Packing the office, into the smartphone

Story from Kerala on a IT Company providing e governance applications  

Senior bureaucrats in Kerala could soon be working their smartphones to sign files in their department, even when they are on official duty abroad. They will be able to track files and sign them from across the world and even keep a constant tab on the work of employees in their office back home without missing a single overseas assignment.

All this will be possible because of a new mobile application developed by Ospyn Technologies, a Technopark- based firm, for its proprietary electronic file processing system that is being implemented in government departments. The Digital Document Filing System (DDFS), as it is called, networks the different functions in an office and is a critical element of the e- governance project launched by the government.

The mobile app has been developed to work on the iphone and ipad as well as Android- powered smartphones, according to the company’s chief executive and managing director Prasadu Varghese and Chief Technology Officer Kishore Kumar. They say it is the next step in the evolution of DDFS. 

DDFS is designed to address the delay in the physical movement of files from one table to another in government offices. What it essentially does is to replace paperwork with electronic files. The system is currently operational in 57 offices of 15 departments. As many as 2,000 government employees are networked through the system. 

In the Secretariat, the seat of the government administration, DDFS has been implemented in the departments of Higher Education, Information Technology and Food and Civil Supplies. Ospyn has been given the mandate to implement the system in seven departments.

DDFS provides tools to create, retrieve, distribute and organise documents. It significantly enhances efficiency while reducing the cost and difficulty of maintaining paper records, Mr.Varghese explains.

In the Secretariat, DDFS has been integrated with the archival database prepared by scanning old files and converted them to the digital format. This makes it possible for officials to access old record files without leaving their seat. 

“In the conventional system, the average time for a tapal to become a GO is one month; with DDFS, it has come down to one week”, says Mr. Kumar. “Decision making is much easier. Files can be tracked online and traced to officials”. Even putting a chit on a file, a common practice among government employees, is possible electronically. Linking, bookmarking- everything can be replicated in electronic form.

The system minimises the scope for manipulation of files. Missing files, a common complaint in government offices could soon be a thing of the past, says Mr.Varghese. 

The third version of DDFS to be released soon will be a minimised variety of the system

Why IT companies Infosys, Wipro are betting big on start-ups

BANGALORE: Indian information technology companies are turning venture capitalists in their quest for fresh ideas and technology to help them compete more effectively in a fast-changing business environment. Like multinational technology companies - Cisco, Intel and SAP - which are active investors, Indian firms too are tying up with emerging ventures possessing niche skills or buying stakes in them, thereby gaining access to what could even be blockbuster ideas.

 The trend was exemplified earlier this month when Infosys said it has set up a $100 million (Rs 540 crore) fund to invest in startups, besides spotting and funding internal innovation. Similarly, Mahindra Satyam, which has a stated goal of growing faster than the industry, has a $50-million fund exclusively for investments in global technology startups. Wipro, too, is actively looking to partner innovative young companies or buy minority stakes in them.

According to industry observers, Indian IT companies have become serious and methodical about identifying suitable startup ventures with the intent of investing and have tasked senior executives with such mandate.

No specifics
For example, at Infosys, M&A head Deepak Padaki is in charge of the fund. "This has become imperative, because of the pressure from customers and competition (to innovate as well as be more efficient)," said Sumeet Anand, who is a founder member of Nasscom IP4Biz, an initiative to connect startup ventures and large businesses.

Anand also runs Kreeo, a startup that offers enterprises a social media platform for internal collaboration. "Also the DNA and culture of a product company is different from that of services companies." While software services companies all agree that aligning with startups are an important part of their strategy, they decline to talk about specifics.
There have been earlier attempts at funding internal innovation- OnMobile at Infosys or SatNav at Satyam - but directing the funding spotlight to external targets is new for the Indian IT services companies, which are faced with fundamental changes taking places at a fast clip in the technology outsourcing market.

To stay abreast of latest technologies such as data analytics, cloud computing or enterprise mobility, they must work closely with niche startups with innovative technologies that can complement their existing service offerings.

"We place a lot of emphasis on innovation and we're actively promoting it within the company as well, but there is only so much one company can do, which is why we felt it may be good idea to tie-up with start-ups," added Manish Mehta, chief vertical solutions officer and member of the executive management team, Mahindra Satyam.

Indian IT companies are following a slightly different approach to investing compared to global firms such as Intel and Cisco, said an investment banker who has worked closely with one of the large IT firms.

"Multinationals deploy surplus capital in an organised manner partly to promote newer companies and partly to promote the ecosystem. In the case of Indian IT firms, investing in ideas internally or externally gives them an option to enter a venture early, thereby also giving them a better chance to acquire it at a later stage," said the banker, requesting anonymity.

Sanjoy Sen, senior director at Deloitte India, thinks that finding an external target and incubating it also forces companies to go out of their particular culture as it brings in new blood. "This also helps in enhancing the risk appetite.

