Indian Banks and Insurance Companies Squeeze IT Vendors

During the preceding months of 2009, when the growth of healthy companies outside India had slowed to around three or four percent annually, Indian IT companies were clocking up eight to ten percent. Why weren’t they hit as badly by the global recession? Because they turned their sights on the Indian market and, to their delight, discovered salubrious springs of business there. LARGE springs.

The Indian banks and insurance companies were major sources of the warm, mineral-rich water that the IT companies were relaxing in while the rest of the world moaned. But it seems that after a while, those same banks and insurance companies got wind of how important they were to the health of the IT companies, and they decided to leverage this.

The Indian banks and insurance companies are now knocking on the IT companies’ doors with a smile on their face saying, “Seeing that we’re giving you all this business and keeping you well-fed, and that without us you’d be up the you-know-what creek without a paddle, maybe you wouldn’t mind re-negotiating our contracts worth $800 million to provide one hell of a more services for the same money. If you say no, you might regret it.”

Knowing how things go in India, the IT cos will join their palms in a namaste, touch the feet of the clients and murmur, “Whatever you say… you are our friend, philosopher and guide.”

Let’s see how it pans out… I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers,

source: livemint.com

Drafting Services: 3D Visualization Tools Soon Online

Guy Kawasaki Visits Bangalore: Existence of India Confirmed!

Yup, the social media and web wizard, who was once the Chief Evangelist of Apple Computer, is the author of 9 books (especially "The Art of the Start"), and is now the Managing Director of early-stage venture capital firm Garage Technology Ventures,  attended India’s Nasscom (The National Association of Software and Services Companies) Product Conclave as the keynote speaker. NASSCOM held the event over the 27th and 28th of October 2009 at Bangalore.

It’s not often that stellar figures in Internet marketing (Guy is also a Twitter expert) come to this side of the planet. The fact that Guy has reinforces the idea that India is a software happening place.

That said, there are sections of the audience that felt he underestimated their familiarity with hip web culture, especially Twitter. He also apparently said that labour in India had a minimal cost. Wrong, Guy, WRONG. If you want to run a quality company you need quality people, and although they may not cost as much as in the overpriced West, they do demand, deserve and get salaries that afford them a very comfortable lifestyle.

Being a hard-core Tweeter myself, there were a few twuggets (Twitter nuggets) he threw at the crowd. If you’re into Twitter, you should read on… else skip the red text:

Guy’s objective is to gain as many followers as possible by tweeting interesting factoids. He believes there is value in repeating tweets (like the value of repeating TV ads), so each of his tweets are resent every eight hours  with a different wording. His reason for triple tweeting is that not all people are on twitter at the same time.

He pointed out that the first time he tweets something it gets him 700 page views, second time 500 page views and third time 400 page views.

He employs about three people to find interesting stuff and tweet on his behalf, and spends much of his day on Twitter himself. 

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The theme of his speech was startups.

>>> He advised startups not to spend money on venture capital (did he shoot his foot?) and advertising, but to promote their offering through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

>>> He said that he made investment decisions based on a gut feel and didn’t expect due diligence by the entrepreneur. Case in point: Twitter (he was one of the early investors).

***

I personally have read through his foundation articles on how to get more out of the professional social network LinkedIn. There was nothing new in them, but  then again, I believe he could have been the first to state the facts with an army of authors drawing on his wisdom. When all is said and done, I have a healthy respect for the man.

Cheers!

Sources: The Times of India, WATblog.com, Pluggd.in