Mumbai's resilience - what a load of crap! 14 Jul 2011 11:31 AM (13 years ago)

I think it’s high time someone called off this bullshit concept of Mumbai’s resilience and Mumbai’s spirit. Let’s be honest – we are not resilient, and we wouldn’t recognize our spirit if it came in any form other than a nice shiny bottle of Glenfiddich!

What we are is cynical, apathetic, and very selfish.

Why are we all back to work after the blasts? Because we’re not affected by what happened. Seriously, we’re not! Those folks you see on the news talk-shows, they’re just there for the TRPs. If they dislike the Government’s governance, the security forces’ security apparatus, and our overall intelligence failure – well here’s an easy enough solution for all of it – move to Goa. Yes, Goa has never had bomb blasts and getting stoned there is far easier than Mumbai, and the booze is cheaper! So why don’t we all just up and leave?

Because here’s where we make our money and live our lives, and because we don’t give a damn about pretty much anything else (except IPL and the movies). How does a city get to the stage where it doesn’t give a damn? How do we get so comfortably numb?

Of course, it’s thousands of years of culture seeping the ‘hota hai, chalta hai’ attitude right into our DNA. It is easier to accept horrors like these with the sort of apathy that lies deep within the cells of our bone marrow. And it’s not getting out of there any time soon either.

It’s also because it’s happened a few too many times. When the Mumbai riots happened in 1992, we were all scared shitless! Even my grandparents were horror-struck – and they’d been through 1947 and escaped by the skin of their teeth! Then the serial blasts happened in1993 and it left us all stunned speechless. Then it happened again in 2003 (I’m sure no one even remembers these ones), then the train bombings of 2006, and of course 26/11. After every event, there are the discussions, the politicians expressing condolences (like who gives a fuck!), the talk-show hosts, the industrialists talking about increasing our intelligence apparatus, and the police who promise to look at all angles and give us some concrete news very soon. It’s like a script that Franz Kafka and Stephen King co-wrote during one drunken night! Scarily tragic, yet amazingly surreal in its intensity and regularity.

Even the front-page gore on the Times of India doesn’t really make us flinch anymore. We just take a few more sips of the morning tea and find it mildly amusing that alongside the mauled remains and the blood-splattered streets, we also get to know what our expert numerologist Sanjay Jumani thinks about the date of the event (if this isn’t Kafkaesque, then what is!?)

So we shrug our shoulders, look at the body-count and say, oh more people than this die of malaria, slum landslides, and construction site accidents every monsoon in this city. And by the way, none of those get paid Rs. 5 lakhs per person (sorry, per body).

Now that we’ve shed our sheen of pseudo-resilience, let’s take an equally brutally honest view of what the future holds.

Here’s how I see it unfolding. We’ll get hit again, for sure. Maybe this year itself, or if we’re lucky not more than once every financial year – around about the same time as filing our tax returns. Bitter irony that – given that we are the financial capital of the country! Or hey maybe if we consult Mr. Jumani, we might even know all the unlucky dates of the year, and then simply stay in the safety of our bunkers.

The same socialites, news anchors, politicians, home ministers, and police officials will come, make their respective angst, opinions, gas, condolences, and more stinking gas known to everyone. Then life will go on.

Oh, but then we have all of these people who say – this is terrible, the system sucks, we want to make a difference! Seriously? The average Mumbaikar has had more than 10 fucking years to make a difference! What have you been waiting for? Armageddon? You and I never did make a difference, and we never will. You think going out and casting a vote is going to make a difference? The hell it will – changes in political parties won’t change the essentially rotten nature of how our shining superpower of a nation functions. Neither will holding candle light vigils. Nor will tut-tutting over single malts.

So we basically have two choices. The same two choices that confront anyone who has not yet become complete inured – fight the system either from the outside or from the inside. The first is anarchy, and I think that deserves a whole different write-up. The second is easier.

No, no. I am not saying form a political party – you’ll get your ass whipped at the first elections. Simply get 3 friends who want to make shit loads of money in double quick time. Get one of them into the police, one in the main political party, and the third into the opposing political party (it’s called hedging your bets, silly). You then start a security company that supplies the most high-end security apparatus – CCTVs with facial recognition, sniffer dogs that can sniff the RDX from deep inside the bugger’s ass, high-speed patrolling boats with night-vision cameras to patrol our coasts, Tasers, and stuff like that. Take it to the next level – add in some private intelligence folks (since all the police khabris have apparently disappeared), some high-end monitoring software, and real-time communication interception systems.

Then you work out a deal with your two political friends and your senior police officer to begin the necessary lobbying/bribing of the government apparatus to dole out crores of rupees worth of contracts to your firm. Hey, I’ll even help you out with the other 2 competing bids you need to complete the 3-bid system. That’s how all government tenders go out – to the most technically qualified, lowest price bidder, no?

So everyone wins – the system gets the money it needs to function effectively and dole out the contracts, your company wins all the large contracts, and we Mumbaikars actually get some semblance of security! And also, since you said you wanted to make a difference, I’m sure you won’t be supplying sub-standard crap like this.

Otherwise, suck it up, shut up and live with it. Oh, I almost forgot. There is of course a third choice – move to Goa!

How I got my bank to straighten up 21 Nov 2010 6:29 AM (14 years ago)

The story starts in 2004 when I took a 5 year loan against commercial property from KM Bank at 11.25% Rate of Interest (ROI). A year later when I topped up this loan, the first loan had risen to an ROI of 11.75% and the additional amount was given at 12%. I didn't understand how the same bank could give two loans to the same person against the same collateral at 2 different rates of interest?

The rate steadily kept on increasing, till it got to an usurious 15.25% a couple of months ago! When I got the letter from my customer-unfriendly bank, I naturally went into a bit of a depression. Imagine my anger, when a customer service representative called me to ask if I would like to top up the loan again, since the outstanding principal had reduced to a 3rd of the original amount and the property value had gone up!? I shot her an angry email response telling her to basically get lost! Then later, a senior rep came to me and told me to write to UK (the CMD of the Bank for chrisssakes!) and ask for the ROI to be re-negotiated if I agreed to top-up the loan.

None of this obviously worked, until I hired a loan agent to talk to other banks. Within 10 days I got 3 offers, the lowest of which was 11.0% from Barclays! When I informed KM Bank about this, I got an SOS call back from them with a confirmed offer letter reducing my ROI from 15.25% to 11.25% with immediate effect! Since the pre-payment penalty was another 2%, I told the other bank that I would stick with KM. They then re-negotiated down to 10%! I immediately triggered the request for balance transfer from KM to the Barclays and happily paid the 2% pre-payment penalty.

