One business app aims to do it all

Bengaluru-based Applicate has launched EXEED, which it claims is the first 'uni-channel' platform

The front end that drives the business execution and growth of some of the best and biggest companies often lacks standard processes. Ranjeet Kumar and Deepak Rewadi realised this gap while working as assistant vice-president and general manager at Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, heading the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh operations, respectively.

"Every company goes through its own learning cycle," said Kumar. "The gap widens as business owners are not exposed to technology and folks in the information technology (IT) departments have little understanding of the gaps and opportunities in business."

He added while exploring technology for their start-up, they were amazed by the possibility of using IT to transform business processes and outcomes.

Beginning

Kumar and Rewadi quit their jobs in June 2014 and co-founded Applicate IT Solutions, an IT product start-up providing mobile and cloud-based solutions. They based their operations out of Bengaluru.

Started as a business-focused company with domain expertise in sales, marketing and operations, Applicate has created EXEED (Execution, Effectiveness, Engagement and Data analytics), which it claims, is the first "uni-channel" platform in the world.

It provides seamless execution across functions, roles and channels.

"The integrated mobile and cloud-based platform transforms the sales, service, marketing and distribution functions of organisations with large teams, eliminating the need for different apps for different channels, functions and roles," said Rewadi.

EXEED, the unified platform, provides innovative apps like Trade GINI for connecting the channel partners, REMOTE for tracking the effectiveness of promotions and below-the-line marketing campaigns, KIT for knowledge, insight and training, apart from sales force effectiveness app TEEM for retail and Store CONNECT for emerging channels.

Dynamics

According to Kumar, Applicate is targeting opportunities in sales, service, marketing and distribution functions across consumer goods companies. The startup is already working with some top multinationals and Indian majors like Kelloggs, Britannia, Pidilite, Madura Garments, Hero and Apps Daily, to name a few, and is in the final stages of closing agreements with 22 more companies.

EXEED's revenue model has two components, a one-time set-up and customisation cost, and annual licence cost. One-time customisation cost for each module depends on the level chosen by customers, and annual licencing cost depends on the total number of licences. Typically, for a sales module, the annual licencing cost ranges from Rs 3,500 to Rs 10,500 per year.

"With some of our quickly-scalable low-cost software-as-a-service (SaaS) modules, we plan to add a minimum of 100 customers by the end of the current financial year, and go for a big scale-up to add another 500 customers in 2016-17," Kumar adds.

To meet its next year's growth plan, Applicate is planning to multiply its delivery and service capability by enhancing its Rapid Application Development Framework,which is a vast repository of components that lets the company to pick, choose and modify features based on its customer's requirements, besides adding 15 developers to the existing team of 32 at its Bengaluru development centre and New Delhi, by the end of the third quarter.

Money matters

Applicate recently raised Rs 3.5 crore from 12 senior corporate professionals, including Rishi Vasudev, vice-president at Flipkart, Vishal Chaddha, head (media marketing), HT Media, Rajiv Nayan, director (business development) Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Canada, and Amit Gupta, vice-president of Urban Infra, the largest private equity fund for real estate in India.

"We are now planning to raise $5 million by the end of the third quarter to support our ramp-up plans. This will include scaling-up our operations to reach out to the maximum customers in India, and launch our platform in North America, for which we have already been doing some ground work," Rewadi said.

According to Rajiv Nayan, the company has a first-mover advantage as its technology is of the "age" with cloud-based platform on a SaaS-based model and the platform has chosen to be "cloud", which is catching up across the globe and has a huge future potential.

"EXEED, however, needs to be enriched further to address varied customer segments in the targeted industry," he says, adding that if Applicate continues to service existing customers effectively, it should cross sales of around $2 million in the next 12 months, and touch $20 million in the next three years.
FACT BOX

Inception: June 2014

Area of business: Integrated mobile and cloud-based uni-channel platform for a execution across functions, roles and channels

Fund-raising: Recently raised Rs 3.5 crore from 12 senior corporate professionals; Planning to raise $5 million by the end of the third quarter

Revenues: Aims at $2 million in the next 12 months, and reach $20 million in three years

EXPERT TAKE: Adam Larkey

Somewhat similar products targeting primarily sales force automation have been there since a long time. But EXEED appears to be different in its overall approach, scope and scale. It promises to address all execution-related aspects rather than only automation of transactions.

The potential impact of such products in driving revenues can be very high. The EXEED platform also uses the much-talked about data analytics in a much simpler and impactful way with day-to-day actionable insights.

I foresee two key challenges that Applicate would be facing in the near and medium term. First, the adoption of such products can have a longer gestation period, especially from large organisations as it would need them to migrate from their current platform, on which there could be sizable investments.

Second, scaling up such platforms to a sizable number of companies would be challenging for any startup, given the resources and time constraints. Applicate would have to find a cost-effective and efficient deployment model to attract large organisations to consider the advantages of migration and mitigate the cost and time disadvantages.

Also, they should leverage their strength of the first-mover advantage and domain knowledge to establish one unique product from their portfolio at a very high-scale, like Trade GINI, which is quite unique and has a huge potential of a quick scale-up if they can make it available with a ready-to-deploy module at a very low cost on a SaaS model.

As a small company growing very fast, the biggest mistake Applicate can make is on execution. If they can keep executing effectively, they will do very well. Their products are suitable for the global markets so the sky is the only limit.

Adam Larkey is president of Wolet Capital, a US-Indian cross-border investment bank