Interview with Mr. Sushil Gupta : Pune - From 100 crore to 10,000 crore
Mr. Sushil Gupta is ex-director and Chief Executive of STPI, Pune and was looking after the STPI's in the state of Maharasthra. By Qualification he is an Electronics Engineer with Masters in Electronic and Communication Engineering from IIT, Roorkee , MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University and M.Phil in Public Administation from Punjab Universtiy.
Mr. Gupta was director of STPI from 1997 - 2004, during that time Mr. Gupta setup 6 centres of STPI in Maharasthra ( Pune, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Nashik and Kolhapur ). The main purpose of these centres were dedicated communication facilities which are core to IT companies.
Mr. Gupta has also started a not for profit organization called Pune IT Forum with the sole objective to realize
full potential of Pune in the field of IT.
Q : Mr. Gupta, Can you tell us some of the success stories of STPI in Pune ?
A : Biggest achievement was , when I came in 1997, the Pune Centre was almost written off, everybody had given up that Pune is not the right place for software industry because of lack of infrastructure facilities, the data communication availability was pathetic, the builtup space was not available, so the companies were shying away from Pune and going to Bangalore, Hyderabad etc.
While interested govt. and private bodies were very keen to promote Pune as IT city, they were groping in dark.
To foster growth in Pune, I proposed that we must focus on two things
1. Setup a big technology park, comprisiing of atleast 300 acres
2. Setup big dedicated data communication facilities.
Once we have these 2 things in place, the companies will be automatically attracted to avail the inherenet advantages of
Pune. My efforts resulted in emergence of very well known software technology park at Hinjewadi and enormous availability of communication facilities, which were subsequently complemented by many private telecom companies.
My efforts were to nucleate and catalyze the growth. Subsequent to the success of Hinjewadi, we have also seen more parks coming up in MagarPatta, Kalyani Nagar, Aundh etc.
Q : Well done Mr. Gupta, you are obviously very passionate about promoting Pune as a IT Hub, what are your
passions ?
A : Besides promoting Pune, it has been my passion to promote startups and young entreprenus entering the IT industry. While @ STPI, I launched a novel concept of Software Incubation Centre in Pune. In the incubation centre, a person willing to start a company can commence the operation without spending any money and with zero gestation period. The advantage of these concept was that the entrepreneur was able to do two things
a) Prove his performance
b) Deliver the services to the client without losing any time
The most important advantage to the company was the risk of losing any investment was eliminated completely; in case of any failure due to unfavourable circumstances.
Q : What was the impact of the growth of IT industry in your tenure ?
The technology parts initiative and the incubation centre together worked magic in Pune. Software export from Pune increased from Rs. 100 crore in 1997 to Rs. 4500 crores in the year 2004. Today it stands at about 10,000 crores and I would think with the collective industry efforts, Pune can
reach exports of Rs. 25,000 crores in 3 years time.
Q : Which are some of the companies that grew from Incubation centre ?
There are several companies which got benefitted from Incubation centre. The idea was not only to help IT companies, not only to come , but stay in Pune.
2 prominent names , IDEAS, now in Senapati Bapat Road. InRealty subsequently sold to Symphony Services.
Other companies such as Digital Group Infotech , First Insight, grew from about 2 people
to hundreds of employees.
Q: What are your current activities ?
I resigned from STPI in 2004, and have been screening the industry and looking for ways to contribute. I mentor a few entreprenurs and am working on setting up a incubation centre with world class training facilities. The purpose of my incubation centre is to encourage young entreprenrus to start their enterprise without having to invest money and time on infrastructure. That time and money can be directed towards sales and marketing and building delivery expertise. I would like to mentor these young entreprenurs and help them realize
their potential.
Q : What problems do you intent to solve for entrepreneurs ?
Setting up operations is not easy. An entrepreneur has to fight several battles with government departments,planning and arranging facilities, recruitment of staff, not to mention the challenges of being on top of Sales and Marketing and Finances.
I and my associates would like to take out the pain of entrepreneurs, where they only spend their time on their
core activities, they just take care of the business and technical capabilities to deliver the projects, while we
will take care of documentation, infrastructure and recruitment needs.
Q: Can you shed some light on the other STPI centres outside Pune ?
I had a clear vision of one thing , that we will have a unstoppable growth in Pune. With this foresight,
we approached late Shri Pramod Mahajan, that we would also like to build facilities in Nashik, Nagpur, Aurangabad and
Kolhapur, as these STPI's will lay the right foundation for the growth of tier 2 cities.
The purpose was 2 fold ,
1. Make IT industry as a vehicle for economic development of these secondary cities.( Construction, Automobile , Retail sectors have been highly beneficial due to the surge in IT sector )
2. Second was to provide cost advantage of these cities to IT industry. ( IT professionals in these cities need not relocate to bigger cities like Mumbai and Pune, they will be willing to work at lesser costs. )
The seeds were sown bcuz of IT Parks, My experience with the industry was very good, the moment I setup these facilities, many companies came to these locations and setup their base in incubation centre.
Persistent setup facilities in Nagpur, WNS setup in Nashik etc.
Diversifying to more cities, reduces the pressure on the civic amenities of the bigger cities such as Road, water, power, airport. It also builds a good future of these smaller cities, along with the growth of IT industry.
Q : What is your message to IT Professionals ?
I would like to see more and more technocrats becoming entrepreneurs. Also my credo in life has always been,
that Speed is of essence, Time to achieve is Now , not some day in future.
Mr. Gupta will be happy to take further questions from readers, you can either add as comment below, or email at question@itvidya.com
