Yesterday NASSCOM Emerge Forum had organized a talk titled “Software Delivery Supply Chain – Achilles’ Heel for India SME Focused Software Product Companies” by Mr.Kumar Vembu, Founder & CEO of GoFrugal Technologies.
Brief given by NASSCOM before the talk: Indian SMEs have a huge, unsatiated appetite for IT solutions. But, we are yet to see a large India SME focused success story among the software companies, with the exception of Tally Solutions. Many software companies that attempted to address the Indian SMEs could not succeed. Is software delivery supply chain the Achilles Heel ? Given the extra-mile Indian SMEs expect the software vendor to walk, in order to learn their needs and implement the solutions, software delivery supply chain is a potential landmine.
Brief about Mr.Kumar Vembu: Kumar Vembu is the Founder & CEO of GoFrugal Technologies which specializes in retail, retail distribution and supply chain management solutions. In a short span of 6 years, GoFrugal has established itself as the leader in retail business management solutions for the micro, small and medium enterprises in India. Kumar Vembu is a co-founder of Zoho Corporation and was the President & COO of the company from its inception since end of 2004. Earlier in his career, Kumar has worked in the USA for Qualcomm & Intel Corporation and in India for HCL – Hewlett Packard and the TeNet group, IIT Madras. Kumar completed his B.E in Electronics and Communication from A.C. College of Engineering and Technology, Karaikudi.
One complaint I always had about NASSCOM was that it was focussed and working only for the IT Biggies, kind of an elite club. Over the last few years with EMERGE Forum and EMERGE Conclave NASSCOM seems to be realizing and addressing the needs of SME’s. This talk in Chennai by Mr.Kumar was certainly beneficial for the participants. In the one hour talk Kumar was down to earth, used no slides and everything he said seemed to came from a man of profound thought & immense experience. Following are from my notes of the talk, so I have left the notes in the same voice of Kumar and so all references to I/We mean Kumar and GoFrugal. I may not be accurate on capturing the facts & figures, so please bear with me.
GoFrugal has over 12,000 retailers using it in last six years.We have over 50 people across India on the feet and about 30-40 in support. Overall GoFrugal is over 220 people strong. We acquired RayMedi Pharma Software product company which had 200 customers at the time of acquisition. We are present in thirty cities. Our Software runs on Windows and SQL Server 2008 Express Edition which goes up to 10GB and is free. Though product has user interface in multiple indian languages, many of the users only use English.
While selling to India SME’s the relationship and face value of the people interacting with clients are more important than technology. From Day 1 we do agile software development, may be we overdo agile. We do what customers ask, some time customers ask wrong things and we may end up doing wrong things. The retailer first wants you to automate what he is doing then want to look at better ways and industry best practices. Which means even if it is a bad practice our software has to do it, we need to do it. 70% of a retailer’s time is spent on present and past problems and the rest 30% is spent on creating problems for the future. We develop our software faster so we introduce more bugs, so any new problem we are responsible. In this product space in comparison to India market there is Sage which has over six million customers, there is Mind your own business in Australia, Intuit Small business, China has a company that has over 100 million users.
In Tamil Nadu there are 3-4 main business communities. Money lending business focuses on distribution and those who have time in their hands take up retail business. Every 50-60 such retail owners form a virtual family/clan/native-place cluster. Everyone in the cluster are all connected very well and they are connected for long. There is one thought leader in each cluster who decides and set the direction. Any new cluster the first few customer is very difficult to get, only after that you you can penetrate rest of the cluster. Companies like TVSE have tried and failed in this space, so the memory is fresh with the cluster. For marketing we participate in many industry events regularly, one time attending is not enough. Traditional marketing, having senior vice presidents who call field people and pushing them doesn’t really work. Indian market is very slow to penetrate.
As Software vendor you should service them first without asking money, which comes much later. Even with attrition at their (retailer) end the software should be easy, robust and also software should prevent people from doing mistakes. They want the Software product company’s owner to come in person and attend issues, the owner coming and showing attention is more important than solving the problem. The challenge is to match the cottage industry response but a professional service. Our ‘Assure’ program gives them guaranteed support time. One full time person from our side calls 20-25 existing customers and explains the remote support feature in the software and that you will get 10 times quicker/better service than someone coming to your door. Today only 8% of our Desktop version users use the remote support feature. If they have data connection in their PCs they can chat online for support. We have a 24×7 support centre in the town of Kumbakonam backed by a small Dev centre there. All our field staff use laptop & data card.
