Category: ProductNation

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Microsoft Windows 10 needs more than an oil-change, it needs an overhaul.

The author extrapolates learnings from the last ten years of the Indian Automotive industry and makes the point that all things remaining equal, success in emerging markets depends largely on how premium a design feels in the hands and eyes of consumers. He suggests that Microsoft adopt a bold and fresh approach in the redesign of Windows 10.

I have been using Microsoft Windows since 1990, i.e. for over 25 years. I have also been associated with Windows beta programs and have had the chance to see a preview of Windows 95 way back in 1993.

Today, I use Windows 8 at work, at home, on my tablet and on my phone

You can read a little more about my interests here.

It’s evident that Windows 8 has not been the gushing success that Microsoft thought it would be with consumers i.e. people who have a choice of personal home and desktop computing platforms. Corporates in most cases do not have a choice but people do and I believe they have spoken by staying away from the platform.

My urgency for writing this article is the upcoming Windows 10 Preview that Microsoft is expected to show to the world on January 21st, 2015. And while I don’t expect them to turn their ship overnight, in the 6 – 9 months running up to their launch in mid to late 2015 I can only hope Microsoft can make some adjustments to its design keeping in mind the sensibilities of a billion Indians. And why just Indians? I think this can apply to a consumer in any part of the world.

I ran my own digital and web design team for 6 years in the mid – late 1990’s, a time when the closed Indian consumer market was just opening up to brands. It was an exciting time and it taught me that traditional “European and American” aesthetics do not always work for the vast majority of Indian consumers.

What follows below is my analysis of how Microsoft can learn from carmakers and their travails in tackling this hard-to-understand yet lucrative consumer market.

Doors and Windows: Yes. Cars and Windows: Yes.

I track the growing auto industry in India/Asia very closely because I love cars, motorbikes and driving in general. I’ve also read every decent car magazine that’s sold in India for the past 15 years. I’ve observed the Koreans, Germans, Czechs & Japanese come into this market to try and succeed. I have also observed how Indian auto manufacturers have tried to stay relevant and competitive in the face of impending competition.

Is it really possible to try and draw a parallel between Windows 8/8.1 and foreign carmakers in tackling the Indian consumer? I believe there is because just as people have personal preferences in choosing their next car, they also have preferences when it comes to devices. The two are not that different if you think about it.

Windows 8 & METRO: Why it was needed

I totally get why Windows 8 was what it was. Microsoft needed a differentiator in the tablet/touch market and Windows 8 allowed them to try and have a crack at the iPad. It was a huge risk and as it happened, one that failed.

For those who don’t know, Windows 8 was Microsoft’s attempt to try and make the traditional desktop and newer touch worlds coexist at the same time. In addition, Windows 8 also incorporated the Metro design language, a flat design language that relied more on typography, function and content, and less on graphics.

Unfortunately, Microsoft wasn’t able to attract enough consumers to embrace and use Windows 8. And while one may argue that the Windows 8 numbers (350 million now?) are high enough, we also know that a large part of this is in the corporate/enterprise space where customers really don’t have an option.

I’ve spent many hours at IT supermarkets and have seen the lack of interest amongst shoppers in the Windows Laptops on display from the big OEM’s: HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer…and so on. And while these OEM’s do not make bad PC’s, the Windows 8 screens and interfaces are just unable to excite even a casual shopper to stop and take a look.

But, before I offer any suggestions, let me elaborate on Indian market demographics and the overall positive sentiment that exists for Microsoft.

Why India should matter

India as a market should matter to Microsoft.

Almost every Indian I know has a friend or relative working at Microsoft Redmond. Bill Gates, and now Satya Nadella, are role models for many an Indian parent and child and the Microsoft story is an exciting one. Many markets in Indian cities and small towns have huge signboards that advertise courses in MCSE/IT Administration, Word, Excel, MS Office, and SQL Server. I’d estimate that more than half of the software engineers in this country work on .NET, C#, ASP and so on. Most SME’s in this country run Windows Server and Microsoft Office. Nearly everyone I know has used Windows at some point in time in their careers. Overall, India is bursting with positive energy for Microsoft as a company.

But, India is also a market where costs are an issue for mainstream computing products. MacBook’s and iPhones cost twice as much here and are a complete rip-off in my opinion. And because volumes aren’t high, I doubt if Apple will ever want to, or be able to drive costs down.

That leaves Chromebooks. The half-PC’s that aren’t really PC’s for anything other than light browsing and some media consumption. You NEED to be connected to make Chromebooks work well which is a problem because not only are data plans expensive in India, connectivity by and large is downright horrible. (And yes I know that Chromebooks can sort-of work offline but…)

India also does NOT yet have a popular BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) culture at the workplace. This further increases the likelihood that many professional workers use company-provided Windows devices and MSOffice in their places of work.

So, you have expensive MacBook’s/iPhones on the one hand AND Chromebooks crippled by poor connectivity on the other. In this kind of market, could there be anything more important for Microsoft than Windows 10 to ride this perfect storm of opportunity?

In short, no. But they HAVE to get it right.

Let’s take a few examples of hits and misses from the automotive industry in India.

Skoda & VW

In the mid to late 1990’s, Skoda, a small and relatively unknown Czech carmaker was greeted with sales success here in India with its maiden model, the Octavia. This surprised many as Skoda cars are perceived as ‘cheap’ in Europe and were known to have after-sales issues that exist even today. But somehow Skoda did great by any standards and probably even exceeded its own targets.

Skoda succeeded here because Indians fell in love with their designs, AND, the relative affordability of buying into a European brand. It was only natural that Volkswagen, Skoda’s parent company, followed suit some years after, hoping to match if not exceed the success of its junior brand. The Skoda Octavia now started competing with the VW Jetta. The Skoda Superb with the VW Passat.

Needless to say, the numbers were less than encouraging for VW. What made it even more difficult to digest was the fact that every model they launched was qualitatively superior if not similar to their Skoda counterpart. After all, these cars shared common components and relied on a global pool of high quality suppliers.

What was the problem?

The answer lay in the design. VW’s design was far from inspiring for Indian tastes. While dark grey dashboards, steering wheels & interior upholstery are actually seen as cool and avant-garde in Europe AND in some cases even represented as premium (e.g. BMW M3/M5), these design elements do NOT excite the Indian consumer in any way.

Skoda sold better here because Skoda’s car are generally prettier than their VW counterparts. They have edgier styling with chrome accented bodywork, wood-panels and chrome linings on the steering and dash together with rich beige two-tone interior upholstery. And Indians lap this stuff up. Looks work. It can make you feel like a thousand bucks when you park your new car next to your neighbours’.

Of course there are aberrations to this success story (like the Skoda Fabia and Skoda Yeti, both oddball designs), but I’ll leave that aside for a future article maybe.

Fast forward to today. VW cars sold in India now have chrome body accents, wood-panelled dashboards and more visually appealing looks and their sales numbers are back to where they should be. It’s the little things that make a design look and feel premium, and VW had to bear the ignominy of low sales till such time they figured out the Indian consumer.

A few years is a long and costly affair in the automotive Industry. Heads roll, CEO’s change, blame is apportioned and everybody walks away bruised. All things remaining equal, consumers expect good looking and well-designed products. To draw a parallel, Metro and Flat UI’s may work for the digitally-evolved set, just like dark-grey works great on a BMW M3, but it doesn’t and never will work for most of the Indian consumers.

I’m a little concerned because as recently as last week, I saw some leaks on the to-be-announced Windows 10 Consumer Preview with more of the modern and minimalist.

Hyundai: Appealing Designs.

