The new American dreamers

Punita Pandey understands that challenge well. Having resigned from an exciting Silicon Valley job to launch her own Internet start-up in early 1999, she found she had to go it alone until last October, when her global customer-service firm, netCustomer.com, attracted its first venture capital. After the long dry spell, this was a major accomplishment at a time when backing for dotcoms was drying up.

But Ms. Pandey's vision and adventurous spirit - and her own earnings from the stock market - helped her stay the course.

As an engineer from India, she is part of a remarkable trend of recent decades in which high-skilled immigrants have fueled the boom in high-tech centers across the US. A study by UC Berkeley professor AnnaLee Saxenian found that in 1998, Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs ran 25 percent of Silicon Valley's high-tech businesses, accounting for 58,000 jobs and more than $16.8 billion in sales.

"I believe that one of the things that sets the US economy apart from other industrialized nations is that we have the benefit of this highly educated, highly motivated group of workers from all over the world," economist Moore says. "Japan doesn't have that, and it gives us a leg up on the competition."

The study also highlighted how immigrant-owned firms were facilitating global trade and investment through their linkages to other countries.

Pandey's vision is a global one, a natural for someone who has been "nomadic from my early days." Her family moved often when she was a child, and her first job was with an Indian international consulting firm. She looks at the world "as though no boundaries exist."

In 1987, she came to the US for graduate study, but was immediately offered a full-time job, so she went to school part time. After working with McDonnell Douglas, Deloitte Consulting, and Healtheon, which gave her experience with the Internet, she heard her calling, she says, and hasn't looked back. Her goal became the creation of a firm to offer Internet-based customer service in real time with a human touch. The netCustomer.com model offers high-tech businesses outsourced service via e-mail, Web, voice, and fax in all parts of the globe on a 24/7 basis.

"We are creating a new paradigm for customer service," the CEO says.

When customers are frustrated, they're going to turn elsewhere, so she has designed a system to provide the highest levels of customer satisfaction, increase the client's understanding of customer needs, and reduce costs. The company has headquarters in California, with operations in India, where her brother (also an MBA) has assembled teams of highly qualified service reps.

Pandey is a high-energy risk-taker, but she says she has benefited from the advice and mentoring of friends. Ultimately, she approached and shared her vision with the CEO of a company that offered services that complemented those of her firm. That company had an existing relationship with Dell and other big-name companies. "It was a long process, but he agreed to be a partner and allow us to offer our services to their customers."

Word spread fast. Now they are making some strategic changes, to focus primarily on technical support requiring a great deal of expertise.

"We can deliver the kind of service that doesn't even exist today," she says.

Even though the economy has taken a downturn, Pandey feels it's a good time to build a company. "Every entrepreneuer goes through hardships. That's the time to focus on fundamentals."

"Being confident is absolutely a must for an entrepreneur," she adds. "Being passionate about what you do could not be more important ... and I have never felt I was at a disadvantage.

"So what if you are from a different country? So what if you are a woman? So what if you are short, as I am?" she laughs.

"The creation process is so exhilarating - to conceive something, assemble a team, execute, and offer your customers something which is valuable for them, your company, and all the individuals involved," she says. "There have been lots of ups and downs, but I have never been more satisfied."

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