Indian Sushi

Headquartered in New York, Aithent Technologies has made inroads into Japan

and India.

CEO N Venu Gopal has an ME from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. After heading

his own research team at Fuji Xerox, a desire to widen his horizons saw him at

the Columbia Business School in 1989, where Aithent was conceived

The genesis of Aithent…



As a student at the Columbia Business School, my batch-mates John McIlwain

and Amar Chahal, and I had conceptualized a business plan as part of our

academic course at the school. The idea was to provide high value-added services

to Fortune 500 companies by leveraging the talent in the Indian market. After

the purely academic presentation, the VCs came back and said, ‘Quote if you

guys are serious about this, we’d like to invest’. This was in 1991 and we

were pleasantly surprised. Three months later we got our seed capital from

Columbia Business School and Software Services International (later renamed as

Aithent Technologies) was formed.

Moving the development base to India…



Initially, we were based out of New York outsourcing development to India.

But by 1992 we felt the need for our own development centre in order to have

full control over our delivery process. We realized that Indian IT professionals

had the potential to do good work but were not focussed on providing effective

customer service. Besides, a delivery system was virtually non-existent.

We launched an independent company in New Delhi that would provide services

to our US entity. Within six months,we were able to successfully meet the needs

of organizations like Lockheed Martin. We developed a logistics system for

Lockheed Martin back then. We beat giants like Oracle to win that project. The

system we developed for them, addressed the need to manage products sold to the

US Defense Department that were priced over $1000. And the system is in use even

today. What’s interesting is that at a time when most Indian organizations

were focussing on professional services and body shopping, we were actually

bringing clients to work for in India. We have specialized in the healthcare and

financial segments, but we do work with a variety of organizations in different

markets.

Switching focus from the US to other markets…



We moved to other markets after nearly a decade of business focussed on the

US, but not really due to the slowdown. We had realized the need to expand to

other markets earlier and have been actively working towards that over the past

year. But what really affected us was 9.11, both in the emotional and business

sense. An entire division of one of our clients based in the WTC lost an entire

division of its staff in the disaster. Apart from the loss of personnel, budgets

allocated for IT have vanished too. As for the recession, we had already seen it

happening last year. Customers had already been seeking maximum ROI and

value-addition. And we are in that very business space.

Prospects in the Japanese market…



Clearly, Japan is one of the largest markets in the world for IT and its

potential remains virtually untapped. There are relatively few organizations

from India and other countries working there. Recruiting Japanese professionals

works out to be costlier for companies and there is a shortage of qualified IT

professionals in Japan. This indicates a clear opportunity for Indian companies

to compete with other software-consulting firms for that market. Indians,

typically, are more focused westward and are exposed to more information about

the West. But though Japan is a difficult market to break into, once you are

established as a credible player, you can be assured of long and rewarding

business relationships. It is important to understand that real value can only

be realized over time.

Working in Japan…



Success depends on a company’s ability to understand the market and the

customer and Japan is no exception. It is not just a question of language, but

of understanding the Japanese mindset. Unfortunately, Indians are more focused

westward. The lack of familiarity with Japan makes it quite a challenge. The

Japanese need to be assured of the organization’s commitment and the steps

taken to establish oneself in the marketplace. Credibility, reliability and

responsibility are traits that the Japanese look at.

It is also important to understand that the Japanese way of taking decisions

is very conservative. The Japanese like to meticulously analyze each detail

before making a commitment. The decision making process involves consensus

building and one needs to anticipate that this could to take a while. But once

an organization is able to overcome this hurdle and demonstrate not just the

quality of its services but also its commitment to the market, it could

certainly look forward to a rosy future.

MEGHNA SHARMA in New Delhi