Unlike the conservative Japanese, the Koreans are naturally flashier with their design sensibilities. Every Hyundai car that has been launched in India to compete with the entrenched Maruti-Suzuki (Japanese) has been very successful. And it’s because Hyundai designs them to be stylish, with chrome bits outside and in, gorgeous dashboards and upholstery. Hyundai also manages to give more kit at same or lower prices. They really figure out the best combination of looks, features and price.

My personal opinion is that Japanese cars are better engineered than the Koreans. But, the Koreans are able to keep up by launching spicier designs of feature-loaded models at similar or lower price points.

Sometimes good design can hide an averagely engineered product which Windows 8 is not.

And sometimes good design is required even when the product is cheap. The next example about the Tata Nano is one such case about how NOT to do it.

The Tata Nano. Cheap is good. Cheap-Looking not so.

The Tata Nano was designed to be the cheapest car on Indian roads by one of the country’s largest conglomerates: Tata Sons. In fact, the global press hailed the Tata Nano as the cheapest petrol-engined 4-door, 4-seater car in the world which it probably was.

A noble cause. It should have worked. It had everything going for it.

The Nano was/is a great piece of frugal engineering BUT it failed to capture the imagination of the Indian consumer because it came across as cheap and built to a price. (Conversely, Tata later launched a real beauty of a multi-utility-van (MUV) called the Tata Aria, but blew it because it priced it over its rivals.)

I’ve been tracking recent attempts by Microsoft at the cheap end of the tablet market with its near-zero Windows 8 licensing policies. But cheap, like the Tata Nano, doesn’t always work unless it’s backed up by attractive and premium design.

MacBook’s and iPhones are gorgeous to look at and experience. But, so are the lower-end Android phones. And even though in my opinion they (the low-end Android phones) are poorly engineered devices at best, they do more than enough to keep the cash registers ringing.

I hope Microsoft can learn a lesson from the above.

Gorgeous does work.

Switching for a brief moment to Windows Phone.

I’m a huge advocate of the Lumia 730 and Lumia 530. I am almost sure that a few of my employees were convinced by me to get them. But, recently, two of them upgraded their phones to Xiaomi Redmi Note 4’s last week. This phone retails for the same price as the Lumia 535 in India (Rs. 9500 approx.). BUT, one look at its gorgeous 5” screen, beautiful wallpaper with its silky smooth swipe animations and you know right away this was something special.

This phone had me at hello!

The overall product, the screen clarity, speed, navigation and animations feel buttery smooth and awesome. These Xiaomi phones are not running stock Android, BUT, a gorgeous skin made by their manufacturer Xiaomi (dubiously known as the Chinese iPhone maker).

And while these phone may not have the same build quality of a Lumia, they appeal to consumers to whip out their wallets and buy. (BTW, one of my colleagues returned his Xiaomi handset just yesterday because the USB charging port came loose within a day or purchase.)

Gorgeous does work AND it does get products off the shelves.

While we are on Android phones, let me add that the much hyped material-design influenced Android One has failed in India for more reasons than one. I can only guess that flat-design may have had something to do with it, in addition to not-so-friendly business terms from Google.

Design tips for Microsoft Windows 10 Consumer

So, taking a cue from the Indian automotive industry, I’m going to try and suggest ways in which Microsoft can make Windows 10 a huge hit with consumers not just in India, but worldwide.

1. Staid, Sober, Scandinavian, and Minimalist does NOT work here

Boring, dull, flat and minimalist designs do NOT appeal to Indian consumers. Ever been to an Indian wedding? Noticed the explosion of colour and senses. This IS what we are about as a nation of a billion people. We like designs that are a bit Over-The-Top with a bit of bling and kitsch thrown in.

We don’t live in homes with wooden floors, white walls and Ikea furniture. Well maybe some do, but those are the minority and they buy expensive iPhones and Macs to begin with.

We are an aspirational people and our consumer choices are a reflection of our individual and social perceptions.

And Microsoft, please don’t expect and wait for third-party developers to skin the OS in case it lacks ZING out-of-the-box. No Stardock Modernmix can solve this problem.

2. Don’t listen only to the people in Windows 10 Preview.

It should be evident to Microsoft that the 1.5 million people, myself included, who are a part of Windows 10 Preview will probably buy it anyway! But do these 1.5 million represent that 1 billion Windows users? No Microsoft. They don’t.

I shudder when I see comments from some folks in the Windows Insider Program about how Microsoft should leave Metro untouched because it is so awesome. Come on! This strategy may work for enterprise users but will not fly with consumers.

For every person that is vocal about embracing Metro, Metro Apps & the Windows 8 Start Screen, there are 10 others who stay silent.

3. Be bold Microsoft.

Computing and graphic power has been getting progressively cheaper. And yet, UX’s have been getting flatter and less graphically intensive. And while some people love flat and modern and I can completely respect that, it doesn’t do it for me.

Have Microsoft/Intel learnt nothing from the Film and Television industry?

TVs improve to accommodate better quality content and content providers continue to improve the quality of their sitcoms, movies and sports coverage. It’s a symbiotic relationship that improves business for both. And yet, as the personal computing landscape has gotten cheaper, faster and more powerful processors, the UI’s have reverted back to being flat. This is one trend I will never fully comprehend.

I fear the real problem lies with today’s UX designers. Design is cyclical and for the last few years it has been flat and functional. If you are a hip and happening UX/UI designer today, you WILL shun gradients, textures, shadows and three-dimensional effects in favour of large typography, whitespace and minimalism. But I believe the two worlds CAN co-exist and these designers must be pushed to their creative limits to turn out something spectacular.

The designers at Microsoft are working on what might be the last major version of Windows. And to think Windows 10 Consumer should have an Office or OneDrive inspired UI would be poor judgement on Microsoft’s part. I use the aforementioned products to get work done. Is it too much for me to ask not to be reminded of work when I’m setting my morning alarm or watching a movie? Must my watch resemble a fitness band? Please…

So, Microsoft:

FIRSTLY, the goal for your design team has to be to make customers stop in their tracks when they see a gorgeous Windows 10 PC Screen on display. The attention span of an end-user needs to be captured at the initial user interface or else you have lost them no matter what amazing functionality you build into the platform.

SECONDLY, don’t ONLY dish out a flat user-interface! I realise you must do this for Enterprise customers but don’t stop there. Give every user a SECOND option that is the complete opposite i.e. lustworthy – put in the bells and whistles – the textures, silky smooth animations and navigation. After all, you’ve tried the flat UI approach and the world has answered. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

If you can do the above, you will take the discussion away from ecosystems AND focus it back on a gorgeous product called Windows 10 staring at consumers on market shelves later this year.

Yes, I DO want my yet-to-be-purchased i7 quad-core NVidia-powered hybrid to shimmer and ripple with each buttery smooth swipe and click.

And no, I do NOT want Windows 10 Consumer to be like my Kindle. I already have one and it puts me to sleep every night…yawn.

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Why does the future belong to product startups in India

I predict starting 2016, we will hear $3-4 billion product companies coming out of India every year.

NEW PRODUCT (2)The startup ecosystem has come a long way in the country, especially in the last decade or so. People often ask me at various forums and events as to where I see the startup ecosystem heading in the coming years. While it may be difficult to predict precisely, there are perceptible changes.

While the turn of the century was about the rise of the Indian services and outsourcing industry, I believe today it’s about the product companies. The rise of the product startups in the country has been due to numerous reasons, but the stellar growth has only made things exciting.

One of the reasons for the mushrooming of product companies is due to people returning from overseas after they have sensed an opportunity. They want to build a product that addresses the market opportunity. When I returned from the US, I saw some clear patterns and opportunities that I could work on. While one choice was to work with existing companies in the travel and tourism space, the other was to create a brand. I chose to go with the former.

The second clear reason is that people no longer want to do back office work for the world. For example, a lot of companies in the space of analytic work around identifying patterns and ideas for companies that outsource work to them. You will see a lot of individuals from these companies building a product start-up around same principles.

