Nasscom Summit 2010: Our Offerings are a Blend Between Business and IT

Whats Pegasystems' commitment to BPM?

While other companies were acquiring other small companies, we have remained committed to our vision of maintaining leadership. This is one of the prime reasons for research firms like Gartner and Forrester rating us as the leading company in the BPM space. We have grown a great deal in the last two years. Our direct presence in India is almost 21/2 years old. We expect our revenues to double in two and a half years time. We intend to strengthen our base in India. There are various sectors that we would like to concentrate on, namely insurance, telecom, banking, etc. 

Over the years, there have been no major changes in the technology aspect of BPM but the adaption has surely increased. Earlier, Fortune companies did not have to pay much attention to government aspects, legal compliances, but after the economic bubble the scenario has undergone a dramatic change like never before. Now, these companies have started paying greater attention to compliance related aspects. In such a scenario, BPM surely holds a lot of promise for enterprises to capitalise on. 
 

What plans have been chalked out for the future?
India and China are the two major emerging markets that offer a lot of potential and we have chalked out special unique plans for both these nations. There are a few key verticals that we would like to focus on, namely banking, insurance, healthcare, government, life sciences, telecom, etc. These are segments that hold a lot of promise. Telecom is one promising sector that is pposing to explode with a huge number of customers and we intend to tap this segment to. If you notice, there has been a lot of government spending for loads of activities and according to us BPM will prove to be the precise tool for the government to leverage their plans better. We have plans for direct sales for this year. Pegasystems plans to hire talent for direct sales in the major cities of India. The hiring would be for sales in segments like telecom, banking, insurance, garments, etc. We basically intend to double our R&D base in our organisation as we intend to mainly lay major bets on our products. 
 

How would you rate Pegasystems' customer support vertical in India?
In the initial days, during the planning stages of the customer support vertical (CSV), we found that approximately one third of the calls were generated from India. All these customers were basically all Fortune 500 companies. It also came to our notice that big names like Accenture, IBM, Cognizant, etc, were doing a lot of offshore development activities. Following this study, we established a centre at Hyderabad that was in sync with the 24/7 sub model. This centre not only handles calls from the Asia Pacific region alone but also from the US and Europe as well.  

What has been the return on investment since your entry to India? 
When we set foot in India in 2007, we expected the spend to be approximately $200 million for five years. Setting base in India, has helped us a lot in reducing the costs and in turn our venture was rendered a more profitable version. Taking this aspect into consideration, our entry into India has proved quite profitable quite in line with our expectations. 

What are Pegasystems' plans in relation to cloud computing?
Currently, cloud computing offers a lot of prospect and we intend to capitalise on it with our plans in tow. Pegasystems would offer cloud computing offers in collaboration with Amazon for the development and enterprise level, at one fifth the cost. Reduction in costs would prove beneficial for many companies too. 

What offers Pegasystems a cutting edge over its competitors? 
Our award winning SmartBPM suite is popular among businesses as it helps to improve customer service, tap new markets and boost operational effectiveness. The patented SmartBPM technology makes enterprise applications easy to build and change by directly capturing business objectives and eliminates the need for manual programming. SmartBPM unifies business rules and processes into composite applications that leverage existing systems. Thus, empowering businesses and IT staff to build for change, deliver value quickly and outperform their competitors.  Pegasystems' suite, which is a combination of business rules and business processes offers it a cutting edge over its competitors in the market. Basically, our offerings are based on requirements and bring a blend between business and IT. This in our view is one of the positive aspects that lets us stay one step ahead of our competitors.