Silicon India Sep 10 Issue

BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY IN THE U.S. & INDIA SEPTEMBER - 2010 SILICONINDIA.COM

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Varchasvi Shankar, CEO

In My Opinion: Nihar Samantara, Ignis Technology Solutions Startup of the Month: InRev Systems Enterprise Software Special

s i l i con ind ia |5|S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0

PublisherHarvi Sachar

Editor-in-ChiefPradeep Shankar

Managing EditorChristo Jacob

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Roshna Sankar Vimali Swamy

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SEPTEMBER - 2010

[Startup of the Month]Buzzom Creating a Buzz in Social CRMBy Vimali Swamy

[Technology]4G & the Dawn of Service-based PricingBy Rakesh Kushwaha & BadriNath, Mformation

Energy Savings across VerticalsUsing various M2M TechnologiesBy Vivek Khemani, ConnectM

BIG DATA: Making Sense in Real-TimeBy V R Ferose , SAP Labs

[Business]We Have Been Here BeforeBenefits of ERP and the Post-recession BusinessBy Chris Baker, Inatech Solutions

[Management]Complementary Opposites AParadigm Utilized in ManagingIT Excellence and InnovationBy Akshay Lamba, MTS India

[Business]Indian BPO Industry What toWatch Out in the Future?By Vimali Swamy

[Management]Agile Methodology WhenProcesses Clash with PrinciplesBy Narendran Thillaisthanam,Photon

[Technology]Next Gen Contact CentersBy Rajarshi Bhose, Amit Wa-sudeo Gawande & Evelyn Sylvia,Infosys Technologies

[VP Profile]The Man who Answers theSearch EnginesBy Jayasmitha Menon

[Entrepreneur 101]Raising Capital for YourStartupBy Gunjan Sinha

[SI 20 Profile]

[In My Opinion]The Changing Role of Small &Medium Enterprises in Aero-space IndustryBy Nihar Samantara, Ignis Technology Solutions

[Infocus]

[VC Chakra]Karl Mehta foundedPlaySpan Raises $18 MillionRaju Pandey Co-FoundedSynapSense Raises $5 Million

[CEO Spotlight]Unified Communication istruly the Future of MobilityDisruptively Diversifying Fieldof Web AnalyticsNext Big Opportunity In Networking: ‘Up In The Clouds?’

[VC Talk]India: Where Lies the Next BigInvestment Opportunity?By Dharmesh Thakker, AdvancedTechnology Ventures

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Contents September2010

16 Cover Story

Editorial

It is often believed that to avoid its attacker, Ostrich bury theirheads in the sand to avoid danger. The notion is 'if you can't seeit, then it can't see you'. Is Obama also following the same? At

a time when looming reports on gross domestic product and hous-ing have raised fears about the fragile U.S economy either slippingback into a recession or face a lengthy period of growth that is tooslow to make much of a dent in the 9.5 percent unemployment rate,Obama’s decision on H1B price hike seems to be an attempt to runaway from the reality and divert the attention and to revive the sup-port for November 2 Congressional Elections.

It is high time people realized that Obamanomics has failed andapplications for H-1B work visas, not even reaching the 50 percentmark of the Congressional-mandated quota of 65,000 is a testimo-nial. According to the latest figures released by the U.S. Citizenshipand Immigration Services (USCIS), only 29,700 people had appliedfor H-1B visas till August 13. This in stark contrast to the situationtwo years ago, when the cap for both the categories of H-1B visashad been touched within the first few days and USCIS had to resortto computerised draw of lots to decide who made the cut.

The Indian IT-BPO industry for years has played a crucial rolein helping U.S. companies tap these benefits and remains commit-ted to being a part of the solution to help tide over this crisis. It is im-perative that the U.S. and all countries continue to be proponents offree trade. Restricted trade affects businesses, incomes and em-ployment in other countries thus resulting in lower spending andsubsequently lower demand for U.S. goods and services globally.Globally, the economy will only suffer from such protectionist atti-tude.

If the U.S. government wants to "stop" Indian IT services firmsbringing temporary IT staff over and create an environment for fos-tering onshore technology employment and innovation in the coun-try, then it must create system that is flexible. Give Indian IT-ITeSfirms tax-incentives that will motivate them to hire and train U.S. ITemployees and not just offshore staff. Give U.S. enterprises tax-in-centives for creating new onshore IT jobs.

Moreover immigration policies should be focused on ensuringdeveloping the talent pool in the country and not abuse. Rather thanplaying to the gallery, its time Obama took some serious action asU.S economy is really in a risky situation.

Please do share your thoughts with us.Christo JacobManaging [email protected]

Don’t Run Away from Reality!

By Vimali SwamyVarchasvi Shankar, CEO

V2SOFTReady

toSoar HighReviving Marketin the

The Small and Medium En-terprises (SMEs) in theAerospace Industry arepoised for exciting growthtoday. Whilst it is true that

SMEs are being hit hard by the lack ofavailable finance in this capital inten-sive industry, the ability to be leanerand more agile (and cheaper, let’s notforget) gives SMEs a cutting edge tobe well positioned for opportunities,

provided they continuously addvalue and retain their customers.

Also, because of their keen-ness to build a differentiat-ing edge, SMEs are more

prone to spend time de-veloping new prod-

ucts and services,and this is payingoff in terms ofattracting newclients. Those

SMEs that man-age to tighten the belt

and survive on their own workingcapital actually have a hugeopportunity to exploit the im-

pact that market forces are exercisingon the larger businesses. Also, by re-acting so rigidly and fearfully, largerenterprises are levelling the field ofcompetition, allowing smaller enter-prises to bid (and be considered for)more contracts.

Limited spending and increased at-tention to cost savings, related to laborand infrastructure in particular, has be-come the decisive decision driverlately. This is the case for large OEMsand aircraft companies to develop akeen interest towards India. Also, inview of the offset considerations, thereare significant opportunities that mightopen up for the SMEs in the future.However, only niche SMEs will havethe wherewithal to absorb and scale. Ifthey do not think out-of-the-box, thereis every chance of being wiped out be-cause of the current scenario as well asthe changes in market dynamics.

The SMEs are staring at multipleopportunities in design, development,and manufacturing in the aerospacesector. To move up the global defencevalue chain, SMEs should focus on in-

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The Changing Role of Small & Medium Enterprisesin AAeerroossppaaccee IInndduussttrryy

novation, building intellectual prop-erty, and adopting quality and processstandards to be able to offer completesub-systems or assemblies. Firms thatfocus on multipurpose technologyhave secured their position in the mar-ket by becoming specialized suppliersserving different global value chains.SMEs of aerospace and precision en-gineering sectors have become con-scious of their competitive strengths,which they associate in particular toflexibility and quality of their offer.

In view of the growing private sec-tor participation in defence R&D, thegovernment should encourage the par-ticipation; and such participationshould be primarily financed by thegovernment, because defence R&D isexpensive and marked by an elementof uncertainty. There is a huge changein the aerospace industry in recentyears, yet its procurement practiceshave not kept pace. The software in-dustry have adopted new approachesto reduce costs and have been greatlyrewarded, however procurement atmany aerospace companies still re-main tied to the past, practising tradi-

tional trends like being driven by pro-gram-centric, cost-plus mentality aswell as other traditional business prac-tises that are increasingly outdated.

Another challenge that we see forthe SMEs in the aerospace industry isTalent Management. It is the need ofthe hour as availability of skilledworkforce is a concern and domainknowledge is the key. The focus forSMEs should be to develop new em-ployees through specialized trainingprograms and assimilation, whilekeeping current employees and at-tracting highly skilled new workers tojoin the workforce. It’s a highly strate-gic effort and takes a conscious effortfrom management to source, attract,select, train, develop, promote, and

move employees through the organi-zation.

To conclude, India’s industrial out-put is now mainly contributed bySMEs that account for 50 percent ofit, 40 percent of total exports and ac-count for over 90 percent of all enter-prises. There is a need to mitigate thecommon challenges faced by SMEs,like credit shortage, through urgentpolicy interventions by government tosupport SMEs, which in turn will sus-tain and enhance the business compet-itiveness. Aerospace industry has ahuge potential in the coming years andone event that has showcased the samewas the Global Investor Meet held inBangalore during June 2010. We arein for good times ahead. si

iinn mmyyopinion

By Nihar SamantaraThe author is CEO, Ignis Technology Solutions

Nihar Samantara

50 percent of India’s industrial output isnow from the SMEs; and there is a needto mitigate the challenges faced by SMEsthrough urgent policy interventions bygovernment

Can a kid of mere 13 years holdan MBA degree? Those whomay think it to be quite impos-

sible are being proved wrong by twoyoung boys in India.

Neel Joshi, 13 and his brotherDeep, 11, class eight and class six stu-dents of Thakur Vidya Mandir Schoolat Kandivali East in Mumbai are ontheir way to become India’s youngestMBA graduates. Both of them havefinished their first semester MBA withdistinction from the Indian Manage-ment School and Research centre(IMSR) affiliated to the University ofNortheast Virginia.

While Neel has cleared his firstyear in Finance Management with 91percent, Deep has cleared the first se-mester of MBA in Operation Manage-ment by securing 75 percent.

“I had taken arisk in admit-ting the boysagainst allrules,” admitsPravin Par-mar, Director,IMSR. “Theyhave bothscored verygood marks

and I am confident they will becomethe youngest MBAs in the country,” headded.

Neel and Deep sought admissionfor MBA courses at the University ofMumbai and various other institutes inUSA and UK. But everyone turnedthem down saying that they were tooyoung to enroll for managementcourses, said Neel.

According to Deep, after joiningIMSR, he was never worried aboutthe results, because his only aimwas to study management. He fur-ther told that both of them have adream of getting a prize from Presi-dent Pratibha Patil after they com-plete the course.

The boys had exhibited extraordi-nary talents at a very young age. Theycould recite entire chapters from theBhagvad Gita, Hanuman Chalisa andeven the Rig Veda when they were inkindergarten. They have also showntheir excellence in extracurricular ac-tivities such as carom in which theyrepresent Air India at national levelevents. Neel wants to become a car-diac surgeon, while Deep wishes to bea pilot. The boys‘ father Ajit Joshi is acivil engineer. si

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It might be shocking but oneought to believe it. About 79,000applications seeking grant of

patents is still pending to be sanc-tioned by the government in India.Nearly, one third of the applicationsare from mechanical engineeringand chemicals segment.

As on 30th June, 2010, 78,792patent applications were pendingwith the Indian Patent Office and

the reason for the steep number ofrequests stated by Commerce andIndustry Minister, Anand Sharmawas the considerable amount of in-crease in the number of patent ap-plications filed with the office after2003-04. “In order to dispose of thepending requests for examination,the government has created 200 newposts of Examiners of patents anddesigns”, says Sharma.

In exact figures, 14,314 patentapplications are pending in the me-chanical engineering segment fol-lowed by chemicals segment(11,633), electronics (8,192), com-munication (6,507) and pharmaceu-ticals (6,322). The IndianParliament was informed about thisstate of patent application on 3rd

July, 2010. It is hoped that the paceof patent prosecution will improvetremendously with more number ofexaminers available to examine theapplications but only time will tellhow successfully the governmentdeals with this situation.

Over the past year, India hadsigned agreements with the Euro-pean Patent Office (EPO) and patentoffices in the U.S. and UK, hopingpatent examiners would make use ofthe Traditional Knowledge DigitalLibrary (TKDL) to avoid issuingpatents on claims already present intraditional knowledge. The humon-gous figure of pending patent appli-cation reveals that such agreementhas hardly been of any use to Indianindustries.

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Nearly 79,000 Patent Applications StillPending with Government

Annapurna: India’s Latest Supercomputer

Taking yet another step forwardin the field of science and tech-nology, India has launched its

latest supercomputer ‘Annapurna’ atthe Institute of Mathematical Sciences(IMSc) in Chennai.

Atomic Energy CommissionChairman Srikumar Banerjee unveiledthe country’s seventh fastest high-per-formance computation (HPC) clusterhaving 1.5 Tera Byte (TB) memoryand 30 TB storage space cluster ca-pacity. He lauded the technical teambehind the effort for creating the supercomputer in a completely non-com-mercial domain. U.S. based SiliconGraphics International, a manufacturerof computer hardware and software,including high-performance comput-ing solutions, helped with Annapurna. According to Banerjee, complex is-

sues ranging from biological applica-tions and others could not have beenapproached in the absence of a super-computer. Among broad-based scien-tific institutions in India, theAnnapurna cluster is the third fastest,ranking below that installed at IIScBangalore and Tata Institute of Funda-mental Research, Mumbai.

However, it is at parwith the other super-computers such as Vin-dhya, Aravalli andKabru. The Garudagrid, India’s nationalcomputing grid thatconnects 45 institutes inIndia uses IMSc’sKabru. The device willbe used to boost aca-demic research in simu-lations and numerical

calculations in the areas of statisticalmechanics and condensed matterphysics among others.

Banerjee, during the inaugurationsaid that technological embargoes re-stricted development and different in-stitutes were tasked with overcominglimitations on processors. si

SrikumarBanerjee

11 and 13 years Boys to Become India’s Youngest MBA grads

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIAWe are growing at a phenomenal rate and are looking for Exceptional Engineers in Analog & Mixed-Signal

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India has perennially faced problemsof power cuts and load shedding,and we constantly look for alterna-

tive energy to support us during thosedark hours. From the humble hurricanelamps to high power generators, all ofthese sources have been used to light ourhouses during power failures.

Now a small, matchbox-sized devicecomes to your rescue in face of powercuts; thanks to a Hyderabad-based engi-neer’s innovation. Subrata Datta, em-ployed at the R&D centre, CMC, hasdesigned a machine which can ensurefreedom from power cuts even duringinsufficient supply and high demand andthe technology can apparently help re-duce global warming as well.

The virtual inverter technology,

called the V-inverter, can beinstalled in and connected tothe meter box of one’s house.It can be controlled and regu-lated by the electric supplydepartment. Also wheneverthere’s a greater demand forpower, high voltage electricalgadgets like air-conditionerswill automatically switch off,and only basics like fans,lights, TV, computer, refrigerator and lifesaving instruments would work by re-ducing the consumption of power in theentire neighbourhood, explained the in-novator of the way his gadget works.

The V-inverter does not require anysecondary power source like the normalinverters or generator. This reduces cost,

investment maintenance, pol-lution and emission associ-ated with fuel-basedgenerators, regular invertersand lead-acid batteries.