This is the natural progression and evolution of an industry. Outsourcing gained prominence because of cost arbitrage and then the IT companies started getting innovative to increase their share of the pie. They started advising various companies on how they should re-engineer their business processes and additional things they could do.

Phase 1 was about moving cost offshore and labour arbitrage while Phase 2 was making it efficient and optimising it. Indian outsourcing companies started evolving their services by providing additional services and at the same time automating it and making it non-linear to people.

The natural progression after that is if employee of these IT companies were advising clients on how to make their business processes better and how to “go to market” more efficiently, what prevents them from going to market on their own? You will see a lot of companies that are an offshoot of big IT establishments. You see individuals go out and address markets problems and opportunities rather than work for someone else.

Carpe Diem

Moreover, the services company has allowed people with similar ambitions to come together and seize the moment. Services companies have become the place where co-founders have met and most of the time the early hires in a startup are from these services companies. When there was a lot of movements around outsourced product management where companies outsourced their engineering work to India, it was obvious that employees from these services companies would get together and start a product company of their own.

The overall IT industry has evolved and the entrepreneurial ecosystem has been built to some extent and has gained velocity. According to Grant Thornton India, PE investments in India amounted to $1.7 billion last month, taking the overall PE deal tally to $10.2 billion in the first 10 months of this year. Spread across 500 PE deals, investments are up 18 per cent in value terms and 37 per cent in terms of number of deals in 2013. The entire investment community, access to capital and breadth of funds have increased quite dramatically.

The appeal of being a part of a product company is far cooler and hipper, rather than being a part of an IT services firm. For an aspiring entrepreneur, the IT services story has been beaten to death. No one wants to start another company in the outsourcing space and given the number of successful product companies like Druva, InMobi and Zoho, people now have role models. As entrepreneurs see billion dollar companies are now possible in the product space, it serves as fuel to the entrepreneurial fire. An aspiring entrepreneur wants to build a product company that will address a global market need.

Role of Industry Bodies

Industry bodies are also playing their part. Bodies like Nasscom have a separate Product Council and Product Conclave, which brings together a good collection of product companies in the form of peer-to-peer learning and experiences. Another body that is doing a good job is iSPIRT that has some big initiatives. It puts a big focus on the M&A connects where they look to enable big US tech companies to connect to a lot of Indian start-ups. Hence, we have seen a bunch of startups like Little Eye Labs and few others being acquired.

iSPIRT is providing a platform that enables big tech companies to acqui-hire, which essentially is acquiring a startup to get access to their talent. This helps both sides – buyers that know they can do a deal in India and integrate startups effectively and for the startup a viable exit route even if it’s not in a revenue generating state. It is also extremely focused on peer-to-peer learning of product companies. From newsletters from founders and experts to roundtable interactions, the body looks to bring curated number of entrepreneurs to come and share experience of selling globally.

Nothing succeeds better than success and the early successes of various product companies have set the stage as role models. Once the momentum builds it breaks the inertia in the system. I predict starting 2016, we will hear $3-4 billion product companies coming out of India every year. In that sense, 2015 will play an important role in ironing out structural issues in the system and ensuring the ease of doing business is improved.

 

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Knowing Versus Understanding Your Customer

When it comes to retaining your customer, you simply do not need to know them but should also try to understand them. If you wonder that why are your competitors holding a superior hand than you and why are they successful in catching the pulse of the customers?

The reason could be that they are putting more efforts in understanding the customers than you.

And here you are….You just know who your customers are, but do not understand them?

Understanding them could mean the difference between retaining customers and losing them to the competition.

Knowing your customers — information typically collected by a business — means you know who they are demographically, what content they’re reading, and so on. Most companies do a good job on this front.

When it comes to understanding customers, however, many companies come up short. Understanding customers helps businesses deliver an online product with meaningful and compelling value propositions that meet not only their current needs but also their evolving and future needs.

Gain customer insight and just merely not know but try to understand your customer’s:

  • Purchasing power: Find out the degree of disposable income within the community.
  • Demographics: Demographics serve as a means of locating geographic areas where the largest number of potential customers live.
  • Residences: Are homes rented or owned? In what kind of accommodation do they live .
  • Means of transportation: Do prospective customers in the area own vehicles, ride buses or bicycles, and so on?
  • Age ranges: Does the community consist primarily of young people still approaching their prime earning years, young professionals, empty nesters or retirees?
  • Family status: Are there lots of families in the area or mostly singles?
  • Leisure activities: What type of hobbies and recreational activities do people in the community participate in?
  • Credit risk profile: The credit risk profile of the customer needs to be evaluated in order to understand your customer well.
  • Attitudes to and uses of technology:
  • Environmental and ethical views
  • Their preferences to go to your competitors

To innovate and retain your customers, you should clearly understand their preferences if you want to stand out from your competitors.

Guest Post by Shweta, Institute of Product Leadership

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Please Understand the art of collaboration…Sooooon

Further to our earlier discussion around “Relatively slower growth of Indian IT product companies” let’s continue soul searching.

World economy is growing, inter country trade is growing, global power equations are changing more frequently than ever before, smaller but high potential countries are trying to consolidate their position in the region before marching towards global stage (I Love India J ), Oil prices are dropping at the will of small group of countries, wars are creating whole lot of uncertainties across the globe and so on.

This is 60,000 feet view.

While all above have overarching impact on what your company can actually do in such a changing environment, on ground at business level, there are few more challenges:
1.Consumers and hence your client’s ’s buying behaviour is changing
2.Digital disruption is a wide spread reality and your company is still working on it
3.While demand is increasing, supply is growing faster than this. It means domestic as well as global competition is increasing
4.Your company is struggling to hold / improve bargain power – you are under pressure
5.Your client is much smarter than earlier. Thanks to Internet and your cheap competitors who are diluting trade secrets for survival – Preparing their own coffin much faster…Alas they do not realize this J
6.How many of you have improved your knowledge and bargain power using power of Internet? I have done window shopping most of the time, hence my buying behaviour is changing – Now it does not matter if its business dealing or I am buying grocery from internet. I AM CHANGING AS AN INDIVIDUAL. Aren’t you?

The above list is actually longer but I do not want to scare you beyond this point.

If you are entering into international market these are stark realities that you have to face. So what is the Solution?

Simple: JOIN HANDS

Do you know any company in the world in any sector that has grown faster than rest of the pack without harnessing power of collaboration?

Actually, there are NONE.

Just imagine Amazon producing 100,000 items at their own and supplying to consumers at their own, imagine your nearby street grocery store producing wheat in its farmland down south before delivering to you at your door step. We all have been witnessing how various businesses; economies grew riding on the power of collaboration.

But it’s simply disturbing to see many Indian IT products companies are in a state of confusion:

1.Why to collaborate? Argument: When I can build a world class product, why I can’t conquer the world at my own.
2.With whom to collaborate? Argument: I do not know.
3.What am I going to lose? Argument: I am not sure hence I am scared
4.Why not Direct? Argument: My partner is trying to cheat me. It will take away my product IP and develop at its own.
5.Partners do not perform? Argument: Our sales guys are the best sales people in the world even if 70% of them are underperforming, 25% are barely meeting targets and only 5% are over performing.

I sympathize with Indian IT product companies not because all above I said is not true but because many of them have not tried it well with single minded focus. Or at times they tried but failed so now do not have brave heart to try out again.

As I said above, every business has understood the power of collaboration, tried-failed-tried-failed and still trying to make it 100% perfect(btw it will never be 100% perfect for any industry / company) it but ultimately they grew so far because of EFFECTIVE COLLABORATION with their partners, suppliers and buyers.

Come on, get up and let’s run together…Once Again.

