No EGO/Emotion & No Baggage
  • Maximize Value the best
  • Realize their weakness

Indian Domestic IT Market (most of the below points were from the panel chaired by Anil Bakht of Eastern Software Systems)

• India Domestic IT has huge challenges, who are we fooling?. Can one of the large SIs today stop US/UK and look only at India. All the talk about e-governance and the size are all junk, especially for SMEs. Unless Biggies start a trend here, invent ways to make it work, this is not going to work. They have to educate and create the market
• Pricing has failed too, too high for domestic consumption
• We always have in-house teams as competition in every Indian Enterprise, they will outsource their core business processes but IT will always be done in-house. No respect for specialization. Partnerships don’t work in India, Tier II Companies are a little willing, but Tier I companies are not. All said cost of failure is low in India
• Longer Decision Cycle. Even 50-100 Lakh deals take 6-12 months. No eagerness to go to market faster and get business advantage
• No commitment from company, even to commit their own people to work with IT vendors in supporting them
• No co-ownership/partnership or willingness
• Globally Fixed-Bid Projects are 35%, but in India, 90-95% are fixed bids

Tips

• Start believing in yourself, start believing in your company and solution
• Start charging for your solution/service right from first go or ask the customer to take a walk – no free work. You have to be ruthless and arrogant in Indian Market
• Cash is KING
• Risk reward model is only for biggies
• Prepare in your projection & expense spreadsheets, cost/salary for yourself – make money
• Try for two quarters and if nothing works, close

Mr.Phaneesh Murthy, CEO of iGate

• Disruption and Discontinuity, Black Swans have landed in our life, once in a lifetime activity. By definition of a black swan is that all the parameters are now same for everyone, that’s the beauty of the situation
• 80’s accounting firm & SAP created the split of product & implementation
• 90’s – Indian companies are doing it faster & cheaper
• Current event is a cost disruption
• $900B is current bank losses, 1.5-2 Trillion has to happen in total, financial sector spend is reducing 20-25%. Other industries are cutting by 5%. Massive amounts of cost reductions
• Pitney Bowes innovated in last century by having convenience of franking machines inside Walmart stores
• 60Billion out of 1300Billion – only 5% of the IT Services market is addressed by Indian IT firms, so not all slots are taken
• If you have never failed, you have never pushed the envelope
• OUTCOME BASED = Process Innovation + Software Innovation. With this model you become Market Minus for the Company, most of the others are COST PLUS for the company. Take control of business & technology. Partner to offer outcome-based pricing. Control technology costs. Customer pays for business value. Between from now to 2013, 20% of world will move to this model
• In the last two decades, Indian IT Industry as a whole screwed the whole industry. We were the guardians. In 1980, the 90s we created a fear, we Pooh Poohed on all the great case tools that came. Biggies don’t want that to change In last 20 years, there is no significant development in software industry
• Create your own rules, change the model. People are measured not by what they do, but they are measured on number of people who report to them
• While INFY & Wipro were doing the same, same clients. In Branding INFY in early days it was about building the image of a clean company, filling GAAP reports in Six Countries, Nine different languages and so on
• Reasonable people will never get done anything, unreasonable people will get it done. So push!
• I am optimist, I am not that optimistic about plain KPO, it was a supply and demand side constraint (BUM Seat Model)