Very few get to herald a new era of entrepreneurship; of
these people, the number of those who went on to carve a niche for
themselves in the annals of history is fewer still. Especially, in a
country where enterprise activities were predominantly centred on agri
and agri-based products and services, Mr. Narendra Patni pioneered the
beginning of the software services industry – outsourcing – to be
precise.
Much later, this proved to be the platform for over scores of
thousands of entities – small and big – to start, flourish, and prosper
in what would eventually be termed as the process outsourcing industry.
Although the practice wasn’t exactly what Naren (as his closed
associates would call him) had endeavoured and started, this off-shoot
of outsourcing (as envisioned by Mr. Patni) actually spurred on other
entrepreneurs to so ostensibly create demand for a new type of
skills-set that India’s Youth Dividend provided – which came at a fairly
economic price and which offered the option to meet this demand that
was created.
Patni Computer Systems, the brain-child of Mr. Narendra Patni, at the
time proved to be the fertile place for some of India’s greatest
business leaders of the future, as indeed the prelude to the inception
of Infosys -that would eventually become one of the prominent IT
services company in the world.
Early days and Education
Mr. Patni was born into a Marwari Jain family in 1943. In a sort of
digression from what one would associate as a vocational activity in the
traditional Marwari milieu - in the first or second decade of India’s
independence- Narendra opted to become an engineer. What’s more, he had
his proper technological grounding at the Roorkee Engineering College
(which was later renamed to be known as the prestigious Indian Institute
of Technology – IIT Roorkee) where he pursued and completed electrical
engineering.
Right after completing his engineering, he enrolled for a masters in
electrical engineering at the world renowned Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), from where he also went on complete another masters -
in business management at the Sloan School of Management.
The spark, start, flight, and take-over
While the zest to succeed was evident from his education plans and
choice of career, the spark that that led to the founding of PCS
eventually was his tryst some inspiring folks as well as some
like-minded, enterprising Indian brethren who had also been at MIT at
the time.
It can be safely said the one who had the most influence on young
Narendra was Mr. Jay Wright Forrester – one of legends of modern
computing- who taught Industrial Dynamics at MIT. The course dealt with
using computer simulations to solve business problems. This had a
lasting impact on Mr. Forrester’s enthusiastic and creative pupil.
Apart from Mr. Forrester, there were also others like Lalit S.
Kanodia (Founder & Chairman, Datamatics Global Services) and Arun
Firodia (Founder, Kinetic Group) at MIT – with whom Narendra interacted,
who had noticed the spark early on as he was found to be always a
little ahead of the others when it comes to everything computer related.
Not only that, Narendra was also known to have actively participated in
all the community events organised by the Indian students’ association
at MIT.
All these combined and started to shape the entrepreneur in Narendra.
But before the entrepreneur Narendra had expressed himself, there
were professional stints and associations which allowed him to gain
practical insights and business perspectives that would prove so
path-breaking for him and for his motherland.
After completing his masters in 1969, he started working with Asia
Pacific Capital (HK) limited as advisor, followed by jobs at the US
Trust Company of New York and Arthur D. Little Inc. (as a consultant).
Not long after, he was hired by Mr. Jay W. Forrester, as President of
the Forrester Consulting Group – the company founded by him. This was
testimony to the fact that Mr. Forrester had spotted the spark in
Narendra during their time together at MIT (as teacher and pupil
respectively).
These associations facilitated for Narendra great hands-on experience
of the consulting business which essentially involved outsourcing of
work.
The astute Narendra, building on the experience thus gained, saw a
great business opportunity in data conversion work. The basis of
approach was that he considered it as something that could be done back
home in India where low wages offered him the luxury of staying very
competitive.
The start
After having made up his mind, the enterprising self of Narendra
started to express itself not so long after his job stints. In September
of 1972, with help, support, and encouragement of his wife Poonam, he
started a company in a small apartment that would offer data conversion
services. It was called “Data Conversion Inc.” It worked well enough for
the couple to encourage them to open an office in Pune with 20
employees – to augment hands that would help complete the work they were
getting.
After half-a-decade or so later, and after having tasted success with
their all-new business model /approach, Narendra decided to expand and
go full-fledged into the IT services outsourcing business.
Since doing that entailed greater involvement and stake-holding, he
brought in his brothers Ashok and Gajendra – who were both technocrats
themselves. This augured well, and in the year 1972, Patni Computer
Systems (PCS) was founded by the brothers.
The flight
In the initial days, the newly founded company sold Data General’s
mini-computers while the other company Data Conversion Inc. (later
renamed as Patni Americas) continued in the field of data conversion.
But, Narendra, being the tech-savvy, creative person, and visionary he
was, wanted the company take up software development services.
Thus, PCS hired a young engineer Narayan Murthy and entrusted him
with the responsibility of heading PCS’ software division. Murthy did
his bit in the growth of the company by bringing in S Gopalkrishnan,
Nandan Nilekani and five others who contributed to success of the
company to become the premier provider of software services. The same
group of employees hired by Murthy along with himself would go on to
found Infosys, which has since become a top technology services company
of the world. When at the peak, PCS employed over 15,000 employees in 23
offices with presence in many countries of the Americas, Europe, and
Asia-Pacific. The company’s off-shore development centers were located
in eight Indian cities. The company listed was on the New York Stock
Exchange in 2006.
The problems & take-over
Ironical as it may sound, but that fact remains that while Infosys,
the company founded by the very same people who helped PCS grow,
capitalized on the business opportunity presented by the turn of the
century – with the Y2K situation and the avenues it opened up for it and
a host of others that had sprung up in the years subsequent to Infosys’
inception, PCS did not. It let the opportunity slip-by. Moreover, the
internal squabbles within the company – especially the brothers- also
contributed to the continued stagnancy that PCS went through. As a
result, when others went to become blue-chip companies and crossed the
billion dollar marks, PCS struggled and remained a sub-billion dollar
company.
Further, the company was split into two – hardware and a software
division which apparently made it difficult to manage and consequently
lead to corporate chaos. Apart from that, the problem seemed to have
been compounded by the decision to bring in General Atlantic as
investors – as it gave little control to Narendra over the functioning
of the company.
The rumbling in the top echelons of the company, helped a much
smaller entity called iGate to sense a great opportunity to acquire PCS,
which it did in May 2011 for a reported deal of $1.2 billion – much to
the disappointment of Narendra Patni. While he served as Chairman of
iGate upto 2011 (was CEO of PCS upto 2009), he just didn’t like the fact
that PCS was brought to a situation where it was took-over by a much
smaller company whereas ideally it should have been the other way round.
Family
Narendra was married to Poonam and has two children, son Anirudh and
daughter Ambika. The family lived in Boston. Anirudh runs a company that
was floated under the guidance of his father Narendra. The doyen of the
Indian information technology industry in the true sense often referred
to as the “poster boy of Indian outsourcing” died of a cardiac arrest
in June 2014. He was 71.
Awards and Accolades |
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The
Indian Institute of Technology (Roorkee) honoured Narendra Kumar Patni
with the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2008. He awarded for Corporate
Development, Administration and Entrepreneurship. |
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Featured
among India’s Richest 40 list of 2005 published by Forbes – was ranked
37th with an estimated net worth of $650 million. |
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Often referred to as the father of the Indian outsourcing industry |
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(This is our tribute to the late Narendra K Patni - the
doyen of the Indian IT industry in the true sense. Often referred to as
the IT guru of India, Mr. Patni will forever be remembered as the man
who paved the way for a really global India - even if it was ever so
inadvertently. The write-up tries to have a sneak-peek into his persona
(life, work, PCS and later). |