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EMPOWERING TECHNOLOGY LEADERS OF TOMORROW thesmarttechie.comDecember 2010

` 25 only

Guru talk: Upinder Zutshi, Infinite Computer Solutions VC Talk: Venetia Kontogouris Trident Capital

Sanjay Nayak, CEO, Tejas Networks Deep Kalra, Founder & CEO,Makemytrip.comArvind Kajaria,Co-found er& MD, 123greetings

Anupam Mittal, Chairman & MD, Shaadi.com


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Vol 6 Issue 12 December 2010

Publisher Alok ChaturvediEditor-in-Chief Pradeep Shankar

Deputy Editors

Christo Jacob Jaya Smitha Menon

Editorial StaffEureka Bharali Hari Anil

Vimali Swamy

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The January Issue

Mobile ApplicationDevelopment Special


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The Smart Techie |6|O c t o b e r 2 0 1 0

Contents - December 2010

COVER STORY

[Leadership] 28Great Leaders take Calculated Risk

By Binu T Paul

[Management] 30Birth of a Leader through Experience

By Pragyan Acharya

31Identifying Leadership early is thesecret of Success

By Kukil Bora

32Traits of a Successful Leader

By Renjith VP

50DLP Prevention is Better than a Cure

By Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Check Point

[Business] 34Preparing for the Rise of IndianProduct PowerHousesBy Juby Thomas

[Management] 36How do CEOs think?By Dr. Anand Deshpande,Persistent Systems

38Leadership requires continuousreinvention of yourself and your companyMarket at MACBy Walden C Rhines, Mentor Graphics

40Controls and EmpowermentBy Sandeep Dhar, Tesco HSC

42Focused Leadership is the Key to CreateKiller Products for Global MarketsBy Ram Narayanan, Yahoo! India

[Guru Talk] 8Winning through Differentiation:A CEOs PerspectiveBy Upinder Zutshi,Infinite Computer Solutions

[In Focus] 10

[Tech Buzz] 14

[VC Talk] 16Entrepreneurial Leadership

By Venetia Kontogouris, Trident Capital

[Company Spotlight] 22iYogi: The first Consumer Servicesbrand from IndiaBy Vimali Swamy

[Management] 26Manage your most talented Employeesand they will manage the restBy Pragyan Acharya

[Business] 27Why is Innovation still a challenge inIndia?By Anonya Roy

Upinder Zutshi

20

Indias New Breed of

Entrepreneurs:They came,They saw,

They conquered!

44IT Leadership

From Projects to Value Creation

By Ramesh Loganathan,

Progress Software

[Business] 46The Man with a Mission for Masses

By Jaya Smitha Menon

[Management] 48Strategy in the New World

By Satya Prabakar, Sulekha

[Business] 50Change is the only Constant

By Pradeep Kar, Microland

[Buyers Perspective] 52

[Technology] 55Intels AppUp to meet the changing

phase of App Development

By Juby Thomas

[Events] 56Siliconindias SoftTec Probes

Deep into IT Testing

By ST Team

[Tech Products] 58

[People Manager] 60What they dont teach at the B-Schools

about Leadership!

By C. Mahalingam,

Symphony Services

[Venture Beat] 62

Sanjay Nayak

Arvind Kajaria

Anupam Mittal Deep Kalra

By Hari Anil


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The Smart TechieThe Smart Techie |8|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0

enue. The client can then shift its re-sources and energies from these ma-

ture products and focus on their coreinitiatives.

The way it works is that the serv-ice provider obtains the license of

the product, injects additional R&D

funds to enhance it and eventually breathes new life into a mature

product. This collaboration allows aclient to continue to grow its strate-

gic initiatives, without sacrificing

mature lines. Interestingly, in thissystem, the vendor does not makemoney from its immediate customer,

but recovers it from the end cus-

tomer from the market.A successful long term relation-

ship with the client is a key factorhere, as it enables a service

provider to understand aclients portfolio in totality

and identify products with

significant installed base.The client in turn also

needs to build a deeplevel of trust in the ven-

dors capability of de-livery and continued

partnerships.However, a solid

value proposition re-

quires significant duediligence before a

vendor actually com-mits to taking over

the entire life cycle

of supporting andenhancing the prod-

uct. Factors like thelevel of investment

required, expectedgrowth over the next

few years, addressing

the buyers concernson change of owner-

ship, realignment ofclients R&D expendi-

ture, feasibility to shiftwork offshore and the

future roadmap ofthe product need to

be addressed.In a majority of cases, a substan-

tial investment is required by theservice provider to generate growth

in these products.It is imperative tofactor in the people cost, infrastruc-

ture cost and other operating costs.

Pricing on the basis of real costs en-sures profits dont needlessly have

to be trimmed. As these productshave a proven revenue record, an

outsourcing model helps to better

manage their costs.The products need to resonate

with the needs of the customers and

have a significant differentiating ele-

ment. The pricing should also be seg-mented for altered markets to

leverage a better competitiveadvantage.

Once executed, this is a win-win

situation in effective relationshipmanagement. It results in reduced

costs, ability to focus on core prod-

ucts, new market opportunities beingaccessed, better productivity, manual

processes being automated and im-proved time to market. It also gives

the client access to IT skills which arenot affordable in-house or not avail-

able and thus reduces their capital ex-penditure. The end customer is happy

due to the continuity of the product,

the client is pleased due to its re-sources getting freed and the vendor

is thrilled because of the share in therevenue it gets as well as ownership

of the IP.For the successful establishment

of an outcome based pit is essential that there

laboration and sharing between the two partie

provider needs to ubuyers landscape per

sure that measures tak

the strategic business relationship works

grounds, with the buyetion to succeed, the su

mitment to the buyer

way effective communin-depth understandingmatter.

These creative and

nership models create tives for the service

change their thinkingtheir risk taking appe

avenues of revenue.

competitive advantag plete understanding

ecosystem. Strong go

relationship managemeparties is essential. Ove

the next five years, opricing is predicted to e

50 percent of the contraonly 5 percent curren

ning and budgeting mufluctuating nature of re

of these products.

Significant value hto businesses with out

the past few years, andbased pricing, outsour

a full circle to its initiahancing value.

The key is to not reinvent the wheel but make a differentiated

space for oneself. This would require a series of strategic decisionsand a conscious effort to steer away from the trodden path. Oppor-

tunities not only need to be identified but also captured and exe-cuted in a novel and innovative way. Despite the challenges, the

solutions should enable one to be distinguished from the pack and

create building blocks for success.

A risk / reward sharing model is one such differentiated pricingmodel that encompasses all the essential elements of volume, usage,

business processes, customer satisfaction, cost savings and revenueshare, thereby creating a win-win situation for all the parties in-

volved i.e. the client, the service provider or vendor as well as theend customer.

This model enables a vendor to take over those products of a

client which have a limited shelf life, but continue to be essentialto many customers due to their proven record of generating rev-

The transition of a startup to a small cap organization andits eventual progression into the midcap space is markedby its vigilance and ability to identify and tap profitable

businesses.

Winning through Differentiation:

A CEOs Perspective

By Upinder ZutshiThe author is MD of Infinite Computer Solutions

The key is to not reinvent thewheel but make a

differentiated space for oneself

Over the course of the five years, outcome baspricing is predicted to e

compass 40-50 percent of the

tracts, as against only 5 percencurrently

GURU TALK

Upinder Zutshi


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The Smart Techie |10|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0

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in

India will have its own Sili-

con Valley in five years,

said Vivek Wadhwa an Ad-

junct-Professor at Duke University.

According to Wadhwa from the 250

firms he met this year, 25 to 30 per-

cent are bringing out world-class

products. As of now there is no

Google coming out of India, but that

will happen in the next five years, he

added. The spurt in products is a

spillover from services.

