The shore is near, together we’ll make it through!

I’m bleeding, hold me tight! Wait for a few moments the shore is near, Together we’ll make it through!

No, I’m not narrating a hollywood scene. Listen closely to your heart and what does that so elusive client of yours who says I don’t have enough money to continue on paying you mean? The economic conditions have taken a toll!

Why are you still sitting on that seat? Go, this is the time to re-assure your client that you are always there in times good and bad! Its always easier working as a team and innovating together, sailing through the rough tide, rather than trying to make it through, on your own. This is the time for strengthening your relationships. Your clients business wants a makeover. The business processes need innovation. Go hold his hand, he needs you now! Why should I do it?

Well, the answer may not come to you right away, but let the conditions stabilize and this client would always stick around.

But how do I do it? Times are equally bad for me as well! What do I suggest him when I am innovating myself? When I fear of losing him and I have to acquire new clients myself!

Well, first things first, acquiring a new client would take you much time as compared to what it takes in retaining an existing client. Secondly yes times are equally bad, thus what you need are innovative ideas which would help you-:

1. Explore new market opportunities
2. Monitor your ROI, by focusing on meaningful investments
3. Innovate your business processes (Ex: looking at innovative methods of reaching relevant traffic to increase sales in a cost effective manner)
4. Position your offering and Brand to the relevant traffic, being cost effective at the same time

So how do I do it?

Well, what about Internet? Its another thing being 500+ on LinkedIn and famous on Facebook, but how do leverage your brand to attract potential customers through these Social Media?

Yes, you have got it right, SOCIAL MEDIA!

A simple yet powerful example are the recent presidential elections held in the US, which had Barack Obama rising up from nowhere, shattering 26 years of political force (Mccain) with just 4 years of relevant and effective branding online.

So how do you explain the benefits of an accurate social media model for your clients’ business?

Ask your client does he know why Barack Obama is the President-elect and Mccain is not!

If your client does know it, well, half your work is done and if he does not hmmm…you have a perfect playground to set your rules!

Strange it may sound, but if we trail the campaigns of both Obama and Mccain, one of the biggest differences that takes you where you least expect it is the effect of properly defined, structured and followed up Social Media. Obama’s campaign team leveraged the Social Media aspect of the internet so effeciently that Obama had a clear cut lead over Mccain online.

One of the best blogs on the internet which provides elaborat figures as to how Social media made all the difference, I found is: http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

NEARLY 6000% MORE PAGES ON Barack Obama’s website than Mccain’s.

Okay so lets dwell deeper…into figures…

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS/WEBSITES

Social Media Website	Barack Obama	John McCain	% Lead	Leader
Facebook	567,000	18,700	2932	Obama
Facebook Supporters*	2,444,384	627,459	290	Obama
Facebook Wall Posts*	495,320	132,802	273	Obama
Facebook Notes*	1,669	125	1235	Obama
MySpace	859,000	319,000	169	Obama
MySpace Friends*	844,781	219,463	285	Obama
MySpace Comments*	147,630	none listed	147,630	Obama
Twitter	506,000	44,800	1029	Obama
Twitter Followers*	115,623	4911	2254	Obama
Twitter Updates*	262	25	948	Obama
Friend Feed	34,300	27,400	25	Obama
Youtube	358,000	191,000	87	Obama
Youtube Videos Posted*	1,819	330	451	Obama
Youtube Subscribers*	117,873	none 29,202	117,873 304	Obama
Youtube Friends*	25,226	none listed	25,226	Obama
WordPress.com	19,692	14,468	36	Obama
Flickr	73,076	15,168	382	Obama
Flickr Photostream*	50,218	No Profile	50,218	Obama
Flickr Contacts*	7,148	No Profile	7,148	Obama

Search Engine Results For “Barack Obama” and “John McCain”

Search Engine	Barack Obama	John McCain	% Lead	Leading
Google	56,200,000	42,800,000	31	Obama
Google News	136,000	371,620	173	McCain
Google Image	24,200,000	8,620,000	181	Obama
Google Video	136,000	89,800	51	Obama
Google Blog	4,633,997	3,094,453	50	Obama
Technorati	412,219	313,497	31	Obama

Internet Presence For Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s Offical Websites

Internet Presence	Barack Obama	John McCain	% Lead	Leading
Google Pagerank	8	8	0
Pages in Google	1,820,000	30,700	5828	Obama
Yahoo Links-Pages	643,416	513,665	25	Obama
Yahoo Links-Inlinks	255,334	165,296	54	Obama

So what do all these figures say? My client is getting confused!! What should I do?

