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Volume 1 Issue 2 February 2010

trepreneurs
Entrepreneurship

Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management


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E-Cell Objectives:

 Manifesting the latent entrepreneurial spirit of the youth.


 The cell aims to bring out the entrepreneurial spirit in budding managers and provide
them with the vital support system to set up new ventures.
 The prime focus of E cell is to develop a sustainable and encouraging platform that
supports people across the globe in starting up; thereby realizing their ideas and
converting them to reality.

E-Cell Vision:

“To establish ourselves as a complete Incubation Centre providing support across


all facets of entrepreneurship and throughout all stages of entrepreneurial ventures.”

E-Cell Mission:

“To foster and sustain the spirit of Entrepreneurship amongst students across the
emerging entrepreneurs and provide them with a platform to convert their ideas to
businesses. We aim to foster the Spirit of Entrepreneurship amongst the masses at
large.”

About E-Spire:

It is a monthly E-magazine by E-Cell of Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management,


Pune. The vision with which E-Spire is launched is to Inspire the students who
Aspire to become successful entrepreneurs.

Disclaimer:

In no event shall Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management, Pune; hereafter


referred to as SITM, be liable for any indirect, punitive, incidental, special or
consequential damages arising out of or in any way with any content (or any material
provided here under) whether biased or on contract, tort, strict liability or otherwise
even if SITM has been advised of the possibility of the damages.

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Contents

Entrepreneur of the Month


04

Mobile Application: The Revenue Generator


05

How Far Can You Go?


07

B-Plan of The Month: StudentSahayta.com


09

Entrepreneurs in Indian Telecom


11

Think Space | Case Study


13

Entrepreneur Speaks |
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All Are Invited!


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Entrepreneur of The with Wal-Mart to form Bharti Retail. It also has
tie-ups with Vodafone, Warburg Pincus, and
Month British Telecom. Sunil Mittal is good at
calculated risk taking.
Sunil Bharti Mittal runs India's largest GSM-
based mobile phone service. Sunil is an alumnus He developed an innovative business model in
of Harvard Business School and graduated from which outsourcing and collaboration was given
Punjab University. He started his first business more importance and chose IBM as its
as seller of cycle parts, with borrowed capital of outsourcing partner while Nokia and Ericsson to
Rs. 20,000 in 1970. By 1982, Mittal had started a be its network partners. He also made an
business selling portable generators imported undersea cable link project connecting Chennai
from Japan and that gave him the chance to and Singapore with entering into a joint venture
involve himself in activities like marketing and with Singapore Telecom International. In this
advertising; soon, the government banned the way Bharti group was able to provide cellular
import of generators as two Indian companies services for its customers at lower rates. Mittal
were awarded licenses to manufacture also launched the Bharti Airtel's Digital TV
generators locally. Instead of taking it as a partnering with Infosys Technologies to deliver
setback, he took it as an opportunity and Next-Gen interactivity on its DTH service.
founded Bharti Telecom Limited (BTL) with
technical tie up with Siemens AG of Germany for Mittal is a Global leader - this can be
manufacturing of electronic push seen in his bold move to have a deal
button phones. By the early 1990s, with South-African telecom giant
Mittal was making fax machines, MTN, and even though the MTN deal
cordless phones and other telecom was unsuccessful, this has not
gears. stopped Bharti who is now in a
process of striking a deal with Kuwait
He is the person who takes initiative based Zain Telecom.
and uses the opportunity to optimal level. He
was the first mover in telecommunication sector The complete journey of Sunil Bharti Mittal is an
in India. In 1995, Bharti Cellular Limited (BCL) inspiration and motivation for all the young
was formed to offer cellular services under the aspiring entrepreneurs, the message is that
brand name AirTel. Within a few years Bharti there is no right time to do anything, you just
became the first telecom company to cross the have to act quickly to grab the opportunity and
2-million mobile subscriber mark. The company always be ready to take the calculated risk.
is also instrumental in bringing down the high Doesn’t matter if your business is small, what
STD/ISD, cellular rates in the country by rolling matters is that you started.
the countries first private national as well as
international long-distance service under the
brand name IndiaOne.