People with deep domain experi-

ence from services business are set-

ting up products firms in India and so

are the U.S. returnees. The countrys

growth is not limited to IT; pharma-

ceutical R&D space and aviation are

fields of strength to India. The coun-

try is also playing in the next gener-

ation consumer appliances market.

Indian government has made very

little effort to encourage

R&D business, but

multinationals such as

Cisco, EMC, IBM and

Microsoft are doing

high-end work in the

country. India is suc-

ceeding despite poor in-

frastructure, security

concerns and crippling

educational system. The

secret recipe of Indias

success is high work-

force development pro-

grams followed by major IT services

companies. They have sophisticated

recruitment system that involves a

series of psychometric tests. They

then invest in training employees

throughout the different phases of

their career,

says Wadhwa.

He believes that

the next big

thing in Indian

tech will come

from smaller

product and not

larger services

firms. His re-

search also

shows that 85

percent of In-

dian students in

the U.S. wish to return to India as

they feel that companies in India

offer them better prospects.

Vijay Jay C. Gandhi became

the first Indian American fed-eral judge in the Central Dis-

trict of California, the largest federaldistrict court in the U.S. by population,

when he took oath of office in a cere-

monial courtroom in the U.S. federalcourthouse. Gandhi is the second In-

dian American federal judge in U.S.history and the first in California.

Gandhi will have jurisdiction overa district covering seven counties in-

cluding Los Angeles and Orange, withan estimated 19 million residents.

Gandhi was selected to the post on

merit and will be serving an eight-year

term at the end of which he will besubject to reappointment to his post.Gandhi previously worked 12 years as

an attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky& Walker LLPwhere he was a partner

and Vice-Chairman of the firms Or-

ange County office. A graduate of the

University of Southern California Law

School, Gandhi had also clerked forU.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt

in the Southern District of Texas, be-fore joining Paul Hastings.

The oath of office was adminis-tered in front of nearly 200 people by

Judge Audrey B. Collins, the chief

judge of the district. Shortly aftertaking his oath, Gandhi was officially

enrobed by his mother, Uma Gandhi.

Several speakers shared thoughts on

Gandhis integrity and character mo-

ments after the ceremony. GeorgeKing, a federal judge in the Central

District, spoke of Gandhis publicservice record and commitment to

the community and Former PaulHastings partner and current judge

Peter Stone offered his views on

Gandhis work at the firm as well asthe cases they had worked on to-

gether.

Indian Silicon Valley in 5 years: Vivek Wadhwa

Vivek Wadhwa

Jay Gandhi, California First U.S. Indian Judges

Jay Gandhi

in

42 percent of the Indian compa-nies of Gartner surveyed said

that they have no immediateplans of investing in cloud technolo-

gies. According to Gartner, thesecompanies are unsure of investing in

the technology throughout 2011. Aspart of their global research the com-pany surveyed a total of 1,004 com-

panies, in which 148 are Indiancompanies. Indian average is a little

lower when compared to the globalaverage, where about 45 percent of

the companies said they were either

unsure or had no plans of setting upcloud infrastructure.

Cloud computing is an Internet-based facilitates sharing of techno-

logical resources, software anddigital information. The emerging

field functions on a pay-per-usemodel helping technology compa-

nies to bring down thehuge initial in-

v e s t m e n t . D e s p i t e

the bene-fits ofc l o u d

computing,lack of technol-

ogy maturity hasemerged as the top inhibitor to adop-

tion of cloud technology, said Sid

Deshpande, Senior Research Ana-lyst, Gartner.

The study was conducted acrossthe U.S., the UK, Germany, Aus-

tralia, Brazil, Russia, India andChina. Gartner also revealed that 21

percent respondents frsider cloud computing

the top three highest-pment through 201

about 25 pedents feel th

top drivers vestments aagility, capit

savings, and cloud models as

overall enterprise dataformation strategy, sa

In a previous study

Zinnov Management R&D Globalization c

said that the present $1dian Could Computin

expected to grow to ois the next five years.

42 Percent Indian CEOs Have No Plans to Invest in C


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At a time when the country is

being rocked by a number ofscams, some students of In-

dian Institute of Management-Ahmad-abad have decided to launch a helpline

on corruption to deal with this threat.

A group of six IIM-A students pro-posed the idea of starting the helpline

to former President A.P.J. AbdulKalam and IIM-A professor Anil

Gupta, which was appreciated bythem.

When the students mooted theidea of starting a corruption helpline, I

thought that the idea was excellent in

present context when the situation inthe country is such that common peo-

ple think that their work cannot bedone without giving bribes, said

Gupta. The country re-

cently got shook by2G spectrum scam,

Commonweal thGames scam and

Adarsh society

scam, which have brought the issue

of corruption infocus. At present,

most people do notknow where to com-

plain against the corruptofficials and some of

them even fear that if

they complain theirwork will never be

done. It is a verycomplex issue,

added Gupta.

The complaints will be scruti-nized thoroughly to avoid any fab-

ricated ones. According to RaviYadav, who is a part of the

project, In our proposed

model, the complaints re-ceived shall be pre-

screened by retiredofficials, before being fed

into our on-line complaint database. Other than Yadav, the stu-

dents who are part of the project areUdit Goyal, Saurabh Singh,

Nikhil Bhaskar, Shantanu

Sekhar and Daniel De Luna,an exchange student from

Italy.

India is developing its own radar-

based Electronic Warfare System

(EWS) with two test ranges in

Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to

equip its armed forces for modern

wars. An indigenously developed

radar-based EWS will be ready by

2013, with test ranges at Chitradurga

in Karnataka and at Tandur near Hy-

derabad in Andhra Pradesh, said

Prahlada, Chief Controller of the

State-run Defence Research and De-

velopment Organisation (DRDO).

Cost of each test range is esti-

mated to be about 200 crore. Prahlada

said the radar-based sophisticated

communication system would useelectromagnetic spectrum for attack,

protection and warfare support to de-

stroy the combat capabilities of an

enemy. The prowess of electronic

warfare system was amply demon-

strated by the U.S. armed forces in

Iraq and Afghanistan. A prototype

EWS has been integrated with MiG-

27 fighter for test flights, Prahlada

said at the first India National Elec-

trotnic Warfare workshop, organized

by the India chapter of Association of

Old Crows (AOC), based at Virginia

in the U.S.

The Chitradurga aeronautical test

range for communication-based EWS

will be completed in 2012 at the

DRDOs 4,000-acre campus which is

about 200 km from Bangalore, while

the Tandur range will be used for non-

communication EWS. Currently, EWSystems are being tested in the IAF

range at Gwalior in Central India.

Our goal is to develop the

fourth-generation EWS by 2012 be-

cause without electronic warfare, you

cannot win a war. Once you have it

(EW capability), you have to test it,

you cant wait for a war to test it, he

added. The fourth-generation EWS is

being developed by the state-run De-

fense Avionics Research Establish-

ment (DARE) and Defense

Electronics Research Laboratory

(DERL). The naval and army ver-

sions of EWS will be developed si-

multaneously after the air version

gets integrated and becomes opera-

tional.

The defense scientist said the

countrys defense research and de-

velopment (R&D) establishmentsare able to meet about 50 percent of

defense requirements indigenously

and will scale this up to 70 percent

by 2020.

IIM-A Students with Helpline Against Corruption

India Developing its Own Electronic Warfare System

An electronic platform for gov-ernment payments to and from

individual households couldsave an estimated Rs 100,000 crores for

India, says a McKinsey report.

Saving this much money an year

could mean a reduction in the countrysfiscal deficit by more than 20 percent,or it can boost its welfare spending by

over 25 percent, or fund the entire costof the Food Security Act.

E-payment will ensure that around

80-100 million poor households inIndia will have unparallel access to se-

cure and convenient benefits directlyfrom the Government without the in-

terference of intermediaries. Accordingto the report titled Inclusive growth

and financial security, the present cost

for the implementation of national e-

payment infrastructure stands at Rs70,000 crores and so the system could

theoretically pay for itself in just oneyear.