 But some software companies believe that innovation is best done from within and are adopting external funding mechanisms and benchmarks to encourage new ideas from among employees. For instance, Cognizant incubates ventures within the company in a model patterned after Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Cognizant Capital, the vehicle which vets and funds these ventures follows a tiered funding process -- early stage, mid or late-stage investments.

Similarly, HCL Technologies believes in funding ideas internally and the exercise has helped it increase non-linear revenues, said Krishnan Chatterjee, senior vice-president and head of strategic marketing.

Mobile app to help govt officials take decisions on the move

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 16:  

Ospyn Technologies, a company based in Technopark here, bets big on the business of e-governance.

It is promising to take decision-making to the wireless world, enabling government officials track files and sign them on the move, with the help of a mobile application it has developed for its proprietary file processing system, digital document filing system (DDFS).

The app can be operated on iphone, ipad, android and other smartphones, say Prasadu Varghese, chief executive and managing director, and Kishore Kumar, chief technology officer, Ospyn.

DELAY CUT DOWN

A major cause of concern in a majority of government departments is the delay caused in the physical movement of files from desk to desk, Varghese said.

Once DDFS is implemented in departments, documents are passed on electronically. Delays and overheads associated with paper based document distribution are significantly reduced.

DDFS will help distribute and retrieve documents instantly without hindrance of any geographical boundaries.

The traditional filing system involved paper-based filing systems, which apart from being space-consuming and tedious, also poses serious cost and security concerns.

Records management, data sharing, distribution and information retrieval become more complex and difficult, thereby decreasing operational efficiency.

RECORD REPOSITORY

DDFS addresses these issues and provides tools to create, retrieve, distribute and organise documents, Kumar said.

It enhances business performance and productivity, while increasing efficiency and reducing the cost and clutter of maintaining paper records.

For instance, in the Government Secretariat here, all old files are scanned, converted to digital form and archived in a record repository.

DDFS has been integrated to this database and hence, users can access old record files through DDFS, without leaving their seat.

DDFS enables officials to keep an attentive eye on ‘peeping toms’ and also to control use and viewing of data or documents.

FILE STATUS

Malpractices such as replacing pages in a file, replacing an entire file, file stealing etc can be effectively checked by implementing DDFS.

Through DDFS public portal, file status and stages can be made public. It eliminates all issues associated with lost or misplaced documents.

Officers will have quick and instant access of relevant data and documents, enabling rapid decision-making.

Kumar said that systems such as ‘e-district’ as part of e-governance are used to improve transactional capabilities and processes of Government departments.

An efficient e-governance requires a smooth and streamlined functioning of both decision-making and transactional systems. DDFS has both, Varghese and Kumar added.

IT’s a question of branding

As competition hots up, IT players focus on differentiation rather than on cost reduction.

Branding in the Indian IT outsourcing sector has been more a sub-conscious effort than a planned strategy. However, as clients demand more bang for the outsourcing buck, coupled with shifts in technology, Indian outsourcers will have to create a distinct identity.

On a sunny afternoon in March, as N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman Emeritus of Infosys walked in to address a gathering of mediapersons (on behalf of a Nasscom committee he chaired), accompanied by N. Chandrasekaran, CEO of TCS, the concern was writ large on their faces. On one hand was a slowing economic climate (both in developed and Indian markets) and on the other, the industry at the crossroads with regard to India as an outsourcing destination.

This dichotomy is reflected in the branding of Indian IT, which Murthy and others are trying to address. Murthy jokes that at times he used to get orders just waiting in the queue in an international airport lobby. Add to that an industry increasingly getting commoditised and the need to differentiate becomes apparent. Most of the companies have a similar management structure in the form of delivery teams, hiring capabilities, training, tools and management with similar backgrounds. All things being equal, the sector that built its brand more subconsciously now has to make an effort to build a brand that will have a significant differentiator.

BABY STEPS

Some developments recently point to the efforts taken by the sector that is being pushed into a corner and is now forced to hit back. TCS has ‘Experience certainty’, Wipro has ‘Applying Thought’ and Infosys ‘Building Tomorrow’s Enterprise’ as their taglines. But pit Indian brands against Fortune 500 companies and realisation sets in.

Only TCS has managed to crack the brand code to a certain extent. Last year TCS was named one of the ‘big four’ in IT services brands, by Brand Finance, a leading brand valuation firm. The company’s brand value is estimated at $4.1 billion and it plays with the big boys such as IBM, HP and Accenture. None of the erstwhile poster boys such as Infosys, HCL or Wipro figured in the list. Interestingly, in the last 12 months, it is the mid-sized IT companies which are making a push to rebrand themselves. Bangalore-based Mindtree has announced a change in its brand identity with which it would focus more on expertise than costs.

