Early this year, you took charge as the Chairman and CEO. Are you looking at a new strategy and road map for the company’s overall business?
In some ways, we are not changing our overall strategy which is to provide world-class solutions to higher education in other markets. But it is focusing specially on the higher value of CRM application and its integration with Student Information System that allows universities, colleges and other institutions to become more effective and efficient. In the non-higher education market, we have done well in the financial, insurance and other industries, where we have provided world class solutions for relationship management. So I think if anything that is talking what we have done historically and very successfully, is executing some of those things in a better fashion and I think a part of the reason we made a change at the top and I am here, is that we have an opportunity to be more effective and more efficient internally in our execution.
Education is the core part of the company’s business. What are the trends in this sector in terms of technology demand and usage?
By taking slices of different markets, we are seeing competition for students; we are seeing the importance of relationships across the entire student lifeline whether it’s fund raising or some sort of constituent relationships. We are also seeing a transformation happening where there’s competition for students today, which was not in the past.
How strategic is India for the company in terms of opportunities and talent?
It is very strategic for three reasons. One, half of our staff is located here and a big part of our development teams, deployment teams and sales teams are here. Two, we have been very successful in the higher education market here and we think that it is a continuing opportunity for us. And higher education is really transforming in this country and growing just at an incredible cliff. So India is a key part of our future strategy and is probably one of our top 2 or 3 markets worldwide.
How is the higher education segment performing against other segments?
The higher education is our largest segment and is our core business. That doesn’t mean we are not focused on the other segments and there are attributes that are common across higher education, financial, insurance and others where they are utilizing our technology and expertise. Higher education has the lion’s share of our business globally and in India, but we do serve the international markets in the non-higher education segment as well.
What portion of your business is driven from the India facility?
Almost 40% of our business is international today and we expect that to grow in high percentage. Because of the successes we had in the U.S., India, the U.K., and other places, new doors are opening for us around the globe. And so, I am hoping that we continue to grow more dramatically as an international global company rather than just a domestic US-based company.
Do you have any specific plans for India – for instance, software solutions that suitable for the Indian market?
I think Talisma CRM application has a great applicability in the Indian market and is a terrific success. Also, we have the traditional campus solutions, what we call enterprises/ universities and large institutions; along with SmartCampus for the smaller universities and colleges. The explosive growth in education in India is very appealing to us and there is no predominant solution here.
There is a growing acceptance of cloud technology as a delivery model. So how is Campus Management looking to push its solutions or products using the cloud?
We have our next-generation product which is taking our technology footprint and delivering on the SaaS/cloud based model. We have already begun delivering that for several of our customers, and will [soon] have a new release.