Loading ...
As I promised, here is the blog regarding my experiences being part of the NASSCOM delegation to the Software 2008 and the INTEROP Trade fair and then followed up with the Bay Area visit.
We all arrived on the Monday (April 28th) at Vegas and got ourselves registered for the event. We (S7 Software) were one of the exhibitors in the NASSCOM booth but there were two more on April 29th and three others on the 30th. This time around Software 2008 had merged with INTEROP which had around 500 exhibitors and another 50 or so from the Software 2008. From my experience it was a huge trade fair with many IT or otherwise decision makers attending the same. The way it was setup this time I got a feeling that somewhere SW2008 lost the track and most attendees turned out for INTEROP and SW2008 looked like a poor cousin.
There were also many seminars, keynote sessions and conferences and some of them were very good and were focused towards IT services. There were many good ones but were running on a parallel track and somehow I felt that the merger of SW2008 and INTEROP happened in the later stages than early stages and hence so much of confusion and parallel track happened and I assume most of these issues will be sorted out in the next happening. Nevertheless, one session which stood out from all others was the opening keynote session by CK Prahalad about his book and his view about the “The new age of Innovation” and I thought it was excellent.
We also spent lot of time on the INTEROP floor for business networking and it wasn’t bad either and in the end we felt we spent less time in the conference and one more day would have been great. There were many biggies in the INTEROP including the likes of Microsoft, Foundry, Netgear, Cisco etc but feeling is again that INTEROP is more on the hardware level and I wonder why INTEROP cannot be software too (we provide Software INTEROP solutions and so does Microsoft). Software 2008 too had some great clients such as HCL, Ramco, TCS, Collabera
Overall I was very happy about the event and the kind of leads we were able to generate and kind of info (strategy, market, trends etc) we were able to gather. Infact we went ahead and booked a booth/stall for ourselves for the next year event which is also going to happen in Las Vegas. Also SW2009 is going to be well integrated with INTEROP than this year event for sure.
All of the delegates left to Bay Area on Wednesday for a two day hectic schedule on Thu and Fri. As planned we all met on Thu am in the Comfort inn at Mountain View and then the best thing is we all left in a bus to SD Forum. “Bus” was a great way of making us all mix well and this is when I thought if we had this Bus thing going even before the Vegas event. In SD forum office we had few sessions on what is going on in San Jose and also what are the factors we should look into if we are opening up an office in US specifically in the San Jose Area including the legal issues, banking, VC info, infrastructure rentals and incubator information etc. All these information will be critical when you want to enter the US market. I felt SDforum is a great place to start with and they will network with all related agencies and people as the need arises.
Then we attended NetApp, Google, SUN, & Microsoft offices over the two days. For NetApps, the engineering manager turned up and we were surprised by the amount of India specific knowledge he has (interestingly one of the conference rooms is named “Bangalore” and I saw directions for this Bangalore everywhere) and was a very good session overall. We were bit disappointed over the SUN’s visit as it looked like a museum visit but had an opportunity of seeing all the new hardware that Sun is investing in. Google visit was interesting one as we not only got an opportunity to visit the famous Googleplex but we had to sign an NDA before we set foot in. We had one of the Indian origins employee who happens to be engineering director discussing what makes Google tick and what are the plans and vision they have for the future. The whole Googleplex looked like a college campus and was a great visual treat. The Microsoft office in the bay area was little different but was fortunate enough to have the Corporate VP giving us a presentation which shared MS perspective as what it is currently focussed on and also talked about the trends, focus areas and the support that they can offer to companies. Some of us were thrilled to get attention from MS and getting our queries answered.
On Thursday evening we attended the SIPA (Silicon Valley Indian professionals Association) panel discussion about “The next generation IT services” and I was fortunate enough to be part of the panel members and more fortunate to have distinguished Persistent CEO Anand Deshpande (who was leading the delegation on the behalf of NASSCOM emerging companies forum) and I was amazed at knowledge and hold he processes about the market and software in specific. I was fortunate enough is an understated statement. There were 40 to 45 Indians from the Silicon Valley, lot of the participants were budding entrepreneurs. We also had a very good panel discussion. The session was moderated by Craig who is an ex-HP person and was responsible for lot of work at HP India. Anand also talked about NASSCOM and its activities. The session ended at around 9pm after which we all had dinner together. We had lot of very interesting questions coming from the audience including should we move back to India and what is the right time frame to do so and how is Indian economy doing etc. Overall it was a great panel discussion and surely a great experience to cherish.
We also had panel discussion about the topic “Critical Success factors in entering the US Market ” and workshop on “How to market and Network like a local in the Silicon Valley”. The panel had an investor, a speaker from Deloitte, Senior Director from Sun and a successful entrepreneur. Susan (of SD Forum) raised some good questions as to what all companies should look for before entering the US market, how does one go about getting his first customer and basically doing business in the valley, some best practices were shared by speakers and the opportunities that valley offered. Lot of emphasis was laid on the eco-system that the people in the valley provided for start-ups. Some questions were raised at the end of the session. Matt from Sun Microsystems shared some good insights. The panel discussion was very informative and all these will be very helpful for us going forward as we grow and scale. The workshop was very interesting one and 4 different trainers talked about the cultural aspects and what companies should lay emphasis on.
