Why has Tavant decided to focus on three areas?
The basic premise on which we founded the company in 2000 was to provide
solutions in specific areas and take employees and customers. We homed in on
mortgages and warranties. There were not enough solutions in the area of selling
warranties. You have service providers talking about verticalization. But if you
take a vertical like BFSI, it has become too broad an area. So we decided to go
into micro-verticals. We found the banking segment too wide and so decided to
specialize in the mortgage space. This segment is our biggest revenue earner
today. From 2001 to now, the mortgage industry has changed quite a bit. We have
mortgage products in the loan origination area, and loan servicing and mortgage
back securities areas.
You started the outsourced product development (OPD) business
last year. What was the idea behind it?
We started the product development service around 18 months ago. Here, we
make use of the horizontal technological capabilities that we have acquired. Our
approach to this stem from the specialization we have in certain areas, thanks
to our background at Amazon. We provide technology services to web-based media
companies such as Network Solutions, MLB.com, TiVo and Electronic Arts.
As a mid-tier company, how do you compete against the bigger
players?
People like the fact that we are specialized. We have a customer who said
that the big guys don't understand his language. We understand our customers'
language and what they do. They like this approach. The appetite of the large
companies is growing very fast. But being able to be the right size is important
because small companies feel that they don't get the attention or quality they
want from a large player. In addition to big player, they want a specialist like
us to be part of the team. That suits us fine. Instead of being the sole
provider and being pulled in many different directions, we work in tandem with
the other service providers. A large customer will have so many needs and if we
have to do everything, it will spread us very thin and take us away from our
specialization mantra.
Do you command premium pricing owing to your specialization?
We are specialized, but do not get a premium. Our cost of doing business is
more than larger players. We are investing in focusing on specialization and
building domain expertise.
Priya Padmanabhan
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in