SMEs can grow their core business despite budget limitations: Raghu Kumar

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Saurabh Gupta | 27 Mar, 2012
To overcome their budget limitations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should outsource the non-core business activities, and focus more on using the available resources on growing their core business, said Raghu Kumar, CEO GlobalOutlook, in an exclusive e-mail interview with SME Times.

Excerpts of the interview...

Please share a brief about GlobalOutlook, its customers and offerings.
Raghu Kumar: GlobalOutlook provides Hosted Microsoft Communication, SaaS Business Communication and Collaboration Solutions. Since its inception in 2007, the founding team of industry veterans and successful entrepreneurs has provided experience and expertise in the mobile, enterprise and consulting sectors to a range of corporate customers worldwide.

GlobalOutlook is a portfolio company of Naya Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that invests in mobile and SaaS startups in the US and India. As a business communication services provider, the GlobalOutlook team is constantly working to provide its consumers the latest technologies in the hosted communication, collaboration and SaaS domain.

With offices in Dallas, Texas and Hyderabad, India, GlobalOutlook collaborates with both direct customers and partners such as TELCOs, ISPs, MSPs, and ISVs, web hosting companies, data centers and system integrators to define technology standards and to provide communication and collaboration services and tools to global enterprises.

Company Background
* Privately held Cloud communications service provider founded in 2007
* First company to offer White Label Hosted Email, SharePoint & Office Communication Services (OCS) and Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) services in India. In addition, we lead in the following:
              * Being Indiaâs largest Hosted Exchange Service provider
              * Innovating a Hybrid email solution that allows for co-existence of on-premise Exchange and Linux
              * Offering Hosted BES for BlackBerry
              * Offering anytime-anywhere mobile email access for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows phones and other smartphones
* Headquartered in US with operations in Dallas, TX and Hyderabad, India. Additional sales offices in progress for Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi/NCR.
* Management team has a strong track record and 60+ years of messaging and mobile software/services industry expertise

What are the some of the top products/ Services being bought by SMEs?
Raghu Kumar:
* Hosted Exchange â Enterprise-class secure business email
* Hosted Hybrid Exchange â a unique innovative solution from GlobalOutlook for SMEs that have users on different email platforms like Exchange & Linux.
* Hosted Mobile Email â Hosted BES for BlackBerry and ActiveSync for all other smart-phones

What according to you is the biggest challenge that SMEs are facing in the field of communication today?
Raghu Kumar: SMEs have the challenge of managing a growing user base across various geographical locations/ offices and demand for higher mobile users but with limited budgets.

How can your services help them to overcome some of these challenges?
Raghu Kumar: Our services allow customers to utilize their limited budgets very effectively, wherein, these budgets can be used to grow their core business and outsource their non-core activities to GlobalOutlook. Besides, secured email, collaboration & content management and secured chat/conference. We have our support team available 24x7 and help make our customersâ grow globally.

How are your services different or unique from other players offering the same services?
Raghu Kumar: We differentiate ourselves with â
1. Hybrid model that allows clients to have users on different platforms like Exchange & Linux
2. White Label Model which enables partners to rebrand the solution and sell to their customers
3. Utilize MacAfee the worldâs best Anti-Virus and Anti Spam software
4. Hosted BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server)
5. Utilize Exchange 2010 the latest version from Microsoft

Can you specify some key benefits that SMEs can leverage when partnering with a MS hosted exchange service provider for Communication Vis-Ã -vis having an in house exchange set up?
Raghu Kumar:
1. NO Capex â a key benefit of cloud solutions.
2. NO expertise required. Your IT staff can focus on other line-of-business projects.
3. NO licenses, maintenance or upgrades: provider takes care of all of these.
4. NO Spam or virus issues: provider should apply all of the necessary filters and processes.
5. Flexibility: will the provider allow you to scale up and down as your business needs change?
6. Predictable costs: will the provider allow you to pay per user and necessary service?
7. 24/7 availability and support: with email as a critical business tool, downtime can be disruptive. The provider should provide live support at all times to meet your needs.
8. Enterprise Class: is the provider offering services to keep the entire workforce productive
9. Mobility: is provider offering services over any smart phone with anytime, anywhere access?
10. Suite of Services: provider should offer suite of services including secured business email, secured collaborative content management and secured chat/conference tools

Does GO support micro enterprises too?
Raghu Kumar: GlobalOutlook supports a range of enterprises, including micro-enterprises, which could be a 5 user company. The benefits of a hosted Exchange provider for smaller organizations are that they can have an enterprise-class solution at a manageable cost because we scale up and down according to their needs.

How can a SME obtain GO's services?
Raghu Kumar: SMEâs can avail GlobalOutlook services through direct model, online sales portal and partner. Companies can experience our services via a trial period and then be on boarded by our Support team whenever they are ready.