In its ninth year, VII-100, a listing of the Top 100 Asian Indian American businesses, has continued the project’s objective to chronicle the emergence and growth of businesses owned by Indian Americans. The VII-100 study is being published by News India-Times from New York. Portions of the study are simultaneously being published in Gujarat Times, Desi Talk New York and Desi Talk Chicago.

METHODOLOGY

VII has developed the design and has implemented the study using the World Wide Web. Every participant received a login and password to look at their application forms. Every participant had the ability to change the passwords in order to maintain privacy of their submitted material. The participant’s login and password could only access the information of that particular participant. Information of other participants was thus kept confidential. It was likely that much of the information from the 2003 study would be repeated in the 2004 study. Therefore, information of participants from the 2003 study was included on their individual forms; and each past participant was required to make only a few entries that had actually changed. We believe this reduced their total time required for the input to approximately 10 minutes. A first-time participant could apply by creating his/her own login and password. Those participants who preferred not to deal with the Web were provided with printed forms.

For the 2004 listing, VII received 100 applications from Indian-American companies, all of them met the strict eligibility criteria for qualifying in the listing. The increase, from 92 companies that participated in the study in 2003 to 100 companies that participated in 2004, is attributed to an improving economy. Some of the participants from the 2003 study were either acquired by other companies or went out of business. Some of the past participants were reluctant to participate in the 2004 study because their annual sales had declined and they did not want to publicize that fact.

Collectively, the top 100 companies in the 2004 VII-100 listing generated $2.3 billion in revenues, provided jobs to 18,491 full-time equivalent employees, and operated at an average productivity rate of about $124,000 per employee.


ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Basically, eligibility criteria for participation in the 2004 study were the same as in the studies from 1996 through 2003 and they included:

The business is privately-held and independent, and is a corporation, proprietorship, or partnership (not a subsidiary or a division);

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), General Partner or President is of Asian-Indian origin and is a permanent resident or citizen of the United States. The Asian-Indian included anyone born of Indian parents, within India or out of the country, or born in pre-partition India, before Aug. 15, 1947;

The company achieved net sales of at least $1 million in the fiscal year 2002.

The criterion for the business to have been existence for at least five years was dropped beginning with the 2003 study.

QUESTIONNAIRE

The 2004 Study Questionnaire (Application/Qualification Form) was kept as similar to the 2003 questionnaire as possible, while allowing for clarifications and simplifications in format and wording. VII anticipates building a long-term database, which will support trend analyses, and maintain the consistency to allow this for the future. As of the year 2000 study, VII has eliminated submitting proof of birth country, passport documentation, proof of citizenship, and proof of financial data. Only selected companies qualifying for the Top 10 Fastest Growing Companies were required to submit a formal source of financial records to document their sales revenues. Finally, the application form was either to be signed by the CEO/President or electronically certified on the Web.


ANALYSIS STRATEGY

VII staff reviewed all data submitted for completeness and consistency of information submitted. Staff resolved unclear responses and information discrepancies with telephone calls and correspondence with the business owners. All questionnaires submitted underwent this review and edit process.


CONFIDENTIALITY

VII is solely responsible for the analyses, interpretation and reporting for this project. Financial data, other than net sales revenues for 2003, are being reported by statistical groupings only, and are not available for disclosure.


THE 2004 STUDY

This group of entrepreneurs has accomplished magnificent successes in a very short period of time. In their interactions with VII, they expressed a desire to share their experiences with others for the benefit of the next generation and good of the community at large. VII hopes that such consistent annual studies would lead to increased participation by the Indian-American businesses all over the United States, to provide an information base to support further analysis and interpretation of these entrepreneurs’ success.