ISB Home  |  Club Home

Events 2009-2010

“Bringing Technologies to Market Space”: By Anupam Saronwala

The EVC Club is organising an interactive session with Anupam Saronwala, Innovation Leader - Strategic Outsourcing IBM Global Technology Services, Asia Pacific IBM on “Bringing Technologies to the Market Space."

Speaker Profile
Anupam Saronwala is Innovation Leader, Strategic Outsourcing in IBM Global Technology Services, Asia Pacific. In his current role, he is responsible for Best of Blue/SO Innovation programme for the Asia Pacific region. The objective of this programme is to inject innovation capabilities in strategic outsourcing opportunities with an objective to add business value and differentiate IBM in the marketplace.

Based at IBM India Research Laboratory, New Delhi, Saronwala also manages the groups responsible for Business Development activities and research projects in the Analytics and Optimisation area. This primary focus is to take to leading-edge technologies to markets in the ASEAN region; that were developed both by India Research Lab and other worldwide IBM Research Labs. The objective is to understand market needs by working with IBM client-facing organisations, such as GTS, GBS, S&D, BTO, AMS, Software Group; and identify relevant technologies that will address both the business and technology requirements of IBM clients.

Prior to joining IBM, Saronwala had over 20 years experience in business consulting, software research and development, and operations with leading US and Indian companies. He has worked on assignments with international clients, such as AT&T, Lucent, US West, Galileo, Dacom.

Saronwala's primary areas of interest are in introducing innovative technologies to emerging markets, specifically in the areas of business optimisation, pervasive computing, speech technologies and expertise related to business transformation for specific markets, such as Finance, Telecom and Public Sectors.

Back

Opportunities in Mobile Value Added Services by by Mr.Viswanath Alluri, CEO, IMI Mobile

IMI Mobile is a leading provider of end-to-end value-added services for operators, brands, content providers and enterprises with offices in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Please find attached the company brochure to learn more.

Vishwanath Alluri
Chairman, CEO and Founder

Vishwanath Alluri founded IMImobile in 1999 with a vision of harnessing the intellectual resources of India to develop an IPR centric technology company. While recognising the potential of the rapidly evolving mobile data space, Alluri was aware that fast growth needed to keep pace with ever changing technology. He therefore set out to build a company which would liberate mobile operators and media companies of technological complexities thus enabling them to realise the huge revenue potential. A pioneer of the ‘managed service model’, IMImobile delivers turnkey technology solutions allowing customers to focus on their core business development. Today IMImobile has become one of the leading players in the Mobile Value-Added Services market. Alluri is a Chartered Accountant and a Company Secretary. He is a successful serial entrepreneur and has extensive experience in the technology domain. He was previously involved in setting up an Indian hi-tech consumer services company in the healthcare sector.

Back

Angel Funds, Early stage VC Fund and Techno-Entrepreneurship by Dr. Tan Guan Hong

A interactive speaker session with Dr Tan Guan Hong, an Angel Investor, entrepreneur and mentor to technology entrepreneurs, on August 14, 2009. Dr Hong is also the Managing Director of SysEng (S) Pte Ltd, Singapore, the President of Singapore Industrial Automation Association (SIAA) and the Chairman of the SIAA-M2M programme.

• Dr Hong is the Managing Director of SysEng (S) Pte Ltd, Singapore, which has recently been acquired by a $ 30 M USD Tritech Group of Singapore. He started SysEng in 1994 to develop Automated Measurement Systems for various industries.

• Dr Hong is the President of Singapore Industrial Automation Association (SIAA) and the Chairman of the SIAA-M2M programme. SIAA is helping the Small Medium Enterprises to grow locally and regionally via collaboration methods using companies with different strengths to form new business synergies.

• Dr Hong is an angel investor and invested in multiple startups. He is also mentor for lot of young entrepreneurs who are setting up their ventures in the Engineering, wireless and M2M solutions in APAC region.