The new brand identity would help the $400-million company get more larger-sized outsourcing deals which could help it achieve the $1-billion target in the next few years. The company, which started operations in 1999 and took the help of a student affected by cerebral palsy to design its logo has this time opted for LA-based Siegel + Gale for its rebranding initiative. Explaining the rationale, Subroto Bagchi, Chairman, MindTree, says that every ten years an IT services company should look at a rebranding exercise. “In these challenging times, the message of outsourcing clients gaining more bottom line by adopting innovative solutions as compared to cost reduction is the need of the hour,” he added.

For the Nasdaq-listed iGate, Ogilvy and Mather late last year came out with a set of ads that took a dig at the traditional model of outsourcing and urged clients to talk of the results achieved by outsourcing rather than a mere ‘you do the job and bill for workable hours’ approach.

For a business that is people-intensive, Indian IT services companies have done well in the first phase but now the real challenge comes, says Rohan Deshpande, CTO, Ogilvy & Mather. The challenges come in the form of a different branding exercise that will distinguish one from the other. “Right now, it all looks the same,” he adds.

To get a sense of what Deshpande is alluding to, one needs to look a little deeper into the way multinational services companies such as IBM play the game. In 2008, then CEO of IBM, Sam Palmisano, outlined a corporate initiative called ‘Smarter Planet’, which sought to highlight the way business, government and civil society around the world were capturing the potential of smarter systems to achieve economic growth, efficiency, sustainable development and societal progress.

It resonates beyond boardrooms and that should be the level of thinking at Indian companies aspiring to go global, says an executive who was involved in the creative process of this initiative.

To be fair, Indian companies do not have a 100-year-old legacy and tend to stay away from radically different branding strategies. iGate has made a start with its campaign but the differentiation has to come in sooner rather than later.

MindTree’s Bagchi has been trying to address this with the new branding strategy.

“In the past, we have rarely communicated differentiation and were defined by the category of business that we were present in,” he admits.

According to Atul Hegde, the CEO of Ignitee Digital Services, the time has come for Indian companies to look beyond Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) and look at getting a buy-in right from the Board to the employees for the kind of services rendered. “When you look at the branding pyramid, services are at a lower end (when compared to products) and companies need to figure out what value can be added with branding to get that mind share,” he adds. According to Bagchi, the new branding strategy involves moulding market perception of the Mindtree brand and communicating it to the stakeholders. This aspect of Indian companies putting themselves in their outsourcers’ shoes is new. The business of outsourcing is unique in the sense that it involves longer client-provider relationships when compared to other sectors, wherein the relationships are relatively shorter.

However, in the light of economic volatility and with IT’s natural tendency to complicate processes, outsourcers are increasingly asking questions that can be answered in shorter time frames than multiyear engagements.

“It is time that the world looks at India as a destination that can go beyond cost and look at innovation – whether in services or products,” says Murthy.

Can Indian companies redefine business processes with the use of technology? The answer is unclear. However, one thing is clear: Companies need to find the answer sooner rather than later.

No food, no water in lush Kerala

An article that appeared in Business Line which shows the side effects of the development model in the state of Kerala . Thanks G K Nair for the article 

Kerala, glorified as the land of rivers, backwaters and lakes in a narrow strip of land in the southern peninsula, is faced not only with acute shortage of potable water, but is also designated as a ‘Statutory Ration State’ with over 90 per cent need of food grain met by imports.

The reasons for this are indiscriminate and ever increasing human interventions in the rivers, wetlands, lakes and paddy fields. The State has 44 rivers and over 900 tributaries, seven lakes including the Ramser Site Vembanad lake, and yet the government has to reportedly think of ‘rationing of water’.

Indiscriminate sand mining from rivers and reclamation of flood plains, which function as natural reservoirs recharging the underground water table, are pointed out as the reason for this precarious situation. Encroachment of forests and their destruction, coupled with demolition of hills resulting in removal of green cover, have contributed to it.

At the same time, riparian vegetation, an integral environmental component of river ecosystems, is also under threat from unscientific sand mining. This results in the destruction of feeding and breeding grounds of fish, apart from reducing the self-cleaning capacity of river water. Besides, pollution due to domestic and urban sewage and run-off from agricultural fields has led to water quality deterioration, fish mortalities and toxicity in organisms.

Hills and hillocks

If the hills are called Thannir kudangal (water pots), the wetlands are Thannir thadangal (water reservoirs). These two systems are nature’s two important organs and work as unique ecosystems providing habitats for several rare plants and animals of ecological and economic importance.

Demolition of hills and reclamation of wetlands means destruction of our hydrological cycle that sustains life and greenery of the Earth, says D. Padmalal, of Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS), Thiruvananthapuram.

Soil quarrying and levelling of hillocks is not only reducing the net area of the region, but also wasting the soil resource.

Laterite soil from hilltops is usually used to fill the paddy fields. Since the water retention capacity of that soil is poor, the converted fields become harder, which leads to the growth of more amphibious grass and other weeds.