Installing this V-inverteris also very easy. The unitcost of the energy of the V-in-verter power is less than gen-eral inverters or fuel basedgenerators as it comes at the

cost of regular supplied power. As the V-inverter model induces

low-power lines, there will be a needfor low power and high efficiencyelectronic modules. This way onecan contribute to the green powerrevolution and help reduce globalwarming. si

Vinay Deolalikar, a scientist atHewlett-Packard (HP) Labs inCalifornia has come up with a

possible proof for the famed P=NPproblem in mathematics. The feat canmake him earn $1 million (Rs. 4.6crore) for solving one of the seven ClayMathematics Institute MillenniumProblems.

According to Stephen Cook, whohas written the official description ofthe P=NP problem for the Clay Insti-tute, ever since the problem was stated,mathematicians have thought that Pdoes not, in fact, equal NP - but no ac-ceptable proof of that inequality hasbeen found.

The P=NP problem is a meta-prob-

lem with particu-lar relevance tocomputer sci-ence. The ‘P’ inthis equationrefers to a classof problems; ifthe time neededto solve a prob-lem does not

grow exponentially with the data given,the problem is a type-P problem. An NPproblem, on the other hand, is one forwhich you can check whether a pro-posed solution is really a solution inreasonable time.

The P=NP problem questionswhether an NP problem is the same as

a P problem. In other words, if a prob-lem has solutions that can be verified inpolynomial time, then can the problemalso be solved in polynomial time?

Deolalikar’s proof seeks to estab-lish that P is not equal to NP and if ispublished and finds the ‘general ac-ceptance’ that the Clay Institute re-quires, it will be the second of the sevenMillennium problems to have fallenwithin the last few years.

Before accepting by the mathe-matical community, the paper needs tobe published in a major refereed jour-nal. It has to be accepted by the math-ematical community within two yearsof publication for Deolalikar to collecthis Clay Prize.

P=NP Riddle Solved? Indian Scientist Proposes Proof

Vinay Deolalikar

The year 2010 has witnessed Pri-vate Equity (PE) firms invest-ing big money in the Indian

companies. So far, PE firms have in-vested over $5 billion in Indian com-panies this year. The amount investedis way more than what was invested inthe whole of the previous year.

According to data compiled bydeal space research firm VCCEdge,the first seven months of 2010 saw pri-

vate equity deals valued at $5.1 bil-lion, as compared to $4.3 billion in en-tire 2009. Between January and July2010, as many as 220 companies havereceived funding from PE enterprises.

However, the PE firms made anexit from 73 other companies. PEfirms generally exit from their in-vestment through buyback of sharesby promoters, open market transac-tions, merger and acquisitions andpublic offers.

The PE investment in India haswitnessed a rise to nearly 190 percentat $776 million in July, 2010. FromJuly 16, 2009 to July 25, 2010, therewas a growth in the number of dealsand the value of the dealings alsodoubled to $26 million in July 2010from $13 million in the same monthlast year.

The VCCEdge’s report onmonthly PE deals says that Finan-cials, Consumer discretionary andUtilities were the most targeted sec-tors during the month of July. Themonth also saw worth $169 millionexit from 11 companies. The biggestdeal cracked during the month wasthe $179 million investment in IDFCby Actis, an investment arm ofMalaysian sovereign wealth fundKhazanah, followed by a $110 mil-lion investment by Xander Real Es-tate Partners in Panchshil Realty.

At this rate, the PE investmentslook to soar further in the year. How-ever, the number of exits in the firsttwo quarters this year has almost dou-bled from that of the year before,which saw only 38 exits in the firsttwo quarters. si

Private Equity Firms Invest big inIndian Companies

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Finally, a Solution to the Power cut Woes!

Subrata Datta


$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

PlaySpan, a provider of moneti-zation solutions for onlinegames has recently secured $18

million in the third round of fundingled by Vodafone Ventures and Soft-bank Bodhi Fund, with the participa-tion of existing investors MenloVentures and Novel TMT Ventures.This brings the funding raised byPlaySpan to a total of $42 million.The Santa Clara based company willuse the new funding to expand itsproducts, sales and marketing on aglobal basis. With an aim to capital-ize the growth in the Asian gamingmarket it also plans to expand thepresence in Europe and Asia.

Founded by Karl Mehta togetherwith his 12 year old son Arjun Mehtain 2006, Playspan powers virtualgoods marketplace across 1,000video games and virtual world pub-

lishers to generate revenue,acquire new users andbuild customer loyalty. APlaySpan-powered market-place lets users sell, ex-change and purchase onlinegame items, virtual goods,and game currencies foronline games and applica-tions. The company bringsservices like fraud preven-tion, merchandising, andpromotion to game compa-nies, helping them prevent revenueloss and get better ROI. It sells vir-tual currency Ultimate Game Card,the world’s first prepaid game card,at 48,000 retailers globally so thatusers who don’t have credit cards canpay cash for the cards at stores andthen enter a code to get virtual cur-rency in a game. The company’s key

customers includeAdobe, Sanrio, Via-com/Nicke lodeon ,Disney and WarnerBrothers.

Karl Mehta, theCEO of the companyhas expanded his king-dom by acquiringmicro-transaction appdeveloper SpareChange to support itsmarketplace to power

transactions across 180 countries.Now, Mehta is paying attention to getPlaySpan’s platform on other areas,like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)and digital publishing. “We are look-ing to put PlaySpan on more con-nected devices like tablet computers,smartphones and connected TVs,”says Mehta.

California basedSynapSense, a de-veloper of wireless

energy efficiency solutionsthat cuts power costs ofdata centers, has raised $5million in a latest round offinancing. GE Energy Fi-nancial Services, financialarm of General Electric, has joinedthe existing investors, Emerald Tech-nology Ventures, Sequoia Capital,Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Amer-ican River Ventures, Nth Power andDFJ Frontier, in the combined $5 mil-lion investment. This brings the totalinvestment in SynapSense to $25 mil-

lion. The funding will beused to develop and marketits wireless data center mon-itoring and managementtools.

Founded in 2006, thesmart grid developer offerswireless and software thatsupports a sensor platform,

which in turn allows data center op-erators to view operations’ energyuse-patterns and reduce consumptionby up to 20 percent. SynapSensemainly focuses on the environmentand its solutions promise decreasedcarbon emissions and higher powerefficiency.

As part of a commercial agreementwith GE, SynapSense will distributeits products via the GE Intelligent Plat-forms, a technology supplier for datacenter operators. The partnership willfocus on digital energy services, theSmart Grid and other ecological ef-forts. Currently the company has somebig names like Yahoo, Facebook andNBC as their key customers.

SynapSense’s technology was ini-tially developed by the Co-Founder,Raju Pandey, while working at theUniversity of California. In his role asthe Chief Technology officer, Pandey,plays a key role in expanding the com-pany’s offerings. si

Karl Mehta founded PlaySpan Raises $18 Million

Raju Pandey Co-Founded SynapSense Raises $5 Million

Karl Mehta

Raju Pandey

ANasscom-Booz Allen studyof the Indian IT sector statesthat the rapid growth of the

industry will soon force the organi-zations to import engineers to man-age the scalability of operations.With the software engineering serv-ices in India projected to grow to a$45 - $50 billion export business in adecade, there will be a spurge in therequirement of talented engineers.Nearly 1-1.5 million people will beneeded by engineering services com-panies alone, of which about250,000-plus, will have to come fromelsewhere.

By 2020, Indian software engi-neering services companies will needto bring in 25-30 percent of engi-neering talent from abroad, sincethere is a huge shortage of trained

people now in India. “Bringing inoverseas people will be necessary be-cause of severe talent shortage. AsIndian engineering services compa-nies step up their global presence tomeet that $45-billion market oppor-tunity, that shortage will only in-crease,” says Ketan Bakshi, CMD ofNeilsoft, an engineering servicescompany.

The other area of concern isthe low bandwidth. Many Indiancompanies do not have the band-width to handle the kind of in-frastructure projects that arecoming up. This would be theprime reason to get expertisefrom abroad.

Most of the national infra-structure projects are being exe-cuted at a slower rate because of

the shortage of manpower and forevery engineering projects, a good en-gineer of 15 to 20 years of experienceis required and a fresher requires anexperience of over a year to deal withvarious situations in an engineeringproject. India has no dearth of goodengineers but their unavailability hasforced the Indian software industry toimport engineers.

Indian Software Industry to Import Engineers

India’s Nuclear Liability Third Highest in the World

in

India’s legal nuclear liability limitis the third highest in the world.At a $439 million limit, it fol-

lows the United States at $12,590million and the Republic of Koreaand the United Kingdom, which capthe liability at close to $452 millioneach.

According to a survey by theConfederation of Indian Industry(CII), China ranks fourth in nuclearliability at $162 million. The find-ings also reported that Russia did notspecify any amount whereas Ger-many and Japan have an unspecifiedamount.

The comparative study was car-ried out on nine parameters: Nuclearliability law, strict liability, channel-ing of liability exclusively to opera-tor, right of recourse against

supplier, operator’s insuranceamount, state guarantee/cover, addi-tional state compensation, supple-mentary amount from internationalfund and legal liability limit.

India comes third in the opera-

tor’s insurance amount too, with a$320 million limit.

U.S. again tops the list with$12,500 million. While Germany isslightly ahead of India at $324 mil-lion, UK follows India with $216million. France has an operator in-surance amount of $115.2 million.

The 10-nation survey found thatall major nations of the world likeFrance, Germany, Korea and Russiahad their nuclear liability act inplace.

None of the countries had the rightto recourse against the supplier. OnlyIndia had the right to recourse in caseof defect or fault in equipment or serv-ices. India also had more than $300million as state guarantee but did nothave the provision so far for additionalstate compensation. si

New technology leaders are createdwhenever there is a significant shiftin computing architecture. Over theyears, we witnessed customersmarch from mainframe toclient/server models and now toweb-based architectures. Leadershave emerged to exploit each ofthese industry-wide shifts. The movetoward client/server came with a hostof challenges – including the net-work latency of delivering applica-tions to far off places. By tuning alightweight remote access protocolfor server-based applications, Citrixseized upon what others at the timeonly saw as a limitation and ex-ploited it. In the Web era, a startupcalled NetScaler rose to prominenceby identifying the inefficiencies ofhttp and removing the crippling ef-fects of web server overload.

Today, we face yet again a majorfork-in-the-road but this time it’s notjust application delivery models thatare being re-envisioned. Cloud com-puting is not just a ‘north-to-south’user-to-application delineation thatpast compute models were definedby. Cloud touches all things – fromstorage redundancy to virtual ma-chine migrations to scale out type ofapplication architectures. The prom-ise of the Cloud is in transforming ITso that it is delivered as a service.

The reality is that delivering on

this vision places fundamentally newand profound requirements on datacenter infrastructure. In the LAN,both incumbents and new vendorsare introducing new infrastructure todeal with the explosion of “east-west” traffic inherent in the newcomputing paradigm – that is, serverto server or storage array to storagearray. We also see this “east-west”traffic spilling out onto the WANwhere enterprises are especially ill-equipped to handle the increase involume. At Infineta, we develop aproduct that optimizes the inter-datacenter WAN and enables improveddata mobility – whether it’s storage,virtual machines, or any other formof cross-data center or cloud-basedtraffic. That’s our singular mission.

As for a startup’s ability to suc-ceed in this or any other period? Ithink entrepreneurs today have thesame set of fundamental challengesthey faced thirty years back: 1) de-velop an idea that matters and 2) exe-cute like crazy. For a startup, a greatidea is defined by one that addresses alarge market with clearcut differenti-ation and where the product or serviceis built in a capital efficient manner.As for execution, it really comesdown to attracting the best people.Hiring talent and building a teamaround them continues to be themagic formula in Silicon Valley. si

I believe we finally are in the year of mobile. We’ve been talking aboutmobile and envisioning the future of mobile devices for the past 10 years.It really took an innovative company such as Apple to help the eco-sys-tem catch up with this vision. With the iPhone, Apple’s game-changing de-vice has helped break down the barriers that were created by the old carrierwalled garden. Today, anyone can create an application and literallychange the world with their mobile device.

The biggest trend around unified communication is accessibility. Peo-ple always have their mobile device and with social networking servicessuch as Facebook and Twitter, people are now empowered like never be-fore. People are sharing their location, gaining points on services such asFourSquare, finding local deals, reporting news and crossing to the nextlevel of real-time sharing. Right now, we are just at the tip of the icebergas what’s possible for the ‘new’ always-on-mobile user.

The industry is redefining what we think of as mobile. With the iPadand various other devices that are mobile and always connected, we arefinding new innovative uses of technology. For example, Samsung an-nounced their App Store for televisions and there are even app stores beinglaunched in vehicles. It’s a great time to be involved with mobile as it’s re-defining our everyday lives.

I see the industry heading to a point where technology, location, intentand behavior are automatically collected and inferred. Mobile devices willact as the window into your day-to-day life and will connect you to allthe devices in your environment.

The barriers to entry for starting a company have been dramatically re-duced. Amazon Web Services allows anyone to scale businesses effort-lessly. Social Media allows anyone to gain a user base and build acommunity around a product or idea. The start-up ecosystem has beencreated and it’s literally up to the entrepreneur to get started. They keychallenges in this environment is to find the right market, the right team,the right funding strategy, the right focus and the right execution for one’sbusiness plan. Don’t be scared to fail, just fail fast, so you can learn andbecome successful!


CEO spotlight

We define web analytics as figuringout how people interact with yourcompany or your brand online, withthe objective of optimizing this inter-action. If you want to know how webanalytics will move in future, you needto look at how people are interactingwith brands and companies online. On-line marketing used to be one of thechannels when marketers talked aboutmulti-channel marketing. Apart fromwebsites, there are blogs, Facebookpages, Facebook widgets, mobile ap-plications, twitter streams, couponwebsites, review websites, socialbookmarking, multimedia contentsharing, and more. Users can interactwith your brand on any of these chan-nels. As this movement happens, webanalytics as an industry is also goingto follow the trends. There are going tobe measurement frameworks and newtools that will measure such interac-tions based on the client’s analytics re-quirements and online marketinggoals.

Traditionally, web analytics toolsused to handle the full lifecycle of datafrom collecting to processing to pre-senting. This will change with the newtools. The big players in the market al-ways had APIs and it wasn’t verycheap to access these APIs. But nowwith tools like Google Analytics, it is alot easier to build a tool that doessomething very specific. These newtools are going to look better andwould build more intelligence. Datacollection and processing might be-come a little more commoditized thanit is now.

