Asians in Georgia
Executive Profile: L. Narsi Narasimham, PhD
How the entrepreneurial spirit of one man has built a "bridge" between two worlds
By Liane Tsai
As a high school student in Devakottai, India, Narsi Narasimham dreamed
of starting his own company one day. “I always wanted to start my
own company. When I came to America, I thought there must be some consumer
product in the USA that is missing in India,” laughed Narsi, co-founder
and CEO of Paalam, Inc. an Atlanta-based offshore outsourcing firm. “Entrepreneurship
was in my mind right from the beginning!”
Born in Tamil, Nadu or “the land of Tamil”, a beautiful state nestled in the southern India peninsula, he studied mechanical engineering at IT-BHU, part of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Banaras Hindu University is one of the oldest and largest educational institutions in northern India and is of the stature of Harvard, Princeton, and MIT.
“The number of people who apply is simply too much,” he noted. “Probably 200,000 apply for 2,000 slots, so 1 in 100 people get in. Many of them don’t even apply because they know it’s hard to get in. Half a million people who may want to apply don’t. The exam is very, very comprehensive; they grill you. I guess I got lucky that day, I must have done something right!”
Fascinated by a course on operations research, Narsi was one of four students from his college who were admitted to the University of Texas at Dallas. “There was a professor from the University of Texas at Dallas who sent a letter to one of our professors in India asking students to apply,” he explained. “There were trying to build their PhD program and grow it faster, so they solicited. It’s a very small college, but their PhD program is very strong. I didn’t expect that school to be that good; it was very good so when I graduated, getting a job at any university, whether it was MIT, Stanford or Georgia Tech, was not a problem!”
Once Georgia Tech offered him a job, Narsi stopped looking. “Kent State University had also offered me a job, but that place was cold!” When Georgia Tech went through reorganization, he decided to start consulting.
“When I left Georgia Tech, it was a good time for me to start. I had already built a very strong network of relationships in Atlanta,” he explained. “If you’re getting a job somewhere else, you’re abandoning all of your business networks and starting over in some other place. With Atlanta being a transportation hub, you can stay in Atlanta and can do business better than in a small town. Bigger towns are better for consulting practices.”
When he first started consulting, he focused mainly on telecommunications and trucking companies. His first venture in offshore outsourcing started in 1993 when MCI wanted network optimization software and Narsi got the work done in India. Even though MCI was his client and he was probably doing better than he is today, he realized he didn’t enjoy it.
“God has given us all kinds of gifts and if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, there’s no point in doing it,” Narsi explained. “You always want to know what you’re capable of doing and what you enjoy doing; hopefully there’s a market for it and you’ll make some money.”
In 1993, he started the Indian Professional Network (IPN). Prior to starting his consulting, he attended all kinds of networking meetings including the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce meetings, became a member of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, belonged to a social club called Club International, and joined the Indian Business Association. He looked at the positives and negatives of each organization and realized the Indian community needed something similar to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
He opted to form an organization that eliminated membership dues and had a pay-as-you-go system. “If there’s any money, there’s always politics, so I said get rid of politics, get rid of money, membership dues, elections, and things like that; be democratic in the true sense of the word and give everyone equal access,” Narsi said. Every month, a different person organizes the meeting, decides who the speaker is and chooses a venue. The organizer is the president for that month.
“Many times, a one-year commitment is too much, but if it is one little event, like organizing a hunger walk, people agree to help,” he explained. “Many organizations don’t want someone to become president overnight. You have to become secretary or treasurer, then vice president; it’s a two to three year commitment, so not many people do it. If I want to count one single achievement of IPN, it would be the breadth of participation. There are a lot of people who would not want to organize many things, but they are organizing IPN meetings, because this is a bite-size, small project for them. When they organize it, they know they are doing it only one time, so they are trying to put their best foot forward.”
Because he started IPN and since he had “the professor stamp stamped on my forehead,” many people started asking him for advice. “In the ’97-’98 timeframe, a lot of companies started asking me to be their advisor. By the time the dot com boom was over, I was on the advisory board of more than fourteen companies,” he said.
He noticed that while major companies like GE, Texas Instruments and Hewlett-Packard set up their own India operations and tier one Indian companies like TCS, Wipro, and Infosys established American operations to serve Fortune 500 companies, the small and medium size companies were being overlooked. “The small and medium tier businesses or enterprises looked at big companies taking advantage of cheaper labor and asked how they could take advantage of it. Many companies like TCS and Wipro were busy servicing Fortune 500 companies and didn’t have time to take care of small and medium size companies – that’s where Paalam comes in.”
Paalam bridges the need its American clients have of fixing software bugs or developing or maintaining software and the Indian programmers’ need for getting some business. “Paalam is a word in the Tamil and Malayalam languages which means bridge,” explained Narsi. “It’s a very positive image and a very simple word.”
The keys to his success are enjoying what he does, being passionate about it, looking at what the value is for the other party and being truly focused on the needs of the client rather than his own. “When you take care of the needs of your clients and your Indian partners and your employees, they will take care of you. If you focus on addressing the real need of the client and have fun doing it, you’ll do very well,” he commented. “One of the secrets to our success is having people trust us. We do the job right, gain their trust and at the same time save them money. Saving money alone is not enough; they want to sleep at night and have good quality work.”
Narsi’s advice to people interested in starting their own business is to be an optimist and at the same time being a realist. “I feel a good entrepreneur is someone who is open to ideas, has a discussion phase, looks at the pros and cons, and makes a decision,” he said. “Once you make a decision, give enough time for the idea to succeed. When you move forward, you need to be tenacious and go after it. There’s no substitute for hard work and there’s no substitute for smart work. You need to be hardworking and smart working; if you’re both, then other pieces can be put in place.”
A self-described variety seeker who loves all kinds of music and food, he “sometimes gets very spiritual. We are living in this world for a limited number of years. While we are here, we need to contribute positively to the society and enjoy doing it. Life is about living a good life and making a positive impact to the society around us.” As president of the Asian/Pacific-American Council of Georgia, Inc. (APAC), his goals are to have Asians play an active role in the mainstream community, showcase the rich Asian cultural heritage and help American corporations do business with Asian countries.
What lies ahead for Narsi? In the next 5-6 years, he believes his company will be doing $100 million in revenues and wants Paalam to be a company that people are proud to work for, that investors are proud to invest money in, that helps clients with their software needs, and helps its programmers wherever they are.
And, if the company does well and he’s financially viable, he may be able to return to his original role of advising others and help anyone who is a budding entrepreneur with ideas.
Narsi’s Favorites:
Favorite Websites: yahoo.com and google.com
Favorite place in Georgia: The Emory University – Toco Hills area
Favorite music: the Baroque period since it’s the foundation on which the rest of things are built
Favorite places to visit: San Francisco, New York City and Chicago
Favorite food: sandwiches
Favorite cuisine: Thai
Favorite restaurants: the Palace in Norcross and Royal Thai on Spalding and Holcomb Bridge Rd.
Favorite Book: the Bhagavad Gita
Favorite Movies: Dave and The American President
Favorite Charity: American Red Cross and Care