Now you actually do not have to say much. Your client says he has multiple options in the internet domain who provide services at a lesser cost then why should he still go with you?

So its simple, either your client’s campaign could be Obama’s or Mccains.

What does this signify?

Well, in the Online Marketing space its not just the quality that matters, its also how well does your online marketing solutions provider (partner) unedrstands your business domain. How well does he/she understands your objectives and goals and then charts out a workable architecture, that’s how you should choose your online marketing partner.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/11/13/the-shore-is-near-together-well-make-it-through/

Yes We Can!

Try googling “yes we can” and the TOP two results that appear are related to none other than Barack Obama, the US President-elect.

Though Obama may not have remembered to invite our Mr. Prime minister at a meeting of leaders held (as in the news channels), this post is more about tracking the Obama Trail!

So is Barack Obama the first US “social media” President elect?

Watching Obama’s victory address, I could feel here in India, what a connect he makes with his words with people. I read sometime back somewhere “people move when their emotions are moved” and wow Mr. President elect, you’re on the move already! So many people in tears, believing in real change, it was as if people could feel a change in the air! Oprah (the famous star show host) in tears and then cheering for Obama clearly showed what an effect he leaves! Well, So much for Brand Obama.

What motivates me to discuss about Obama on this paltform? SOCIAL MEDIA!!

Yes!

Web sites have termed Obama as the first “social media” President in the US history. He’s the first one to understand and harness the power of the sharing and collaboration platforms available on the web, to reach out effectively to even the remotest and the passive voters. Obama’s campaign team leveraged the power of this media to its righteous advantage! not just blogs, pictures, videos, wiki’s, Tweets and talk about all of these tools on the net!

So here;s a glimpse into Obama’s social media world:

1. Barack Obama’s blog: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog
2. Barack Obama on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/barackobama
3. Barack Obama on Twitter: http://twitter.com/barackobama

So now you know where those 600 million dollars came from? Every American pitched in those 10, 20, 25 dollars they had and became part and witness to history!

So much for Obama, well the power behind the most successful campaign in the political history of the US has been the social media. Today we’re discussing the biggest financial crisis since the great depression, corporate cutting down on the advertising budgets and the rest. I personally would suggest people (both individuals and coroporate) to look at innovative methods of exploring new potential markets and reaching out to the relevant traffic and communities on the internet.

So you’re a part of Orkut, LinkedIn etc. and you may well boast of a 500+ links, but how many of them could truly be converted into potential relevance to your work, that is still a question.

So how do you go about building that elusive brand? Position your product right to the relevant market?

Go connect! Get linked! Create SIG’s (social media platforms, common interest groups). Let people find you and it’s been proven they do! A simple example in this case could be, the links I’v provided above, there would be a multitude of the EMERGE community members who would click and be directed to these pages, and ahy would you click? May be to know more about Obama or be interested into the right Social Media Market.

Innovation is the name of the game now and businesses understanding it right at the right time would EMERGE out winning!

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/11/09/yes-we-can/

Outlook for Indian software product business

Blogging the Software Product Business meet @ NASSCOM, Delhi LIVE!

Key findings, Nov 2008 – research finding, Zinnov.

The NASSCOM software product study, what is it that we lack and how to help homegrown businesses go global was the focus for the research finding. We looked at the Silicon valley and other parts of the globe, exhibiting similar growth patterns in India could result into opening newer vistas into hugely untapped local markets.

First 45 minutes:

SO HOW DO WE DO IT?

We touched upon the various Indian SME’s, CIO’s and global CIO’s and why do they look at India into the product domain? In Banking products you have to look at India, have no other option.

