Shalom Namaste India-Israel IT industry links are set to grow, driven by favourable pricing and cutting edge technology
By Abhinav Singh/Tel Aviv
Thu Jul 26 2012
Israeli venture capitalist Didi Ehrlich, 47, chairman of Agiletree, an Indo-Israeli company, is excited about the Indian market. He is currently focusing on investing in promising Indian IT start-up companies that focus on social networking, mobile technology, travel and digital publishing. “I am excited about the potential to capitalise on the rapid growth of online users in India,” said Ehrlich. He has been working with a young Indian business partner, Mridul Pandey, and they visit each other's country regularly.
The presence of Israeli companies in electronics, agriculture and military engineering is well known, and now Israel IT companies are out to woo Indian customers. Many of them have set up their research and development and sales offices in India.
"The level of activity in the IT field is amazing and I get 8 to 10 approaches
daily by young entrepreneurs to fund their start-up"’ Yossi Vardi, Israeli IT pioneer. (Photo:The Week)
Tel Aviv-based Magic Software Enterprises Ltd provides application platforms and business process solutions to Indian biggies like Godrej, The Himalaya Drug Company and Mahindra and Mahindra. Magic Software has a research and development centre in Pune with 80 employees, in addition to sales offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.
“We see a great opportunity for our solutions in the field of mobility in India,” said Ran Lewinski, distribution general manager, Magic Software. “Providing mobile devices to their employees has become a priority for many Indian companies. We found that nearly 70 per cent of such companies want to increase their spend on mobile phones for their employees.”
Israeli IT company ClickSoftware, which specialises in workforce management and service optimisation solutions, has already roped in Bharti as its customer. “Our solutions help organisations achieve better field service operations, which helps them get higher revenues. Organisations also achieve better service quality improvement by using our solutions,” said Udi Geismar, director (sales), India.
Many Israeli companies have specialised in the field of cyber security, an example being Cyber-Ark Software Inc. Though the company is headquartered in the US, it has large-scale operations in Israel and customers in India. An interesting product of the company is its Sensitive Document Vault which lets an organisation securely isolate, store, share and track the internal use of sensitive files and documents such as customer credit card information, HR records, intellectual property documents and legal documents. It also facilitates secure sharing of confidential business documents between different business groups.
The most striking aspect of the Israeli IT scenario is the growing number of start-ups; around 200 start-ups are born annually. Known as the start-up nation, Israel has a track record of providing incubators for start-ups in different fields. “The level of activity in the IT field is amazing and I get 8 to 10 approaches daily by young entrepreneurs to fund their start-up,” said Yossi Vardi, the guru of Israeli internet and an authority on the Israeli IT industry. “I invest only in Israeli companies as it is easier for me to work here. Israel is a small country and people feel responsible to each other.”
The Israeli government stresses on research and development and a substantial portion of its GDP is spent on this. Many of the start-up teams, whom THE WEEK met up in Israel, comprised young entrepreneurs who wanted the freedom to think out of the box, a freedom not granted by regular jobs. And these entrepreneurs are striking gold. For instance, Itay Glick's start-up, MobileTick, has just eight employees—and 40 customers worldwide.
Similarly, Rami Sass left a high profile American IT company to start WhiteSource a year ago. He sells solutions that help firms manage their open source assets. “I got a venture capital fund from the chief scientist's office in Israel for my start-up. It took nearly 13 months to develop the first version of the product,” Rami said.
And, the traffic is two-way. Recently, Infosys signed an MoU with the office of the chief scientist of Israel. It promotes industrial cooperation between the software giant and Israeli corporations in emerging technology areas like cloud, information security, sensors, analytics and sustainability. With a global customer base, Infosys is expected to bring valuable insights in defining pertinent challenges and solutions across various industries.
“At Infosys, we are looking at leveraging the innovation ecosystem in Israel, as part of evaluating early stage technologies that are relevant for clients to build tomorrow’s enterprises,” said Subu Goparaju, senior vice-president and head of Infosys Labs. Avi Hasson, chief scientist of the ministry of industry, trade and labour, said such deals would pool the advantages of both sides into mutually beneficial projects.
Recently, Gyan Milan, an initiative of the Israeli consulate in Mumbai, saw IT heads of several Indian organisations heading to Israel to meet counterparts. “Earlier, people in Israel looked at the west for majority of their exports but that is changing,” said Orna Sagiv, consul general in Mumbai. “They are now keenly looking at India and China for their exports. Forty per cent of Israel's export is from the hi-tech sector.”
The Indian delegates were excited by the technology and innovations which Israeli IT companies had to offer. “Israeli companies, identify and build crucial tactical advantages over others using technology as a tool, position themselves far ahead of their rivals and retain their leading positions by building new technology even before the earlier one becomes irrelevant or inadequate,” said Adi J. Shroff, chief information officer and senior vice-president, Eureka Forbes Ltd.
What many delegates found in common was the pride Israeli IT companies have in being called an Israeli company. “There seems to be an unstated unity amongst Israeli IT firms and they do not seem to over-plan and primarily focus on the product and are confident that the rest will fall in place,” said Gaurav Kataria, head (consulting and customer divisions), Feedback Business Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd.
Some delegates like Shailesh Joshi, vice-president (information systems), Godrej Industries, felt that the Israeli companies were successful in offering high-end technology at a fraction of the price, offered by American and European IT companies.
Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence, said, “They approach the problem with alternative thinking methods and do not fear taking risks. I think the compulsory army service makes them successful entrepreneurs, wherein resourcefulness, leadership and algorithms come naturally.”
The delegates were impressed by the systematic and innovative thought process of Israeli entrepreneurs. “Israel entrepreneurship has created unique technology solutions in many technology grounds like software, internet, mobile, security and unique innovations using technology,” said Suresh A. Shanmugam, head (business information technology solutions), Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd.
Animesh Singh, vice-president (operations and IT), BrickRed Technologies, said he was already in touch with a few Israeli companies and was working towards mutually beneficial bonds.