End result: ROI reduced from 15.25% down to 10% in 2 weeks of effort.

Moral of the story: if your bank is sucking your hard-earned money, show them it is a competitive market and you can go to the bank down the street and get a much better deal!

The Cauldron of Time 18 May 2010 8:30 PM (14 years ago)

Yesterday, during a random dinner table conversation, the question that was put to me was what do you think your purpose in life is? Ah, the fundamental question we all grapple and often ignore. Without getting too meta-physical about it, I think there is a very simple practical answer to the question. And it is simply – doing what one does to the best of one’s abilities.

I see so many people go through the best years of their lives simply watching the clock. They go to office in the morning, put in the requisite 8 hours and come back in the evening. Same routine repeats day in and day out. But what each one of us needs to realize is that we’ve only got a limited amount of time. When you’re 25, you think the entire world is ahead of you and life is limitless. But as Yudhishthira says in the Mahabharata, “the cauldron of time cooks everyone”. And that is a universal truth.

So given that you’ve got only a limited amount of time, let’s take that argument further. Let’s say you’ve only got a year to go, before your time is up. Would you now bring the same attitude to work and life that you have right now? Or would you change it drastically? If the answer is that you would change it drastically, then my friend the answer to life’s fundamental question is right in front of your eyes and you’re choosing to ignore it.

When we work for organizations who we think pay us less, or a boss who doesn’t understand us, or an environment which is suffocating, we all have a few choices. And the choice is to simply leave that situation and choose another one. Or to try and change the situation. But, there is a third choice: while we’re in that specific situation, life demands from us that we give it our very best. And that is what life is really all about. If you don’t like your job, change it – but while you’re working, give it everything you’ve got. Or else you’re shortchanging the most important person in the world - you!

If you think your company is short-changing you – think again. Or rather trust greater thinkers to guide you. As Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita – do your duty because that is what you’ve come on Earth for. Do not think of the fruits of your actions. To give it a more practical twist – I say, do not work simply for the fruits of your labor. Do it for your love of the work itself – do it because it is your bounden duty to do so.

Or else, you’re actually waking up every day and cheating yourself. Every hour and every minute of work that you’re whiling away your time, taking long breaks, chatting, social networking, or not giving your profession your best effort and dedicated focus is a minute that is completely lost, and the biggest loser in this case is you – not your organization, not your team – but you! Because the company will keep going on or shut down – but the best years of your life won’t come back ever.

So go change your job if you’re not happy. But stop cribbing and complaining and cheating yourself out of the only life you’ll ever have.

A new enterprise - part II 21 Dec 2009 5:55 AM (15 years ago)

The bank account.

With all the KYC norms that exist, opening up a bank account wasn't the easiest thing in the world with the newly formed entity. Among other documents submitted, the key documents were:
1. Copy of the partnership deed
2. Letter from my existing company NII saying that I allow IIS (Institute of Information Security) to function from this office
3. An Airtel bill on my personal name as address proof
4. Copy of the receipt of BMC for registration under Shops & Establishment Act. The actual certificate is another story and will take a week or so (check my next blog post on BMC and Bribery)
5. A couple of other letters that the Bank gave me the format of
6. PAN card copies of both directors
7. Form saying PAN card has been applied for - and the PAN card has also been applied
8. Photos, filled up forms, etc.

The main challenge was with the address proof - since there is no bill or government receipt with the IIS name and my office address. And I couldn't wait for the Shops and Establishment Act certificate to come through.

Anyways, it took a week or so, but it's been done now. And this is a bank I've been banking with for over a decade now. But this laborious process of opening up an account is largely due to the RBI's stress on reducing NPAs, controlling benami accounts, and other anti-money laundering provisions. So well, it's all for a good cause!

A new enterprise - part 1 30 Oct 2009 4:21 AM (15 years ago)

Taking into consideration the fact that scaling a consulting business is a long-term affair, I've decided to take at least the training component out and make that into a separate enterprise. Since it has been quite some time since I incorporated a business, I thought I'd jot down the brief journey of getting an enterprise up and running here to help budding entrepreneurs see the first few steps at least of getting a business off the ground

The first thing I did was to think up of an impressive enough name for the training business - we came up with Institute of Information Security. I then got my in-house team to get the website done www.iisecurity.in

I tasked one of my team members to experiment with some of the e-learning software, and we narrowed down on eFront. So the eLearning channel is also up and running at http://elearning.iisecurity.in

We've also started doing the SEO for the website, and it already ranks high up when searching for specific terms related to the security training business. I also logged in the business with JustDial (www.justdial.com) and with Google local business search.

Finally, the legal part. In order to incorporate the enterprise, we are doing it as a partnership. So I contacted my CA, gave him the broad terms of the partnership, and he's built all the rest of the legalese around it. The deed will be printed out on Rs. 500 stamp paper and will become a registered deed.

Oh, and of course, the process for trademark registration has already been started through my earlier trademark agent (atozservices.info).

Principles of Problem-Solving 1 Jan 2009 3:53 AM (16 years ago)

Over the years I have developed some simple principles that aid me in solving problems. Often times I myself forget some of these, so it is worthwhile putting them down in an email, and I hope all of you will also benefit from these in the years to come.

Principle #1

There is a solution to every problem

Rarely have we faced a problem where a solution cannot be found. So every problem, customer complaint, technical malfunction, configuration issue, whatever it might be - does have a solution. The trick in achieving the solution first lies in believing that one does exist. Once you begin from that premise, there is a higher likelihood that the problem will indeed be solved. In fact, you'll look at the problem as a challenge, and not as a headache.

Principle #2

There will always be problems

Problems are not to be shied away from or to be thought of as PROBLEMS! In the sense, a positive attitude to any problem is more likely to help you get it resolved, than thinking of it as an encumbrance from the more enjoyable things you could be doing with your time. Also, bear in mind that behind every problem is an excellent lesson to be learnt and an opportunity for you to grow as an individual and as a professional.

Principle #3

Get as much data as you can

Corollary: Depend on as few assumptions as possible

The more data that you can get, the more likely it is that you will be able to resolve the problems quicker and better. Getting to the root of the problem requires you to ask as many questions as you can, even though the answers may not be what you would like to hear - especially with non-technical problems. Your most helpful aids here are the questions - Why, What, Where, How, When and Who.

Principle #4

Break down the problem into components

If the problem is too large or too complicated, try to separate the issues, and try to resolve them one at at time. Also, try to focus on the simplest issues to solve, and then move on to the more complicated parts of the problem. Here I am referring to both technical and non-technical problems.

