Nasscom Conclave: Advice, Knowledge, and Guy who Thinks Different Date:   Wednesday , November 04, 2009 “Pay zero rupees for tools, pay zero rupees for marketing, and pay zero rupees for people,” says Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures. What would you think of this suggestion? You might have various doubts and think it is impossible to do so. But the times are changing and so are business strategies and marketing platforms. The age of Twitter and Facebook is here and Kawasaki suggests that companies make full use of these tools. Kawasaki was speaking at the Nasscom Product Conclave and Expo 2009 held in Bangalore. In his 40 minutes presentation, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist inspired around 1,000 attendees to think differently as well as to spend differently. He said that companies shouldn’t pay for tools, as a lot of tools are available on open source. Marketing can be done for free if Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are used effectively. Why pay for people? Kawasaki says that companies should make full use of interns who are ready to work for free just to gain some experience. People working for free might not be available in India, but interns can be very useful and can be hired at a minimal salary. Product companies should only build products, which they want to use. The product should be something unique and should be able to jump the curve. He also suggests companies to ship the product without spending too much time on testing. Use customer’s feedback to fix the problem through patches. “The days of writing perfect software without bugs are long gone. It does not take a perfect software to sell,” he added. Indeed many will raise their eyebrows at this suggestion. Som Mittal, President of Nasscom, said even though there is an economic slowdown, the IT sector in India has progressed dynamically. “Ten years back the whole industry was two million dollars. We are now 50 billion dollars just in exports. We can write our own success. People are ready to fund now, and new opportunity and dynamics are appearing,” he said. He advises companies not to wait for recession to get over. Economies don’t necessarily have to recover to see growth. Companies have to play a crucial role to make the Indian IT industry better. “The role we should look for ourselves is not to just meeting the demand but to be a catalyst of change,” said Mittal. He also strongly suggested that the next three four years are going to be very crucial and the growth will come from uncharted territory. The telecom industry in India has been in the limelight for all the right reasons. Recently, 27 new mobile handset vendors have entered the already competitive Indian mobile market. Due to the recent additions, India now has a total of 12 mobile operators. 3G auction is already attracting overseas companies, which are eyeing the subscriber base of 400 million mobile customers in India. On top of that, much of the rural market in India still remains untapped. The session on product strategies in telecom sector in the Nassom summit discussed the strategies and innovative products, which new and upcoming companies in this space can develop. Sangeet Chowfia, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of Comviva, felt that all companies always do better in domestic market but Indian telecom market is very challenging as operators have ‘extreme pricing pressure’. Companies have to build credibility in India before they can think of expanding to foreign shores. However, Chowfia said that Indian operators are very much interested in new products, provided they increase revenue. Rajesh Jain, Managing Director, Netcore Solutions says making a product is one of the least important thing as customer acquisition, raising capital, and an organization to manage the growth and profits are more important. He also says the company should be clear on its customer base. “Often you are building a product thinking yourself as a customer. It is important to define who the customer is,” he said. One of the most interesting sessions of the Nasscom summit was a discussion on the myths faced by applicants and startup companies when it comes to working for a startup. The most common myth prevalent among applicants is that working for a startup is risky and insecure. Viswanath ‘Vishy’ Ramachandran, CTO of Webaroo said that this is not true; as it completely depends on the company a person joins. Sometimes it also happens that employees working for big companies will get thrown out for not performing. The biggest mistake that many startup companies make is by handing over the hiring process to HR and recruiting companies. Hiring process should be handled by senior management officials, if not the founder, to instill confidence in the applicants. Though budget is a concern for startups, hiring the correct talent is very essential for them. The keynote session at the end of day one of the Summit was by Rajesh Hukku, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Financial Services Global Business Unit, Oracle. He advised product companies not to get over-involved in a product. On the other hand he also suggested that companies should keep improving their products. Companies should have something unique about their product that is not available in the market. “If you really want to be globally successful you don’t want to be the seventh guy chasing the idea,” he said. When one of the big IT outsourcing companies was hit with a scam, Indian government turned to Kiran Karnik, former President of Nasscom for help. He was chosen as the Chairman of Satyam’s Board of Directors and within six months he has managed to help Satyam recover lost ground. Karnik says that Nasscom is playing a very important role in India. “Nasscom has created a framework where TCS, Infosys, and Wipro co-exist while they compete for the same customers that Nasscom helps to facilitate interaction with,” he says. Discussing on the challenges faced by product companies Pallab Chatterjee, MD and Operating Partner, Symphony Technology Group said, “Product firms have to contend with shorter product lifecycles, reducing margins, prices as well as rapidly shifting brand and consumer loyalty. In order to remain competitive they require to continuously deliver high value breakthrough innovations that exceed value expectations of the customers.” When a startup wants to sell its product to a big company it has to first go through the Chief Executive Officer (CIO). One of the sessions in the Summit discussed the problems faced by product companies while approaching CIOs and what CIOs had to suggest to these startups. Ajay Dhir, CIO, Jindal Steel and Member - Advisory Board, CAI (CIO Association of India) said, “A startup needs to be an early mover and risk-taker and their products should be scalable.” This is the most crucial point, which CIOs seek when a startup approaches them. In the last session of Nasscom, the innovators and VC firms discussed, debated, and deliberated on VC funding versus bootstrapping. Naeem Zafar, who was moderating the discussion said, “Every company has to do bootstrapping, as it’s not possible that you just start the company and will get the fund from VCs or Angels.” Also, the fear of losing control over one’s company is one of the reasons why many entrepreneurs hesitate to be VC-funded. But according to Ashish Gupta, Managing Partner of Helion Advisors, “VCs do not want control. They help you to aim better.” He added that one should always have strong independent members on board who can bring in practicality to the table. Nasscom Product Conclave and Expo has always been an exciting gathering of IT professionals and budding entrepreneurs. But it seems that every year the number of product companies and the crowd is increasing. Indian economy is rising high on optimism and the next three to four years will be very crucial for the growth of the IT industry.