Caltech MIT Enterprise Forum looks at India's Market
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Doing Business in India Explored at Caltech Event
By MICHEL W. POTTS
indiawest.com March 19 2009 03:06:00 PM
PASADENA Calif. — Baring PEP CFO and partner S. Sundaram and four other panelists presented their views on “Global Markets: India Opens the Door to New Opportunities” during a Caltech/MIT Enterprise forum hosted by Gunjan Bagla at the California Institute of Technology here.
Bagla managing director of Amritt Ventures who wrote “Doing Business in 21st Century India: How to Profit Today in Tomorrow’s Most Exciting Market” opened the program by playing the Academy Award-winning song “Jai Ho!” from the film “Slumdog Millionaire” although his recording was by the Pussycat Dolls.
The point he told his audience is that “anytime you deal with India there is always a twist.”
As the keynote speaker Sundaram cautioned his audience to think in the long-term when doing business in India rather than the short-term. “In other words build a business which will stand and sustain for a long period of time” he told them.
In his list of “Dos and Don’ts” when doing business in India Sundaram stressed having a story when proffering a business proposal to a potential investor. “At the end of the day what you are showing a potential investor is just a peep show” he said.
“If you want somebody to pony up the money based on a peep show you better make sure some of the essential ingredients of that peep show are incorporated. Make sure that the story you tell is a credible sustainable story and not something which is just a pie in the sky.”
Furthermore it is vital to be “absolutely transparent” Sundaram added. “If there is bad news be up front with it. If there is something you wouldn’t want the investor to find out make sure he finds it out from you and not from the market.”
He also urged speaking the investor’s language. “Do your homework about the investor: What’s his focus? What is it that he would potentially look for?” he said.
“A lot of people we have seen are so immersed in their business their product that they get so carried away by it that they’d love to talk ad nauseum about how they’re doing rather than talk about how it is relevant for the investor and why the investor should put money in their business.”
Finally “treat the private equity or the financial investor not as somebody who’s a money bag who can provide you the dollars” Sundaram advised. “Treat him as a fellow entrepreneur. That guy is out there probably taking as much risk if not more risk than what you are.”
The biggest “Don’t” he could stress to his listeners he said is “do not underestimate constraints in execution…Ninety-nine out of 100 companies have fallen short on performance and you’ll hear every single story in the book why it did or did not happen.”
The common thread in such lack of performance was because “people did not do what I would call scenario planning” Sundaram said. “People did not provide for a downside…More importantly do not assume that everything is going to be hunky-dory.”
On the contrary “you should actually assume that only the odd thing will go right rather than saying that the odd thing or the exceptional thing will go wrong” Sundaram advised.
Finally “never ever sacrifice the long-term for the short-term gains” he declared. “You may be able to put it past some people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.”
In his presentation Kamran Sistanizadeh the chief technology officer for Reliance Globalcom noted that because of the diversity that exists in the ADA Group a subsidiary involved in power infrastructure metro and communications as well as the largest mutual fund insurance base in India “there are lots of opportunities here.”
Venkat Tadanki the CEO of Secova Inc. argued that “you have to have an India angle to the story. You just can’t be ‘everything best in the U.S.’ when you are looking for investors in India because most often the charters of virtually every venture fund which is out there state that there has to be some link over there.”
The link has to be “some back office front office whatever it is something where you are liberating Indians” Tadanki pointed out. “If I talk to someone having trouble finding investment I would say they have to look at their story and see how they can include India in some form.”
Shekhar Chitnis the CEO and president of Chisk Inc. noted that with the opening of the Indian market in the past 20 years there is “a massive need for infrastructure massive as in billions and billions of dollars massive…and that is the opportunity for us.”
As the last speaker of the morning who spoke at length on the parallels between Hollywood and Bollywood throughout the 20th century Kenneth Silverman the CEO of Interactive Teamworks noted that all the major U.S. media entertainment companies now have significant operations and organizations in India.
The point is that combining vision smarts entrepreneurship and some amount of capital virtually anything can be achieved and when you mix in the magic the majesty the mavens the moguls and the markets of the U.S. anything and everything will be achieved.”
