‘Explore the African Market’

Lifetree Convergence is brimming with confidence after having left behind 17 world-class competitors in bagging a $5-million contract from Brunei-based Data Stream Technologies (DST), a GSM operator. Lifetree will design and integrate DST’s customer care and billing systems. Dataquest spoke to chief executive officer
Atul Chopra on the focus of the company and what this order translates means for Brand India...

l What value add are you giving to DST by deploying this solution?

Deploying the customer care and billing solution will result in the convergence of bills from nine subsidiaries into a single bill. It’s going to result in sizable cost reductions and savings for DST as a single bill will be generated in place of multiple bills, there will be a single call center instead of separate call centers for all subsidiaries and there will be a single point of service.

l How are you going to tackle intellectual property rights issues vis-à-vis DST?

We have adopted the licensing model in the agreement, so we will be licensing the product to DST. The product will be ours. There are no intellectual property rights issues involved.

l What’s the focus of your R&D centers in Delhi and Bangalore?

The two centers in Delhi and Bangalore are focused on R&D in messaging and billing respectively. Messaging includes SMS, stocks and MMS. Right now, we are handling 2.5G and UMTS but are also 3G ready. Billing includes both prepaid and postpaid.

l You’re working through a consortium of partners. What are their roles?

The consortium has four partners–Hughes Software System is handling the mediation part of the billing, Wipro Infotech is handling data mining and data warehousing, Oracle is handling the RDBMS part, and Sun Microsystems is taking care of the hardware.

l In a scenario where Indian product companies are considered a no-no, what do you think Indian companies need to do to bag contracts?

Globally, India is known more for its services. However, it’s a short-term advantage, as arbitrage is not going to last long. So, companies will have to hardsell their products, which is not an easy task. They should not try to sell products on price as that will kill the products. Instead, they should focus on building long-term relationships with customers. And, companies should explore the African market instead of concentrating on the US.

l What are your expansion plans?

We are exploring acquisition options abroad. I cannot divulge the details, but one thing is certain, there is nothing in the offing in the US.

NEETU KATYAL in New Delhi