Wetlands ravaged

Wetlands are wet or water covered areas with a water depth of 6m or less and located between land and water bodies having depth greater than 6m, according to scientists. Most of our backwater systems, lakes, rivers, paddy lands, etc., are examples of wetlands. Of the various wetlands in the country, the Vembanad lake, Ashtamudi lake and the Sasthamkotta lake in Kerala were recently declared as Ramsar sites of international importance.

Our paddy lands are wetlands used traditionally for raising paddy. They act as the feeding and breeding grounds for a variety of aquatic organisms. Besides, many don’t bother to understand that groundwater recharging occurs when water moves from the wetland down into the underground aquifer.

Reclamation of paddy fields under the cover of skewed developmental projects — such as airports at Aranmula in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district, Panamaram in Wayanad and Arankkara in Idukki districts and tourism projects in Kuttanad — is being carried out, depriving the people not only of drinking water but also of their staple food, rice.

Studies show that wetland and paddy-cultivated acreage in the State fell by 65 per cent in 30 years. If more than 30 per cent of the cultivated area in the State was under paddy in the middle of 1970s, it shrank to 12 per cent by 2000. The area under the crop has dropped to 213,185 ha in 2010-11 from 8.81 lakh ha was in 1974-75 while the total production fell to around five lakh tonnes from 13.34 lakh tonnes.

The estimated annual requirement, at present, is 40 lakh tonnes with a minimum per capita food availability of 320 g, according to official sources. “At a time when there is an overdependence for food grains/pulses on outside sources, paddy fields are sold out or are being reclaimed for non-agricultural purposes under the facade of 'development'”, Thomas Peeliyanickal, Executive Director, Kuttanad Vikasana Samithy, told Business Line.

Land grab

Even Kuttanad, the granary of Kerala is not spared, he said. The area under paddy in this region has shrunk to around 37,000 hectares from around 55,000 ha. The Kayals are allegedly being reclaimed rapaciously for converting into resorts, townships with golf courses.

The “Rani kayal” (lake) included in the Rs1,860-crore Kuttanad package created by M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in order to bring it back to paddy cultivation, has gone into the hands of a major private group engaged in financial and tourism business. The “Metran Kayal” (lake) covering an area of 517 acres has allegedly been bought by a private company at Rs 15 lakh an acre. It was hitherto being used for cultivation of paddy.

Now this entire area is proposed to be reclaimed for developing into a major township, alleged farmers in Kuttanad. Add to this another 300 acres from the MN Block covering an area of 1,000 acres also said to have been sold. Negotiations are said to be under way for sale of nearby “Maran kayal” at Rs 9 lakh per acre while in the Marthandam kayal around 30 acres have already been left aside for reclamation, they alleged.

According to the Kerala State Land Use Board, a major land use change that has occurred in Kerala is the conversion and reclamation of paddy cultivated areas, both in the lowlands and uplands, to non-agricultural uses, jeopardising the food security of the State, when it is designated as a ‘Statutory Ration State’ with over 90 per cent need of foodgrain met by imports.

Thus, large scale reclamation of lakes in the granary of the state, under the guise of tourism development, is not only depriving Kerala of its paddy fields but also threatening the Vembanad wetland system already included in the National Wetland Conservation Programme. The shrinkage of Vembanad Lake to 37 per cent (13,224 ha) of its original area of 36,329 ha as a result of land reclamation is the most important environmental consequence of various human interventions, experts said. 

Creamy & Crunchy: Uncovering the Politics of Peanut Butter

Article that appeared in Knowledge@Wharton 

Most adults have experienced those moments in the grocery aisle or at the kitchen table when they realize that a once-cherished favorite snack from childhood just doesn't taste the way it used to.

Time and expanding palates can be blamed for some of this. But some foods taste different because they are different. An entire mini-category of books -- Dan Koeppel's Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World and Jennifer 8. Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, to name a couple -- has sprung up to chart the corporate machinations, cultural mores and political turmoil that in many cases have become the main influencers of what and how we eat. InCreamy & Crunchy, author Jon Krampner explores how the aforementioned factors and others have shaped one of the more ubiquitous treats from our childhood lunchboxes: peanut butter.

Krampner begins his history with the origins of both peanuts and peanut butter, pointing out that while the spread's use in the United States only dates back to the late 1800s, it's not an entirely original concoction. About 3,000 years ago, South American Indians were grinding peanuts into a "sticky paste" and mixing it with cocoa, and people living in West Africa have been eating ground peanuts for hundreds of years. Very few peanuts -- which are legumes having more in common with beans or peas than walnuts or almonds -- were grown in the United States at the time of the Civil War, Krampner writes, but that changed with the invention of better harvesting equipment.