Another trend that we can see isthe number of data sources. Earlier,web analytics typically involved ana-lyzing data that originated from yourown website, or marketing cam-paigns. But now you have a prolifera-tion of data points. There are nowblogs, iPhone apps, social media, anda whole lot of such things. With usergenerated content, we also are seeingthe challenge of having to deal withqualitative data. How do you makesense of 5,000 tweets? How do wesummarize all that and help our cus-tomers identify trends and make busi-ness decisions?

The third trend that we see hap-pening is integration with BusinessIntelligence Tools. Larger organiza-tions typically have BI tools and theyare going to try and bring the web an-alytics data into it.

The challenge that entrepreneurswould face is the pace at which thingsare happening. Just when you thinkyou have come up with an idea, 10other startups are already on it andhave entered the beta phase. You get ahang of how things are happening onthe social media front and here comesanother company with a mobile appthat’s threatening your businessmodel. But I consider these as advan-tages. Change always brings disrup-tion and disruptions are good for thenewcomers.

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Seby Kallarakkal is Founder &CEO, Nabler Web Solutions.Founded in 2005, Nabler is a full-service web analytics company.

NNeexxtt BBiigg OOppppoorrttuunniittyy IInn NNeettwwoorrkkiinngg:: ‘‘UUpp IInn TThhee CClloouuddss??’’


Raj Kanaya is Co-Founder and CEO of In-fineta Systems, a provider of high-perfor-mance network optimization products.

Vishal Gurbaxani is the Co-Founder andCEO, Mobclix. Founded in 2008, Mobclix in-dustry's largest targeted mobile ad ex-change — the first open marketplace formobile developers, advertisers, ad networksand agencies

V2SOFTReady

toSoar HighReviving Marketin the

Following a series ofaccidents last year,there have beenseveral reportsabout top automo-

bile companies like Toyotaand Honda recalling several oftheir cars. These cars, manu-factured between 2000 and2007, revealed on investiga-tion a spate of problems in-cluding faulty floor mats,defective accelerator pedals,and brakes. The problemswere attributed to the glitchesin the software used in thesecars. The federal regulatorybody has ever since been verywatchful about timely updatesof software in automobiles.

But these updates are ahumongous task for the auto-

mobiles and the Michiganbased V2Soft, an IT solutionsand services provider, is wellaware of the complexities andchallenges involved. Thusvery early, VarchasviShankar, CEO, V2Soft, devel-oped an expertise in themethodology and technologyrequired by automotive com-panies during these updates.And thus it is not surprising tosee it service some of theleading national and interna-tional automobile companiesthat are knocking at theirdoors. In fact, one of its veryearly customers that de-ployed its services gave themthe mileage to prove theircompetency in this vertical,”explains Shankar.

Quick Facts:Founded: 1998

CEO: Varchasvi ShankarOffice: U.S. (Michigan &Virginia), India, China &

GermanyEmployees: 300

Investors: Self FundedWebsite: www.v2soft.com

By Vimali Swamy

COVER STORY

Varchasvi Shankar


ographies. This also helps them decreasetheir reaction time,” explains Shankar.Apart from this, the company is engagedin providing a myriad of technology so-lutions to the US Army and Departmentof Veteran Affairs at the Federal Gov-ernment level and at the State Govern-ment level with Michigan, Texas,California, Pennsylvania, and Floridaand some foreign counties.In the mobile segment, V2Soft has beenworking extensively in developing ap-plications in the wireless space, espe-cially on platforms like Apple MAC OS,PalmOS, Windows CE, JavaOS, andmore. Along with supporting the Web-based companies to move into the wire-less sector, it is also continuouslyexpanding its wireless product line anddeveloping new applications based onmobile architecture.

“We have worked extensively withsome of our top clients providing themwith wireless technology services andin turn reduce time to revenue alongwith increased efficiency and effective-ness,” says Shankar. Some of its mobiletechnology solutions include CustomBusiness Applications on mobile de-vices including I-Phones, Blackberry’s,PDA’s, and others, mobile enablingWeb applications and websites, mobilebusiness intelligence enablers, Wi-Fi,telematics development, and more.These applications can be anythingfrom sales tracking reports for seniormanagement, sales forecasting, inven-tory tracking, and others. These appli-cations can be used across all thesectors the company services.

As of now, about 50 percent of rev-enue is derived from its automotive cus-tomers and about 25 percent from thepublic sector. But with the recent floodof contracts from the government, thepercentage will increase to 60 percent.

Winning Over CustomersOne of the biggest challenges for anycompany in the IT segment is the abilityto create a difference that helps it winover clients. This is especially difficult

in a competitive market like that of ITservices where almost every other com-pany, small or big, has the same set ofservices and solutions to offer. So howdid Shankar manage to gain an edgeover the competitors?

Despite a myriad of products andservices on offer, the foundation ofV2Soft’s business success is its strategicbusiness focus, adherence to processes,and customer centric culture within thecompany.

From the beginning, Shankar waskeen on setting up the company inMichigan, which proved to be geo-graphically beneficial. Being locatedthere helped V2Soft be in close prox-imity to the automobile companies,which gave the initial momentum fortheir business. Now that the companyhas forged a deep engagement with thegovernment, the choice has proved tobe the best.

When it comes to competing at theglobal level, Shankar believes that ad-hering to the global standards in its op-erations is definitely an edge. Hence,V2Soft has successfully undergone thecertification procedures and today it isan ISO and CMMI certified company.Additionally, it is also certified as a Mi-nority Business Enterprise(MMSDC/NMSDC) SBA 8(a) and isSWaM Certified by the State of Virginia.

V2Soft believes in promoting a cul-ture of commitment and curiosity; hencenot believing in offering services beyond

its capability. The company initiallyserviced all its clients from its office inMichigan. But over the course of time,its commercial customers began explor-ing newer geographies and market; andthey raised a concern over the commit-ment of delivery. In order to keep up thecustomer confidence, Shankar quicklyexpanded the company to different re-gions from where it could continue toprovide uninterrupted services. Today,since 2008, V2Soft has two facilities inMichigan, one in Virginia and two inIndia (Bangalore and Chennai). It alsohas formed some partnerships in Chinaand Germany.

But with offices in multiple loca-tions, a new delivery model had to be de-vised - one that could cater to both thegovernment and commercial clientsfrom onsite and offsite locations. Thecompany successfully developed turnkey and fixed projects for customersusing two delivery models either sepa-rately or in tandem with delivering proj-ects on time and under budget and tobest suit the customers needs and infra-structure. One is the onsite-offsite solu-tions delivery model wherein employeesare placed in both the onsite and offsitelocations. This model maximizes the in-formation exchange and results in seam-less delivery of business solutions. Thesecond is the offsite model, where thecomplete support is provided from thecompany’s headquarters. These modelshave worked wonders for V2Soft and its

Reminiscing the initial days, Shankartells about a leading automobile OEMthat wanted to update and test the soft-ware in its existing line of cars. “As thecars are becoming more computerized itis imperative that the software and hard-ware in the car be updated and tested tomeet the standards and safety regula-tions. Every time an update or a new ver-sion of software is released, the softwaremust be tested on older and current mod-els of the vehicles,” says Shankar. Thiscomputerization raises the need for com-plex programming of vehicle controllersand as a result there is an increased de-mand for software tools to diagnose theproblems. Traditionally, this was ac-complished by bringing in various olderand newer model vehicles into the testlab for testing software as well as tomake sure that reprogramming of con-trollers could be accomplished. But thiswas time consuming, expensive, andwas delaying software release to thefield. In order to speed up the process,the OEM approached V2Soft, theMichigan based IT solutions provider.

V2Soft designed a “Vehicle TestingFramework” (VTF). The frameworkconsisted of metal cages that consistedof bucks (a bench set up of the vehicle)that had all the electronics control mod-ules required for Vehicle DiagnosticsRelay system that could be controlled re-motely to enable or disable vehicle cali-bration, Ssrvers which housed itsdiagnostic Application or software in-cluding a reprogramming controller anddiagnostic scan tools.

The bucks, with complete vehicleelectronics, allowed V2Soft providean end-to-end vehicle environment fordiagnostic testing across various vehi-cle models and help save the automo-tive company significant cost and timeas they had to bring various vehiclesto the test lab each time there was achange in software or a new release.This one of a kind lab housed in thecompany’s Rochester Hills (Michigan)facility has proved to be a boon to sev-eral automobile companies and is now

expanding from 6,000 to a 22,000square foot facility.

For Shankar, this is a moment ofpride. Founded in 1998, V2Soft hasnot only managed to survive a decadelong tumultuous journey of the IT in-dustry, but also in the process gain astrong foothold in the highly competi-tive IT services industry. But how didhe do that?

Based in Michigan, the companywas in close proximity of most of its au-tomotive clients, which was the com-pany’s initial focus when it began. Butin 2004, the automotive industry was ina decline, it became mandatory for thecompany to diversify into other indus-tries. With the global outsourcing gain-ing pace, Shankar felt that it was ideal tojump up the bandwagon. He recognizedsome of the emerging business verticalsand areas of demands where V2Softcould develop an expertise with nichesolution offerings. Today, the company’score offerings include custom applica-tion development, mobile technologysolutions, IV&V (Independent Verifica-tion and Validation), embedded systems,and scan tools software across industrieslike automotive, government, energy,healthcare, and insurance.

Of the above, automotive, govern-ment, healthcare, and mobile are thebiggest revenue drivers for V2Soft.Apart from building end-to-end vehiclediagnosis framework, the company hasalso developed applications on diagnos-tics scan tools, tool and device interfaces,and OS level programming for autocompanies. These tools today are beingused to reprogram vehicle controllers byits customers globally. The tools, Wi-Fienabled, are used in dealerships bydealer technicians to diagnose vehicle

problems and help in diagnosis. It hasalso built applications that can be cou-pled with other technologies to not onlyperform various functions like sales,marketing, financials, procurement, andsupply but also capture usage analyticswhich is reported back to the OEM.

Having built a competency in devel-oping scan tools for the automotive in-dustry, it felt logical for V2Soft to extend

the same expertise in the healthcare sec-tor. It is currently developing applica-tions to run on PDAs and mobile devicesto be used by doctors and nurses usinglight-weight apps in hospitals. These ap-plications can also be ported to othermobile devices. It also provides wirelesstechnology testing and analytics servicesand has the technology and tools to testthe different wireless applications.

At present, the second biggest busi-ness driver for V2Soft is its in-depthwork with the government of the US.With its Government Services Practice,the company has built a deep relation-ship with both the state and federal gov-ernments and educational organizationsand helps them achieve high perform-ance to meet the challenges of a rapidlychanging public sector environment.Last year it won a five year contract withthe Center for Disease Control (CDC), aWeb analytics company. V2Soft wouldprovide Web analytics for their website(www.cdc.gov). “Close to a billion peo-ple visit the website to get informationon various diseases and precautionarymeasures, government’s policies, and fa-cilities available on that basis. With ourWeb and mobile analytics services, gov-ernment officials can track the region-wise pattern of browsing, what kind ofinformation is being looked up for, andmore to assess the needs in different ge-

Apart from building end-to-end vehicle diagnosisframework, V2 Soft develops applications on diagnostics scan tools, tool/device interfaces, OSlevel programming for auto companies.

V2Soft Team


clients across the globe and re-instatedthe company’s commitment level. Aproof of it is the fact that one of the au-tomotive OEMs in Michigan madeV2Soft its third global supplier. This is agreat feat, considering the fact that thefirst two suppliers are multi-billion dol-lar companies.

To leverage its commitment to cus-tomers, every employee, since inception,is instilled with the values and culturethe company stands for, and they aretuned to the fact that it is beyond thecontracts that relationships are built.Shankar made sure that most of the em-ployees had a relentless research and de-velopment mindset and a commitmentto stay ahead of the technology curvewith continuous in-house training andcareer development. “To provide thebest of services to its customers and im-bibe the culture of innovation, the com-pany has set up a small R&D centr.Irrespective of the work done for ourcustomers, our R&D team continuouslydevelops new products and solutionsthat sooner or later cater to the cus-tomers’ needs. The Vehicle TrackingFramework was one such product,which later earned us a landmark dealwith an OEM,” says Shankar. This hasboosted each individual in their teams totake ownership of their actions and real-ize how individual actions build a cham-pion team. As a further step to groom itsleaders, the project heads are constantlytransferred between the US and India of-fices. This helps them to understand thedifferent work cultures and gives them achance to interact with their customersacross the globe.

Life at V2SoftAt V2Soft, the care of its employees istaken very seriously. The company is notonly well known for its dedicated cus-tomer services, but also as a great placeto work in. The company is keen ongrooming the employees and creating aplace where they can learn and grow.The key to V2Soft’s success is the beliefthat something great is always out there,

waiting to be discovered, and the effer-vescent entrepreneurial spirit om-nipresent in the company. “I believe inhaving faith in one’s people and it is myutmost priority to provide an environ-ment that is free from bureaucracy andother negativities,” explains Shankar. Toensure this, there is no mid-level man-agement in the organization. All theproject directors report directly toShankar, who himself practices an opendoor policy and transparent manage-ment. V2Soft is a diverse company andShankar believes that diversity in work-force is one of the key factors for suc-cess of his company while being flexibleand agile in their customer service.

In keeping with the company’s cul-ture, they celebrate all achievements -big and small, together as a team. Sum-mer picnics and Christmas-season par-ties for children and adults offereveryone the opportunity to meet inmore relaxed circumstances and lookback on a job well done. Having grownrapidly over the last decade, V2Soft stillenjoys an environment more like a smallstartup with a high degree of flexibilityin roles and a minimum of structure,guideline, and policy.

“Being in Michigan, I have a cer-tain commitment to the society and thepeople back here. With V2Soft, I wantto be able to create a platform for thelocal talent,” Shankar explains. Apartfrom employing a lot of local talent,the company also renders support toseveral social organizations and com-munity events such as Little Sister’s,Multiple Sclerosis Foundation,Wildlife Conservation Foundation,Make a Wish Foundation, Cancer In-stitutes, flood relief operations, andbuilding houses (AKKA).

