For those who came in late, computer networking was big business in India?s technology industry in the 1990s. Global industry leaders like Cisco Systems, 3Com, Bay Networks, Cabletron and UB Networks descended on Indian soil, helping corporates, public sector undertakings, banks and financial institutions do business in a better and faster manner. ?Networking was recognised as the way of the future. It helped businesses in easy and immediate access to information, reduced the decision-making cycle time and facilitated faster responses to business opportunities,? recalls Anil Batra. A 34-year industry veteran, he started the operations of Cisco Systems in India and was the president of India and the SAARC region from 1994 to 2000. Under Batra?s leadership Cisco witnessed a 100% growth in the Indian subcontinent year-on-year and maintained its number one position in the Indian networking industry. Post Cisco, Anil led the business operations of Juniper Networks and Tejas Networks. At present, he is the managing director of Nasdaq-listed Riverbed Technology, an IT performance company. In a free-wheeling interview with Sudhir Chowdhary, Anil points out that the value that Indians bring to the job is driving companies to increasingly invest in India. Excerpts:
You brought American networking giant Cisco to India and have virtually witnessed the evolution of India?s IT & communications sector, networking industry in particular. What has been the key lesson learned to succeed in India?
Staying customer focused, understanding their needs and proposing ethically right solutions that meet their needs are the key to success. It is very important to listen to your customers. Another thing that is critical is the speed?you have to innovate and innovate fast.
Global economic conditions look challenging again. In such a scenario, how attractive is India?s IT & communications sector for foreign investors?
India continues to be an attractive destination for IT and IT enabled services investments due to the availability of excellent engineering talent. It all began with cost arbitrage, however over time, the quality of engineers has become very high and their ability to contribute to process improvement and innovation has improved tremendously. This has led to a snowballing effect and many large MNCs are already here in India taking advantage of our talented workforce.
Tell us something about Riverbed?
Riverbed is a company that provides an IT performance platform. We deliver performance for the globally connected enterprise. We enable enterprises to successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualisation, consolidation, cloud computing and disaster recovery without the companies having to compromise on IT performance. While we started out in the WAN optimisation business, today we have solutions and tools for network performance management called Cascade, application delivery controllers called Stingray, Web content optimisation called Stingray Aptimizer etc.
What are the opportunities that you see in the Indian market?
Today more and more Indian enterprises are going global and are becoming true multinational organisations with operations around the world. With this trend speeding up, there is an increasing challenge for these enterprises to manage their IT infrastructure efficiently and cost effectively.We can help with solutions to virtualise, consolidate, manage and accelerate the performance of their IT infrastructure.
What is the strategy behind improving your market share in India?
Presently we are the leaders in India with a market share of 45% and about 50% in Asia. Our understanding of the CIO needs and offering them cost effective and innovative solutions has kept us ahead of the curve.
We have a two-pronged strategy to address the market. We touch as many CIOs and decision makers in the IT organisations as possible to apprise them of our solutions, our technology and how we can help them in reducing their costsand improve their operations and user satisfaction. Simultaneously, we enable our partners, making them aware of our solution, training them and making sure that they feel comfortable with our technology and solution so that they can discuss effectively with the customers. All our business in India is handled through partners which include service providers, system integrators and value added resellers.
Tech majors seem to be smitten by the new buzzword these days: cloud computing. Has it moved from hype to reality?
Most large IT organisations have been building a private cloud environment so far. Some are beginning to move to a hybrid cloud environment. If you look at Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce.com and Google Docs, all of these are basically running in the cloud. According to a report from Zinnov, cloud computing will be a $1 billion market in India by 2015. Many large organisations are already toying with the idea of moving some applications to the cloud.
The big question is will they move all their critical applications to the cloud? Perhaps not. But many of the non-core applications can be moved to the cloud and they can take advantage of the lower costs of operation. At Riverbed, we have a Cloud Steelhead for use in the public cloud environment and a Cloud accelerator solution, which has been developed in partnership with Akamai, that can help accelerate the performance of SaaS applications such as above.
What are the changes required to accelerate India?s attractiveness as a key innovation hub in IT & communications sector?
Most large organisations around the globe have over the years recognised the good work that is being done by companies in India and the talent that exists here and have either setup their own development centres or have partnered with other companies to take advantage of their expertise towards this end. Today the value add in software R&D and services in India is very high and it is certainly well recognised and taken advantage off by corporations around the world.
How does India fare from manufacturing point of view in your sector?
Manufacturing was never a sweet spot for us in India. China liberalised their economy a decade or two earlier than us and attracted a lot of IT companies to set up manufacturing in China. One success led to another and today China a powerhouse with regards to manufacturing. India took the lead in software services and knowledge based industry and continues to ramp it up and grow it at a tremendous pace.
