Today we have the part 2 of interview with Mr. Sampath Iyengar. Please find the part 1 here.

SI: Setting up and running a large international operation is a complex one. Starting from recruitment, where a good% of them are young girls to arrange safe & efficient transport system, making sure that the technology works all the time and more so in the night, which are your peak hours, takes a lot of effort. If you notice, I didn’t even talk about the performance so far! Dealing with young people with half or no maturity is another challenge and the personnel issues that one would come up with 1000+ young boys & girls are unimaginable and many of them can’t be published.

Me: What were some of the key learnings’ which helped your to reach a C Level position..
SI: No escape from hard work.

Me: Can you please elaborate more on this?
SI: A lot of people think that smart work is essential.. One has to be lucky.. One needs to be this.. needs to be that etc.. All those attributes are required.. But only after hard work.. if there is no hard work.. then nothing will work… It is a strong pillar.. Similarly have a purpose.. to drive you to do what you do.. You need purpose in life.. to keep you motivated.. keep you energized..

Me: You moved from KCS BPO to Mphasis to become a Site Director.. What was the role here.. What were your key challenges and achievements in this role..

SI: My role as Site Director helped me to test my limits after a long time. The team size grew so fast from nearly 1000 to 4000 within a year or so, no one could notice and difficult to believe if I look back now. It is a tier 2 city, no BPO culture in town, people of all age believe a family function, far off relatives marriage, a pooja even at neighbour’s house or any festival, the first preference to stay away from work & enjoy!!. The centre became one of the biggest & most profitable. I consider it as a highlight in my career, as I could keep most people happy whether they are from client side or corporate side or from the Team members.

Me: From your 25 years of corporate experience, I am sure you would agree that people handling skills are one of the most important skills.. Can you share some of your learning and anecdotes about the same..

SI: If you have to be a leader, you have to have followers. People will follow you, only if they find it is beneficial to them than you or any other. My mantra is ‘your success depends on your direct reports successs’ and do everything to make them successful and then inculcate that habit in them in order to develop that culture within the organization. Your boss is important but your DR’s make all the difference to your success.

Of course, there is no substitute to some fundamentals like …hardwork, being honest & sincere, no politics, simple is most effective, they are absolute truths in my life as well.

Me: Sir, I see that mentoring is one of your passion.. Can you talk about some of your experiences here..

SI: Coaching & mentoring are my passion and it gives me immense joy & satisfaction. I could inspire number of people (mostly youngsters though there are others too) to change their belief and give their best shot to achieve what they thought impossible. So many of them have reached very good positions in their career & life and makes time to call me or mail me to greet & acknowledge the learning they had from me inspires me further to continue to do so.

Me: What is your view on changing jobs. You gained a lot out of it. But today people are willing to change too quickly. What is your thought on this?

SI: Some times I changed after a number of years, some times, I changed in few months. The interview lasts between 15 mins to 2 hour and you might not get the real picture – either way. It is only after the honeymoon period, does the real mar real life actually starts.. so, there have been examples when I have changed early.. But one thing which I maintain is that I left the company in such a note that I can walk back in.. on any day if I want.

Me: Sir.. What are your future plans..
SI: After 25 years of working for various companies of all size & shape in multiple locations within and outside India, I have decided to start on my own in my passion zone. Along with couple of friends, we are starting a finishing school called BlueTiger (www.bluetiger.in) that makes a whole lot of difference to struggling corporates to hire resources on one end and millions of Educated youth to find a job that matches with their strengths. Today, at least in India, the gap between the output of an institute and the input criteria of an industry is too much and hopefully, we will do significant work in that space.

Me: Thank you very much for your time and wish you a great luck for your new initiative at Blue Tiger.