• SysEng has many Test Systems, Remote Automated Civil Engineering Instrumentation, Vibration Measurement and Image Inspection systems. SysEng has also developed lot of solutions for automated remote monitoring systems, which have been operating for many years. These experiences cover system design, sensor selection, grounding, and lightning protection for robust system. SysEng has evolved to be the leading Machine-to-Machine (M2M) solution provider specialising in wire-less and Internet communications for outdoor industrial applications.

• Dr Hong has presented multiple international professional conference papers sharing his experiences in remote monitoring using M2M technologies.

• Dr Hong is an advisor for the Engineering vertical of Banyan & Zreyas Venture advisors Private Limited (BZVA), an ISB alumni venture.

• Dr Hong is also an advisor for TechSpan Engineering Private Limited, a Bangalore based startup in Engineering services and a portfolio company of BZVA.

Back

Demystifying the Dragon – What the World can Learn from China : By Prof Ramakrishna Velamuri

August 3, 2009: In a talk organised by the Emerging Markets club and the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital (EVC) club at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Ramakrishna Velamuri, Visiting Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the ISB, spoke about ‘Demystifying the Dragon- What the world can learn from China’. Velamuri is also an Associate Professor at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS).

Stating that he was a student of China and not an expert on China, Velamuri outlined some of the differences between the two largest emerging markets – higher rate of migration of labour from agriculture to Industry in China, lower percentage of labour force in the service sector in India and lower capital efficiency in China. “China had to invest a lot more to maintain its nine to ten percent growth,” he said. He added that even though India had the advantage of having a younger population, China scored in the areas of technology diffusion, gender equality and healthcare. “Literacy, health care and gender equality were the drivers of economic growth, not the consequence of economic growth,” he said.

Velamuri said the democratic system of government, a free press, dependence on private initiatives compared to government measures and lower dependence on foreign trade were some beneficial factors for India. He added that the historical neglect of primary education, delivery of healthcare to the masses, gender equality, physical infrastructure, speed of political decision making and manufacturing costs were some unfavourable areas for India vis-à-vis China.

The Emerging Markets Club is focussed on the rapidly changing face of the global economy and the increasing importance of the emerging economies in global affairs. And the EVC club focusses on encouraging and fostering entrepreneurship among the student body, provides practical learning opportunities to minimise risk and maximise success in ventures, and facilitates interaction with experienced entrepreneurs, industry experts and venture capitalists to gain insight and inspiration.

Back

Entrepreneurship in 29 Quotes, 13 Cartoons and 1 Video: Satya Prabhakar, CEO Sulekha.com

Brief of Presentation
The presentation -- Entrepreneurship in 29 Quotes, 13 Cartoons and 1 Video – is divided into three sections: Why Entrepreneurship, Lessons and Learnings of Entrepreneurship, Lessons and Learnings of Management. All of the presentation comprises quotes, cartoons and a video…to drive home these learnings instead of clichéd aphorisms and homilies. The presentation is for 45 minutes with about 15 minutes left for Q&A.

Personal Profile of Satya Prabhakar
Satya Prabhakar is the CEO of Sulekha.com, one of the most popular Indian Internet sites, that pioneered the integration of classifieds and local search with social media in 50 cities. Sulekha partners with companies such as Vodafone, Reliance, Airtel, Sify to offer Classifieds and Yellow Pages services through mobile and online platforms. Sulekha serves tens of thousands of paying corporate and small-to-medium business advertisers using a ground-breaking "Response Guaranteed" model.

Prabhakar raised $15 million from Indigo Monsoon Group and Norwest Venture Partners. He grew Sulekha.com from two employees to more than 500 employees with 10 offices in India, US and Canada. He leads a team of world class professionals in developing revenue-generating services that were acclaimed by users, media and industry.

Prabhakar was featured in ~ 500 news stories and invited to speak in ~ 200 conferences, industry gatherings and academic/corporate institutions, including Wharton, McCombs, ISB Hyderabad, IIM Calcutta, IIT Bombay, REC Trichy, and NIT Singapore. Prabhakar has authored nearly 100 technical and general interest articles. Prabhakar's blogs/opinions/columns were published by Penguin, Mint/Wall Street Journal, Impact, Economist and Harvard Business Review.

