René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

Arrived to Mumbai (Bombay) this morning and headed straight to the venue, the Grand Hyatt where the organized NASSCOM does an outstanding job in terms of smooth organization of the India Leadership Event. Here the view from my hotel room into the everlasting heat of this Maximum City.

Even now sitting in the conference hall, wireless LAN keeps me connected so that I can virtually blog in real time. First session was about Europe –“The Next Big Opportunity”.

The major angles from the panel:

• There is no doubt that predominantly Europe is this next big opportunity for Indian IT-companies who possess the right scale, size and global footprint to bring their operations to the next level. It is more of the right mix of strategy and execution, as particularly German and French companies are still quite fuzzy to send work to India.

• Approach number one, the most obvious, apply the rigor of your established processes and grow organically by also hiring significantly from the local market. How one of the panelists put it candidly: “Local Presence with the Indian Package”.

• Approach number two, go through the M&A-route to grow faster but be prepared to deal with backlash on the existing customer-base as well as top-talent leaving the company. Put all effort in a smooth integration and develop career opportunities for the local staff.

• Be willing to invest significantly into cultural training to bridge the gap into a territory like France or Germany where the notion of Indian culture is way less than e.g. in the U.K.

• For the SMB, look out for a partner to help you on the ground. Otherwise the cost of acquisition for a new client might become prohibitive. Small can be beautiful if the company has a niche where it has specialized in.

• Furthermore, it might make send if you are not yet so experienced dealing with continental Europe to follow one of your customer to jointly roll out a product. In that scenario, the customer delivers some sort of incubator function.

After that, had a great lunch in the atrium of the hotel where I happened to stand on the same table with Simon Long, the Head of the South Asia Office of my most favorite publication “The Economist” where we had a little informal chit-chat.

That’s the greatness of conferences: You get to hear great things and you network with very exciting people. And the digital lifestyle enables me to simply share this experience online. More to come soon.