• The Indian s/w product industry has witnesses an accelerated growth of 44% over the past 3 years

• While the top 5 players dominate, expansion in the tier-11 forms and startups has helped broad base the industry structure

Post studying over 500 products…

• Growth in s/w product startup activity over the last 3 years has also helped strengthen the industry product portfolio

Increased activity in the Indian software product industry is being witnessed only after 3 decades of its evolution about 350 companies got registered between 1985-1990, but all of a sudden the MNC’s were free to business in India, and hence Indian companies started slowing down.

If it all started very well why are we not going good?

The challenges being faced-:

1. Small size of the local Indian market
2. Lack of R&D talent
3. Lack of VC investment in the 1985-1994 era
4. Lack of distribution networks into the global markets
5. MNC’s came to sell their products, so they were able to grab the share
6. Parallel emergence of IT outsourcing

WHAT HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST 3 YEARS?

1. Talent pool
2. VC funding available for products, amost 273 VC offices set up in India
3. Emergence of incubation centres – very important for infrastructure and mentoring for such young companies
4. Role models – people who have been there, done that are now doing it in India
5. Market development – there is a huge market in India, about 35 million SMB’s to be tapped into
6. Technology disruption – an interesting trend, creating a level playing field for Indian companies, so the coming of an MNC within the same market does not hits the Indian counterpart

Dwelling DEEP into the above point now-:

• Entrepreneurs are being helped immensely with the market size and incubation centers

• Over time Indian based software companies have built highly successful product businesses

Indian software market is growing 2-3 times as the global market. High untapped opporttunity for entrepreneurs. Local requirements are huge. No one has actually figured out the right strategy for the local market.

The software building levers are changing and the way softwares are built are being changed:

1. Cloud computing/Vitualization/SOA/Open source
2. Delivery models as – SaaS

Innovation in delivery model has led to a radicl shift in global software distribution processes. SaaS has created new markets for SMB’s, hence newer markets are opening up, which sounds as opportunity for emerging entrepreneurs. Going forward we see a huge upsurge into the SaaS and such business software delivery models.

BASED ON THE OPPORTUNITY WE REALIZED

There is a huge opportunity for Indian businesses.

1. By 2050 we have a market size worth 350 billion dollars
2. BFSI sector
3. Telecom
4. BI and Analysis
5. ERM
6. Security
7. Retail
8. Storage
9. Mobile Applications
10. Online Gaming
11. SEM

Online search and marketing business is a highly successful business globally. In India its still to be structured more. Currently its a 100 million dollar market and growing at 33% YoY. There, hence is a sizeable opportunity for the Indian companies.

Action across four themes will help India based software companies to achieve accelerated growth.

1. Influencing the market
2. Enhance the talent pool
3. Strengthening the capital ecosystem
4. Facilitaing the support system

OUR STUDY SAYS: there is no BRAND built for Indian companies to put there products on the global domains.

Doing trade development efforts. There are other parts of the world where we can get high value. Leverge partnership models.

Global CIO’s don’t understand there is an option in India, how do we bridge that gap? How do you address piracy? Cost of product in India is very high, how do you address that?

Sustaining current growth momentum requires more active engagement amongst the various constituents of the s/w product ecosystem.

For entrepreneurs its immensely necessary to tap into these:

1. Idea and concept
2. Have a strong market research backing the Bplan
3. Build a prototype
4. Flexibility to change the idea/concept

Software product businesses require significant investments and it takes 36-48 months. So how do you so it?

Leverage partnerships. Ecosystems across the business value chain of the software products can help in rapid expansion of the business.

The session pre tea drew to a close with an interesting Q&A with discussions from the mind and mouth of an entrepreneur.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/11/07/outlook-for-indian-software-product-business/

Who Dares Wins! – The valedictory session @ the NASSCOM EMERGE OUT Conclave!

The valedictory session @ the NASSCOM EMERGE OUT Conclave!

Its been a good long day of learning and a multitude of valuable lessons for startups and emerging companies.

What better than Mr. Kiran Karnik and Mr. Raman Roy delivering the session. A fiery charged up entrepreneur, discussing his Four ventures! Four ventures one may say, well he dared and created 35000 jobs! An answer worth to people who challenged Raman!

