Small and Medium Business – Some Facts, Analysis & an Idea

 

Author: Kanishka Ajwani

Kanishka Ajwani works as a Researcher R&D, Tata Consultancy Services and has expertise in Software As A Service.

Over the last few years, the software industry in India has grown like a monster alien grows huge out of heat.  Big players have entered the software market at a fast pace, with all those jargonized software services and products. And the use of IT in the industry has enabled these players to mature and strengthen their stand in the market. Such a condition, on one hand has fortified the Indian markets, but on the other hand has led to the demolishment of SMBs: the Small and Medium Business. 

What exactly is SMB?

SMB is a term used for a collection of small or medium sized companies in terms of infrastructure and count of employees. The concept is standardized by European Union which tag companies with fewer than 50 employees as “small“, and those with more than 50 employees but fewer than 250 employees as “medium“. Such organizations are unable to maintain and sustain themselves against the expert thespians in the market. It has become extremely difficult and challenging for them to compete with the complex technologies today used by the huge established groups due to the lack of capital, resource and opportunity.

There are large number of consultancies and expert associations in the market that offer strategic plans and resources for SMBs to let them grow with the same rate.  

• Many of them aim at engaging the right talent and skill set, designing the right organizational structure for a small/medium company and collaborating with many of the world’s leading service providers and emerging players. 
• Some groups also make available to SMBs IT products/services/tools used in the markets, at lower prices. There are some products specifically designed for SMBs that provide easily manageable, all-encompassing solutions that cover the critical elements of an IT infrastructure such as intranet, email, instant messaging, security and many others. 
• Other organizations provide a model driven approach towards SMB wherein a model is designed to provide an end to end solution following the “pay as you grow” methodology. The SMBs pay to the provider as they keep growing using the solution provided to them. 

These solutions available today in the market do help the SMBs to stand against the big actors, but again the concern comes back to the money that they pay to the providers, which is sizeable to make the SMBs think over it.

An Idea Suggesting a New Approach:

What I suggest goes like this: 5 to 6 SMBs group join together and invest the capital that they have to purchase excellent and superior quality hardware as a joint possession. This system/server/environment will be used by the SMB group to host their IT Infrastructure together on the same host. Say for example, one mail server can be used across 5-6 small companies to provide the employees a mailing facility. This technique would make it possible to develop the entire IT infrastructure without any extra cost being incurred. The only sticky situation this would create is the extra effort of maintainability and security of the hardware.

Why Second Life is less popular than Facebook/Orkut in India?

 

 Author: Business Beyond Reality

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Smarter Route to Success: Full Time MBA Vs Part Time MBA (Post on Request)

Author: Sheena Anand

Sheena Anand is a Software Engineer in Tata Consultancy Services. She’s a part of the 1000 Crore “Passport Seva Project” at Tata Consultancy Services. She is pursuing her Part Time MBA Program from IMT Gaziabad, a Premier MBA School of India.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/10/14/stories/2008101452380400.htm

Case – I: An Out-of-College Graduate going for a Full Time MBA Program

 Final Year Undergraduate School Student studies 24 x 7 to get admission into an A-grade Business School (One of the toughest task in India); manages to bag in a seat; and joins an MBA program for 2 years on the completion of his Undergrad Course. Being a hardworking guy, he manages to get a job in one of the top companies.                       

Case – II: An Experienced Professional going for a Part Time MBA Program 

A professional having 5 years work experience, doing great in job, after exploring all his areas of interest, wants to move up the organizational ladder, to switch to a coveted managerial position, which he feels would escalate his career further. He joins a Part Time MBA of an A-grade B-School.

 I look in for a Conclusion:

Out of the above two cases, it’s difficult to objectively decide which has been a better decision. But analyzing both the scenarios, both of them did just the best suiting the situation. After discussing both the situations with a large number of people having expertise in this area, I reached a conclusion which was otherwise difficult to arrive at.

