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Reactions from #iSPIRT to the Union Budget presentation

iSPIRT is happy to note the Union Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley’s thrust in the direction of boosting the digital infrastructure in the country with specific reference to the Aadhar.

Aadhar powered by India Stack will allow people to offer presence less, cashless paperless service delivery to millions. Also digital literacy will also provide a big impetus in the rural areas.

The second initiative of iSPIRT which has been positively impacted by the Union budget is the ease of doing business in India and therefore the incentive for companies to Stay-In-India through the capital gains incentives where there will be no capital gains tax applicable if the funds so received are invested in a notified fund of funds by individuals in specific start-ups. The other major step is the decision to tax the Royalty Income from Patents developed and filed in India at only 10%, this we believe will certainly encourage companies to file more IPR in the country.

That said, we are disappointed with no attention being given to easing taxation norms of software companies where there is significant friction, the confusion on “goods” verses “service” tax on online downloads, TDS on sale of Software products and competition from foreign selling B2C products without any tax in India.

iSPIRT continues to work closely with the Government of India to enable the software product companies and start-ups to make the next leap with incentives from the Government. The Union Budget just presented is semi-sweet with specific sops being given to the start-up community in continuation of earlier policy announcements made by the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. There is a lot more that could be done to incentivize innovation and specifically ease the TDS conundrum which start-up and product companies find themselves adversely caught in.

Here are some specific comments from the iSPIRT team:

According to Mohandas Pai, Advisor, iSPIRT, “The Government continues to incentivize the start-up ecosystem as we have seen in the recent budget pronouncement. I am glad that the Government clearly recognizes that start-ups can be powerful problem solvers for the myriad issues facing the country and in turn generate employment as well. The Government’s decision to allow for 100% deduction of profits for 3 out of 5 years between April 2016 and March 2019 is certainly a welcome step that will boost start-ups.”

“While there are no major sops announced for the software product industry, the Government must understand that incentives to this segment of the industry will result in an exponential leap in exports and place India in an unshakable position on the world software product stage. That said, the decision to tax the Royalty Income from Patents developed and filed in India at only 10%  is a good move by the Government and will certainly encourage companies to develop and file more IPR in the country ,“ says Vishnu Dusad, Co-Founder & Governing Council member of iSPIRT & MD, Nucleus Software Exports Ltd.

Sharad Sharma Co-Founder & Governing Council member of iSPIRT says, “Start-ups in the country will certainly benefit from the budget announcement of amending the Companies Act to announce easier and swifter registration of companies. Another positive announcement from the budget speech by Mr. Arun Jaitley has been the focus on Aadhar for subsidy delivery. The Aadhar powered India stack from authentication to exection, coupled with the open API policy in India, can certainly transform the way in which digitally focused companies can reach the masses quicker and more effectively.”

Says Jay Pullur, Governing Council member of iSPIRT & CEO & Founder of Pramati Technologies.“The Government through the Union Budget has done well to do away with capital gains taxation if the funds so received are invested in a notified fund of funds or in specific start-ups. Of course, a lot more can be done to ease working norms for the software industry by looking into issues like dividends from overseas subsidiaries and a clearer and unambiguous definition of digital goods and digital services from a taxation point of view.”

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The best way to predict the future is to invent it!

India is interestingly poised today. About half of India’s 1.25billion people are under the age of 25 and by 2020, India will be the world’s youngest country with an average age of 29. According to the World Bank, India’s will overtake China to become the world’s fastest growing big economy by 2017-18. The scale of opportunity – and of course the challenge – in India is unprecedented. Millions of jobs have to be created in the coming years. Wealth has to be created. At an increasing pace and in   an ever changing world.

It is clear to all, including the government, that technology will play an ever more important role in the future. The inevitability of that fact is slowly but surely seeping into the consciousness of all decision makers at all levels. That technology needs to be embraced and leveraged in improving the lives of Indians.

New technologies and platforms are rapidly emerging – e.g., IoT, Mobile/Smart phones, Cloud, Aadhar, Payments – that can and will have profound impact on how we as a country think about the next 5-10years. Our future.

It is clear that continuing to do what we’ve done since 1947 isn’t going to get us far into the future.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” and “Change is the only constant” are two popular adages usually bandied about in seminars, corporate-speak, by VC s and successful entrepreneurs! What’s left unsaid are – how do I invent the future? How do I deal with change? And from there on to, what are the possible futures? What are the possible changes? What’s causing them? How will different industries like Financial Services, Retail, Healthcare be likely impacted?

These are the tough questions. Successful entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, academics and governments spend – or, need to spend – a lot of time thinking about such issues.

