Trump card to success

THE GOLD Rush is truly on and the IT boom looks set to last at least another decade. Chennai's youngster are acquiring the requisite skills in IT and English to gain the coveted HIB visa to the promised land (The USA). Chennai and the rest of Tamil Nadu claims to annex the lion's share of the workers setting out to the USA, Japan, Germany and Belgium.

People nudging their thirties and forties may feel a pang of dismay that they've missed the bus. It is more than likely that young Indians on H1B visas in the U.S. would get to stay at least five years (on extension) and amass Rs. 50 lakhs by living frugally! And all this before they even touch thirty!

There's a remarkably inspiring story of a certain Mylandla V. Nagaraj, Nagu to friends, who made good at a fairly ripe age.

Nagaraj was one of those typical Chennai lads who rarely troubles the education system. Armed with a bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Nandanam Arts College (he did not get into Medical College), Nagu managed to get a job as a clerk in Indian Overseas Bank, he languished there for more than seven years, spending most of his time in working for the union and observing frequent coffee breaks. His passion was cricket and he strove for Besant Nagar's Amar Cricket Club as its opening bowler.

Okay, you get the picture. Our protagonist Nagaraj was quite content to meander gently on through life when, dramatically, as often is the case for optimists, he resigned and took off to the USA for an MBA.

Now, exactly 14 years later, Nagu is the CEO of India's premier banking technology service providers, Financial Software & Systems, a.k.a. FSS. The company has been recently appraised by venture capitalists and valued at Rs. 95 crores! FSS has operations in Chennai and Mumbai and has just leased 20,000 sq. ft. of prime office space at Chennai's IT Mecca, Tidel Park. FSS has supplied over Rs. 50 crore of equipment and services to leading banks in India and Sri Lanka and if this were not enough, it also does a lot of joint work with Infosys, the bluest chip of them all! Now, how did all this happen to a non-IT savvy chap like Nagu? It all happened after he finished MBA at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Nagu, with new-found dynamism, worked as a junior executive (part-time) for the largest credit card processing company in the world even as he was studying. Though the pay at the office, at First Data Resources, was quite low at $5 an hour, for Nagu it was enough and afforded him tremendous exposure to the seemingly alien world of plastic money. But, when the course came to an end, Nagaraj found himself out in the cold and the U.S. was passing through its worst recession in 1987-88, after the infamous stock market crash (Black Monday). One day, after tramping in and out of offices in search of a job, Nagu happened to meet an American who also turned out to be the last one to leave the spirited establishment.

Gary Biggs, the Yank, it turned out, was particularly keen on employing an Indian who could establish a beach head in the virgin, vast, Indian market for credit card operations technology.

Gary asked Nagu to meet him at his office across the road, Applied Communications Inc (ACI), the next morning. Nagu promptly landed up at ACI's doorstep and landed a $50,000 per annum job in India to act as evangelist for ACI's specialised switching equipment for credit card providers, the famed Base 24. Of course, Nagaraj chose to operate out of Chennai and within a short time, landed a massive Rs. 3 crore order for the first ATM in Chennai (Indian Bank). He then proceeded to marry Sharda, a charming advertising professional, and bang in the middle of their honeymoon, Bank of America awarded a large order. Nagaraj opted out of ACI and was appointed as their Indian distributor. His company FSS, was strengthened by the arrival of young J. Rudrapathy (Rudra) who, as director, took care of the Mumbai operations.

Subsequently, orders flowed in and soon FSS had serviced the 40- bank strong Indian Banks Association, HDFC Bank, UTI Bank, ICICI Ltd, Bank of Madura, IndusInd Bank. FSS launched its e-Commerce company for its e-payment gateway. FSS is poised to do more business in the next two years which would surpass that of the entire past decade! And the company will also pioneer smart cards. And, in a major eye-opener, Nagaraj has shown that it's equally possible for a middle-aged non-IT Chennai based individual to make it big in IT.

M. SRINATH NARAYAN

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