We ended the delegation trip on Friday night with an informal meeting with TiE members who came to meet the members of the delegation. The event was sponsored by a law firm Orric. This was a pure networking session. It was a a good unwinding session for the delegates and an opportunity to meet with TiE members and some investors. Later in the night all delegates met to collect feedback from the delegation members and later we bid good byes with a promise to meet often and keep in touch.
Overall it was a very successful delegation, very well planned and moreover very well executed I felt. A big part of the success goes to Avinash (from NASSCOM) for organizing and executing such an event. I also like to take this opportunity to thank Anand Deshpande, co-founder and CEO of Persistent, who was leading the NASSCOM delegation of emerging companies. His time, and his experience added lot of glitter to this delegation trip and I am very fortunate to be with him during the delegation days. I hope NASSCOM comes forward with more such delegation visits hopefully to Europe, and Australia too.
Post Contributed by Manjunath M Gowda, CEO - S7 Solutions
Related posts
- NASSCOM(Indian) Emerging Companies Delegation to the US It was a strange coincidence indeed. We at S7...
- My Experiences with NASSCOM delegation to UK and Ireland My Experiences with NASSCOM delegation to UK and Ireland Sorry...
- Here’s wishing the NASSCOM EMERGE Community a very happy birthday..! They say all things start small. In the case of...
- NASSCOM EMERGE Community launched Community is going to be a key theme for...
- The NASSCOM EMERGE Community celebrates the joining of 1000th member In just a short span of less than 5...
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
A very wonderful trip and it was very refreshing. My experiences are mentioned below:
Take-aways : (a) Understanding latest technology and market trends (b) Sharing with other SME participants their views and strategies – more of 1-1 with few attendees (c) Access to Companies like Google , Netapps which would otherwise not be possible.
The agenda was mixed and business networking was not adequately emphasized. Experiences of past delegates would have helped set expectations. Also, an interactive session on a common theme that affect SME’s would have helped exchange the ideas.
NASSCOM should continue this effort to help create awareness and exposure to SME’s.. As I mentioned, these efforts allow SME’s to align with large visions.. it would be ideal to have top 100 companies mentor the SME’s but in absence these delegations help mentor the SME’s.
All the very best.
Happy to see blog postings so promptly soon after the visit by actual visitors themselves. That is quality of visiting delegates. keep it up. I also like critical appreciation which included takeways and suggestions as learning.
SME challenge in India is totally different than in USA. Commonality could be on funding etc but on talent hiring, retaining, organizational quality building and nurturing, maturity of fresh hires Vs laterla hires, work process grasping and quality standards building, technology depth Vs designation expectations of people etc are quite different.
Challenge of entreprenuers, top management level vis-a vis building second level of levels who will be self starters etc are quite different. How SME top management frequently get lost in forest Vs woods are some of the most subtle and hidden issues which impede SME growth or burn up extra ordinary energy.
Some of the above points address to points by Rajan Vasudevan and he is right SME mentoring. let us start it as I have been mentioning in my blog postings in last one month. I had suggested same even to new Chairman Mr Ganesh Natarajan few days back against his posting on New Leadership– you may kindly go through postings in last few weeks. More when we share more
At the outset, my formal Nasscom for a wonderful program. My key take-aways from the delegation are:
1. The market for IT and BPO/KPO business continues to be good in the USA, in spite of any of the stated slow down in the USA economy. India continues to be a destination of choice and Indian companies are expected to provide value added services and not just a cost arbitrage. Since Gradatim in an early player in the on-demand hosting services / Business Process utility services, my own interactions have been to evaluate if customers are ready to accept our value proposition. My take is that there is interest in our model and we can leverage India advantage as we launch services on our model in the USA.
2. Companies should adopt the offshore-onsite model for achieving growth. It is good to see response from states welcoming companies from India to establish business presence. The interaction with SD Forum and the San Jose county was good. It is not necessary to have a large team or make large investments in the USA to establish onsite presence. But the offshore-onsite model is definitely the way forward to emerging companies.
3. In order to maintain the India advantage, companies need to deliver on the KPO (for BPO) and value added services for IT Services. We saw other countries, China, Canada etc. actively wooing investments and offering Investment opportunities. In order for Indian companies to be cost effective, Government support should be continued for few more years.
The selection of software 2008 was little disappointing as the event did not attract many business users or decision makers. While it is fact that trade shows are losing the relevance over the years, a separate focus on India pavilion would be more ideal. Also it might be pertinent to evaluate other trade show opportunities that could potentially attract business users.
Continue this program in the years to come. It is a great opportunity for emerging companies.
I agree with Manjunath - this was a very well planned delegation. Thanks to Avinash and Anand for their efforts. And best wishes for the next time.