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#madeinindia eCommerce Platforms to Build Your Own Online Store

eCommerce platforms are becoming increasing popular for small & medium retail business wanting to sell online. There is no hassle of developing a website or integrating it with other tools and software. It manages everything from building ecommerce website to order fulfilment. Here we list below some popular #madeinindia eCommerce platforms in no particular order.

madeinindia ecommerce platform

KartRocket

Kartrocket is India’s only platform to provide end-to-end Ecommerce services. Starting from pre-build website templates, Kartrocket provides payment gateway to collect payment in any currency, automated shipping with multiple courier companies, automated affiliate listing, marketplace integrations, Android and Iphone mobile app for shopping as well as store management. Its seamless automated shipping, which is used by more than 3,000 retailers in India, has always been able to earn extra brownie points for the customers. Kartrocket has recently launched a free plan under the name of studio. It aims to minimize the risk and investment worries of small scale businesses by giving them a website with zero rental. KartRockets other rental plans includes Starter, Professional and Unlimited which are priced at Rs 1500, Rs 3000 and Rs 7000 per month respectively.

freKart

freKart is a good solution for companies which want to start wholesale website for B2B or a retail website for customer B2C, all under one single plan. One can also setup with a marketplace plan with vendor management. freKart also include mative mobile app & Facebook store. One can control the product you wish to sell on Mobile or Facebook with different pricing for different store.

freKart has pre-defined SEO rules and the entire system is Excel Friendly. One can also plan sales and schedule the store to change product with promotion price for specific intervals. The same scheduling and planning of sales can also be done for mobile app and Facebook store. It claims to have more than 350+ features. Pricing starting from 1110 INR.

BuildaBazaar

“BuildaBazaar is DIY e-commerce platform with more than 25000 merchants. The robust platform was launched in 2011 by Infibeam.com – one of the leading online marketplaces in India. It offers end-to-end solution like the platform infrastructure, payment gateway, logistics and also provides marketing support. BuildaBazaar powers brands like Airtel, Crossword, VIP Bags, etc. The SaaS based platform provider has forayed into International market with giant retailers like Aixom Telecom and Jumbo Electronics. The platform has also won “”The Game Changing Idea of The Year”” award by ET Retail.

PowerStores

PowerStores is an e-commerce and website platform that allows anyone to create a mobile-friendly website and sell to customers all over the world. With beautiful, professional themes to start from, PowerStores easy-to-use tools allow you to customize the colours and content of your site and is as easily as setting up your Facebook page. They have a team of web experts who will set up your website for you and train you on the platform. Pricing as low as Rs. 700 per month. 15-day free trial is also available.

Shop2Grab

Shop2grab offers you to build your own ecommerce website in almost no time. Along with all basic features  it also provide online marketing tools such as SEO, SEM, GoogleAdwords to drive traffic for your online store.  It allows your online store to seamlessly integrate with ebay & amazon to fetch product and order data. If you are a retailer and you want to sell online, Shop2Grab will also provide an POS System to keep your inventory match your tallies. Pricing starting from just 500 per month.

MartJack

Martjack by Reasoning Global eApplications Pvt Ltd established in 2007 provides an eCommerce platform solutions to retail businesses across india and other emerging countries. It provides a seamless multi channel customer experience from mobile friendly web design to order fulfilment. SaaS based software application with cutting edge technology is leading the industry with 30+ payment partners, 10+ logistics partners, 70+ service partners and multiple Apps to boost your ecommerce business (email marketing, loyalty program & many more).

StoreHippo

It is an ecommerce platform for retailers to sell their products and services in online marketplace. It works on latest and fastest technologies, providing themes for every retail segment. It is powered by a truly mobile supported system to provide the best selling experience.

Zepo

Zepo founded in 2011 is providing the online store with more than 70 themes for to create ecommerce website. One can create a fully Customized ecommerce platform to match the brand image.

BoostMySale

BoostMySale is an award winning ecommerce platform by Navigators software with experience of over more than 16 years. It is a SaaS based application to take care of your entire eCommerce ecosystem starting from product cataloging to warehouse management & delivery. It allows you to sell product on leading marketplaces such as amazon & ebay as well as you can create facebook store.

The article has been created with the help of  eCommerce platform Analyst at SoftwareSuggest. The list is not comprehensive and you can mention as comments the software missed by us.

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How Alibaba, Android and Airbnb change the geometry of business

This article was originally published on Sangeet Paul Choudary’s personal blog Platform Thinking – A blog about building early stage ventures from an idea to a business, and mitigating execution risk.

A keynote laying out the shift that platforms are bringing about in the nature of business today. 

One of the central concepts I talk about on this blog is the shift from linear business models to networked business models: from Pipes to Platforms. The business priorities while building these two contrasting forms of businesses are very different and I’ve explored that in detail inan earlier essay here.

We also note that this shift has already happened in several industries. I explore that in detail in the essay here. (I would highly recommend reading both essays in tandem even if you’ve read them separately earlier.)

Media has already been transformed by this shift and become social. Telecom has been transformed by the explosion of the app economy. Professional services of all kinds are being transformed with the rise of the peer-to-peer sharing economy. And I believe that significant opportunities exist in the manufacturing and traditional goods industries for platforms to come in and create new markets. The rise of the Maker Movement and the growing democratization of 3D printing will accelerate this shift further.

There are three fundamental changes that accompany every such shift in the industries that start getting transformed:
1. New networked markets get created
2. New sources of supply start to emerge
3. New consumption patterns are created

We looked at all these shifts in detail in the rise of YouTube, Airbnb, Elance-Odesk, and to a lesser extent, Kickstarter, in this essay here.

To bring all of these concepts together into one cohesive whole, I want to share a keynote that I delivered earlier this year as the closing keynote at CrowdSourcingWeek 2014. I was invited to speak at the G20 Summit events in Brisbane last week and I shared a further more evolved point of view on how resource-intensive industries like oil and gas and mining will also change because of platforms and how new job creation will be spurred by the creation of new markets.

In this essay, I would like to share the first keynote from CrowdSourcing Week 2014. I hope to share the second set of thoughts from the G20 Summit events in the coming weeks. The video doesn’t incorporate the slides but much of the talk should be self-explanatory.


Industries are getting transformed. While it’s important for startups to understand how things are changing, it’s even more important for the old guard to realize that the traditional rules of business do not apply any more.

One of my constant endeavors through this blog is to address both sides and help share the message of how many of the fundamental rules of value creation in business have changed forever.

Tweetable Takeaways

The three key takeaways from the video, the new rules of business in a networked world:

The Ecosystem is the new Warehouse  Tweet

Community Management is the new HR  Tweet

The Network Effect is the new Scaling Strategy  Tweet

This article was originally published on Sangeet Paul Choudary’s personal blog Platform Thinking – A blog about building early stage ventures from an idea to a business, and mitigating execution risk.

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Why Indian IT product companies grow slower than companies elsewhere?

Indians are loved world over due to their intellectuality, hardworking nature and their unparalleled ability for Jugaad (an innovative fix or a simple work-around of complex problems). Generally speaking, Indians are doing wonderful job in technology sector and why technology sector alone, it’s across the board now. Many of the world’s largest enterprises have Indians as their CEO’s who are driving high growth for such mammoth organizations e.g. Pepsico, Mastercard, Apple. Mind you, size tends to slow down the growth due to increased complexities.

Global economic expansion and rise of Indians on global map is a boon for India as a whole. It has certainly helped securing unique identity for India on the world map. Despite all this, why Indian Product companies in IT sector are not able to grow to their fullest potential? Why after a certain point these companies call it a quit or struggle to keep up pace of growth? Let’s discuss

I have been associated with Indian IT product companies from the last 8 years at least. The size of these companies has been in the range of 20 Million – 300 Million. With little experience in dealing / working with various product companies following are my general observations (not specific to any company I worked with).

