COMPANY PROFILE: As software development increasingly dominates the engineering process in consumer and industrial products the primary challenge today is developing high-quality, reliable software to embed in these products.
KTwo Technology Solutions is a products company driven by a winning top team of professionals who possess experience and knowledge in rolling out innovative new products in international markets. Operating on a well defined agenda KTwo harnesses the potential of Indian and Global talent pool to build and deliver world-class products tailored to varied budgets in a global market.
The key objective of the company is to build and consolidate products to create solutions that align high utility with value for the TCO. KTwo’s basket of products offers a point solution in itself or a combined bundle as a larger point solution. We also focus on building industry frameworks to serve as a basis for vertical solutions in niche industry segments.
Headed by Anant Koppar a visionary technology leader, KTwo is driven by a team of technologists and domain experts with extensive experience in rolling out new products in the market.
CEO PROFILE: Mr. Anant R Koppar who is from a rural part of Karnataka has made a name across the globe in the field of Information Technology.
Hailing from Gadag, Northern part of Karnataka, he is one of the success stories and a role model for people coming from rural middle class backgrounds for corporate success.
With a Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, he started his career in Wipro. He also had a brief stint as a lecturer in an engineering college. He further went on to be a part of the teams that set up Tata Elxsi and BFL Software now known as MphasiS BFL Limited.
He founded Kshema Technologies in 1997 and grew it to large niche technology services provider in 6 years. Kshema has the distinction of being a pioneer in the software services industry to cater to Industrial Automation, Healthcare, Life Sciences and Mobile Telephony Industries. Kshema merged with MphasiS in 2004.
A certified “Project Management Professional” by Project Management Institute, he was the first CEO in India to get this certification.
He was awarded the “Entrepreneur of the District” distinction by the Gadag District Chamber of Commerce in the year 2000. He was also recognized as “Entrepreneur Extraordinaire” at the Asian Conference for Young Entrepreneurs in 1999.
He is also an immediate past President of Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce and past President of PMI Bangalore Chapter. Presently Anant lives in Bangalore.
CEO Under Scan: Mr. Anant Koppar, CEO KTwo Technology Solutions
Telephonic Interview by: Mr. Dheeraj, Facilitator and Founder, The CEO Insights
Before starting this venture what all business ideas you had?
Before this I had been working with services companies only. I started my career in Wipro then two startups. All of them included me working in services area (technology Services). But I actually wanted to do something new, then I thought it should be different from the services part. It should be to deal with way we needed to grow so I thought let me give a shot to it and work towards product building. But here we had to ensure that it is a niche area so we took Last Meter Connectivity.
You are from an IIT- Kharagpur? How is it helping you in this venture?
Yeah, it definitely helps, but it doesn’t mean that you have to have an education from IIT or its likes to be successful. They develop the thought process of the students which helps them learn beyond the books. In IITs the way the curriculum is administered is very much different from other colleges, and I think that now some the colleges do imitate the kind of system IITs are having.
Your tag line says “last meter connectivity”. Please tell us something about this.
See Last Meter Connectivity is to do with connecting the last points of inputs to the enterprise. We believe that there has been a significant change the way we work. It basically provides secure, reliable, high quality short range information transfer by means of wireless communication enabling substantial improvements in productivity and convenience.
Like for e.g. earlier there used to be a clinic, now you have different kind of devices by which you can check many a things at home. So now it is more distributed, like if you have a blood pressure meter, you take reading from that but you can’t save the readings except in the machine where you have 2/3 last readings. But when you see a physician, he may require a trend of say last 50 readings. Hence there lies a gap. So if I am able to connect do to the connective where I connect the blood pressure meter to a PC through some technology, the problem can be solved. In nut shell, this is a concept of providing information anywhere at anytime in any device.
How do you see urself as an entrepreneur?
As I said, I had been an entrepreneur from 1993; this way I have been very comfortable with working for my own rather than working for someone else. This makes me my own boss, I can take decisions. We also have a team which helps us in doing that. I mean, it has been a wonderful experience.
Please tell us about your Vision and Mission?
Our vision is simply enhancing the quality of life by building world class products and solutions through innovative application of technology.
Our Mission is:
· To be a globally dominant product Brand in the industry and segments of our choice by 2012
· Be a dream destination for every innovator to unleash their creativity by fostering a world class environment
· Be a predominantly Employee Owned Organization
What are your organizational values?
· Highest Order of Ethical Business Practices
· Value Based Mutually Beneficial Relationship with all Stakeholders
· Recognition of Individual Brilliance within the context of Team – play
· Freedom to Innovate
· Tolerance for Failure – Concept of “Fast Fail”
Who are your major competitors?
There are competitors in the components we use, but company wise we do not have any competitor.
I have read that your business reached its breakeven in the very first year; so how is it performing now. Any comment on your operational efficiency.
We have grown well in this year. We have around 250+ people working for us. This year also we would reach our breakeven irrespective of high expenditure on Research and Development.
And I think we have good operational efficiency and I think this is how we have been able to reach our breakeven.
What are your future plans? How do you see your company evolving in the next five years?
We should be good name to be reckoned with. We would like to be one of India’s foremost product companies. We would be definitely achieving our financial goals. And if we achieve a right size in the coming two to three years and market performs good then we may think to come up with an IPO.
Please comment on the strategies your company is adopting to capture a higher market share amidst stiff competition?
See there is a lot of anticipated competition, whatever you do there is someone else who wants to do the same thing. One of the strategies is how we can provide our products in a niche area and try to focus ad develop expertise in that area so that we have a competitive advantage on our competitor. I think to become successful, this is very important.
Are you considering any strategic alliance or other measures to augment your market reach or business capabilities?
Actually we do have Strategic alliances, for e.g. we have alliances with our hardware manufacturers and hospital management companies. We need to have these kinds of alliances to grow. More or less we are self funded, but later in future we may look for some venture capitalists to get funding.
How do you react to his present economic downturn?
This year till now it is now affecting But definitely there is a slow down. There will be issues with getting new orders, but this is part and parcel of the business, we need to make our strategies keeping this in mind.
Any comment on the recent Mumbai Episode? What should govt. do?
It is a sad event; I blame the entire community for taking it lightly. Many times we tend to adjust ourselves to things like this. But I think we need to take some stringent actions. Government should also have taken stricter steps.
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