Nasscom sets up business guidance group

Information technology trade body Nasscom announced the formation of Product Business Guidance Panel (PGBP), under its Product Forum Special Interest Group.

The PGBP, comprising a core group of industry representatives, will be chaired by Subhash Menon, founder chairman, managing director & CEO, Subex Azure. The group will guide entrepreneurs and organisations on the various aspects of setting up and running a software product company.

The PGBP will consist of Lin Chase, head, Accenture Technology Labs; Sanjay Swamy, CEO, mChek; Sanjay Anandaram, MD, Jumpstartup Fund Advisors; Abhay Dubey, VP & GM Operations, Verismo Networks; Vishwas Mahajan, MD & CEO, Compulink; and Samir Palnitkar, VP Engineering, Airtight Networks.

The group will not only provide advice and guidance on product and business prospects but will also facilitate meetings with other partners in the ecosystem such as investors.

Elaborating the objectives of the panel, Subash Menon said, "The objective is to aid the companies and entrepreneurs to build strong software product companies by helping them overcome a multitude of challenges. The key strength of this panel is the real-life experience that the members have "� a team of people who have built and are currently building successful product companies."

Kiran Karnik, president, Nasscom, said, "The indigenous software product sector in India is still at an early stage of development and needs guidance from experts, which is what this panel aims to do.

Taking a cue from countries such as Ireland, Israel, the UK and Singapore, which are all emerging as strong locations for software development, we need to ensure adequate government support for growth of this segment."