The Telecom Commission on Friday approved Rs 30,000-crore National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) for broadband connectivity to 2,500 Panchayats in the country.A meeting that was held a few hours ago has approved the proposal that was initiated early this year. A study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), says India will need more than Rs 40,000 crore investments to build a broadband infrastructure to provide 214 million broadband connections by 2014, which is likely to touch 700 million.The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) had identified three business models to build a national broadband network to take high-speed Internet to rural areas.According to sources, the government is likely to fund existing operators to expand their data networks to rural India. A special purpose vehicle is to be set up by the government. Under the special purpose vehicle model, BSNL and MTNL are likely to hold 49 per cent private companies holding 51 per cent. Within this 51 per cent holding, a private company (individually) can hold a maximum of 26 per cent stake.As per the proposal discussed at the meeting, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd will build NOFN. The Rs 30,000 crore is to be funded through the Universal Service Obligation Fund. The Universal Service Obligation Fund was created to fund those operators who go into the rural and non-remunerative areas to offer telecom network. Private telecom companies contribute 5 per cent of their annual revenues towards this fund.Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, said: "This kind of broadband network can add 1-2 per cent to our GDP."This would also help in connecting the innovation that happen in institutes situated in far flung corners of the country. Describing the building of this network as a complex task, Pitroda said, "It is now achievable."The government is also likely to involve the Centre for Development of Telematics, RailTel, PGCIL Tel and GailTel in building this NOFN. The 2,500 Panchayats will be connected to monitor the various government schemes including the allotment of ‘Aadhar' the UID numbers.Sources in DoT said, 33 new major applications will be built using the open source code. These applications will use NOFN to connect rural areas with educational institutions, health service and central government services.R. Chandrashekhar, secretary DoT told BW, "We see these kinds of services, expanding, the demand for broadband; they become the chief drivers of demand for fixed line."
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Too much agreement and too much difference – both are harmful for a healthy decision making process.This is precisely the situation that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are in today. The ongoing spat over the number of telecom licences that need to be cancelled indicates the huge divide between the regulator and the government.Now the government has decided to give the defaulters an exit route. This was not one of the suggestions of Trai for the operators not rolling out their networks. A situation like this is unlikely to attract FDI in the sector. The existing operators have already told the officials informally, that the future investments in India has become a topic of debate at their board meetings, from a unanimous approval.The history involving the telecom regulator and the DoT's relationships does not give anything to cheer about for future. However, that does not mean a new beginning cannot not be made.It is important that the two crucial bodies responsible for the growth of this sector act responsibly. It is said, that the UN Charter provides immense powers to the Secretary General. However, it is the responsibility of the incumbent to use it firmly, diplomatically and effectively or toe the line of one super power or other. This reflected in social, political and economic decisions of UN in conflict resolution.Trai may not have enough powers in the Act under which it is governed. But the incumbent occupying the seat of Chairman needs to understand that Trai has some power that needs to be adjudicated judiciously. Till then, it does not get more powers for stringent implementation of its orders.The telecommunications ministry on the other hand, needs to understand, that an unbridled use of its executive powers using the support of legislature does not augur well for a country that is in the process of economic reforms.