  1. IP Vs Marketing – IP is heart for any product company but what are the rules of the game? Shall they continue investing heavily into developing / enriching their IP’s all the time? What is more important for them at different point in time of their lifecycle? This is a tricky question and finding a balance between business and IP creation could be a never ending debate and obviously THE most difficult question for these companies to answer themselves.

If you look at the IT products originated from western world and with specific mention to Israel, I have few observations to share:

  1. They develop the IP considering present and future (Not so Distant hypothetical future).
  2. Test it, Test it and Test it so that it does not fail (I know few of you must be smiling while reading this J. We all have restarted our computers every time it stopped responding)
  3. Sell, Sell and Sell as much as they can before finding the right balance between efforts required for IP management and marketing.

On the other side, Indian entrepreneurs (Btw most of them started by technocrats and not by sales gurus – Please note) are so passionate about IP that they tend to postpone the problem of selling the software. IP gives immense pleasure and satisfaction to an extent that all the policies, strategies, growth plans, creative energy, board room discussions and even canteen discussions revolve around IP – This is what killing them softly 🙂

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Baby steps to an Indian Microsoft

A country well known for its software services now has an opportunity to build world-beating software products.

At a recent corporate awards ceremony, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was crowned as the company of the year. Piyush Goyal, the Minister of State for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy hurriedly stepped up to the lectern after the award was given. He told the assembled glitterati that TCS had promised to give the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) a modern, nay, world-class hospital management system by March 31. In the tentative clapping that ensued I heard a big snort from my right. The scepticism of the gentleman sitting next to me was rooted in the belief gaining ground that bespoke software systems were outdated and presented a sub-optimal choice.

The predicament of enterprise technology clients stuck with archaic bespoke software systems is no longer common. Bespoke software systems fell out of favour 20 years ago. Firms switched en masse to on-premise enterprise software products. They were cheaper, easier to upgrade, and yet extensively tailored to their needs. This shift in the late 1990s created two sets of players: product vendors like SAP, and implementation consultants like IBM Global Services and Accenture. Soon, Indian IT services players like TCS, Infosys and Cognizant muscled into the game and grabbed considerable market share.

Lost in this success story is the narrative about Indian enterprise software product vendors. For instance, iFlex built a great enterprise software product for banks, which Oracle snapped up for a billion dollars in 2005. Kochi-based IBS is a leading product vendor for airports and airlines, and is now big enough for an IPO next year. PARAS, a hospital management product from Bangalore, is grabbing the industry limelight by winning global deals involving hundreds of hospitals.

If the Indian IT industry has benefited from the shift away from bespoke systems, why did AIIMS miss the bus? In general, why has our public sector been so slow to buy enterprise products? Government officials are not to blame for this. Unfortunately, our IT services firms became protectors of status quo in the government sector. While it helped them milk their fading bespoke systems for longer, it also created crumbling government systems and robbed the nascent product industry of a big market. Luckily, the new government has started fixing the issue.

The Growing Shism

Another breed of enterprise product vendors is emerging. Companies like Workday and Salesforce personify this new wave. They offer on-demand products. These require less customizations and work on cloud-based data centres. So, as Workday says on its website, they are a “fraction of the cost of upgrading from their incumbent vendors”. Naturally, customers love these new-generation products. They are called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products. And they are growing like wildfire.

A schism has opened up in the Indian IT industry over SaaS products. The implementation consultants don’t like them, as they need only minor adjustments. They look at them with a jaundiced eye of a traditional bespoke darzi [tailor] looking at readymade clothes. Going from stitching custom pants to doing length adjustments for readymade ones is a gloomy shift for IT services providers. But it’s a boon for our software product start-ups.

In fact, Indian SaaS product start-ups are on a roll. They are even getting begrudging respect from Silicon Valley. When ZenDesk, the SaaS market leader in customer service desk management products, did its roaring IPO earlier this year, it listed six key competitors in its SEC [US Securities and Exchange Commission] filing. Four of these – Kayako, Freshdesk, Supportbee and Tenmiles – are Indian! Indian SaaS product players are becoming global category leaders. Zoho, for instance, sells a CRM (customer relationship management) product at $12 per salesperson per month and is the market leader in this mid-market segment. It is flanked by Salesforce in the enterprise segment (at $60 per salesperson per month) and a raft of players, mostly Indian, in the SMB segment (at $3 to $4 per salesperson per month).

This availability of, say, CRM software product at every price point is a big new story in the IT industry. Unlike cars or smartphones, we have never had different software products to cater to every price segment. SaaS has changed this. As a result, everybody can now afford a software product. Hopefully, this time, government policy will build on this new generation and not let incumbents hold things back.

My Cup Runneth Over 

Two other pockets of explosive growth are exciting. One is the much-discussed rise of the digital consumer in India. This has led to the birth of Flipkart, Ola Cabs, Stayzilla, Newshunt and others. The other pocket is less sexy but it’s even bigger. It has to do with software infrastructure.

Old software infrastructure is being replaced at a pace previously unseen and is creating lots of product opportunities. Data explosion is driving endpoint data protection and governance products. Video explosion is driving dynamic ad insertion products. E-commerce growth is driving a new generation of search infrastructure products. Corporate mobile use is driving new agentless Bring-your own-Device security products. Social media is driving real-time social media analytics products. Now here is the punch line: in each of these categories, the emerging global leader is an Indian company! This is an unbelievably powerful development. For instance, Druva, a Pune-based start-up, is the global market leader in endpoint data protection and governance and is set to do an initial public offering in the US in 18 to 24 months.

Daring to Dream

Behind this optimistic turn of events is a new type of a technology entrepreneur. He (and, sadly, its mostly he so far) is unshackled from the restrictive dream of being the world’s back office. He doesn’t think in terms of labour arbitrage. He is a missionary, a creator and disruptor of status quo. And he has a blazing desire to change the world.

Team Indus embodies this spirit. This team is a motley group of passionate technologists that aims to land a robotic craft on the Moon by December 2015. This is literally a moon shot. Not altogether surprising to many of us, this team has emerged as one of the top three teams in the prestigious Google Lunar X-prize!

There are other moon shots in the works. Some are pivotal to developing our defence, aerospace and electronics industries. Others are about building highly affordable software products that will bring competitiveness to small businesses, teaching effectiveness to schools, productivity to health-care centres and new skills to farmers. Let’s not blow this chance. Let’s give these efforts the policy oxygen they deserve.

The country that gave zero, calculus, yoga and chess to the world is dreaming again. It wants to retake its rightful place in the world. It’s not satisfied being a back office for everybody. It dreams of powering the future with its ideas and inventions. It dreams of being a product nation!

This article was first published in Business Today

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The future is here: Indian product companies are potential global giants

Every year I speak at a dozen events – both within the country and outside. These events range from ones around entrepreneurship and startups to ones purely around technology. There is, however, one common thread at all these events. At home, I meet many young product companies that now operate on a global scale and overseas I increasingly bump into entrepreneurs who have set up a product company with a global footprint.

It will not be an exaggeration if I say the era of dominance by Indian companies has started and we will see young, smart, technology enabled product companies use their imagination and information to operate on a global scale.

What has changed over the years – the biggest factor is the Indian entrepreneur’s ability to think big. About 5-10 years ago an Indian entrepreneur would want to create a niche business that would create a good amount of wealth for himself. An Indian entrepreneur now thinks differently where he wants to create a big billion dollar business that straddles continents. They want to create a dominant business and dominate globally. A startup today does not aim to be a $100 million business, but dream to reach a billion dollars.

And is it easier to do so? Theoretically the answer would be a big yes. It is easier to start a company, especially in the technology domain, and have operations across the world. Many are now starting with the world in mind and in fact during their initial days India may not be the launch market for them. There are examples of many startups that prefer to start in the US and then look to spread operations here.

