DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

Technology is always a challenge to handle. It is one area which requires continuous attention and investment in R&D

"This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it." –Jonas Salk

Technological changes have had a major impact on the way business is conducted. We witness the impact of these changes at different levels. If Intel invents a new chip, it is known to the whole world immediately. If Facebook uses a new application, it is ‘liked’ and ‘shared’ immediately through the Internet the world-over.

Quick Analysis

The business challenges for which we expect technology to help us

1. Speed – Every business wants to spend minimum time on each business process and transaction, so that it can do more of it in available time and make more money. 2. Collaboration – Its a challenge with every organisation to have their team members and clients collaborate as easily as possible, and in as much real time as possible, so that customizations, changes can be discussed, known and implemented in minimal time. 3. Access – Businesses have faced the challenge of crossing boundaries. Everyone wants to expand their market, beyond their locality, city, state, and country. This becomes more imperative if the same-industry and cross-industry rivals are doing it. 4. Multi-channel interaction– Days are over when businesses interacted with clients over just ‘snail mail’ and phone. Customers now demand for faster and more channels of interaction for organizations to listen to them, while the latter want to spend more time on getting more business. The time crunch on part of both requires more channels like email, fax, chat, conferencing, blogs, Facebook and now even Twitter. 5. Process Automation – Businesses need to multi-task more and more. In the heat of competition, they want to spend more time on improvising quality of products and services or other productive pursuits within the same available time. Taking help of technology becomes indispensable as it saves the precious time. So, processes need to become automated and more streamlined.

However, if a passionate grass-root level entrepreneur invents a ‘remote-controlled tiller’ in some far corner of the country, it is not known to the whole world immediately, but takes a lot of time.

All these inventions have had a lasting impact on our business and personal lives, doesn’t matter if they were high-profile or not; whether we knew about them or not.

From an invention point of view, we were happy at the sobriquet of “Serviced from India” and not “Made in India.” We wouldn’t want to do products. A myth went around that India is not good at products and just as they say, our businesses came close to proving our own prophesies true. Not entirely.

You will read about a dozen businesses in these pages who have defied odds to be in the business of products. They are not the typical Tatas or the Infys. They are much smaller but mightier in their resolve. They have been shunned in the global market for lack of R&D or adequate domain knowledge. You will read about how their perseverance paid the dividends in the end.

“Our technology boosted assessment test now remembers its last state and resumes from there.” — Varun Aggarwal CEO, Aspiring Minds

“We do a lot of R&D to customise the treatments for our clients in India and overcome our challenges as there cant be any mistakes and retakes in our industry”. — Parichay Upadhyay New Look Cosmetic Laser Clinic

The message one gets from this is: ‘Taking one’s technology or products to the global arena is the best test an entrepreneur can face.’ However, domestic enterprises also face equally tough situations. Consider the issue faced by Varun Aggarwal, CEO, Aspiring Minds, a start up engaged in creating candidate assessment tests for companies. Aspiring Minds faced problems in running assessment tests on institutional infrastructure in colleges, universities and schools because of lack of power-backups, network issues, and viruses. “We have been able to solve this technologically, after which we have run tests at more than 700 institutions with a setup time of 20 minutes and no glitches. Even on power failures, the test remembers its last state and resumes from there.”

Technology does not stop at R&D alone. The environment one builds around and the processes followed to nurture skills and talent matters a lot. Take the case of Shamit Khemka, CEO, Synapse India. He obtained the CMMI Level 3 certification for his firm and got the processes in place. Once done, he realized that he is experiencing a big company within his small company. “The added benefit was that apart from helping us in getting company processes in place, the process-orientation ended up helping us in curbing attrition."

Similarly, Vipul Prakash of Elixir Consulting has extensively invested in processes and systems to streamline their procedures and to be able to offer a unique experience to their clients, different from any other HR consultant.

You will also read the stories of how entrepreneurs met challenges with the aid of technology. Vibhas Prasad of Leisure Hotels faced the problem of geographical remoteness concerning reservation by guests in his resorts/ hotels. “We used Central Reservation Office, a product by IDS, which interfaces with Property Management System, and shows real time availability of accommodation, details of rates, instant allocation, etc.”

For Parichay Upadhyay of New Look Cosmetic Laser Clinic, the challenge is to customise treatments for brown skin (Indian people) while machines that can only be imported are manufactured to be used for white skin people. “We do a lot of R&D to customise the treatments for our clients in India. Sample this: White skin can bear laser of 30 joule/sq. cm, but its only through R&D and practice that we decipher that brown skin can only bear 15 joule/sq.cm and develop the expertise. And that is how we overcome this challenge as there cant be any mistakes and retakes in our industry”.

In every sphere of business activity and in every industry, technology has helped us, be it marketing, HR, finance, strategy, operations. For marketing, we have various technologies like SEO, SEM, statistical softwares for MR. In HR, we have now complex HRIS, employee management software, electronic attendance systems, salary calculation softwares and so on. In Finance (BFSI), there are softwares to calculate insurance premiums, calculate NAVs, complex banking softwares from companies like Oracle and Wipro, stock market beta calculators and many others.

“Technology adoption remains a challenge for SMEs as many haven’t been able to overcome the obstacles of reliability, adaptability and total cost of ownership (TOC).” - Pratik Chube GM-Product, Emerson

“For scheduling transportation in our BPO, we created an IT workflow tool that could let people choose a time of their choice and a back-end to assign cab which has worked well for the company’s cost and employees’ morale”. — CS Pandey Ex VP, Recruitment & Resourcing, Steria

Companies like Capital Market Publishers offer softwares such as Capitaline, while Prowess is offered by CMIE which help organize huge information about other companies, to help in strategizing for M&A, stake sale and private placement of equity, etc.

Information Technology itself has helped businesses collaborate, communicate, organise people and manage tasks more effectively. ICT in education today holds such a huge scope that it is poised to be a billion dollar industry in next 10 years. The problem it is solving is making education available in ways far more interesting than current teaching pedagogy, and to a wider and more geographically spread audience.

For instance, Educomp is using higher technology in its Educomp Leap centers outside Delhi, where it intends to virtually provide veteran teachers to learners in remote areas, in class sizes as small as 50. How else could this be done?

Technology, whether it is developed or used, is the cutting edge of human mind. As John Bronowski says in Ascent of Man, it is this cutting edge which determines the maturity of man and ultimately society or in our case the business.

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