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Rajiv Mody, chairman and managing director, Sasken Communication spoke to Businessworld's Venkatesh Babu about how he is fixing the company. Excerpts:While your profitability has grown, your revenues have shrunk by a fifth in the last two years. What has gone wrong over the last couple of years?Over the past 3-4 years what have changed significantly are two things. The first is network equipment companies like Nortel, Alcatel, Lucent etc. we used to pride in having great relationships with and the deep technical knowhow have undergone a lot of pain because of changing market conditions. Some of them have gone bust and others have faced challenges. They passed on the pain to us and there is no escaping that.On the devices (handsets and semiconductor companies) side, players who were market leaders have fallen, all the software standards have gone away. Symbian has faltered. All this happened within a short period of time. Texas Instruments for instance decided to exit the wireless modem business in which we were majorly associated with them. Pace of change has accelerated dramatically. It takes time to build know-how in the newer areas. What we did not see coming was the advent of applications and cloud in a big way. We were linked with some of our customers so strongly we did not see this coming. Reminds of an HBR paper which said how a company could fail by listening to customers too much also. It is not too late to fix that. Also we should have limited our dependence on certain limited verticals. That is the transition path we are on.How are you fixing these shortcomings?We are broad basing our revenues, getting into newer segments like automotive, consumer electronics, retail and other areas. We are providing solutions for Smart TV and energy management for telecom networks. We are betting big on Android and its ecosystem. We are closely working with major handset vendors in this space. We have had significant success on this front. From being just a component player we have moved to becoming an end to end system integrator. We will start seeing material impact of all this stuff during the tail end of the current financial year and only accelerate going forward. We will be back to our growth ways.(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 10-10-2011)
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The need for effective business leaders in India is as intense as it is in most countries. But the path that Indian firms take to develop effective leaders is considerably different than the path followed by American or Canadian firms.In today's world, executive education basically means leadership training, as leadership is broadly integrated into all forms of executive education. But does leadership training ensure success at the top management team level, and therefore, successful organisations?No one is willing to argue that leadership does not matter; that would be short-sighted indeed. However, leadership has become a catch-all term whose pervasiveness has robbed it of its true meaning; this is especially true in today's fast-moving emerging markets. In conversations with CEOs and heads of HR at over 50 of India's largest and most innovative firms, it is quite apparent that the Indian CXO1 community defines leadership in ways that push the bounds of traditional definitions offered by researchers and professionals in organizational behaviour or applied behavioural sciences. Indian senior executives cannot afford to invest in programs that take such a one-sided, individual-focused view on leadership; they are under pressure to make money today, tomorrow, the next day and next year!When the GDP is growing at a rate of almost 10 per cent year over year, and firms stop to train their top managers, this training has to be multifaceted and practical enough to improve the manager's ability to lead the firm in its quest to capture value in an increasingly competitive environment.Top managers in leading Indian firms don't speak about their leadership development needs in the way most universities, consulting firms or training organizations do. The leadership development needs for top managers are much more specific and linked to the firm's bottom line. If India's top firms are going to depend on executive development organisations to help shape their future leaders, these outfits will have to be at the forefront of research and teaching in six key areas of strategic leadership: (1) managing growth, (2) developing a global mindset, (3) developing and retaining talent, (4) developing strong fiscal management, (5) institutionalising creativity, and (6) leading across an enterprise.Leading To Manage GrowthIn the last five years, India's GDP has been growing at a rate of 10 per cent annually. Exports from Indian firms have doubled over the last five years as well. The forecasts are equally positive, with GDP, private consumption, investment growth and domestic demand all expected to grow a by slightly less than 10 per cent per year for the next 5 years. This explosive growth scenario generates two different views of leadership at the firm level. Some Indian executives actively take on a short horizon view: "Why do we have to worry about leadership when any mistakes or weaknesses are easily remedied by the growth in demand; if we take our critical leadership cadre away from the business of the day – the opportunity costs are unfathomable". The longer horizon view is: "What if the economists are wrong and the growth scenario doesn't pan out? What if the number of foreign entrants into the Indian market space creates a level of competitiveness that begins to counterbalance the benefits of growth?"CEOs at India's biggest firms take the second view. What happens when the economic boom begins to wind down? Will companies have leadership teams in place that know how to create growth opportunities in a leaner environment? Will Indian managers be able to effectively and efficiently compete against competitors to capture more of the markets in which they do business? In today's high-growth environments, creating and capturing growth is a key leadership skill that many Indian leaders simply have not had the opportunity to develop. Leaders with this set of skills will be crucial to Indian corporations' long-term success.Developing A Global Mindset Is Crucial To Being A Successful LeaderFor a little less than a decade, FDI