n FAST TRACK
Chabria Infotech
rated software industry was thriving as much then as it is now. Though the contours of the piracy industry were not well defined, but most people never understood the impact it made. “This was just the early phase of IT in India and there was no concept of buying legal software. So my objective was to utilize this opportunity,” adds Chabria.
The mission is to exceed the expectation of clients says Hemant Chabria, CEO, Chabria Infotech
V
alue of a survey can
never be under-estimated. It does involve innumerable assortment of questions and possibilities, but the derivatives can land one an opportunity of a lifetime. In 1992, when Hemant Chabria, Founder and CEO, Chabria Infotech, decided to go back home to Kolkata (then Calcutta) as a fresh engineering graduate from 36
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Bangalore, he decided to move thorough the path of entrepreneurship. “I did a small survey to understand the market at that point in time. I realised that most of the companies functioned under the hardware sector and very few had a software role to play. There were very few corporates at that time. There were no dedicated software players, so I decided to get into this sector,” says Chabria. The pi-
ph o t o g r a p h by foto c o r p
The Birth Pangs Inexperience often creates jitters, let alone when setting up a new venture. The challenges faced by new companies to setup and flourish are countless. This was also the time when India had opened up its economy and the odds were in favour of entrepreneurial individuals. “As expected, starting any business is tough. There were challenges. We were not sure of the direction we had to take. We were unsure about the sustainability of providing only software. There was a lack of clarity then, and getting legal software was not easy. But as we gained orders, the experience too kicked in. But surely the initial days were tough. Slowly companies like Microsoft and Autodesk were looking for authorised partners for their products. That was the time when we decided to partner with these companies,” recollects Chabria. But for certain reasons Lotus was not keen to authorise partners in the eastern region and that seemed to be a challenge for Chabria Infotech as Lotus was the highest selling product compared to Microsoft Office those days. The process of getting orders soon began in 1994 for Chabria Infotech. It was time to march forward for the company. “We were selling games and shareware till then and that’s when we got an order from East India Pharmaceuticals for WordStar and I went to deliver the product to the company. Then we had a tender from CMDA and that’s how the whole cycle began,” recalls Chabria. Chabria Infotech presently has close to 7000 customers. In nearly two decades there have been various challenging implementations undertaken by the company. They have done software licensing for various educational institutions. Chabria In-
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Revenue Split
Diversified Offerings
10%
15%
20%
20
25%
25
Sevice and Support
15
5% Apple 5% Oracle 5% Services 5%
0
Cisco
Enterprise
5
Security
SMB
Adobe 5% Autodesk
70% 20%
Microsoft
10
Source: Chabria Infotech
fotech has also accomplished security implementation for various defence establishments in past few years. Today, the company caters to customers throughout the country through an extensive network of business partners and associates spread through the region. According to Chabria, the mission is to exceed expectation of their clients and deliver on their commitment professionally, on time and within the prescribed budget.
Eye on the Future “We plan to get into managed services. We have to increase our service offerings in the future and I think that is a challenge. This is how we can sustain and compete in this market with profitability. Otherwise the profitability will go down for the company,” says Chabria. With the hype around the cloud reaching stratospheric proportions, what happens to a company like Chabria Infotech if a cloud service provider also adds managed services to their fold? “The managed services sector market is very big. Our skill sets are based on marketing. Online marketing which includes Google, Facebook and other social networks is a big factor in our business process. The entire structure has changed in the last few years. So when one talks about the cloud, the marketing too has to be done through the cloud,” believes Chabria. A list of 7000 odd customers is impressive. So how does the Chabria Infotech manage provide the best available solutions consistently. “One-to-one I don’t think we had any competition. Obviously in each verti-
cal we had a couple of competitors. You have to look at the wide spectrum of offerings we provide. I do not believe that there are too many companies which have such a wide array solutions. We have companies from Microsoft, Apple, and Red Hat etc. There may be a few competitors but that also helps us stay grounded. In terms of training we have regular subscriptions to the technical training portals of various vendors. We also have expert training exchanges for the employees. We have a dedicated team and a fully qualified team for providing full turn around, competitive prices and technical support. I think this helps us stay ahead,” says Chabria. When a company offers so many solutions and services through variegated partners in different domains
Snapshot Founded: 1993 Headquartered: Kolkata Key Principals: Microsoft, HP, Autodesk, Symantec, Watchguard, RedHat, Oracle, McAfee, Novell, SonicWall, Corel, Apple Revenue 2008-09: Rs 23crore Revenue 2009-10: Rs 25 crore Key Executives: Hemant Chabria, CEO, Saurabh Basu, Head (Sales and Channels) Employees: 48
and verticals, it is inevitable that there would be some pressure from the vendors to meet targets. “We focus on only eight to ten vendors in each vertical and close five to six in each domain. So if they have solutions and products for particular domain, we use those often, otherwise we will be unable to do justice to the offerings,” states Chabria. The company has lately also added hardware to its portfolio. Evidently, the need to grow and evolve as a market force will require valuable additions to the verticals. “We decided that to continue the stickiness with a customer we had to either add new products or grow geographically. I could be wrong with regard to this, but I think that’s the way ahead for us,” says Chabria. For Chabria Infotech, nearly 70 percent of the business is focused on SMBs and 20 percent on enterprise customers. They, at present, do not intend to increase focus on enterprise customers. “There comes a point when the vendor makes the business strategy. So our role is limited there. The technology and pricing has to be cleared by the vendors. So I would say that we are not very focussed on enterprise customers though we do have close to 70 big accounts,” states Chabria. Chabria Infotech provides solutions and services in six verticals across the spectrum which includes infrastructure, academic institutions, media & entertainment. Like most solution providers, Chabria Infotech was choosy in selecting the projects during the slump in 2008. They had also added the hardware bit to their business which went their way. The company also decided on not rushing into projects. Chabria is looking at managed services for the future. “We also intend to work on the offering through an online portal, maybe also work on the cloud services. At present we are looking at expanding geographically. Our goal is to deliver quality products, increase profitability and customer satisfaction. We also assure that we employ competent staff for all our projects,” concludes Chabria. — Shreehari Paliath
february 2011
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