Every startup begins their journey with an ambition of hi-growth but all startups cannot penetrate into target markets and they face issues like flat sales, negative or slow growth, dipping revenue, unable to differentiate and win customers, etc. Those hi-growth aspirant entrepreneurs may have limited resources but still they wish to build a successful enterprise in a short period of time. Startup Xperts works on all these areas ensuring that all the units are aligned and work together, to ensure profitable growth. Even hiring a full-time CMO could be unaffordable for most startups; soStartup Xperts act as virtual CMO, CxO for other startups, and will be responsible for expanding their business opportunities and revenue potential. “

Way forward, FreshDesk’s management feels building new products, increasing sales or scaling up operations is not too difficult but keeping its unique culture alive even as it expands is.

 Cloud-based customer support firm Freshdesk has expanded its office almost eight times since it started operations in a small office in Keelkattalai, near Chennai, in 2010.

Now, its office at SP Infocity is spread over 60,000 square feet – reflecting its growth.

The “software as a service” company is one of the top customer support products firm in the world. It has raised funds five times in five years.

A bot called Cricinfo

Badri Seshadri, one of the founders of the site, looks back at its origins and evolution over a memorable first decade

We were graduate students in the US. I was at Cornell University. The problem was getting hold of cricket scores of any kind.

Today to imagine a pre-internet era is really difficult. There was no television that broadcast cricket, the [foreign] newspapers were received a week to ten days after the matches actually happened. No internet, of course, though the university had internet connectivity and email.

Cricinfo was the culmination of a series of attempts that were made to simply inform a guy that a match had happened a day or five days back and this was the result. That was actually it, nothing beyond that. The idea of “live” coverage was not there to start with.

Make in India’ may be a recently coined slogan, but that is what the software industry has been doing for a long time, with outsourced development. But the software products were not exactly made for India. So, why not build products that would add value to users in India? This is what led Kumar Vembu, to start GoFrugal, a business management software solution for retail, restaurants and downstream supply chain businesses. The product has 25,000 customers in 40 countries.

Award: Woman Leader for the Year
Name: Mallika Srinivasan, Chairman, Tafe
Age: 53
Why She Won: For designing and developing farm equipment relevant to Indian farmers. And for building Tafe into the second largest tractor maker in India.

Meet the man behind a Rs 4,500-crore empire

Focus and gusto is what describes this 65-year old chairman of The Sanmar Group.

He is N Sankar, the recent recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award at the TiE Chennai Entrepreneur Awards 2010.

Adding to his list of credits is the fact that Sankar leads the group that has manufacturing entities in Germany, USA, Mexico and Egypt operates in the areas of chemicals, engineering, metals and shipping.

A successful businessman, an affectionate father, a loving husband, a socially responsible citizen, a spiritual man, an intellect – these are just a few phrases with which can best describe, one of the most inspiring person in the town – M Murali, Managing Director of Sri Krishna Sweets. From helping out his dad in his early years, to teaching his daughters the family business, this legendary entrepreneur shares his monumental journey to Gokul Sriman.

TN’s first generation entrepreneurs honored

Chennai, Sept. 18

The Confederation of Indian Industry honoured five distinguished first generation entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu with its second edition of the ICCI-Venture-CII Entrepreneurship Awards on Monday.

The entrepreneurs have not only made their mark in the State, but also have contributed substantially to the country and the global ICT (information and communication technology) industry. Mr R. Srinivasan, Managing Director, Redington India Ltd, won the award for the best ‘Entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu who has succeeded in Tamil Nadu’. He attributed the success to his perseverance and perception of risk. He said he persisted in his business despite a leading venture capitalist turning down his business proposal. At the same time, another venture capitalist, who chose to invest in the business is being handsomely rewarded. “So, your perception of risk makes all the difference,” he said.

Ref : Business Line

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It is his ability to read the market in advance, to spot opportunities and go all out to pursue his dreams, which have helped R Srinivasan, Redington’s Managing Director to create an enterprise that is now among the largest end-to-end supply chain management companies in India.

An alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad, Mr. Srinivasan followed the professional path for a few years in India, before moving to Indonesia and then Singapore, where he founded Redington in the early 1980s for specialized trade in personal computer components, focusing on the market in India and the Middle East. Mr. Srinivasan did not have the finances to start a business and hence gave substantial equity to a business group in Singapore – a decision he does not regret.

In 1993, he decided to set up Redington in Chennai to distribute IT products, just as liberalization had begun in India. Today, the company operates 98 service centers and has over 23,500 channel partners across the world. Its customers include over 75 leading manufacturers across IT, telecom, consumer and digital lifestyle products in India, Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Srinivasan is widely recognized for building a professionally-managed organization, with a strong focus on systems and processes, enabling the INR175 billion company to become highly efficient and also to attract good talent. Redington has also undertaken inorganic growth, acquiring Easyaccess Financial Services in January 2008 to become India’s first company to cater to the financial needs of IT product distributors. In 2010, it acquired a stake in Arena, Turkey’s second-largest IT distributor. Redington is seeking to expand further into newer geographies and product segments.

Mr. Srinivasan is also associated with the cause of education and promoting the performing arts.

Ref : EY Business News