Thank you! EMERGEOUT 2008 was a tremendous success..
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As things go, its nothing less than a coming of age What began as a forum for Emerging companies that kicked off around five years ago as a wish to do something for the smaller, upcoming players, is today a vibrant connected community that spans the country. The big milestone here of course is the EMEREOUT Conclave organized this Monday (Sep 29) at New Delhi – to continue the analogy, it was nothing less than a coming of age celebration….with more than 225 delegates participating in the conference.
This was evident is all aspects of the day’s proceedings – the quality of the debate, the pedigree of the speakers and above all the passion of the audience.
The common thread connecting all aspects of the event was the community led spirit. Which even extended to naming and thematic linkages of the sessions from the inaugural “Break all the Rules” to the concluding “Who Dares Wins” – ideas that came from the community directly. The themes and session topics were debated with much vigor on the Community site – so everyone who came to the Shangri-la on that Monday morning knew what to expect and came prepared to debate!
Subroto Bagchi set the tone for the day with his exhortation to SMEs to break the mould to break into the market. Rather than worry about the tough business environment, entrepreneurs were better off worrying about being the one to survive the market, he said! Two other pointers from his session
- Customers will not be who SME’s think they will be, or what the SME want them to be.
- An SME’s products and services are not what SME’s think they are.
Following the inaugural was the session on “Evolving a Strategy for Startups & Emerging Companies” anchored by three successful entrepreneurs. The focus was on the primary challenge that all the emerging companies had to deal with: Keeping an eye on the big picture while dealing with the day-to-day implementation challenges. What made the session a stand out were the candid PoVs expressed by the speakers – the approach “humanized” success, making the light at the end of the tunnel suddenly appear a lot more accessible.
Moving on, Confessions of Entrepreneurs had more first-gen entrepreneurs share their views on the various aspects that an entrepreneur needed to consider as he/she went about building the company, namely
- Building an organization
- Sales
- People & Talent
Some pointers from the session:
- Spend lot more time on building an organization. Be paranoid about building an organization.
- Hire a good second and third layer of management to enable growth in the organization.
- Put together your strengths, and identify and recruit people who can fill these gaps.
- Be lateral in your thinking on who to hire.
- Look for people who are passionate, where you have good chemistry, someone who can do thinking for you, someone who is inspiring and can take the company forward.
- Look for good people, not just experienced people.
- Differentiate: If someone is not performing, let them go early, and reward the ones that do.
From there on the conference changed tracks to look at more specific and narrower ideas. First in line was the session on the “On Demand” model in India. While the “un-conference” format got some great traction, the key insights from the discussion were even more startling:
- Indian market is growing significantly faster than global market
- SME market is completely under served
- Requisites (PC and Internet) for On Demand business is growing faster than global market.
Post lunch, CIOs gathered to share thoughts on how SMEs could “woo” customers. In another venue, othet SMEs gathered to share thoughts and hear from a VC and a consultant on how to get the “wooing” message right by Defining the right Value Proposition!
Other themes explored centered around HR strategies while another workshop looked at how companied needed to put their financial house in order pre and post fund raising. Plenty of note-taking to do for delegates – with strategies and tactics coming thick and fast.
Fittingly enough the day ended with the biggest “dose” of strategy, all around with “Who Dares Wins”. And what marks these “daring folks”? According to speaker Raman Roy these include
- Desire to venture into unknown oceans
- Started off as a niche companies
- Founded uncontested spaces – business model, services, customer sets
- Led by people with Entrepreneurial appetite
- In all a fitting end to a day full of ideas!
And did all this resonate? Some feedback
I really liked the conference for the fact that I could meet and network with many like minded yet diverse background people. I got present/discuss various ideas, trends and problems, relevant to my profession. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel; I can take help from others who’ve been through the journey I am planning to take.
I really liked the SME Focus. The fact was that I could strongly relate to the sessions by young entrepreneurs – the event was highly valuable and met my expectations. The session on SaaS was eye opener for me; I didn’t know that SaaS (Software as a Service) is so popular and well accepted in India.
What brought me to the conference was that I had felt that it would be an opportunity to meet entrepreneurs who’ve been through the journey. I am greatly surprised to meet and network with real entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurial quality of the speakers as well as the delegates has amazed me.
Some things that could be changed, according to delegates
- More sessions around entrepreneurships
- Shorter sessions(?) – we thought they were quite short, but still..
- More workshop style formats – perhaps timed better with the main sessions
All this will be useful for planning to next one, as the EMERGEOUT Conclave is now firmly fixed on the NASSCOM annual event calendar now – a public, national and visible platform is finally now in place for the emerging companies and their tireless entrepreneurs!
We are looking forward to seeing you at the second edition of EMERGEOUT 2009 in the month of March Chennai. Stay tuned for the updates…
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