Mittal is a competent negotiator and this


quality helped him in expanding his business.
Now Bharti enterprises have tied-up with AXA
group of France to form Bharti AXA group,
joined with Del Monte to form Bharti Del Written By | Siddhant Jain | Student, SITM
Monte. It has formed another joint- venture

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Mobile Application: So innovative solutions can be
introduced catering to the needs of the
The Revenue Generator health sector. One of the innovative
mobile applications can be “Efficient
Mobile Applications: Overview Lightweight Mobile Records (ELMR)”
system.
Mobile apps have brought the world to your This is one of the innovative product
fingertips and promise a revolution in which has been implemented in African
communication. Nokia's Ovi Store, Android countries , which meets the urgent
Market, Blackberry App World, Apple's App demands of health sector in the rural
Store and upcoming versions from Samsung and areas.
Microsoft give thousands of independent
developers a relatively quick and easy route to What Is ELMR? Why ELMR?
consumers fingertips. With the current
explosion of new applications, it is expected It is a lightweight mobile record system.
that the market for mobile applications will be It can enable health workers and
"as big as the internet", peaking at 10 million patients in rural areas to fetch and
apps in 2020. The excitement around mobile update their patient records and also
applications is going to have a major impact on allow doctors to remotely track the
our economy, and our way of life. health record information of patients .
Convergence and integration are the new Existing mobile Telemedicine efforts like
mantras in the field of mobile technology. With Open Rosa, Open MRS and many health
technologies pacing towards them, soon you centres have made significant
contribution in healthcare mobile
will find all the applications converging into a
applications but these applications are
single multi purpose device whereby your yet not feasible to be implemented in
mobile phones can be used to check current many developing nations . Reasons
stock prices or even be connected to a remotely behind these are:
placed system. 1. Firstly the above existing applications
rely on high end smart phones or PDA’s
Mobile Application For Health Care: which cannot be affordable by the
health workers and patients.
Several rural regions around the world, 2. Secondly these applications rely mostly
especially in under-developed areas, do on a standard database and GPRS
not have access to basic healthcare connectivity which is economically
services and much of the burden of viable only in urban settings.
healthcare delivery falls on local health 3. Thirdly, existing implementations may
workers who have limited skills and be heavyweight for low-end cell phones.
expertise.
Cell phones are increasingly being used To address the above limitations ELMR
as common clients for a wide suite of can be used.
distributed, database-centric healthcare
applications in developing regions. This Mobile Application For Education:
is particularly true for rural developing
regions where the bulk of the Mobile technology is strategic to many
healthcare is handled by health workers organizations and activities. Education is no
due to lack of doctors. exception! The use of mobile technology has
Unfortunately, the current distributed not only extended desktop-based online
systems is far too heavy-weight for learning environment into the mobile and
mobile these applications, particularly in wireless channel but also enabled education to
light of the high communications cost. take place anytime, anywhere. The use of

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mobile technology in education is also known as Currently the youth segment is driving the VAS
“mobile education” or “m-education”. market as can be seen from the rapid growth of
Some of the applications that can be introduced Entertainment VAS (mass service) and not so
in the education sector are: rapid growth of mCommerce and Infotainment.

A rural private schools network can be Piracy of Content:


implemented through which interactive Another reasons for players playing safe and not
learning and exams can be conducted investing in novel applications and content is
for the rural children. SMS based exams because this market is greatly affected by piracy
can be conducted for standardised This is acting as a barrier for companies
evaluation of school children on basic investing into content development.
language and mathematics skills.
Mobile phone Vocational training can Preference For Low Feature Handsets:
be provided. Though the mobile subscriber base is growing, a
A Knowledge bank service can be an large chunk of the market is opting for basic low
effective medium of mobile learning for feature handsets in spite of the fact that
people in rural areas. Here the handset prices are coming down. There is a
subscriber has to call a specific number mindset to purchase the handset for basic utility
and he can receive detail learning on service which is voice. But these handsets are
the subject area of his interest. This not in a position to support a large number of
service can be regional specific. VAS.

