Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM (Part 3)

Larry Augustin: Today, we have a virtual office for that. That virtual office is social media that sits around the person. Today, you may not be selling by physically sitting in that person’s office, but you may be sitting in their virtual office – what they are saying on Facebook or their resume on LinkedIn. Do their kids play soccer or softball? What is it that they care about?

Sramana Mitra: There’s a lot more information accessible today given the virtual nature of information flow than you would gather by visiting someone for an hour.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let me comment a little bit on what I’ve heard so far, and then we’ll double-click on a few things. Firstly, this notion of your competitors in the industry not focusing on the sales people and how the customers are facing people—this is the whole notion of social CRM that has come about. Everybody is paying attention to that. Today, people know and believe that you want to dig and ask somebody to introduce you if you want to get into an account as opposed to cold calling somebody.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM (Part 1)

We covered John Roberts’ Entrepreneur Journeys story in December of 2008. In this story, we explore the cloud CRM industry’s evolution with Larry Augustin, who replaced John as CEO on May 6, 2009.

Sramana Mitra: As you know, we have covered SugarCRM quite a bit before. So our audience does start off with some knowledge of the company. I’d like to start us out by asking you, now that we are in a mature phase of the cloud computing industry – and CRM on the cloud especially is in a very mature stage – what does your ecosystem look like? Who goes for what solution and why? Who chooses SugarCRM and why?

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I experienced this with my grandmother about five years ago. This was in India. She was in a coma essentially and she was not responding. It was about 18 days. We would have been happy to let her go but no one would let us do that. She was 87 years old.

Girish Navani: I won’t say it’s easier, but some of them are more rational. I don’t know about this one because I have actually struggled with it internally. I like to tout the idea of health and wellness and I have somehow tried to avoid such situations. Maybe the person inside me doesn’t know how to react when faced with a decision like this myself. I would always say that if it’s better for the patient in terms of pain and outcomes, then it’s an easier one. If it is not, then which way do you go?

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else that you want to discuss?

Girish Navani: I think we will see a different healthcare system where the payer is not necessarily the one clearing a bill without telling you someday what it costs. I’ll tell you something new that we’re doing next year. We just went live with it inside our company. I think there’s a business model for it outside of eClinicalWorks. We mandated that our insurance company give us our claim files, which was a tough one to get. It got to a point where it was frustratingly being ignored. They would say, “I don’t have it today. I’ll give it to you day after tomorrow.” It went on for about four months until it came to a point where I said, “Either I get it or I’m going to another company.” We got our files then.

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: They have other roles to play in medical imaging. In the equipment sector, they’re big.

Girish Navani: Yes, not in healthcare IT. This is the fun part and also the nerve-wracking part. As an entrepreneur, you have no fear because you have nothing to lose.

Sramana Mitra: Given your structure, what are your thoughts about acquisitions? One way that people deal with that threat is to bring in people from the bottom.

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Thought Leaders in Big Data: Nenshad Bardoliwalla, VP of Products, Paxata (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: You’ve already crossed $5 million revenue. Why did you raise money from Accel India?

Nenshad Bardoliwalla: Two of the four founders are actually Indian, but that’s honestly incidental. Prakash and Dinesh have known each other since 1999.

Sramana Mitra: I can see why Dinesh would be interested in something like this. I’m just surprised by the structure. Accel Partner India was set up to fund venture in India. It’s a bit odd.

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Relatively speaking, we are very young. Having an exit and getting a chunk of money and then what? You can’t eat money.

Girish Navani: Very true. Then what? People ask the question, “Girish, why don’t you do this?” Then I ask the same question you asked, “Then what?” None of those answers have been exciting. I have found a cause at healthcare. In healthcare, there’s a purpose behind – we can help somebody live a better life, live a healthier life, or get diagnosed sooner because technology created that platform. Beyond profitability, we’ve done something for society even though it’s a for-profit and not a non-profit. >>>