Announcing InTech50 for 2015

Welcome to the second edition of InTech50. We’re happy to report that we achieved some spectacular results from our first edition last year and are all geared up to announce the dates for the next version of the program.

What did we achieve?

    • 39 companies had active deals in progress
    • In September alone, a 100 days after the last edition, 5 companies had closed deals
    • 19 had active deals in the pipeline

Spurred on by this success, we believe we are ready for edition two.

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So, what is InTech50?

For the uninitiated, InTech50 is a forum where 50 carefully chosen software product companies have an opportunity to interact face to face with a panel of CIOs, product leadership and venture capitalists. On conclusion of the event, these companies will receive ongoing mentoring, product marketing support and even funding to scale their operations to global markets.

Is InTech50 for me?

Yes it is, if you are a software product company that has aspirations to go global. Most importantly, you don’t need to travel abroad to seek your fortunes but rather the panel of experts comes to you in Bangalore, in India.

We want you to succeed and to that end, this program is designed to offer you all the encouragement and support possible from product strategy, UI assistance, product marketing help and so on that will enable your product to become the best in class.

The program combines prospective buyers (CIOs) who will constructively critique your offering, funders(VCs and other investors) who will tell you why they will fund your product and mentors who will offer you that timely bit of advice that will give you the extra edge.

When and where will it be held?

Intech50 will be held on April 15 and 16 @ Bangalore, India.

How much does it cost?

There is no application fee. 50 companies will be shortlisted by the Advisory Board comprising global and Indian CIO’s, product company heads, venture capitalists, and analysts. The selected companies will need to pay a fee of Rs. 25,000 to cover the expenses for two attendees. Only the 50 shortlisted companies will get to attend the event.

So what are you waiting for, go ahead and apply, the last date is 18th Feb 2015.

Innovation Leaders coming from India #InTech50

We are only 9 days away from the inaugural showcase event.   We are  looking forward for the CIOs to dawn upon Bangalore to see the InTech50 – 2014 companies.  These are the 50 best Enterprise Indian Startups as selected by the Advisory Board.

Providing the startups exposure to Innovation leaders is a huge step in their validation and evolution to next stage.

Let me take the opportunity to welcome the CIOs from India who are going to be at the event. Their presence will bolster the startup activity in India and we are hopeful that it will give it the necessary fillip for these innovative companies to positively impact the Indian corporate enterprises.

Below is a list of luminaries from India who are going to be present for the occasion. Let’s all welcome them to the occasion:

  • Anil Khatri, Head IT, South Asia, SAP
  • Annie Mathew, CIO, Mother Diary
  • Atul Jayawant, Group CIO, Aditya Birla Group
  • Avinash Velhal, Group CIO, Atos India Pvt Ltd
  • Darshan Appayanna, CIO, Happiest Minds
  • Harish Lade, General Manager IT, Asian paints
  • Harmeen Mehta, CIO, Bharti Airtel
  • Meheriar Patel, CIO, USV Ltd.
  • Nandkishor Dhomne, VP-IT & CIO, Manipal Enterprises Pvt, Ltd
  • Raghuram M, Group CIO, Mphasis
  • Sameer Ratolikar, CISO, Axis Bank
  • Srinivas KRD, CIO, Cairn India Limited
  • Subrahmanya Gupta, Boda Group, CSIO, GMR infrastructure ltd.
  • Sudip Banerjee, CIO, Reliance Capital
  • Sumit Chowdhury, President & CIO, Reliance Jio Infocom
  • Suneel Aradhye, Group CIO, RPG Enterprises
  • Viral Gandhi, CIO, Cox and Kings
  • VVR Mohan Babu, CIO, ITC

We will soon be sharing another list of Innovators who will be participating at InTech50

#InTech50 – Bringing Bold Innovations to Light! Your Last Chance to Seize the Opportunity and Get Discovered!

If you have an Innovative Enterprise software product or a business transforming idea that you want the world to know about, iSPIRT invites you to take part at InTech50 and achieve your bold dreams!

InTech50 is a showcase of some of the most promising software products created by entrepreneurs from India. A panel of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), venture capitalists, and successful product leaders will select the Top 50 companies for the submissions.

Seize the opportunity to showcase innovation, get validation of concept and product directions from global CIOs, VC’s and successful product innovators.  If showcased well you never know what might be in your future – pilot at large global company, early stage adoption, investor interest or becoming an add-on to a successful product.

