ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Progress In Science in Engineering Research Journal ISSN 2347-6680 (E)

PISER 12, Vol.02, Issue: 02/06 March- April; Bimonthly International Journal

Page(s) 304-310

Entrepreneurship in Information Technology

Col. Prof D.S.Grewal

Dean Research, Desh Bhagat University.

Abstract : The field of Information Technology has a scope

for entrepreneurs in information collection, collation,

storage, data analysis, interpretation, presentation, display

systems and communication systems like tele-working, mob-

links, internet etc. It is knowledge based; requires less initial

capital, has high turnover ratio, flexibility for new fields and

minimum fixed capital, however, it needs competent and

innovative entrepreneurs, owning 3-4 computers, small

office, telephone, global vision and regular study, business

sense and marketing aptitude, regular development and

updating, preferably having previous experience with

industry, regular contacts with IT industry and business

association and having knowledge of special packages. A B.

Tech, MCA, M.Tech., B.Sc IT or even BCA or a qualified

specialist with short course, has vast scope in

entrepreneurship in various fields like e-commerce, graphic

designer, animator, web designer, customs relations

management (CRM), medical transcriptionist, enabled

services call centers, geographic information systems,

networking, data warehousing, system software companies,

e-education, e-administration etc. These all are discussed in

detail in this paper.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Information Technology,

Commerce, Business.

I. INTRODUCTION

Entrepreneurs are people who have the ability, to see

and evaluate business opportunities; to gather the

necessary resources to take advantage of them; and to

initiate appropriate action to ensure success.

Entrepreneurs are leaders who take calculated risks and

Corresponding Author: Col. Prof D.S.Grewal, PhD, Dean Research, Desh

Bhagat University, India.

Email Id: dalvinder[email protected]

enjoy challenges that involve moderate risks. They

strongly believe in themselves and in their ability to

make good decisions. They are expected to have

confidence, independence, individuality, optimism, need

for achievement, profit-orientation, persistence,

perseverance, determination, hard-work, drive, energy,

initiative, risk-taking ability, challenging spirit,

leadership behavior, cooperative nature, responsiveness

to suggestions and criticism, innovative mind, creativity,

resourcefulness, openness of mind, flexibility,

versatility, knowledge, foresight and clear perception as

some of the key traits.

The Information Technology is a field of collection,

collation, interpretation and dissemination of

information with the help of technology. The modern

age is the age of knowledge, and the knowledge is based

on information. The requirement to gain and attain

information is ever increasing. The physical capability

to gain information is very limited. As normal human

effort to gain vast information comes out to be costlier,

difficult, time consuming and of limited scope, the

modern technology means to provide information faster,

cheaper, easier covering larger scope. While writing

this paper it took just two hours scanning over 500

papers and number of books on internet and got wealth

of information in the typed form which assisted me

immensely. This is what is Information Technology

abbreviated as IT.

Our lives have been touched, embraced and shaken up

by the prefix e in just about everything these days-e-

commerce, e-mails, e-friends, e-courses and even e-jobs.

Welcome to the new era ! But the new era is also

Progress In Science in Engineering Research Journal ISSN 2347-6680 (E)

PISER 12, Vol.02, Issue: 02/06 March- April; Bimonthly International Journal

Page(s) 304-310

changing the way of entrepreneurship. Shiny Samuel of

CRV Consultants, a Bangalore based HR agency says:

"Organizations today are flatter, leaner and more

aggressive. Equally important is your ability to work as

a team, which today are self managed and

geographically dispersed. You need to possess people

skills besides creativity and lateral thinking with.

flexibility." You need to market your talents/skills and

attitude. Self-awareness is necessary in promoting

yourself and your product. Networking will help you to

a great extent.

With e-business making its presence felt, a whole new

range of exciting opportunities for entrepreneurship

have come up, tailor-made for the brash new breed

young men itching to take on the world. Take heart,

young people, you do not have to work in a regular 9 to

5 job where you yawn half the time. You will be the

head of a team that will take the world into a new age

with ideas, creativity and pure character. We are not just

talking about IT. Every sector in the economy has come

up with new ideas and exciting opportunities.

The aim of this paper is to give out the scope of various

entrepreneurial opportunities in Information technology

and the methodology of developing these opportunities

as a profitable venture.

