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)

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