Principle #5

Some problems are also hurdles

Just as in a hurdle race the runner does not try to disassemble each hurdle, but simply jumps up over them. In the same way, not every problem needs to be solved. Some problems can be side-stepped by thinking out of the box. Again if you make fewer assumptions, you'll be able to arrive at unorthodox solutions, one of which is to simply walk around the problem and continue in your path to achieve your goals. At the same time the approach of sidestepping a problem doesn't serve well in most circumstances - then you're simply stalling facing up to the issue. And unresolved problems simply simmer and blow up in your face at some time.

Principle #6

Learn how to Google well

Yes we all know this, and yet we all don't do it well. Let me give you one example. Recently, we had some issues where a user's existing password, which was working earlier suddenly stopped working. The usual attempt would be to reset the password, or recreate the POP account, or recheck the settings. But searching on Google reveals this very simple solution to a problem different from what was originally imagined.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=14257&topic=12919, which led to this https://www.google.com/a/niiconsulting.com/UnlockCaptcha

Principle #7

Sometimes the problem isn't the problem

If you keep an open mind and try to question people and get to the root of the problem - the real cause of it - you will sometimes realize that what was originally stated as the problem statement, isn't the real problem at all. And in fact, the real problem is something else altogether. What you are being told is the problem could quite possibly be the symptoms of the problem or only the apparent problem. The trick to getting to the actual root of the problem is to simply keep asking "Why". Why is this a problem, then take the response, and ask why that is a problem and so forth till you reach the real cause of it.

Principle #8

Be open to inputs and flexible to change

If you're stuck with a problem and can't come up with a solution it is most likely because you're on the wrong track. If you let your mind open up to ideas from other people and suggestions that may seem whacky or illogical or off-center it just might end up leading to a solution. Which is why brainstorming is an excellent way to solve a problem - just let all suggestions be presented and come to the table, without discussing any of them at length. Once all the ideas are on the table, then start discussing the merits-demerits of each.

If you have any of your favorite tricks, add to this list...

Infosec Scenario in 2009 1 Jan 2009 3:48 AM (16 years ago)

1. Business continuity to get focus over disaster recovery
BCM is a process issue related to building the framework to increase business resiliency and restoration capability, while DR is about building redundancy through infrastructure investments. It is quite likely that new DR site investments might happen fewer than they did in 2008. But I would not advise cutting down on building your BCM capability - even if you are an SME. Each one of your people does need to know what needs to be done when things begin to fail. This does not require huge amounts of investment, but does require common sense, risk assessment, and regular training and awareness.
Counter: Focus on an effective Business Continuity Plan that takes into account at least the following - fire, ISP failure, transportation link failure, and yes a terrorist attack as well.

2. Capital expenditure on security technologies likely to be hit
This is one area that has seen the biggest hit and is likely to continue feeling the impact with new investments simply not happening. So fewer firewall upgrades, fewer adoptions of recently introduced solutions such as Data Leakage Prevention (DLP), Network Access Control (NAC), and others.
Counter: Really look for ROI on your capital expenditure on security technologies.

3. Focus on regulatory compliance to increase
Make sure you know very clearly what your responsibilities are towards data protection - not only for the specific industry you are in - but also for the countries that you do business in. I’ll soon be releasing a write-up on the Indian IT Act, and the new amendments recently pushed through in the Parliament, and what these mean for every individual and every business. Essentially, even if you are not ISO 27001 compliant or PCI DSS regulated, you are still very much legally liable to ensure due diligence to protect your customer’s data.
Counter: While cutting budgets on infosec is fine, don’t end up putting the existence of your business at risk due to negligence towards data protection.

4. Scareware, Social Networking Attacks, Phishing, and others
While Phishing attacks rose quite a bit in 2008, it is quite likely they will become more prevalent, more insidious and a huge pain in the wrong places in 2009. Combined with Scareware tactics (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/anatomy_of_a_hack/), exploitation of social networking sites (http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3789496 and http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10078353-83.html), and even Google (http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/30/google_calendar_phish/ and http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1053) is going to ensure attacks are highly smart, effective, and definitely lucrative for the attackers.
Counter: Focus on awareness, not just within your organizations but also within your families and communities.

5. Computer fraud may rise - a lot
Today attackers are not concerned with releasing the latest virus onto unsuspecting Internet users. Do we even remember how long ago it was when CodeRed or Slammer hit us bad? Attackers today - both external and internal - have one simple agenda - making as much money as they can within as short a time as possible. We’re already seeing SAP, Oracle Apps, and business applications becoming the most lucrative target of fraudsters. All they need is the knowledge (if you’re working with 2-3 years on the same system you know its flaws well enough), motive (layoffs, salary cuts, no bonuses), and opportunity.
Counter: Invest in forensic accounting, and keep a panel of experts on standby to be called in when fraud happens. Get advice on a list of red flags to watch out for.

6. Cyberwarfare could become a reality
At least as far as the South East Asian region is concerned, we’ve already seen an increase in the number of cyber attacks on Indian banks and government websites. This trend will get more serious and more malicious with some really sensitive data being targetted in the months to come. The next frontier for terrorism will be digital, and we’re all going to be facing the brunt of professional hacking, espionage, and digital sabotage. We’re already seeing this with the current Israeli war on Gaza (http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/israels-info-wa.html), and the recent attacks by Pakistani hackers on the Eastern Railways site (http://in.news.yahoo.com/241/20081225/1262/twl-pak-hacker-attacks-e-rlys-site-threa.html), and a couple of PSU banks. See this link for in-depth Indo-Pak cyberwar coverage http://intelfusion.net/wordpress/?p=468
Counter: If your organization is governmental, semi-governmental, public sector, or provides a service or utility of national importance, you are pretty much going to be targeted. Focus on securing your external perimeter and get it tested.

Back to globe-trotting 29 Oct 2008 2:10 AM (16 years ago)

For a while, I'd been more or less spending time in Mumbai, then suddenly about 3 months back work led me to begin my globe-trotting again and give way to my wanderlust. It started with a quick stopover in Dubai for a proposal presentation, and then on to Brussels to join one of our consultants who was working there on a project. This Brussels project is quite noteworthy in terms of the ingenuity of our marketing guy who won it. Seeing a dearth of leads in his kitty, he started to search on Google for tenders and RFPs in our area of information security. He then found this one for an organization in Brussels. When he first told me about it, I said, give it a shot, but mostly we might not win it, because we'll have the disadvantage of increased costs due to travel and stay, which a local company or one in Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) or even Europe would be able to avoid by deploying local consultants. But he gave it his best shot, we got shortlisted, and based on a couple of telephonic discussions, they awarded us the project.

