Interaction - Rohan Joshi, CEO & Sudhir Prabhu, CTO, Wolken Software

Wolken Software is an Indian SaaS company with its primary offerings as Customer Service Desk and Enterprise Service Management. Rohan Joshi, Co-Founder & CEO and Sudhir Prabhu, Co-Founder & CTO, Wolken Software, talk to us about MSMEs using software and the challenges involved in it.

How can MSMEs use software services to their advantage with limited resources?

MSMEs are the drivers of the country’s economy and yet they have their own struggles to face especially during Covid19 with the Economic slowdown and Liquidity crunch Saas has been a Godsend to help MSMEs minimise their troubles.

MSMEs come with their own set of limitations with regards to Resources and Bench strength and Self Service Softwares can help them immensely in reduction of CAPEX with configuration and maintenance costs going down and also help them increase their OPEX simultaneously.

SaaS comes with it’s own advantages of the “pay as you grow” model and gives MSMEs the flexibility to upgrade when the time is right. Moreover SaaS has become a business development tool for MSMEs with Internet penetration.

With Covid19 playing a huge role in digitising and pushing the MSMEs towards becoming self-service, businesses these days understand the power of Social Media and are leveraging the channels to their optimal use. Instant messaging applications  like Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram help to serve their customers and grow their businesses significantly.

What are the challenges in bringing MSMEs into the software services fold?

There are many challenges in bringing MSMEs into the software services fold -

• Resistance to change is a huge psychological hindrance when it comes to transformation.
• Most of the MSMEs are unaware of what features are best suited for their enterprises and there is ambiguity due to limited exposure.
• Network challenges till last year were a huge mix-up for SaaS

How do you resolve these challenges? 

• Mobility has helped as the enterprises no longer require to invest in expensive devices to use softwares.
• Covid19 pandemic has played a huge role in digital transformation at MSMEs
• Social Media channels made way for MSMEs to optimise SAAS based softwares.
• Real popularisation of Infrastructure as a service and Platform as a service

What is the graph of MSMEs going on software services in 2020-21?

According to global news with distinct competitive advantages enhanced by a level, Indian-heritage SaaS companies are well poised to reach $40 billion in revenue and capture 7% to 9% share of the global SaaS market by 2022.

Over the last five years, the number of Indian funded SaaS companies have also doubled up and the number of SaaS companies drawing Series C or late stage capital has quadrupled, representing significant traction. India now has a thriving ecosystem of enablers comprising SaaS investors, incubators, accelerators, and government initiatives. This growth was made possible because of a wide base of skilled engineering talent stemming from a large IT Services workforce and meaningful number of fresh graduates; global ambition of founders, several of whom have spent time at pioneering product companies; capital efficiency by bringing competitive products to market at a fraction of the cost in western markets; and excellent 24x7 customer support.

How does the software service industry in India differ from that in the US? 

The key difference starts with the US being an extremely matured market, there are comparatively less challenges in deploying Saas Softwares to enterprises as compared to india. The U.S. and Canada together account for 55% of all software expenditures globally and with low cost of Self Service platforms, US market has seen a boom in Cloud native and SaaS Applications.