inflows to India have been on a positive upswing. The biggest sources of FDI into India include Mauritius, Singapore, the US, the UK and the Netherlands. Indian managers are constantly being confronted by the challenge of working with partners who are much more globally experienced. Expatriates working in multinationals and Indian firms have almost always lived in multiple countries, have been able to speak more than a few languages, and have education bases that span the globe. These global managers often hold pivotal positions in their firms, and Indian CEOs realise that they depend on their advanced global mindset to drive growth not only in India but also outside India. In fact, in countries as far away as the US and Canada, it is now becoming impossible to reach the senior management level without having lived and worked abroad for at least 3 years. The bar for leadership is going up – leaders must be global. To ensure that Indian companies have Indian managers with a global mindset, the companies will need to provide top managers with the training that enables them to think across country boundaries and cultures, to work in multi-cultural environments, to learn how to coexist with business realities that are often very different from the ones at home, and to understand organisational structures such as joint ventures and acquisitions, both very common in the global business scenario. break-page-breakDeveloping And Retaining TalentThe dark side of growth and globalisation for Indian companies is retaining high-quality people at reasonable salary levels. Indian managers often blame GDP, foreign firms willing to pay higher salaries, booming sectors such as education and real estate, growing costs of MBA programs, and the expatriation of droves of NRIs (non-resident Indians) making India home once again. Rarely do managers turn the mirror around and blame themselves – managers are unwilling to admit that most managers are not very good at creating a work environment or designing systems that effectively develop and retain people. In the Indian scenario, attrition rates can range from 15 per cent to 50 per cent per year, depending on the sector and the management level. Employees usually state better compensation or opportunities for career growth as the main reasons for leaving one job for another. However, more recently, Indian employees are becoming concerned about developing a reputation for being a ‘serial' employee – one that jumps from one employer to the other. Between these two realities is an opportunity for top managers to lead in a way that develops and retains talent. This means that managers will have to hone their skills in fostering employee engagement, become strong communicators with exceptional interpersonal skills, inspire commitment, and participate in coaching and mentoring employees for growth.Developing Strong Fiscal ManagementIn India, a successful leader must understand the financial markets. In the last few years, the number of companies accessing debt has increased, as have the number of IPOs, the funds raised by these IPOs and the relative success rate of the IPOs. Understanding the intersection between financial management and leadership is crucial to success, especially in light of the forecasted business growth in India. In order to lead, top managers must understand key questions such as: How does the relationship between debt and equity in my firm affect my ability to grow? How does cash management influence decision making and the company's ability to take advantage of opportunities inside and outside the firm? How do the numbers influence the value I can create and offer to customers? Managers at multiple levels and across different functions of the organisation have to have this level of understanding. In high-growth environments it is not enough to look to the CFO to provide the answers. Without understanding the fundamental financial implications of every decision, leaders will simply not be prepared to lead their companies to success in the new Indian economy.Institutionalising CreativityIndian business is a hotbed of innovation. The number of patents filed each year for the last 5 years has been increasing by almost 11 per cent annually. In 2004, the number of patents granted was slightly more than 10 per cent of the number filed; today that number has increased to almost 50 percent. Indians are becoming more astute innovators; however they are being outpaced on every front by the Chinese. In order to lead successfully, the top manger will have to understand how to foster innovative ideas and thinking at the individual level, how to create an organisational culture that supports innovation, and how to ensure that the right structures are in place that enables innovations to rise up in the organisation.Managers will have to understand and be able to leverage the innovation value chain in their own companies. Cross-Enterprise Strategy Formulation And ImplementationTo make good on the pressures to lead such as managing growth, keeping the best people in the job, developing and acting with a more global perspective, or thinking in a way that is more bottom-line oriented, leaders have to change the way they think. Most leaders prefer to stay within their own functional areas of expertise; this is usually also the function or department of the organization they understand best and the one in which they don't have to share too much power in decision making. However, this kind of territorial leadership behaviour will hurt today's Indian organization. Tomorrow's leaders will have to focus on developing the leadership skills that enable them to look beyond the walls and silos in the organizational chart and approach issues from a perspective that spans the entire organisation. They will need to have an advanced understanding of the ramifications of their decisions and actions across the organisation, allowing them to capitalize on the opportunities and synergies that result from seeing the big picture. They will need to develop advanced competencies such as being able to (1) quickly and effectively understand the business, i.e. how it configures it resources to create value for customers, (2) manage complexity and ambiguity by being good at developing a set of strategic options that allow the firm to create and capture value, (3) design micro and macro structures within the organization to enable execution of complex strategies, and (4) inspire commitment and excitement from the people who execute the firm's strategy.What do the six dimensions of leadership development described above say to the traditional leadership development approaches that tend to focus on 360's, personality dimensions and how they enable and disable leadership, or even newer approaches that focus on more fashionable dimensions of personality such as emotional intelligence and its link to leadership effectiveness? Being an effective leader at the individual and interpersonal levels is still crucial. However, in today's business environment, leaders without the strategic skill sets outlined above are simply out-dated and unprepared to drive bottom line results. Leaders without a honed ability to drive organizational excellence are like parents without the ability to discipline or guide their children. Both enable disastrous consequences.The author is professor of strategy & managing director, India - Richard Ivey School of Businessakachra at ivey dot uwo dot ca
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The word "inclusive" is now in vogue. Politicians give speeches about inclusive growth. Corporate executives talk about inclusive strategies. And business academics write about inclusive innovation.After a decade of excess and the sins of the financial crisis, it is not surprising to see interested parties take positions. Politicians, worried about the growing gaps between the rich and poor emphasise the need for growth to reach all segments of their nation's populations. CEOs of multinationals, eager for growth after the shocks of the crisis, see the rising middle class in emerging markets as the panacea for reenergising profits. Business academics, always searching for the next magical mantra, see potential in extolling the reinvention of innovation strategies.The business logic for emphasising inclusiveness is sound. After all, inclusive growth brings the bottom of the pyramid into the mainstream economy as customers, employees and intermediaries. Companies that are able to cater to and attract the loyalty of these emerging masses are laying the foundations of their future growth and success. However, creating and executing on inclusive innovation strategies has proven to be hard for corporations.Many executives wrongly assume that inclusive growth simply means making lower quality products at lower price points. This they argue is either against their corporate goals or simply incompatible with their existing capabilities and production processes. However, entrepreneurs in many emerging markets such as India and Brazil have shown that inclusive innovation requires a fundamental rethinking of business models. How else could they offer mobile phone calls for less than one cent a minute or perform high quality cataract surgery for thousands of needy individuals at around $25 dollars per head. In fact, the motto adopted by the National Innovation Council in India, inspired by the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi is doing more good with lesser resources for more people. Affordability and sustainability have come to the fore of innovation and they will have to be achieved while maintaining or even improving quality. This poses a non-trivial challenge for even the most successful corporation. While business models will have to be rethought bottom-up, having the right mindset and culture are even more important. Business leaders will have to commit in unambiguous terms to making inclusive innovation part of their corporate goals. There has to be a fundamental desire to serve more people, in fact many more people, with relevant and affordable products as opposed to being content with serving more products at premium prices to current customer segments. The winners in inclusive innovation will reap big benefits in a changing world where the fastest growth in consumer spending is coming from the bottom of the pyramid in emerging markets. However, winning in this new arena will not be easy and cannot be taken for granted by incumbents. Are you ready for this challenge?The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France. He has authored several books on technology, policy and innovation. He can be reached at: soumitra dot dutta at insead dot edu
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The SMEs (small and medium enterprises) are no longer small in their ambitions. They are determined to succeed on the global stage. But the question is how. And this was hotly debated at the launch of Businessworld's The SME Whitebook on 13 September. The Crystal Ballroom at Delhi's Lalit Hotel was packed, and the atmosphere electric. The charismatic chief guest, Union Minister for Law and Justice and Minority Affairs Salman Khurshid, struck an optimistic note with his promise of SME-friendly policies. He said smaller businesses provided muscle to India's growth story, before unveiling The SME Whitebook 2011-12. This year's edition is more data-intensive and covers new sectors including plastics, chemicals and healthcare.Pavan Varshnei, president, English magazines, ABP, set the tone for the evening. He said, "SMEs play a key role in the global value chain, and also a vital role in upholding the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation which is crucial to fostering competitiveness in our economy." BW, he said, provides an interactive platform for SMEs.K.V. Srinivasan, CEO, Reliance Commercial Finance and Reliance Home Finance, who was the next speaker, highlighted the critical role information played in the success of any SME. He said The SME Whitebook will help enhance knowledge of sectors that afford more opportunity to SMEs.That set the stage for a panel discussion on "How can SMEs succeed in a global economy?" The panel included Ameera Shah, managing director and CEO of Metropolis Healthcare, Anil Bhardwaj, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), Samarendra Sahu, additional commissioner in the Office of the Development Commissioner (MSME), Sandeep Dhupia, executive director, KPMG's Transaction Services, Shantanu Prakash, managing director and CEO, Educomp Solutions, and Srinivasan of Reliance. The discussion was moderated by BW's executive editor Rajeev Dubey.Dubey initiated the discussion by asking the panellists what they thought were the biggest hurdles that SMEs face. Quality of manpower was the biggest challenge, according to Shah. "We need manpower