Other Applications: Transparency In Revenue Sharing:

An effective mobile application for Rural Transparency is a big issue faced by the entities
Energy Network: In rural energy retail in the Mobile VAS value chain. The market is
work several viable distribution highly unregulated and there is no transparency
channels are identified for energy in terms of contact payouts and royalties.
efficient products (ex: stoves) in remote
rural villages. So an application can be
generated using mobile technology
through which agents can be used for
inventory management, maintaining
transaction details and customer
feedback. Written By | Manisha Panda | Student, SITM
A drinking water organisation in a
region can monitor day to day
operations at the plat level through an
SMS based application. This mobile
feature will record day-to-day
production and sales data as well as
revenue generated per day.
Mobile application to spread awareness
in interior areas in times of emergency
like natural disasters ( ex: cyclone).

Challenges In Implementation Of Mobile


Applications:

Focus only on youth and entertainment:


Usage of VAS, specially in India has not spread
evenly across demographic profile of customers.

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How Far Can You Go? his customers happy was so great that he often
let other responsibilities like paperwork and
keeping the books fall by the wayside. Walton
There goes a saying, “Your horizon stretches
kept his job, however, because of his ability as a
only as far as you can see.” This seems to be
great salesman.
very true of any entrepreneurial venture. What
we dream can always be carved into reality, but In 1942, Walton was drafted into the United
it is the extent to which you allow yourself to States army. He worked in the communications
dream that decides the level of your success. division of the Army Intelligence Corps and
remained on home soil throughout the Second
But it would be foolhardy to assume that any
World War. When he left the army three years
venture, when aimed high, will always be
later, Walton was married, had a child, and
successful. Every idea has to be followed by a
decided to start his own business to support his
methodical layout of the business plan, and
new family. With the $5,000 that he had saved
backed by sufficient financial mileage. Besides,
along with a $20,000 loan from his wife's father,
proper infrastructure and effective manpower
he purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in
are vital ingredients for a success recipe. Once
Newport, Arkansas. Walton was 27 years old.
these essentials are taken care of, it is solely up
to the man in the forefront to decide which path Determined as ever to succeed in his venture,
his venture will take – to build a plain and solid Walton looked for other rural Arkansas towns
base which allows him to bank on his expertise, for a new place to set up shop. He came across
or to scale vertical limits by expansion and a small village called Bentonville and opened the
diversification. Walton's Five and Dime in 1950.
Mind you, both the paths are equally effective, Walton's revolutionary plan was to have large
and although a horizontal path does not offer superstores in rural towns that discounted a
you as much exposure as the vertical one, it is wide variety of products. His initial approach
equally profitable when it comes to financial was to Ben Franklin. They turned him down as
gains. But the similarities end here. Any kind of they did not like the idea of operating with
expansion requires a certain vision of the future lower margins. Without a large company behind
and a clear understanding of one’s strengths him, Walton opted to go it alone. In 1962, he
and weaknesses; and ofcourse, the ability to mortgaged his home and borrowed against
take risk. As T.S. Eliot once said, “Only those everything he owned to open his first Wal-Mart
who will risk going too far can possibly find out in Rogers, Arkansas, a neighboring town of
how far one can go.” Bentonville.
Today, one can talk about several entrepreneurs Excited about the prospects of getting discounts
who made it big in their own fields by widening and selection that were previously only
their horizons early on. And it is only through obtainable in the cities, rural customers came
real-life examples does one get inspired to scale out in droves to his store. The success of his first
new heights. Let us look at few such examples store allowed him to expand and by 1969 he
to take cue from their success paths. had 18 Wal-Mart’s in Arkansas and Missouri.
Funded solely through debt and reinvested
Sam Walton – the retailing Czar
profits, Walton decided that in 1970 he would
Sam Walton's career in retail began in 1940 take the company public. The IPO raised $5
when he became a sales trainee in Des Moines, million and Walton retained 61 percent of the
Iowa at a J.C. Penney store. His desire to make company. The money was used to settle the

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company's debts and fuel further expansion. By Michael Dell had become the youngest CEO of a
1980, 276 Wal-Mart’s were operating. Fortune 500 company.

