August 30, 2010
Please provide us with your biography:
I'm one of those 1990s graduates who was the first to catch up with the dotcom revolution. My DOB is October 6th, 1973. I grew up in Madurai, India. Did my schooling in Vikassa School and Bachelor's in Engineering (Mechanical) in Guindy, Anna University, Chennai. While in school and college, I was more interested in the extra-curricular than the curricular, and this interest made me the President of 'Internet Users Community of India' later. I headed the Madurai Chapter for four years (from April 1996 to June 2000) and was instrumental in bringing the Internet to South India, especially to tier two cities like Madurai.
A major turning point in my life was my marriage – I married Poornima in 1999. Right now, I'm part of a beautiful family – my wife and two daughters, Sanjana and Sheetal. I see to it that I spend time with my family every now and then in spite of my busy schedule.
I'm called 'CRV' by friends and family members. I have a penchant for new technologies, especially in the social media. My hobbies are palmistry, magic, dream interpretation and traveling. I've been lucky to travel far and wide on business and leisure trips over the past 10 years.
Tell us about your background and your role in the company.
I'm the Founder and CEO of Dot Com Infoway & Galatta.com. I monitor all the operations of the company and charter its future plans and growth.
My IT career had a modest start with 'CRV Infotech', a web design company founded in April 1996. I ventured into it with minimum capital (actually a loan from my parents) and it had less than 5 employees in the beginning. It was a time when the Internet was less known in India and almost unknown in my city. When we started, we were lucky to acquire a few international clients. We built on that client base and earned the reputation of a small web company with enormous potential for growth. By chance, I happened to meet Mr. Girish Ramdas (the now President of Dot Com Infoway), the Founder of GNG Internet. It is then CRV Infotech merged with GNG Internet to form the brand new IT company, Dot Com Infoway. This happened in April 1999 and I took up the position of the Managing Director and CEO of the company.
Soon after establishment, we started Galatta.com, a media initiative and movie portal that will be engaged in the legal management and distribution of movie related content online. Galatta.com now has several divisions – Galatta Cinema Magazine (a movie magazine and a print media initiative), G3 (lifestyle supplement) and Galatta Media (entertainment event management section), Galatta Express (a weekly magazine).
What are your main services?
We are an end-to-end IT service provider. Our main services include the following:
? Application Development
? Web Design & Development
? Mobile Application Development
? Internet Marketing
? Mobile Application Marketing
? Open Source Solutions
You can find more about our services here – www.dotcominfoway.com
What makes your firm different from other companies competing in your industry?
According to me, 3 things make us stand out of the crowd.
1. We're a ONE STOP IT SHOP. Our services portfolio has come full circle. There is almost no IT service that is out of our range for us. From software to mobile to marketing, we offer everything that any small or medium business would look for.
2. We're Customer's First. We care more for our customers than many others in the industry. We value the relationship we have with our clients more than the profit a project may bring us. This is why we have long term clients (clients who have been with us right from our company's initiation). And this is also the same reason why customers prefer us first!
3. We regard quality above quantity. Any work product that goes out of our stable meets the rigid quality guidelines we have set for ourselves. Whatever be the cost estimate or project scope, we deliver quality work at all times.
Though every other IT company may point out the same things, we practice what we promise and that, I think, makes a huge difference.
Tell us more about your firm’s success story
It has been just a decade since we established Dot Com Infoway. But looking back, we feel we have achieved more, much more than what we dreamed we could when we started. We started with a minuscule group of just 5 employees. Now, we're a 350+ IT company with full-fledged offices in the United States and Netherlands. We have grown phenomenally, and have come to become one of India's premier IT companies.
If you analyze, our growth scale has been mind-blowing.
Take the example of Galatta.com. It started as a movie portal which published movie news, photo gallery of actors and other entertainment stuff, limited to the movie industry in South India. But now, it is a huge brand in India and abroad. Galatta.com has several firsts to its credit. It is the first movie magazine from India to have an iPhone app. The first-ever to associate with Sony Music India to release an iPhone app on Academy Award Winner A.R. Rahman's composition. And the first-ever to initiate legal distribution and management of movie related content online. Galatta.com is now a brand with several other brands under its belt – Galatta Cinema Movie magazine, G3 (lifestyle supplement), Galatta Media (event management wing), Galatta Express (a weekly edition) and a lot more.
The growth of Dot Com Infoway has been equally remarkable. We started with two development centers, now we have offices in India and abroad (the U.S. and Netherlands). Our mobile division, DCI Mobile Studios has been ranked the Top 5 mobile companies in India. We received the Top 5 finalists mBillionth award for M-Entertainment category for the South Asian region. We partnered with ICCI to develop the official IPL T20 app and with Reliance Communications to develop the ICC WT20 app for the iPhone. We have been ranked in top positions for several services by TOPSEOs. Added to this, we're a NASSCOM member, ISO certified company and CMMI III company. We're also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Associate Partner of Sun Microsystems, Privileged Partner of Nokia OVI store and an authenticated iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows and Symbian mobile app developer. All this have come from the seed sown 10 years ago, in a fledgling 5-member company!
We have a lot more coming and this is why, we say that our growth has been mind-blowing.
According to you, what are the most important questions a potential customer should ask a company before choosing a vendor like you?
Three things are a must –
1. Relevant experience the company has in the project you require
2. References to customers the company has previously worked with (in the relevant field)
3. Confidentiality/Non-disclosure policies of the company to ensure that they keep your information confidential
What are some of the myths in your field?
If you have never deployed IT for your business, then you're liable to think that IT is a very costly affair. If you run your operations on IT, then you may think that upgrade costs are higher and hence, not required. Upgradation of your old IT system is never costly. Some people tend to slog with their old VB.NET app or CC+ app without ever knowing the importance and necessity of an upgrade. An upgrade is easy, cost-effective and simple if you find the right vendor.
How do you develop your skills in your field?
I do it in several ways: through networking, attending seminars, participating in IT meets, through webcasts, reading industry updates/ blogs, being active in IT forums/communities etc.
What do you see as the future of the industry? What will be the challenges? Do you anticipate any drastic changes?
The future of the industry is mobile. There'll come a point when mobile presence will become as important as web presence. Businesses will be required to have a mobile presence in the form of applications or mobile-friendly sites. There'll be a lot of challenges in the shift from web to mobile. First will be the adaptation to the mobile space. Mobile content cannot be verbose as web content. So, reaching out to your target audience will demand deployment of unique strategies – maybe a teaser app or a game or some free digital content or through some interesting mobile-way. The competition will also be very tough. With launch of every other new mobile OS, it will become tougher. The industry will have to gauge the pulse of users to know what will sell on mobile.
Where do you see your firm in the next 5 years? What about you personally?
Dot Com Infoway will be one of the Top 5 IT companies in India. It will also make it to the Fortune 1000 list. As for me, I will be the man behind the growth. :)
Further References, check out the below links
My interview on The Hindu - http://beta.thehindu.com/life-and-style/metroplus/article429591.ece
My interview on ClickJobs - http://www.clickjobs.com/kofitable/advocating-the-essentialities-of-constant-learning.html
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