Source: The Economic Times.
It’s hard to imagine a company being rooted in the maxim, ‘There is no such thing as a safe business venture’. But that was exactly what five professionals chose as their guiding principle, when they decided to turn entrepreneur.
With this agenda in mind they decided that they would take the riskier road of setting up an IT products company rather than the safer alternative of venturing into the IT services domain. What perhaps made this decision even more fraught with risk was the fact that they were focusing on an extremely specialised and niche area, that of geographical information systems (GIS). Perhaps, the only advantage they had was that they did not need to start from the scratch. All five founding members at SatNav — managing director Amit Prasad, co-founder A Rajendra Adepu, deputy general manager (corporate group) Arpitha S Rao, associate vice-president (corporate communication & strategy) Pallavi Taori and co-founder & business head (BIM solutions) S Selvamuthiah — were all part of Satyam Navigation, a company incubated by Satyam in 2000 under its technology entrepreneurship programme. And when in 2004, Satyam decided to exit the business the five of them decided to take over the fledgling company and branch out on their own. Says Mr Prasad, “It was our passion and commitment that inspired us to float an independent venture. None of us wanted to abandon the GIS products as we had spent a lot of time and energy conceptualising and developing them.”
Despite operating in what can be called a tricky terrain the company has managed to hold its own and is slowly but surely making a name for itself. In the last three years, the company has successfully developed a slew of products, which have given it both recognition and a strong base. Its flagship product, A-mantra, is a flexible web-based business infrastructure management system. It provides managers with a complete view of the company’s infrastructure, irrespective of its size and can help bring down infrastructure cost by 4% as small teams can manage large facilities with this product. “A-mantra helps integrate data from ERP and other in-house applications to generate a range of customised reports,” Mr Prasad explains.
But the product that the company is really excited about is a navigation device called SatGuide, which is said to be the nation’s first satellite-based navigation device. The device has a mapping software with detailed maps of six cities and an all India road network map. It also has an inbuilt database of 24 categories like hotels, airport and shopping malls. Mr Prasad believes that if all goes well by the end of the year the product will have similar databases for 72 cities. At an organisational level too the company has been making strides. Started with an initial investment of Rs 25 crore and five members, SatNav today has over 75 people working on various products in navigation systems, business infrastructure management system and intelligent transport system. It has also added a new promoter Ajay Prasad, an NRI based in the US. The company though is cautious when it comes to adding to the headcount. For unlike a services company, which can start billing customers from day one it takes product companies much longer to do the same.
So what about the future? SatNav is bullish about the future both because its flagship product SatGuide has been received warmly in the marketplace and the fact that the GIS space is likely to see a lot more action in the coming years. The company also expects that global positioning system (GPS), a network of 24 US military satellites, will penetrate every market. Says Mr Prasad, “Our devices are GPS-enabled so that one can calculate the position dynamically using the radio waves emitted by these satellites. We are also looking at building business models around our directions portal — roadsofindia.com. This will help us tap the potential of the GPS market.”
The company is already looking to capitalise on this trend with work on a vehicle tracking system, which is expected to hit the market next year, already underway. Mr Prasad says the company is not looking for marketing tie-ups, but he says it is open to partnering with leading companies in this space. He says, “Our aim is to join hands with leading players in the GIS segment for technology or equity partnerships, which will help our company grow.”
Given that it is still a growing company, (revenues last year were Rs 3.2 crore) the company has thus far been mainly focusing on India. However, given that this year the company expects a five-fold jump in revenue it is now looking at entering other markets like Singapore and the Middle East as well. So what next, we wonder. Given that the growth plans in the It products space is set are they now back to being professionals rather than entrepreneurs. The founders are quick to dispel any such notion pointing to their latest diversification.
The group has entered into a strategic partnership with the Centre for British Teachers Education Trust of UK for managing its pre-school and daycare chain, Sunshine. Under the new education venture, SatNav Preschool, the group is planning to set up 100 centres at an investment of Rs 25 crore by 2009. Says Mr Prasad, “We have also floated the country’s first maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) project, HAMCO, and we are looking at setting up a facility soon. Our aim is to become a billion dollar group by 2012.”