A national e-payment system is acritical step in achieving Indias long

standing and fundamental goals of in-clusive growth and financial security

for its poor. The benefits to all stake-

holders of a modern, reliable and wellfunctioning payment platform are nu-

merous and substantial, the report

said. According greater penetratio

ment set-up is likage greater partici

rural poor citizen

central governme

goal of reducinhunger through itand housing subs

The McKinsey & Csuggests that electroni

tems improve the effect

ernment services to theimproved efficiency in

ment functions such asmaintain law and order

business opportunities bdelivery of new produc

E-Payment Systems Can Save $22 Billion

Indian Medical Industry tobe $14 Billion by 2020

Indian medical industry may touch

$14 billion by 2020 on account ofhigher private investments in the

sector and strong economic growth.According to the study by Federation

of Indian Chambers of Commerce &

Industry (FICCI) and Pricewater-houseCoopers (PwC), the market

stood at $2.7 billion (Rs 12,350 crores)in 2008.

Strong economic growth, in-creased burden of diseases, higher

public spending and private invest-

ments in healthcare and increased pen-etration of health insurance are the key

drivers for the growth in the sector,the study said. The report reveals that

there is a huge scope for innovation in

the industry, as there is a big demandfor it in the local market.

The study said that the epicenter ofthe innovation in this field is shifting

towards emerging economies like

India and China, since the advancedeconomies like U.S., UK, Germany,

France and Japan do not have the needfor frugal innovation. Also, the

emerging economies will have ahigher spending on R&D in the future,

which will provide the trigger for in-

novation, therefore witnessing morefunding from venture capital, private

equity, states the study.The report said, besides the suc-

cess in medical technol

would depend on fact portive investment com

ing capacity for qualitdemand and supply of h

The study also sug

the growth of the sectorthat the government i

spending in healthcare tof the countrys GDP fr

one percent and evolvenology clusters with com

for calibration and test

benefit small entrepren

in in


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ANSYS India partnerEntuple TechnologieATeN Systems &TechnologiesANSYS India recently announced two

partnerships with Entuple Technologies, a

tems and Technology. Entuple Techno

ANSYS sales channel partner in India foics design products suite where as ATeN

PAN India educational product distributo

ANSYS is a global innovator of simul

and technologies designed to optimize p

opment processes and these new partnersh

them to widen their reach and to serve c

prospects efficiently and effectively. To al

ple to use our software and get better resu

engineering, ANSYS continues to expan

its network of channel partners and direc

Together we are working to delive

ANSYS engineering simulation solutions

growing customer base. Entuple Techn

ATeNs solid sales and support capabili

ment to the engineering simulation ma

broad geographical coverage make them

ners for addressing opportunities in one

growing economies in the world, says Y

Regional Sales Director for ASEAN, Aust

and channel director Asia Pacific, ANSY

SAP & ISB provide benchmark-ing for Indian companiesBenchmarking is an established practice in several coun-

tries around the world. The U.S., UK and Japan, have

their well established practices of performance bench-

marking.

Realizing this SAP India, a subsidiary of SAP AG,

launched a comprehensive performance benchmarking

program for Indian companies in association with the

ISB. This program helps the organizations to assess the

impact of SAP on their businesses and understand thevalue of adopting best practice business processes. They

offer above 30 types of tailored benchmarking and best-

practice surveys and they are the only enterprise bench-

marking application software provider in India, as of

now.

More than 150 companies covering 20 industries in

India have already made use of this program. Other play-

ers in the global scenario are Winning Moves, Malaysian

Productivity Corporation, Global Benchmarking Net-

work, Best Practice Institute and Harvard Business

School.

Silvan Innovations Lab launchesBrahma, Dhruv & ShivSilvan Innovations Lab, an electronic product develop-

ment company that specializes in video surveillance an-

alytics and home automation solutions, launched new

products and unveiled their new logo in Bangalore re-

cently. Brahma, Dhruv and Shiv, the three IP based cam-

eras are built keeping in mind the problems faced in India

like power outages and weak internet connectivity and

so are equipped with inbuilt backup battery and data stor-

age.

Silvan also introduced their home automation solu-

tion, Smart Home Automation Systems, which handles

visitor management, home safety and home manage-

ment. Their new logo concept is infinity and the blue

color represents technology which together implies in-

telligent technology plus innovation multiplied to the

power of infinity.

The company also has plans to provide surveillanceas a service in the future and is presently concentrating on

the Indian market. We are on track to achieve a turnover

of 2 crores in 2010-11 and in the next quarter, our rev-

enues are expected to touch 12 crores in 2011-12, said

M. Giridhar Krishna, CEO of Silvan.

Tata DOCOMO launched3G in nine circlesBy launching 3G service in nine circles across India last

month Tata Docomo became the first private telecom

company to do so. "We have chosen Bangalore city asthe launch pad for our 3G services, which will also be

available across nine circles from Friday in phases. We

will complete the nationwide launch by December,"

said Anil Sardana, Managing Director, Tata Teleser-

vices.

Tata Docomo is also in talks with other service

providers in circles where it does not have spectrum for

3G service to its subscribers. "We are investing about

$500 million ( 2,250 crore) for the 3G rollout in all the

nine circles where we have secured airwaves in an all-

India bid early this year (May)," Sardana said.

Its 3G services would be available in Karnataka,

Kerala, Madhya Pradesh-Chattisgargh, Rajasthan, Gu-

jarat, Uttar Pradesh (West), Punjab, Haryana and Ma-

harashtra. Tata Docomo offered one-week free trial for

its 2G customers to try out its 3G services since the dayof launch and a week later announced the tariff plans

too. The 3G offering includes applications such as

video-SMS, video-streaming, mobile television (50

channels), ultra-high-speed data transfers and route-

finder.

Compiled By Hari Anil

Prakat partners with MitraJyothi to opens SoftwareAccessibility LabPrakat Solutions, a Bangalore-based Independent ServicesCompany, has partnered with Mitra Jyothi, a charitable

trust for assisting people with visual disability, to set up a

software accessibility lab at Mitra Jyothi. The aim is toimprove the usability and accessibility of software, web-

sites and mobile applications by people with disabilities.

By setting up an accessibility lab at the Mitra Jyothicampus, we are able to train the differently-abled to per-form software testing thereby providing them a permanent

means of employment. Secondly, we are also building our

capability for performing large scale and complex acces-sibility testing assignments. This partnership with Mitra

Jyothi endorses our belief that globally, software must bemore inclusive,said Anuradha Biswas, CEO, Prakat So-

lutions.Prakat will provide the infrastructure, training and as-

signments to the Mitra Jyothi community. The lab will

provide accessibility testing training to many of our stu-dents and will enable them to find employment and start

a new life, said Madhu Singhal, Managing Trustee ofMitra Jyothi.

Yahoo unveils Yahoo Messen-ger App for Android UsersYahoo! launches yahoo messenger app for android users

and updated their yahoo mail app for the same. Yahoo!

has added video calling capabilities to its yahoo messen-

ger and the messenger will work in harmony with the up-

dated mail, which lets users know when their messenger

contacts are online, have IM conversations and make

video calls from the mail app. These video calls have to

originate on the users computer and then can be contin-

ued on their android phone, which makes it a little incon-

venient.

The updates in the mail app include the ability to mul-

tiple Yahoo Mail accounts within the app, browse photos,

synchronize contacts on phone with mail and messenger

contacts, and chatting. Probably the biggest request wehad from users was for the ability to add multiple Yahoo

Mail accounts. Well we heard you loud and clear! You can

now add accounts and swap seamlessly between them,

says Lee Parry, Product Manager of Yahoo Mail, through

his Blog.