II. Entrepreneurial Opportunities

in IT

MIT’s computer guru Michael Dertouzos estimates that

50 million US white-collar jobs will migrate to India

that will add a trillion dollar to our GDP. Information

Technology that is going to dominate the white-collar

jobs is the biggest opportunity that has come to India via

West. Many overseas Indians dream that this could

change the landscape of India. The Rs. 40,000 crore of

IT spending over the past three years could have made

the Indian Economy more efficient in its use of

resources.

Despite the slowdown expected in American Business

after the terrorist attacks on USA, IT is here to stay!

With Y2K successfully behind it, this industry is

extremely dynamic and still attracts the best talent in the

country. Exciting avenues are being identified both

globally and within the country. With the advent of the

electronic era, IT has gained further prominence.

Though the bust in the portal boom is a dampener of

sorts, Net based initiatives linking business to

consumers (B2C), business to business (B2B), and

government to consumers (G2C), VoIP, ASP are being

tested out constantly and offer good potential to sound

concepts. Some of the entrepreneurial options in IT

functions include- e-commerce, eMarketing,

eGovernance, eEducation, tele-working, web security;

IT enabled services-call centres, CRM, data digitization

/GIS; DSP; technical writing etc. These opportunities

are discussed in succeeding paragraphs.

E-COMMERCE: E-commerce has perhaps received

more attention than any other field in recent times as it

uses technology to streamline business models, creating

savings and increasing efficiency. Most IT companies

are focusing on building capabilities in this field.

NASSCOM e-business transactions in India were

around Rs 300 crore last year. Revenue from exports is

likely to be sizeable-the Asia Pacific region is expected

to be $340 billion by 2004, which is around 14 per cent

of the world market. You could establish your own

business in e-commerce or developing e-business

solutions. .E-commerce is all about consumers

conducting basic transactions on the Web-this could be

business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumers

(B2C). Example of B2C is amazon.com that sells books,

music and films to people. B2B is a revolutionary order.

Progress In Science in Engineering Research Journal ISSN 2347-6680 (E)

PISER 12, Vol.02, Issue: 02/06 March- April; Bimonthly International Journal

Page(s) 304-310

On 25 February, America’s three auto majors General

Motors, Ford and Daimler Chrysler joined hand to

create the world’s most high profile virtual B2B market.

The three will buy nearly $240billion of auto spares

every year from thousand of suppliers linked to

Covinsint, the new B2B market. In B2B one company

sells to another company over the internet rather than to

an individual. A dozen B2B exchanges are expected

every day for the next two years. E-markets with these

B2B and B2C concepts can help companies save

between $180 billion to $480 billions by 2003.

As an e-commerce entrepreneur, your work will involve

understanding operations of companies, Web enable

their businesses and the entire supply chain management

(right from raw material to movement of finished

goods).

How can an entrepreneur get into eCommerce,

eMarkets, B2B or B2C marketing systems? There are

three possibilities. Start preparing catalogues for big

companies; introduce auction system or reverse

auctions. Catalogues where sellers list their offerings on

the Net are best used when price volatility of products is

low. This is ideal for industries like electrical

components or specially chemicals where demand is

fairly constant and prices stable. Auctions are for price-

volatile industries, where companies seek the best

prices. Fragmented industries like used cars and the

energy market with many buyers and sellers make for

better auction based eMarkets. Reverse auctions work

like tender notices, where products or contracts are

bought from the lowest bidder. .XML is a standard

system. There is an enterprise integrator software (EIS)

that connects XML enabled exchanges to the company.

With BE/ B.Tech, DCA/MCA qualification and.

knowledge of XML, EIS, VC++, Oracle, SQL, ASP,

HTML, Java Beans, Servlets, CORBA.

A few computers, a telephone and a small office with

right connections is sufficient for beginning. A venture

capital of not more than 4 to 5 lakhs is needed to start an

entrepreneurship in this field.

GRAPHICS DESIGNER/ 3D ANIMATOR: The

Indian animation industry has come up well and has a

vast space for the new entrepreneur. Animation needs

high levels of creativity and imagination-it is a fantasy

world and the sky is the limit to improvise. India is

becoming a global hub with American and European

customers making good use of local talent. Customers

are mainly studios and channels such as “The Cartoon

Network” The Indian industry is worth around $50

million while the global market is worth an estimated

$15 billion. The future of this industry is bright as the

trend is towards outsourcing to cheaper Asian countries.

