VII 100 and News India Times started the VII 100 Study 13 years ago to recognize growing Indian American entrepreneurs. VII-100 has continued to chronicle the emergence and growth of businesses owned by Indian Americans. The VII 100 Study recognizes accomplishments of Indian American businesses in many ways such as highlighting the top 100 companies across the U.S., the fastest growing companies in the U.S., and top companies ranked by region and industry. News India Times from New York publishes the VII 100 Study every year. Portions of the Study are also published in Desi Talk New York and Desi Talk Chicago.

The eligibility criteria for participation in the 2009 Study are listed below:

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

2) 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 definition of "Asian-Indian" includes anyone born of Indian parents, within India or outside, or born in pre-partition India, before August 15, 1947.

3) The company has achieved net sales of at least $1 million in the fiscal year 2008.

4) Majority ownership (50% +) is held by Asian-Indians.

The criterion for the business to have been in existence for at least five years is no longer applicable.Since the year 2000 study, VII 100 has eliminated the pre-requisite of submitting proof of birth country, passport documentation, proof of citizenship, and proof of financial data. Only companies qualifying for the top 10 fastest growing list were required to submit formal financial records to document their sales revenues.

VII 100 gathered Information via a webbased study by providing each participant with unique login ID and password. Access to the complete application was available on-line. Participants were provided security guarantee and confidentiality protection for the information they entered into the application. This year, VII 100 continued to follow the methodology enhancement it introduced in 2005 and launched a proactive business outreach campaign. VII 100 team contacted over 2500 companies inviting them to participate. VII 100 staff personally reached out to many companies over several weeks, encouraging them to participate in the study. All these efforts resulted in a higher number of applications compared to last year.

VII 100 developed a questionnaire as an instrumental tool to collect data from the participants and made it available in the website www.vii100.com. Every year, VII 100 team updates the questionnaire to adhere to the changing business needs. For example, with the booming offshore opportunities in mind, a few questions related to offshore services were added recently. The study was hosted on VII 100's own website, with plenty of options for users to view and provide information.      The VII 100 team was available to answer questions during the data collection phase. To ensure thorough accuracy, VII 100 established a complete on-line participation. Mail-in and fax-in application options were eliminated to avoid any possible inputting errors along the process. Companies entered their own financial information using the online application form available in the VII 100 website. The CEO of each participating company received an automatic email to verify the revenue numbers entered on the application by his/her company to ensure accuracy

Upon making sure that the data is accu Upon making sure that the data is accurate, the VII team started analyzing the data. The critical field utilized to rank the companies was the 2008 sales figure. Several reports were created, providing useful information. The List of Indian-American Companies provides a list of all 2009 participants across the US in alphabetical order. The "Top 100" list ranks the top 100 companies by 2008 sales numbers. Companies within each industry are rank ordered by 2008 sales number in the report titled, "List of Companies Ranked by Industry". We have also provided a list of companies ranked within the four regions of the US, again by 2008 sales. An interesting list is the "Ten Fastest Growing Companies 2009", which ranks the companies by their revenue growth rate. Collectively, the top 100 companies in the 2009 VII-100 listing generated $4.7 billion in revenues, provided full-time jobs to over 33,500 employees, and operated at an average revenue rate of about $140,000 per employee. Of these 100 companies, 49 have off-shore facilities in Afghanistan, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Cyprus, Dubai, France, India, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, and United Kingdom.

The group of entrepreneurs (recognized through the VII-100 listing) has accomplished magnificent success in a very short period of time. They come from different industries and in their interactions with VII 100, they expressed a desire to share their experiences with others for the benefit of the next generation and good of the community at large. As a result, we are happy to provide a short profile of the company leaders. VII 100 hopes that such consistent annual studies would lead to increased participation by the Indian American businesses all over the United States.

Any financial data available in the study are reported by statistical groupings only, and are not available for disclosure. VII 100 is solely responsible for the analyses, interpretation and reporting for this project.

We are really excited to bring many accomplished companies to the forefront through this study. The unique ranking instrument is a positive catalyst for the Asian/Indian-American community. VII 100 is proud to lead this effort. Our goal is to enhance the study with additional useful tools for the participants and we immensely appreciate your feedback. We encourage all the current participants to continue participation through the many years to come. We also hope that many new companies will participate and benefit from the study and stand as great examples to many more entrepreneurs in the future.