InTech50 is proud and honoured to announce the first list of global CIOs and transformation leaders who have confirmed their participation at the event.  These eminent names include:

Andy Walter – Vice President, Procter and Gamble
Anup Nair, Senior Vice President and CIO, Vantiv
Atul Jayawant, Senior President Group IT and Group Chief Information Officer, Aditya Birla Group
Chandra Venkatarmani, Chief Information Officer, Convergys Corporation
Christopher T. Hjelm, Senior Vice President And Chief Information Officer, The Kroger Co.
Dawn Page, Managing Director, Global Digital Development, Citi Global Consumer Technology
Ed Ossie, Director, Corum Group
Edward L RenneMann, Chief Transformation Officer, Crate and Barrel
Guru Vasudeva, SVP And Enterprise Chief Technology Officer, Nationwide Mutual Insurance
Jay Jayaraman, Vice President, Global Strategic Innovation & Technology Alliances, Colgate-Palmolive Company
Dr. Narayanan (KK) Krishnakumar, Vice President and Chief IT Architect, EMC Corporation
Partha Srinivasa, SVP and Group CIO, HCC
Suren Gupta, Executive Vice President, Allstate Udai Kumar,Chairman and CEO of OHUM Healthcare Solutions Private Ltd

among many others. This list is being continually updated. For more details go to InTech50.com  and stay tuned!

The Advisory Board members look forward to your submissions to evaluate whether you qualify for InTech50.   Seize the opportunity now.  The jury members are now curating the second set of applications and there is a great chance that you could make it. Please do submit your nomination before 15th FebApply Now

Announcing InTech50 – A showcase of 50 Innovative Product Companies to Global and Indian CIOs, Product Company executives, Investors and Analysts

InTech50 is a showcase of some of the most promising software products created by entrepreneurs from India. A panel of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Venture Capitalists, and Product Leaders from previous successes will decide the fifty companies that make the cut to InTech50 selection criteria. These chosen companies will receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support, and funding to scale their offering to the global markets.

So Why InTech50?

The founders of InTech50 truly believe that the Indian start-up ecosystem is on the cusp of explosive growth—in innovating for the enterprise, society, and for social causes that will alleviate the quality of human life. We bring global experience, wealth of knowledge in dealing with global markets, and true enterprise-level insights to help these companies scale their vision.

InTech50 provides these entrepreneurs with a platform to showcase their innovations to folks who are visionaries in their own way and have the knack of seeing possibilities very quickly. The platform will create possibilities that we can think of but more importantly it will create a network that will evolve in ways that we cannot predict in any way!

Why apply?

InTech50 will help software product companies enter global markets through our network of early adopters, partners, co-innovators and investors. Our platform helps your company with exposure to these powerful members of the ecosystem in your geography—India!

Winners of the InTech50 are acknowledged as the most promising in their space, and receive every effort—from product strategy, UI, product marketing, sales and global partnership—all designed to help them succeed in massive scale.

Please visit www.intech50.com for further details on who can qualify.

When and where will it be held?

Intech50 will be held on Apr 9th and Apr 10th @ Bangalore, India.

How much does it cost?

It is absolutely free for applying. 50 companies will be shortlisted by the Advisory Board comprised of global and Indian CIO’s, product company heads, venture capitalists, and analysts.  The selected companies will need to pay a fee of Rs. 25,000 to cover expenses for two attendees.  Only the 50 shortlisted companies will get to attend the event. So what are you waiting for, go ahead and apply, the last date is 31st Jan 2014. 

The push for products

By investing in the product marketplace, India will do the same leapfrog as it did with the mobile revolution. 

Recently I had the opportunity to witness the silent revolution that is taking off in India – a revolution that has been overshadowed (and somewhat suppressed) by the media-popular IT giants!

For a long time I have wondered why the IT giants with so much intellectual capital and knowledge had not invested in building products.  Most of these giants had smart folks who worked on endemic problems and were focused on solving them through service contracts. My queries to senior executives in IT giants were always met with one of the following answers:

    • not part of their niche,
    • not easily understood by analysts who closely watched their quarters,
    • they did not want their customers to feel that they were capitalizing on  knowledge gained through services to address the problems differently, and
    • did not have the rich domain experience.