Michael Dell – living his childhood dream Dhirubhai Ambani – from rags to riches

Michael Dell became an entrepreneur at a very Dhirubhai Ambani was born on 28 Dec. 1932 as
young age of 12, made his first $1,000 by selling the third son to a school teacher in Gujarat with
stamps, and later sold newspaper subscriptions moderate means. Ambani moved to Aden,
for Houston Post, making enough money to buy Yemen when he was 16 for a livelihood. He
a BMW at 16. This young and ambitious boy had started his career as a dispatch clerk before
his plans well on track by 19. becoming the distributor for Shell Products. He
was later promoted as a manager in an oil filling
Michael Saul Dell was born on February 23, station at the port of Aden.
1965 in Houston. His father was an orthodontist
and mother, a money manager. Dell was Dhirubhai returned to India after 10 years and
interested in computers from a very young age. founded Reliance Commercial Company with a
He joined the University of Texas but later gave capital of Rs.15000 in Masjid Bunder in Mumbai
up studies to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. with a business mission of importing polyester
yarn and exporting spices. He went on to
In 1984, with $1,000 in his pocket, he gave establish Reliance Textiles in 1964 under the
shape to his dream venture. From his room in brand name “Vimal”, and the World Bank
the university, Dell started working on his applauded the brand as the best Polyester
business plan. His idea was to assemble Cloth. Perceiving success, Dhirubhai established
computers according to customers’ preferences Reliance Industries Ltd in the 1970s, and the
and sell them directly. He named the start-up, rest, as they say, is history.
PC's Limited. Dell's approach was unique. He
was the first to introduce the direct sales Aspirations know no bounds
method in the IT industry. The direct sales
The three men mentioned above bring to mind
clicked and there was huge demand for
computers. Dell knew that he could beat only one word – vision. Take the example of any
other entrepreneur in the world, whether it is
computer dealers by selling at lower prices with
good technical service. Most of his orders were Henry Ford or Jamshedji Tata, Rupert Murdoch
placed through friends who spread the word or Oprah Winfrey, Anita Roddick or Richard
around. He moved to a small office and hired a Branson; all these who made it big either
few people to take orders and upgrade dreamt about it early in their lives, or rode their
machines. Avoiding a third party to sell wave of success to farther shores. There’s
computers turned out to be profitable and the nothing wrong in dreaming big, and if you have
company grew at a seriously fast clip. the intellectual, financial and the business
acumen, there’s no stopping you from realizing
In May 1983, Dell incorporated the company as those dreams.
Dell Computer Corporation. In 1985, Dell started
to design and make computers with
components sourced from outside. His focus,
right from the beginning, was on customers and
good service. By 1992, Dell Computer
Corporation entered the Fortune 500 list of the Written By | Aditya Chavan | Student, SITM
largest companies in the world. At the age of 27,