Designers and animators have to fantasise on the

projects that are aired as cartoons, ad films, animated

graphics, 3D movies, special effects in movies & TV

serials. Graduates in arts and design, or a student in

mass communication or a software engineer, with on-

the-job training at companies such as Pentasoft,

Chennai; Heart Animation, Hyderabad; Pentamedia

Graphics, Silverton Studio, Crest Communication,

Toonz Animation, Color Chips you will know the basics

of setting up the project. Exposure to global industry

will be a big value-addition.

WEB DESIGNER: The Internet is changing the

business models of companies and there is a growing

demand for Web sites from corporate, small enterprises

and individuals. Web designing will be an evergreen

area: it includes creating Web pages, layouts and

graphics on the Web site, and making it user-friendly

and attractive. Their work influences the popularity of

the portal. Designing requires high creative and

computer skills and involves music and sound,

typography and interactive Web design. Your creative

Progress In Science in Engineering Research Journal ISSN 2347-6680 (E)

PISER 12, Vol.02, Issue: 02/06 March- April; Bimonthly International Journal

Page(s) 304-310

skills can take you to heights. Internet revolution, which

is changing the way business is conducted the world

over.

As a Web designing entrepreneur, you are responsible

for creating an appealing Web site that is easy to

navigate, maintaining the Web page, analyze number of

hits and monitor performance of the site and to maintain

the site.

Web designing is still in its early stages in India and still

a developing field. A good entrepreneur in this field has

to combine conceptual skills and familiarity with tools,

which can be mastered only through sustained practice,

a regular controls and checks over the work produced, a

very low fixed and working capital. Three to four lakhs

are sufficient to start the business which can be

developed gradually with hard-work. The more you

master the field, the more the income. This field does

offer opportunities to travel abroad and interact with

clients skills required are ASP, HTML, CGI, Pert, VB

Script, Java Script, TCP/IP.

A typical 9 months Diploma in Web engineering offered

by Aruna Multimedia is around Rs 27,000 and 3 months

Diploma in Multimedia course by Pentafour is around

Rs 21,000. These courses can help the entrepreneur to

have the basic know-how about the business. You can

set up a dotcom company advertising agency,

companies specializing in Web designing, ISPs, etc.

Planetasia.com is one such company.

CRM: The CRM market is very nascent in India. It is

highly fragmented with more than 35 software products

being available. Each of the CRM products has varying

sets of components/modules catering to specific industry

segments. Some CRM vendors include: IMS Strategic

Health, Dendrite and Siebel for health care product

companies Siebel, CAS GmbH, Dendrite, and MEI for

consumer packaged companies Pivotal, Saratoga, MEI,

Sales Logix, Moss Systems and Sales Vision for

midsize field sales organizations Relavis, Intel Agent

Control, and Synergistic for Lotus notes based end

users. Presently these software products are sold through

the local agents of vendor companies or through value

added re-sellers. These local agents themselves provide

training to their corporate clients and the principals

provide the requisite training to these re-sellers. BE/ME

computer science graduates with one to two months on-

the-job training on a CRM package could start their own

venture. The training provided is very product specific.

NIIT, Delhi is a training institute offering training in

Siebel package and as of now no other institute is

providing any training in this area. You can join the

CRM solution providers or the user industries to have

the expertise. Companies like Infosys and Wipro have

people working in this area.

MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTIONS: In a short span of

three to four years, the medical transcription industry

has grown to an estimated $10-billion industry...

Increasing need of doctors and medical firms in the US

to outsource transcription services has allowed the

industry to grow at a whopping rate of 25 per cent each

year As a medical transcriptionist entrepreneur with

your Production centers and transcription schools, your

company would involve transcribing doctor's digitized

audio reports, and sending back the text to the medical

fraternity in the US or Europe via satellite after quality

checks.

Educated youth in any place can join this lucrative

market and make a great entrepreneur in this field. But

certain basic requirements are imperative. A sound

knowledge of spoken and written English is a must with

good comprehension and listening skills. They should

always be ready to update their knowledge and keep

Progress In Science in Engineering Research Journal ISSN 2347-6680 (E)

PISER 12, Vol.02, Issue: 02/06 March- April; Bimonthly International Journal

Page(s) 304-310

abreast of new drugs entering the market. They need to

learn medical terminology, American English grammar

and punctuation, and computer basics concerning

medical transcription. Knowledge of English and a set

of deft fingers on the keyboard are the prerequisites for

this career option. Several institutes that offer 4-12

months diploma/certificate training specifically for

medical transcription have come up all over the country.