Anil Sardana, Managing Director,Tata Teleservices


9/33


Author is Senior Managing Director of Trident Capital

VC TALK By Venetia Kontogouris

As a venture capital in-vestor, one of the first

things that I look for ina potential investment

is the entrepreneurial

qualities of the founders. Do they

have the intelligence, the drive, thevision, the skills and the persever-ance to take an idea or concept and

develop it to the point where it willbe accepted and even demanded by

the market? There are many charac-

ter traits common to successful en-trepreneurs that allow them to see

possibilities that others cant, thatmake them work harder and longer

than most, and that allow them to juggle many different tasks at the

same time. Many people believe that

entrepreneurs are born with the in-nate abilities required to be success-

ful and that it is something thatcannot be learned in school. While I

believe it is possible to learn t he spe-cialized skills and get the required

knowledge to invent new products

and processes, it is difficult to start anew venture without the unique abil-

ities of the born entrepreneur. For in-

stance, many universities developvery important and interesting new

technologies that lie dormant untilthey are rediscovered by someone

either within the university, or more

likely from the outside who sees the

commercial opportunity in the con-cept, and more importantly is willingand able to take the idea, dedicate

100 percent of their time and effort,and convert it into a viable product.

Once a concept has been in-

vented and developed, and personal,seed or angel funding has been se-

cured and a skeleton crew hired toprove the commercial viability of the

venture, one can get a good idea ofwhether the concept will be success-

ful. By this point the product is usu-

ally developed enough to getvaluable feedback from potential

customers regarding their willing-ness to purchase the product. This is

usually the stage at which a large in-stitutional investor, or venture capi-

tal firm, will get involved with a

potential Series A funding. The in-stitutional investor will now typi-

cally require that the young company

start behaving more like an estab-lished corporation with all of the re-

quirements expected of similarcompanies including such things as

more detailed financial statementsand controls, a formal hiring policy

and programs, an organization chart,

well defined allocation of time andduties, sales pipeline and budgets,

and more.Unfortunately it is usually very

difficult for the typical entrepreneurto make the required transition at this

stage in leading the company for-

ward. The personality traits thatmade him or her a good entrepreneur

are usually not the same ones foundin a person who has the right leader-

ship skills to take the company to thenext step. Some academicians have

examined the concept of entrepre-neurial leadership as a crucial com-

ponent of successful companies and

have studied ways of teaching it in a

university environment. What are thebehavioral characteristics that allow

someone to motivate and instill theirvision in a group of followers? The

challenge for a successful companyis to find a leader who can instill the

drive to succeed and excel among his

or her employees, combined withgood corporate governance, while at

the same time nurturing the entrepre-neurial drive and

spirit of innovation that made thecompany a success in the first place.

One of the few people who havemade the transition successfully is

Steve Jobs at Apple, who has beenable to become an inspirational

leader not just to his employees, butalso to the many consumers whohave made Apple such a global suc-

cess. Apples board of directors un-fortunately did not appreciate Jobs

leadership skills when they replacedhim with a corporate manager, only

to ask him to return when it became

clear a few years later that the com-pany desperately needed his particu-

lar brand of entrepreneurialleadership.

Several academicians have in factidentified three traits that exemplify

successful entrepreneurial leadership:

proactiveness - not waiting for cir-cumstances to define what you are

able to do but rather anticipatingchanging currents in the market before

they happen; innovativeness - theability to recognize changing needs

and develop new ideas and solve newand old problems in new ways; and

prudent risk taking - thecalculated risks in dev

idea or going after aThere are many establis

that have tried to systemtutionalize one or all o

teristics and the most s

been able to embrace albecause the CEO is hi

preneurial leader. Howamong the three is ver

there are many examplpanies have failed throu

phasis on one of these AIG and Enron com

having tried to be too taking too many risks.

The successful CEwho not only embodithese characteristics, b

one who can adapt to avironment and temper

and sometimes dictatrequired of a leader.

time, a CEO needs to

and drive among the emare more responsive to

demand consensus group empowerment ra

ply being told what to itous that many o

technology innovatio

Facebook, Twitter, thforces chatter, and clo

to name only a few, macompanies to foster in

risk taking within thewhile at the same time

discipline and accounessential for long term

Entrepreneurial

Leadership

Venetia Kontogouris

Severalacademi-cians have identifiedthree traits thatexemplifysuccessfulentrepreneurialleadership:proactiveness,

innovativeness andprudent risktaking.

The personality traits thaone a good entrepreneur usually not the same one

in a person who has the right leadersskills to take the company to the nex


10/33

The Smart Techie

Afew decades earlier an in-

trepid breed of Indian entre-

preneurs made quite a

killing in the Silicon Valley.

These entrepreneurs Vinod Khosla,

Kanwal Rekhi, KB Chandra Shekhar,

Gururaj Deshpande and several others,

today no less than legends of the Val-

ley, are the epitome of fearless, tech-

nology wizards who made a mark in

the global IT scenario. Though much

of their success has been attributed to

the startup ecosystem of the West, onecan not over look the sheer grit, deter-

mination, confidence and mostly the

passion that drove them to achieve the

dizzying heights they reached.

A similar wave is ready to rise in

India today. The foundation of Indias

entrepreneurial ecosystem was laid

and led by stalwarts like Azim Premji,

NRN Murthy and Shiv Nadar, who ob-

served the opportunities in the IT serv-

ices space and went on to build global

giants like Wipro, Infosys and HCL.

They were responsible for bringing the

potential of Indian IT industry to the

forefront, albeit a services one. Now

post the outsourcing wave, a newbreed of young and dynamic entrepre-

neurs are trying to make a killing in

India, highlighting the potential of the

country as something much more than

a mere IT service provider. Heralding

the new wave of Indian entrepreneur-

ship this new generation is unorthodox

in their ideas, quick to assess opportu-

nities and most importantly unafraid of

failure. Further more, they are on the

threshold of creating a few legends of

their own starting a unique venture,

nurturing it and taking to the peak of

glory that not many have managed to

attain. Observing this change, in this

Leadership special issue, we bring to

you the story of four entrepreneurs,

who explored new avenues and man-

aged to grow their ventures from a

startup to renowned leaders in their re-

spective space.

The Trailblazers:In the last decade, India saw several

changes in its economic policies; a lib-

eralization wave which brought in sev-

eral positive changes for

entrepreneurs. The countrys ecosys-

tem is blooming with growth in infra-

structure, manpower, and finance.

Today, the countrys government has

risen to be one of the biggest support

systems for entrepreneurs.

But this was not the scenario in the

country when Anupam Mittal, ArvindKajaria, Sanjay Nayak and Deep Kalra

started with their entrepreneur dreams.

They literally had to create a market of

their own as the markets for what they

initiated did not exist in the country

then. The infrastructure present was

poor and there was lack of reputation

for the country in the global market.

The hardships they faced and how

they managed to survive in a highly

competitive and financial recession

prone market comes down right to

their total belief in their products and

companies and their sheer passion to

succeed.

Anupam Mittal,Chairman and Managing Director,Shaadi.comPost an MBA from U.S. when Anu-

pam Mittal came back to India he saw

that the internet industry has started

blooming here. In realization of this

huge potential he start

Solutions, a web deve

pany while also maki

portal.

During this period M

to meet a priest and th

choice for a life part

solely on the number

priest could carry and

individuals he would

Mittal. He wanted to

about it and that is wh

taking this on to an Intstruck him. Hence, Sh

launched. Back in 199

much competition, hi

professionals was in

thus he only required

ment to start the site.

technical professional

entire portal. During th

tomer feedbacks playe

in shaping of the websi

today.

Initially, the reven

subscription based; one

pay as per the number

wanted to receive. But

alized that Indians be

conscious were hard toline, the U.S. e-com

would not work. Users

pay until they fully re

from it. A different busi

to be set up and that i

Mittal did. For example

one can look at profil

proposals to the best

and only when someon

offer one would have t

payment one can con

communication with

party.

The growth had no

the initial few years. I

withdrew from web dev

ness and focused c

shaadi.com. By 2002 , t

brand was built. By 2

was set on building m

and as a result launche

Indias New Breed ofEntrepreneurs:

They came,They saw,They conquered!