For FMCG there is a one way channel of distribution. Consumer feedback doesn’t go back to the manufacturer. This model works for Tally as well, because of their training partners and now it is a science. Our Entry level product for a single computer is free, first one is Rs.15,000 and comes with 6 hours of user training. All said from our customer’s point of view we are over priced. Our conversion has been good from free to paid. There are about 1200 configuration settings in the software and so for us the two way feedback is very important. Time is not valued and you can’t expect them to pay Rs.3000 for a days training. The person training from our side has to know business and also the product. Channel is apprehensive on learning and getting trained because they have no brand as brands like Polaris, SIFY or Tally go. Customers are not capable of self learning. We have put up thousands of video on YouTube on how to do things in our software. The time spend on creating the videos is more than what all our customers put together would have spent on seeing it and there are videos on many of the Indian languages.
Corporate deals we do with companies like Asian Paints give us the scale, with each deal giving us over thousands of seats. Volume makes it possible to match the costs and pay industry salary. We recruited people who may not have great communication but they are Good IQs. Bigger guys don’t want them due to their lack of great communication. Engineers don’t have appetite to learn business, they can’t do taxes. We have 20-30 entrepreneurs who don’t have engineering degrees. They have developed their own software may be with Visual Basic and they have worked with customers already.
“காவலன்” – விஜய் நடித்துள்ள இந்தப் படத்தை இன்று சென்னை ஐநாக்ஸில் பார்த்தேன். போக்கிரிக்கு பிறகு விஜய் படங்கள் எல்லாமே சுமார் தான், எனக்கு எதுவும் பிடிக்கவில்லை. மனுஷருக்கு நல்லகாலம் இந்தப் படம் அமைந்தது (படம் வெளிவறுவதில் நடந்த அரசியலை விட்டுவிடுவோம்).
குத்துப்பாட்டுக்களோ, ராபின்ஹூட்டு கதையோ, பஞ்ச் டயலாக்குள், நம்பமுடியாத ஹீரோயிஸம் இவைத் தான் கடந்த சில விஜய் படங்களில் இருந்தவை, இவற்றையெல்லாம் கவனமாக தவிர்த்துயுள்ளார் இயக்குனர் சித்தீக், அவருக்கு அதற்கு ஒரு பாராட்டு. அழகான ஒரு காதல் கதை தான் படம். விஜய்-அசின் பாடல் காட்சிகளில் அழகாக வருகிறார்கள், நடன அசைவுகளும் வித்தியாசமாகவும், ரசிக்கும்படியும் இருந்தது. வடிவேலின் நகைச்சுவையும் பல இடங்களில் சிரிக்கும்படி இருந்தது, Private Numberஐ பார்வதி நம்பியார் என்று அவர் படிப்பது நல்ல சிரிப்பு. BodyGuard costume விஜய்க்கு நன்றாக பொறுந்திருந்தது, அதில் அவரின் Body Languageம் அருமை. கல்லூரிக்காட்சிகளில் வழக்கமான கெட்ட மாணவர்கள்-விஜய் மோதல்கள் இல்லை, நடன ஆசிரியரை ஒரே ஒரு அடி அடிப்பதோடு நிறுத்திக் கொண்டதற்கு படத்தின் இயக்குனருக்கு ஒரு நன்றி. க்ளைமாக்ஸ் நம்மால் ஓரளவிற்கு யூகிக்க முடிந்தாலும் எனக்கு பிடித்திருந்தது, தன்னை ஏமாற்றிய அசினை அவர் எப்படி ஏற்கிறார் என்று புரியவில்லை – ஆனால் மன்னிக்கலாம். மொத்தத்தில் காவலன் – நல்ல நகைச்சுவையான படம், பார்க்கலாம்.