It’s hard to imagine a company being rooted in the maxim, ‘There is no such thing as a safe business venture’. But that was exactly what five professionals chose as their guiding principle, when they decided to turn entrepreneur.
With this agenda in mind they decided that they would take the riskier road of setting up an IT products company rather than the safer alternative of venturing into the IT services domain. What perhaps made this decision even more fraught with risk was the fact that they were focusing on an extremely specialised and niche area, that of geographical information systems (GIS). Perhaps, the only advantage they had was that they did not need to start from the scratch. All five founding members at SatNav — managing director Amit Prasad, co-founder A Rajendra Adepu, deputy general manager (corporate group) Arpitha S Rao, associate vice-president (corporate communication & strategy) Pallavi Taori and co-founder & business head (BIM solutions) S Selvamuthiah — were all part of Satyam Navigation, a company incubated by Satyam in 2000 under its technology entrepreneurship programme. And when in 2004, Satyam decided to exit the business the five of them decided to take over the fledgling company and branch out on their own. Says Mr Prasad, “It was our passion and commitment that inspired us to float an independent venture. None of us wanted to abandon the GIS products as we had spent a lot of time and energy conceptualising and developing them.”
Despite operating in what can be called a tricky terrain the company has managed to hold its own and is slowly but surely making a name for itself. In the last three years, the company has successfully developed a slew of products, which have given it both recognition and a strong base. Its flagship product, A-mantra, is a flexible web-based business infrastructure management system. It provides managers with a complete view of the company’s infrastructure, irrespective of its size and can help bring down infrastructure cost by 4% as small teams can manage large facilities with this product. “A-mantra helps integrate data from ERP and other in-house applications to generate a range of customised reports,” Mr Prasad explains.
But the product that the company is really excited about is a navigation device called SatGuide, which is said to be the nation’s first satellite-based navigation device. The device has a mapping software with detailed maps of six cities and an all India road network map. It also has an inbuilt database of 24 categories like hotels, airport and shopping malls. Mr Prasad believes that if all goes well by the end of the year the product will have similar databases for 72 cities. At an organisational level too the company has been making strides. Started with an initial investment of Rs 25 crore and five members, SatNav today has over 75 people working on various products in navigation systems, business infrastructure management system and intelligent transport system. It has also added a new promoter Ajay Prasad, an NRI based in the US. The company though is cautious when it comes to adding to the headcount. For unlike a services company, which can start billing customers from day one it takes product companies much longer to do the same.
So what about the future? SatNav is bullish about the future both because its flagship product SatGuide has been received warmly in the marketplace and the fact that the GIS space is likely to see a lot more action in the coming years. The company also expects that global positioning system (GPS), a network of 24 US military satellites, will penetrate every market. Says Mr Prasad, “Our devices are GPS-enabled so that one can calculate the position dynamically using the radio waves emitted by these satellites. We are also looking at building business models around our directions portal — roadsofindia.com. This will help us tap the potential of the GPS market.”
The company is already looking to capitalise on this trend with work on a vehicle tracking system, which is expected to hit the market next year, already underway. Mr Prasad says the company is not looking for marketing tie-ups, but he says it is open to partnering with leading companies in this space. He says, “Our aim is to join hands with leading players in the GIS segment for technology or equity partnerships, which will help our company grow.”
Given that it is still a growing company, (revenues last year were Rs 3.2 crore) the company has thus far been mainly focusing on India. However, given that this year the company expects a five-fold jump in revenue it is now looking at entering other markets like Singapore and the Middle East as well. So what next, we wonder. Given that the growth plans in the It products space is set are they now back to being professionals rather than entrepreneurs. The founders are quick to dispel any such notion pointing to their latest diversification.
The group has entered into a strategic partnership with the Centre for British Teachers Education Trust of UK for managing its pre-school and daycare chain, Sunshine. Under the new education venture, SatNav Preschool, the group is planning to set up 100 centres at an investment of Rs 25 crore by 2009. Says Mr Prasad, “We have also floated the country’s first maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) project, HAMCO, and we are looking at setting up a facility soon. Our aim is to become a billion dollar group by 2012.”
No comments:
Post a Comment