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B-Plan of The Month: These will form the value added services for the
customer, our core service being
StudentSahayta.com accommodation and food. The website will also
have information like movie reviews, ongoing
Concept: sales/offers, events, contests, adventure trips,
A major chunk of the population in Pune forums, etc.
consists of students and young single working
Location covered:
professionals, owing to the fact that Pune has a
Initially we will cover only Pune. After that we
large number of Engineering, Medical and MBA
will extend to other similar locations
institutes and also, it is an industrial hub. Most
of these students and professionals are non-
Target Market Segment:
residents of Pune, who have come to this city
As mentioned earlier, the target segment is the
from far flung places. Hence, the first thing they
student community, coming to Pune from other
want to know about the city is where to stay?
cities for education. Also, the young single
How can they get a flat or a room on rent at a
professionals, who have come to Pune to work
place close to their college or office and that too
and do not have family here.
at the lowest price possible? This is where we
Target Market Study:
come in. We will help these people get a place
to stay, as per their convenience and budget. Only 38% of the people living in Pune are
residents of Pune. Out of the non-residents, we
Product: expect the majority to be students and working
StudentSayahta.com is web portal that gives the professionals only. There are approximately 29
exact details about the places put up on rent in different types of institutes in Pune like
a particular locality in a city (currently Pune). It Engineering, Arts, MBA, Commerce, etc. Also,
also gives other necessary details to help the number of institutes is around 240. Pune
students settle down in the city easily like has the largest number of software companies
Where to buy the furniture & other in India, 212, followed by Bangalore. Hence,
home accessories there is a huge segment that we can cater to
Location of the nearest restaurants through our website.
Location of the nearby mess/Tiffin
facilities, etc Competitors:
Messenger dedicated for same college The major competitors are:
students. Property dealers, providing renting
facilities in the concerned city.
Apart from giving these basic details, we will Other web portals providing
also provide other details to the target segment, information about the city in general.
like:
Differentiating Factor:
Part time job in nearby locations. We would be providing entire information
Nearby malls required by students in one web portal (Room
Tourist locations availability, Mess/ Tiffin facility/ Information on
Recreation centers Part time jobs in nearest locality etc. ) Property
Clubs dealers charge a lot of money from the students
Shopping & also from landlords. Hence, we provide a
Students from their native places. cheaper option for the customer & landlords.
Also, all the other web portals provide general

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information about the city, but none provides Tags on WebPages
about accommodation. Hence this will be our Viral marketing through YouTube
USP. Also, our website will give much localized Bulk SMS through websites like
content to suit the needs of the target www.160by2.com
customer.
Expected Revenues:
STARTUP STAGE: The revenues will majorly be generated from
advertisements on our website & commission
Infrastructure: charges from Landlords. We will be signing up
Since this is only a web portal, we will not be with affiliate networks for inviting
hiring any office space for the same. Hence, no advertisement and our websites. Model
fixed infrastructure will be required initially and preferred would be Cost per Thousand
it will be a work from home kind of a business. Impressions, however Pay per Click Model
would also be used for some products. For
Costs Incurred: example, In the Cost per Thousand Impressions
Cost of buying web space: 100 MB space- Rs. model, we will get approximately Rs. 2000 for
3000/ Annum 20,000 impressions of one product or service on
Cost of designing the website: Rs.40, 000 our website.

This includes content, database and the annual


EARLY GROWTH STAGE:
fee of buying a domain name (Rs.1000-Rs.2000).
Early growth rate would be slower because
The updating of the website will be a regular
volumes of business & advertisement revenue
process which will be done by. Domain
would be lower. We will reinvest the earnings
registration also requires approximately Rs.
from initial stage to the business. We would be
1000, which has been included in the above.
spending more on our marketing in early growth
Total cost – Rs. 2, 000/ year. We will tie up with
stages. We will make more tie-ups with builders
software professional for updating and
& landlords for more number of available
maintaining the site regularly- Cost Rs.30, 000/
rooms.
annum
LATER GROWTH STAGE:
2 Computers = Rs. 60, 000
Later on, we plan to extend the portal for other
Internet connection + Electricity charges = Rs cities where we can find a similar target
50,000/ annum segment like Noida, Bangalore, and Hyderabad
etc. We also plan to construct hostels of our
Hence total initial cost= 175000 + marketing own to provide accommodation in the Pune
expenses (100000) + Miscellaneous ( 25,000) city.
= 3,00,000
Concept By:
Financing:
Meenal Gandhi
Initially, We will not be taking money from
Amandeep Sandhu
market , we six persons would contribute
Samit Kharpudikar
50,000 each.
Nawa Issouph
Marketing of the Product: Saurabh Prasad
The website will be marketed through Tanvi Rastogi
Social networking websites (Students, SITM)
Blogs