Looking at the current scenariowhere the Obama administration is en-couraging and supporting locally basedcompanies, V2Soft seems to be on theright track. It is this ideology and loyaltyto the state that helped V2Soft get rec-ognized as the ‘Top Diversity OwnedBusiness in Michigan’ by Diversity-Business.com for three consecutiveyears, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Also it hasbeen named as one of the ‘Michigan Top50 Companies to Watch’, and ‘DiversityFocussed Company’ by Corp magazine.V2Soft has been investing in Michiganand has been instrumental in creatingjobs and bring jobs back to the state.

Today the company has a strong

team of 105 in the US, 170 in India,and 25 in China. Outside the US, theIndia center is where the real actionhappens for V2Soft. The India centeris independently growing in terms ofbusiness with several large fortune 500customers.

Globally, the company plans toenter into an expansion mode by theend of 2011. With the opening of itsnew center in Mexico City, Shankarplans to expand to South America.The BRIC countries and Europe arethe new markets he is eyeing. Interms of application development,several new products are under de-velopment and will be introduced inthe beginning of 2011.

“The market has just begun to re-cover and with our strategies in place,we are confident of experiencing a pe-riod of tremendous growth in the nextfew years,” says an ecstatic Shankar.His enthusiasm is contagious andlooking at the decade long journey ofthis survivor, his ideas are somethingthat one can bet on. si

Avibrant economy, 1.1billion people, a bur-geoning middle class, 8percent sustainablegrowth, robust legal and

regulatory framework, and an entre-preneurial community continuinglylooking to innovate make India an ex-tremely promising investment destina-tion. Our investment thesis is to seek,create, nurture, and develop investmentopportunities across a wide spectrumof businesses that form the nucleus offuelling the Indian consumption drivengrowth story. Every conceivable sectorin India is under-penetrated. Financialservices, healthcare, education, infra-structure development, logistics, andso on and so forth. Let’s take a look atsome numbers: Outstanding bankcredit of $650 billion compared to aGDP in excess of $1 trillion; mortgageto GDP ratio of 7 percent compared to80 percent in the US and 86 percent inthe UK. Healthcare spend is about 5percent of GDP as against 15 percentin the US and is extremely fragmented.Private education spend estimate toreach $80 billion by 2012, which iscurrently, less than 5 percent of GDP.The opportunities to play in the supplychain of each of the sectors above willcreate valuable businesses in the fu-ture. The key opportunities lie in en-abling access, creating a robustfulfillment framework, and productiz-ing the learning that enables IP creationto drive innovation. Disruptive busi-ness models enabling dis-intermedia-tion and consolidation at both ends ofthe spectrum and supporting superiorexecution are key. The pain points aremany, solutions many, and capital fi-

nite. Backing passionate, highly drivenentrepreneurs who are bold and auda-cious thinkers with proven executionskills is what we seek.

Application of technology is om-nipresent in driving all forms of inno-vation; right from a block buster drugdiscovery to making hot dogs in lessertime that improves utilization and pro-ductivity. Breakthrough ideas in health-care provisioning that saves lives,delivering financial services applica-tions to the under-banked and helpingthem move up from the base of thepyramid, and enabling the best in classeducational content and teaching ac-cess at price points that will penetratebeyond just the privilege of few aresome of the key trends that we seeevolving. With 500 milion+ mobilesubscribers and an ever-increasing In-ternet penetration, the channels to cre-ate effective fulfillment models arereal.

Some of the hottest technologieswe see are in Wireless apps around se-curity, IT and BPO businesses aroundRIM, and Cloud computing. Big op-portunities are there around financial

inclusion and the entire payments spaceacross multiple channels. The ability ofa framer to invest his surplus in mutualfunds using his mobile is real. If exe-cuted well, the industry gets a potential750 million customer base. Imagine theimpact on the capital markets and en-suing wealth creation. Healthcare ideasare around diagnostics and medicalservices (general and specialized) net-work creation. Provisioning tele-radi-ology solutions and creating robusthealth information systems that drivespeed, accuracy, and timeliness areamong the emerging themes. Some ofthe core, under-penetrated sectors willgrow 5-10x of GDP growth. The op-portunity is real and it is time to putmoney to work. Several business mod-els are fragmented and sometimes bro-ken. Creating effective market placesthat eventually de-clog the supplychain and reduce the levels of interme-diation are some of the key elementswe look for in potential investment tar-gets. We have seen the trends andpoints of inflexion in the US and morerecently in China. Every $50 increasein per capita income will create a mul-tiplier effect on size and scale of busi-nesses that will benefit from higherdisposable incomes.

Our advice to entrepreneurs is sim-ple - Think big or go home. You have tobe tenacious and stay spirited throughthe journey, which more often than notis turbulent and fraught with risks. si

India: Where Lies the NextBig Investment Opportunity?

VVCC TTaallkk:: By Rajesh Subramaniam

The key opportunitieslie in enabling access,creating a robust fulfillment framework,and productizing thelearning that enables IPcreation to drive innovation

Rajesh Subramaniam

With its Government Services Practice, V2 Soft hasengages with state and federal governments to helpachieve high performance and meet the challengesof rapidly changing public sector environment.

The author is Managing Director India, Walden International

Buzzom is the ‘Stats’ which helps auser measure one’s Twitter perform-ance by giving brief but accurate statsabout himself, his profile type and hisfollowers’ twitter activity and effi-ciency. Apart from this, one can mon-itor buzz about their brand by trackingthe conversations to find interestingand actionable statistics. Users canalso choose to add all their socialmedia profiles such as Multiple Twit-ter Profiles, Facebook Fan Page, Face-book Profile, LinkedIn Profile andmore to the system and increase theirusers reach.

The Download Report option al-lows users to obtain complete data onTwitter account performance andcomes with an option to include cor-porate logo and disclaimer too. Apartfrom that, users can “follow” or “un-follow” people based on keywords intheir bio, Tweet and Location too. Theservice provides spam control by let-ting users choose spam keywords orchoose from the predefined spamwords provided so the system will fil-ter those messages from the inbox.Scheduling status messages or directmessages to be sent to one or all of theprofiles in different time zones, trans-lating tweets from countries likeJapan, China, France and more, con-trolling the number of updates, timecycle for your updates and repetitionof the updates are some of the otherfeatures Buzzom offers. “In simplewords, Buzzom lets users interact withpotential customers, monitor theirbrand, market their product, plan mar-keting strategies and grow network allat one single place,” says BhupendraKhanal, CEO, InRev Systems.

A SaaS product, Buzzom is a veryflexible service which users can availas per their requirement. Based on theservices they require at a given mo-ment, users can choose packageswhich cost as low as $10 a month, $25for three-months or $45 for six

months. Currently, a lifetime packageof Buzzom Premium is also beingmade available at $ 99.

Social CRM is a large yet compet-itive market with several organizationssuch as Radian6, Hootsuite, Co-Tweettrying to grab a pie for itself. ButKhanal is not perturbed by competi-tion. “Though we are a new entrant inthis market, I believe we have an edgeover other players who have beenaround for a while. While most com-panies offer solutions that addresses toonly one part of social CRM likebrand monitoring and campaign man-agement, Buzzom on the other hand isthe only product in market offering360 degree approach to it,” says he.

Talking about Buzzom’s edge oversimilar products in the market,Stephanie Yeah, a long time user ofBuzzom says, “I have tried several so-cial media tools before trying andswitching to Buzzom. I was verypleased with the results of using Buz-zom. My Twitter followers increasedat a steady and organic rate, my inter-action in Twitter increased greatly, andbest of all, my online business is doinggreat as a result of all of this targetedtraffic. I would highly recommendBuzzom as an excellent service withgreat customer support to back it up!”

Also, unlike other products, Buz-zom is not an app built on Twitter plat-form. It is an independent Twitterbased application that can be easily in-tegrated with any suite of CRM solu-tion. Recently the company hasdecided to release the code for Twitter

Client Buzzom Desktop for no cost tothe willful individual developers andcompanies as long as the product builtover it will have NXY.IN as the de-fault URL Shortener. This is a steptaken by the company to drive moreinnovation in the Twitter ApplicationSpace.

Despite the positive outlook,Khanal feels that social media is mar-ket with great risks especially for start-ups. Factors like change in behavior ofpeople resulting in less interaction insocial networks, social networkingeco-system being unfriendly to third-party apps and big technology compa-nies entering the market pose dauntingchallenges to entrepreneurs.

With in a short span of time, InRevhas grown exponentially and boasts of aclient base of over 500 companies,which include over 70 of the top 100players in SEO globally. In order to ex-pand the user base, InRev has alsoformed potential partnership with play-ers in social media consulting, web an-alytics, internet marketing and businessanalytics. Bhupendra with his 15 mem-ber team at present is gearing up tolaunch the social CRM suite in the nextsix weeks. Another pressing priority forhim is venture funding. Having beenself funded, the company is activelyseeking funds to provide a strong mo-mentum for growth. But by the looks ofthe rate of customer acquisition that thecompany portrays at present (15000 permonth), InRev is sure to beat the oddsand gain a strong fixture in the SocialCRM landscape. si

si l i con ind ia |23|S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0s i l i con ind ia |22|S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0

Despite the fears of ruckus social mediamight create with in a corporate net-work, one can not deny the advantagesit has to offer, especially when itcomes to marketing and analytics.With millions of internet users voic-ing opinions and sharing data viablogs and over networks like Twitter

and Facebook, it is rather difficult to get a platform better the socialmedia for real time brand management and other marketing activ-ities. According to Forrester, Internet marketing is touted to grow to$55 billion by 2014 of which social media will be a $3.1 billionmarket. Cashing on the promising future that Social Media has tooffer is Bangalore headquartered InRev Systems.

Founded in 2009, the year and half old start up develops appli-cations for social media optimization and with its flagship product,Buzzom, it promises to change the way corporate look at socializ-ing. Priced at $10 per month Buzzom Premium is the company’sfirst offering. It helps users track their growth on Twitter along withmultiple other services. One of the most talked about feature of

BuzzomCreating a Buzz in Social CRM

Founded: January 2009Offices: BangaloreKey Persons:Bhupendra Khanal,Founder & CEO; Sweta Sharma, COO;Deep Sherchan, CMOTeam: 15 Investors:Self FundedCompetitors: Radian6,Hootsuite, Co-TweetWebsite:www.buzzom.com

monthstartupof the

By Vimali Swamy

Buzzom Team

Bhupendra Khanal, CEO

Buzzom lets users interact with potential customers, monitor their brand, markettheir product, plan marketing strategies and grownetwork all at one single place‘‘


The Coming Wireless BroadbandrevolutionIt is clear that wireless broadband or4G has the potential to significantlychange the way we live and work —possibly even to the same extent thatthe mobile phone has changed the waybillions of people live and work today.But that paradigm shift is less likely tooccur if 4G networks are launchedsolely as better, faster “dumb pipes”.To really drive growth in 4G wirelessbroadband usage, and to maximize theopportunity for 4G revenue, serviceproviders should consider treating their4G networks as “service pipes” overwhich they can make a wide range ofservices available to the end users —from tiered packages of “service chan-nels” to one-time, pay-as-you-go of-ferings. In concert with this strategy, asdemand for new 4G services grows,the smooth delivery, configuration, se-curity and management of a widerange of services on every single 4G-capable device will become increas-ingly key to the success of the 4Gservice offerings. This means that theservice enablement and device man-agement platform will become a criti-

cal success factor in the launch of 4Gnetworks and services.

Growth In Mobile DataThe number of mobile subscribersworldwide is expected to surpass 5 bil-lion this year. The InternationalTelecommunication Union (ITU)(February 20101) reported that in 2009there were 4.6 billion mobile cellularsubscriptions globally. The ITU ex-pects this to reach 5 billion in 2010,more than 70 percent of the world pop-ulation (the world population in April2010 was 6.8 billion). While voice wasthe killer application for the first fewgenerations of cellular networks, datatraffic has overtaken voice traffic inspite of the current 1:10 ratio of data-capable phones to voice/messaging-only phones. This trend in increaseddata traffic is only going to accelerate,growing exponentially with wide-spread adoption of wireless broadbandnetworks. However, according to ABIresearch2, data ARPU is not exhibitingthe same growth rate as the data trafficthat is carried by the network; thus cre-ating a significant dilemma for mobileoperators on how to match generated

revenue with resource consumption.For wireless broadband to have a

sustainable business model, it needs tobe perceived as more than just a newtype of bit pipe. Bandwidth and cover-age improvements are really notenough to constitute a new generationof wireless network. Just as there wasa paradigm shift in usage when wire-less networks moved up a generationfrom 2G to 3G — from simple voiceand messaging to complex data serv-ices and applications — with 4G weneed a comparable paradigm shift inservice offerings.

One way for service providers tochange the paradigm is to present 4Gas “service pipe” — a broadband pipethat makes a wide range of services(micro and bundled) available to thesubscriber, rather than just providingincreased bandwidth and coverage.This sort of paradigm would go handin hand with a tiered pricing strategybased on the service offerings — sim-ilar to cable TV, where pricing is basedon the channels and packages of chan-nels included in the subscription. Thisapproach has the potential of making4G into a disruptive technology, un-

leashing novel services and packagestailored to different markets and, as aresult, gaining a huge subscriber base.

The 4G “Service Pipe”For wireless broadband to be a game-changing technology right fromlaunch, it is probably best if the “allyou can eat for one flat price” strategyis avoided from the start. Serviceproviders need to think in terms of aservice-based pricing model for 4Gright from the time of deploymentrather than as an afterthought. Insteadof a dumb bit pipe, a 4G “service pipe”would provide a medium for offering“service channels” and packages ortiers based on those channels. Thebasic service channel or packagewould include voice and SMS. Beyondthat, each service offering could be of-fered as a micro-service, similar to aparticular channel on TV. Continuingwith the TV analogy, individual 4Gservices could be grouped into pack-ages to allow tiered pricing — for ex-ample, a Basic package could includevoice and SMS, while a Premiumpackage might also include video,streaming, and presence. There couldeven be pay-per-use services (e.g., livesports, interactive games, augmentedreality). To allow for innovation interms of service creation, hooks or net-work APIs into the 4G network shouldbe made available so that service de-velopers can use these APIs to createnew services for the 4G network.

