Alok Gupta: The Unflinching Target Man

Unistal Systems is one of the leading names in data care and data recovery products, services, and training. The company, founded in 1994, has become one of the market leaders in software product and application development with a global footprint of 5,000,000 user licenses spread over 35 countries. Headquartered in New Delhi, the company has its software development centres in New Delhi, Noida and Pune. The regional sales and support offices are located in Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata. Unistal represents customers in the Middle East, US, and Singapore.
One man whom we can attribute this success to is Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal Systems. He along with his ‘good old friend', Pankaj Mathur (Co-founder and director of the company), embarked on this journey 17 years ago and both have taken the company beyond horizons. "I have always been positive in my life and never tried to take a wrong path to success. My mantra for success would be honesty and hard work. I will find out different positive ways to reach the destination. But changing ways does not mean I will take unprofessional or unethical ways. Whenever my life gets stagnant, I take a break for 7 days and observe my business from outside. Then I come to know what extra I need to do," said Gupta.

THE BEGINNING
Hailing from Fatehpur, near Kanpur (UP), and with a BE degree in Computer Science from SSGM College of Engineering, Shegaon, Maharashtra, Gupta started his career in 1990 by working for a Bengaluru-based anti-virus company, Nashsoft Systems, where he was responsible for nation-wide marketing. Under his aegis, Nashsoft's (having a single product of Rs 1,495) turnover grew from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 3.1 crore in just 3 years. He was aptly rewarded for this milestone which is visible from the fact that he joined the company as sales and support executive and resigned as the country manager.
But he couldn't continue for long, as he was smitten by the entrepreneur bug. Getting inspired from his only one boss in the professional industry or rather his role model, Narendra Kumar (Naren), the owner of Nashsoft, he decided to start his own business. After resigning from Nashsoft in December 1993, Gupta along with another colleague, Pankaj Mathur, set up Unistal Systems on January 14, 1994.
Gupta pointed out, "We started Unistal with 35 sq ft office, paid Rs 2,500 as a security, two scooters, and another brand (Stellar) to establish. We began this journey with virtually zero investment and as a sole marketing organization for the Stellar products. We continued to sell Nashsoft products as well. Unistal started basically as a marketing and support organization."

ON ROAD TO SUCCESS
Unistal began with marketing Stellar data recovery software and Unistal anti-virus-both the products developed by Stellar. Apparently, the first billing of the Unistal was to the Prime Minister's Office, which acted as a major push factor in its growth.
"One day, a client came to our office with a logically crashed hard disk due to a virus. As all his accounting data was inside the hard drive with no backups, he wanted us to recover all those data. We took up the challenge and performed the recovery with the available software tools. It took us 25 days to do the job. Today, we can do the same data recovery job in just 10 minutes. We immediately realized that as the volume of data is going to increase, more and more cases will come and hence, we started data recovery services," pointed out Gupta.
However, earlier most of the job for the company used to come from north India only, including Delhi and NCR. This prompted Gupta to take up the matter with Stellar that if they have to expand their reach to the rest of the country, they had to have software products as well. Thus, software for data recovery from hard drives was launched.
"Though we had products as well as services, our struggle period was still on. In 1998, Stellar told us that both the companies aren't able to make enough money, and subsequently decided to part ways. Stellar sold us the copyright of Unistal anti-virus, provided training to two of my people, and took back the Stellar brand," highlighted Gupta.
"When I set up the company, I was only 24. Hurdles came into our way but to me there is no substitution for hard work and there is no shortcut too. If your direction is right, then no one can stop you from excelling in your chosen path," said Gupta.

MAJOR MILESTONES
Unsital gradually became a development company and with its technical expertise, it launched its 1st product called ‘Crash Proof', a data loss prevention tool. Till date, the company has sold its more than 5 million licenses. In between, the company also developed ‘Quick Recovery', data recovery software for Windows product range and till date, it has more than 40 products on Quick Recovery.
Gupta further said, "The first major breakthrough for us came in 1999 when we had the first OEM partnership with HCL for Crash Proof. Though the first order value was of only Rs 5 lakh, we can't forget the happiness that came along with it. With this tie-up, our struggle got over because we started getting enough money that we could spend on R&D, marketing, and advertisements".
"In 2001, the second major breakthrough came with an OEM tie up with Wipro, which continues till date continues. Then in 2004, we brought Kaspersky to India. The partnership lasted till 2007, wherein they broke the partnership without giving us any notice. So, immediately in 2008, we signed up with BitDefender. Till date, we are going on with BitDefender very well," added Gupta.
Then in 2009, Unistal launched its flagship product called ‘Protegent' with a focus on providing complete security. Initially, the company launched it for laptops and recently, it launched an Enterprise version of Protegent.
"This launch has given us a tremendous response from corporate sector and wherever we have demonstrated this product, we haven't lost a single order as of now. We have done POC at 20 places in the last 3 months and orders have already come from 13 out of 20 of these places. And the rest are in process. We have not found one company that has said no to this product. Our clientele starts from corporates like Hero to engineering companies and institutions. This solution includes laptop tracking, data theft/leakage prevention, with activity monitoring and asset management," pointed out Gupta.
Moreover, the company has a couple of cloud solutions as well, out of which, one is Pipeline Information Management System that it developed for Bharat Petroleum and GAIL. It is a cloud based solution that was launched in 2005. And till date, it has done more than 39 projects on PIMS for companies like GAIL, IOC, BPCL, GSPL, British Petroleum (Oman), and Petronas (Malaysia). In fact, PIMS has become mandatory for all the pipeline and gas projects in India and Unistal enjoys moe than 70% market share for this solution in India.

PILLARS OF STRENGTH
Now, 17 years down the line, from a company of two, Unistal now has more than 300 people in the group. From a revenue of Rs 20 lakh in the first year, the company now has a turnover of Rs 25 crore. It has 4 regional offices, 21 branch offices in Dubai, Oman, Malaysia, and Netherlands. Unistal has a local tie up in these countries wherein it provides sales and support. Apart from these, it also export its software to more than 150 countries online and to more than 25 countries directly.
There is one more company in the group now-JPAC Technologies. Apart from Alok Gupta and Pankaj Mathur, there are two more directors in the company-Jitendra Kulkarni and Chirag Shah. JPAC caters to the PIMS solution outside India and software development projects from different countries. Unistal also has a share holding in Touchmate India, having its HQ in Dubai.
"In this process, I have received tremendous support from people around-be it my teammates or my family. In our success story, the contributions have come from the internal people, partners of the company, and finally, the luck. My employees have also struggled with me and we have people working with us for the last 10 to 12 years. They are also responsible for the growth of the company. During this journey, people have cheated us including our own staff. One of the staff sold the source code to a US company, which stopped immediately when we filed a case. Ironically, due to our Indian laws, they are still selling the software in the country," said Gupta.
"My parents and wife have never questioned any of my decisions. They have totally supported my decisions till date. Though sometimes they feel that I take unnecessary risks in life, I have never proved them wrong as I have the courage to take risks. I have two lovely daughters, Nishtha and Palak, who sometimes miss me as I could not spend enough time with them. But they have never complained. My wife, Sunila, after spending 14 years with me, now sometimes complains that I need to give her more time than work," concluded Gupta.