Expanding on Case I:

Since the person is just out of a Grad School and has no work experience, he in general lacks soft skills and the attitude one develops in time, by associating oneself in a professional environment. A full time MBA program can help him achieve instant nirvana, without much of struggle and get him into the organizations management. This approach promises a perfect investment of time and money and pays dividends immediately after graduating.

Expanding on Case II:  Since the person has a substantial work experience, and is looking for a career lift in the same industry, nothing can be better and satisfying for him to pursue a Part Time MBA from a reputed B-School. 

What about Switching Industry post MBA?

Switching the industry is generally not a choice of such experienced professionals for a switch would erode away all his previous work experience. As a matter of fact, even the employers don’t appreciate it. For a person working as a Software Engineer with an IT company for the last 5 years, wanting to get into Marketing of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), the first thought that would tickle the mind of the employer would be that why at all did the person work in an IT Industry for 5 years if he eventually wanted to move into FMCG – Was he indecisive? Would he be able to cope up well with no prior experience in the FMCG domain?

 A subjective comparison on how the Part Time MBA stacks up against the Full Time MBA:

1) Recruitment opportunities post Full Time MBA Program is tremendous when compared to the limited opportunities post Part Time program. Moreover if the Part Time program is sponsored by your own company, the employee cannot try for recruitment with a new employer.

2) An advantage with Part Time programs is the rich experience brought to classrooms by working executives enrolled in the program which is mostly missing in the Full Time.

3) Part Time program offers a challenge to balance study, work and personal life. 

4) Part Time program is more hands-on and practical when compared to a Full Time Program. On the other hand, a Full Time program endows the student, straight out of books, with business skills and jargons even though the “Practical Implementation” of the concepts is missing. 

5) A Part Time MBA offers earning, learning and experience, all at the same time. On the contrary, a Full Time MBA demands a huge amount of money to be spent, and compromises on your professional experience. 

6) To career changers, a Full Time program offers the advantage of declaring experience to the potential employer through internship. 

The choices are not always digital, “0” or “1”; At times we need to think keeping our mind in the analog state !!!

India Talking “Virtual Worlds” – Consolidated Report

Author: Business Beyond Reality

Are Indians talking to ‘Second Life’, the popular online virtual world?

Apparently so…

Of the 50,000 registered Second Life users in India, Siddharth Banerjee (Founder Indusgeeks Solutions Pvt. Ltd) estimates an active base of 1,500-2,000. 

(Source: http://www.livemint.com/2008/09/29214006/Creating-a-real-life-learning.html)

The Economic Times ferreted out some Indian’s also living a virtual life, including a group called VR1 which intends to explore Second Life’s business propositions. Rahul Dutta, one of the founders of VR1, said that they are planning an educational network hub, solutions for MNCs, assistance with island acquisition, world modelling, scripting, animation and graphic design services for Second Life.

Child Rights and You (CRY) opened a virtual action centre in Second Life. Indusgeeks partnered with CRY to conceptualise, design and create this presence as a part of an overall initiative to raise awareness about CRY online. This made CRY the first Indian NGO to open a space in Second Life. The CRY office consists of an auditorium to display movies and hold events etc, a CRY shop (Expressions of Childhood), outdoor café, gallery showcasing child rights posters and materials. It has donation boxes which direct users to the website or pay in Lindens.

CRY - Second Life

Wipro launched its offshore development centre in SecondLife a year back and now they have launched a SOA solutions lab – which gives customers an opportunity to explore the impact of SOA in transforming their organizations to be more agile and enable business transformation.

Wipro Office - Second Life

Amul (An Indian Dairy), which established its presence in Second Life by setting up its virtual parlour, is now working to expand its presence in the virtual world. Trimensions, a Gurgaon based company, is helping Amul to develop its existence on Second Life. Rahul Dutta, chairman and managing director, Trimensions, says, “Amul is planning to buy eight-10 islands, equal to 160 acres of virtual land, in Second Life to set up a simulation of its production and distribution facility. The objective behind launching a virtual setup is to demonstrate its functioning to the consumers, and experiment with any change in the production or distribution system virtually before executing it in the real world.”