Not all peanuts are created equal. There are four main types of peanuts grown in the United States -- runners, Virginias, Valencias and Spanish peanuts. In writing about the different varieties, Krampner explains one way that peanut butter today is not quite the same as it was in its early years -- or even as recently as 40 years ago: It used to be made primarily from Virginias and Spanish peanuts. But Krampner describes how runners -- which are easier to harvest and make for a more consistent taste across batches -- became the legume of choice as peanut butter moved from a product dominated by small, regional brands that customers bought from bulk bins at the general store to one typified by a few national brands and bought in plastic jars off supermarket shelves.

And then there is the matter of who invented peanut butter. The book notes that it's not entirely clear who the first person was to create a spread from ground and roasted peanuts. It might have been John Harvey Kellogg, one of the founders of the cereal empire. But it could have been George Bayle, the owner of a now defunct St. Louis snack food company. One person it most definitely wasn't, according to the author, was George Washington Carver, the African-American scientist who Krampner suggests became the inventor of legend because the white-owned mainstream media liked promoting a black man who was seen as deferential toward whites.

Krampner is exhaustive in his reporting of peanut butter's rise to pantry staple and the various skirmishes in the battle for dominance in the industry, with Peter Pan emerging as the number one brand, only to lose that title to Skippy, which subsequently relinquished it to today's top seller, Jif. For example, he goes so far as to track down George Bayle's great-granddaughter in an (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to learn more about his peanut butter--making exploits. And Krampner also interviewed a number of people who formerly worked in the plants and front offices of the "Big Three" brands.

Tough Nut to Crack

But one nut he was unable to crack was to actually get inside a plant owned by one of those companies or to talk to current executives from the corporations about where they see peanut butter going in the future. Rattled by bad press from salmonella outbreaks and other past reports of product contaminations, ConAgra (owner of Peter Pan), Unilever (which owned Skippy until its recent sale to Hormel) and J.M. Smucker (owner of Jif) all declined (or outright ignored) Krampner's efforts to include them in the book. While he dutifully documents all the unreturned phone calls and emails that went nowhere, it's a glaringly absent piece of the peanut butter puzzle.

To be sure, those peanut butter marketers and magnates might have had stories to tell as interesting as that of Frank Ford, the self-described conservative guy who created Deaf Smith, the precursor to the Arrowhead Mills brand that marked a rebirth in "natural" (i.e., the kind you have to stir) peanut butter and gained a following among the 1970s hippie community. Like its successor, Arrowhead Mills, Deaf Smith was one of the few peanut butters to be made with Valencia peanuts, which are smaller and sweeter, but harder to grow than the other varieties grown in the U.S. Then there's Herb Dow, the film editor whose efforts to create the first "gourmet" peanut butter (complete with a square jar) were felled by the dot-com crash of 2000. Krampner also interviews nonprofit groups and others working to use peanut butter to fight hunger in developing nations.

It's unfortunate that the author didn't try to incorporate more of these "peanut butter personalities," possibly by expanding passages that include interviews from some of the few independent and regional companies that still make it or by going into more detail about the international brands of peanut butter. (One interesting fact: Consumption in Canada is actually higher, per capita, than that of the United States.) Instead, the book is padded to 298 pages with recipes that are mostly curiosities and a throwaway chapter on music celebrating peanut butter. Spoiler alert: There isn't much, although Elvis was a famous fan.

But Creamy & Crunchy is buoyed by Krampner's obvious affection for his subject. Among the recipes included in the book is one of his own for a sandwich dubbed, "The Simon and Garfunkel," involving a whole wheat bagel, peanut butter, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms and garlic, among other ingredients. At the back of the book, he includes his personal rankings of the best brands from various categories (among them, creamy, crunchy, international brands and the best made from the various types of peanuts).

While Creamy & Crunchy won't answer every question about peanut butter, it will likely spark a desire to crack open a jar and start spreading.

India Post to enter banking space

The Indian postal department plans to enter the banking business with RBI deciding to grant new bank licences to entities with credible track-record. 

Sources said the Department of Posts, which a strong foot print in rural areas, has appointed Ernst and Young as consultant for proposed 'Post Bank'. 

"Ernst and Young is expected to submit detailed project report by April 2013, after which all necessary measures will taken up to apply for banking licence,"a source at Ministry of Communications and Information Technology told PTI. 

Sources added that Department of Post (DoP) may need Cabinet approval for setting Post Bank of India. 

The Reserve Bank of India today issued the much-awaited guidelines for new banking licences. Among other terms, new banks should open at least 25 per cent of branches in unbanked rural centres. 

Of the 1.55 lakh post offices, around 24,000 district offices may be ready to offer banking services in next two years. Post offices are being enabled by core banking solution's connecting nationwide branches as part of an transformative IT project. 

DoP is in process of setting up 1,000 ATMs. 

The country has around 90,000 bank branches at present. 

"Post Bank shall not only take care of the banking needs of the rural poor but shall also converge with micro-insurance and micro-remittance services of the Department of Posts," the source said. 

The head offices chosen for setting up ATMs covers all the states, with Andhra Pradesh leading the tally at 100 ATMs, followed by Tamil Nadu (92) and Uttar Pradesh (73). 

