Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Himanshu Palsule, CTO of Epicor Software (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: It’s very similar to the strategy that you’re following, but with a very different segment. You’re working in the $50 million to $500 million segment. They are working in the very small business segment. Their end customer is the 5 to 10 people company. A lot of what he is interested in doing is having these vertical value-added resellers build on top of his ERP.

You’re seeing the verticalized cloud trend everywhere. The only way to get to that is through these partner networks.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Himanshu Palsule, CTO of Epicor Software (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to ask the previous question a slightly different way and see if I get a different answer from you. If you were starting a new company in vertical cloud, what would you start? What might be an are where you would dig to find an opportunity?

Himanshu Palsule: Let me step back and say this. Most providers, Epicor included, rely on the ecosystem to complete that last mile from the customer’s office into the cloud. While cloud has been able to outsource a lot of the complexity from the business, the services area still remains a premium. We’ve seen cloud services revenue go up in some of the research I’ve looked at even as more and more costs are being driven down. If I were starting a company or advising someone to start a company, I would look at the services arena. It could be consulting services. It could be web services. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Himanshu Palsule, CTO of Epicor Software (Part 3)

Himanshu Palsule: Until the entire ecosystem was ready, those people weren’t as ready as the person who did CRM on Salesforce 10 years ago. I think the key drivers that are tipping this over are largely that our industry goes through a chain cycle for ERP. It used to be five to seven years. Now it’s moved to 7 to 10 years. Every 7 to 10 years, the systems are no longer supported. Y2K saw a big change in the ERP. Companies are now looking out for newer systems and they’re driven by cost of ownership. The concerns around security have largely been alleviated. They’re looking for an instant on. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Himanshu Palsule, CTO of Epicor Software (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How is your product architected? Do you have a broad horizontal platform and do you then do these customizations on top of that?

Himanshu Palsule: Largely. We have a broad portfolio of products. We have quite a few ERP products across the world. Typically, the product that we’ll end up talking about is a product like Epicor ERP E10, which is part of our flagship product. There are other products like Scala and Eagle that play in specific verticals. To answer your question, E10 is built on a platform and an architecture that allows it to scale. This product is available in multi-tenant SaaS and is available across 35 countries supporting local tax legislation. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Himanshu Palsule, CTO of Epicor Software (Part 1)

We’ve been covering the Vertical Cloud trend extensively. Epicor software is an ERP company focusing on vertical cloud in a big way. Very interesting reading.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Epicor.

Himanshu Palsule: I’m the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Epicor. As many people know, Epicor Software is a leading provider of ERP software globally. We have about 40 years of experience doing this. We serve tens of thousands of customers across 150 countries. We have roughly around $900 million in annual revenue and are headquartered in Austin. We have offices all across the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific. >>>

Bootstrapping from Ukraine: BPMOnline CEO Katherine Kostereva (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

This is a fascinating story of a Ukrainian entrepreneur bootstrapping her CRM Software company to global scale. We’re thrilled to bring you Katherine Kostereva’s inspiring and super intelligent entrepreneurial journey.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get going. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? Let’s go to the very beginning of your personal journey.

Katherine Kostereva: I was born in Ukraine. Since childhood, I’ve been traveling a lot and visited many countries worldwide. I graduated in 1999 with a Bachelors in Computer Science. Shortly after that, I got my MBA. Even from high school, I was obsessed with technology. I was thinking of the ways to transform business through technology. Technology has always attracted me. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit about the metrics that you are willing to share.

Sridhar Vembu: We have 4,000 employees now and more than 20 million users on Zoho. We have one million new users per month. We still don’t disclose revenues. The company continues to be profitable. We have never taken any outside capital and we don’t intend to. We are bigger than most of the companies who have gone public in the last couple of years.

Sramana Mitra: Last time we spoke, you said you were just over $300 million. You also said that, by 2018, you’re going to hit $1 billion in revenue.

Sridhar Vembu: We are definitely marching towards there. We will get there in due course. We are focused on the long term. We have no exit plans. One of the things that we keep in mind is you want to keep the culture of the company. All that is important to us. Customers appreciate it. Maybe five or seven years >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How are you going to inform the market that such an option exists?

Sridhar Vembu: There are two things to it. One, of course, is a good deal of traffic. Zoho is almost at the rate of a million new users per month. It’s at an increasing pace. Our horizontal line of applications are growing very rapidly in terms of user base. That is what we are planning to use to funnel into. Some applications don’t change depending on what your vertical is. Email and a lot of those things don’t change. Something like CRM is very specific.

Sramana Mitra: You’re expecting to be able to identify in the Zoho customer base.

Sridhar Vembu: That is how we bring leads to partners. On the other side, we have partners who are experts in their local markets. We could get very specific. It could be somebody who specializes in East Bay car dealerships. You really know the East Bay dealership. You know what their needs are. You know >>>