I cant write a great business plan, do you think DELL, Microsoft knew precisely all the problems? Did they know all what the problems could be? Well, I respect simple thought dare, and all these companies did dare, says Mr. Raman Roy, the founder Quattro BPO.

Initiating his talk by defining the word ‘WIN’ for the audience, Raman took the whole room to a different high! Sharing his story on how he stormed out of his American Express office and still be in touch with the HR guy who dropped the shell by daring him to either be successful or be sacked! Well a true spirited guy, Raman evolved! And today Quattro is the proof.

With strong learnings in the presentation, Raman has effectively conjured up the thoughts of all the business concepts.

Talk about Ford motors, well did you know they grew trees? Implementing quality control is an absolute essential today.
- Raman Roy!

Answer to one of the questions from the audience on in-sourcing.

Somebody stood up and dared to say, I’ll make a one lakh car with the words, a promise is a promise, point well taken Raman. Well when Mr. Tata said it, it was taken as stupid, silly…well, look at it now!

Nowhere in the world KFC offers full Veg meals, call it silly? Pretty revolutionary says Raman!

The session is being concluded by Mr. Karnik by re-iterating Raman’s high energy words which have truly inspired people in these difficult gloomy times for the markets, to which Raman simply replies yeah they are going bad, but there is still money to be made out of it! Somebody would have to go security by security leveraging something. There is an opportunity. The needs have undergone a change and we have to be nimble enough to understand. In the short term there is an issue, I agree, says Raman, but now the kind of opportunities that will now EMERGE are different.

Its time for new opportunities says Mr. karnik to the issue.

Video to be uploaded soon.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/29/who-dares-wins/

“On-Demand business in India” – (un)Conference session at NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave

At the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave on 29th September, New Delhi, we will be putting forth an interactive session on “On-Demand business in India”.

The session would be led by Kishore from PK4 technologies and Arvind from Movico Technologies and this would be a unique mix of a segmented approach with the platform providing enough space for the participants to interact and seek clarifications and share experiences.

We invite the EMERGE community to share what value would they like to take away from the session. Your responses would help us in creating a more customized session with a high value proposition for the participants.

Companies, world over, are investing large sums of money to grow their top-line revenue while maintaining their focus on profit. They are being cautious about over heads, and when they do invest, they are looking at measurable returns, broken down in months and not in years.

Call it survival tactic in a rapidly changing business world, where change is driven by a whole new set of emerging business development tools as SaaS, which support the model of On-Demand Business and SOA.

With new business models such as SaaS, Cloud Computing in place, more and more companies are leveraging web technologies, thereby supporting enourmous economies of scale in deployment, management, and support for the application through the SDLC.

The session on the “On Demand business in India” would be structured on the SaaS model, which would have anchors introducing the key issues which would be presented to the audience, (acting as the multi tenant’s), thus we invite high interactivity and creativity.

We intend in creating high value propositions through all the sessions at the EMERGE OUT Conclave, which would be possible only through your inputs.

Looking forward to your suggestions.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/08/on-demand-business-in-india-unconference-session-at-nasscom-emergeout-conclave/

Higher Employee Engagement Today Does Not Necessarily Reduce Attrition

Higher Employee Engagement Today Does Not Necessarily Reduce Attrition

What happens when you have a room full of HR pro’s from the industry? Well, sparks fly, literally but in the minds! Human Resource, one of the most crucial parts of any organisation today has evolved and how! A team of experienced human resource professionals came together on the 29^th august at VYK, NASSCOM office, a revival of the NASSCOM HR Best Practices. Mr. Aadesh Goyal, Chairman, PeopleStrong HR services, graced the occasion, with his thought provoking address to the members present.

Known for his meticulous business ethics, Aadesh, from the very beginning of the session, had the participants engrossed in the discussion.A two-way discussion ensued, which had innovative contributions by the fraternity. With a strong hold into the HR industry, Aadesh started by discussing the basics, which essentially helped in breaking down the ‘myths’, and giving a new shape and direction to what works, and how as a HR professional you need to mould and create customized solutions for your organisation, in accordance with industry standards. A heady mix of “theory” in the form of an engrossing power point presentation and “practical experiences” which discussed in detail how various companies across the board approach the problem and the various successfully implemented solutions.  Some of the key words discussed in the forum which created the ground for the talk were:Employee engagement, Compensation, Right Staffing, Attrition, Quality, Layered process, Deferred compensation, Line managers. The key words, though initially scattered across the table, were intelligently put together by Aadesh.