Service Enablement in 4GGiven the increasing availability andrapid growth in the adoption of smart-phones, “superphones” and other de-vices such as tablets, netbooks andthe like supporting wireless broad-band services, mobile device man-agement (MDM) becomes thepreferred platform for service enable-ment and management. The devicemanagement platform need to evolveto service enablement and manage-ment platform which enables 4G

services to be activated based on userpreference and acceptance. New serv-ices can be offered dynamically, in-cluding pre-packaged andpay-as-you-go services. A provider’sservice offerings can be presented asa catalog to users, encouraging themto choose services on the fly usingtheir smartphones or other 4G de-vices. The service enablementprocess would include several steps,including the downloading of anyneeded application software and con-figuration of the service or enablingsecurity features needed for the oper-ation of the service.

In addition, a service enablementand management platform wouldmanage the lifecycle of the applica-tions used to provide certain services.When the service is first enabled, ap-plication components would bedownloaded, installed and configuredon the device. If the service is up-dated in such a way as to require aconfiguration or application change,the platform would manage any re-quired configuration changes or ap-plication updates on the device.Additionally, the platform would be

used to diagnose and repair any prob-lems with the application or service.And finally, if the user unsubscribesfrom a particular service, the platformwould ensure the uninstallation ofany application components that needto be removed from the device.

Conclusion4G has the potential to significantlychange the way we live and work, par-ticularly if service providers treat their4G networks as service pipes overwhich they can make a wide range ofservices available to the end users —from tiered packages of “service chan-nels” to one-time, pay-as-you-go of-ferings. As demand for new 4Gservices grows, the smooth delivery,configuration, security and manage-ment of a wide range of services onevery single 4G-capable device willbecome key to the success of thesenew 4G service offerings. This makesthe service enablement and manage-ment platform a critical factor in thesuccess of new 4G networks and serv-ices, helping service providers capital-ize on the power and potential of their4G network investments. si

TTeecchhnnoollooggyy:: By Rakesh Kushwaha & Badri NathRakesh Kushwaha, CTO, and Badri Nath, Chief Scientist, Mformation

Wireless broadband should be launched as a 4G ‘ser-vice pipe’ that would provide a medium for offering‘service channels’ and packages or tiers based onthose channels


Can you wake up onemorning and imaginelife without somethingas simple as your cellphone or e-mail? The

future of brands is about people,processes and technology.

In a dynamic global industrywhere communication is the key togrowth, technology trends are inex-orably moving towards increasednetworking, of connecting every-thing which can be connected. Ma-chine-to-Machine (M2M) technologyspells the future; linking people, sys-tems, and devices in new and trans-forming ways.

Earlier, machines worked in abubble; controlled, monitored andmanaged by human operators. Withthe increased use of automation andsensors, this not only became diffi-cult, but also called for higher effi-ciency through the networking ofthese automata. Better networkingleads to higher system efficiency anda greater situational awareness forthe controller, who has more infor-mation available to him. UsingM2M, data from devices (sensors forexample) can be relayed through anetwork to a software applicationthat can use this data.

The key components of an M2Msystem are a group of communica-tion-enabled devices, a communica-tion link between them and a centralserver, a database for the stored dataand appropriate software interfaces

for evaluation and monitoring.The explosion of wireless net-

works across the world has made itfar easier for M2M communication,in terms of power and speed. Com-munications enabled devices are pro-jected to touch 50 billion devices by2020. This creates an infinite array ofpossibilities for connectivity and in-numerable applications for them.

A major focus in today’s post-In-convenient Truth world is energy ef-ficiency. Carbon-neutral and cleantechnologies are domains with ex-tremely large capital and researchfunding. Clean tech is not a fad or analtruistic goal though. It makes busi-ness sense as well.

M2M enables companies to re-motely monitor equipment, identifyand take care of any machine breakdown in the shortest possible time,and increase efficiency of the ma-chines by ensuring that they are work-ing at their optimum. Efficient energyutilization requires detailed and up-to-date information about resourceusage, a perfect job for M2M tech-nology. Indeed, the Industry has rec-ognized this, and energy efficientsystems are a major thrust area for theM2M domain.

An example of the effectivenessof M2M in delivering efficiency is‘Smart Grids’. A Smart Grid is an im-proved electricity supply chain thatincorporates intelligence at all levels,from the power plant to your officeand home. A Smart Grid uses the ex-

isting electricity grid, and adds mon-itoring, analysis, control, and com-munication capabilities to maximizeefficiency while reducing energy con-sumption.

Using smart grids, energy con-sumption can be tracked much moreeffectively. Wastage and power theftcan be tracked and halted. Awarenessof loads allows for power to be re-al-located quickly to the places that needit the most. By analyzing the usage,maintenance of grid infrastructure canalso be well-planned, this being sig-nificant with the imbalance in powerdemand and supply.

Consumers can monitor consump-tion and choose energy saving meth-ods such as, using less power hungryequipment, or scheduling their use tooff-peak hours, when the grid will beless loaded and the power, cheaper tobuy. This leads to huge energy andcost savings, no small achievement ata time when most companies arestruggling to reduce their operatingcosts. The US Department of Energycalculated that modernization of USgrids with smart grid capabilitieswould save between 46 and 117 bil-lion dollars over the next 20 years.

To illustrate, by using M2M tech-nology, a manufacturing companymight create a network of smart me-ters within its facility to measurepower usage. The data obtained canbe used to identify sources of wastageor excess usage. The heaviest use ofpower can be scheduled at off-peak

hours, when the grid isn’t loaded, andpower is cheaper to buy. This is ac-complished without any change to theoperations of the facility itself, andyet, leads to large savings for both thepower generator and user, leading toenormous energy savings across ver-ticals. At a small consumer level,M2M can be used by homes and ho-tels to automatically shut off lights, orchange the air-conditioning tempera-ture to save power.

There are other domains whereM2M can usher in energy efficiency.An M2M network can allow linemento isolate faults in electric networks,by identifying their accurate location,rather than searching the length of thenetwork. Energy efficient lightingnetworks can be enabled using M2Mtechnology to deliver better efficiencyfor offices and public places alike.An example of a specific verticalwhere M2M is useful for energy sav-ing is cell phone towers, the ubiqui-tous symbol of the telecomrevolution, especially in India. Withmost areas recording over 100% pen-etration and new providers enteringthe market, the focus is on giving theuser more bang for the buck, achievedthrough increased efficiency, greaterconnectivity and services at lowercost.

This requires that cell phone tow-ers perform to their peak at all times,a significant challenge consideringthe current energy scenario. The largenumber of such towers also calls foran integrated network. Thus, there aremajor areas of monitoring – checkingfor alerts and faults with the datatransmission, such as network con-gestion, etc, especially for each oper-ator using that tower; tracking andoptimizing power usage by the towerand charging each user accordingly,and remotely ensuring that the physi-cal infrastructure of the tower is ingood order. This overall health moni-toring can lead to substantial opera-tional savings.

The increased intelligence avail-able also allows controllers to plannetwork and power usage better, anduse that data to develop more efficientbusiness practices. Given the in-creased load on networks with highdata rates, crowding of the spectrumand the move towards intelligent re-source utilization in 3G and 4G tech-nologies, M2M is slated to play a bigrole in generating this efficiency.

Various countries are encouragingthe growth of M2M technologies.Smart metering is growing in NorthAmerica in part as the result of themarket structure there. M2M servicesprovide a major emerging revenuesource for telecom service providers,with revenues estimated at over 20billion dollars in 2009. In July 2009,Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm an-

nounced a JV to provide M2M prod-ucts. In Europe, France Telecom is thefirst operator to provide a completeend-to-end M2M solution. It currentlyhas more than 1.1 million M2M users.By September 2009, Japanese KDDIhad sold about 2 million M2M com-munication modules.

The Chinese government set agoal of reducing China’s energy in-tensity by 20 percent between 2005and 2010, and provided multi-milliondollar subsidies to this end. China isbuilding a Wide Area Monitoring sys-tem, and by 2012, plans to have PMU(power management units) sensors atall generators over 300 MW, and sub-stations of 500 kV and above. Sincegeneration and transmission is tightlycontrolled by the state, standards andcompliance is rapid.

In 2007, China Mobile set up itsM2M support center in Chongqing

for M2M product R&D and platformconstruction. China Mobile has pro-vided over 3 million M2M terminalsmainly to the electricity, transporta-tion and finance industries. As of June2009, China Mobile had openedM2M services in the country’s 31provinces, and released five M2M ap-plications. Its next five-year averagegrowth of M2M services is expectedto reach 60%. Predictions say, M2Mwould be China Mobile’s next appli-cation on a 100-million-user scale.

A major issue with present dayM2M systems is the lack of standard-ization of interfaces between M2Mterminals and sensors/sensor net-works, especially of wireless links,leading to providers needing to de-velop their own standards. Threemajor Chinese mobile operators are

developing different M2M standards.Standardization will lead to a furtherexplosion in the use of M2M technol-ogy, by allowing access to muchlarger networks, standardized hard-ware and cost savings througheconomies of scale leading to cost ef-fective manufacturing of this hard-ware. However, these are niggles thatwould be cleared with time.

Governments are willing, theneed for efficiency exists, as doesthe moral push towards it, the mar-ket is ready, the areas of applicationare countless and technology is ripefor use to solve them. M2M is an ex-citing technology, and is fast provingitself capable of helping the worlduse its energy resources better byconnecting all machines with eachother and with us. With M2M, theidea called “Internet-of-Things” iscoming to life. si

Energy Savings across Verticals Using various

M2M Technologies

TTeecchhnnoollooggyy:: By Vivek KhemaniAuthor is Head - Strategy & Finance, ConnectM

A major issue with present day M2M sys-tems is the lack of standardization of inter-faces between M2M terminals andsensors/sensor networks

100 million users worldwide and isnow attracting 190 million visitorsper month and generating 65 milliontweets a day. Computing and sensornetworks itself is becoming more dy-namic and needs extra data. Peopleare using more than before data to

predict behav-ioral pattern

and predictperform-

a n c e s .Obvi-o u s l y

the moreanalytical

we are be-coming in our

approach, themore data we require to analyze.

Terabyte Trends in TechnologyThere is an exponential increase inthe raw computing power that isavailable at our disposal today. Thelast decade especially has seen adrastic increase in the processingpower which hit a road block aboutseven years back when the clockspeed touched 3 gigahertz and couldnot run any faster. This brought outthe need for multi core processingwhich is not only faster but highlyreliable too. As a result, today, youcan find a 32 core processor withhalf terabyte of main memory and 2terabytes of solid state disk at ourdisposal at a highly affordable price.This kind of computing power wasunthinkable in the 90’s.

With this kind of computingpower at our disposal, software prod-uct development companies are nowlooking at way to harness this powerand rewrite software that can processdata tens of thousands of times faster.We at SAP Labs have been quick totake on this challenge and our engi-neers are already involved in rewrit-ing codes that will revolutionize theway big data is analyzed andprocessed and all this in real time.

A disruption called ‘In-Memory’As mentioned earlier, one of the high-est priorities for organizations of anysize and across any industry is man-aging and analyzing the soaring quan-tity of data, and harnessing thatinformation to improve their busi-

ness. The world’s major oil compa-nies, major governments, educationalinstitutions, pharma companies,banks, internet portals deal with mil-lions of transactions daily and arestruggling to analyze and use this datawhich normally takes weeks andmonths. SAP has always understoodthis and has addressed this challengeand is currently developing in-mem-ory solutions which will allow ourcustomers (to cite an example, largeenterprises in the FMCG space whohave data of more than 5 - 6 ter-abytes) to explore business data at thespeed of thought.

In-memory computing is consid-ered as one of the largest disruptionsof the 21st century that will enablebusiness users to instantaneously ac-cess, explore, model and analyzetransactional, analytical and Web-based data in real-time in a single en-vironment, without impacting thedata warehouse or other systems.

For example, a utility companyemployee could look at usage data toidentify patterns over a particular re-gion or time period, and then analyzethat data comparatively enabling real-time planning based on immediate ac-cess to usage data. Employees at amanufacturing company could ana-lyze asset utilization in real-time ontransactional data, while a financialservices firm could perform real-timerisk management and measure market

exposure by combining structuredcredit scoring data with unstructureddata, including information from theInternet.

According to Information Tech-nology Research major, Gartner, in-memory analytics is an emerging

technology that will drive mainstreambusiness intelligence, making it opti-mal and that will change the scenarioof how people make more informeddecisions while interacting with data.

To power the next generation ofbusiness intelligence, business plan-ning and business analytic applica-tions, SAP is now working withleading hardware partners to deliveran in-memory software and hard-ware appliance optimized for real-time analytics using data fromoperational systems, data ware-houses, real-time events and the Web.

Concluding the futureThe dynamics of handling data isonly getting more complex. The ap-petite for getting real-time informa-tion is increasing at an unimaginablerate and catering this need is goingto be exciting and challenging. I be-lieve this is a great opportunity forall of us to rethink our approach tomaking sense of the ever-increasingamount of information available, nomatter where it comes from. Theworld is waiting for the next ‘iPodmoment’.

It’s time we gave the real world areal deal. Real-time products andapplications. The only thing thatwill make good business sense. Andthis requires a real-time mindsetshift. It’s possible! si

What if we found a‘needle’ in a haystack that is tentimes the size ofplanet Jupiter, in

less than a second? Think about it.Time is money. Information from var-ious sources is increasing at a mind-boggling rate begging to be analyzedcorrectly and made sense of. Tradi-tional way of running business ispassé. To stay ahead of competition,you require tools that will handlethese large volumes of data in real-time helping you take informed busi-ness decisions. You need to know thestatus as-is as of ‘now’. Not as of July31, 2010.

Big Data. Slice n’ Dice!‘Big Data’ is the buzz word from thehigh performance computing niche ofthe IT market. Big Data is suddenlythe focus of most presentation fromsuppliers of processing virtualizationand storage virtualization software.But what is Big Data?

According to a recent report fromMcKinsey, data are flooding in atrates never seen before—doublingevery 18 months— this is all becauseof greater access to customer datafrom public, proprietary, and pur-chased sources, as well as new infor-mation gathered from Webcommunities and newly deployed

smart assets. These trends are broadlyknown as ‘Big Data’. But if I were toexplain this more simplistically, thenany data is big when one has to reallysit and take decisions on how to or-ganize it, manage it and most impor-tantly analyze it to get somedesired results. In other words, thephrase refers to the tools, processesand procedures allowing any organi-zation to create, manipulate, andmanage very large data of the size ofmany gigabytes to terabyte, petabyteor even larger collections of data.