As many as 61 ATMs would be set up in Maharashtra, 60 ATMs in Karnataka, 51 ATMs each in Kerala and Rajasthan.

As per data shared with Parliament, there were over 26 crore operational small savings accounts in the post offices as on March 31, 2012 having deposits worth Rs 1.9 lakh crore.

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Big IT firms in hot pursuit of smaller deals

Interesting article in Business Line on the changing dynamics of the Indian IT Industry 

An SME in Hyderabad has just lost a project to Accenture, the multi-national IT firm. Just under $2 million, the size of the deal is very big for the SME, though it is considered small for IT bigwigs.

TWO TRENDS

The IT industry is witnessing two trends in this regard. The medium and big IT companies are not leaving any project that they spot during slowdown. They are also admitting that the size of the deals is coming down as clients are distributing their IT requirements to different vendors instead of depending on one or two firms. “The client that had refused to renew the project was happy with our performance. But he was helpless as he couldn’t turn down the bid from the big firm, fearing criticism from his investors,” an executive of the Hyderabadi firm told Business Line, wishing anonymity.

This, in fact, is not isolated case. The medium and big IT firms are increasingly focussing on clinching smaller deals to offset the stagnation in bigger deals.

“There is a clear trend towards smaller deal sizes over the past few years. Multi-sourcing is a key driver for this trend, as clients seek deep process and technology expertise from their partners to solve specific business problems,” Prashant Ranade, Chief Executive Officer and President of the Nasdaq-listed Syntel Inc, said.

The number $1-million plus customers of Mahindra Satyam has gone up to 135 in the quarter ended December 2012, as against 126 in the same quarter previous year. The $5-million plus deals went up to 49 (47).

This trend can be seen in the top league firms such as Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys too. The $1-million clients of TCS went up to 551 (538) in the third quarter. Its $5-million clients went up to 273 (269).

Infosys gained 20 smaller dealers as its $1-million clients went up to 419 (391) in the third quarter. Its $5-million clients too went up to 209 (193).

BIG CHALLENGE

“The moment the deal size is crossing the $1-million mark, it is attracting the attention of the medium and big companies. And when they enter the fray to grab such deals, it will be difficult for the small companies to win. It, in fact, is a big challenge for the smaller companies,” Ravi S. Rao, a leader of ITsAP (IT and IT-enabled services industry association of Andhra Pradesh), said.

A lightness of spirit

A tribute to my Friend Rahul Cherain. Thanks Rahul. 

Disability activist Rahul Cherian leaves a legacy of thinking about human rights as rights for the maximum enjoyment of life

The word spirit travels to us via Latin where spiritus literally means breath but is more accurately a description of the vigour and vitality of a being. It is therefore appropriate that while breath marks the line between life and death, an infectious spirit vitalises everyone with their being regardless of the presence or absence of their breath. Rahul Cherian — intrepid spirit and tireless activist for disability rights — passed away on February 7 after a sudden illness.

While many of us feel cheated by the death of someone so young, let us not be mistaken: it was always Rahul who cheated death all along, and Robin Hood-like, generously distributed his infectious enthusiasm, laughing his way out of the bank of life. Diagnosed at a very early age with a spinal tumour, hospitals and surgeries were no strangers to him; they were mere playmates from whom he learnt the value of not taking illness too seriously.

Impact on Verma report

After a surgery in his 30s in which he lost partial mobility of his legs, Rahul became involved with the rights of disabled people and started “Inclusive Planet,” an organisation that works on all aspects of disability rights — from accessibility policies of the government, to reform in copyright law to enable persons with visual disabilities the right to read. He was instrumental in the drafting of the Treaty for the Visually Impaired, currently being debated at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), as well as the amendment to the Indian Copyright Act to enable exceptions for persons with disabilities.

Most recently, “Inclusive Planet” made a set of submissions to the Justice J.S. Verma Committee on the reform of sexual assault laws from the perspective of disabled victims, many of which were incorporated into the final report.

In articulating an innovative jurisprudence of disability rights, it was clear that his sense of play and a belief that emancipation comes from a sense of joy, not of sorrow, always informed whatever he did. Thus even as he fought in all fora for equal citizenship of disabled people, he also included a dating service for them and a section on disability and humour on “inclusiveplanet.com”. A telling sign of his joie de vivre was an “Inclusive Planet” T-shirt that had an alien with crutches pointing at you saying, “You are not alone.”

I remember being in a meeting with him and various representatives of organisations fighting for the rights of the visually impaired to discuss with the government the Copyright Amendment Bill. As the negotiations seemed to head towards a frustrating bureaucratic wall, he turned to me in exasperation and said, “Things better start improving or I will be forced to hit someone with my crutches and that will be terrible for the image of the disability movement.”