 

My personal perception was that the reality was different.  They could guarantee (not just generate) a positive ROI with an incoming professional in six months. Investment in products required long term thought process and needed a completely different kind of entrepreneurial thinking.  More importantly it needed leadership that had an entrepreneurial mindset based on conviction and risk-taking.

In November of 2012 I had the opportunity to attend the Product Conclave of NASSCOM in Bangalore and it opened my eyes to a different India!  I got to see a level of passion that I had never seen before. I got to see the edge folks – folks who had worked in the domain in large companies and realized the drudgery of some of the maintenance work that they were doing.  While the vast majority were comfortable carrying on there were some folks in there who had the mind-set of “change-agents”.  They were not satisfied with simply doing the work – they wanted to get to the root issue and solve/eliminate the need for the problem.  They conceived thoughts and ideas on how they could solve the domain issue in a better way.  They aspired to replace the increasing labor costs with much better ways of doing things.  They were ready to eliminate their jobs completely but that did not fit the revenue model of large IT service companies.

These folks then did the next thing that “change-agents” do – shock everyone around them by giving up titles, safe corporate jobs and took the plunge.  They started working towards creating products that would satisfy a market need.

As per latest statistics, the total revenue of the product companies from India is currently over U.S.$2.0 Billion, from approximately 3,400 companies in the software and electronics/semiconductor industry.  When I dug into the demographics, the number of companies shocked me first, I had no idea about the same.  The revenue seemed fairly small as it works out to an average of $600K per company.   Also there seemed to be a concentration issue with 51% of the companies located in the NCR and Bangalore region.

In my personal opinion, by investing in the product marketplace, India will do the same leapfrog as it did with the mobile revolution.  It will truly democratize the software industry very quickly and let people shape their own destiny versus becoming part of the eco-system where you have to spend years to display shoulder badges of experience.  The biggest barrier is currently created by large behemoths to protect their territory.  They have service portfolios to do work, using labor at hourly charge out rates versus the paradigm shift of product folks that will either eliminate or dramatically reduce the need for the same.   Product evangelists are creating a different world that is moving away from “status quo” and coming up with new and different ways of doing things.  They are the “game-changers”.

Since the Product Conclave in November, I have seen the establishment of iSPIRT, a trade organization that is supported and focused on product portfolio companies.   It allows the product companies to build the eco-system that is required to support and enrich their environment with necessary supporting infrastructure.   Along with my colleague Greg Toebbe, I have also attended a session in February, 2013 on product start-ups wherein we were introduced to some innovative and creative technologies that had relevance to our requirements.

In this fast-paced, globally networked business environment, businesses are continuing to seek disruptive technologies that give them the competitive edge.  They are not just looking for smarter and more effective ways to do existing work but different and innovative business models that support their continued evolution in the marketplace.  They are not just looking to sell products but to engage customers in the experience – they are not looking for a sale, but a well understood and strong relationship with the customer.   Entrepreneurs need to ensure that their solutions are not constrained by the paradigm of “always have done it this way” but are “tectonic shifts” to the way of doing business.  They need to address not silo issues, but address them from a customer centric model.  They do not need to focus on big-data, mobility, social, etc., as buzz-words, but to provide solutions that provide the customer an engaging experience.   They should not get enamored by technology trends and their personal technology biases, but focus on the experience and convenience being desired by the millennial workforce participant.  By 2020, half the global workforce will be millennial and the new business models are not expected to come from the current large companies.

In the new world, businesses realize that the days of buying everything from the perceived “safe” companies is no longer the decision that will sustain them – they will buy best-of-breed from the smarter solution companies that treat the world as flat.  The power will not be in individual solutions, but the network of best-of-breed solutions.   Large companies with multi-year implementation timelines and businesses that seek to automate existing processes will not be the winners of the new world.  Solutions will have to nimble with the cycle from pilot to deployment being short followed by continued innovation.   Sales cycle will have to be supportive of the same and a long-term annuity of fixed maintenance will not be the driver; ease of use, usage metrics, continued innovation and overall satisfaction will be the new factors that will play into maintenance annuity.

So for all the product folks – my hats off to you!  My only advice would be to not be discouraged by the challenges that come along the way.  Do not care when people say “I told you so”, do not worry if you do not have all the skills to make it happen, do not worry if it takes a little longer that what you thought.  You are the “change-agent” for the revolution that needs to take place and if India has 50 percent of the world’s IT workforce, then it is time that they produce world class products!