Data accumulated and not man-aged can pose a great problem. Thereare many reasons for data to grow.From government regulation needswhere in data is stored for future ref-erence to data needed for critical re-search and analysis for example insectors like health/pharma, energy orweather environment. While on theother hand big data can really providea huge competitive edge for thosecompanies who can manage it, ana-lyze it and use it for optimizing oper-

ationsor any

o t h e rbeneficial task. There are examplescited by big companies like Googlewho clearly demonstrate how one canhave an edge over its competitorssimply by analyzing the data thatgives you information on the groundyou are operating.

Today Big Data managementstands out as one point challenge forIT companies and increasingly the so-lution is moving from providing hard-ware to more manageable softwaresolutions. But before actually talkingabout the solutions, let’s take a stepback and understand where all thisextra data is coming from. Well, thesources are many; the web itself isone source which is giving out a lotof valuable and critical informationthat needs to be analyzed and there-fore stored as data. Facebook, in justover two short years, has quintupledin size to a network that touches morethan 500 million users. Twitter, sinceits creation in 2006 has grown to over


TTeecchhnnoollooggyy:: By V R Ferose The author is Managing Director, SAP Labs India

BBIIGG DDAATTAAMaking Sense in Real-Time

Data are flooding inat rates never seenbefore—doublingevery 18 months

In-memory computing is considered asone of the largest disruptions of the21st century


Never has it been moreimperative for compa-nies to tightly integratetheir business goals andvision with their IT sys-

tems. The business environment ischaracterised by the need to improveproductivity, efficiency, and innova-tion. Companies that fail to achievethese goals have a greater than everprobability of not just being left behindbut facing annihilation altogether. For-tunately, there are multiple solutionsavailable to accomplish these goalsand it is just a matter of having the cor-porate zeal and focus to translate ideasand goals into execution.

Learning is eternal; not just for hu-

mans but for businesses as well. Busi-nesses will learn in soft and hard waysand the best businesses learn in both.The soft way of learning comes fromthe day-to-day operations, from man-agers, colleagues, clients, and variousinternal stakeholders. The hard way islearned from the external world, char-acterized by Michael Porter as the fiveforces (Supplier Power, Barriers toEntry, Buyer Power, Threat of Substi-tutes, and Rivalry). The Depression of1930s brought a large amount of spikesand volatility. The businesses that suc-ceeded were able to adapt and learn atevery stage. The current economic tri-als and tribulations have as many les-sons to teach.

Are Businesses Being Fooled by theRandomness of the Economy?The bubble and bust in the IT sectorsome eight years back brought withit layoffs and criticism of the tech-nology industry from which it stillhasn’t recovered. Cornered, most ITcompanies tried diversifying theirbusiness – some succeeded, somestretched so much that they con-fused the offering and ended upclosing altogether. Rescue camefrom a variety of sources and thelucky, resourceful businesses startedgrowing as part of a new industrybubble. Once the recession showed its faceagain in the summer of 2007, thebusts were noticed across the boardas the financial system, the root ofthe economy, collapsed.

The geographic markets did notall react the same way. The westernworld witnessed as an ‘economicstorm’ what the eastern world expe-rienced as a slowdown. Businessestotally dependent on markets in thewest were the worst victims. Arabcountries stood erect in the storm,with their businesses the least af-fected. This may be because manyhere practice a family-run businessmodel, which is less affected by aninternational recession and gener-ally behaves more cautiously. Theeconomists were unable to predictthe randomness of the economy andwere forced to rewrite their financialforecasts.

We Have Been Here Before The highly volatile markets pro-vided many lessons to the businessworld. Businesses found themselvesstanding on the same ground butwith different opponents and oppor-tunities. The two major concernswere how to sustain the business inthe recession and how to flourishonce the economy recovers. Similarto policies followed in the 1930’s,the world’s governments looked to

fiscal stimulus to end the recessionand found ways to support the pub-lic players and the major privateplayers in their region to support

their growth. Gartner is predicting agrowth rate of at most 7 percent inUAE and Africa and 9 percent inLatin America. People who werethinking of investing in new prod-ucts are rethinking their strategiesand planning to invest more in re-taining their customers.

The end customers have alsobeen affected by the recession andhave begun saving and spendingwith more purpose than before.Service providers needed to im-prove productivity deliver a betterservice and become more closelytied with their customers to maintaina better customer relationship. Oneway of improving the productivityand the relationship was by ensuringa seamless flow of data betweensuppliers and customers and inte-grating information across the en-terprises. This task is made easier byERP which also focuses on CRM.

Where the Investments Will BeIt has been predicted that around€140 billion will be spent by themanufacturing sector to link up thedata systems with the ERP and CRMsystems. (Analysts - Pierre AudoinConsultants (PAC), February 2010).

Companies are looking totighten their technical integrationwith the customers and suppliers, ir-respective of the sectors they are in.Even region-wide, spending in IT

plays a lead. For example, IT spend-ing in UAE will go up to $15.91 bil-lion. (Source: RNCOS IndustryResearch Solutions, March 2010).

It is interesting to note where theIT investment will be going. Again,it depends on the sectors and ofcourse the geographies. As dis-cussed, the Arab style of business re-mains cautious during the recession,so they will focus on increasing salesand customer support. Their IT in-vestments will be customer-focusedand specific to the ongoing projectsthey are involved in. As far as thewestern countries are concerned,though the consumers are saving andspending less, the retail brand valueshave increased overall. (Consumersin a Post-Recession World: ANielsen Report, September 2009). Sowe can expect some investments inthe retail sector to attract new cus-tomers. Public and private sector in-vestments can be expected in IaaS,SaaS, cloud computing, and Web 2.xtechnologies. But the basis of any in-tegration between the customer andthe supplier (either forward or back-ward integration) can be done effec-tively by simple ERP. There are avariety of flavors of ERP systemsavailable to suit the needs of almostall categories of industries. Thesecan be deployed to great effect inachieving the stated goals and busi-ness strategies of companies, big andsmall. Since these ERP systems en-capsulate the most widely practisedbusiness practices, they are best ofbreed solutions. si

We Have BeenHere BeforeBenefits of ERP and thePost-recession Business

It is just a matter ofhaving the corporatezeal and focus totranslate ideas andgoals related to productivity, efficiency, and innovation into execution

There are a variety of ERP systems to suitthe needs of almost all categories of industries, which can be deployed to greateffect in achieving the stated goals andbusiness strategies

TTeecchhnnoollooggyy:: By Chris BakerThe author is CEO, Inatech Solutions


Business is frequently cen-tered on the problem ofbalancing multiple con-tradictory goals. For ex-ample, an aggressive

growth strategy for a people centricbusiness and simultaneously ensuringquality of hires are problems that aretypically identified as complementaryopposites. Such issues typically haveseemingly contradictory drivers; how-ever, creating a working balance be-tween them while driving both goals isa skill that most business leaders de-velop.

As per Sun Tzu, the principle ofcomplementary opposites says thatseemingly conflicting forces are actu-ally two necessary sides of the samesystem. While we have taken a more de-terministic and reductionist view of sys-tems, Plato was the first to recognizethat these linear methods have naturallimits. The only way to get beyond themis the ‘dialectic’ of seeing the deepertruth that resolves an apparent conflict.

As the modern physicist Neils Bohr putit, “The opposite of a fact is falsehood,but the opposite of one profound truthmay very well be another profoundtruth…”

The balance between IT excellenceand innovation is just such a paradigm.In order to appreciate this fact, let’s lookat the drivers of both in isolation. For any organization that focuses on ITexcellence, the tools typically utilizedare:1. Enterprise Architecture as a

planning and strategy discipline:IT departments now focus on de-signing Enterprise IT Architecturein a way that it aligns to the busi-ness strategy and not just immedi-ate business needs, giving IT the

strength to quickly adapt to dy-namic business needs. It addition-ally has given the businessconfidence in IT to deliver and alsoincreased the go-to-market time for

businesses, giving them a competi-tive advantage.

2. Services Portfolio Management:Traditionally, IT is a service requestfulfilment department where a listof requested services and changeswould come in and the departmentspends time and energy in fulfillingthose requests and then maintainingthem. Through a services portfoliomanagement framework, IT is ableto deliver meticulous planning overa time period to deliver systems andservices.

3. Governance Frameworks andContinuous Service Improve-ment: One cannot improve some-thing which is not measured. Inaddition to service delivery, aconsiderable amount of effort hasbeen put in adopting governanceframeworks to improve IT effi-ciency and process compliance,for both IT processes and busi-ness processes. A constant flowof data means that IT is now ableto measure its performance andalso draw conclusions and predictperformance better.

4. Best Practice Frameworks andCompliance: A drive to be com-pliant with both internal and ex-ternal standards has facilitated animprovement in IT functions.Compliance drives governanceand governance drives measure-ment. IT Departments in most or-ganizations now measure theirperformance against the availablegood practices and frameworkssuch as ITIL. CoBIT, TOGAF,and so on, thus getting an insightinto relevant holistic improve-ment opportunities.

5. Process Excellence: Processmapping within and across multi-ple systems is a key driver for en-suring that business is able toleverage the full potential of thedeployed IT systems. As a result,business process re-engineeringand process validation is a largepart of any user acceptance pro-cedures.

While efficiency and excellence areimportant factors, an organizationwould fail to achieve competitivebusiness advantage if it does not in-novate with a high degree of pre-dictability. Innovation should befocussed at identification of key busi-ness strategy points, and managingthe innovation engine in a way that itcreates enough interest and sustain-able value to facilitate reaching closer

to the organizations business goals. Astudy by AT Kearney Consultantssays, “Of the companies thatachieved a greater than 10 percent an-nual sales growth, nearly 90 percentreported benefiting from IT innova-tion.” Below are a few skills typicallyleveraged to drive goals in any inno-vation factory. These skills areneeded irrespective of the 3 ‘types’ ofinnovation: incremental innovation -small improvements in existing oper-ations, architectural innovation -technology or process changes to fun-damentally change a component orelement of business, and discontinu-ous innovation - radical advances thatmay significantly alter the basis forcompetition in an industry.1. Tangential Thinking: Innovation

is intertwined with creativity andthe two are often used with onlyhazy distinctions. Both are oftenmerely processes through whichknowledge is developed andtransformed into business value(Gurteen, 1998). A useful defini-tion describes creativity as thegeneration and emergence of newideas. It is thinking outside thebox, coming up with novel ideasthrough divergent, tangentialthinking. Conversely, innovationis turning ideas into products,services, and processes (Couger,1995). Innovation involves refin-ing the ideas begot from creativ-ity and then transforming theminto useful solutions. Innovationrequires convergent thought inapplying new concepts to certainproblems and situations. Practi-cally, the term innovation repre-sents creativity in action.

2. Adaptability or Flexibility:Think about the unthinkable. Therecent recession wiped out thou-sands of sales-driven companies,those that spent every day push-ing a product. When the economytook a dive, they were out of busi-ness. They refused to think about

the unthinkable - who will be ourcustomers if the economychanges or the competition heatsup? How will new technology af-fect us? Be ready to change di-rections rapidly.

3. Collaboration: Collaboration hasbeen and continues to be an im-portant source of innovation. In-novations are increasinglybrought to the market by net-works of firms, selected accord-ing to their comparativeadvantages. The hidden value ofthese relationships can be lever-aged to transcend incremental in-novation.

4. Connecting dots: Innovation intechnology based services isn’tnecessarily the creation of a newproduct or service but can also bedeveloped by integrating multipleexisting technologies to create auniquely differentiated service.The ability to ‘connect dots’across multiple discussions tocreate a holistic solution is a fun-damental skill set needed for aninnovative team.

In the context of this discussion, ITexcellence necessitates a hawk likefocus on business requirements, pre-empting them, and delivering to reachand exceed business goals. The focusis on the needs of the business teams- the internal customer. Innovation,on the other hand, needs a focus onthe end-customer and drivers in themarket place. It necessitates the abil-ity to understand and react to thechanging market forces and translatethem into a service offering that canbe delivered to the business as a com-petitive business advantage - effec-tively transforming your ITorganization into a business driver. si

ComplementaryOpposites

A Paradigm Utilized inManaging IT Excellence

and Innovation

Compliance drives governance and governance drivesmeasurement. IT Departments in organizations measuretheir performance against the available good practices andframeworks

TTeecchhnnoollooggyy:: By Akshay LambaThe author is Chief Architect & Head – IT Strategy,MTS India

Akshay Lamba,Chief Architect & Head –IT Strategy, MTS India

About Author


BPO Supplier Consolidation is In-evitableAccording to a 2009 Gartner study fo-cused on India-based BPO suppliers,a number of BPO service providerswill exit the market in coming years.The small and emerging players havebeen facing a stream of challenges, es-pecially since the onset of recessionand are fighting to stay afloat. At thesame time, the big players are lookingat aligning their services and as a re-sult are on the look out for acquiringniche service providers. One quarter ofthe top business process outsourcingservice providers will not exist as sep-arate entities by 2012, it says. Marketexit, acquisitions, and the ascent ofnew vendors will rearrange the BPOprovider landscape in the comingyears.

Bundling is on the UpswingThe scope of BPO has widely in-creased. From HR to Finance and Ac-counting, to IT, and many otherprocesses can now be outsourced. Ifthe industry majors have their way, ITand BP outsourcing will increasinglybe bundled; that is, all the departmentsfrom IT to HR can be dealt with thesame vendor. And with the bundled orconsolidated model, ITO and BPOwill merge into one seamless enter-prise wide solution.

Going the Smart WayAfter offering a blend of IT and BPoutsourcing services, the vendors arenow bringing a third element to thisservice combination - analytics. Frominternational giants like Accenture andCapegemini to domestic biggies, allare adding business intelligence capa-bilities to their BPO capabilities as im-proving BI has become a priorityamong customers. It is one of the waysto move up in the value chain, whileproviding value to customers. Withtechnology trends like cloud comput-ing, software-as-a-service (SaaS), andplatform-as-a-service (PaaS) coming

into the market, customers want theirvendors to be capable of delivering anoverall solution. By some estimatesthe convergence of process, technol-ogy, and BI analytics may produce ex-ponential savings in the near future.

Savings are SecondaryInitially, both ITO and BPO weredriven by cost reductions, price, andlabor arbitrage, which is still true tosome extent. More important, how-ever, are business outcomes created byeffective ITO BPO programs. One ex-ample is being able to close yourbooks early and reduce the billingcycle by a few days.