What are new ways of framing the potential and overcoming these challenges? What is unique about India and what solutions and resources can be shared from around the world? How can India utilize the enormous, young and entrepreneurial energy to craft scalable solutions to impact lives? What are the emerging global megatrends that can be harnessed that will enable India to leapfrog decades of inefficiency and empower people?

We have done this before: From mainframe computing to client-server. From land line to mobile. From paper based to digital identity.

Can we do this again across multiple areas? What will it take?

Answers will be found through debate and discussion by various stakeholders invested in the India of a new India– government, thought leaders, practitioners, entrepreneurs, executives among others. A forum for learning, discussing, debating, sharing of ideas of a future impacted by technology would be very impactful. To catalyse conversations, connections and collaborations that would help provide the answers to the questions.

A journey of a million miles begins with a single step. It is time for that 1st meaningful step to be taken!

LeapFrogTIE LEAPFROG. AUGUST 21ST 2015. ITC GARDENIA BANGALORE. http://www.tieleapfrog.in/

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Some Takeaways from the First iSPIRT Playbook Roundtable on Positioning & Messaging for Products

“99% Practice, 1% Theory”. This was the ground rule laid down for the session by the workshop facilitator Shankar Maruwada at the beginning. Sounds very much like the tagline of a popular softdrink brand that’s No Bakwaas! No wonder it came from someone who has loads of experience in the FMCG space, built and sold an analytics company and has more recently given life to what is arguably India’s biggest consumer brand, Aadhar.

Shankar sharing insights at the iSPIRT Playbook RoundTable

The theory lasted just a couple of minutes with Shankar telling a simple, yet a compelling story of how the Indian flag evokes a strong feeling even though it is nothing but a geometrical shape consisting of rectangles and a circle! The point that a compelling visual and a strong emotional connect can touch a strong chord was driven home very clearly. Over the course of the next 3 hours, Shankar orchestrated a highly engaging and interactive session with the participating companies, making them think hard and think deeper to help them think in the right direction. What also helped immensely was that Shankar had gone through the profiles of each of the participating companies and knew the challenges each of them were facing.

The participants were involved in exercises that helped them think beyond the regular product features and benefits. Emphasis was placed on understanding and communicating the whys of the product rather than the hows and on ways of building an emotional connect with the customers that will resonate strongly with them.

The participants were made to think through the different stages of the communication to customers.  For each step, two companies shared their thought process in detail with other participants sharing their inputs for the two companies. The participants found it very helpful to pick the brain of other entrepreneurs and learn from other entrepreneurs. A couple of participating companies probably found their one-line message or the keyword that signifies their product offering by the end of this workshop!

Shankar sharing insights at the iSPIRT Playbook RoundTable

Here are some of the key takeaways from the workshop, based on the stage and the audience to which one is communicating to:

Idea

  • What’s the grand idea that can resonate with everyone? This is beyond the product features, pricing and has a much higher connect. E.g. Education with the reach of television, your own personal secretary..
  • If possible, use connections, metaphors and analogies for better impact. E.g. YouTube of…., Google of…..

Setup

  • What will make your customers sit up and take notice? This is something related to their business that they wouldn’t have thought of or know about and you instigate that thought through your messaging. This should make them care for your product offerings and be interested in exploring more and have them say, let’s talk! E.g. Did you know that you can now teach a million students right from your classroom? Did you know that 30% of devices in your corporate network go undetected and potential sources of malware that can disrupt your network?

Benefits

  • What is it that the customers can actually put to use? What are the tangible benefits that the customers can derive out of your offering? E.g. Deliver courses over low bandwidth and hence reach out to a large number of students even in remote locations, create attractive charts and graphs to derive meaningful and actionable insights out of your data, carry out quick experiments for merchandizing on your e-commerce website with very little involvement from your engineering team

Features

  • These are the features and functionalities built into the product. These would explain how the product works. E.g. Various roles built in for access control and permissions, different interfaces and interactions for different user types, alerts, reports and notifications. 

As you’d observe, the how part becomes more prominent as you move from the Idea stage to the Features stage and the why part becomes more prominent as you move in the reverse direction. Depending on the whom you’re speaking to in the scheme of things at the customer’s end, you can focus on the appropriate stage and communicate accordingly.

iSPIRT Playbook RoundTable

It is said that well begun is half done. Considering that this was the first such roundtable, the response from the product startup community was very encouraging and the participating startups found it to be very relevant and effective. The engagement with the participants will continue even beyond the workshop. The startups will be in regular touch with each other, share their inputs and the learnings derived from the workshop and update on the progress.

Here are some books that Shankar recommended:

There are more such Playbook Roundtables planned in the coming days across various locations and hope the product startup community will make the best use of those and benefit from them.