Last I heard WYSE wasn't having a whole lot of fun in India. Maybe I was misinformed?
Cheeni >From the Google cache of www.startupjournal.com/runbusiness/taxadvice/20050401-buckman.html A Bank Plays 'Concierge' To Startups in India By REBECCA BUCKMAN Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal. >From The Wall Street Journal Online Say you're a Silicon Valley executive assigned to set up an offshore software-development office for your company. You touch down in this high-tech hub and check into a luxury hotel. By morning, you realize you're not sure how to incorporate an Indian company, open a bank account, get legal advice or even find office space. Not to worry: These days, you can just call Arman Zand. Mr. Zand, who works here at a unit of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Silicon Valley Bank, enjoys a growing reputation as a go-to guy for start-up companies trying get a foothold in Bangalore, a booming city that has emerged as a global technology hot spot -- albeit one with sporadic power outages and really bad roads. For Silicon Valley Bank's U.S. clients who are opening offices in Bangalore, the stocky, 27-year-old Mr. Zand and his small staff will do almost anything, from recommending local architects to prescreening vacant office space. They will book hard-to-find hotel rooms for visitors and even lend them cellphones. Last month, Mr. Zand hosted a small event at which Bangalore-based executives swapped tips on how to stop rampant staff turnover and recruit engineers in the city's ultracompetitive employment market. In Bangalore's go-go climate, Mr. Zand's services are critical, because if "somebody just shows up day one, looks around and tries to hire 30 people, that's just an impossible task," says Rajeev Batra, a principal at Mobius Venture Capital of Palo Alto, Calif., which funds many technology companies with outposts in India. One thing Mr. Zand can't do is lend anybody money or conduct actual banking business: neither Silicon Valley Bank nor its Indian unit, SVB India Advisors Pvt. Ltd., is licensed to do so in India. In the U.S., Silicon Valley Bank, a subsidiary of Silicon Valley Bancshares, offers traditional commercial, investment and private banking services. It also specializes in working with high-tech, biotechnology and private-equity companies. Mr. Zand, however, can help clients cut through red tape if they want to open an account at Standard Chartered Bank in Bangalore, which expedites the application process for Silicon Valley Bank clients. When clients need quick service, "our requests typically go to the front of the line," Mr. Zand says. Ash Lilani, Silicon Valley Bank's global head of sales and marketing in Santa Clara, likens Mr. Zand's services to those of a "professional concierge." The services are offered free to U.S. bank clients and even a few promising prospects. The bank may impose a charge for more in-depth, consulting-type jobs in the future. It may also try to offer banking services in India in the years to come. Mr. Lilani, a Bangalore native who forged many of the relationships that drive the bank's Indian business, is formally in charge of the bank's office here, although Mr. Zand and his partner, Kiranbir Nag, run day-to-day operations. Mr. Zand's popularity says a lot about how hot this bustling Indian outsourcing hub has become -- and how difficult it can be for American tech companies to get started here these days. Indeed, Bangalore, reputed to train and attract the most talented engineers in India, is not unlike the California cities of San Jose or Palo Alto during the late-1990s Silicon Valley boom: the city boasts $250-a-night hotel rooms and 90-minute rush-hour commutes. The job market is so tight that many companies, even small ones, offer such perks as bus services that shuttle employees to and from work. Then there's the legendary Indian bureaucracy, which can stump even the most seasoned international executive trying to incorporate a company or apply for a loan. In Bangalore, "who you know is a lot more important than what you know," says Mr. Zand, who moved here in August after working for the bank in California for five years. Network-computing company Wyse Technology Inc., which is hiring 140 people in Bangalore for a new software-development facility, knew it needed help. That's why the San Jose company's managing director for India, Nav Bhullar, tapped Mr. Zand late last year to help Wyse find accountants, employee recruiters and even temporary housing for visiting executives. Mr. Bhullar -- who says his second stop in Bangalore, after checking into his hotel, was the bank's offices -- was so impressed with Mr. Zand's team that he tried to hire away Mr. Zand's office manager, Roma David. The ultraefficient and well-connected Ms. David previously worked as a duty manager at Bangalore's five-star Oberoi Hotel. "I was going to hire her on the spot," Mr. Bhullar recalls. Told that Ms. David preferred to remain at the bank, Mr. Bhullar demurred. "But I told them to find me somebody exactly like her." The bank did. Mr. Zand, a Californian who is Iranian by descent but often mistaken for an Indian, stays in the loop by hitting the city's vibrant party scene at night after long days at the office. Often, he makes business contacts at social events: At a dinner party, he met two top executives with Microsoft Corp. who were looking for investors for some start-up companies that had worked with Microsoft. Mr. Zand and his bank -- which sometimes helps venture-capital firms scout out investment opportunities -- are now exploring whether they can help the start-ups. The bank, situated on a leafy residential street here, operates from a tasteful office complex, complete with a rooftop Zen garden and conference rooms named after local spices. From there, Mr. Zand often serves as a go-between for entrepreneurs like Murali Aravamudan, the founder and chief executive of Andover, Mass.-based video-software company veveo.tv Inc. Mr. Aravamudan stopped in to see Mr. Zand this past fall after deciding to locate the bulk of his new company's engineers in Bangalore, instead of the U.S. Mr. Zand and his team set up meetings with local lawyers, accountants and recruiters in just "two or three days," Mr. Aravamudan says, making it easier to get his business up and running. Mr. Zand keeps prescreened lists of such vendors so that visiting executives can pick two or three they like from each list -- instead of interviewing, say, 10 lawyers or eight accountants. A few other local firms in Bangalore provide concierge-type services, but tech companies say Silicon Valley Bank's are more comprehensive. "If I had it to do all over again, I would work with them," says Sanjay Swamy, who manages the new Bangalore office of Ketera Technologies Inc., a Silicon Valley firm that helps companies buy all types of supplies online. Mr. Swamy opened the office in December after doing most of the work himself, including hunting down an architect to remodel the space. Instead, Mr. Swamy says, "It would have been nice to just get on the phone and say, 'Arman, set me up.'" Email your comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
