“We plan to have 100+ partners by next Q2 to reach out to SMBs”

Tell us about eXensys Software Solution's journey in India and what are its major milestones?
eXensys was established in 2001, when the ERP business was at an inflection point. This was the time when companies in this business were looking for newer technology options and basically at the webification of ERP systems. During this time everyone was trying to embrace new functionalities in the e-business, SCM and e-commerce space.

eXensys started off with a generic ERP covering basic modules and functionalities of an ERP viz., financial, HRP, procurement, sales and inventory. As of today eXensys' ERP covers four major verticals namely manufacturing, trading and distribution, retail and automotive. These four major verticals can be mapped to over 40 micro-verticals or industries covering about 85% of their processes. Our products built on agile and flexible methodology using state-of-the-art technology can adapt to any ever-changing business environment; which was and is, till-date, the need of the hour.

In 2002, we launched our global alliance partner program and in 2005 we established our Global Delivery Model. Subsequently we set up offices in the US and Middle East. We devoted close to 7,00,000 man on developing and enhancing our products for both on-premise and on-cloud, with contemporary feature enhancements which included localization, multi-lingual and multi-currency support which made us a force to reckon with.
The overwhelming response to the enhanced product has been encouraging from all quarters. This journey also saw us win many awards and accolades apart from certifications on quality and processes.

Can you throw some light on the existing go-to-market strategy of eXensys in India?
Our go-to-market strategy for India is primarily focused on targeting the sweet spot of the market: SMB and mid market segment. Being in the market for long we have realized that our business needs the impetus in terms of volumes that can be provided by focusing on SMB segment.
The lifeline of eXensys GTM will be its partners. We expect about 80% of our revenue to come from partners. eXensys believes that the partner network will help us penetrate and consolidate on our focus segments. The remaining 20% of our business will come from direct sales that would mainly focus on the upper segment of the pyramid-the large corporate segment.
We also have plans to collaborate with tier-four data centers from each of the region in India, apart from partnering with SI and strategic partnerships, which would help us, gain a strong foothold, these will be supported by road-shows, and other forums where we think it would be beneficial for both eXensys and its partners.

How important is channels for the company's growth, please share your existing distribution model?
Channels will be the kernel of eXensys growth plans. eXensys plan for the next couple of years is to acquire more and more customers for its cloud and on-premise offerings. This goal depends on how quickly and how much can it penetrate market and acquire customers. These specific goal can be achieved only with the help of the market drivers like the channels who have been in the market and understand the same to its DNA.

These channels have the pulse of the markets and the customers. With the market knowledge of the channels, the wide range of offerings of eXensys and with aggressive strategies chalked out along with the channels, channels become the crux of eXensys growth plans.

Apart from the above we are also looking for partners who could become our specific product distributors in India. This would give the partners a huge growth opportunity in revenues and reach.

What are the plans that the company is thinking to roll out this year?

As mentioned earlier eXensys will focus aggressively on the SMB market through its channel partners. By the second quarter of the next financial year, we are looking at partnering with 100+ partners in order to reach out to the burgeoning SMB market. At the same time we are expanding our internal sales team whose primary role would be to look after our partner network and at the same time, pitch to large and big scale organizations.

In terms of our product, we have added new vertical and horizontal solutions in order to broaden our reach to niche sectors too. Last year, saw us extending our solution offerings on-cloud which have opened a new set of clientele for us and we soon see it growing. Apart from this we are now set to enter foreign territories with some interesting collaborations with established industry giants.

What are the areas of growth where you see opportunity?
As explained earlier we believe that the coming years will see tremendous opportunities coming from the SMB-mid market segment of the market. The ERP business will mainly thrive on these two sectors. The second major area of growth is adaptability of solutions towards the cloud. Year 2013 will see a lot of movement from on-premise to on-cloud.

The next big opportunity lies in giving the market customized and scalable solutions. Customers are also looking at point solutions which can ease out their existing business pain points which would also help them to make a better decision on which enterprise solution to choose and cut down on the customization cost to a great extent

How would you describe your road map for the future?
At eXensys we are focused on the 3 main drivers of our business- customer, partner, and technology. The next year has big budgets invested to reach out to each one of these drivers.

For customers, we are implementing smarter, cleaner and diversified offerings which will change the way they carry out their businesses. We have made investments to increase our product offerings and have included some niche industries in our portfolio which is a unique solution offering in itself.

With respect to partners, we plan to introduce new partnership plans and programs which will help them benefit better and faster. We have also done some strategic tie-ups which would help us gain faster entry in certain ‘tough' markets. eXensys plans to strategize impact road shows with its partners to reach out to tier-2 markets along with tier-1 markets.

Apart from this we have invested hugely on technology to give our customers a never before user experience which will save them from mundane day to day processes, rigorous information uploads and simplify their working hours.

Also, on the functional front eXensys plans to make available some of the important and impact functionalities to its customers like Cross docking in warehouse management, Assortment planning, Space planning in retail, Product ticketing, Integration of transportation and logistics, KANBAN, Lean manufacturing, Collaborative planning and replenishment, Yard management, Failure mode and effect analysis to name a few.

Sandhya Malhotra
sandhyam@cybermedia.co.in