Sanjay NayakDeep Kalra

Arvind Kajaria

Anupam Mittal

Be careful when youraise the VC funding,do not raise toomuch or too little.

Too little is ne asthat teaches you tobe smarter and

wiser the next time.


11/33


a dating website and Mauj.com, a mo-

bile content provider. At the same time

Mittal wanted to see how he could ex-

pand the market for people looking for

a marriage. As per our analysis and

observation, Internet targeted only a

particular sector of the market and

most of the people coming to us were

from the age group of 21 to 35. This

age group majorly included individu-

als who were searching for partners

themselves instead of having their par-

ents or siblings looking for them. Thuseven after having newspaper classi-

fieds and marriage bureaus there was

still a need for match making solution.

We wanted to come out with a solution

which would encompass the tradi-

tional rituals and the modern culture.

Hence, we launched Shaadi Point,

explains Mittal. Shaadi Point, a net-

work of matrimonial centers across

India offers one-stop matrimonial

services from matchmaking to wed-

ding planning. It caters to parents and

helps combine traditional rituals and

modern culture together.

Over the years, the portal has

grown by leaps and bounds. Today it

has partnered with leading internetplayers like Yahoo, MSN, Rediff and

have expanded their presence pan

India and in the U.S.

Looking back, his learning from

building Shaadi.com, Be careful

when you raise the VC funding, do not

raise too much or too little. Too little

is fine as that teaches you to be smarter

and wiser the next time. Whereas rais-

ing money in excess is very dangerous

as one starts substituting capital for

revenue and making it your business

model, he says.

Determination is probably one of

the biggest valuable trait required for

an entrepreneur. But determination

without perseverance is useless. One

needs to be persistent as sometimes

things may not go in your stride. Thus

one must continue to strive, work hard

and come back into action. An entre-

preneur should be prepared to accept

failure, get up and be ready to take an-

other punch of failure he adds.

The bottom line: Entrepreneurs

who learn it the hard way attain wis-

dom and maturity faster as they learn a

lot from their experience.

Arvind Kajaria,Co-Founder and MD, 123greetingsArvind Kajaria once read the quote

There is nothing more powerful than

an idea whose time has come by Vic-tor Hugo, and these words literally

changed his life. His younger brother,

a technologist, was doing a research

back then in late 90s, when one of his

colleagues put out an e-greeting card

and sent one to Kajaria for the Christ-

mas of 97. He forwarded it to some of

his friends in the U.S. and in 16 days

this card had been sent and received

more than 32,000 times, which was a

big high. Coming from the advertising

background and having worked in the

U.S., Kajaria saw his calling in the In-

ternet space. He lost no time and

grabbed the idea of the greetings and

thought of merging it with the Internet

platform.

Thus we started

123greetings.com. The whole idea

was driven by sheer gut feeling and the

zeal to do some thing new says Ka-

jaria. Back in 98 the internet infra-

structure in India was not dependable

and all the advertisers were based out

of the U.S. and thus he shifted the

companys headquarters to New York.

During the years 1998-99, 123greet-

ings.com saw good business, and

scaled up rapidly. The fact that we

were in the heart of the market work-

ing with people who understood the

technology, and were surrounded with

advertisers who were eager to invest

in internet businesses was an advan-tage, he adds.

But good times did not last long

for this savvy entrepreneur. The dot-

com bust followed by 9/11 left the

company with high expenses and no

advertisers to support to dive revenue.

A lot of investment had already been

made towards technology, and Kajaria

and team were left high and dry. The

revenues fell by 15 to 20 percent of

what in was in the 99 and 2000. De-

spite all odds against him, nothing

could bring down Kajarias passion

and belief in his product. Thus instead

of closing down, he moved it back to

India. It was a monumental decision

but it helped us to reduce the cost atthe right time and to keep our focus on

product development, because if you

lose your focus on the user, it does not

matter what you do or where you are,

eventually you are not going to suc-

ceed, explains Kajaria.

But just like sun shines after a

stormy night, the journey for 123greet-

ings.com since then has been very

good. To cut a long story short, the

company ended last year by servicing

100 million users worldwide.

His take on his tumultuous journey,

Remember it is your dream, so do not

depend on someone else other to turn it

true. But at the same time you have your

limitations and cannot do everything. You

will have to depend on your team at some

point of time. The idea is to achieve the

balance of what to take control of and

what to let go.

Sanjay Nayak,CEO, Tejas NetworksBangalore headquartered Tejas Net-

works is one of the finest examples of

a successful product company from

India. Sanjay Nayak started Tejas to-

gether with Arnab Roy and Kumar

Sivarajan in the April of 2000 with $5

million funding from telecom entre-

preneur Gururaj Deshpande. But for

Nayak the journey began with a rocky

start. Soon after the inception of Tejas,

the 9/11 catastrophe happened and to-gether with it the world economy

came down and new telecom compa-

nies sank without a trace. As a whole

the telecom field encountered huge

loses, a whopping $ 1000 billion glob-

ally. It was an almost impossible situ-

ation for them.

But Nayak followed a simple

motto, control the controllablesand

so he and team decided to focus on the

controllables; build a good product, a

good team and conserved cash. He

also shifted the focus to domestic tele-

com market and which in the hindsight

saved the company. Today Tejas is one

of the major players in the Indian mar-

ket. They invested in new technologyand R&D unlike most global telecom

players and this turned out to be Tejas

biggest advantage.

The company has played a major

role in establishing credibility for In-

dian telecom products in the global

telecom market. In our early days,

many potential customers did not be-

lieve that an Indian company could

create a telecom product. It was diffi-

cult convincing them, but today we are

a great brand name in the market,

beams Nayak proudly.

Deep Kalra,Founder and CEO,Makemytrip.com

Makemytrip.com journey is that of anugly duckling turning into a beautiful

swan. After working with ABN Amro,

AMF Bowling and GE Countrywide

Deep Kalra realized Internet would be-

come the fundamental game changer

in coming years. The years 1999-2000

were a great time for startups. A dot-

com business could easily be started as

it required very little capital and VCs

were ready to invest in them so Kalra

started his company on the first of

April 2000. The venture started out as

India Ahoy - a high leisure travelers

site that later changed its priority to

what it is today makemytrip.com.

Neeraj Bhargava, Managing Part-

ner of eVentures helped with a $2 mil-lion funding for which a nave Kalra

gave away 70 percent of his company.

Luckily for him, with the dotcom bust

eVentures left India and made a dis-

tress sale and Kalra bought his com-

pany back. The belief in the business

was so strong that he went on, without

drawing a salary, for 18 months and

also encouraged two of his senior col-

leagues to do the same and they were

elevated to co- founder status.

In 2001 it became clear to him that

Indians were not buying tickets online.

The company struggled very badly in

financial terms, shrunk to half its pre-

vious strength and came reallyclose to

closing down. It wastheir belief in the

company and their passion that made

Kalra and his team to go forward.

Kalra eventually realized that there

was a huge NRI market in the U.S.

that could use its servi

focusing on them and

saved the company.

By 2005, with the i

e-tickets by Indian Rail

mon Indians started buy

line. Realizing this K

MakeMyTrip.com ba

September 2005 and in

any competition becam

of online travel in the

tus it still enjoys. The h

journey was when thelisted on Nasdaq this y

pany achieved sales of

in the financial year

2010. MakeMyTrip wa

daq on August 12 and

tion double to $900 mil

of listing. It sold for $2

against the listing pri

share on the opening d

opening for any compa

Nasdaq. The company

perfect example of wh

verance and belief can

They say fortune

brave. They treaded the

ativity, risk-taking attit

or flexibility, perseveran

as the five key skills

their armoury. Today th

glory and is inspiring a

way for many to follow

In our early days, many po-

tential customers did not

believe that an Indian com-

pany could create a tele-

com product. It was

difficult convincing them,

but today we are a great

brand name in the market

The venture

out as India A

a high leisure

elers site tha

changed to wis today

-- makemytri

It was a monumental

decision but it helped us to

reduce the cost at the right

time and to keep our focus

on product

development, because if

you lose your focus on the

user, it does not

matter what you do or

where you are,

eventually you are not

going to succeed


12/33


Brands are not created every-

day. And the attributes thathave created successfulglobal brands like Fedex,

Starbucks and Nike are driven by reli-ability and consistency, while creating

an emotional engagement with theconsumer.

