Role Model
The Risk Taker
 Dr Ajay Mian, CEO, All e Technologies has led his life by a ‘no venture, no gain’ motto. His penchant for taking risks and constantly staying ahead of the curve has made his professional journey rather unusual
By Tabrez Khan
When asked to describe himself in one line, Dr Ajay Mian, CEO of All e Technologies calls himself, ‘a person willing to take risks.’ Fortunately for him, most of the risks he has taken as an entrepreneur have been rewarding. As a result, today his company has emerged as one of the leading solutions provider for software applications. “The only things in life you regret are the risks you didn’t take,” he says.
The beginning
A PhD in high energy physics, Mian began his professional journey as a professor teaching physics and computers at Delhi University in 1983. But soon enough his love for applying computer technology to scientific research landed him at the country’s premier research organization, National Physics Laboratory.
In 1986, he joined Tata Burroughs as a project manager deploying computers in government and education sectors. “My stint with the company gave me immense exposure to the best global IT practices,” recalls Mian.
When the company was rechristened as Tata Unisys in 1994, Mian sought out to explore his options too. “I was approached by one of my international contacts to start a software development operation out of India. India was fast emerging as a destination for software development offshoring. I took up that opportunity, and along with a few of my professional friends, founded a company called Eurolink to provide software development services.”
By 1999, the company grew to a 150-people strong organization. It was during this time that the e-business buzz got louder and Mian was allured. Hence in 2000, he started a new company All e Technologies to provide project management and consulting services to dot-com companies. One of the biggest customers All e bagged was $1 billion marketing company GSK, to develop a web platform. However, this deal became their biggest nemesis.
The dot-com bust followed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US led to the fall of GSK. “That was the most testing period. We had taken huge exposure on the GSK project. The smaller dot-com customers also perished. So in just six months, we went from boom to bust.”
The first thought normally would have been to shut shop; however the risk-taker that Mian is, he didn’t want to give up without a fight. “I had enough cash reserve to last me six months of operation. I could take that cash and start a new business but I decided go through with the risk,” he recalls.
Luck always favors the brave. Within three months, All e was approached by an ERP vendor Navision to become their software development and consulting partner. In 2002, Microsoft acquired Navision globally. “However in India, the integration of Navision with Microsoft India only happened in 2004. In the meantime, we built our reputation as a Navision expert,” he informs.
In a short period, All e became Navision’s fastest growing partner globally with many transnational deployments to its name. In 2003, it deployed ERP for Esys across its offices in 25 countries. Next, the company bagged a healthcare client in UK that wanted to set up supply chain management software. In 2004, All e bagged the project to deploy ERP across 20 global locations for Asian Paints.
“Once Microsoft integrated Navision into its fold, they realized that to succeed in India’s unique SMB market, they had to localize critical modules in keeping with the taxation and compliance scenario. We worked closely with Microsoft to customize the ERP offering,” says Mian.
To grow its ERP practice Mian took the inorganic expansion route by acquiring Munjal eSystems in 2007. “Our aim has been to create the best skill-sets around Navision and our acquisition of Munjal was owing to their healthy Navision practice. The acquisition added new customers and it made us the largest Navision partner in India,” says Mian.
The present
With nearly all its revenues coming from Microsoft Dynamics (Navision is now called Dynamics), All e clocked Rs 24 crore in FY2008-09 growing by almost 70 percent compared to the previous fiscal’s turnover of Rs 14 crore. Of this, 10 percent of the revenues came from the customization and deployment of Dynamics ERP in the overseas market through its subsidiary in Switzerland which the company incepted in 2007.
This year, despite the slowdown, business has been good. The company expects to close the current fiscal at Rs 29 crore, a healthy growth of 20 percent, thanks to several large deals the company executed.
“Our growth has been a healthy combination of repeat business from existing customers and addition of new customers. We opened a branch in Mumbai which helped us acquire a large customer in the travel segment, apart from strengthening our teams in Kolkata and Pune,” says Mian.
Some of the key projects deployed by All e over the last 12 months include the one for travel portal MakeMyTrip, to form the backbone of the company’s entire e-booking operations for its 750 agents. The company also deployed Dynamics NAV at Blue Dart across 60 offices in the country, chaining the solution with the existing financial accounting and logistics system and for pharma major Cipla and its 200 users.
The company focused on deep selling to get business from existing customers. “For many of our existing customers we provided BI, mobility, HRMS and collaboration solutions in addition to ERP and CRM—to enable the customer draw the needed mileage from their enterprise solutions. We also extended the concept of CRM to XRM for effective engagement,” adds Mian.
The company’s focus in a tough year has been to improve systems and processes to boost employee productivity. “We got on board three advisors to suggest ways to increase team productivity within the company. We also deployed a knowledge portal for employees to learn and collaborate. In addition, we implemented Whizible, a project management tool which has ensured optimal use of resources and timely completion of projects,” claims Mian.
He takes pride in the fact that despite a tough economic scenario, the company conducted its six-monthly appraisals giving performance bonuses and hikes to the deserving.
The future
Over the next four years, All e plans to be a Rs 100 crore company. To get there, the company is looking at geographical expansion within and outside the country, developing vertical specific solutions and increasing its deep selling efforts. With branches in Mumbai, Kolkata and Pune, the company is gearing to open a base in south with a branch in Chennai. Through its subsidiary in Switzerland it plans to make further inroads into the European Union.
All e Technologies is also collaborating with Microsoft in developing an IP that would enable even the companies in the lower mid-market (LMM) space to adopt Dynamics NAV. The IP focuses on building a new user interface for businesses in the LMM space—to further stimulate ease of use, providing multi-lingual help, and an instant implementation methodology. “All of this while still maintaining the robustness of ERP, which is scalable with the growth of the business. The solution will also be compellingly priced. This initiative, together with Microsoft’s help, will soon be ready for launch,” adds Mian.
Cloud computing and SaaS is another area that Mian is considering investing in for the future. According to him, both are very important paradigms and CRM applications are relatively easy to move on SaaS. “However, businesses are still not comfortable moving their financial accounting to the cloud due to concerns about data security. However, with time as the cloud computing model matures, adoption rates will increase. The on-premise solutions, however, have their own space, and are unlikely to go away completely in the foreseeable future.”
The person
“My personal philosophy is don’t ever give up,” says Mian. “My family, friends and colleagues recognize me as a fighter and I pride myself on always having taken the road less travelled, rather than the tried and tested.”
A fighter himself, Mian admires NR Narayana Murthy for his tenacity and business acumen that enabled him to build India’s largest software company right from scratch in just two decades. Having had a long stint with Tata Group companies, Mian is also deeply influenced by the Tatas’ philosophy of ‘business with ehtics’ and is a great admirer of Ratan Tata.
Some of Mian’s other interests include Yoga, old hindi film songs and reading. “I prefer management books like Verne Harnish’s Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Bradford Smith’s Topgrading for sales. One of the most interesting books I have read recently is Demonstrating to Win by Robert Riefstahl. It talks about how software professionals demonstrate software products poorly and how they can better that.”
Mian gives a lot of credit for his success to his family, especially his wife. “My wife, who is a gynecologist, supported me even in the most testing times and in decisions which might have then seemed completely irrational. It was because of her that I was able to take all the risks and achieve success,” concludes Mian. |