These institutes provide training on computer usage,

listening to dictation and transcribing and familiarizing

candidates with medical terms A few institutes that offer

training in medical transcription are Indian Institute of

Medical Transcription, New Delhi; National Institute for

Excellence in Tele-working (NEXT) and Aksons,

Bangalore. Manipal Academy has tied up with Health

scribe to offer a Masters degree in Medical

Transcription and Data management. Generally, a four-

month course is around Rs 10,000 and a one-year course

around Rs 30,000. Companies into medical transcription

also provide on-the-job training to their employees.

There are more than 30 transcription firms all over

India. These are primarily located in software

technology parks in cities like Bangalore, Chennai,

Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Health scribe India in

Bangalore, Selectronics in Delhi, Care in Hyderabad

and Nittany Decision Services in Chennai are some of

them.

ENABLED SERVICES CALL CENTRES:

Increasing competition in businesses is driving the need

to focus on the consumer and provide value-added

services. Call centers are a step in this direction. A call

centre provides round the clock information support to

customers; these centers are manned by trained

personnel or consultants with access to a wide database

of information and a thorough knowledge of the product

or service being offered by the company.

The employment base in the call centre business is

expected to touch 2.5 million by the year 2007-08.

Many call centre businesses of Australia and the US

have started setting up base in India. GE Capital plans to

shift its call centre operation from Australia to India,

and many others are preparing to follow suit.

A call centre would be involved in attending calls and

responding to queries or problems of customers. It

would also involve redirecting calls to the concerned

expert. Basic skills required to set up a call centre is

language understanding (accent and dialect) and on-the-

job training. Companies like ICICI, GE and Bechtel

have set up in-house call centers and provide support to

own employees worldwide. Tie up with these companies

will help the entrepreneur develop faster.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS:

Government departments, telecom companies and

utilities are increasingly depending on GIS data for

environmental resource analysis, land use planning,

network analysis, etc. Marketing companies are also

using GIS to explore new markets and to enable

marketing and distribution strategies. The entrepreneurs

in this field would involve conversion of data (maps,

records, aerial photography, etc.) to digital data that can

be used for modeling and analysis. A BE graduate with

knowledge of operating systems and with right

connections can start such a venture. Knowledge of

tools like C & C++, specific GIS packages or CAD is an

advantage. On-the-job training at Pixel InfoTech,

Bangalore will help establishing links and getting the

know-how. GIS solution providers, research institutes,

the government sector and the GIS user industries (to a

limited extent) may be your customers.

NETWORKING: is a high priority area in the

corporate world. All the large companies are networked

while many medium-sized ones and some small units

Progress In Science in Engineering Research Journal ISSN 2347-6680 (E)

PISER 12, Vol.02, Issue: 02/06 March- April; Bimonthly International Journal

Page(s) 304-310

are moving towards a networked atmosphere. Large

corporate are in the process of setting up intranets

connecting all their offices and extranets linking up

vendors and dealers. : With even the hi-tech chief

ministers, Chandrababu Naidu and S.M. Krishna,

talking of connectivity across the state as a crucial

ingredient for the state's prosperity, one can imagine

what may be happening in the corporate world itself.

Convergence of technologies primarily calls for a

networked environment. In such an environment,

network entrepreneurs are required to keep the system

up and running all the time. They need to have well-

honed technical skills. Initially, technical skills are

considered more important than conceptual skills that

accrue through experience, gradually focusing will be

on trouble shooting, monitoring (local area network)

LAN performance and its security, adding or deleting

users, adding new servers, etc. Constant upgrading of

knowledge of latest hardware availability and

networking techniques are critical for performing well.

One also has the option of starting off as a network

integrator on their own after gaining a few years

experience in the industry.

Engineering graduates with specialization in computer

science, electronics and communication have better

chances of success. In addition, certification programs

are available from Microsoft, IBM, etc. for learning

initial skills. You can be authorized training partners or

franchises of Novell and Lotus. BE graduates could opt

for this career option. Scope appears unlimited in the IT

sector, telecom companies, manufacturing and service

sector. Wipro, Microland, BFL Software and Infosys are

the leaders in networking at present. One also has the

option of starting one's own business after gaining a few

years of experience in the industry.