For Jai, a tech support executive, a

day at work means handling multiplesessions from customers in the U.S.,

Canada, United Kingdom and Aus-tralia that are challenged by the in-

creasing complexity of technology intheir home. He is true to his name and

background -- he is Jai Sharma from

India who is happy and proud to helpcustomers around the world. This is

the case with each of the 4500 techsupport executives working with

iYogi, across its eight delivery centersin India, providing tech support di-

rectly to customers. It is the first di-

rect-to-consumer services brand from

India, providing remote tech support

services to home and small businesscustomers.

Indian outsourcing gathered steam

when large teams of Indian call centerstaffers with made-up names and per-

sonalities would answer your cus-tomer service call for big charge on

your credit card. It took the world by

storm and saved millions of dollars formany western companies. But no

more. Now a new company, iYogi, istaking the global tech support market

by storm with a different businessmodel that embraces its Indian roots

and brand, while leveraging superior

tech sophistication, expertise and itsproprietary platform to remove user

frustration. The end result is great techsupport at a great price. We were

clear from day one on our goal to buildthe first global consumer services

brand from India, says Uday Challu,

Co-founder and CEO, iYogi. Using

the powerful combination of remote

Internet access and our global deliveryplatform, iMantra has enabled us tomake a real difference as our own

brand, not as a disguised third-partyservice under a big-brand umbrella.

Today when a customer in the US callsseeking technical support he/she

knows that she is talking to someone

from iYogi about 14,000 kilometersaway in India.

According to the U.S. Census Bu-reau data, 117 million Americans who

are above the age of 45 present a readymarket for direct-to-consumer tech

support. iYogi, a tech support startup,

spotted this need early and cashed inon it. Founded by techie Uday Challu

and marketing professional VishalDhar in 2007, iYogi is the first direct-

to-consumer services brand from Indiaand recognized as the fastest growing

remote tech support provider in the

world. iYogi deploys a 4,500-person

iYogi

ConsumerServices

India

the first

brand from

Uday Challu, CEOBy Vimali Swamy

operation on its global service deliv-ery platform answering tens of thou-

sands of complaints every day fromtechnology users, mostly in the U.S.

The company has managed more than

two million tech support sessionssince inception and today it handles

around 20,000 support inquires everday. iYogi has more than 325,000 cus-

tomers in the U.S., UK, Canada andAustralia, who have subscribed to an-

nual contracts for round-the-clock

service for their PCs and multiple de-vices that are serviced across eight de-

livery centers in India includingGurgaon, Pune, Hyderabad, Ben-

galuru, Chennai, Chandigarh, andKolkata

The Genesis

The company was founded when

Challu and Dhar met on a flight andquickly found they could work to-

gether on entrepreneurial ventures.Challu had earlier run a third-party

desktop support business in the 1980s

but shut it down because it proved to be ahead of its time. But now, he

sensed the emerging opportunity in re-

viving that business in a modern form.Borrowing from the outsourcingmodel of charging dollars per hour of

work, the two created iYogi as an In-

dian brand that sells tech support serv-ices online to users of computers and

other gadgets in the developed world.They also used the cost advantage to

compete with several US firms such asGeek Squad. Providing a subscription-

based service, a first-time caller is of-fered a one-year package costing from

$10 per month per computer to a flat

rate of $399.99 per year for multiplecomputers in a home or small busi-

ness. The service available anytime,allowing unlimited on-demand access

to tech experts that are extensivelytrained to manage almost every situa-

tion. iYogis platform-as-a-servic e of-

fering is delivered through iMantra,which integrates complex layers of

technology, processes, services, and a

unique proprietary knowledgebase fora seamless experience for customers.

The Differentiation

So how is a four-year old startup dis-

rupting the outsourcing space that hasbeen dominated by the likes 24/7, Pro-

geon, Genpact or companies like Ac-centure who have had their support

centers set up in India. For one, youwont find a technician adopting a

false persona while handling customer

calls. Secondly, it has invested inbuilding a scalable delivery platform

that provides a consistent experiencein a new service category third-party

vendor independent tech support.iYogi offers comprehensive support

for a wide range of technologies, in-

cluding hardware, Windows operatingsystems, software, peripherals and

multi-functional devicFor iYogi, the bus

the individual customenot a US headquartere

like an outsourced cu

centre for computer vcians at iYogi take su

cause subscribers havcomprehensive one-s

says Challu.iYogis service off

subscription-based tec

for digital homes annesses. Its global deli

iMantra, combines a sapplications called Sup

on-demand tech supthrough proprietary te

structure and its

processes which provand a consistent expe

tomers. Highly optimcombine iYogis uniqu

with tools that proactechnology for its cus

duce time for delivery.

Support Dock is atop applications that

mand tech support an

access to manage, optimcomputers and netwotively manages the he

chine, explains

Co-founder and PresidiYogi.

Through its proprithe company addresse

ever-growing market pendent consumers

The basicdistinction be-tween iYogi and itscompetitors is one

will not find atechnicianadopting a falsepersona whilehandling customercalls.


13/33


14/33


W

hat comes to yourmind when you

hear the termLeader? Proba-

bly, you would

reply at the spur of the moment that, heor she is someone who can make peo-

ple work and combine their efforts andtalent to achieve certain goals of an or-

ganization. It might be the whole ideabut that is certainly not everything to

define a leader. Today, we live in aworld where talent is everything to sus-

tain an organization.

To manage every talent is a differ-

ent task altogether. In such a case, the

approach towards every talent is a

challenge for every leader and manag-

ing the most talented is the biggest

challenge because if they are managed

properly, the entire organization or a

large chunk of it gets managed. Vikram

Shah, President and Director, NetAppIndia believes, Nearly, 30 percent of

the people in an organization are the

most talented ones. Once these 30 per-

cent are managed properly, the rest of

the organization will get managed by

them. Deriving the maximum value

for the organization from the highly

talented people is the most important

key to a leader and to keep their moti-

vation level elevated all the time oneneeds to massage their ego, adds Shah.

Based on his experience, Shahidentifies some of the traits of highlytalented people and suggests solutionsto deal with them. It is not only the or-ganization which expects from them

but even their expectations from theirown caliber and from the organizationis much higher. Their performancemay have a high impact on the organi-zational growth but there is high main-tenance required for such talent as theyare usually seen to be more impatientand need attention from the authoritiesof their organization. There is hardlyany need to motivate them as they are

a highly motivated group of people andat times their motivation level discom-forts the management.

As the highly talented people think

differently, they put their ideas into ac-

tion and do not want to follow

processes and organizational hierarchy.

Though they have the capacity to deal

with complexities, they are complex

themselves but if a leader can under-

stand them as they express themselves

easily when they slip into frustration.Since the most talented employees are

often tagged as high maintenance

people, many might perceive that they

look for more income. If you ask me,

salary is immaterial to them. All they

need is appreciation and recognition in

their organization, says Shah.

The greatest challenge for any

leader in managing the most talented

employees is to identify the needs of

the organization and align them with

the target of the employees, so that the

needs of the talented people and the or-

ganization are balanced.

Talented people are the ones who

own the outcome, says Vijay Anand,

Vice President, India Development

Center, Intuit. For a leader, it is very

important to understand the mass ef-

fectively, so that the talented people are

not overlooked by the organization.

