Work for startups India

The author has posted comments on this articleShilpa Phadnis & Sujit John, TNN BANGALORE: The success of the Microsoft Accelerator programme for Indian startups now looks to be encouraging other global companies to start similar initiatives, a trend that could provide more fuel to the emerging startup ecosystem here.

Target, the $73-billion US retailer, will on Monday launch an accelerator programme in India for which it has identified five startups. The company will help them develop their business ideas by providing them access to mentors, tools, resources and operational support.

The New York Times reported recently that Coca-Cola was hiring two-person teams in cities, including Bangalore, San Francisco and Berlin, to find small tech firms whose ideas could be harnessed by the global drinks giant. It quoted Coke's vice-president of innovation David Butler as saying: "At the end of the day, we're trying to create the next Twitter-like company."

Target India MD Navneet Kapoor said the company's effort was to tap into the innovation environment here. Target has had a captive technology centre in Bangalore for nine years now. With nearly 2, 900 engineers today, it's seen as Target's second headquarters. But innovation, as Kapoor says, can come from anywhere; hence the new initiative with startups.

Ravi Gururaj, chairman of the Nasscom Product Council, and co-founder of the India chapter of the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels Association, said corporates want to inculcate a startup culture within their organizations to help inject a sense of creativity, innovation, agility and urgency into their business units.

"Traditionally, large company corporate culture is instinctively risk-averse and processes are biased to keeping managers and staff focused on the core business, the current quarter, P&L efficiency and KPIs. These constraints don't reward managers who seek to experiment. This is where accelerators become an excellent engagement construct by which to try out new ideas that involve a high level of risk without impacting the core business."

Corporates, he said, engage with accelerators hoping to gain valuable insight on nascent technology that may be on the bleeding edge, they might provide startups some business by leveraging their offerings and occasionally they might even seek to outright acquire a startup's IP.

Target, for instance, will work with startups focused on mobile, data and analytics, content, social and search, all of which are becoming critical to retail in ensuring the right assortments in stores, determining the right prices, and ensuring faster delivery.

One of the startups it will work with is Turnaround Innovision, which automates generation of rotating 3D images, which can be used to better showcase products on websites. Another, Konotor, enables in-app two-way communication, which can be used for communications with customers. muHive simplifies social conversations; Unbxd enables personalization in search, product recommendations, landing pages and navigation; Instaclique integrates social media conversations online and through mobile apps to increase customer engagement.

"Target is so big that we can help them to scale by providing them large-scale business problems that they can help solve. We will also invest selectively in them, " Kapoor said.