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Entrepreneurs be a 10 minute meeting and I decided to cancel
it. I said look in 10 minutes you can’t do
in Indian Telecom anything. This is really serious, she should give
me an hour and everybody said “Are you crazy?
Why would Mrs. Gandhi give you an hour?”
What does it take for a person to become an
entrepreneur? A certain set of skills, knowledge I said look we cannot do much in 10 minutes. So
yes, true to some extent but most importantly I waited. Finally got a call after 8-9 months that
he needs to have a vision and an indefinite she would give me an hour. I went back from
passion to put that vision into action. The skills, Chicago with a presentation and all that. She
knowledge shall come along!
had her entire cabinet there, everybody finance
Telecom industry is booming which is evident Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Venkatraman they
from current scenario where new technologies were all there at that time. That is when I got to
are under implementation; new players are meet Rajiv (Gandhi) for the first time.”After that
entering the market, teledensity reaching meeting there was no stopping for Sam Pitroda.
47.89%. It was effort of many to bring this
industry at such progressive state and one such In 1984 Centre for Development of Telematics
special personality, an entrepreneur in this (CDOT) was founded under his
regard can’t be forgotten. It was the leadership.
vision of this technocrat which fired
C-DOT is the Telecom Technology
the telecom revolution. Friends, this
special personality is Sam Pitroda who development centre of the
invented the concept of P.C.0 the Government of India and established
yellow public phone booths which as an autonomous body. It was vested
have now spread all across India. with full authority and total flexibility
to develop state-of-the-art
He was propelled by his vision and telecommunication technology to
strived to bring it into action. meet the needs of the Indian
The following excerpt of his interview telecommunication network. At C-DOT, Sam
highlights how he started off - Pitroda and his team created coin dropping
PCO’s which generated instant bill at user’s end.
”I want to go fix India’s telephones. It sounded Also as the head of the Telecom Commission he
romantic. So then I decided to go back and forth installed one rural telephone exchange in the
every 2 weeks just to learn about India and country every day further the number of
finally someone said “Hey you need to meet exchanges scaled up to 25 on a daily basis. This
Mrs. Gandhi if you really want to do something installation helped 600,000 Indian villages to be
on that scale”. I didn’t know how to meet Mrs. connected by telephone. Going through his
Gandhi, I had no connections, I didn’t know work its remarkable to see how he worked with
anybody in Delhi. Finally through somebody, this innovation and speed for development of
man was a member of parliament from Gujarat, society.
who knew my father in law, Mr. Baria, a very
There are more than 50 patents held by Sam
nice gentleman. He saw spark in my eye and he
Pitroda. He has been awarded the
said I will organise a meeting for you. He
Padma Bhushan award in 2009 by the
organised a meeting and it was initially going to

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Government of India for his contribution to
Science and Engineering. He also received the
Rajiv Gandhi "Global Indian" award in 2009.

Like Sam Pitroda many entrepreneurs have Written By | Dipali T Lavangare| Student, SITM
travelled the journey of transforming their
vision into reality. Here are few examples from
the industry where this journey continues.

Lt.Col.(Retd).H.S.Bedi of Tulip telecom (a


leading MPLS/VPN provider in India) is one such
example of an entrepreneur .He put his thought
of entrepreneurship into action after serving
army for 22 years .This thought had developed
by interaction with lot of businesses during his
tenure as an instructor in computer wing at
Military College of Telecom and Engineering.

Tulip initially a software company is now a


leading MPLS/VPN provider in India. Lt Col H S
Bedi was amongst the 18 finalist for the Ernst &
Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, 2009.
VNL provider of WorldGSM is
good example of how
innovation is brought out
through entrepreneurial
activity. This start-up through
their business model of
microtelecom has provided
opportunity for local entrepreneurs in villages.
WorldGSM is the first fully-fledged mobile
infrastructure that’s completely independent of
the power grid.

Another example is of Uday Mehrotra, recipient


of ‘Young Innovative Telecom Entrepreneur
Award’ at the National Telecom Awards
2009.He founded Ubico network in 2007.Today
Ubico is leading neutral-host infrastructure
provider of in-building wireless infrastructure.

Entrepreneurs in telecom have not only brought


out innovative business models with varied
technological implementation but also have
provided our country with an edge in this arena.