In an interview in Geneva, Rahul enthusiastically demonstrated his new foldable scooter with which he said he could “go on his own and buy his wife Anjana a present.” He added: “I used to call myself a disability activist but now I consider myself a freedom fighter because I am actually fighting for freedom to access the city. Coming from the land of Mahatma Gandhi, I am proud to say I am a freedom fighter and let’s see what kind of freedom we can win for disabled people.”

Rahul leaves behind an important legacy in terms of his work, but a far more important one on how we understand the very idea of a free spirit. His singularity, while irreplaceable, provides us with a vocabulary of thinking of human rights struggles as really a right to the maximum enjoyment of life and doing it with a sense of lightness.

Enumerating lightness as one of the desirable attitudes to cultivate, Italian writer Italo Calvino urged us to recall Perseus’s refusal of Medusa’s stone-heavy stare. To slay Medusa without himself being turned to stone, Perseus supports himself on the lightest of things — the winds and the clouds — and “fixes his gaze upon what can be revealed only by indirect vision — an image caught in a mirror.” Calvino reminds us that Perseus’s strength lay in his refusal to look directly, but not in a refusal of the reality in which he is fated to live. Sleep well Rahul — you have taught us well that laughter and lightness are our greatest weapons against adversity.

Sridhar Vembu - Amazing story from Business Line

Thanks to Rasheeda Bhagat for this nice article 

The first thing that strikes you about Sridhar Vembu, CEO of software products company Zoho Corporation, is basic honesty and zero hyperbole. 

Started in 1994 in a room in his Chennai house, with two computers his brother Kumar had brought from the US, Zoho today employs 1,600 people at its offices in the US, Chennai, Japan, China and Europe, and clocks annual sales of $150-200 million. 

The son of a stenographer in the Madras High Court, Vembu studied in the Tamil medium, becoming the first from his school to get into IIT Madras. After a B.Tech in electrical engineering, in 1989 he headed to Princeton on a scholarship for a Ph.D. Both at IIT and Princeton, he avoided computer science as “it meant writing software and I felt building was better than sitting in front of a computer.” Interested in maths and economics, he wanted to become a teacher. 

But destiny willed otherwise, and just before completing his doctorate he had doubts about his vocation. “The best analogy is that of the Catholic Church; I trained to be a bishop and I started to question God. If you do that, you are in deep trouble,” he laughs. 

Sunny weather

So he turned down a teaching assignment in Australia and joined Qualcomm, then in San Diego, primarily because its “sunny weather” was much better than the freezing winters in Princeton. “Just like you marry a girl because she looks good… a superficial reason, I accepted the job because of the weather.”

Vembu stayed there for two years, writing codes. Soon he realised that “whatever you design — car engine, camera — everything involved software.” Models were first built, simulated and tested on computers before the real thing was built. He realised that “software is the real essence of everything. It allows you to do things much faster; change things, run experiments.” This hit him even more while building a satellite-based communications system in Qualcomm… virtually on the computer.

Meanwhile, his brother Kumar, a software engineer, had also joined Qualcomm. “Those days the US was short of software engineers and you could literally board a plane and go there.” It was 1994. The two brothers would discuss the future, how India was on the verge of something big in software, “where you don’t need capital, equipment or infrastructure; only your brain. That’s how Infosys started! So should we start something…” 

An enterprise begins

Soon the home-sick Kumar left, and with his two computers, started writing software. He asked his brother Sridhar to scout for clients. “I made a few calls, wasn’t very successful, quit, and moved to Silicon Valley in my broken car.” His savings of $20,000 quickly disappeared in five months and his first venture failed. So he worked for three months as a software programmer on contract and “lived very frugally. I still have the same habits, nothing has changed and you can see that,” he grins, pointing to his crumpled T-shirt, ill-fitting jeans and inexpensive sandals. 

About six months into his contract work, a senior from IIT, Tony Thomas, sought his help — with marketing his software programs! So Vembu linked Thomas and Kumar, promptly printed a card calling himself “VP–Marketing” of the venture (it wasn’t a company yet) and looked for business. Small orders started trickling in, initially for $2,000 to $10,000. “In principle it was no different from a fruit seller’s work, or you eat what you kill. But we were surviving,” says Vembu.

By 1998 they were making enough money — sales of $300,000 — to pay themselves. Thomas moved to Silicon Valley, the Indian operations were scaled up, and AdventNet was born with Thomas as CEO. In 1999, the sales jumped to $1 million, “and we kept growing to $3 million and then $10 million, and knew we have a successful business.” Thomas insisted that the CEO’s title should pass from him to Vembu as he was the business brain. Vembu dithered for a while but took on the mantle in 2000. After two years, Thomas branched out and formed his own company. In 2009 the firm’s name was changed to Zoho Corporation. 

No suit-tie for him! 

 

So, is he planning an IPO?

“Not at all; I like the freedom of doing what I want to do and I have unusual interests.”