Here is my first attempt to write tamil in tamil Will translate my poems from Tanglish to Sentamizh

From Semmozhiyaana Tamizh Mozhiyaam

I am pleasantly surprised to find out that I am the winner of the JAM Magazine’s Caricature Contest. I got the email today

From The Aha Moment of the Week

To see my entire collection check here:

I am glad to say that I have completed my MBA yesterday.. We had our convocation and I am privileged to receive my degree certificate from Mr. Mukesh Ambani.

I would like to thank my parents, teachers, friends & family members for all the support.. Special thanks to CWS readers CWS not only helped me to get into IIMB but also survive these 2 crazy years

Here are the pics from the convocation evening.. The pic with Mukesh Ambani is taken by college authorities.. Will upload when I get them For the moment, enjoy these pics

I am glad to inform you all that I was awarded the Dewang Mehta Award for Best Student in Management.

The contest took place in Mumbai and had around 20+ finalists from various colleges. It was an amazing experience.

Check the coverage about the event here:

http://www.yourstory.in/news/1072-latest-news/2773-b-school-affaire-a-dewang-mehta-business-school-awards-organized-the-annual-awards-for-b-school-students

Special thanks to Nanditha Iyer for introducing Mr. Anil Menon to the show. Nanditha, an avid reader of CWS, was a student at PESIT college & is now working in DEESHAW in Hyderabad as a software engineer.

Check out the Anil Menon’s interview on an overview about the treasury department in a bank here:

http://coffeewithsundar.com/anil-menon-on-treasury-department/

@CWS-2 readers, if you know someone whom you think can be interviewed for CWS-2, please recommend them here

http://coffeewithsundar.com/contact/

Regards

Sundar Rajan G S

Mr. Samir Kumar started off by explaining the nature of VCs – that they are Limited Partners with the objective of Big Financial Returns (typically 10 times their investment). He then told the audience what the VCs are typically looking for in an enterprise e.g. integrity of the team (lone rangers don’t get funded) and credibility (Track Record, Experience..), he explained that probably a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobbs (college drop outs) may not get funded by VCs but somebody like Larry Page and Sergey Brin would get it because of their education (Ph.d students) and hence their credibility.

An insightful quote from Don Valentine (Founder of Sequoia Capital) was put forward which captured what VCs typically look for when investing. The idea of “Unique Value Propositions” of investible businesses was presented – Inventus invests in Co’s that are “Painkillers” (cater to a “need” of the market) and not “vitamins” (solutions that “improve” the businesses of customers). The various exit opportunities like IPOs, M & A, etc and their pros & cons were also discussed at large by Mr. Kumar. He made it clear that VCs do not invest in businesses which are mature & stable and hence do not provide a clear exit opportunities.

Mr. Samir also talked about the various sources of funding (other than VCs) which are available to entrepreneurs, like the 3 F’s (Friends, family and fools), Angels, Incubators, etc. An important point made was that Banks and other Financial Institutions do not typically finance the kind of ventures that VCs are interested in because of the high risk involved. On the other hand VCs look for “Customer Validation” in the form of revenue generating capacity of the service companies or a “Beta Customer” for product companies.
Thus the presentation concluded and was followed by a spate of questions from the audience including the following:

1. How do VCs participate or interfere in the decision making of the businesses? How does the behavior of VCs change prior to the investment (before marriage) and post investment (post marriage) and how do they monitor the enterprises?
Mr. Samir replied that they do not interfere much in the day to day decision making. They carry out a monthly evaluation of the businesses in their Board meetings and talk to the entrepreneurs on a weekly basis to monitor their progress.

2. What is the Outlook of VCs in times of recession?
Mr. Samir explained that recessions are the best times for entrepreneurship and hence also for VCs (e.g. because of lower salary expectations of the employees). He cited the example of great companies like Microsoft, Cisco and Dell that were conceived in recessionary times and went on to become giant MNCs and world leaders.
For VCs, the valuations are really attractive in recessionary times.
 
3. Why is IPO the preferred mode of exit?
The reply from Mr. Samir was that it leads to better price discovery and unleash more value than other modes like M & A.

