Everyday SME Challenges, Tried and Tested Solutions’ – NASSCOM EMERGE Friday’s 2.0 (25th session – Chennai)
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Everyday SME Challenges, Tried and Tested Solutions’ a panel discussion by four business leaders (Serial Entrepreneurs), most of them having co-founded and promoted two or more businesses, who have walked your path earlier.
Panel Discussion on Entrepreneurship Challenges
Moderator: Mr. G. Shankaran Nair, President – Corporate Strategy, Servion
- Panelists:
- Mr. Ashok Ramaswamy, Managing Partner, Sandpath Capital
- Mr. Baskar Subramanian, Co- Founder & Vice Chairman, Servion Global
- Mr. R. Narayanan, Co-Founder, 20:20 Media
Panel discussion format, Chaired by Suresh Sambandam, Orangescape Meet was around start ups and entrepreneurship and ways of success. Hall at Connemara Hotel was full, with high variety of buffet based breakfast. In fact I finished eating when I realized that food table is still long and missed for want of ignorance of L shaped table layout. There was no hint that breakfast buffet table is so well spread. And I had to sacrifice my omlette and olives though I kept watching it. Purpose of my being there being so exciting, I decided to suppress my yearning for variety breakfast. Meeting started well with brief intro by Suresh and highlighting this being the 25th year of the NASSCOM Chennai Breakfast Emerge Forum meet. Something to celebrate at NASSCOM Chennai. He then handed over to Mr Nair the moderator of the meet. With brief intro, he started the meet with Mr. Narayanan being the first to speak. Mr Narayanan: Creating a differentiator is the key. ‘Me Too’ approach is no more welcome and of any value. Success is all about following this little clean and simple formula. Posturing into your marketplace is important and not in your mind. Problem with IT guys or technology people are that they have solution for every requirement in the world. Except they can not answer how long and at what cost? From his bubble gum sales background, where he started his career with a global cola co., he said that he knew nothing about IT and technology. But he knows what to ask technology guys and what to seek from investors. Even today he knows nothing on technology but he consults with several IT cos. and provides help and solutions to go to market based on his media expertise. He knows what market wants and what we should do.
- Take any one area of technical specialization. Differentiate and position. Positioning is the key to success.
- Whatever is your idea or sales proposition- Positioning to suit the targeted market is a must. Otherwise being relevant to every market in every way does not lead anywhere.
Using just a single slide ppt he surprisingly handled his full presentation. Simple and Crisp is what we could summarize as. His slide showed the entrepreneurship journey and market targeting using a curve. ‘Crossing the Chasm’ was the gap which we must overcome. That is the trigger we all must win over and that is not easy. Multiple attempts and fine tuning is essential to discover winning route. The book by Moore was highly referred as well as recommended. (In 1991 Geoffrey A. Moore wrote a book that became widely read and quoted in the business community and turned into a theory – Crossing the Chasm)
- Are we targeting specific market and segment? General tendency is to be everything to everyone. That does not work.
- ‘Positioning a brand or the co was one of the questions from the audience’. It was a great question and a bit heavy. Answer was you must position your co if you are selling a service. And possibly position brand if you are selling a product. It does not matter if you are selling service based on a product or selling a product as a service.
- Obviously such things require a thought leader or an expert behind the show.
- Do not take up a task which we know will never finish.
He completed his presentation in just 15 minutes. Q&A was encouraged before we could move to next speaker. Mr. Ashok - ( Sandpath Capital- An entrepreneur himself and now a venture investor. He helps people raise money. )
- Best time to start a co is now, when revival is on. This is the best time.
- How do we know what is market visibility?
- Evaluate a start up co based on following
- Market Rise – Demand and Competition
- Co. specific Risk- operating risk and capital risk
- Portfolio Risk – Concentration, Exit Potential and Follow on interest.
- Enterprise Solutions/Offerings is no more a preferred segment by VCs due to global meltdown. They prefer high growth areas, especially towards direct consumers.
