Growth issues of SMITs: Discussion

Abstract

The presentations made by the panel of experts raised several issues which were discussed in depth. S Janakiraman, President of MindTree, started off the discussion by summarising the developments in the Indian software industry, and pointed the way forward for SMITs post 2000– developing new differentiators, strong domain play leading to focus, brand building and growing inorganically through trust-based alliances and M&As. G Sabarinathan spoke on the vital but vexed issue of funding for SMITs – touching on the ‘debt’ options of development banks, commercial banks and specialised agencies and the ‘equity’ side – public equity markets, institutional equity, the three F’s (founders, family and friends), before coming to venture capital, the supposed panacea for all SMIT ills. Too much is expected from this segment, he asserted, before proposing an alternate model with venture capital characteristics but without its constraints.

The presentations made by the panel of experts raised several issues which were discussed in depth. S Janakiraman, President of MindTree, started off the discussion by summarising the developments in the Indian software industry, and pointed the way forward for SMITs post 2000– developing new differentiators, strong domain play leading to focus, brand building and growing inorganically through trust-based alliances and M&As. G Sabarinathan spoke on the vital but vexed issue of funding for SMITs – touching on the ‘debt’ options of development banks, commercial banks and specialised agencies and the ‘equity’ side – public equity markets, institutional equity, the three F’s (founders, family and friends), before coming to venture capital, the supposed panacea for all SMIT ills. Too much is expected from this segment, he asserted, before proposing an alternate model with venture capital characteristics but without its constraints.

The presentations made by the panel of experts raised several issues which were discussed in depth. S Janakiraman, President of MindTree, started off the discussion by summarising the developments in the Indian software industry, and pointed the way forward for SMITs post 2000– developing new differentiators, strong domain play leading to focus, brand building and growing inorganically through trust-based alliances and M&As. G Sabarinathan spoke on the vital but vexed issue of funding for SMITs – touching on the ‘debt’ options of development banks, commercial banks and specialised agencies and the ‘equity’ side – public equity markets, institutional equity, the three F’s (founders, family and friends), before coming to venture capital, the supposed panacea for all SMIT ills. Too much is expected from this segment, he asserted, before proposing an alternate model with venture capital characteristics but without its constraints.

The presentations made by the panel of experts raised several issues which were discussed in depth. S Janakiraman, President of MindTree, started off the discussion by summarising the developments in the Indian software industry, and pointed the way forward for SMITs post 2000– developing new differentiators, strong domain play leading to focus, brand building and growing inorganically through trust-based alliances and M&As. G Sabarinathan spoke on the vital but vexed issue of funding for SMITs – touching on the ‘debt’ options of development banks, commercial banks and specialised agencies and the ‘equity’ side – public equity markets, institutional equity, the three F’s (founders, family and friends), before coming to venture capital, the supposed panacea for all SMIT ills. Too much is expected from this segment, he asserted, before proposing an alternate model with venture capital characteristics but without its constraints.