Panel Discussion on Technology Strategy and Financial Valuation of Technology Businesses
January 15, 2010

A panel discussion on financial valuation of technology businesses will be hosted on January 15, 2010 at SRITNE, ISB. The overarching theme for the panel discussion is around Technology Strategy and Financial Decisions. The panel will have a discussion on the various levels of funding as well as the IPO process and its impact on the company. Thoughts on how to value your portfolio companies at different stages and what are some of the dos and don’ts when VCs look for outside funding. The panellists are:

1. Mamtha Banerjee (Entrepreneur) – CEO, Investmentyogi
2. Bhargav Marepally (Entrepreneur) – CEO, GSS America
3. Sateesh Andra (VC) – DFJ India
4. Siddhartha Das (VC) Ventureast Fund

Hosting exchange students from Carlson’s School of Management
January 10-15, 2010

Students from University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management are undertaking their core IT course in India. The course is being taught this year by Dept. Chair Professor Alok Gupta.  The objective of designing this course is to bring US students to India to get a first hand experience of globalisation of the production and consumption of IT. They will have an opportunity to look and discuss operations, innovations and impact of computing technologies on local and global economies as well as social structures.  The visit will expose the students to business leaders, government officials, socio-economic initiatives and the educational environment in India.

Panel Discussion on Technology Strategy Consulting
January 9, 2010

A panel discussion on technology strategy consulting was hosted on January 9, 2010 at SRITNE, Indian School of Business. This panel was part of an eponymous course being co-taught by Professor Rajiv Banker and Professor Nishtha Langer. The intent of this panel discussion was to acquaint the students about the role of strategy consultants in the technology sector. We were interested to know about the types of strategic consulting assignments that this sector engenders, for both technology users and producers. The panellists spoke to our students about the nature of advice their clients want, how they formulate the issues surrounding such assignments, and what spadework is needed to address those issues, how they chart the pathway to develop their recommendations and the thought process and analysis behind their strategic advice for their clients. The panellists described all this in the context of any of their representative assignments, especially those for the Indian market. A related issue they spoke about was the skills and talent these consulting firms look for when staffing their teams. The discussion was useful for the students to gain some insights into the case interview process as well. The panellists were as follows (in alphabetical order):

1. Santosh Anoo, Head of Strategy and Operations, India office at Deloitte Consulting LLP
2. Dheeraj Batra, Venture Director at Innosight Ventures
3. Sachin Kulkarni, Vice President, Financial Services SBU; Delivery Partner - HSBC Shared Services at Capgemini
4. Narasimham Peri, Partner and GBS Leader for CRM Performance Management at IBM Global Business Services

Successful hosting of Fourth edition of International Symposium of Information Systems
January 3-4, 2010

The Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (SRITNE) at the Indian School of Business (ISB) hosted the fourth edition of the highly successful International Symposium of Information Systems. This was the first time the symposium moved out of its traditional home at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad to the historic state of Rajasthan in North India.

ISIS has become known for its high quality research programme and for facilitating rich interactions with the captains of the Indian IT and BPO industry. Several aspects of theoretical and empirical research in information systems, especially those related to the globalisation of information technology development and outsourcing of business processes formed a part of this conference.

Proceedings