When Watts Humprey

defined innovation

as The process ofturning ideas into

manufacturable andmarketable form, he subtly maintained

the worthiness of ideation only when itcan be actuated in real world scenes. At

a broader level, the goal of innovation

is to do something better, invent some-thing new. The end ultimately is not for

the sake of producing new things butenabling an efficient and effective way

of solving problems and addressing so-cietys needs.

No technology development is a re-

sult of fling of seconds, rather its an in-cessant effort of years that develops

into a good product. Millions of invest-ment on a glitzy product will have no

impact on the hi-tech advancement. Itis the qualitative investment that mat-

ters than quantitative capital invest-

ment. For better quality we need bettertalent-pool. A look into the industry will

witness a growing tendency of majorMNCs flocking the Indian market to

get their R&Ds in shape, all thanks tothe low-cost talent-pool. The report re-

leased by NASSCOM and Zinnov

Consulting states that the major frag-

ments of the MNCs Indian subsidiaries

that are engaged in R&D and engineer-

ing operations make up $4.8 billion inexport earnings. But is that enough?

Cost-effective talent pool will not bethe ultimate USP for India in the long

term. The need of the hour is qualitytalent-pool, and a good number of

PhDs from the country, the number of

which is immensely low in the country.40 years back, almost two-thirds of

the graduates from the premier engi-neering institutes in India were seen

rushing to U.S. for their furthereducation and almost half of

them pro-

ceeded to do aPhD. The case

is no more samein India today. The

interest in higher edu-cation itself has reduced

to one-third, as everyone

has a job in hand even beforethey are out of the grad-

schools. Our success iscoming in the way of our

innovation. In the quest ofsmall time gratification

we are missing out on the

larger picture. The U.S.

produces about 1,500

puter science annually a3,000. By stark compari

nual computer science Planguishes at roughly 1

is slightly higher as thattion with roughly five pe

population size.

The biggest challengtry is the lack of indus

Research gains more ping the academic level,

tutes do not have enomaterialize the ideas. T

need of better flow of co

into the academia and grads build-up on thei

renew their interest on fTalk about industry inve

than 20 Indian firms sttop 1500 R&D investo

with of course Tata Gro

innovators standing at all the Indian firms. Th

even a single firm featuTop 50 in the lis

be an in

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MANAGEMENT By Pragyan Acharya BUSINESS By Anonya Roy

i


15/33

The Smart Techie |28|D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0

T

aking risks is not necessarily about dealing with un-

certainty as most of us tend to believe. Risk is an op-

portunity, an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to

prove ourselves. And being a leader, a person needs to findout the right kind of people to take risks with, this is what

Sridhar Jayanthi, Vice President of Engineering and Head

of India Operations, McAfee truly believes and follows.

After working for 14 to 15 years in the U.S., when Srid-

har moved back to India, his boss decided to take a risk with

him. Though Sridhar had not been employed in India be-

fore, his boss took a chance with him and decided to start

McAfee in India. That was a risk that s omebody took with

Sridhar, which proved to be a turning point in his whole ca-

reer.

But why do people take risks, while there are alterna-

tives? According to my own personal belief, all leaders in-

herently do take calculated risks all the time. Sometimes it

is according to the nature of the person and sometimes its

the nature of the position he is in that makes the person take

risks, says Sridhar.As a person, a leader may take a lot of risks, but com-

ing back to the organization, there are certain risks that he

is not ready to take. Sridhar, who has worked for startups

pretty much his whole career, has not done a startup in life,

and this, in his own words, is one of the biggest risks in the

industry that he hasnt taken yet.

Inherently even though there is so much of entrepre-

neurial spirit in India, risk is still not a very common thing

within organizations. Somebody who is an out of box

thinker, quite often is s ubdued, telling him, thats totally

crazy, you cant do such crazy things. So when somebody

decides to start up a new company, thats actually a huge

risk that one can take, because we all have come from a

background of conformity, says Sridhar.

Organizations in India, which is the hub of emerging

market and where startups are coming up every other day,

have almost everything undefined. Hence, companies here

in India need to open new doors and thereby taking risks in

order to achieve their desired goals. Risk is a necessity.

Its not even an option, everybody has to take risks if he

wants move ahead, he adds.

When it comes to taking risk in an organization, a sig-

nificant aspect is that what kind of a culture to be set up in

the organization that supports risk taking decisions. Tak-

ing risks with somebody in the organization is not onlyabout giving them responsibility, its also a matter of trust.

While the leader should show his trust on the people he

hires, the employees, at the same time, should be bold, gen-

uine and should have visibility, so that their employer can

take risk on them without any sort of hesitation, says

Rakesh Singh, Vice-President, Products and Managing Di-

rector, Citrix R&D India.

There was a time when Rakesh was heading the prod-

uct marketing department at NetScaler and when he joined

Citrix after that, he was asked by his CEO to head the R&D

center in India. At that point of time almost all the R&D

centers in India were headed by people from engineering

track, but despite from being a marketing head, Rakeshs

CEO decided to take the risk and it worked well for them.

Rakesh recalled this incident as one of the biggest risk that

somebody has ever taken with him.From a leaders perspective, according to Rakesh, a per-

son should have certain traits in him to win the respect of

his peers as well as his seniors. They have to showcase

some key characteristics that will put them in such a situa-

tion that their CEOs would like to take risk on them. Rakesh

said if a person wants to be seen as a risk taker and a bold

person, he got to be a risk taker and a bold person. After

that comes visibility, which means that the person should

come forward to take responsibilities. These are traits, said

Rakesh that employees in an organization need to have if

they want to be looked upon by their bosses.

While taking risk is necessary for both individual and or-

ganizational growth, it doesnt mean that we should step in

to something without having a look at it. One has to assess

what kind of a risk he is going to take, which means that it

has to be a calculated one, and if its not, its just negli-gence. As Sridhar often believes, Risk taking doesnt mean

that you go jump headlong into something that you dont

know. You have to assess what you are jumping into for

sure.

Great leaders take

calculated risk

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17/33

The Smart Techie

Lot of people talk about their

success stories and highlightupbeat instances from their

career which substantiate theirsuccess. But a person cannot

truly understand, appreciate and reit-

erate success unless they know failure.Failure, which in other words success

we have not seen, plays an importantrole in every successful leadership.

Shouvick Mukherjee, Vice Presidentand CEO Yahoo! India feel that the

biggest thinking and learning comesfrom failures.

Failure helps a true leader to en-

vision success. In fact, for a goodleader there is no such thing as failure.

Its a redefinition of success. Real suc-

cess awaits the one who admit failureand try to advance to the next level

without repeating it and instead learn-ing from it says Dr. P Anandan, Man-

aging Director, Microsoft Research

India, talking about how successfulleaders think.

A good leader always walks thetalk. He embraces the value and orga-

nizational culture and acts accord-ingly. Every organization nurtures a

work culture. In our organization weused to send boxes of alphonso man-

goes to the family members of each

employee specially mentioning theirnames. A particular year, I was abroad

on the occasion when things got

messed up and the mango boxes werenot delivered properly. So queries

came from the families asking why theboxes were missing this time. Simi-

larly we used to provide our team

members, employees and customerswith umbrellas during the rainy season

in Mumbai. So once you come with-out or forgetting the umbrella, even

the security right at the front gate askswhy you forgot your umbrella. All

these little things add to the work cul-ture and fun element at the work

place observes Amit Chatterjee, Vice

President & country manager, CAIndia, pondering how important value

system of a firm should be for a leaderin creating success stories.

Amit added that there should besomething extra in a leader which ca-

joles the people to follow him while ad-dressing the summit. During his talk he

pointed out that a good leader should

posses individual character traits likeability to objective listening, picking

the valuable points, good emotionalcontrol, a never say die attitude and the

ability to excite and bring energy tomembers of his team. He underlined

the fact that every leader should havethe gut and believe in playing it very

hard. He or she s hould not show bias.

