Biren Selarka, Director, Acma Computers has learnt the lessons of life a hard way and how these experiences made him stronger and a champion.
Please briefly tell us about your journey as an IT solutions provider?
The journey has been long, with lots of ups and downs, but we have truly enjoyed every bit of the journey. While the ups took us to new heights, the downs have taught us the most important lessons of life. We started on a single table as I could not afford the rent of the whole office and my father was very clear that till you cannot pay the rent, you cannot get the whole office. Till date, I truly thank him for this strictness, as this taught me the value of money and money management. I started alone and was doing all roles, right from the ‘Peon to the Proprietor’. After four years, my brother Purvesh joined me and that truly helped for the business to multiply, as he is from a Commerce background & he understood finance much better than a technical engineer like me.
We started with assembling PCs and became the first premier partner for Intel in India. And right from day one we had a very strong focus on services, which remains even today. After PC assembly, we moved on to becoming a SI for end to end IT solutions provider providing services in the domain of servers, networks, storage, security, data centre setup, call centre setup, virtualization, etc. In the next phase of evolution, we expanded our scope of SI to allied areas like CCTV & surveillance, access control, conference room setup & automation, digital signage, etc. Along with system integration, the focus on IT services & expansion of scope in IT services still continues. From a humble start of offering only break-fix services for PCs, we have added many additional services like FMS, Remote Infra Management (RIM), Mobile Device Management (MDM) and implementation services for multiple software products.
What all best practices should be followed by a solutions provider to become one of the leaders in the industry?
We believe that continuous innovation and change as per the situation and market demands is necessary. At the same time, it is necessary to have stringent quality control on all services and deliverables, and have total financial control and management. It is equally important to develop second and third level teams to take care of all routine activities including sales. Most importantly, a strong vision and a dedicated focus is needed to achieve this vision.
How has been the growth for your company in the last one year?
The growth in the last one year has been very good for us. We added Hyderabad & Colombo (Sri Lanka), as 2 new locations. Turnover wise, we were able to grow at more than 20%.
Could you tell us about your key areas of expertise?
Our business has two main SBUs: System Integration and Services (SIS). In SI, Acma does end-to-end integration, including IT, data centre, surveillance, access control, conference rooms, automation, digital signage etc. In services, FMS, RIM, MDM and implementation services for multiple software
products. We are present in all major A and B class cities of India, and outside India, we are providing services in Sri Lanka, Australia, Dubai and Singapore.
In the area of RIM Services, we have been regularly adding technical expertise, and have the capability to implement this for extremely large setups – from 1000 to 10,000 PCs. In the integration space, we can perform complete automation, including control of lights, curtains and ACs through your mobile phone. We also provide cloud solutions – from IaaS and SaaS to data backup as a service. We also feel that IoT is going to be a huge focus area in the future and we are going to invest in creating a team of specialists for various IoT implementations.
Plans for the future
In the coming future, we plan to expand in more B & C class locations, and in global markets.