A cautionary word, however, inearlier days, outsourcing clients real-ized the benefits in the first year in theform of savings, and from then on thequestion was, “What have you donefor me lately?” So-called business out-comes are not as easy to gauge, espe-cially from a bundled service, and maytake longer to achieve. As a result, it isadvisable to plan the end of the en-gagement at the beginning of the con-tract. In other words, know what youwant the business outcome should beupfront.

The Market just Got BiggerThe scope of outsourcing has widenedbeyond belief. While BPO was tradi-tionally restricted to verticals such asBFSI and Telco, newer verticals arenow quickly realizing the potential ofthe outsourcing industry. There is ahigh level of activity in finance and ac-counting across all industries, a lot ofnew companies are willing to out-source for the first time, especially inthe F&A space. There is also signifi-

cant activity in the CPG, logistics, andmedia and entertainment industries.New industries like retail are nowopen to outsourcing.

According to the latest Nasscomreports, the addressable BPO market

is estimated at $180-220 billion, ofwhich offshore was just $29 billion.While there is much to be discoveredin the offshore markets, on a differentnote the domestic market too holds lu-crative prospects for the BPO sector.Domestic market is exploding in a bigway with BFSI, Telecom, Govern-ment, and Public Sector becomingmajor consumers of IT-enabled serv-ices. Some of the other new verticalsexploring the space are Real Estate,Healthcare, Logistics, and Manufac-turing.

While the Indian BPO industry ismaking a tremendous headway, it isbeing plagued by the lack of talent atthe same time, which today is itsbiggest challenge. Of the 4 to 5 mil-lion students that graduate each year,the industry is able to employ onlyabout 10 percent. This is a large rea-son to worry, as the remaining 90 per-cent go unemployed. There are alreadyreports of having to import engineersin the IT industry in near future due tosevere talent crunch.

It is important that we, the industryleaders, take measures along with thegovernment to build strong educationprograms specific for this industryacross India, including in tier-2 andtier-3 cities. New programs like settingup rural BPOs are a step in this direc-tion. This is also the ideal opportunityfor entrepreneurs to make a mark inthe ever growing BPO sector. si

Indian BPO IndustryWhat to Watch Out in the Future? The year 2010 has been a turning point for

most of the industries, especially those thathad been severely affected by the economicdownturn. One of the hardest hit industriesduring recession, the BPO sector is now wit-

nessing a gradual upturn. It is reinventing itself and mov-ing away from the traditional business practices. In acandid chat with SiliconIndia, S Vishawanathan, COO,NIIT Smartserve discusses the trends, challenges, and fu-ture of the BPO in India.

Traditionally, the BPO was engaged only for nicheservices such as that of human resources or finance andaccounting. It was only later that outsourcing was inte-grated within IT processes. But the BPO industry hascome a long way and has brought about a fundamentalshift in its position within the technology industry. Whilein the past BPOs were looked at as a separate servicewhen compared to IT, today the IT and ITeS services areoften coupled together as a single sector. Here are sometrends to look for:

BPO Spending is Catching upThe global IT outsourcing market has traditionally out-paced the BPO market in growth, but that’s changing. In2009, ITO spending was estimated to be between $230-250 billion, well above BPO spending, according to Ac-centure. But now BPO is growing at a faster rate.Accenture estimates that mainstream BPO expenditureswill top $300 billion by 2012.

While the Indian BPO industry is making atremendous headway, it is being plagued by severe talent crunch, and there are already reportsof having to import engineers for the industry

IT and BP outsourcing will increasingly be bundled; that is,all the departments from IT toHR will be dealt with the samevendor; and ITO and BPO willmerge into one seamless enterprise wide solution

BBuussiinneessss:: By Vimali Swamy


cated engineers will talk to each otheras and when required. Informal com-munication is the underlying principle,than formal meetings, specificationdocuments, and SLAs.

Many companies overlook the im-portance of small teams and colloca-tion and continue to plan large projectswith diverse locations. The overheadof ‘educating’ team members in di-verse locations on new changes (espe-cially when there is sparsedocumentation) is a daunting task. Un-derestimating this aspect results inchaotic product development andcauses a lot of stress.

Staffing and Agile Methodology:Agile is a front-loading process andmandates that all key contributers areassembled up-front. This is in sharpcontrast to a waterfall model wherestaffing follows a normal curve. Thefollowing diagram illustrates the dif-ference in staffing across Agile andtraditional waterfall methodology.

Several project managers whocome from traditional methodologiesunderestimate the significance of thisand try to staff the team in a pure wa-terfall style. This results in project de-lays and sprints not meeting the goals.

The Definition of Shippable Prod-uct: The definition of task completionis clear in Agile6. Agile mandates thatacross every sprint, the team com-pletes a ‘shippable’ product. Thus,from the very first sprint, customers

can get a deployed version that theycan actually make use of.

This is another area where thereis continued misunderstanding. En-gineers continue to claim features tobe ‘complete’, whose meaning is notclearly established (that is, in trueAgile sense). Project managers (readscrum masters) fall pray to this age-old conundrum and they continue totrack feature completion withoutpassing the key litmus test, namelyshippability. ‘We can demonstratefeature X’ is very different from fea-ture X ‘working’ at customer de-ployment and the customer is‘educated’ to work with that feature.

Change Management and Sprint:It is true that Agile methodology canadapt to changes more easily thanother methodologies. The cost ofchange curve diagram below actu-ally indicates that Agile methodol-ogy has a flatter cost for changescompared to traditional waterfallmethodology. But, it should be notedthat the cost of change is not zero.

Several customers engage withvendors with the assertion, “We arestill gathering requirements with ourend-customers and thus we antici-pate a lot of changes along the way.We prefer that you execute the proj-ect in Agile to incorporate thesechanges.” While there is nothing

wrong with this statement and this isperhaps a way of life in modern soft-ware development, the problemcomes when the stakeholders andproject managers push the changemanagement to the extreme.

Agile recommends that within asprint changes are well understoodand nailed down7. It does not saythat you can change requirementswithin a sprint. Agile recommendsthat if there are major revisions in re-quirements within a sprint, the sprintshould be abandoned and a new oneconstituted.A second pertinent point is that Agilepromotes the notion of shippableproduct. So, every sprint is supposedto move the product towards theshippability continuum. Thus,changes to earlier sprints are perhapsas expensive in Agile as it is in thewaterfall model (perhaps evenmore). Not understanding this cru-cial difference can make changemanagement equally hard in Agile.

Conclusion: Agile methodology ishere to stay, no doubt. However, asmore companies rush to adopt Agile,they ignore the key principles andtenets that are behind the institution-alization of Agile methodology. Thisarticle highlights some of the com-mon pitfalls that companies have tobe aware of as they roll out Agilemethodology within the organiza-tion. By far, the biggest challengeseems to be cultural, where the in-cumbent development methodolo-gies clash with the Agile mindset.This problem is exacerbated whenroll-outs happen without adequatetraining and when there is a lack ofemphasis on shift in mindset. si

Development Life Cycle

Agile Methodology

Waterfall

Sta�ng - Agile versus Waterfall Sta�ng

Waterfall

Agile Methodology

Cost

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Development Life Cycle

Agile methodology can adapt to changes moreeasily than other methodologies; and it has aflatter cost for changes compared to traditionalwaterfall methodology

In about a decade since Agilemethodology’s introduction, it hasgained huge acceptance amongstsoftware developers and IT man-agers. According to a recent For-

rester survey, roughly 35 percent of itsrespondents used Agile methodology1.There is absolutely no doubt that Agilemethodology has crossed the chasm.

While Agile brings in significant ben-efits and cost-savings to the consumer, italso comes with significant challenges.Agile methodology is built on several keyprinciples that are fundamental to themethodology3. A lot of companies rush toadopt Agile methodology ignoring thesekey principles as well as the cultural andtechnical nuances associated with it. Whatresults is not controlled chaos, but utterchaos and stress.

Cultural Challenge: One of the funda-mental principles of Agile is the conceptof self-organizing teams. Teams of soft-ware engineers are empowered in un-precedented ways, reducing the role ofproject managers (e.g. scrum master) toone of facilitator4. Motivation and teamwork are central tenets to the process. When project managers that are used tocommand and control the style of man-agement are entrusted an Agile project,they continue to push their heavy handedmanagement style, which flies in the faceof Agile’s self-organizing principle.

Similarly, software engineers who areused to strong oversight and managementare tested by the sudden empowermentand freedom that comes with Agile. Lackof documentation, lack of fine-grainedplanning, and once a day scrum calls workwhen there is enough team-work and mo-

tivation. Agile is a mind-set and everyteam-member has an equal role to fulfill.Contracts and Outsourced Software De-velopment: Several outsourcing vendorsenter into legal contracts with the cus-tomers where the payments are tied to tra-ditional waterfall model. A samplecontract could read, “25 percent paymentfor requirements completion, 25 percentfor architecture completion, and so on.”

If typical Agile methodology were tobe followed, then the above contract doesnot make any sense. For example, re-quirements gathering will be completedonly during the last sprint by which timetypically 70-80 percent of the entire proj-ect would have been completed. Thus, thedelivery teams are caught in a bind to in-terpret the above payment clauses and si-multaneously execute projects in pureAgile sense. This often times leads tochaos.Collocation, Pair Programming and theImportance of Teamwork: It is no secretthat Agile promotes team work and colloca-tion5. Based on this tenacious assumption isthe notion that working software is preferredover reams of documents. The implicit as-sumption made here is the fact that collo-

When Processes Clash with PrinciplesAgile Methodology

While Agile brings in significant benefits and cost-savings to the con-sumer, it also comes withsignificant challenges andevery team-member hasan equal role to fulfill

TTeecchhnnoollooggyy:: By Narendran ThillaisthanamThe author is Associate Vice President, Photon

1. Taking advantage of ImmersiveTechnologies, 3D Internet, and im-plementing contact centers insideVirtual Worlds.

2. Improving the information inter-pretation mechanism by convertingthe information into visual cues sothat it can be better interpreted.

3. Simplifying the workflow to cate-gorize a problem faced by the cus-tomer for speedy resolution.

4. Improving the collaborationamong multiple support teams andsupport systems in the organiza-tion.

5. Making use of both manual and au-tomated systems for issue resolu-tion.

The NGCC are based inside virtualworlds where customers and agentavatars can meet face-to-face. Theagent avatars are intelligent AI botsalong with human agent avatars. Theintelligent AI agents in NGCC make

use of speech recognition technologiesand act at the first level of interactionwith the customer. The customer has noidea that he is interacting with an AI botand this provides an immediate psy-chological healing to the customer thatsomeone is always there to listen to hisproblems. The AI based agent bots usea variety of data mining algorithms toanalyze and interpret the problem andto provide solutions using 3D visualmodels, video streaming, and so on. Inthe situations when the intelligent agentbot is not able to interpret or resolve theproblem, there is a smooth transition toa human agent by the backend systems.Since all the conversation and data isalready available, the human agentavatar can seamlessly take over the in-teraction with the customer withoutasking for any further clarifications.

This concept of contact centers in-volving virtual worlds and intelligentavatars as agents overcomes the typicalinefficiencies in the traditional contactcenters. As the information is virtuallyand visually conveyed among the par-ties more efficiently the call handlingtime reduces, adding to the C-SAT lev-els. Moreover, as the transactions hap-pen over the Internet and the number ofhuman agents is reduced by using AIbot agents, the cost spent over the con-tact centers is substantially reduced.

Advancing to Next Generation Tech-nologiesThough the working of NGCC doesprovide benefits at each level over tra-ditional contact centers, it cannot be at-tained with the usual call centertechnologies like Interactive Voice Re-sponses (IVR), Computer TelephonyIntegration (CTI), or Skill Based Rout-ing (SBR). These technologies arehighly mature, but at the same time sat-urated and there is still some scope forimprovement. We propose the use ofadvanced technologies along with theexisting technologies in the NGCCworkflow.

Immersive technologies, whichallow creation of virtual worlds are

used to reduce the strong reliance onvoice interaction and voice telephony.To improve the overall services experi-ence, the virtual worlds are comple-mented with other technologiesmentioned below:1. Voice over IP (VoIP): Allows con-

tact centers to benefit from thelower operational cost of VoIP overthe public switched telephone net-works (PSTN).

2. Video and Media Streaming: Al-lows the contact centers to resolvethe how-to solve issues with a de-tailed procedure, using multime-dia. Customers can also stream indata into the contact centers.

3. Integration with backend enter-prise systems: Allows seamless ex-traction and transfer of the backendapplication data.

4. Natural Language Processing(NLP): Makes the intelligent agentavatars capable of better interact-ing with customers who use a nat-ural language.

5. Pervasive Devices: Improves the‘human-intelligent agent’ interac-tion to the next level.

A virtual world strongly integrated withthe above technologies will consider-ably improve the customer experienceat the contact centers. The ‘QueryCease Time’, a better term than ‘CallHandling Time’ in this scenario, will bereduced along with the cost for han-dling these queries. Following frame-works and mechanisms are required togive the basic concepts in NGCC someshape.

� Intelligent Agent Creation Frame-work with AI and machine learningcapabilities.

� Knowledge mining, discovery, anddata mining.

� Speech and Voice Synthesis andRecognition.

� Automated C-Sat measurement.� Customer personalization and cus-

tomization.� Automated skill based routing to

human agent.

Gen


Service providers today un-derstand the importance ofcustomer service in definingtheir success. Of all thebusiness units aligned to-

wards customer service, contact cen-ters have a direct involvement incustomer satisfaction. However, tradi-tional contact centers operate with thesole aim of efficiently completing thetransactions and resolving the issuescost-effectively. This, as a result, in-troduces inefficiency in the contactcenter workflow, affecting the cus-tomer retention and in turn, the rev-enue. Next Generation ContactCenters (NGCC) improve the cus-tomer satisfaction level by leveragingthe immersive and latest advancedtechnologies, thus overcoming theaforementioned inefficiencies.

IntroductionSince customer retention and revenuegeneration per customer is the primaryfocus of service providers around theworld, customer satisfaction (C-SAT)

plays a pivotal role in deciding theirsuccess. The service that contact cen-ters provide gives a good indication ofC-SAT levels and acts as a make-or-break criterion for a service provider’sbusiness. Organizations set up contactcenters for catering to the needs andrequirements of their customers aboutthe applications and services the or-ganization provides.