The reason behind this can be attributed to a phenomenon that started about a decade or two ago. The business process outsourcing (BPO) and the services industries like Infosys and Wipro led to a lot of food for thought over the years. Enterprising individuals were not content with being mere back office providers. As global systems and processes became pervasive at work places, many stated seeing clear opportunities that could be addressed. These individuals were some of the early pioneers of Indian product companies operating and addressing global needs. Starting product companies and not services suddenly became the vogue as factors like labour arbitrage took on a new meaning. Today it is a question of skill arbitrage where product companies are developing technology that are world class and price competitive.

The second reason behind the increasing appetite to operate on a global scale is because of professionals returning home from an overseas stint. When I started Rate Gain after returning from the US, I could see some clear business opportunities. While I was unsure if it would work out, I knew serving the world from India was possible. For entrepreneurs like me and many others, the fear and apprehension of dealing overseas do not exist. There is a strut in our step and a confidence that we are second to none.

A large part of this is also due to the successes of Indians abroad. From the investing companies to top executives at some of the largest MNCs, Indians are now where it matters. A large Indian investing community abroad and forums like The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) and Indian Angel Network (IAN) have helped tremendously by opening doors.

This is now having a cascading effect. For people with an entrepreneurial ambition, there are clear role models to follow. Companies like Druva, ours (Rate Gain), Zomato, InMobi are hugely successful and changing the status quo. The startup ecosystem in the country is maturing with a healthy mix of angel and venture investing and a good idea can now be converted into a sustainable company. The Indian market may be large and lucrative, but the opportunities multiply when operations are on a global scale.

The global outlook at an early stage works well for a startup. Not all would be successful and there is every likelihood that there will be more failures. However, the penchant to create multinationals is the first step to create billion dollar companies. In the years ahead as technology reduces the barrier to entry and democratizes opportunities, startups going global would be the new norm.

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#MadeinIndia Cloud telephony and IVRS

The market has been abuzz lately with cloud-based applications and let us admit it, there is more to come.The industry is adopting Cloud based solutions like never before and start-ups are cashing on this technology.One such cloud based technology which is fast gaining its hold in the Indian market is Cloud Telephony or IVR solutions. Now you can conveniently do away with those PBX, IVR, wires and other hassles associated with the traditional on-premise telephony applications. Cloud Telephony can conveniently be used to manage incoming calls, and as virtual receptionist.
cloud telephony ivrs madeinindia
We have done a thorough research to find out the best players in Cloud Telephony in India and here is the list in alphabetical order for you:

Big V’s YOCC
Big V is a Cloud Telephony Company based in India that offers ‘Simpler Affordable Telephony Solutions’ to small and mid-sized businesses. YOCC offers the business houses their Own Call Centre empowering them to base their entire communication system on an automated, single number.

CallHippo

CallHippo implements cloud computing into the world of telephony. Our platform allows deployment of a flexible telephony network, wherever an internet connection is available. We aim to replace the desk phones with soft phones, eliminating the complexity of setting up a phone system.

CallNet
The software requires no setup cost or hardware cost. It offers various products like Smart Receptionist, Smart Call Center, Smart Toll free, Click to call, and Smart fax.

CloudAgent
CloudAgent offers simple Open API for CTI, CDR and Dialer and you can integrate the software with your business systems for an end-to-end customized and optimized process performance. An added benefit offered by CloudAgent is Off-the-shelf integration with various CRM, Helpdesk, and Analytics products.

DialStreet
DialStreet is also a popular choice with a number of features like IVR Studio to record or upload your IVR recordings, integrated analytics, live view to see who exactly is calling you and who is talking to them from your end, large selection of numbers to choose from, API Integration, call recording, forwarding, conferencing and voice mail.

Exotel
Exotel offers  modern Cloud Telephony solution with top features like IVR, Call Recording, Reporting, SMS and many more. It also provides a suite of tools to manage all your sales, marketing and customer care channels, from dashboard with price starting from just INR 1750/month.

IVRGuru
The software offers virtual phone number, B2B lead generation, employee management system, customer lead management and verification, lead grading and lead distribution, interactive voice response and CRM/ERP solutions.

Knowlarity
Funded by Sequoia Capital and Mayfield, the company has its presence in 65 countries. Knowlarity has its headquarters in Singapore and in India, it has offices in Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore. Its flagship products, SuperReceptionist and SmartIVR, can process over a million calls an hour.

LeadNxt
One of the leading cloud telephony company of India, LeadNxt offerscentralized, open- ended &cost-efficientcommunication system through cloud based telephony applications – IVR, Custom Flow Calls, Call Recording, Call Tracking, Voice Mail and more.  It offers varying pricing structure with its silver, gold, diamond and platinum rate cards.

Mcube
MCube is a cloud based integrated communication platform that delivers an array of powerful automated call management applications such as Business Helpline, Virtual PBX, Call Tracking and telephony integrated marketing automation tools such as Lead Management and Support Management.

My operator
One of the top Call management system by VoiceTree Technologies Pvt Ltd provides IVR on cloud telephony, EPABX on Cloud& Toll free number for business with pricing starting from just 3000 per month.

NTS
Headquartered in Udaipur, Rajasthan, with presence in New Delhi and Guwahati, Niche Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd offers telecom consultancy services to both Public and Private sector organizations in India. The company specializes in providing Computer Telephone Integration (CTI), IVR Systems, Voice Portals, Hosted IVR Solutions, building dynamic database-driven custom Web sites, Web-Voice applications, E-Commerce and business Web site solutions.

OzonetelKooKoo
Kookoo helps you to build business communication infrastructure using web languages. With an option to pay as per use, Kookoo’s monthly rental varies from Rs. 500 to Rs. 2500. The software allows you to build telecom applications, IVRs, office PBX and outbound campaigns.

SparkTG
Founded in the year 2002, Spark Technology Group Inc provides excellent hosted IVR and integration services. Key services offered are development of custom advanced inbound/outbound IVR, contact center solutions, natural language understanding, content management systems, data transformation, and legacy system integration.

Ziffy
Ziffy offers a starter plan at a monthly rental of Rs. 699 with a call rate of Rs 1.4 and a professional plan at a monthly rental of Rs. 2000 and call rate of 99 paise per minute. The software offers various features like automated welcome message, IVR, virtual number, toll free number, two way sms, call recording and forwarding and many more.

The article has been created with the help of Cloud Telephony and Virtual IVR Analysts at SoftwareSuggest.  The list is not comprehensive and you can mention as comments the software missed by us.

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Indian Mid-market SaaS companies: Forging a new path to disruption

SaaS has changed the competitive dynamics for Indian enterprise software product firms, putting them on a level playing field with their western counterparts. It has opened up new market segments, notably the small and medium sized enterprise market, whose requirements are different from those of large global 2000 businesses. These customers demand products that are less complex, plug-and-play and come at a lower price tag. This has pushed product companies catering to this segment towards a light-touch, virtually enabled model, dramatically reducing the need for close customer engagement, large field sales force, and elaborate implementation – all of which traditionally put Indian companies at a disadvantage.

Leveraging this wave, a new generation of Indian software product firms such as FreshDesk, FusionCharts, KissFlow, WebEngage, RecruiterBox and others have started to emerge. This has created an important disruptive force in the mid-sized enterprise market. What is also interesting is that, in their pursuit for a light-touch model, these companies have evolved a unique strategy to define the product, market/sell the product and engage with customers. This iSPIRT report discusses the three core tenets of their strategy – Digital immersion, Desk marketing/selling and Cloud-based customer engagement.