What would you say if someone told you, “A 1% decrease in compensation in software business would increase profit by 0.6 percentage points”?

Well, Aadesh did just the same, and the participants consented!

The questions at this stage that came up were:

• How do we create a nice compensation environment?

Even if as an organisation, we are not the best pay masters, still what is that we provide, which would be a major factor in attracting and retaining employees? See what impacts special events have on attrition!A one liner by Aadesh, powerful enough to have people thinking in the common direction. With a discussion over the same, newer ideas on Employee Engagement came to light!

• What delivers consistent quality?

‘Quality’, a highly debatable topic was very subtly handled by Aadesh.With a simple example of “if you are a packaged drinking water manufacturing company, how do you maintain quality?” Well, answers by the participants threw light on the importance of the topic and various innovative solutions came to the fore. Examples of organizations like HCL, were put across, which boast of such high HR practices, that allow them to make sense of Employee Engagement in the real sense. With attrition being the basis of the discussion, quality again lead to addressing the issue with a highly effective and efficient methodology of keeping a check on quality, while addressing attrition!

“Look at the kind of different attrition engagement techniques for different types of employees” remarked Aadesh.

The common voice consented to the same! Effectively addressing your attrition concerns, controlling costs, Aadesh put forth the suggestion of employing different engagement techniques for the various set of employees.

“I would not put my best engagement techniques, to the bottom most performers in the team, instead utilize the same for the top 20-25 percent of best performers”

The role of line managers?Research shows, in a normal BPO set up a team lead spends 80 percent of his time in preparing reports on his system, fro his boss and the boss’s bosses. If the team lead does not spend his maximum available time with the team on floor in action, well he is not being effectively utilized. Thus the suggestion of having line managers creating and following proper dashboards, which suggest to the senior management, the quality, attrition and various other factors about the base level employees. A line manager is the best person, who knows his subordinates, hence he should have a major responsibility in catching attrition young and in time, thus allowing the management to take effective measures. The same was put together by Aadesh in a structured three (3) layered process. 

Deferred compensation, does it work?YES! Remarked Aadesh. Its just a matter of mindsets. The same action that you consider as stopping someone’s basic salary, can be more structured in a structured salary break up (ex: incentive based) and told to the employee before joining. Aadesh sees the same as an effective tool in addressing attrition concerns, by the organisation.

Shape up or ship out!Though as an organisation, none would like to enter the hire and fire mode, but measures have to be taken to effectively address the attrition concerns! Training and development was discussed in this part of the session! Shape up or ship out the bottom performers, remarked Aadesh. With an interesting case study which brought about a great deal of change in increasing the effectiveness of the human resources, Aadesh captured the brains of one and all present. An eye opener for some of the non IT professionals and others who did not belong to the mainstream HR. The session concluded with a quick point put forth by Pankaj Bansal, the CEO and Founder PeopleStrong which pointed out the still hanging gaps in the HR industry!

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/01/higher-employee-engagement-today-does-not-necessarily-reduce-attrition/

Re-branding and the corporate vision

“Corporate branding is the practice of using a company’s name as a product brand name. It is an attempt to leverage corporate brand equity to create product brand recognition”, says the definition!

Brand marketing is probably one of the most crucial things for a company trying to establish a brand in the market and work towards increasing the brand recall value.

Like economies of scale, the brand today represents economies of scope for the corporate. Accurate positioning and planning of products and services under the right brand banners, makes for quite a lot of difference in the manner consumers ‘perceive’ the companies’ offering.

Branding is not limited to just an attractive name or a logo, it today is an inclusive activity, which involves the internal clients (employees) as well as the external partners to the business.

• Name
• Logo
• Client Servicing
• Packaging
• Advertising

etc. are some of the factors that make a successful brand, if each is looked upon with equal importance.

So much for branding, but with the times moving faster than ever expected, customer’s expectations changing with the drop of a hat, corporate’ has to realize the importance and power of re-branding!