He has ~ 20 years of experience in US and India in management, business development, strategy/technical roles at TCS, Philips, Honeywell and AT&T. Prabhakar's expertise is in building organisations, developing strategy and performance frameworks, recruiting and motivating high-skilled teams, marketing, technology, resource allocation and, most importantly, revenue growth and management.

Prabhakar has won awards for technical/business leadership at AT&T and Honeywell. His interests include investing, chess, tennis, golf and writing. He was recognised by Confederation of Indian Industry with an entrepreneurship award in 2008.

Prabhakar is a Charter Member of TiE and a member of CEO Forum and CEO Clubs.

Back

Lessons for Indian Entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley: By Dr. Prasad Kaipa

Dr Prasad Kaipa will talk about role of Innovation and leadership in entrepreneurship.

1. Find next significant step

2. Come up with innovative decisions, products and services

3. Explore more risk taking

4. Make innovative and strategic decisions

“Kaipa’s unique competence is in helping his clients find their next significant step and take it. He found that unless he helps clients to examine their signature strengths that have turned into “core incompetence” and keep them stuck, it is difficult to ignite and channel their creativity to come up with innovative decisions, products and services. In doing so, he assists clients in becoming effective in managing people); get reenergised and build new capacities; and explore more risk taking and make innovative and strategic decisions.”

“Dr Kaipa - I had a chance to interact with many brilliant people like Nobel Laureates, accomplished athletes, writers, professors and spiritual teachers of 4 different religions. That process of exploring how human beings can think breakthrough thoughts and create tools that augment human intelligence ignited my own connection with my roots”

“Kaipa worked with companies like Boeing, Disney, Mobil, Ford, Sun, Pepsi (Quaker Oats), Navteq, BAE Systems, Sasken, Syngenta, Mastek, Union Bank, Canara Bank and AT&T (Pacific Bell) in the areas of change, innovation and management team development. Executives from companies like Cisco and HP have worked with Prasad in developing innovative business models for creating a successful new business and in innovating unique, “brandable” product design that is consistent with their culture.”

Back

Million-Dollar Lessons: How 28 Entrepreneurs Soared to Success Intelligently by Dr Dileep Rao

Financier, Columnist (Forbes.com), Adjunct Professor & Workshop Leader, Dileep Rao, will be visiting ISB on August 5 to talk about “Million-Dollar Lessons: How 28 Entrepreneurs Soared to Success Intelligently”, his new book. He would also touch upon “12 Rules to Build Your Business Intelligently”, a workshop which he conducts. The talk would be followed by a Q&A session.

About Dr Dileep Rao
Financier, Columnist, Adjunct Professor and Workshop Leader Dileep Rao financed over 450 businesses and real estate projects as the Vice President of a development finance institution. Currently, he is a business development and financing advisor to governments, Fortune 1000 corporations, development financial institutions, and entrepreneurs. Dr Rao teaches New Business Development and Financing in MBA and Executive MBA programmes in the US, Europe and Asia and has been selected as Outstanding MBA Teacher. He is entrepreneurial finance columnist for Forbes.com and has written acclaimed books such as Handbook of Business Finance & Capital Sources (AMACOM, NY) and Business Financing: 25 Keys to Raising Money (NY Times Pocket MBA Series). Dr Rao has two engineering degrees and a PhD in Business Administration.

Back

Role of Entrepreneurship in India’s Development.

Panel Discussion
We have a distinguished panel consisting of an entrepreneur who successfully started his firm in the midst of a deepest economic crisis we have ever encountered, a venture capitalist who is a partner at the firm that funded HotMail, Skype, Baidu and Overture among others, a cardiologist who pioneered corporate healthcare in India and a policy architect who was instrumental in bringing firms such as IBM, HP, Motorola, Texas Instruments and nVidia to Indian shores.

Panel:

JA Chowdary – Managing Director of nVidia India
Sateesh Andra – General Partner from DFJ – VC Fund
Dr Santanu Paul- CEO and founder of TalentSprint.
Dr Ramesh Babu – Cardiologist & Managing Director of Medwin Group of Hospitals.