Brussels was quite an interesting experience. The project went off very smoothly largely due to the work of our consultant there, and then the weekend before leaving from there we decided to spend exploring that area. My better half joined us, and on her insistence we ended up at one of the casinos. And inspite of my resistance to the slot machines, we actually ended up winning 1000 euros! And then we won a couple hundred more on the roulette and blackjack tables. When we left, we were richer by 1200 euros, which we decided to blow up by hiring a car, going down to Amsterdam - a perennial party place - and spend Saturday night there. It was one helluva experience, and when they describe Amsterdam as one long college frat party - its a very accurate description! I haven't ever seen so many people - not even during peak hour on the Mumbai local trains. And definitely never the sight of thousands of people eating, drinking, making merry, and generally having a collective blast!

After Brussels it was back to Dubai, to sort out my residence visa, since now we have opened up our third office there. Got that done, then I was back to Mumbai for a week or so. My next trip started by having to rush to Mauritius to rescue a project because one of our senior consultants who also was heading our Bahrain office decided to part ways. So I had to take on the project mid-way. But again the place is so beautiful and quite the tourist destination. However, the work pressure was quite a bit, and we managed to spend just the one weekend looking around the place. From mauritius, it was back to Dubai to open up a bank account for the company, then on to Bahrain to sort out the legalities and paperwork and other stuff. Then another week in Abu Dhabi to do a training and complete a project we were doing for a financial institution there.

Then I was back to Mumbai for a couple of days before flying off to Taiwan for the OWASP Asia conference. The conference was wonderfully well-organized by Wayne Huang and his team, with over 1000 people attending. My presentation was on Business Web Application Testing - getting the larger business perspective to the technical approach of pen-testing. I had to rush immediately after my talk to the airport in order to catch my flight and be back to Mumbai in time for Diwali.

So yesterday we had Diwali Puja at our new office in Andheri. While we will retain our current office and convert it into a training center, we'll largely shift all operational and consulting activities to this new office, where we even have a cool new SOC - Security Operations Center, with capacity for 36 people working in 3 shifts.

Things are only going to keep getting more and more hectic. We are aiming to have our 4th international office up and running within the next 3-4 months, either in the Far East, or if that doesn't work out, maybe at a second location within India. Our team is also growing and brand recognition is getting better and better. So if the posts are more infrequenty you'll know why. I intend to write my next posts on our experience in setting up our 3rd office in the UAE.

Customer delight - makes it all worthwhile 3 Jun 2008 12:51 AM (16 years ago)

When you're in business you have to be geared up for the fact that there will be customers who will have issues with various services and products that you offer. Customer support and responding to customer complaints is part and parcel of any company. While quality controls ensure that your deliverables are up to the mark, sometimes clients can still have reservations about what you have given them.

Especially in the consulting line of business, where we're delivering skills, opinions, and knowledge, it often becomes subjective whether we are meeting with client expectations or not. Managing customer expectations is one of the biggest challenges of being in this line of work. In a number of cases, the end result of the engagement is a report or a set of documents and presentations. And very often during the course of the engagement the client often voices their differences of opinion and displeasure at some of the deliverables.

With one of our clients, I almost got into an argument over some points related to the consulting services we were providing. I do strongly recommend to my team to avoid arguments at all costs, unless it is an absolutely critical issue. Disagreements should be voiced, but spats should be avoided. Coming back to this particular case, eventually the client was pleased enough to give us the following testimonial, and it is events like these that make consulting completely worthwhile...

“KK and his team did a brilliant job in guiding us towards the 27001 certification. Their approach was very methodical and systematic right from the stage of gathering requirements in the initial stages to the documentation work and then trainings and audit readiness stages. In fact what I liked the most about their approach was that he focussed on transferring his knowledge to us which has enabled us to sustain the improvements even without his involvement. They never restricted themselves to the scope of the contract. They were willing to that extra mile to make sure that it added business value to us."

Narayana Murthy on Entrepreneurship 8 May 2008 11:22 PM (16 years ago)

I was privileged to attend an interview of Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys Technologies. The interview session was part of a "Leaders and Learners" session organized by TIE at Welingkar's Institute in Mumbai. Murthy was interviewed by Anuradha Sengupta of CNBC TV18, and a select panel of entrepreneurs. Then the forum was thrown open to questions asked by the audience. Here were some of the key takeaways from this brilliant and humor-filled session:

Q. What does it take to start your own venture?
NM: You need 4 things before you can think of starting your own venture:
1. Idea. The key idea or concept of the service or product you want to sell in the market
2. Market value of the idea. You must have a basic level of confidence in the fact that the market values your product and is willing to pay for it.
3. Team. You must have a team of complementary skillsets - so identify your own strengths, and find people who have different, but complementary strengths.
4. High aspirations. You must be someone who sets his/her sights high, and is willing to work very hard to achieve those aspirations.

Q. What must a startup do for branding?
NM: Do unusual things. Infosys has always attracted the press and positive publicity by doing unusual things, which interest people.

Q. Who were your idols or people you looked up to?
NM: When we started our business, there were already well-established business leaders who had founded and expanded their companies while sticking to sound ethical principles - JRD Tata, even Mr. Birla, TVS, Mr. Kirloskar. Of course, by that time Bill Gates had also become well-known. Intel was one of the foremost examples of success for most security companies to follow.

Q. What is a non-negotiable component when starting your own business?
NM: A sound value system. You have to lead by example, you must walk the talk, eat your own dogfood. Only when will your team trust you implicitly, and only then will they deliver and help achieve the common goals.

Q. What are the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur?

Ability to work with other people and work in a team
Passion and will to persevere
High degree of optimism
High aspirations for oneself and for the company
Ability to put long-term interest ahead of short-term benefit

Q. How do you judge the value of your idea?
NM: You should be able to express your idea and its value to the market in a simple sentence. Not a compound sentence, nor a complex sentence.

Q. How do you attract and retain talent?
The leadership must articulate a grand vision - an exciting future. This will create a challenging work culture and attract future leaders to the company. The vision must be a story that is compelling, believable, and intrigues and excites the minds of the team members.

Q. What do you think about work-life balance?
I remember K V Kamath's answer to this question: first let's make a life, then think about work-life balance. I don't understand the concept of a work-life balance.

