Model in India, offer SaaS
Four Soft, the IT solutions provider to logistics and transport companies, has said that it has decided to appoint franchisees to sell its products in the Indian market this financial year. As opposed to its model of selling licenses globally, the company would distribute the products through its channel partners in India. “we have also decided to offer the applications online in the software-as-a-service(SaaS) model this year. The Indian market needs a different approach as we see a huge opportunity from SMEs (small and medium enterprises). They can use the applications depending on their transactions,” Mr Rajshekhar Roy, Chief Executive Officer, Four Soft. told Business Line. DE-RISKING The company, which has acquired six companies since 2000, would buy two companies |
 one in the service and development segment and the other in the BPO segment – this financial year. “We are in talks with a few companies in China and South America,” he said. This was aimed at de-risking the business which was impacted by the slowdown.“The slowdown did impact us in 2009 when some important orders got delayed in the US. But the US is looking brighter than what it did in 2009. Some of the orders that were delayed have come back to us in the last five months. Things seem to be improving in Europe too. But we have decided to de-risk the business and spread to other geographies,” he said. |
“We might go for an Indian BPO engaged in an activity related to our business, we are discussing the idea (of entering the BPO business) with our customers too.” He said. SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT Mr Roy said the company would also tap the opportunity in supply chain management. “We are a well-known IT solution player in the Logistics and Transportation sector. But we are not well-known in Supply Chain Management. The market size in the latter segment is large when compared to other two segments,” he said. “While the opportunity in offering solutions to the first two categories globally is $250 million, the supply chain market offers a market of $10billion for companies like us. “We have begun working with a semiconductor company in Japan and two customers in North America with a supply chain management solution,” Mr Roy said. |