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Innovate on the Product, Not on the Business Model

Entrepreneurs from Bangalore had no problem driving into Chennai amid a tense political situation in Tamil Nadu. There was an air of expectation and enthusiasm on the part of more than 15 entrepreneurs who had come in from Bangalore and Mumbai, apart from Chennai itself, to listen to Girish Mathrubootham, Freshdesk CEO and founder, for the Playbook Roundtable on Scaling a SaaS business. Colourful wall graffiti greeted visitors at the Freshdesk’s vibrant office, which itself exuded energy.

A condensed version of the discussion is given in form of a Q&A.

Girish from Freshdesk

What should I focus on in a SaaS business?

The No. 1 success for your business is your product and it is key to your sustenance in business. You should know what matters to your business. Innovate on the product but don’t change your business model. Look at businesses that are in the same domain as you are or businesses that sell to the same kind of customers like yours. Adopt their business model. Copying business models is not a sin. Tweaking the business model may not be good in the long run. 37Signals started charging credit card subscription only when the merchant bank refused them monthly subscriptions as the bank felt the business is new and could fold up in any time. Such business model changes happen by compulsion and not by design.

How should I go about marketing the SaaS business?

Forget affiliate marketing. It works only for impulse buys and in an e-commerce environment. Success, if any, is not scalable. Only Constant Contact has achieved success with affiliate marketing.

Guest blogs with linkbacks to your product site is a good idea.

Positioning and lead generation are key to marketing. Trigger e-mails is just a drip marketing tool and not scalable. Killing welcome e-mails increases response rates. Getting your e-mail to land in the target’s inbox is crucial and it shouldn’t get into Promotion box in Gmail.

Text-only e-mail with no images and links works best. Attention-grabbing subject line and shortening the length to four to five lines assure greater response rates. Remember, mails are read on mobiles. So keep it short.

Instead of a uniform pitch to customers, talk to them to understand their problems. Then your demo should provide a solution to their problems. Customers at times get confused if you run through your presentation and may not connect with how the product or the features will solve their problems. Be specific.

Make your demo educational for the customer. Say something new and which the customer doesn’t know. It will earn you respect and might convert to sales.

Freemium has two groups. In one, after a trial period, you charge for the product right from the beginning. In the other, there are a free version and a paid version of the product. Nail down which works best for your business. Any number of free trials is not going to hurt your business. Leaving money on the table is a good idea. Because the customer might buy after a long time. Patience is a good trait.

Track the customer from their first visit to your website and determine the pattern of how customers find you. This is called visitor fingerprinting. Then you know where to focus upon.

Trade shows. Do they help? For small companies, they may bring some branding and don’t expect too much ROI from events. What works best is a personalized presentation to your target customer. Do your homework and create customized presentations. This might convert to sales.

Attendees at FreshdeskGenerally, personalize across presales, sales, and marketing. The response rates are 25%.

[Read Marc Benioff’s Behind the Cloud.]

[Watch Gail Goodman of Customer Contact’s video “How to negotiate a long slow SaaS ramp of death”]

Webinars? Webinars are good. All the more good if there is an expert on the topic speaking and it offers something new. Make the webinar having some educational value for the audience.

PR – Be in the news constantly. Hire a good PR agency and avoid scamsters promising hell a lot of things (say, one-page content on you in a magazine that has access to thousands of targets in a domain). They wouldn’t be suitable for your business. Churn out good stories often. Reach the people who don’t need you now. Seed them for the future.

Segregate your marketing function into a campaign team and a content marketing/product marketing team.

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Flipkart – Lessons for “Make in India”

Disclaimer : This article is entirely based on my reflection on what I read in the media

It was exciting and encouraging to experience the marketing campaigns of Flipkart’s billion dollar day and painful and demoralizing to witness pitfalls. I completely empathize with Sachin and Binny who had to write an unconditional apology letter to angry consumers while “celebrating” the victory in round #1 over Amazon, to keep their troops motivated.

Lessons for “Make in India"

The biggest question for me about the big billion day was : Is it a flop-show for Flipkart or is it a success ? Is complete acceptance of failure a sign off greatnes ? I felt apologizing and celebrating success at the same time is a concrete evidence of mediocrity

In any case, there are significant lessons to be learnt from this which is a classic case of gaps between intent and experience, plan and delivery.

We all know the investment and effort that goes into building such a market / consumer momentum for a day like this. We also know the lost image, lost investment, lost opportunity and above all the lost pride due to a result like flopkart. Why did this happen ? Here are my takeaways on the top reasons behind the gap between intent and experience, plan and delivery

  • Inadequate / incomplete anticipation / visualization of what is going to happen on the Big Billion Day. From the load on server to the demand for different products were mis-judged including the peak load at the time of start.
  • Poor coordination in the cross functional team in executing the project: Basically, the left hand was not aligned to what the right hand was doing. The eyes and feet were not coordinated with the brain etc.
  •  Poor workmanship / quality of delivery: from merchandiser to product manager, from project manager to developer, every person fell short in delivering what was expected. Every single gap in delivery contributed their share to the poor experience result.

Basically, every single person who worked on the project would have felt they did their job perfectly well but the end result was a not a success.

The lessons we should learn are very simple : Each one of us must visualize, simulate and experience the customer engagement in our mind while we create a product or service. Each one in the team including suppliers and vendors must collaborate deeply and engage passionately to ensure  the customer engagement visualized can be delivered 100%. When so much is at stake, the load and stress test must be done to ensure systems can withstand the load. Finally, when it comes to each of our own deliverable, we must ensure we deliver 110% and leave nothing to chance

Few other questions I was asking myself repeatedly but could not get an answer. Some of them are, If such thing has happened in a well funded US company, would heads roll ? Are heads not rolling in India because we do not have depth in leadership in the ecosystem ? Is stringent accountability a necessity for Make in India to succeed ?

Only if each person in the team is 100% committed to deliver customer delight, experience vision for customer engagement, execute and deliver on the plans – greatness is guaranteed. Every slip between the cup and the lip gets exposed. I strongly feel, these all are essential for Make in India to become a reality.

Cheers
CEO & Founder
GoFrugal Technologies

 

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Gandhigiri to the Software & Technology Entrepreneur – Part II

Gandhi and Customer Centricity

The progression of Economic activity as it stands in the Global Economy today has accelerated from commodities->products->services->experiences->transformations. (Pine and Gilmore)

Today we are already in the Experience Economy (Its Apple like experience, its not apple like products), but as professionals we are still grappling with how we build Products, let alone scaling the Economic activity to be staging experiences and guiding transformations!

While I am not an economist in any regard, and I do not understand the nuances of all industries and their current economic function in India (Are we building products? Are we providing services? or just plainly selling commodities?), its imperative that I comment on only Software and Services.

Before doing that, on the Gandhi Jayanti day, I would like to introspect what our Father-of-the-Nation tried to teach us, by emphasizing on making our own Salt, our own clothes with the Swadeshi Movement OR with his services at the Sabarmati Ashram. Essentially he articulated with his actions what our present day government is campaigning for “Make in India”. How did Gandhi understand the evolution of Economic activity more than a 130 years ago?

Because Gandhi was more customer centric a 100 years ago, than we are today. He empathized with every person, much better than we did. Let me quote the now cliched Gandhi’s quote on Customer Service “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”

Customer is more important

Empathy By Design

Come to think of it, our entire Indian Cultural ethos is based on Empathy. “Karuna” is the foundation of almost every teaching in our country. Indian institutionalization and Orientation has Empathy by Design. Then how is it, that we have failed to reciprocate to the needs of People? Why is it, that we have not built products, services, experiences that cater to the needs/wants/aspirations of people, when there is Empathy by Design in our culture?

Tough questions to answer universally or generally. However focusing on Software and Services, I think we have become too focused on Systems, Processes and Technology, rather than addressing the concerns of people. We have gotten too-carried away with Western philosophy of Professionalism, which emphasizes a lot on Systems, but empathizes little with people.