Q. How do you define success, and at what stage did you consider yourself successful, and why?
NM: I have thought a lot on this subject, and my definition of a successful person is one who when he/she walks into a room, people's eyes light up. If he/she brings a smile to people's faces, then irrespective of whether that person is educated, not educated, self-employed, employed, I would still consider that person to be successful. And going by that definition, I am still not sure whether I would consider myself as being successful.

Interestingly, Murthy's favorite books are Richard Feynmann's "Lectures on Physics", and "History of Mathematics" vols 1,2,3.

How to get started on your own business 7 May 2008 2:09 AM (16 years ago)

Just a quick short post to answer a number of similar sounding emails I get on how to really get started on one's own business. Here's the lowdown on the logical flow of any enterprise from birth to growth.

Ideation. The idea is the key. First come up with what you want to sell. Whether it is a product or a service or a combination of both. The main thing is to come up with an idea or a set of ideas.
Marketability. The next step is to test the market for the viability of your idea. Before you quit your job or your college or even your current venture to start a business, you must have a reasonable amount of confidence that the idea works. You might even be looking at funding, so before you approach friends/family/VCs you should be convinced yourself that your idea has a market.
Team. This is a tough ask. But if it is possible you should put together a team that complements your skills. So for instance if you are technically very good, find out someone who is good at marketing, and if possible, also someone who is good at finances. When I started out, I filled in the technical strength, and my father was around for the financial part. We still remained weak on the marketing front, and it took us quite a few years to fix that.
Business plan. The next step is to articulate your idea. To put together a formal business plan which outlines your main idea, lists out potential target markets, the resources required to bring the idea to fruition, the competition you face, a SWOT analysis, projected cash-flow for the next 2-3 years, and most importantly your team profile.
Funding. You may or may not need funding. So this stage would be one where you go out and seek the minimum amount of money that you need to start off your business.
Registration & Incorporation. There are legal formalities to be completed before you start on your own business. For a sole proprietorship, there is not much to do, but for private limited there is quite a bit of paperwork you will need to get done.
Stationery & Website. You will have to get your basic marketing material in place - a website, visiting cards, logo, letterheads, etc.
Execution. This is the rest of your life - beat the pavement trying to get clients, call up all your contacts, try to advertise and market your services/products in the best manner possible, land a few deals, execute on them, invoice them, get the money in the bank, go treat yourself to a nice dinner somewhere!

How I got my first 5 clients 18 Apr 2008 12:40 AM (17 years ago)

Someone suggested that I should write a post about how to market a consulting service. While I have a post on the subject, the reader also suggested that I could write about how I got my first five clients. As you might guess, most of these project wins were due to luck rather than any marketing skills from my end. In fact, our first marketing person came on board only after 3-4 years of being in business.

Client #1 - State Bank of India. Sitting around in office, we asked ourselves (there were only 2 of us), who needs our services most. The answer was banks. Who's the biggest bank in town - the State Bank of India. So we went to the SBI website, found a link to their organizational chart, found out the number of their chief manager - IT, called him up, and went to meet him. We explained that we could do a penetration test - an attempt to break into his site after receiving proper authorization from him. He was convinced, we sat down to negotiate the price, and within a month we had our first order.
Client #2 - Western Railways. A friend of my father's heard about my venture, came to meet me, introduced me to the head of IT at HPCL who was a friend of his, who in turn introduced me to head of IT at Western Railways, and we did a free penetration test for him. Later on, he gave us the contract to fix the vulnerabilities.
Client #3 - a US security firm. An elderly gentleman from the office next door to ours used to drop by to chat away, since neither he nor I had much work back then. On his 3rd or 4th visit he actually asked me what I did. I tried to explain to him in layman's language that I was running a computer security consulting firm. He excitedly explained his own know-how on the subject, which was surprisingly good. He then told me that his nephew was in the same business, but in the US. And this gentleman in turn was running a leading-edge security product company. I dropped him an email, his India partner contacted me, and then put me in touch with a leading Chartered Accountant who was doing accounts audits for a number of large firms in India. These firms were approaching him to do IT audits as well. These he started to outsource to me, and we still do excellent business with him. Later on the US company also outsourced security research work to us.
Client #4 - Directorate General of Shipping. The head of IT at Western Railways was a good friend of the head of the Directorate General of Shipping. When the DG Shipping person spoke with the WR person about an IT problem he was facing, he recommended my name.
Client #5 - Middle East partner. In our free time, we used to keep ourselves busy developing free tools, writing articles, and trying to get speaking engagements at various seminars and conferences. All these activities resulted in increasing our visibility and enhancing our brand image. It also helped enhance our individual consulting profiles. A security solutions company from the Middle East contacted us for selling them one of the tools we had built. We explained that the tool was free, but they wanted us to make modifications to it, and asked us to price the effort. That specific deal never went through, but slowly they started outsourcing various security engagements to us, until the Middle East became our largest source of projects.

So to summarize, some of the things that a fledgling consulting firm could do is focus on:

Use references, contacts, and word-of-mouth as much as you can. I still evangelize my products and services shamelessly at every opportunity. But there is a way to do it
Search engine optimization
Writing articles, toolkits, and maybe even books on the subject
Contacting the larger consulting firms in your space so they may throw some projects your way
Hold free workshops for people who might be interested in the subject

The art of the bounce back 9 Apr 2008 3:03 AM (17 years ago)

We all talk about the fact that winners never quit, and quitters never win, etc. But here's a very nice article that talks about the fact that most high-achievers in life usually fail often, and fall harder than most of us. But then they also succeed far more spectacularly. So I guess it is about taking calculated risks and sticking with your ideas if you really believe in them.

The article talks about Steve Jobs who was unceremoniously kicked out of Apple, and then was brought back in to script one of the greatest turnaround stories in corporate history. Not to mention his amazing success with Pixar animation, and of course the iPod and iTunes and iPhone innovations. It also talks about Donald Trump (read his Art of the Deal) for someone who went completely bankrupt and then rose back again to become a multi-billionaire.

Then again you should not be one of those people who stick with an idea even though it has no chance of working. Here's the irrepressible Seth Godin in "The Dip - a little book that teaches you when to quit".

Interview on entrepreneurship 26 Feb 2008 3:55 AM (17 years ago)

Quite some time back (when my blog used to be anonymous) I'd done an interview with the folks over at Voice of Ambition (VOA). Now that the blog isn't anonymous, I thought it would be a good idea to link to that interview in case anyone wants to hear it. Here are the details:

"K. K. Mookhey founder of NII consulting tells us how he quit his engineering and started his own company. He answers questions like where did he get his capital from? What was his business plan? How much was his initial capital? How he registered his company? How much it costs to register a company? What sectors provide an opportunity for new entrepreneurs? Who is their first client? Who is their biggest client? Is he willing to provide advice for new entrepreneurs? And much more."

