Here is talk with Mr. Gajanan Sakhare ( Founder
Director SmartCloud). He shared his thoughts on Cloud Technology relevance for SMEs,
challenges to entrepreneurs, his journey as entrepreneur and many more. I hope you will benefit from it.
Gajanan Sakhare, Founder and CEO of SmartCloud Inoftech (www.smartcloudinfotech.com) has a strong experience in managing outsourcing services and operations. Gajanan has done his BE (Comp Science) from COEP, MBA from IMT and is currently pursuing his PhD in Management.
Gajanan Sakhare, Founder and CEO of SmartCloud Inoftech (www.smartcloudinfotech.com) has a strong experience in managing outsourcing services and operations. Gajanan has done his BE (Comp Science) from COEP, MBA from IMT and is currently pursuing his PhD in Management.
In his 12 years of IT experience, Gajanan has worked in
CRM industry for Fortune500 clients including IBM and Cisco. Gajanan was
working in Silicon Valley from 2000 to 2005. Gajanan moved back to India in
late 2005 to work with a start up - Lambent Technologies, Nagpur that was later
acquired by GlobalLogic. He was handling key portfolios including Business
Development, Account Management and Program Management for Lambent and
GlobalLogic.
Gajanan played a key role in setting up offshore
development centers in Nagpur, Pune and Noida for various clients including
Jentro, Glu Mobile and Telecommunication Systems.
In his last assignment - as Development Director, EA
Sports, Gajanan was part of the core leadership team that successfully ramped
up EA Mobile Hyderabad team size to 7X in 3 years.
Answer: Even as an employee, I
was always thinking and acting like an entrepreneur - always conscious about
Top Line and Bottom Line of the organizations I worked for. For me, starting
SmartCloud Infotech – was nothing but an extension of what I was already doing.
I always wanted to generate jobs as my way of giving back to society. So being
an entrepreneur was a natural choice.
Q. How do you see smart cloud infotech in next 5 years
Answer: We started SmartCloud
Infotech in last June and I came full time on board in October. In last few
months – we have made some good progress – our team is 30 people now. We
have few repeat customers and have made a good start. We have also started
operations in US and Botswana. With this progress in last few months – we are
on track per our business plan. In next 5 years, we aim to be “the #1
Development partner for companies providing Anytime, Anywhere services on
SmartPhones using Cloud advantage”. In terms of revenue - we are aiming at
$2Million mark.
Q. When there are so many companies in mobile and cloud
technology what is so special about smart cloud
Answer: First thing is
our focus - SmartCloud Infotech is 100% focused on providing end to end OPD
(Outsourced Product Development) services on SmartPhones and Cloud “together”
as a combined offering. Another special thing about SmartCloud is it’s core
team – which has over 70 years of combined knowledge and experience in Mobile,
CRM, Retail, FMCG, Gaming and Cloud. We give strong emphasis on UX Design,
Technology Design/Architecture and proven Project Management practices to
deliver exceptionally good quality service.
Q. What are the challenges for an entrepreneur in
current scenario, what is your suggestion to tackle them
Answer:
·
If you are an
entrepreneur – every day will begin with a new challenge!! Based on my experience
– major challenges in current scenario are increased costs and availability of
trained resources with “right” attitude.
·
To control costs –
prioritizing projects and optimizing productivity by creating core expertise
and setting right processes should help. For setting up teams with trained
resources who have right attitude - investment in training and investment in
people at every stage is required. If you can help your team share your vision
of creating a successful business model - you will have the right resources
with right attitude.
Q. How does a SME benefit from mobile technology?
How much is smart cloud’s role into it?
Answer: Every
SME (irrespective of domain) need some or other solution on mobile to track,
analyze and report various business parameters “On
The Go”. SmartCloud Infotech can be a development partner for such SMEs who
want a mobile and/or cloud technology based customized solution.
Q. Any major plan for coming financial year
Answer: We will be expanding on
our Cloud competencies. We would like to build strong partnerships with select
SMEs to build “Solution Offerings on Mobile and Cloud” across various industry
segments. We have already identified 19 such solution offerings which we want
to develop in next 3 quarters.
Q. Are you looking for investors to scale up.
Answer: Yes we are looking for
strategic investors who can help us scale up. As mentioned earlier, we are 30
people team now – grown over 100% on month on month basis in last 6 months. Our
next expansion would require us to increase our team size to 70 people and
having right strategic investors will expedite this expansion plan.
Q. Any suggestion or tip to budding entrepreneur
Answer: I am
also learning how to ride this journey!!! However one thing, which has always
helped me, could be a good tip for any budding entrepreneur: “CONNECT!!!“ Connect
with people with an honest approach - your customers, prospects, stakeholders,
and employees – show them that you genuinely care for them and everyone you CONNECT
with, will knowingly/unknowingly start helping you become a successful
entrepreneur.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please add your comment here