ChannelWorld

Chennai-based Mukesh Infoserve was a natural upshot of the ideas and efforts of a team of young people. Started in 1997, as a reseller for HP’s hardware products, the SI today has a wide portfolio of products and services. The realization that a reseller business would not take the company too far made the leaders of Mukesh Infoserve look for fresh opportunities. Then the company had to take a call on whether it has to focus on one technology or get into as many areas. Without delay, the team decided not to be a niche player as they are into a fast-growing market that comes with fresh opportunities every day. At the same time, the company also grasped the need to develop its expertise in all areas it focuses on. The result was the formation of eight different independent business units under Mukesh Infoserve, each accountable for its own profitability.

The company’s approach, right from the beginning, has been to do ‘deep- selling’ within its large customer base. However, recession has forced the company to reach out to more customers and find newer markets. “We have been trying to add more customers apart from driving more business from our existing customers. Besides, we are putting more effort to tighten collections from our customers. These are the two steps we have taken to ensure sustained business during market downturn,” says B Mukundh, Director of Mukesh Infoserve.  However, he says recession has definitely made an impact on his business as the company could not drive the expected growth in the last fiscal year. Mukundh also believes that the recovery of the market would not happen overnight and will have to wait a little more before the industry goes back to its heydays.

The company is planning to expand its sales team by hiring more people as the primary focus now would be to increase reach. Mukund has no plans to recruit people for its internal operation as he thinks the company should have more ROI focus on manpower. On the other hand, the SI has been enhancing its operational efficiency by adopting various technologies. Apart from achieving an ISO 9001:2000 certification, the company has internally adopted BI and SAP B1. The company also implemented virtualization and is using thin clients.

Mukesh Infoserve has today earned the reputation as one of the best technology-driven company. However, since it’s impossible to adopt all the technology it sells, Mukundh has set up a well-organized technical team that can test all the solutions the company offers. “Having said that, we have realized that it’s important for us to develop our skill sets in all areas where we are involved. We have a strong implementation and R&D team within Mukesh Infoserve,” adds Mukundh. In the long run, Mukundh and his team want their company to be known as a end-to-end service provider who can help customers make business decisions more effectively.

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B Mukundh, Director, Mukesh Infoserve, talks about the company’s focus areas that will help shape its success.

What has been the impact of recession on your business?
MUKUNDH: Fortunately, we have not witnessed a negative growth like many others in the industry. Our strategy to diversify ourselves to more technologies and markets has helped us find new opportunities. We increased our focus in new areas like BI and data leakage prevention and also added new customers from various industries. However, we have not witnessed the expected growth rate in the last fiscal year. Our growth has come down to 12 percent. Technology consumptions in many markets has slowed down and the recovery is not happening at a fast pace. We do see a few signs of recovery, but it will take some more time.

What is the current and future focus of your business?
MUKUNDH: At present we are focusing on many areas including servers, storage, networking, security licensing software, business software, power solutions etc. we have partnered with all the leading vendors like HP, IBM, Microsoft, APC, VMware and many others. We are also betting high on managed services market. To start with, we are planning to adopt this model internally. Once it’s successful, we will be offering these services to enterprises and mid-sized companies.

What’s Mukesh Infoserve’s customer retention mantra?
MUKUNDH: ‘Be sensitive to your customer requirements’ is the rule of thumb for us. Customer satisfaction is all about quoting the right price, designing the right solution, implementing it properly and providing them the best-in-class support. We have more than 50 certified engineers to take care of the implementation and support part. We have to continuously meet customer requirements to sustain ourselves in this industry. And most importantly, we have to listen to what the customer says. Every customer will have his own requirements and some of them may seem trivial too. But it could be of huge importance to the customer. So, as a vendor, we need to patiently listen to them and make sure each of their queries is addressed.