CIO & LEADER-Issue-01-April 2018 (1)

Cover Story
How to create a thriving partnership and derive
business value, resulting in a win-win for both.
By Shubhra Rishi
This month, Bhavish Aggarwal made it to Time's 100 list: a list of 100
most influential people in the world. There are very few people in IT
circles who don't know Aggarwal. He is the co-founder and CEO of
Ola Cabs, who gave India its first app-based taxi service. The startup
idea may not have been unique because it was almost a year after
Uber (formerly UberCab) had already launched (March 2009) in California,
United States but it still gave urban Indians the convenience and comfort of
ordering a cab service on a mobile app. Since then, the Indian tech industry has
never been the same. The last decade may have seen the rebirth of the start-up
ecosystem in the country with a more sustainable business model in the form
of venture capital.
According to a Nasscom Start-up Report published last year, over 1,000 new
starts-ups joined the start-up ecosystem in 2017, taking the total number of technology
start-ups to nearly 5,200. The B2C focused start-ups like Ola Cabs, have
always found favor in the form of funding and have continued to garner 1.5x more
average funding value vis-a-vis B2B start-ups, which increased from 27% in 2016
to 31% in 2017, according to the report.
However, the year 2017 is illustrative of a trend that has been in the making for
the last few years. A trend that has observed an exponential growth of start-ups
with B2B focus - with more than 47% of start-ups out of the 1,000 selling technology
to enterprises. According to the report, this share of B2B start-ups was higher
than B2B share in the overall start-up base of 40 percent. Clearly, the enterprise
product emerges as the top vertical for B2B start-ups, followed by fintech, health
tech and e-commerce.
Not every
start-up idea
must result in
a big business
opportunity;
some can be
just strategic
initiatives
April 2018 | CIO&LEADER
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