Mr. Baskar Subramaniam – When he returned from USA in 90s, and he wanted to start a business, he found that he had to wait for several months to get a telephone line. How does he now sell telephony solutions? People did not want to talk to him, as getting a phone connection was a big task. But he had to still fight the odds. When the telephony service eventually became success, big MNCs started coming in. Media focus went to AT&T ignoring the pioneering venture which had to go through so many challenges to fight all the odds. He said his success came based on building teams and extended teams with like minded people. He has even recruited people who know social media and twitter/ face book as that is required for extending his business. That approach is key to add to marketing. He is now applying the same success formula to his new venture on Green IT. Then Q& A session was thrown open to the audience. Excellent session with very admiring questions was put by audience. One question was: do we have means of grading organizations in the same way CMMI level 1-5 rates quality of a co. Questioner wanted to know as to how do we asses if my organization is improving and growing to next level. That put the panel as well as the audience into a dizzy. Panel debated it with remarks that a co reaches a great height when the hero turns into an invisible entity. That is reaching a high maturity level. When clients are sure that organization can deliver, rather than looking at the CXO or the hero to be confident, probably co has reached a great height. Other points were
- In India VCs are mostly accounts oriented and therefore they see numbers and multiplying returns. In USA, most of the VCs are from Industry that provides a different perspective to the promoters and start ups. That is how Indians business when they move into US has shown far superior performance. Eco system as well as the VCs helps.
- Average Cisco employee per year sales revenue target is USD 15 Million per year. Senior Cisco employee has targets of USD 50 million plus. People have to deliver. They are given freedom to win and sell.
- In India, we do not put any costs to employees in any business planning. Do we, was the question thrown to the audience by Mr Ramesh. It touched our nerves as we know how bad we are in this aspect with pretensions.
- People are asked to work limitless hours with no accountability. Ask a consultant or sale guy to drop in at France just for few days, while he is visiting Germany on a specific business purpose. Because we probably feel that guy should do a bit extra ( and get results in France by just dropping there) without realizing whether the person earmarked for Germany mission is capable or competent or equipped with required skills or knowledge. Why not this extra is the common desire of Indian management, as they pay scant weightage to the skills, knowledge and focus. In India we neither put a cost nor put a limit on HR.
One audience question related to venture fundable co Vs Lifestyle Co. Another deeply loaded one. Narayanan, as simple and direct he was always through the session had to ask on the meaning of lifestyle co. That comforted many in the audience. At least I never had heard such a word. I was relieved at Narayanan seeking a clarification. The participant in the audience clarified Lifestyle cos. as the ones which are sponsored by other institutions or group of investors with no pressure to account for quarterly or yearly growth and profitability. Probably funded by father in law, quipped another in the audience. Consensus arrived was that Lifestyle cos are those that are having slow growth and they are there for long sustainability rather than growth and profitability or for market domination. Question then went towards Growth Vs Profitability. Concluding theme was that Positioning in the targeted market, focus, good eco system with like minded team around are essentials to a good start and sustainable growth. Summary: For me that was a rare event where the points from the speakers as well as the audience were pretty heavy, serious and mind stirring. It was a bit intellectual too. My vote is 5/5 for this event value driven, serious, fast pace, well prepared. Of course I realized later that the moderator Mr Nair had invited all 3 panelists to Monday lunch to get the panel members familiarize with each other as well know each other’s specialization and subject content. That was great finish. Great moderator. (Probably it is a lesson for future panel meets too. May be Nasscom send advisory as a standard for all future panel meets as a best practice formulae.) I thank NASSCOM Chennai –Puru who had conceived the panel and also Mr Nair too who handled the event with great finesse. So exciting indeed, that I wrote it out on this Friday event as a brief takeaway and as my obligation to the community. Post Contributed By V B Rajendra Raja, Sr Consultant, C2il
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Raja
Thanks for the wonderful post, I missed a really good one as I was away on a business trip. I could atleast get the essence of the whole session through your write up.