Back

Vice Chairman of INDIACO VENTURES LIMITED at the ISB – BY Rahul Patwardhan

June 30, 2009: Rahul Patwardhan, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, IndiaCo Ventures Limited, was at the Indian School of Business (ISB) recently to interact with the students. The session was organised by the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital (EVC) club at the ISB, one of the student clubs on campus

Patwardhan started the session with the significance of product ideas and his intent to change the number of service plans to interesting product ideas. He said, “Most of the business plans that we have seen have hovered around services. One of the biggest challenges today is coming up with a good product idea.” He added that most people tend to go to the Technology Development Board and find out about the different technologies available to discover if there are possible product ideas. Patwardhan said that he preferred going the other way around – finding out a niche problem that needs to be solved. For example, it could be as simple as making sure ink is non depletable as most of the ink on notes and security papers today wears out.

During the highly interactive session, students came up with some business plans and Patwardhan discussed the feasibility of the plans. According to Patwardhan, the most important things that one needs to look at while initiating a business plan are feasibility, market size, and if a similar product already exists in the market. He also said that it is very important for a product company to create a good deterrent. Technology and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) can be valuable in creating barriers for other people to enter.

He also spoke of an analysis called Competitors Partners Collaborators (CPC) report. “If you are planning an interesting product idea using technology then you analyse your technology play using a map called a CPC plan. So, depending on how you want to build your company, you inherently build these into the plan from day one, assuming that you know he is going to be your competitor or partner,” added Patwardhan.

Patwardhan concluded by discussing the importance of IPR. “IPR is the way to go and we primarily focus and invest in companies that have inherent IPR or are able to bring in IPR.”

Back

Intel Corporation's Executive vice president at the ISB

June 18, 2009: Arvind Sodhani, Executive Vice President, Intel Corporation and President, Intel Capital was at the Indian School of Business (ISB) recently for an interactive session with the students. He discussed with them the importance of investing in technology innovation, perspectives of global economy, opportunities in India, and opportunities for young leaders, etc. Sodhani was accompanied by Sudheer Kuppam, Managing Director, Intel Corporation (India, Japan and South East Asia), Amit Behl, Director, Intel Capital India, and Mahesh Vaidya, Director, Intel Capital.

Giving a brief introduction about investments, Sodhani spoke about the current economic scenario and how Intel invests in technology. Intel is into the venture investing business, promoting companies and investing in startup companies, ranging from zero to $ 100 million revenue. “A lot of people do not understand why a corporation has to invest in startup companies. Years ago, Intel came to the conclusion that it will not be able to do all the R&D work to grow the PC eco system.” He also said that, “In the 1980s, operating systems were only available in English. If you wanted one in Chinese, nothing was available. So we invested in a company in China and made the operating system available in Chinese. That got the Chinese market going in the PC space. So what we do is to try and invest in startup technology companies that will help the PC ecosystem.”
As a technology, Intel is all about mobility, laptops, and handheld devices. It is into promoting technologies that compute and communicate and has also invested in the digital enterprise area. “Our aim is to get the PC into the living room in one form or the other. We have also invested in consumer internet and recently started investing in clean tech and green tech, because we believe that it intersects with computing in a major way in the near future,” added Sodhani.
According to Sodhani, for a corporate venture organisation to survive, it is not enough to just produce a strategic return, but also a financial return. Intel’s charter is to invest in companies that are strategic to its objectives, as well as making sure that it is making risk adjusted returns for its shareholders. Talking of Intel’s investments and its achievements, Sodhani said, “In 2008, we invested approximately $ 1.6 billion and this makes us the largest technology investor in the world. We invested in 62 new companies, $ 436 million in new companies, and 19 acquisitions. We are roughly investing about a billion dollars in 100 startup companies throughout the world.”

Sodhani also discussed Intel’s presence in India. Intel has been in India since 1998 and has invested over $ 200 million in 60 companies and is looking at getting the PC penetration up in the country. “PC penetration in India is one of the lowest in the emerging economies that Intel is investing in,” mentioned Sodhani.

