Emerging Companies need all the help that can come by
Loading ...Emerging Companies need all the help that can come by – In a developing economy it is generally not the big blue companies that drive the future growth and innovation but it is the small and the emerging companies which creates the future, and it is very critical for the government, society and the trade organizations to nurture and help such companies and provide an infrastructure and an ecosystem which nurtures such a growth and an innovation so that the company mainly worries about the growth, challenges of the market, core business and the way of increasing value to their clients and all other are issues are generally very clear cut and taken care of without a fuss. This is a very common practise in western countries and definitely one of the reasons why we see companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google which happens over there and exactly the same (of lack of it) reason why it never happens in India.
Generally companies are started by industry veterans and serial entrepreneurs (who pretty much have been there done that kinds), senior sales and marketing executives, senior accountants, HR managers, senior executives, admin managers and (in technology field) by Techno-geeks if you can call them so. There are many successful examples for each of the kind but my gut feeling is that (without giving any source of any trustable statistics) especially in India there are more success stories in all of the categories except the last (techno-geeks) while probably it is the opposite in the western world and I again feel the reason is business (in India) is such a complex creature that it takes either a seasoned executive to use all his experience and connections (including political) to deal with all the complexities of it rather than the techno-geeks and the latter ones shudder when they are thrown with these issues which are in reality distractions and in a way preventing them do what they are supposed to do.
There are many such disturbances right from creation of a company issues to income tax issues to CST and VAT issues to Transfer pricing to customs issues to STPI confusions to CT3 and excise duty exemptions to pollution board certificates to import export issues to PF regulations to labour laws to gratuity and by the time you master all these you would forgotten the reason why the company was created in the first place L Of course there are organizations to handle all these but cam SMEs afford all these when we are struggling to make ends meet or whether they have knowledge or networking on who to contact for what service is altogether another issue at hand. Added to these woes you have the ever rising real estate rentals and salaries of engineers, and complete lack of infrastructure support from the government be it proper roads or power or telecom setup etc. Remember this is a flat world and you are not competing in innovation (be it in products or business models or be it total paradigm shift etc) or otherwise with companies from the same neighbourhood but across the globe and it is a dog eat dog world and the survival is always the best, and to get to becoming best, all supporting functions etc should help them get there rather than pull them down. Alas that is not the case over here I feel.
Along with that our mentoring system is not as promoted or as organized as our western counterparts either. There are not a whole lot of information that is easily available either too which makes the whole setting and running of an organization from say tech-geeks or say the first timers almost impossible even if they have some of the greatest revolutionary ideas, which is really very sad.
Talking about government or society help is way out of the scope of this blog but being a member of NASSCOM, and being part of setting up and making grow an emerging company (S7 Software), I feel a lot can be done by trade organizations to help and improve the ecosystem. Many a times so happens that only the big company guys join hands in such trade organizations and I even have heard sayings like “the big boys club” etc; It is not that they try to ignore us but on the contrary they do help the SME sector but it is what people call the “the ivory tower syndrome” and they might not be able to really understand the actual pain points of emerging companies.
I really feel that trade associations or bodies should compulsorily make provisions to have representations from emerging sector and also help to a large extent that sector with incentives and right directions and even representing us and taking our problems to the government. I even go to the extent of vouching that we probably need to make reservations even in panel selections or elections for the SME sector so that it gets represented well and will have a different and a true perspective of some of the issues we face. Of lately I see more programmes specifically targeted at SMEs but lot more can happen and hopefully together we can create a great ecosystem and infrastructure which will provide in a way,a level playing ground whether it is a big company, a bellwether company or a growing emerging company.
Along with these and hopefully governmental help and encouragement from society for such entrepreneurs, I don’t think “an Apple or a Microsoft or a Google from India” days won’t be far away!!! Question is will we do what it takes? Will we? 
Would love to hear your comments and experiences.
Manjunath M Gowda, S7 Software
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Comments
A mistake in my comment above, Mr. Mukesh Sharma from QAInfotech ( not Mr. Mukesh Kumar like I’d earlier mentioned ) Apologies
The point well written, but I still think the reason we don’t have a Google or Microsoft is because we don’t have a Havard or Stanford. But again why we don’t have those schools and when we can have those is a different discussion.
Just yesterday, I was speaking to Mr. Mukesh Kumar from QAInfotech (http://www.qainfotech.com/ ) about how he got some mentoring help through the Nasscom Mentorship program started in 2007 (http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=50245) . This program really helps SME’s who are on the growth spurt & need guidance from the industry experts, who have “been there, done that”. Of course, there aren’t too many instances of other such programs which SMEs can take advantage of – it is true that these are few & far between.
But, being part of a growing SME myself, I am aware of the struggle that happens internally – growth is slow, but steady. India is definitely better off wrt providing infrastructure & other facilities for entrepreneurs than it was in the days when companies like Infosys was started. However, the growth in entrepreneurship is much faster than the corresponding increase in “governmental help encouragement from society”.
I would like to end on a positive note – there WILL be an Indian biggie like MS / Apple / Google, but WHEN, it might take longer than we’d like !