Amul Dairy - Second Life

Software major IBM announced that it was expanding its business centre for India in ‘Second Life’, by adding sales representatives based in the country. The business centre in Second Life would allow customers to visit IBM virtually and see products and solutions in 3D. it also offers a platform for IBM sales people, clients and partners to meet, learn, collaborate and conduct business together virtually without the time and cost of travel.

Zensar Technologies, a leading software services and business process outsourcing organisation has announced its second life. Kiran Karnik, former President of NASSCOM at his recent visit to Zensar launched the virtual estate of Zensar on SecondLife and said, “I really enjoyed my visit to Zensar on SecondLife and will keep my Avatar alive there and will visit the Zensar facilities from time to time. It has been a great effort by the team.”

Text 100 opened its Second Life office in August, 2006. To introduce SL to employees in the company’s 30 global offices, Text100 held a worldwide meeting to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary. The meeting included a presentation by our CEO, accompanied by a slideshow, a video featuring an interview with the company founders and a Q&A for employees with the CEO.

Indusgeeks has built a platform on Second Life that enables students in distance-learning programmes to plug into a simulated environment replicating and enhancing real life learning processes. By assuming an avatar (a virtual identity), each student can attend classes, go on field trips (to say, ancient Rome) and perform experiments in labs, all in the virtual domain created by Indusgeeks. Indusgeeks has also started Bollywood Masala, a forum on Indian films and music on Second Life.

Filmmaker use Second Life for making films for first life thus saving on a lot of effort, time and cost especially in special effect and background rendering. Here is one short film, a Mash up of Second Life and Real Actors:

http://www.filmaka.in/watchvideo.asp?id=63974562-8C76-4715-A35A-2B1EEA501FFC

Mumbai may be India’s financial capital but it is New Delhi which rules virtual reality finance. “More than 90 per cent of the active users, mostly from the National Capital Region, are also investing in the currency exchange,” revealed Daniel Dias, director, Research Lab, IBM India, one of the companies with a massive presence on the system.

“We have been informed that the ratio of active residents to registered users is one of the highest in India and China,” said Joe Miller, vice-president, platform and technology, Linden Labs. 

Miles to go India…

Weblogs Stats in Indian Context – I munch the findings!

Author: Business Beyond Reality

In a recent survey to determine blogging trends in India, MSN polled 1000 visitors on its portal and came up with some statistics. Here I am, munching, biting, swallowing some and vomiting the other findings!

 

• In India, the most popular blogs are authored by Business Leaders. A good news for marketing divisions of organizations! Social Media is going to go places!

• Blogging in India continues to be dominated by men. Men constitute 75% of the blogosphere. A possible reason for fewer female bloggers is that in India, a majority of females still avoid expressing themselves through public channels. Features like password protection of the post may motivate females to beat their counterparts. Long way to go girls!

• Blogs are as much a source of reliable information as Media Outlets and TV Channels are. I agree completely. While buying anything expensive, I trust the reviews on blogs.

• 14% of internet users actively blog. That’s still a small share.

• 39% are aware of weblogs. The awareness amongst people is quite low. The companies offering blogging accounts should market it better. Long way to go!

• 85% of the bloggers are less than 35 years of age. Well that’s a little wierd. As the first point mentions that the majority prefers the blogs authored by business leaders, are most of the business leaders below 35 years of age??? Strange isn’t it???

• 49% read blogs for the reason that they find them interesting. I don’t have much to comment on this point.

• 58% blog to express themselves while 40% blog to entertain others. Okay… Interesting…

• 50% blogs recieve around 40 visitors a month. Well… That’s not too high a number. If 58% of the bloggers blog to express themselves, don’t they have a social circle who’ll be interested to know what’s happening in their friend’s life??? I mean much more people would read the status updates on facebook profile. Probably there’s some flaw in the model of blogs which people use to share their expressions. I still need to figure out what!!!

• 90% of all bloggers spend up to 5 hours a week on blogosphere. I think that’s a decent figure!

The conclusion is that Social Media has a long way to go in India…