4. What kind of stake is held by the VCs in the businesses?
Mr. Samir replied that typically VCs hold 20% – 40% stake in the businesses. E.g.they would invest 1 crore out of the total capital of 4 crores, thus giving them a 25% stake and they expect that the company would grow upto 200 crores and their stake would be worth 50 crores.

5. How do VCs value the businesses, what kind of profit share are they looking for? What is the amount of reliance placed on the financial statements (especially in the context of Indian enterprises)?
To this Mr. Samir replied that there is no fix formula to value an enterprise. Usually they project the revenues of the company at the end of the investment horizon (i.e. when they want to exit) and use a earnings multiple of 10 times to calculate the value of the business at the end of the investment horizon and then discount it to find out how much do they need to invest at the beginning to get a return of 10 times their investment.
If this value is within their range, they go for it otherwise they drop it. Regarding the profitability, he answered that VCs typically take 20%-30% of the profits after they have managed to return the capital of their investors.
Mr. Samir told the audience that sometimes they don’t use the financial information given by the entrepreneurs and use their own estimates. Usually entrepreneurs tend to underestimate sales and marketing costs but have robust estimates of product development and engineering costs.
VCs consider this kind of problems while valuing businesses.
   
6. Can an enterprise have more than one VCs? What kinds of control problems are associated with it?
Mr. Samir replied that it is possible to have more than one VCs but there is the issue of “Too many cooks spoiling the broth”. So, it is essential for the entrepreneur to have sufficient stake (about 30%) and minimal interference from the VCs to ensure smooth operations.

The session was very engaging as well as enlightening for the audience.
This was evident from the participation exhibited by the audience and the session overshooting the allotted time limit and still leaving the audience wanting for more.
Mr. Samir spent a lot of time taking questions offline as well.
                                                                             
Summary By – Sumit Bhartia

I am sad to say this.. But you saw it coming.. Didnt you.. I have decided to wind down the CWS Interview series…

The frequency of posts have become very low.. I did not do a single interview for the past 4 months.. I have been just posting some of my older interviews.. I also see huge delays in sending thank you cards to the guests who have been kind enough to spare a lot of their time for an interview on CWS.. There is a huge time gap between completing an interview and posting it on the web.. And most importantly.. I am seeing a monotony in the type of interviews that I am doing.. It was this very same monotony that I wanted to avoid… when I started CWS..

I have stopped counting how many interviews I have done so far.. probably 70 odd interviews I think.. It was an awesome experience.. I am glad that CWS has become a cozy interview show in which people *actually* want to be featured.. (@ Balaji: I dont know if you still read my posts.. but if you do.. this is real ) I am glad that I got a chance to create a site which has a good viewership.. may be not a million visitors who come & go.. but a nice small group of 150 friends..  I dont want to distance from them by calling them visitors.. I honestly make friends.. This is a small community which respects & appreciates the experiences of cab driver to an astronaut.. There was this variety in CWS.. And I got a lot of  kick in this *Variety*… Now, it seems to be missing when I open the website..

No doubt that the career interviews & life at universities are very useful.. Infact it was this which prompted me to do a start up on Career planning.. But CWS was not meant to know just life at university.. It was meant to know the life of a PERSON.. It was about adding spice to life of monotony in the corporate world of cubicles.. I am missing that spice now..

What does that mean to this website? Is this going to be one of the gazillion zombie sites on the web?

No.. Its too close to my heart to let it die… CWS is something which helped me discovered myself.. and I would certainly not let it go into the drain..

I have decided to do the following..

1. Keep all the main stream – career related interviews for the start up – What Next.

2. I am going to write a lot of personal experiences on CWS website.. like the one of about my life at IIMB.. my birthday experience etc.. Hopefully pull off some master pieces (atleast thats what I think) like Life stops at bus stops & NIT Trichy speaks up..