சிவா நடித்த “வ குவாட்டர் கட்டிங்” படம் இன்று பார்த்தேன். சிவாவின் முந்தைய “தமிழ் படம்” எனக்கு பிடித்திருந்ததால் இந்தப் படத்திலும் நிறைய காமெடி, கிண்டல்கள் எதிர்ப்பார்த்தேன். ஆனால் இந்தப் படம் மிகச் சுமார், படம் முழுக்க ஒரே ராத்திரியில் நடக்கும் கதையில் ஏகப்பட்ட குழப்பம்-படு மொக்கையாக படம் போகிறது. கதையே இல்லாமல், படப்பிடிப்பு நடக்கும் தினங்களில் காலை எழுந்தவுடன் நினைத்துக் கொண்டு ஒவ்வொரு காட்சியும் எடுக்கப்பட்டதுப் போல் ஒரு எண்ணம் நமக்கு தோன்றுகிறது.இரண்டாவது பாதியில் இதற்கு மேல் எப்படி சோதப்புவார்கள் என்கிற எதிர்ப்பார்ப்பில் நம்மை கடைசிவரைப் பார்க்க வைக்கிறது!
Recently while on a trip abroad I bought this book “In Xanadu : A Quest” by William Dalrymple in Chennai Airport. Generally I don’t buy books in Chennai Airport as I will have to carry the weight with me all through rest of the journey, instead I note down the name and buy on return from Amazon.com or Flipkart.com. But I bought this book instantly for two reasons, one I was so impressed with the Author’s recent book "Nine Lives" which I read some time back and the second was the description of the book "Retracing the path of Marco Polo" sounded very interesting.
This book which is the first one (surprising considering how well it is written) for William Dalrymple was written during his summer break of studies at Cambridge University in the year 1989. The Author chooses to retrace the steps of the great traveller Marco Polo on the old Silk Route from Israel to Xanadu, the summer capital of the great Mongol Emperor "Kublai Khan". This he does by travelling 12,000 miles on land (road/train) through Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan & China. It is amazing he had the courage to undertake such a journey through a region at its worst time of conflicts: Iran-Iraq War had just got over a year before, Afghanistan was under Soviet occupation, China very much closed to outside world and foreign travellers and with Palestine-Israel conflict at one of its worst period.
Though it is a travel book, Dalrymple interrupts it briefly with pieces from History including Christian Crusaders, Mongolian Emperors in 12th Century and so on. In the past I have read little about Crusaders and European History in Medieval period, so these were new learning to me. Dalrymple does justice as a travel book as well by covering in detail about the landscape, architecture and people of the places he goes through. Most of the places he visits are small towns or villages, which increases readers curiosity. Overall the book reads like a fiction by keeping us on the edges to know what happens to him when he enters Iran and encounters the Revolutionary Guards, when he gets caught by Chinese Police when he enters the protected region on the borders with India where China was testing their Nuclear facilities, when he travels with his Lady friend in a bus full of Afghan tribesmen in Iran and in the last few pages he comes to a city in China called "Duluon" which is just 30 Miles to Xanadu but reaches a dead-end on finding/reaching Xanadu.
Throughout the book Dalrymple mentions about lot of interesting facts. Like Chini-Bagh (Chinese Garden in Uygur) which was the Kashgar residence of George Macartney, Britain’s consul-general and his wife, Lady Catherine Macartney, for 28 years is now a Travellers Inn.
Overall, I will highly recommend this book to any serious reader.
This year, Chennai Sangamam 2011 was slightly a reduced affair and happened at select parks only which didn’t include my area park. Today evening after seeing the agenda online, I decided to go Nageswara Park, Mylapore. Took my son and went around 7PM in my electric scooter.
First program was "Dasavatharam", a Dance Drama by Sri.Zakir Hussain and group. For each avataram, select scenes were taken and were done nicely. For Ramayan it was the scene were Ravanan tries to break the bow but couldn’t even lift it, whereas Lord Rama broke the bow easily. Next were performance by Murasu Kalaikkuzhu. This included Tamil Nadu Folk arts like Naagu Naiyaandi, Karagam by Kalaimaamani Tamilselvi, Jaanbaavaa Silambaatam,Thangavel Chendai (popular in Kerala and border districts), Poikkaal Kuthirai and Oyilattam (Oyil means Azhagu or Beauty).
For me it was good entertainment for 3 hours. What I enjoy in Chennai Sangamam is watching the programs in the outdoor along with hundreds of people, the crowd is what makes it fun!
கடந்த 50 ஆண்டுகளாய் தமிழகத்தில் ஒரு முக்கிய அரசியல் மாற்றத்தை உருவாக்கி, பல ஆண்டுகள் ஆட்சி அதிகாரத்திலுள்ள ஒரு சக்தி தி.மு.க.. 70களில் பிறந்த என் தலைமுறைக்கு தி.மு.க.வை அட்சியாளர்களாகவும் ஒரு அரசியல் கட்சியுமாகத் தான் தெரியும். ஒரு சமுக இயக்கமான திராவிட கழகத்தில் இருந்து அது எப்படி ஒருவானது என்று ஆழமாகத் தெரியாது.