The vision of a company should be flexible

- Deep Kalra (Founder MakeMyTrip.com, 37^th Fridays 2.0)

With emerging technologies as WEB 2.0 and the mobile, creating an ever evolving brand becomes an absolute necessity.

Innovating not only in the development of a product or pitching of a service is necessary, but so is the right brand value attached to it, which provides the product/service a recall with the consumers.

The Corporate should look at constantly re-branding their offerings by reflecting similar “brand related sentiments” in their brand image. (Ex: may be a change in the logo)With newer markets evolving, creating brands in the web 2.0 space is as easy as it is to override and forget them.

Innovative brand positioning (read Focus advertising) creates a huge opportunity for innovative players who look towards capturing the market with their USP’s being clearly displayed, which would make them stand apart of the competitive clutter.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/08/18/re-branding-and-the-corporate-vision/

Using Online Professional Networking to get Ahead at Work!

“It is not about who you know or what you know, but who knows what you know”

Remarked Mr. Ajay Jain, a man who firmly kept the foundation for the discussion on the 38th Friday’s 2.0 session on “Using online professional networking to get ahead at work” at New delhi.Mr. Ajay Jain, the author of “Let’s Connect, (using LinkedIn to get ahead at work)” shared his learnings, his passion for writing and how NOT overlooking intricate things can make your day!

“Indians Build Relationships”

The concept of offline networking and relationship building, remarked Mr. Jain, is still a preferred mode of establishing new relationships in India. Citing the success of the various offline networking chapters across India, Mr. Jain provided an insight as to how the Indian business scene is still the traditional way.The same gave direction to further discussion, which Mr. Jain generated quite an interest with, by introducing LinkedIn as a highly efficient and properly guarded tool for professional networking.

“LinkedIn is like a Business Conference” How to use LinkedIn to your advantage?

Like the Ten commandments, Mr, Jain established 10 effective steps!

• Your ever expanding Rolodex:Social contact building

All that comes your way….well no! LinkedIn gives an account only 3000 invites throughout the lifetime of your account, which makes sure that the professional ethic remains. - Have a LinkedIn-Thon @ office, if you have created a new account and are thinking as to how to grow your network! The idea that Mr. Jain shared with the community.

• LinkedIN Answers: A global focus group

Mr. Jain highly recommended the feature of LinkedIn answers which has multiple benefits, both for the community as well as the person answering the question.The answers get rated and the same puts the answering person profile in the limelight, and after a certain top rated answers in a certain domain, the person is profiled as an expert in the domain.

• Networking Plus: Meet people

Mr. Jain, shared an idea yet again, being a travel writer himself, he travels and meets a multitude of people all across. LinkedIN he said, could be highly instrumental in meeting people while you travel. You can send a message across to someone where you are traveling, to catch up at a certain place for a coffee!

• Branding and Marketing: Yourself

The topic generated enough interest in the room, to get ahead professionally or to a platform, Mr. Jain, presented to the members, unique ways of leveraging the power of online networking to get ahead at work.

“Dress up your profile, like you do in real life”

Keep your profile updated and leave no chances for networking within the groups that you may have been linked to professionally in the past.In the summary section, be crisp and to the point!

• Hiring People: Its not a job site

Though LinkedIN is not a Job Site, still said Mr. Jain, the feature of posting and searching for jobs is a high revenue generator.  As a recruiter as well as a prospect, LinkedIn could serve your purpose in an efficient and better manner, as the feature of writing an endorsement, provides a good background to be searching for the right candidate.

• Finding a job: You Love!

A job you love! Well, LinkedIN could help you interact with your prospective future employer, the employees and may be your reporting manager. You could use it to your advantage in settling down pretty, with the Job you Love!

• Vendors and Service Providers

Mr. Jain shared an interesting thought which could spell business opportunity for many a participants in the session. LinkedIN could help you find suitable vendors and service providers for your business needs.

• Running Background checks: A boon for the recuiters

LinkedIN could be a great source of information about prospective employees for the recruiters. the process of background checks could not be fudged on the online platform, as the endorsements for a person come in true, by people whom they have worked together with. Such features make it easier for the future employer to check for the identity of the prospect and also take the authenticity of the employees, relative to the people who have endorsed them.