Sodhani concluded his presentation with his perspective on the global economy. “Startup investors have to be at the micro level and it is important to make sure that the company you’re investing in is going to be successful. Startup investing is a very risky proposition and most startup companies fail. So you are dealing with a micro level problem. But as a large global investor you also have to deal with the macro level problems, look at countries that are growing, shrinking etc,.” he said.

Sodhani also launched this year’s activities of the Entrepreneurial and Venture Capital (EVC) Club at the ISB. The Charter of the club is to facilitate the spirit of entrepreneurship among the members of the ISB community.

Back

Assessing Opportunities: The Venture Capitalist's perspective: An interactive session by Professor John Mullins, London Business School

There is a lot of interest in being a venture capitalist (VC) today around the world and a lot of opportunity to build businesses. John W Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice and Chair of the Entrepreneurship group at the London Business School (LBS), who was visiting the Indian School of Business (ISB) as part of the Venture Capitalist Development Programme, interacted with the students who were looking at venture capital as a career option.

How does a venture capitalist figure out if the opportunity he has in mind is good enough or should he look at something better? To guide the group of budding VCs from the ISB, Professor Mullins started the session with a few case studies, which students were asked to assess and review. After critically evaluating these cases, the students were guided on how venture capital firms operate, how to assess deals, how to raise funds from HNIs, pension funds etc.

How does one become a successful VC? Most of the students were keen on understanding how. “When a VC looks at you as an entrepreneur, they want to know what you can accomplish, how high your aspirations are, what risks you are prepared to take as you join them in that journey, etc. And, if those align, there are chances of you making money, but if you’re misaligned, like if you want to run the business forever, you are not a good candidate for a VC. A good VC always exits,” said Professor Mullins.

“The ability to execute under critical factors is what makes a VC successful. In every industry there are two to three things that you have to do well - the ability to look at the future, connecting up and down the value chain with suppliers, retailers, etc. If you do these well, you will make money, even if you get some things wrong. But if you do them wrong, you are going to struggle,” added Professor Mullins.

The highly interactive meet ended with a Q&A session. “It was an exceptional session, very informative and helpful and I have several key take aways from it. Professor Mullins' teaching through a case study method was phenomenal and made us think like VCs. And I’m sure all the students here have benefitted a lot,” said Neha Subhash Idnany, Class of 2010.

Back

Session by Manish Kanchan, MD and Founder SAGE Capital

Brief of the Presentation
Manish would talk at length about SAGE Capital and also focus on the following:

• Mistakes entrepreneurs should not make – From a I-banker investment Perspective.

• If your exit strategy is to sell your firm, then find out how to get build your firm so as to get the best valuation: A brief about Investment analysis - pre investment analysis, due diligence, financial analysis, and valuation from an I-Banker.

A brief profile of Mr Manish Kanchan
Manish Kanchan is the Managing Director and founder of Sage Capital Funds Management Pvt Ltd. He has been instrumental in identifying and building the core team as well as laying the foundation for growth and success in the Indian private equity business.

Kanchan brings with him over fifteen years of professional experience in the Indian financial services sector with a deep understanding of Indian public and private securities, capital markets and investment banking. He has obtained intimate knowledge of the Indian corporate world across sectors and built solid relationships with reputed business founders, senior management and regulators. Kanchan is in charge for the fund raising efforts as well as structuring of the fund, while his ongoing responsibilities primarily consist of leveraging his vast network and experience for identifying investment opportunities, facilitating deals and maximising value creation.

Kanchan has successfully made and managed investments in four companies till date. He has raised approximately USD 100m from institutional investors towards an Indian SME dedicated private equity fund.

Prior to managing Sage Capital’s investment portfolio and founding Sage Capital Funds Management, Kanchan was Partner and CEO, Ambit Capital Pvt Ltd. Reporting to the Board, he was responsible for building it into a successful business. Prior to that, he was Partner and Head of Capital Markets Practice, Ambit Corporate Finance Pvt Ltd where he was instrumental in the closure of several capital raising and M&A transactions.

Kanchan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Mumbai and is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.