Such as? I prod him. “Like dressing like this… I really don’t care how I look, I don’t like to talk to Wall Street or our Dalal Street guys wearing a suit and a tie. I don’t socialise in those circles. I don’t play golf — I’m not interested and consciously avoid all of it. I do whatever I do with passion.”

Also, he hates to talk about his personal net-worth; “that is one of the reasons why I don’t go public, because that will be constantly talked about. I am not defined by the number of zeroes. I am more interesting than that.”

Suddenly, turning serious, he says softly, “You know… to have a lot of money and no vision, is a very sad place to be in. When you have money and don’t know what to do with it, it’s sad. But I have lots of interesting things to do.”

Running a 10-mile marathon is one of them. He doesn’t have a trainer; “you simply have to keep running. I can now go up to 3 miles.”

Today Zoho has over 150,000 customers, half of them in the US, where he spends two-thirds of his time. He got married to Pramilla, who now runs her own company in the US, while at Princeton.

The two of them, “mostly her, home-school our child, who is autistic. He is 13, very good with the piano… my wife is now teaching him software writing too.”

That brings us to the recruitment strategies of Zoho, with 1,600 employees, spelt out in an earlier article (http://tinyurl.com/zohosuccess). While in the beginning, they recruited from lesser-known engineering colleges, as students from better colleges would naturally opt for an Infosys or TCS, Zoho University now takes Plus-Two students and trains them in code writing.

Women don’t take risks

At Zoho, the gender ratio is a little skewed with only 30 per cent women. This is because, being better academic achievers, they “get recruited by bigger companies and go for what they think are better jobs,” says Vembu.

Are women equally imaginative and creative, or are men better at product design and development?

“I don’t want to say that. What I’d say is that you have to sometimes break rules, think different, like Steve Jobs said, but women don’t want to break rules or take risks. They are more cautious and that sometimes hinders… Men are willing to take risks. Men get killed in accidents because they take stupid risks on roads, women are safer drivers. But in product business, you have to take risks. There is no other way to make progress.”

Innovation and thinking differently have been a hallmark of this entrepreneur, who has to his credit the creation of one of the first online office suites (cloud computing). He has been instrumental in broadening Zoho’s software portfolio to include innovative, cost-effective products for the SME sector. 

We talk about why our MBAs and other brilliant professionals line up for jobs rather than become entrepreneurs. Is it fear? Vembu’s response: “Actually, these are all big words. Think about the lady who is selling flowers. She is an entrepreneur too; she has no fear because she has no choice.” He quotes Helen Keller: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Nor do children of men experience it as a whole. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” 

With child-like wonder, he adds, “This is the absolute truth;

 I saw this only recently, but I’ve lived the spirit… that is why I could connect with it. If you give excessive structure, like 9–5 schooling, people will seek security.”

All of 15, he would often wonder about security being an illusion. “Buddhism tells you that you can be rich one day and poor the next. And then everybody dies, and what can be worse than death? So why are we so afraid?” 

Thanks to Vembu’s ability to “break rules”, veil-clad Ayisha Shahjehan, a Plus-Two student, earns Rs 20,000 at the age of 20 — “much, much more than what my father makes”.

There’s also Nandini, a railway policeman’s daughter who earns a little more at 21. More than the money, he has given both the girls, and scores of other youngsters, confidence as well as a career. As they chat and joke with him, they don’t know, or care about the zeroes in his net-worth. Neither does he. 

Zen and the art of software coding 

 

Religion

I’ve never been religious, I was always bored by rituals. These days I’ve become more partial to Buddhism. Buddha never talks about God. Buddhism is what they call the science of the mind, how you find peace within yourself. Like the Dalai Lama says, the whole purpose of everything is to be happy. 

Movies

I love the movies of Akira Kurosawa, the Japanese moviemaker, and I watch Westerns, the Clint Eastwood kind… they are similar to the samurai movies, and take influences from Kurosawa. They have similar roots. I find Indian movies too long and too emotional. I like understated movies and the Japanese are understated. 

Music

Not much, but my wife is an excellent Carnatic music singer; she is world class. She sings occasionally, and we do give home concerts. I don’t know Carnatic music but listen to it. I listen to Yanni — I just love his music. 

Growing polarisation on religious lines

I am sad about it. I think we all need to chill out a little bit… take this Vishwaroopam thing… it’s only a movie — why take it so seriously? There is nothing right or wrong... that is Buddhist philosophy. 

Food

I mostly like South Indian vegetarian food… and yes, I do know how to cook! 

Reading

I do a lot of reading, entirely non-fiction. I love travel stories… travelling is a way of finding yourself. I read a lot on travel in China; I’m fascinated by Naipaul’s writing; he is brilliant. 

Holidays

Any peaceful place. I went to my village in Thanjavur last weekend, and was very happy. My parents were there, so we watched the harvest. Our home in the US is in the countryside… a big house in a big farm; my son loves the solitude and so do I. We now have an office in Tenkasi, which is very peaceful and scenic.