Direct link to the episode is
http://www.voiceofambition.com/voa/component/option,com_remository/func,fileinfo/id,28/

(Almost) all your income tax queries answered 22 Feb 2008 8:35 PM (17 years ago)

I just chanced upon an excellent blog that has answers to quite a few interesting income tax queries. I don't like the layout of the site, but the content is quite good. Check out Tax Worry.

Insights of the day - building a core management team 18 Feb 2008 8:57 AM (17 years ago)

I happened to attend another excellent TiE session on building a core management team. It was headed by Parag Paranjpe, Director, HR at ICICI Venture. Some of the key takeaways from the session based on inputs from Parag, and the other attendees were:

Talent looks out for opportunities for that talent to be harnessed. So your key USP has to be what opportunities do you provide for exploiting potential.
Star employees look for autonomy and freedom - an equal stake in the organization. They want to make the organization bigger and share in the wealth that they help to create.
Every leader must aim to make himself/herself obsolete in order for the people working under that leader to reach their full potential. The leader must then redefine his role and responsibilities and work to achieve a different set of goals.
One of the most important attributes to look out for in a candidate is personal integrity. And the best way to determine this is to check for references and learn to read between the lines when the references respond to your queries. Parag gave an example of ICICI Venture contracting an international firm to do a background check on a candidate they were hiring for their Zurich office. And they looked at the huge fees paid to this firm as an investment that would pay off. But he said, that was only reducing the risk, we still would never know for 100% sure if all that we were told by the candidate is correct or not.
Also, while hiring try to determine whether the employee is joining you for money or for a higher purpose. Does the candidate seem to buy into your vision or is simply making the jump for a better pay package?
The past history of a candidate is the best indicator of future behavior. Dwell into it, and ask deeper questions based on the candidates previous profile. Everyone promises great things in the future, but have they delivered in the past?
Try to determine as accurately as possible the real reasons why the candidate is leaving his previous company and joining your company.
Another important aspect is the cultural fit. How well do you think the candidate would fit into your existing corporate culture. If your existing culture is open and autonomous, does he or she have the ability to work and excel in such an environment or is he/she a very hands-on micro-managing type leader?
Other ideas were to ask candidates to write down their answers on questions such as achievements, failures, goals, and dreams, rather than ask them to answer verbally.

Insights for the day - V. S. S. Mani from JustDial 15 Feb 2008 10:03 PM (17 years ago)

I just came back from attending a very insightful personal session with V. S. S. Mani the founder of Just Dial, which was organized by TIE.

JustDial was started somewhere in 1995 after a lot of false starts by Mani, who was earlier director at Ask Me services. Started with a capital of Rs. 50,000 it is now a Rs. 100 crore company with a valuation of over Rs. 500 crore. From days when they were selling wedding planners to generate revenue to today where PE's and venture capitalists are being rejected because they simply don't want any more funding. Here were some key takeaways:

When the whole world and its aunt was harping on about the dotcom boom, Mani decided to continue his information services business through the telephone model, and not chuck it all away for an online model. He profited at that stage by selling part of his stake to a US investor, but didn't spend truckloads of cash on building a dotcom and promoting it. He says the Internet infrastructure was so pathetic in 2000-2001, that there was no way that a dotcom business would possibly work well.
The key to a successful business is scalability. If you can tell a story to your employees, your partners, and your investors about how you're going to be scaling up the company, how you're going to grow and expand, then you've got a winner on your hands. If your business doesn't scale, do it differently, or do something different.
If possible do a short course on financial accounting, and learn the basics about accounting, balance sheets, profit and loss, and cashflow. That is essential, because if you take financially bad decisions your business will crumble. It is like a baby that needs proper care and nurturing.
He doesn't stick to any office hours, but does not believe in delegate and forget. He is not operational, but when he delegates, he follows up - every day! He says, in India, your managers and employees will start nodding their heads about how they've understood what needs to be done, but won't do it, or won't do it right, until you follow up and oversee them.
When you are growing your business, don't be pretentious. Don't try and show off that you're doing great. Investors don't necessarily want to see great infrastructure, they want to see the virtual reality world you are going to build and that you are asking them to invest in that world. Not the world you live in today. He started off with a small cubicle in Nariman Point, before moving to a 300 sq. ft. shop in the suburbs, and then adding two more shops of 300 sq. ft. each. And that was his situation even in 2000 when the US investor decided to pump cash into his business.
When asked about the importance of branding, he said the most important branding is excellent executions. Happy customers will build your brand much better and much bigger than anyone amount of advertising or PR will. Word of mouth is the best publicity you'll ever generate.

Married to your idea? 8 Feb 2008 7:53 AM (17 years ago)

I just had an epiphany of sorts a few days back.

I was attending a TIE forum meeting, when Manak Singh, the convener of the forum and I began exchanging notes on business in general. And he told me that at an earlier TIE conference, they had invited Vivek Paul of Wipro. One of the key things Paul said was that the problem with a lot of Indian entrepreneurs is that they often get married to the idea with which they start their business.

They first decide that they are going to sell a particular service or product, and then go out to look for a market for that service or product. The way it should ideally work is an outside-in approach, where you first see what the market really demands and then try and deliver that, instead of an inside out approach.

The entire discussion started when Manak Singh asked me about scalability, and I said pure security consulting services does not seem to have the ability to scale - the market demand does not enable the kind of growth that I would ideally like.

I then took this discussion to our annual bootcamp, where once a year we all meet and present on various topics, and throw ideas around. When I presented the vision for the next 3 years, the teams started to question our ability to achieve the numbers based on pure consulting services, and then the suggestions started to pour in. We need to go beyond just pure advisory services, get into implementation, product reseller-ship, and maybe even into network and system integration.

I'll keep posting on how the expansion plans work out, but I got a good feel about this. Although, we might have been earlier leaving money on the table by not aggressively pursuing other projects, it won't be the case any longer!

So maybe a key question that an entrepreneur needs to ask is whether they are the only buyers of their idea. And maybe even more importantly this is a question that entrepreneurs need to keep asking throughout the lifetime of their companies. I could quote a couple of very interesting examples here: Nokia started off as a wood-pulp unit, then was bought over by a rubber manufacturing company, and then merged with a company manufacturing telephone cables. This fusion company was manufacturing paper products, bicycle and car tires, footwear (including Wellington boots), personal computers, communications cables, televisions, electricity generation machinery, capacitors, aluminium, etc.