The current workflow followed bythe contact centers around the worldembodies inefficiency in multipleways. To begin with, customers aregenerally made to navigate through alabyrinth of Interactive Voice Re-sponse (IVR) prompts to determinethe problem type and finally are routedto the human agent. In many cases, theIVR prompts are not adequately de-signed, and quite often a customerreaches a dead stop at the IVR promptwith no category or solution soundingcorrect to him. Again, multiple timesa customer is put on hold waiting for afree agent to respond. Sometimes theagent is available, but the customer

once again has to replay the entireproblem. The ability to resolve a prob-lem further depends on the skill levelof the human agent and their abilitiesin searching the existing knowledge-base for the solution or in routing tothe best agent who is skilled in the re-quired area. All these lead to

� Longer call handling time,� Lower C-SAT levels, and� Inefficient workforce optimization

and management of the contactcenters.

Thus, we propose the concept of theNext Generation Contact Center andexplain how it can help in addressingall the problems discussed above bymaking use of innovative technologiesand techniques that have a positive ef-fect on business productivity.

Introducing the Next GenerationContact Centers (NGCC)The Next Generation Contact Centerrevolves around the implementation ofthe following concepts:

Next ContactCenters

TTeecchhnnoollooggyy:: By Rajarshi Bhose, Amit Wasudeo Gawande & Evelyn SylviaInfosys Technologies


� Service integration with other sys-tems and feedback systems.

� Realtime offer promotions and rec-ommendations.

All the frameworks and mechanisms arebundled together, supported by the nextgeneration technologies.

A Virtual Finance Management Cen-ter (vFMC):A Use-Case AnalysisA virtual finance management center isa virtual world where all finance relatedqueries, support, and information aboutthe financial investment plans and theiractivation, along with communicationwith financial SME’s happen at a singleplace. Here we put the NGCC conceptsin the perspective of a personal financemanagement portal for a pseudo serviceprovider.

Virtual Finance Management Center(vFMC)The different units functioning in thecenter are as follows:1. Customer-Briefing Center: The

focus of the unit is to understandthe requirement of the client who

joined the world, provide realtimeanalysis and advice for planning hisfinances and provide custom peerreview. All the interactions that takeplace in the center, along with theactions performed are logged intothe system for future reference.

The customer-briefing centeralso has the ability to host VoIP aswell as PSTN based communicationchannels, providing the ability forremote voice interactions capabili-ties for in-out worlds.

2. Interaction with financial SMEs: Ifa customer needs, a financial SMEcan be pulled in to interact andguide the customer over the deci-sion making process about the cho-sen plan. The system also allowsthe customer to access the reportsand articles available.

3. Realtime Reports: The center pullsin the realtime updates about whatall is happening in the financialworld from all the news websites,blogging websites, financial por-tals, and business websites.

3. Private and Public DiscussionRooms: The center has private andpublic access zones.

Architectural Flow of vFMCThe following architectural flow dia-gram helps understand the whole sys-tem and its working, highlighting thenecessary coupling between various dif-ferent external systems.

ConclusionTraditional contact centers operate withthe sole aim of completing the transac-tions and resolving issues cost-effec-tively and do not provide satisfyingresults. This paper introduces a new agevariation of contact centers, which wecall Next Generation Contact Center,that leverages the next generation tech-nologies like virtual worlds, data min-ing, enterprise information systemintegrations, and VoIP. The paper ex-plains through a use-case how financialorganizations can incorporate NGCC todeliver the high quality customer serv-ice and use the workforce for contactcenters efficiently. si

Customer Briefing Center

A customer Avatar being briefed by an SME

Interaction with SME

Real Time Reports and Charts

If search engine is your gatewayto the web, solving and provid-ing the right information youseek for; Rajeev Rastogi can betermed as the genie behind who

with his deep expertise and constantresearch find answers to some of themost intriguing technology challengesof search engines today. “Nothing ismore amazing and exciting than theworld of search. There are billions ofweb pages out there. How to providethe user with the most relevant infor-mation each time keeping in mind theuser behavior or demographic patternis the most challenging game today,”says Rastogi, VP and Head of YahooInnovation Lab in India.

Like a curious kid who would notrest until he solves his last piece ofpuzzle, Rastogi pursues some of themost puzzling phenomenon of infor-mation extraction technology today.“It is like solving a puzzle. Each piecethough looks unrelated has to be co-re-lated to make it complete. Each timeyou fix the right piece, the puzzle getsclearer” adds he. Nothing could bemore challenging to a man who real-ized very early in life that he couldnever do anything which did not havea challenge. The cut-throat competi-tion among search engines has ensuredthe players are keenly attuned to keep-ing their visitors satisfied. But servingup handy links is a tricky business, es-pecially when we searchers often useambiguous terms.

At Yahoo! his team looks at someof the core computer science problems— specifically around data mining —and create solutions that in the longterm will deliver a more relevant ex-perience for users and advertisers.“This is an important area to focus onnow, with Internet content and data

only continue to expand as more peo-ple and machines are connected” saysRastogi.

Prior to joining Yahoo!, Rastogiwas the founding director of Bell LabsIndia. He was a BellLabs Fellow and Dis-tinguished Member ofits Technical Staff. Cur-rently, he also sits onthe editorial board ofCommunications forthe Association forComputing Machinery(CACM). He has pub-lished over 125 paperson database systemsand information storage and manage-ment and holds over 40 patents.

Rastogi‘s background and expert-ise in product development, as well ashis deep experience in research plays akey role in leading some of the newapproaches to information extractionand machine learning, multimedia andquery processing in Yahoo!.

Though a hardcore technologist,Rastogi understands and has deepknowledge about the user behaviorand the business side of Yahoo!. Hespeaks eloquently on adding value tothe user and his customers. He be-lieves that without understanding theuser one cannot bring about the nextwave of innovation on the internet. Heis a strong advocate of machine learn-ing research which he believes willplay a major role in revolutionizing thesearch engines and internet in a majorway. Machine Learning is a branch ofartificial intelligence (AI) in which acomputer program analyses hugechunks of data and makes predictionsabout the future. “Applications includeunderstanding the behavior of users,providing advertisements which have

higher click probability and can filterpornographic images, determinefraudulent transactions and help in-vestors make investment decisions,”

An internationally acclaimed sci-entist, Rastogi is an alum-nus of IIT Bombay, whowent later to the Universityof Texas to pursue his Mas-ters and a PhD thereafter. “Irealized research was myarea when I was doing myPhD” says Rastogi. “Itclearly changed my way ofthinking and my professorswere my role models anddecided to take up research

as my career”. However Rastogi is not happy

about the research scenario in India.He says, “Somehow the Indian com-panies and the Indian environment donot give premium to the students totake up research as a career. The In-dian academia, government and com-panies together should create anecosystem and create awareness to thestudents about the positive aspects ofpursuing research. More than any-thing, research as a career has to bemore economically viable to the per-son pursuing it”

After we sign off after the conver-sation, Rastogi walks to the seminarroom where students are eagerly wait-ing for his session on Machine Learn-ing. After a successful career in U.S.for more than 15 years, he moved toIndia to replicate the ecosystem of re-search and innovation he created there.Looking at the 18 page print copy Ihave in my hand of his resume (whichI got from my search on him inYahoo!), with his achievements andacclaims, I don’t need to say it’s not adifficult feat for him si

The Man who Answers the Search Engines

VVPP PPrrooffiillee:: By Jayasmitha Menon

Rajeev Rastogi

One of the toughest jobs for a first time entrepreneur (oreven a repeat entrepreneur) is the ability to raise capitalbehind one’s business idea or business plan. In the earlyphases of your venture, you have very little credibility, asthe idea or market that you may be pursuing might still

be nascent, the management team of company is yet to arrive and cus-tomers are struggling with beta products and early teething challenges.All in all, there are more reasons for investors to say no to you, than tojump in with their check books. For many of us, who have had experi-ences raising venture money, there is an art to that process but you ofcourse will need lots of patience and some good luck.

Start your fund raising process on Day 1I believe that the best way to start the fund raising process is startearly. Even though you know that you are still bootstrapping andthere is yet another year before you will get ready to take outsidecapital, there is no harm in socializing the concept of your ven-

ture with the right VCs and angel investors. In many cases, youmay not need to divulge all the details of what you may end up doing,yet, it helps to show them the big picture and get the investor imagi-

nation going. All you want at thisstage is for potential investor groupsto get to know that you exist and thatyou are onto a great concept and atheme, and that it is worth their timeto track your progress along the way.Many entrepreneurs wait too longbefore they open up to outside in-vestors, and sometimes find them-selves running out of financialrunway to execute. The sooner youstart to build awareness of your ven-ture in the investor community, theeasier it will get for you as you getready for the actual fund raise. Inshort, it is never too early to start theconceptual discussions with the rightinvestors and financial partners.

Build your team of advisors andwell wishersEarly on, it is a good idea to build anetwork of advisors and well wish-ers who are at least “emotionally”vested in your success. Make surethat these industry or financial vet-erans are engaged in seeing you suc-ceed. It is totally appropriate toreach out to your professors, advi-sors, and friends of friends, familymembers and others to give you theemotional support, as you have toride through the tough phase of rais-ing capital for your venture. It is bestto treat these mentors and advisorsas your extended eyes and ears forhelping you gain momentum in thebusiness and to help you attract po-tential investors. The caliber of youradvisors and mentors is critical to es-tablish validation of your idea andtechnology. It makes a strong state-ment to rest of the world, that youare onto something nice and big. Itsends the right signal to the potentialinvestor, who may be watching yourprogress by now.

Go After a Big MarketVenture capitalists and investors liketo go after big markets with big pay-offs. If you are going after a small

market, it is best to try and bootstrapthe venture and avoid the VC’s.VC’s have a different return expec-tation, they typically invest in com-panies with huge potential pay-offs.Hence, it is important that you arebuilding technology, where there isa big market opportunity and that,you as a startup, have a clear advan-tage of addressing it. Some ideas arebest executed within the four walls

of the large corporations, and someare best done within the frameworkof young and agile startups. It is crit-ical to determine that your specificstartup, is indeed pursuing an oppor-tunity that is large and is indeed bestsuited for a startup venture. Manyinvestors and VC’s expect the entre-preneurs to “dream big” and predictthe markets right. This does presenta significant challenge for the entre-preneur, but, unfortunately there isno short cut to this pre-requisite forattracting venture investments.

Build and showcase MomentumSeasoned entrepreneurs know thevalue of building and showcasingmomentum early on. It is critical thatyou strengthen your companythrough hitting key milestonesaround management team, productand technology delivery, proof ofconcept deployments, customer val-idations and more. The regular mo-mentum on these fronts assures thepotential investor, that you knowwhat it takes to execute and tell thestory to prospective investors. Peri-odic updates through phone calls ormeetings with these potential in-vestors will show them how, you are

gaining ground in your convictionand idea, and how the world is align-ing around your venture to create re-quired business momentum. At thisstage it is also critical to create acompetitive dynamics by showcas-ing, early involvement of right an-gles and investors, who lendcredibility to your startup. Perhaps,these noteworthy investors, angel in-vestors and advisors who have

worked with VCs can help make theintroductions in the right manner.Winning entrepreneurs are masterfulin the way they build a sense of pos-itive momentum and excitementaround their venture, ultimately cul-minating into some sort of a financ-ing round.

Financing your venture is indeeda difficult road for most entrepre-neurs, and it requires tremendous en-ergy and patience at the same time.You have to be relentless in your pur-suit, unwilling to up give yourdream. On the flip side, you have tobe patient enough to wait till the in-vestors start to share your excitementand beliefs. Many great startups andentrepreneurs have taken years to at-tract the right investors. One thingfor sure, is that you cannot give upyour pursuit, just because one in-vestor has said “No” to your idea.What is more important, is to listento the “No” from the investors, andappropriately incorporate the feed-backs into your business, so thatthrough every conversation and in-vestor experience, your startup is ac-tually growing and maturing into thegem, that everybody will see as thenext Google! si

si l i con ind ia |44|S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0 s i l i con ind ia |45|S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0

EEnnttrreepprreenneeuurr 110011:: By Gunjan SinhaThe author is the Chairman of SiliconIndia.com and MetricStream. An internet pioneer, he wasthe co-founder and President of WhoWhere? Inc., a Internet directory services company acquiredby Lycos in 1998 as well as eGain, an online customer service company. Sinha can be reachedat [email protected]

Startupfor Your

Raising Capital

Many entrepreneurs wait too longbefore they open up to outside investors, and sometimes find themselves running out of financialrunway to execute.

The caliber of your advisors and mentorsis critical to establish validation of youridea and technology


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CAPITALIZATIONIn Rs. Crore

INDIA INDEXIndex of the top tech public companies in India

Infosys TechnologiesTata Consultancy ServicesWipro LtdTech MahindraHCL TechnologiesMahindra Satyam Mphasis Financial TechnologiesPatni CompGTL LtdRolta IndiaHCL InfosystemsMindtreeMoser BaerCMC LtdPolaris SoftwareNIIT LtdSasken Communications TechnologySonata SoftwareSubex Systems

2714865398660408816191390544420166124513631640169671934453

207094363986035229973218955103432061896411151320181781623596

1040358197205876138382941873263181402572514351319

-32-5-119-120270-517-3-6-2-72-5-11-6

2357-67-2831-308-82743-6-16-1-326812-41712-28

155702169104972578183276659470129486354702840932677269820221054248516721114528466340

1234567891011121314151617181920

RANK COMPANY

Stock Price(US$)Closing08.27.2010

52 WeekHIGH

52 WeekLOW

% CHANGE IN PRICE4 Weeks 52 Weeks

CAPITALIZATIONIn $ Millions

U.S INDEXIndex of the top tech public companies in U.S foundedand managed by Indians

Cognizant Tech. Juniper NetworksSanDisk CorporationSyntelMicrochip TechTibco SoftwareQlogic CorporationAruba NetworksCavium NetworksIsilon SystemsiGateNetezzaInfinera CorporationIxiaNetScoutSycamore NetworksEXL Service holdings OSI SystemsMagma DesignKeynote Systems

58273639281415172319161581115221730310

543248503013221430161115101116352033412

24211317186137154276682111617

4-5-14-9-8-2-7-7-237-6-4-9-3-514-125-124

6213102-4751-1104131991356618673259334661162

173101393083401620524022401600154010501240910923826689636634488539160149

1234567891011121314151617181920

CTSHJNPRSNDKSYNTMCHPTIBXQLGCARUNCAVMISLNIGTENZINFNXXIANTCTSCMR EXLSOSISLAVAKEYN

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