3. Start a CWS Interview series – Season 2

Koffee With Karan & Koffee with Anu also has a Season 2.. Why not Coffee With Sundar  

I will assure that every interview will be special.. every post will be special.. I dont knw whether I will post once a week or once a month.. but when I post, I will ensure that I will add some value to your time..

So.. I have decided to focus on three themes of CWS-2..

1. CWS Wizdom: This will be a series of interviews (if & when it happens), which will cover the life experience of a person who has had a lot of experience in the corporate world.. I intend to interview people who have had 10+ years of experience.. Just to talk to them about what are the various experiences they have had.. interesting moments etc.. Its all about knowing the person…

2. CWS Start up: I want to talk to entrepreneurs who have run a business for atleast 5 years… speak to them about their life, their experiences, their business model.. the evolution.. the passion.. the good days.. the ugly days etc..

3. CWS Pot Pourie: This will get be a ”talent show-case” interview.. Just enjoy a few small moments with someone who has different skills, passions etc..

There is always trade off in life.. Quality Vs Quantity.. Today, I have decided to choose Quality over Quantity.. Probably, a year back I would have chosen quantity over quality.. Those were the days when I was posting interviews every 2 or 3 days..

I dont knw when CWS-2 will start… how it will go.. whom we are going to meet.. what we are going to learn.. What we are going to experience… But I promise you one thing.. Every interview will be special.. And like always.. I promise you.. every INTERVIEWEE is going to be especial..

Today, I bow infront of you.. Thanks a lot for all your support & encouragement.. It was your praises.. and criticisms which helped me learn a lot & run the show CWS interview series..

I hope to come back again.. with CWS Season 2.. with more interviews.. more experiences.. more fun..

I am sure that I am going to come back soon and come back strongly.. I am very confident about that.. Coffee With Sundar has made me famous.. And I love being famous!! My heart says that CWS – 2 will start very soon.. Lets see what IIMB schedule says..

Hasta Manana.. Till we meet again..

Term 1
——–

It was that phase of your life.. when everything about IIMB looks scenic to your eyes.. Right from dustbins to the lectures.. How can it be bad.. You are at I… I… M… B.. Whenever you meet new people.. the first thing you end up discussing is about your other CAT calls.. I got A B L I K C X Y M … whatever… But you know what “B” is the best.. It was that phase of life when all the status message should have alteast one “B” like “B – The place to B” or “To B or not to B” etc..

After some funfilled 1 week orientation, the lectures finally start.. Its that part of the year when you say.. “Dude.. you know what.. I enjoyed enough in B Tech.. I am here to Study..” Imagine what would happen if each & every student takes a resolution like this.. Well thats exactly what will happen… I remember studying for a Quiz – 5% component – 4 days before the test!! Holy Crap!!

After 2 weeks, you slowly realize the profs are as lousy as your profs in B Tech days.. Subjects unfortunately more lousier..
Yeah!! I mean.. Financial Accounting and the crazy question papers which the profs set.. Oh my god!  Business Government & Society.. the subject names itself will make you go dizzy.. wait a second.. its not over..

Anyways, amidst all these crazy subjects you will find some interesting mathematics.. trust me it was more challenging & enjoyable than my engineering mathematics, micro economics etc.. Somethings in life will make you stay alive..

Apart from all these usual academic rigour (or rather unusual rigour), you will have “n” number of so called interesting activities… L^2 dance floor.. which is empty more often than not..  The club induction etc..

The club induction is one of the most political thing you will ever come across in life.. If you utter a word meritocracy, you will be fired even before you are hired.. The selection process is a very simple straight forward process..
1. Are you a good looking girl
2. Are you a junior from my college..
3. Have exhibited “interest” by interacting about club activities etc..
Ok Ok.. its not so bad.. there will 2 people selected on the basis of merit ok..

Well its not so bad afterall.. More to come in the next few posts.. 

 But you will have to wait till I say “Namaste London” tomorrow..