Another intriguing example is 3M, their most popular product being the Post-It notes. Very few people would know that the name 3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, which went through a financial crunch, got out of the mining business, and became what it is today because the people running the company did not feel that they had to remain "loyal" to the original idea! Read about its fascinating history here.

Funding your business using credit cards? 7 Feb 2008 5:46 AM (17 years ago)

I just came across an article about using credit cards to fund your startup. Although, the article is for the US environment, I think this is a patently bad idea, especially in India. The current interest rates on credit card debt are close to 2% per month, which is 36% per year! If that is not usurious, I don't know what is. It might actually be cheaper to go and raise money from your neighborhood money-lender!

The rules in India allow the directors to pay for certain expenses of the company from their own resources, and to then get reimbursed a few months or maybe a year or so down the line when the company has started generating enough funds. Knowing that fewer than 5% of new ventures actually succeed, why take such a huge risk and be saddled with debt and surmounting interest costs?

In any case, rolling over credit card debt, or switching from one provider to another just because you're exceeding your credit limits on the first card, means that you're spiraling way down a debt trap. Doing this, when trying to get your business up and running is a horribly bad idea. So don't fall for the temptation of abusing your credit ratings you might have built up by religiously paying off your credit card bills while you were in a regular salaried job. Your income when running your business is going to be close to nil for the first year or so. It is far better that you work harder at building up the funds yourself or rallying family and friends around to the idea of supporting your business.

Choosing my problems 15 Jan 2008 4:28 AM (17 years ago)

One of the biggest challenges of being an entrepreneur is the fact that in most cases you've got to fight your battles alone. Some of us have mentors, some of us come from a family with a business background, and maybe some of us have an excellent core team. But for a lot of us, the problems that we face in running a small-medium business are more or less entirely ours to face and resolve. Whatever be the case, one has to accept that problems will occur. There is no business, or for that matter no serious activity, which is not beset by its own unique set of problems.

The trick is to accept this fact, and to face most of your problems with as much equanimity, humility, and introspective ability as you can. In most cases, I find I can manage all these virtuous qualities in some measure or the other. Cash-flow issues - we've faced them earlier, and have managed to come through. Plus the receivables list does tend to give one comfort that sooner or later the money is going to come through. Client issues - some clients are generally painful, most others have genuine grievances. Nothing that cannot be resolved by openly asking them what they would like us to do, negotiating the extent to which we'll go, and then delivering on it. As long as they see we are sincere in our commitment, they'll usually stop being adversarial, and start looking at how they can work with us to solve the problems at hand. Lack of a strong pipeline. We've faced that situation earlier as well, and usually the lull lasts for no more than a month or so. A weak pipeline also means people sitting twiddling their thumbs. But constant communication, research projects, and trainings can help keep them productively occupied. Employee performance issues - again set targets, agree on them, measure them, and if they consistently under-perform, ask them to leave.

The one problem where I can simply muster up no equanimity is attrition. And we usually have waves that come in about once a year, when the level of attrition can quite simply be called an exodus. Each time, I try and introspect what we could have done better, and we try and do it. And each time it seems as if we're building a castle right near the shore, and a huge wave comes in and washes it right away. Last time around we introduced incentives and a team structure to help curb attrition. I also reduced my own involvement in project execution. This time it seems we need to dig down deeper to find out what we need to do, to get ahead of the attrition ratios that plague us. What hurts about attrition is the feeling of loss. You spend time building a relationship, investing in people's learning/training, you see them grow in confidence and technical skills, and then one day it's pretty much all over. I can tell you the worst day in office is when an email with the subject-line "Resignation" or "Sign-off" or whatever term is vogue lands up in my inbox.

So if I had to choose my problems - I'd say give me anything except attrition.

Due diligence of Indian companies 9 Jan 2008 11:50 PM (17 years ago)

Came across an interesting paper on what investor should look for when investing in small and mid-sized Indian companies. It is an important read, because for a small business entrepreneur it gives you a lot of ideas on what your company should have to be able to impress a potential investor. The full paper can be downloaded here.

Here is a summary of the key points from the paper:

Operational legitimacy - is the company running a legitimate business, or are the bulk of its revenues coming from front-ending operations. There have long been rumors that a number of small and mid-sized IT companies serve as fronts for small to large amounts of money laundering.

Quantitative Criteria Matching - most investors have specific criteria which the target company needs to match. These are typically in terms of turnover, profitability, number of years in operation, etc. If your company does not meet these criteria - say $2 million in turnover - it would naturally not be in contention.

Leadership & Management - the investors will want to see who is in your core team, or even if there is no core team, they would want to evaluate your skills in terms of management ability, leadership, vision for the future, principles and values you espouse, your track record, and experience either working for other firms or successful ventures in the past.

Growth potential: How quickly can your product/service lines grow, and if they cater to specific market segments, are those segments by themselves also poised for exponential growth in the overall picture of the country's economy? What is your business plan, and what strategies have you envisaged to achieve your targets, and your degree of innovation.

Possible exit strategies: At the end of the day, all investors want to see returns on their investments. And investors in small- to medium- firms are usually taking a much higher risk, and consequently would expect much higher returns. Especially, since only 10-20% of their investments actually pan out.

Market reputation: What do your customers, your partners, and your employees say about your firm? As a small business it is unlikely you will have achieved a lot of press publicity, so your reputation almost completely depends on the people who know you or your company on a one-to-one basis.

NEN - an interesting resource for entrepreneurs 9 Jan 2008 12:14 AM (17 years ago)

I was recently contacted by the NEN - the National Entrepreneurship Network - to take a look at their website and what they do. I quite like the resources available on their website, and would recommend that you may read up on some of the more interesting articles and interviews. They also have an Ask The Expert section, where they have experts address various aspects of entrepreneurship.

They claim to be non-profit, so I guess they will continue to provide as many resources for free as they can. Some of the links I would like you to check out would be:

Ask the Expert. The current link features Pradeep Gupta who answers questions on Angel Investing
The Weekly Startup. This section looks at promising and successful startups and can be a good source for ideas and inspiration.
Resources. All the rest of the resources on the website packaged together

So let me know if you liked the website, and I'll check and see if there are other such websites out there.

Worst VC Investments 3 Dec 2007 10:27 PM (17 years ago)

Here's a very interesting list of the top 20 worst VC investments of all time. My favorites include Pets.com, CueCat, and Procket.

Really, makes you think when's a good time to sell off one's firm if the valuations can go up and down so dramatically. Also, with Sabeer Bhatia back in the news it makes you think whether the $400 million he sold Hotmail for was the right price, considering its worth a few $billions now. But in a recent interview he said something very straightforward, "When you've got $5000 in the bank, and someone offers you $400 million, the choice is pretty simple". Especially, when the first offer he got from Microsoft was a measly $160 million.

