Creating IP-based business out of India

Abstract

Ittiam (an acronym for ‘I Think, Therefore I Am’) started in 2001 with a business model that was quite distinct from most of its contemporaries. With a clear focus on a niche area of technology, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), Ittiam defined its business as creation of IPs, and adopted a revenue model that would be driven by the licensing of IPs and royalties from the sale of products that incorporated its IPs. The company achieved profitability in just its fourth year of operation. In 2004, Ittiam received the best exporter award of ‘First among the Fastest Grown SME Companies’, given by the Government of Karnataka and Software Technology Parks of India. It has been ranked the most preferred DSP IP supplier worldwide by Forward Concepts, the premier market research company in DSP, for three years in a row. Ittiam also won the NASSCOM IT Innovation Award for 2006. With 35 patent filings and the first patent already granted by the US PTO, Ittiam has a direct presence in the US, the UK and Taiwan, and is present through associates in Korea, Japan, Singapore and Israel. Going by this record of release of IPs, customer wins and industry recognitions, there are some lessons to learn from Ittiam’s experience that would be of immense value to those entrepreneurs, particularly in emerging economies like India, who aspire to build challenging high value technology businesses addressing global markets. In this interview, Prof K Kumar spoke to Mr Srini Rajam about the rationale for the IP model, the early challenges faced by the company, the winning strategies adopted by it, and its plans for the future