• Entrepreneurs: Get investors and opinions

For Entrepreneurs,  which Mr. Jain, himself is, LinkedIn can prove to be a great source of doing market research and netowrk with prospective partners and investors. He again stressed on the Q&A feature, which could be used to one’s advantage and can prove to be a low cost and effective market research tool.

• Selling and Brand Building: For your company

As an employee, you can be highly instrumental in selling your companies brand value to attract more clients and generate higher revenues. Also the same may act towards making the organization a “preferred employer”.

“The world of business is a small one, LinkedIn made it even smaller”

A few key points that Mr. Jain re-iterated were of Etiquette. He stressed that though online, LinkedIn, still becomes your professional identity. Thus its reflects you online and keeping the rules of the game as in the real world, would help you in gaining traction with the people you wish to network with!The session drew to a close, with the floor open to questions and quite an interesting and knowledge driven debate ensued. With member audience pitching in with answers and solutions.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/08/11/using-online-professional-networking-to-get-ahead-at-work/

The fresh’err debate…

In one of the conferences I was scheduled to speak in, a gentleman shared his thoughts on a crucial topic, which in my belief, is affecting the industry as a whole, and not just emerging companies.

The question was: what should one expect of a fresher to the industry?

A number of answers came, hinting at what should be done and what lacks! Till that moment I was in the conference, but the speaker before me left everyone with a thought that everyone could relate to, but not many could suggest a solution to. After a long haul I feel its a concern worth sharing at the Emerge Forum!

What is lacking in our system are proper training and development methodologies, which could be implemented right from the first year, when a student enters college, till the time the student graduates out. The principle applies to all (management, engineering, IT etc.)

A unique industry-academia partnership, which has been tried before many a times on several occasions and platforms, but hasn’t been able to make an impact, as the corporate vision is again “nurturing” and “nurturing profits”!

Today such a question arises, because we all know the quality of majority of the graduates being pumped into the market each year. And again a majority of them still are either unemployable by industry standards or simply not upto the mark, which forces the corporate to invest into the individual intellectually again.

Expectations from the “fresher” should be:

1. He/she should already be aware of the fact that college is over!
2. Domain knowledge (which could be honed upon as per the requirements by the corporate)
3. Understanding of hierarchy, work ethics of the organization
4. How do they contribute to the company’s growth (which most corporate forget to share with the “employees” )

I strongly feel that, instead of investing into a “fresher” post recruitment, the industry should collaborate together, to hone the future prospective taskforce according to their own requirements.

• The Startups/Emerging companies!

Situation becomes difficult to answer for a startup/emerging company, which could not afford highly experienced professionals nor can they take a chance of being happy employing everyone who comes cheap!

• What do startups do?

Having these stalwarts from the industry as mentors could be one option. Moreover, any startup/emerging company/SME, looking to hire freshers could be highly instrumental in establishing such a training and development knowledge grid, which links the industry and the academia.

The emerging companies can use the “social networking” and “web 2.0″  tools in a unique and innovative manner, in knowing their candidate in and out before joining in.The step involves minimal costs and high level of innovation!

• The power of community!

I feel startups and emerging companies can take innovation to new heights and in the process, create a platform which allows for the existence of a unique knowledge grid which aims at increasing the employability of the graduates from India.

As goes one of the major agenda’s of President Kalam’s Mission 2020.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/07/28/the-fresherr-debate/

Startup’s your day – Proto.in @ Delhi

Proto.in , Delhi by Paritosh Sharma

No, there is no problem with the language; every entrepreneur would understand the above mentioned line!

Welcome to Proto.in, a premier Startup Community Event that has made a niche for itself by successfully putting together a pool of resources which is relevant to the emerging entrepreneur in leveraging the business or the idea.

Proto.in, provides an innovative platform to the entrepreneurs who could have their ideas displayed to the prospective VC’s, Angels and other prospects as prototypes! A working display makes an IMPACT!

The Mantra

Create, Contribute, Collaborate says Proto’s mantra which clearly reflects in their events, that help emerging entrepreneurs in increasing partnerships, network with the right people and put forth their ideas to like-minded and well connected audience!