Running/starting a business - frequently asked questions 24 Aug 2007 3:32 AM (17 years ago)

Q. What will be the tax structure for a sole proprietorship?
A. As a proprietor, you will create a profit-and-loss account of your business. Here you have the advantage of putting in a lot of your business/personal expenses into the P&L account. This should ideally be avoided as you grow, but initially you can reduce your tax burden with this. The tax you will end up paying is only on the *profit* of your business, and not on all the income. If you accept income directly on your name, you will have to end up paying tax on all the income. So proprietorship is the smarter choice.

The other tax component you need to be aware of is Service Tax. If your revenues exceed Rs. 8 lakhs per year, you are liable to pay Service Tax every quarter at the rate of 12.36% on the income. For this you will need to obtain a Service Tax number by registering yourself at the local excise office. This is for services. If you are going to be selling products, you need to register for Sales Tax or VAT (depends on the rules in your particular state). For this as well you need to check with your local excise officer. More information on Service/Sales tax is available here
http://cexmumbai3.gov.in/

Q. How do I start from scratch?
A. Good to hear that you're looking at becoming an entrepreneur. There are basically two approaches to starting your company:
1. You could plan, map your strengths, product offering, and then see whether there is a market need for it, what resources you would need, how much funding you would need, and then build all of this into a business plan.
2. You could jump right into the deep end of the pool, and follow a 'shoot-from-the-hip' kind of cowboy style of doing things

I adopted approach #2, but wouldn't always advise it. The important common points in either approach are:
1. You have to offer something that the market will pay you for
2. It has to be something you would love doing irrespective of how much you get paid for it

The current economic and business situation is such that you could start off on an experimental basis while you are still working. And then you could quit and begin full time. I was slightly advantaged because I started at 20-21 and didn't have a family to support. Those sorts of things add responsibilities and must be duly addressed.

I started my company with a Rs. 2 lakh capital, and built it into a 100 times that in about 6 years. My blog does contain posts on how to start your business from scratch. Take a look and see if it helps.

Q. Can you tell me if VAT and Service Tax are applicable for freelance software solutions provided locally and for abroad?
A. Service Tax, yes, only if your annual turnover exceeds Rs. 8 lakhs
VAT would be applicable only if you resell other software products, or you have built your own products.

Q. Do I need a PAN card for a proprietorship firm?
A. No, you can use your personal PAN number. A separate PAN will be required only if you have incorporate it as a Pvt. Ltd. firm. Approach the nearest Income Tax office and get in touch with the PRO (Public Relations Officer) for details.

Q. Do I need to register for Service Tax or VAT?
A. Service Tax, yes, only if your annual turnover exceeds Rs. 8 lakhs
VAT would be applicable only if you resell other software products, or you have built your own products.

Q. Where do I get my seed capital from?
A. As to your funding requirement, I suggest you first list out exactly how much money you need, for how many months, how you intend to earn revenues, how much revenues you are targeting on a monthly basis vs. your monthly expenses to run the company. Basically, try and build a rudimentary profit-and-loss sheet, and see where your break-even point is. How do you intend to pay back the entity who loans you the money.

Taking money from friends/relatives may sound easy, but it isn't always so. What if your venture doesn't succeed as much you had planned. You will damage the relationships also. But if it is a small sum, and you are confident of returning it, then this is the best option. Banks will ask for collateral to give you a loan, and this might be difficult, unless you mortgage some family property or other assets you have.

But first come up with the exact amount of money you need and then try and figure out your sources of funding.

Q. I am currently working at a Pvt Ltd Co. and am starting my own propreitorship firm from my home. Its a services business where I would be launching my first portal soon. I have acquired a gumaste license. Kindly inform me about the other requirements specially relating to taxes. Do I need a seperate pancard for the firm and besides registering for the service tax which other taxes do i have to pay?
A. If you are running it as a sole proprietorship, you can continue using your personal PAN number. For purposes of tax calculation, you need to prepare a profit-and-loss account for the proprietorship firm, and then include only the profit (if any) into your total taxable income computation. But if you incorporate it as a Pvt. Ltd. firm then you need an additional PAN card.

Besides service tax, if you have employees you would have to pay Fringe Benefit Tax on the benefits you provide to your employees (such as travel, food, conveyance, entertainment, petrol diesel, etc.). You also need to register for Professional Tax for your proprietorship firm. If you sell or resell any products, you would also need to register for VAT or Sales Tax. If you have employees, you need to deduct tax at source, and for this you need to register for a TAN number.

Please check with a professional CA and CS (Company Secretary) for the latest laws and regulations in this regard.

Q. Can I have a current account (as the sole Prop) in my name but have an operational business name for website/visiting cards etc. Is it mandatory to have the name registered?
A. Your clients will know you by the name being used on your website and visiting cards. But then when you bill them or ask them to make a payment, it will be a different name. This will create a slightly negative impression in their minds. It is best to focus on brand-building right from the start.

How to register for Sales Tax / VAT in India 2 Aug 2007 12:44 AM (17 years ago)

Recently, we got into reselling products in line with our consulting work, and also developed a couple of new products. But in order to sell products within India, we need to register for a Sales Tax or VAT (Value-Added Tax) number. This process is pretty straightforward:

Locate the office of the Central Sales Tax Office in your city. Being in Mumbai, a simple Google search turned up the location of the office at Mazgaon - http://salestax.maharashtra.gov.in/communicationcenter/contactusShow.php
Approach either the Public Relations Officer's desk there, or go directly to the Registration Department and collect the forms.
We needed the following supporting documentation along with the form:

Company's PAN Card
Director's PAN Card copy
Two proofs of Director's residence - I used my passport and a phone bill
Two proofs of place of business - we used our Leave & License agreement, and the electricity bill

The form is pretty straightforward to fill, and you need to ask for the one related to Voluntary Registration (VRS). You will need a Sales Tax Professional to sign on the form, and the Mazgaon building also houses the central office of the Association of Sales Tax Professionals, so finding one shouldn't be all that difficult.
It cost us Rs. 5000 as fees for VRS, and nothing under-the-table
The Sales Tax or VAT number is sent across by post in about a week's time

The main thing to keep in mind is that VAT returns need to be filed every quarter, and you will need to get a qualified CA who is capable of auditing and signing-off on VAT returns. My current CA has expressed his reluctance to process our VAT returns, so we are on the lookout now for someone who can do this.

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