Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Brainstorming session : MOM 20th Nov 2008

Hi,

It was great to meet and brainstorm on current economy recession. Please excuse me for delayed MOM.

The main objective was to overcome the present slow down by acting together as one community.

Mr Abhijeet Dhandekar has pointed out a very valid concern that until company level involvement will not be there, this kind of initiative will not see the real action. He has also suggested that existing members should invite key people in their own network to join LinkedPune so that group should strengthen further.

Mr Sudhakar Mishra has shared The idea of company's profile with key expertise areas for the benefit of members. This would help in identification of relevant companies during joint bidding process. We can circulate a template to companies, which would capture key points.

Also ESC ( www.escindia.in) helps upcoming companies to market their services/products in US at highly subsidized rates. Visit this link for more info - http://www.escindia.in/htmlSite/NewsList.aspx?Newsid=2
This was followed with the discussion to involve Jetro (Indo Japan trade organisation), Utsav (India Australia trade organisation) and other such organisation to involve with group activities so LinkedPune members can also avail the similar facilities in different countries.

Mr Viral Director, BNI ( a networking enterprise) has given his valuable suggestion to make the group much more structured.

Ms. Amishi, Regional Director, BNI has also stressed that how imp is to have such event more frequently.

Mr. Ramesh Adavi has also shared his valuable experience and tried to address the unforeseen complexities which can arise later on.

Mr. Natesh Vedgiri, Director, Product Horizons (Outsourced Product Development) raise the issue whether LinkedPune can address areas of financing (not VC level but at grass root level such as approaching banks for project based loans on favorable terms).

All the members participated actively and came up with not only ideas but also action plan.


Some ideas presented and discussed were.

1. Sharing of marketing resources to reduce marketing costs,
2. Sharing of leads - leads of no interest so that other company in the group may benefit,
3. Share clients with companies in non competing areas
4. Share infrastructure and costs
5. Jointly bid as a consortium on case to case basis
6. Exploit rate difference among ourselves - something not feasible for one company can be feasible for the other
7. Use services of domain experts and tech freelancers


Proposed Conclusion

1. We all agree and understand that collaboration is definitely need of an hour. However, forming a formal consortium do have it’s practical issues and hence we agreed that we can better leverage each other’s strengths by forming need based collaboration facilitated by informal gathering.

2. It is also discussed and agreed that small focused groups can definitely help people going forward. E.g. So let’s say if somebody is interested only in sales and marketing in IT services domain a particular LinkedPune meet should only be addressed to interested participants.

3. The company level participation is desired for any fruitful results. And, hence the decision makers participation is critical in such events.



Proposed Action Items

1. All the members will invite key people from their network to join LinkedPune so that group can be strengthen further.

2. Separate meets will be organized more frequently on particular interest level e.g. VC meet, BPO meet, e-learning meet, CRM meet, SCM meet etc.

3. Expat from silicon valley will be invited to join this group and existing US members will be asked to support the group in their own respective capacities.

Marketing Linked Pune effectively so that every member starts seeing value in being a part of it in personal and professional capacity

Create a separate organization to foster the objective of increasing business so that the networking objective of members is not disturbed - a portal can be created since Linked In does not provide such features in its present structure.


At last but not least I would like to specially thank IMC Head Mr. Swaminathan who has arranged place and offered snacks and tea. Also Mr. Anshu and Abhijit Dandekar from Solution IT who has provided his great support to make this event happen in such a short notice.



Thanks and Warm Regards,


Shwetank Upadhyaya

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