that understands the functioning of our SMEs. Healthcare is a nascent industry, and lacks quality technical manpower," she said. Dr. Reddy's Pathlabs and Marico, Shah said, had decided to set up the multiple leader programme in their early growth stage. This was a costly process, especially at a time when they were small in size. But it paid off. In their expansion phase — they had access to good leaders who could lead the business well. Bhardwaj felt current structures were not in tune with a globalised economy. Plus, the recent fall in demand, both globally and domestically, could pose a real problem to the SMEs. He suggested that SMEs should form clusters to jointly address the problems of infrastructure.Srinivasan said the low growth trend could stymie SMEs' effort to scale up, but that was one hurdle that must be crossed. He recounted a story of an SME that tried to change its mindset: an auto dealer decided to disclose his additional sources of income over three years, so that he could have a clean slate of accounts, and his business could attract venture capital. Such changes in mindset could help SMEs meet macro challenges, Srinivasan said.Prakash said entrepreneurs need two basic things — imagination and a core team. "But I talk to many SMEs and realise that their thinking is much less than what their ability is. Everything comes down to how big the entrepreneur can think and the quality of the core team that drives this business." The successful SMEs have managed to leverage the single competitive advantage they have. He cited the example of an Internet company in Chandigarh that managed to think big, effectively. The virtual tutoring business, with a start-up capital of less than Rs 50 lakh, outsourced its content building within India and to the USA and Russia, and was ready to take on global competitors.Dhupia too pointed to the need for a change in mindset. "I have interacted with many SMEs on both sides of the payroll and find SMEs complain about being too small to invest in technology." But such investments prove profitable. All Out, a mosquito repellent company, had invested in Japanese technology early, and could take on companies such as Godrej and Reckitt & Colman.MSME's Sahu pointed out that SMEs today are plagued by issues such as lack of credit, technology, marketing, skills and suffered from sustainability issues. But he felt that the greatest challenge that SMEs face in the context of globalisation was how to enhance their competitiveness.After the panel discussion, the floor was thrown open for a question-and-answer session. It saw a lively interaction between SME aid groups, entrepreneurs and panellists. The event was presented by Reliance Commercial Finance. The associate sponsor was Airfrance KLM Group and television partner was Bloomberg UTV. The event was supported by FISME.(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 03-10-2011)
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Mahindra XUV500 W6 (base variant) price starts at Rs 10.80 lakh ex-showroom Delhi," announced Pawan Goenka, president automotive and farm equipment sectors at Mahindra & Mahindra, and then there was silence.While Goenka smiled and paused for a while expecting applause, a feeling of shock and awe took over. The fact that Mahindra's most anticipated global sports utility vehicle was priced close to a C segment sedan, and much below that of any competitive SUV in the country, stunned the crowd.Fitted with a 2.2 litre mHawk diesel engine, delivering a power of 140 bhp and a capacity to go from 0-60 in a mere 5.4 seconds, the new horse from Mahindra's stable surprises further by boasting a mileage of 15.1 kilometres per litre."We are entering a segment which is not a mass market zone, but with XUV500 we are trying to create one," added Goenka. The utility vehicle maker says it is targeting customers planning to buy a C segment sedan like Honda City, Toyota Corolla Altis and Chevrolet Cruze to buy a fully-loaded SUV at the same price. Popular SUVs in the segment like Toyota Fortuner, Chevrolet Capita, and Mitisubishi Outlander are priced above Rs. 18 lacs.The SUV, which will be available in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, and Chennai in phase I from 1 October , also features an all-wheel drive variant priced at Rs 12.88 lakh. While the pricing may not surprise many until a glimpse of the actual vehicle, the features loaded on this utility vehicle do justify the surprised faces.Laden with a 6 inch touch screen infotainment system with GPS, driver information system, fully automatic temperature control, static-bending projector headlamps with LED parking lights, voice commands, tyretronics (tyre pressure monitoring system), and the list goes on.Built on a new 'W' platform with a total investment of Rs 650 crore under the project name 'W201', this seven-seater beast adheres to the Euro IV and V emission norms, and features 6 airbags as a safety measure. XUV500 is the first product from Mahindra's Chennai research and development centre and will be produced at its Chakan plant.Though the pricing may have some cannibalizing effect on its flagship Scorpio, Goenka says, "we are looking at growing the SUV market."With an installed capacity of 2000 units per month, XUV500 (pronounced as five double O) will also be sold in South Africa, Australia, South and Central America, and Western European markets."I am hoping we'll take the global markets by storm," Anand Mahindra commented, adding that the pricing for the global market will be according to the local competition in those markets.On the pricing front, the management says that the current pricing is an invitation price and is expected to remain the same for the next 2-3 months. VARIANT PRICING Mahindra XUV 500 W6 two wheel drive Rs 10.80 lakh Mahindra XUV 500 W8 two wheel drive Rs 11.95 lakh Mahindra XUV 500 W8 four wheel drive Rs 12.88 lakh While sceptics raise questions about the sales prospects of a Rs 10 lakh plus vehicle given the bearish purchase sentiment, Mahindra says, "We launched Xylo in January 2009, which was the peak point of the slowdown, but it was still a great success. We expect XUV500 to get a similar success."The country is witnessing a slowdown in car sales; however the utility vehicle market has seen strong sales mainly due to some discretionary buying. Mahindra, which sells half of the UVs sold in India, has grown at the rate of 30 percent in the current fiscal.
