|
The most significant trait for an entrepreneur
is the ability to take risks and not be bogged down by failure.
R N Raja tells Shipra Arora that his entrepreneurial
streak has been the driving force in his career, even while working
for other organisations
 |
| R N Raja, Managing Director, Insight
Computech |
People who have grown with the IT industry
and with whom the IT industry has grown are numbered. R N Raja,
managing director of Insight Computech and former country manager
for SCO in India, is among those rare few. In his career spanning
20 years in the IT industry (during which he has worked in 32 countries),
what is notable is his ability to drive business operations from
scratch. He was involved in initiating operations for an IT company
in the Middle East as well as commissioning the entire APAC operations
of SCO. He is also credited with building up SCO’s India business,
which under his leadership, became the fifth largest revenue contributor
for the company after the US, UK, Germany and France.
From the formative years of his career
Raja was driven towards entrepreneurship and sales. After completing
his graduation in Computer Science from Concordia University in
Montreal, Canada, in 1980 Raja returned to India. For almost a year
he worked with IT company ORG Systems in the sales function of its
Delhi regional office.
So what inclined this computer science
graduate towards sales? According to Raja, he did not like the concept
of doing R&D sitting in a dark room away from the customer.
“I always enjoyed facing customers and interacting with them.
And in those days selling itself was very technical,” he adds.
After working for a year with ORG Systems,
Raja decided to make it on his own. In 1981, he received a license
for computer manufacturing. He wanted to set up a computer manufacturing
unit. Though the project fundamentals were strong, it could not
get through due to lack of adequate capital and asset base.
Raja dabbled in different things during
this period of his career. In his true enterprising spirit he got
into training at a time when IT training was a far-flung concept
in the early 1980s. Raja hired computer time from data centres during
evenings when he took his students there for hands-on training.
He also trained students in their colleges.
Simultaneously, Raja was also involved
in computer sales and support, and formed a company with a small
team of four engineers. The agency for selling computers was with
his friend, with whom he had a tie-up. These computers were assembled
in India.
Raja found this period in the Indian IT
industry both tough and exciting. Tough because the market was in
its infancy after IBM’s exit from India. And, exciting because
of the emergence of various start-ups trying to fill-up the gap
created by IBM’s exit. He explains that selling at that time
was a challenging task since nobody had buying or selling experience
of smaller computers as everyone was used to mainframes. Furthermore,
all-round skills were required as each computer machine was different
and, unlike today’s PCs, needed to be integrated together.
Raja provided training, support and even built the motherboards.
However, unable to scale-up his venture
due to lack of resources Raja closed it in 1984, and took up a job
offer in the Middle East from a system integration firm. His job
profile involved setting up its business in Saudi Arabia and running
its sales and marketing operations. Three years later Raja moved
to their Bahrain head office to manage operations in Kuwait, Qatar
and Saudi Arabia.
He moved to Canada in 1988 and joined a
small company, which was later acquired by SCO in 1989-90. After
the takeover by SCO, Raja was shifted to California for taking care
of the company’s operations in regions termed as ‘Rest
of the World’ (all the regions except North America and Europe).
In 1992, he started SCO’s APAC business and moved to Singapore.
“In a start-up while there is excitement of the unknown there
is also the pain of taking risks and making decisions,” says
Raja. It was his attitude to take risks that helped him sail through
and make success stories out of nothing. Raja was involved in setting
up the entire channel network for SCO in APAC.
During 1994-95, he got actively involved
with India operations. The challenge for him was to prove his belief
that India had a bigger potential than China as opposed to what
the management believed. He proved this well and was instrumental
in bringing about a phenomenal growth in India, which he feels was
a fulfilling experience. In 1999, he launched the SCO Technology
Centre in New Delhi to enable developers across Asia Pacific leverage
technology from SCO and its strategic partners. He was responsible
for winning major projects in government, finance and transportation
sectors like LIC, Allahabad Bank, Bank of Baroda, Road Transport
Corpo-ration, etc. Raja was awarded membership to the company’s
exclusive President’s Club six times out of the seven years
the award was given.
In 2001, when Caldera acquired SCO, Raja
moved out. He decided on putting to use his vast experience by helping
other entrepreneurs establish themselves. “There are so many
small companies who have good intellectual property and valuable
solutions but are not able to build on it due to lack of resources,”
he explains. Raja founded Insight Computech in January 2002.
Insight helps create markets for these
companies and helps with business development. Insight works with
innovative technology companies who have “best of breed”
products and solutions, helping to develop channels and routes to
new markets. It builds solutions around these complementing technologies
to offer cost-effective alternatives to customers’ mission
critical IT requirements—to help them leverage the maximum
benefits out of their existing IT infrastructure. This, according
to Raja, is very challenging and rewarding.
|