Let me give you a more concrete example. High exploratory and high mortality nature of software projects is like an Industry Standard. 9 out of 10 software initiatives don’t go anywhere, seems to be an easily accepted norm. All the cash-rich service majors in IT/ITES industry have not re-deployed their capital to building an Indian Apple today, because they seem to have accepted that Software products have a 9 in 10 chance of mortality. However what they have failed to realize, is all Lean Methods today propose Customer Development first, rather than Product Development. Build it and they will come, is almost an era of the past. Every Agile and Lean technique today is about keeping the Customer-centric view first and rapidly building tools, products, services, etc which empathize with the needs of people.

Making in INDIA

India however has a renewed emphasis on the Swadeshi movement. Its now called Making In India. Every body is now encouraged to make their products in India. However, I would like to draw your attention to Gandhi’s philosophy again, which has found a new meaning, with the Lean and Agile world. Customer Development is more important than Product Development.

Let me go a little further, the first realization all product entrepreneurs need to have is this “Customer is the Product”. Your product is just a medium/abstraction through which, you continuously develop your Customer. Stop fiddling with the Features and Benefits. They are the HOW and WHAT for your Customer. WHY the customer does anything with you and your Product, is essentially what we need to understand.

Making In India, is all about making the Customer or Consumer in India happier, healthier and wealthier each day. Do you have a plan for this? Why should you think about Making in India, is it only for Export? Well, here is why. All new ideas, new software product ideas are imperfect ideas, and need to be tested locally, and refined continually, before we can think of exporting. India today lacks any credible domestic infrastructure or support, to even make little bets, so ideas never go past their imperfect states, and hence never attain Global Standards. So, lets make and try it here first.

Mahatma Gandhi

Conclusion

We are a country blessed with Empathy by Design. We are a nation which puts Emotions ahead of Professionalism. We are a nation that believes in Darshan (of all deities). Truth is, Customer is the first GOD. So, fellow Entrepreneurs, if there is one Gandhigiri that we need to learn, it is to do a full-darshan of every customer, their needs, their wants, their aspirations. We now realize Consumer Development is as important, if not more important than Product Development. Is’nt it then, not automatic, that building a Consumer-Centric Nation, is the first step to building a Product Nation. Lets go and create this change, and let initiatives like iSPIRT and ProductNation be the inspiration through which we can channel our aspirations and ideas. Happy Gandhi Jayanthi to all!

Be the Change

Read the Part 1 here Gandhigiri to the Software and Technology Entrepreneur!

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Looking for business leads? Want to be seen among the top level CXOs and decision maker? @CeBITINDIA

The premiere edition of CeBIT in Asia is all set to get off to a very strong start. From 12-14 November over 600 companies spread over 9 topic clusters will showcase global enterprise technology innovations. 200 of these 600 exhibitors are international companies who are completely new to the Indian market. iSPIRT is a key strategic partner to CeBIT India and together the goal is to showcase India as a Product Nation both in Bangalore this year and Hannover in 2015. With a clear focus on IT.BUSINESS.100% the event invites Enterprise Technology Buyers with a clear B2B focus. As per the latest forecasts received from the organisers, the event, will garner close to 25,000 visitors. CXOs, IT Resellers, MSMEs and Government Officials from State and Central Ministries form the majority of the visitor base. The focus end user sectors for the event are BFSI, Automotive and Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Education, R&D and Hospitality.

Want to Win the CeBIT Challenge? Here’s your opportunity

“If you are a start-up, then +91 is your code to connect with seasoned entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, mentors and accelerators and win a chance to showcase your ideas to a global audience at CeBIT 2015, Hannover, Germany.”

Technology, as the industry of choice for many of today’s start-up businesses, attracts investors and venture capitalists, and has enormous payout potential. While the appeal of launching a tech start-up is easy to understand, some entrepreneurs fail to cope with the unique risks they face being in the competitive world of technology. This is where +91 comes in.

The genesis of +91 lies in the Start-up Village that was started at CeBIT Hannover as an international initiative for digital pioneers, innovators and ground breaking start-ups. Initiated over a decade ago, the Start-up Village has since been supporting outstanding business talents and their exceptional business ideas, providing them with a platform for dialog, and therefore stimulating and accelerating innovation in the field. 

CeBIT INDIA

Business Technology +91 Start-up Challenge is being organized alongside CeBIT INDIA – Asia’s leading Business Technology and ICT Procurement Event will be held from 12-14 November 2014 at BIEC, Bangalore. CeBIT India needs no introduction. With the aim of showcasing New Perspectives in IT Business, India’s first CeBIT will cover the key IT trends of Cloud Computing, Strategic Big Data, Enterprise Mobilily and Social Media.

Along with its large exhibits, CeBIT India will also feature a series of engaging conferences, workshops and seminars by global thought leaders like Vishal Sikka CEO, Infosys and Mark McDonald Global MD, Accenture at their CeBIT Global Conference. You can download the brochure for +91 Start-Up Challenge for CeBIT India here

PLUGGED IN:  

Along with CeBIT India, a Consumer Electronic Show for consumers called PLUGGED IN will be organized, parallel from 14 – 15 November, 2014 at BIEC, Bangalore. Consumer Technology +91 Start-Up Challenge will be held at PLUGGED IN

PLUGGED IN is the largest consumer gathering and showcase of consumer electronics & technology in India! It is is a comprehensive convergence of all stakeholders in the Consumer Electronics & Technology sphere to engage, educate and entertain consumers like never before. It is a platform for new product launches and showcase of game changing technologies in the consumer technology industry. For more information visit the PLUGGED IN website. You can download the brochure for +91 Start-Up Challenge for PLUGGED IN here

iSPIRT SaaS Pavilion @ CeBIT India

With a view to showcase India’s product strengths, CeBIT India has partnered with iSPIRT to create an exclusive SaaS display. The organisers have built a smart all-inclusive package, which includes fully built and functional display space, central meeting area facilities and prime space on the CeBIT India show floor. In recognition of our partnership with CeBIT, iSPIRT members on the SaaS pavilion are offered a preferential participation rate. In addition to the SaaS pavilion, CeBIT and iSPIRT will work closely together to showcase product innovation in the +91 zone. Please don’t miss the opportunity and contact the CEBIT India team(Mls(AT)HMF-India.com) at the earliest, who will provide you details information on the challenge. You can find more information about the SaaS pavilion here.

WHAT DOES A START UP GET?

  • Showcase & Market:  An exclusive opportunity for start-ups to showcase and market products to their customers at +91 Start-up market
  • Workshops:  Exclusive access to workshops conducted in the +91 Zone by industry experts covering the core business aspects-Marketing, Finance, Operations and more.
  • Mentors: Interact with the best minds in the industry on one-one basis, receive valuable suggestions & feedback to enhance and add value to your business.
  • Network & Interact: An opportunity to network with fellow entrepreneurs, angel investor and venture capitalists, accelerators, experts & support programs, as well as interact with 25,000+ business visitors of CEBIT India & Plugged In
  • Attract investments:  With investors coming from all domains of thetechnology ecosphere, you get the best chance to attract investment.
  • Visibility: visibility through extensive media coverage and promotion across all mediums

AND WIN AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHOWCASE YOUR PRODUCT AT CEBIT IN HANNOVER, GERMANY.

WHAT NEXT? 

Participation for CeBIT India +91 Start-up Challenge is limited to only 50 Start Up companies and PLUGGED IN +91 Starts-up Challenge is limited to 25 Start Up companies. Please don’t miss the opportunity and contact the CEBIT India & PLUGGED IN team(Praveen.Nair(AT)HMF-India.com) at the earliest, who will provide you details information on the challenge.