Baring fails to unearth business ideas

Where have the entrepreneurs in Kolkata gone? Is what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow a mere pontification?

Rahul Bhasin, managing partner, Baring Private Equity Partners (India), came into Kolkata on Saturday for a seminar on 'Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO)' organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and left the city without a single business idea from any entrepreneur or one even aspiring to be. No enquiries, no approaches.

Incidentally Baring has a corpus of $3.5 billion globally and around $250 million in India.

Further it has fresh funds for India to the tune of Rs 700 crore to be invested over the next three years.

Bhasin cited the contrasting character of Mumbai and said that he landed in Mumbai in the morning only to find that 17 meetings were lined up.

People were brimming with business ideas and certainly a lot more enthusiasm.

He explained that from presentations made at the seminar, it was evident that the parameters for progress was ticking in the city's favour but results were missing.

"Where are the 100 start-ups coming up in the city" he asked.

Out of the fresh funds of Rs 700 crore for India which is to be invested across sectors, a single paise has not been invested as yet.

Bhasin said the biggest investment made by Baring in India in the KPO sector were in BFL Software, Mphasis and Msource, to the tune of $200 million.

Baring currently was in talks with entrepreneurs in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai.

Bhasin pointed out Hyderbad or Chennai had entrepreneurs brimming with multiple business ideas but this appeared to be what Kolkata lacked.

There were advantages in the eastern India, Bhasin admitted, like good English communication skills which was important in KPO ventures for supporting preparation of research reports or outsourced market research.

Kolkata also had a pool of educated people, which again was critical in ventures for providing analytical support, initiatives in the field of outsourced research, accounting and financial outsourcing.

However, Bhasin said he had not given up all hopes on Kolkata.

He says, he will keep an eye on the city.