(References: News articles, websites, VNL


microtelecom white paper, c-dot official
website, tulip telecom official website, blogs)

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Think Space | Case Study transactions from remittances to selling eBay
purchases in Guam. They have mobile money
solutions in Guam, Kuwait, Madagascar,
Aspire is a company specializing in developing
Content Management Infrastructure and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and India.
applications for Mobile Operators. Their
clients include large multinationals in Asia, Since the company has offices across many
Africa, Latin America and Europe. Aspire is different locations there are multiple
based in Singapore and Sydney, Australia. departments being based out of these offices.
Aspire creates value for network operators, With the growth of the company and its staff,
content providers, application partners and similar job profiles are being handled by
individuals through the provision of enabling individuals based out of different offices.
technologies at the convergence point However, the salaries offered to people
between content, applications, network across the offices have been different. Mr.
infrastructure and multi channel access Zubin, HR lost many potentially resourceful
devices. Aspire is focused toward enabling employees while negotiating the
enhanced services for our customers, remuneration structure based on
accomplished through a balanced approach of geographical differences. Problem becomes
innovative product development and more acute because unlike multinationals,
integration services. different offices do not have separate
The company is very strong and has multiple remuneration policies and the policies are
customers in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, centrally governed. Different salaries offered
Vietnam and the Philippines. They have to staff performing similar functions based
offices in New Delhi, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, out of different offices might pose a challenge
Manila, Beijing, Dubai and also in San Paulo in of dissatisfaction in staff.
South America. They have gone from no staff
to about 120 employees over the last nine Questions:
years. The company is privately held and has Question1: Elaborate on the problem
no outside funding, so there are no VCs and statement and suggest the best
no significant debts of any kind. It has funded approach to provide the solution for
its growth out of cash flow and the organisers the problem statement.
of the company do not wish to offload the Question2: Identify the parameters
stake even going forward. based on which the current
Aspire is involved in three lines of business at remuneration policy of the company
the moment. They are one of the pioneers in is based? Justify with logical analysis
handset-based electronic pre-paid top up, so Question3: How do you ensure and
they have established this business in many bring parity in the salary of employees
countries where airtime top up dealers sell doing same kind of role, depending on
airtime using USSD or SMS interfaces off their the geographic differences, cost of
handsets. They have some very large living in these geographies and still
installations in Guam with about 4 million top maintaining retaining the faith of
ups a day, Indonesia and Pakistan are very people in the HR policies?
close to those numbers. Question4: For the given problem
They have also pioneered person-to-person provides the best solution that the
cash transfers, and they are now doing about company can employ in this scenario
$100 million of throughput every month, with to increase the company’s employee
around a million transactions a day and 3 satisfaction index?
million active users who are doing Source | Events Committee, SITM

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Entrepreneur Speaks |

(Source: The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), India)

Instructions to play the video clip:

Click on above highlighted area


A dialog box will open, select ‘Play the multimedia content’ and Click on ’Play’

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All Are Invited!

Team E-Spire invites contribution from corporate and B Schools all across India. We are looking for
original articles related to entrepreneurship.
Also Contribution can be in the form of:

Puzzles, jokes and cartoons related to entrepreneurship.


pictorial representation of an Entrepreneur's journey
Interview with the Business Man
Articles related to business
And finally anything form business perspective that you feel will be helpful

References should be cited wherever necessary.

The Best contribution will be recognized as “Best Contribution of the Month” in the next issue.

Instructions:

 Please send your articles along with your formal passport size photo before 10th March
2010 to sitm.espire@gmail.com.
 Do mention your name, institute name and batch with your article.
 Format: Font:- Times New Roman, Size:- 12, Length <= 2 Pages in word doc/docx.
 Please DO NOT send PDF files and kindly stick to the format.
 Number of authors 2 at max.

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Drop a mail at sitm.espire@gmail.com

Thanks,
Team E-Spire:

 Siddhant Jain
 Kaushal Chhaya
 Hemant Gavali
 Navsangeet Kaur
 Manisha Panda
 Vinay Acharya
 Neha Isawe
 Ayushi Patni
 Devika Atkare

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