CEO Under Scan: Arun Narsani, Brain League IP Services.
“Security is an attempt to make the universe static so that we feel safe??”
Interviewed by: Sandeep kshatriya, Facilitator, The CEO Insights
In the market environment when corporate are paying high salary and are treating their employee as a King, why you opted for entrepreneurship?
I personally derive satisfaction out of creating something of my own. In my opinion satisfaction is a key factor in choosing a particular career path. The factors that lead to a satisfying career vary from person to person. Most of the time salary is not the most important factor.
What is your educational qualification and background? How is it helping you in this venture?
I have a B.Tech from IIT Madras and a PG Diploma from IIM Bangalore.
Running a company requires grounding in various aspects. Particularly talking about the field in which we are, the Intellectual Property field demands grounding in technology and law along with the other business aspects of finance, operations and organization behavior. My technology degree has given me the necessary background to do justice to the work relating various technologies that we deal with and my management degree has helped me understand the basic frameworks of business and entrepreneurship. Apart from that my prior experience in the technology industry has also helped me immensely in shaping up technology enabled processes in our venture.
I would also add that one needs a bit of philosophical grounding in one sense that entrepreneurship demands enormous amounts of patience and perseverance. But that will only come with experience and time.
Today there is no dearth of business opportunities. The ideas have got wings. In such scenario why you opted for this business? What all business ideas you had before starting this venture?
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Arun Narsani |
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Company Name & Designation |
Brain League IP Services Founder and CEO |
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Company Headquartered in |
Bangalore |
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Industry |
Intellectual Property Services |
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Education |
PGDM( IIM,Bangalore) , B.Tech, (IIT,Madras) |
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Former employer |
Integral Indian Software |
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Former designation |
Senior Software Engineer |
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Area of responsibility |
Patents, Finance, US Operations, Process & IT |
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Favorite book/movie |
Passion for Excellence ,A Beautiful Mind |
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Hobbies |
Cricket, Tennis |
I had quite a few in minds. I had primarily pondered with various web technology based and product based ideas before deciding on taking this path.
I opted for this business I thought I had a more reliable partner and I believed we as a team could do a good job in giving shape to our idea.
Please tell our readers something about your first ‘encounter’ with entrepreneurship and how this has changed your life?
I am not sure if there is like any one encounter. My first experiences were when I was involved in running a bakery shop and a small video library in Guntur with my dad during my 8th, 9th and 10th grades. The experiences were definitely life changing in many ways. But, in the context of entrepreneurism, there is only one lesson that I have carried right from my school days from the verses our principle made us say everyday and that has kept me in good stead: “hard work and determination are the keys to success.”
Please tell us about the background of your company?
Brain League is an Intellectual Property (IP) services company providing end to end services in various countries. The company was founded by graduates from IIT, Madras, IIM, Bangalore, National Law School of India University, Bangalore and Franklin Pierce Law Center, USA. Brain League is one of the first companies to successfully incubate out of NSRCEL at IIM, Bangalore. Brain League today is one of the leading IP service providers in the country working with some of the largest IP focused companies in India and around the world. Brain League is capable of providing IP services in more than 10 countries around the world through our own offices and through our strategic partners.
Please tell us about the promoters, organizational structure, business objectives and USP of your company?
Brain League is primarily promoted by both the founders (Arun Narasani and Kalyan Kankanala). We are structured as a private limited company headquartered in Bangalore with a subsidiary in the state of California, US.
Brain League was started to create an integrated full service Intellectual Property services company that is capable of providing Intellectual Property services all around the world.
There are many firms that provide intellectual property services in India. They can be divided into two segments. First, the traditional law firms and secondly, the more recent KPO/LPO companies. The law firms have traditionally been lacking the technology background and have been poor in implementing technology enabled processes to improve efficiencies. The KPO/LPO companies typically focus in more than one field and tend to do well only at work that can be easily split into repeatable tasks. Creating a full service (end-to-end) IP services company involves creating systems and processes that are much different from a traditional law firm setup and a KPO/LPO company setup. Everybody has their own space in this domain. We have been able to do this due to various reasons that include our training systems to train new recruits, the quality of people that we hire, the strategic relationships that forged throughout other regions, and the technology enabled processes.
What is your business model? How many revenue streams are being targeted and how?
Our business model is based on creating efficiencies through technology enabled processes and thereby provides value to customers. We look at ourselves as an extended IP department of a company. We typically engage with customers to provide assistance in all departments of IP. Generally, we are not restricted to any particular part of IP services.
What are the services being offered by your company? How are they different from your competitors?
Patent Services:
• Patent search and analysis
• Patent drafting, filing and prosecution
• Infringement/FTO/Invalidation/Competitor analysis etc
Trademark Services:
• Trademark search and analysis
• Trademark filing, prosecution and registration
• Trademark oppositions
Copyright and design registration services
IP Management:
• IPR policy and process setup
• IP strategy
• IP portfolio management
• IP analysis, audits
• IP agreements and licensing
• Open source analysis.
What kind of background and domain expertise you look for in your employees?
We look for people with technology background and keen eye for detail. Being in a techno-legal field, the people that we work need to have the ability to think parallel and be able to switch between legal and technology hats. So we focus on general aptitude, technology grounding and legal aptitude.
What are the different finance options you have? Do you look for more?
Till now we have been funded through friends and family. I would look forward to have venture capitalists investing in your venture.
What are your future plans? How do you see your company evolving in the next five years?
We are looking to grow the company to be one of the leading Intellectual Property service providers both for National and International companies.
Please comment on the strategies your company is adopting to capture a higher market share amidst stiff competition?
The strategy is to focus on basics. To provide what the customer wants and ensure that the needs of our customers are met efficiently and effectively. I do not believe that there is anything like a commodity product or commodity service. There is always scope for improvement.
Are you considering any strategic alliance or other measures to augment your market reach or business capabilities?
We are constantly forging alliances with various entities. Today everything is global. And so Intellectual Property protection is also global in the sense that companies need to protect their intellectual property in many countries together. Given that scenario, we need to work with various firms all around the world to provide efficient and effective services to our customers.
Also, foreign markets are important to our success. So even from the marketing point of view, we are constantly forging alliances and relationships with various entities to expand our reach
Who is your role model?
I am not sure if I have any role models as such. I look upto everyone I see as hardworking and determined to make a difference in their particular fields. There are lots of them and Dr. Manmohan Singh is definitely one of them.
How do you see this present economic downturn? Is it affecting your business?
There may be an effect on Indian business. Traditionally, Indian businesses have been reluctant to spend on IP and it will be more so during the current economic situation. However, we do not see any drastic effects in foreign markets where businesses view IP as being central to their business.
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