DATA WAREHOUSING & DATA MINING: It

might be news to you that companies like Coke and

Pepsi spend millions in understanding consumer

behavior. Data warehousing, which is a repository of

organized data, facilitates online analytical processing,

decision support and data mining. Data marts are

smaller versions of the enterprise data warehouses. Data

warehousing essentially helps users in drawing

conclusions from a set of data, which are not necessarily

logical. Companies like VISA and Wal-Mart are turning

enormous volumes of dumb data into meaningful

business information. The popularly known data

warehousing tools are the Rapid data, SQL bench and

Red Brick (a product of Informix). Majority of the

packages have RDBMS as the base, the architecture is

of 3 types and Multidimensional, Relational OLAP and

Hybrid. OLAP.

Knowledge of RDBMS is essential. Institutes like RCS

Education, Bangalore (offers courses on Red Brick) and

OBSI, Chennai, are now offering product specific

training. You could join any of the data warehousing

solution providers or user industries for on-the job

training.. Currently data warehousing consultancy

companies like TCS, Sonata, Tata InfoTech and IBM

recruit such professionals. User companies recruiting

data warehousing professional include Motorola and

Pepsi. A BE Computer Science/B.Tech/MCA with some

experience in the IT industry can set up small Data

warehouse in collaboration with a major industry in the

field.

SYSTEMS SOFTWARE COMPANIES: Systems

software companies have a roaring business. As an

entrepreneur you can specialize in a field and have a tie

up with a company. Specialization has to be chosen

carefully as per your own liking. For instance, telecom

software would involve writing programs, coding and

module testing of sub systems, source code

documentation in the areas of digital signal processing,

wireless application and related telecom domain areas.

Progress In Science in Engineering Research Journal ISSN 2347-6680 (E)

PISER 12, Vol.02, Issue: 02/06 March- April; Bimonthly International Journal

Page(s) 304-310

A BE/BTech in electronics, communication or computer

science or M. Tech with specialization in systems have

better chances of success. In addition, basic knowledge

of skills like C, C++ is a must. Some specific technical

skills preferred include GSM, TDMA, CDMA, WLL,

etc. Experience in the field can be had from Companies

working in the systems domain. Motorola, Philips,

Lucent, Texas Instruments and SAS are some such

companies.

eEDUCATION: The flood in eEducation has provided

vast scope for the entrepreneurs to set up their own

institutions. A few computers two class-rooms and a lab

with 8 to 10 computers will be sufficient for initial start.

Expertise in C, C++, Oracle, Java, HTML and a few of

the modern languages will provide you number of

students. Affiliation with universities or franchise of a

good computer education company like NIIT or Aptech

will further your income, though initially the costs for

franchise may be heavy. B. Tech in CSE or Electronics

are doing wonders in this field. Regular updating of

courses and upgrading will help the entrepreneur to ne

heights. Initial finances may be 6-7 lakhs with own

accommodation or hired accommodation. Franchise

may vary from 2 to 4 lakhs in addition.

INTERNET KIOSKS/DHABAS: A low finance, a low

knowledge based entrepreneurial venture is internet

kiosks or dhabas where networking of four to five

computers on internet in a right location in one room

with partitions will earn you Rs. 1000/ to 1500/- per

day. Basic knowledge of computer and internet is

sufficient to start the venture.

III. CONCLUSION

IT Industry has countless opportunities; only a few are

described above. There are many other such

opportunities like IT Driven Financial services, IT

appliances which could be exploited well. A successful

entrepreneur tracks emerging needs, and identifies

opportunities that throw up value. A good idea is the

pivot around which a successful venture can be

structured.

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Neck, 1982, The Practice of Entrepreneurship, Sultan

Chand & Sons, New Delhi

[3]. Rakesh K. Vats, 1999, Information technology & Its

Role in Industrial HRD, Proceedings of National

Conference on Industrial HRD- Challenges of 21

Century, 07-08 October TTTI, Chandigarh.

[4]. Rao TV, Developing Entrepreneurship-A Handbook,

New Delhi.

[5]. Srivastva, S.B., A Practical Guide to Industrial

Entrepreneurship, Sultan Chand & Sons, New Delhi,

[6]. Business World, New Delhi.

[7]. The Week New Delhi, March 12, 2000. & Jun 2001

[8]. The Investor, New Delhi.