சென்றாண்டு சென்னை புத்தகக் கண்காட்சியில் வாங்கிய புத்தகம் மலர்மன்னன் எழுதிய “தி.மு.க உருவானது ஏன்?” அதைச் சுறுக்கமாக (159 பக்கங்கள்) விளக்குகிறது. இந்தாண்டு சென்னை புத்தகக் கண்காட்சியில் கிழக்குக் கடையில் இதைப் பார்த்ததும் நினைவுவந்து கடந்தச் சில நாட்களில் படித்து முடித்தேன். பல விசயங்களை எழுதாமல் தலைப்பில் உள்ள ஒரு கேள்வி ”தி.மு.க உருவானது ஏன்?” அதற்கு ஆசிரியர் சொல்லவரும் மூன்று காரணங்களை மட்டுமே எழுதியுள்ளார், அதற்கு பாராட்டுக்கள். அந்த மூன்று காரணங்கள் – கருப்புச் சட்டை அணிவது, ஆகஸ்டு 15ஐ கொண்டாடுவது, மணியம்மை திருமணம்.
Picked this movie “The Switch” DVD without any idea on the plot or expectations. The movie by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston turned out to be an average affair, not much to write about. The movie’s byline goes as “The Most Unexpected comedy ever conceived”, after watching the movie I realized there is nothing in the movie that you didn’t expect coming or any comedy in the movie. The first half of the movie was nearly boring, the second half was better. For some reasons throughout the movie, I had a feeling I have watched this movie before (though I haven’t).
The plot is this – Jennifer Aniston (Kassie) decides to have a baby and raise it as a single mother. Despite objections of her best friend Jason Bateman (Wally), she chooses to do it alone. Wally has feelings for Kassie, but as her friend keeps it to himself. Similarly Kassie doesn’t express her feelings to him till they meet again after seven years and weird turn of events.
After seeing advertisements for this movie my son wanted to see it. So I took him today to “Gulliver’s Travels” in Escape Cinemas, Express Avenue, Chennai.
The story is about a Mailroom assistant wanting to impress a lady in his office, pretends to be a Travel Writer. Take’s up a risky assignment in going to Bermuda triangle, but gets into a vortex and lands in the island of Liliput, where he towers over its tiny citizens. He saves them from attacks, gets caught by real giants, escapes and saves the Liliputs in the end. An interesting story, but the movie’s screen play leaves much to be desired. Most places, the story line runs flat.
An average movie. Kids will enjoy it to a limited extend as it was in 3D.
This movie shows why British Comedy is the best when it comes to Political satires. After “Yes Prime Minister” I enjoyed this thoroughly. I don’t remember how I came across this movie this week, but immediately I got it in Amazon VOD service for $10. Yes, you need a US Credit Card and US IP address to download the VOD movies.
The movie “In the Loop” is a British Comedy movie that leads up to the decision in UN to invade IRAQ. We are lead to understand the British Prime Minister and the US President want to embark on a war in the Middle East. Simon Foster, a British Minister for International Development, states off the cuff in a radio interview that "war is unforeseeable". He later tries to correct it with another statement: "to walk the road of peace, sometimes we need to be ready to climb the mountain of conflict". Both these remarks start a series of manoeuvrings on both sides of the Atlantic by both the pro- and anti-war factions in both governments.
What makes the movie enjoyable and not come out as a documentary is the fact the movie names no particular president or prime minister. The movie leads you to believe that whoever is in administration they are likely to be incompetent and ripe with internal politics. Lot of nice little things are in the movie like "Simon Foster being just a meat in the room”, When not able to influence a decision the idea to leak the information against the war, Simon Foster while waiting outside US Asst. Secy of State office not knowing whether the meeting is over or not, a local voter from Simon Foster constituency keep pestering on a wall about to collapse and so on.
I will rate this movie to be must watch if you enjoy this genre.
The content of this site are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway. In addition, my thoughts and opinions often change, and as a weblog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot you should not consider out of date posts to reflect my current thoughts and opinions.
_1.jpg "Zakir Hussain Dasavatharam (7)")