Though the concept of charisma seemsclichd at this point, it is something that

is inevitable in successful leadership.He cited the example of Arjun Malho-

tra, co-founder of HCL, who madeeveryone close to him feel special with

his charisma. He also remembered

Mark, founder of a semi-conductorfirm in Noida, who impressed him with

his mannerisms and style.He called for sincerity of purpose to

be a major trait for anyone who aspiresto be a great leader. He or she should

believe in the mission and should be

committed to the rest of the team. Hereminded the audience that not only

success matters but the journey youtake to reach that success. Leaders in

any industry domain must also see to itthat they hire and work with people

better than them. If they are good in

communication they should hire peo-ple good in creativity and hence forth

adding complimentary values to yourorganization. He should not be giving

just a sermon but should set the exam-ple by enacting it, he repeated adding

that the guts to do it is something that

one develops over a period of time andwith experience. People need feed-

back. So if you under communicate itwill create perceptions which doesnt

do good. A leader shouldnt mind overcommunicating which will only return

positive results at the end added Amit.P Anandan took the occasion to

highlight leaders from outside the in-dustries for according to him 99 per-

cent of life lies outside industries andmost leadership can be seen outside in-

dustry. He cited the example of

Viswamitra, one of the saptarishis of

ancient Hindu mythology to underlineaspirational leadership. Once a king,

Kaushik instilled the aspiration to pos-

sess saintly virtues and becomeViswamitra after getting defeated by

Vasishta, another great rishi. He was adogged fighter and attained what he en-

visioned. Anandan also quoted the ex-amples of Akbar and Ashoka who

dominated the leadership quality by

embracing the opposites. WhileAshoka lived the message of peace

apart from fighting the violent battle ofKalinga, Akbar promoted Hinduism

and other religions, being a Muslimruler. He said that Gandhi and Budha

were also great leaders who never gave

up a bit for tehri goals of ultimate lib-eration.

Shouvick Mukherjee reminded thepoem which he learned at his childhood

named Chand aur Kavi which inspiresthe reader to follow his dream. He said

that the three things leadership,

dream and vision, are all important as-pects. He quoted an instance of his fail-

ure to explain his experience witheffective handling of success. After

coming back from U.S., Shouvick de-cided to create a product which worked

abroad assuming that it will work inIndia since it had great leaders, man-

agers, innovators, resented people. Howeve

not find success even ayear of hard work spe

him the lesson that ityou build cons

that a leader cr

dependent of ples needs or d

you are driving point B, you

more inclusivependent tells Sh

Amit Chspected an in

business unit

mode at this poof the company

ket value wasone day he briefed hi

goal of six million months. Every six mo

arrange a leadership gr

did detailed market scamps in hill stations

helped them to gainthose six months. W

firm, the leadership wall levels. He said tha

sion and the ability to

from the current stateare vital for any leader

ple, one should plawork the plan says A

This is the rigchange. The Indian tea

sible to the fact that

global since a businedeed global. In a glob

ductive developmenhead quarters level. Y

with them instead them. answered Ana

about when will Indiatus from that of a c

strategic up instead of

cisions from global ofconcluded with the

with the immense pot produce eminent lea

come one of the top thten or twenty years.

Traitsof aSuccessful

Leader

A good leader must possesindividual character traits likeability to objective listening,good emotional control, a

never say die attitude andthe ability to excite and bringenergy to members ofhis team.

MANAGEMENT By Renjith VP

BUSINESS


18/33

The Smart Techie

The entrepreneurial scenario continues to grow rapidly. In1996, the global software market was worth $95 billion. Ac-

cording to International Data Corporation (IDC), in 2000 itwas estimated to be worth around $180 billion. This growth

in itself has had a number of important implications both forthe industry and more generally in terms of economic development. This

rapid growth, however, has also created problems for the industry. The in-

dustry remains chronically short of skilled manpower. In Europe alone,

it is estimated that the industry is short of about 500,000 skilled workers.Japan and the U.S. are also severely short of computer service person-nel. This shortage continues to provide good opportunities for countries

like India to take-up this slack and provide skilled people to fill the gap.

Even the R&D sector is becoming much more globalized and U.S.

R&D in particular is being externalized more and more of it taking

place outside the wall of big companies within their own R&D labs. All

these have provided a platform for countries like India to grow innova-

tively and increased the demand for leading innovation driven organiza-

tions in the country. Companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and others who

made use of the opportunity have come a long way. There are also sev-

eral organizations that are mushrooming in every corner of the country.

Even though the entrepreneurs in the country have got several ideas ma-

jority of the ideas remain just as ideas due to the difficulties in their exe-

cution.

Since 1999, innovative leaders and

entrepreneurs in India have dreamt of

creating a software product powerhouse,

moving away from the labor-for-hire

services model to create own products

that are winners on the global stage. Fi-

nally such a dream came true in 2008,

when India headquartered Zoho, a

provider of on-line business, productivity

& collaboration applications, was short-

listed as one of the top 10 enterprise

products of 2008. Zoho had only 10 peo-

ple in America and yet they managed toachieve big enterprise accounts in head

to head competition with Microsoft and

Google without taking a dime of exter-

nal money - having bootstrapped it from

the start. Thus was the stepping stone and

within 2 years of time India managed to

bring a drastic change in its entrepre-

neurial scenario.

Talking about the crux at which in-

novation in Indian ecosystem standstoday, Sanjay Nayak, CEO& Managing

Director of Tejas Networks says, Thetime has come to unleash the creative

potential of our scientists and innova-tors at grassroot level. Only then we can

makeIndia truly self-reliant and a leader

in sustainable technologies. India hashuge opportunities ahead and electron-

ics itself has got $400 billion by 2020.Even if it goes upto 2022 that doesnt

matter, what matters is the growth from$45 billion to $400 billion.

During his visit to India, Bill Gates

once said that India needs to move awayfrom low-cost labor toward high-end re-

search and development work. He sawthat the future for the Indian IT sector lies

in expanding its capability to handlehigh-end R&D work. And now we can

see his vision come true.

Today, technology is transforminginnovation at its core, allowing compa-

nies to test new ideas at speeds and pricesthat were unimaginable even a decade

ago. The price of failure has come muchlower now and in return that has become

an advantage for the companies who arewilling to try new things.

There is a huge shift in the globalmarket as well. Innovation will shift to

global locations where it is more effi-cient. The emerging markets like India &

China are driving the growth today. In-novation needed to address emerging

market needs, like bringing products that

are affordable, should also be able tomeet high-quality solutions. Multina-

tional companies also require new scaleat speed approaches to penetrate the de-

veloping worlds increasingly prosperousconsumer markets.The rapidly growing

ranks of middle-class consumers spanacross a dozen emerging nations, not just

the fast-growing countries which include

almost two billion people, spending atotal of $6.9 trillion annually. Next

decade this will increase onto $20 tril-lion. This will be about twice the current

consumption in the U.S.

This offers an opportunity for earlywinners to gain lasting advantages. To

become winners they have to be distinc-tive, companies need to figure out how

to grow, sharpen their brand image, andat the same time improve their return on

investments. We should develop a com-

mon feeling that if someone else in theworld can do why cant we do? There

may be cases where 99 percent willspeak about why we should not do. But

we should search for the 1 percent ofpossibility and explore it, adds Nayak.

This might be most challenging but there

are also certain advantages to take upthese challenges. As per him, there are

three Ms that are critical in this context.Market: Among the major

economies in the Asia-Pacific region,Indias private domestic consumption as

share of GDP, at 57 percent in 2008, wasthe highest, according to an analysis by

the McKinsey Global Inprivate consumption-to-G

that domestic consumptiservices is a major cont

real GDP. In India, domtion is one of the key re

economy was able to reg

level of growth, a good efor both domestic and ov

Manpower: India hapool in the world, got

workforce both in technmanagerial fields. As c

developed and some of countries India has high

people in the working ag

Smarttechie Dec 10 Issue

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