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This is perhaps one of the longest ongoing debates: What will be that black swan development in energy innovation that will make a sizable dent on our current energy practices? It is invariably the dream that will usher in a new growth economy and sustainable development. Much like the mobile telephony matter, we hope that energy innovations would rapidly thrust their way into the market too. Yet there are many who doubt that. We've heard of a variety of energy innovations, from smarter grids to new generation of biofuels but nothing has converted into a radical form of energy innovation that many are looking forward to as yet. Biofuels have been competitive but they are struggling in scale. Other technologies such as solar have scale but are struggling to draw an economic equaliser with conventional energy technologies. With global economy also slowing down there may be more contractions in R&D investments into energy innovation. But there are investors who continue to believe in both the necessity and the possibility of the next black swan energy innovation; may be a little later but not never! One of them, leading the pack, also sternly believes in the cleantech black swan and continues to invest billions into this bet. Vinod Khosla, one of the founding members of Sun Microsystems is raising yet another $1 billion this year. Khosla is known to bet big on early stage, high risk ventures that he calls are like his numerous shots at the goal to bring forth 'black swan' energy innovations. His belief too doesn't seems to be changing with the economic environment, his search for the 'Black Swan' innovation remains as fervent in 2011 as it did in 2008. His firm Khosla Ventures has built a long list of venture investments in early stage, high risk investments which range across the spectrum of cleantech domain. Given their comprehensive repertoire in hunting the energy innovations, it would be interesting to see then what clues does his long list of investments give away about the winning energy technologies or sub-domains.To figure that out I decided to analyse their portfolio and shortlist some of the key areas where Khosla ventures may be tipping towards. Many of these innovations would belong to three functional categories- Energy Generation (supply), Energy transmission & directly facilitating generation/deployment (bridge) and energy use or deployment (Consumption). 'Energy Generation' function would as the name suggest, to the function of generating energy. 'Energy transmission/ directly facilitate generation' refers to ventures that serve the purpose of developing technologies that transmit the use of clean energy and those that directly facilitate generation or deployment but could have other uses too like smart grids or batteries. These would be like bridging technologies. 'Use/Deploy' would refer to the ventures that bring innovation to the way we use the energy, for e.g. smart buildings or electric cars. Therefore based on this categorisation scheme we traces the investments (by number of ventures invested) made by Khosla Ventures. The following distribution resulted.And we weren't too surprised by the result we saw, most investments- almost half of them- were being made into the technologies that may change the way we consume energy (Deploy/Use category)! Yes the idea of hitting a revolutionary new technology to generate more energy does sounds more revolutionary but that doesn't seems to be the best bet, at least by the pattern that emerges from Khosla Ventures. And there seems to be very little focus on the bridging technologies. Is that a point of concern or not of course requires a separate discussion. The strong focus on the consumption side actually suggests that the likelihood of a radical change may be more qualitative i.e. what we do with the energy resources available to us under business as usual condition rather than than a quantitative change in our energy eco-system. Quantitative change will be radical increases in the supply of energy.However we also looked at the sectoral spread too and found three biggest areas that stood out. Number of ventures that received investments in battery technology area was higher than even those in solar energy generation area. Solar was the only clean energy technology that received more focus than any other technology. Alternative hydrocarbon appeared to be the most dominant sector too however this does seems to be a more localized nature of Khosla ventures portfolio. While it may appear surprising that why would batteries hold more promise than solar energy but in the fine print batteries have the potential to also facilitate both generation and deployment. Batteries will by themselves make it easier to use renewable energy given their infirm generation pattern or on the other hand also help deploy electric cars which will more or less depend upon the advances in battery technology to become more viable.Therefore Khosla ventures' search for a radical energy innovation gives clues that the consumption side of the energy eco-system may change faster and more radically than supply side and two that the not so fancy sectors in the bridging function may hold a lot more promise contrary to the popular perception.Yash Saxena is a sustainability consultant with Emergent Ventures, a climate change mitigating consultancy. He also works on innovation evangelism with Techpediayash (dot) saxena (at) emergent-ventures (dot)com
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