Network – Hi! I am…

The day was a huge draw. An hour before the event started participants had started pouring in. Corporate, Investors, Partners, Entrepreneurs, Students, it was a collaboration of an unprecedented level.

It all started with a Hi, I am…and people networked along! Something that really struck me, was the inviting nature and a smile on the faces of people who are placed and ranked up there!

The event provided ample opportunities for entrepreneurs to network around and hit bulls eye!

The Delhi chapter (July ’08)
The Proto event kicked off at IIT Delhi, on Friday July 18^th 2008 with Mr. Kiran Karnik (former President, NASSCOM) delivered the Keynote address, in which he stressed on “the Time is Right” for India!

The address was a perfect beginning to the event, with every aspect which could not be negotiated by a startup being addressed by Mr. Karnik. From service industry, to creating Intellectual Property to looking at the right places for the availability of funds, he gave the packed auditorium, insights into the whole concept of entrepreneurship!

It was the man and the experience speaking, and the combination couldn’t have been better to flare up the present “Ignited Minds”.

Adversity and Diversity

Sounds similar huh? Well, Mr. Karnik, gave a lesson which in these fast paced times we tend to overlook. Upon being asked a question on: “Are we focusing enough of Global ideas” Mr. Karnik replied every adversity brings with it an opportunity and the diverse Indian culture, that’s our strength!

Put on your seat belts, here we go…
The event was scheduled as follows:

8:30	Registrations open
9:00	Keynote	Kiran Karnik
9:45	Building Services for India: The art of pricing	Murugavel Janakiram,Bharatmatrimony.com
10:15	A the helm of a fast growing business	Bhavin Turakhia, Directi
11:00	Refreshments and Networking
11:15	What do your customers want?	Sameer guglani, Morpheus partners
12:00	The art of marketing your startup	Mahesh murthy, Pinstorm and Kiruba Shankar F5ive technologies
12:45	Lunch
1:45	Building a brand that never dies	Narayan, 20:20 media
2:30	Virality is part of the design: the core of viral marketing	Amit ranjan, Slideshare
3:15	Refreshments and networking
3:30	Reconciling entrepreneurs and Investors	Sanjay Anandram, Jumpstartup
4:15	Financing your itch:Running on bootstrapped cash	Gaurav Bhatnagar, Tekriti Software
5:00	The dilemma of the creative class	Shashank Ghosh(film director)
5:45	Freeconomics: How long can free be free?	An open discussion
6:00	End of day one

The sessions drew a huge participation! The audiences were participating with intelligent questions which made the whole event more lively and interactive.

Murugavel Janakiram fromBharatMatrimony.com initiated the sessions which had audience in splits (when Janakiram confessed getting married through his own web site!) and awe of a self made man!

Bhavin Turakhia from Directi, was as different as “DIFFERENT” could be!

How would you see a man dressed in cool denims and spiked hair standing on a stage of a startup event? Wrong guy wrong place….well, everything is RIGHT but WRONG!

A young lad in late 20’s who comes across dressed cool in denim, and the moment he gets introduced; the first reaction from the audience goes “really”? Did he do that?

The concept of introducing business as a game and help in making sense of numbers to each and every “player in the team” (your employees) was interesting!

A logical conclusion to 7 steps that Bhavin shared clicked instantly with the audience. It was a good learning experience sharing Bhavin’s thought process.

The speakers that followed were equally interesting, sharing highly specific insights and point by point answering the questions from the army if audience.

The art of marketing your startup by Mahesh Murthy and Kiruba Shankar, was a big draw.

If you are outsourcing your essentialfunctions to a partner, its better thatI fund the third party partner than you,their business becomes a proven conceptif you believe in them
-         Mahesh Murthy

The sessions on Viral Marketing concept and reconciling investors and entrepreneurs were highly accepted and generated quite an interest and draw!

Day 1 drew to a close with an open session on Freeconomics which was well debated!

At NASSCOM EMERGE forum we strive to create more such platforms where entrepreneurs could interact and create a knowledge grid which is Glocal!

Link to the post at NASSCOM EMERGE blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/07/20/startups-your-day-protoin-delhi/