We hear of competition but we hardly see any evidence of it

Bharat Goenka, CMD, Tally Solutions

Although Tally's upcountry penetration has increased in the past year,
Goenka asserts that the majority of their business is still from metro markets.
Its main focus remains educating partners about its new product portfolio and
enhancing their sales skills

Recently, many software companies have increased their focus on the
domestic market, especially towards the government vertical. Do you think that
competition from MNCs has affected your growth in this space?

I don't think so. I believe that India needs competition for a healthy
growth in this industry. We hear of competition through the media, but we hardly
see any evidence of it.

Do you think that focusing on different verticals, rather than a specific
vertical, is beneficial to any business?

We are a horizontal application provider. Name any business segment, and you
will see us across all verticals.

Providing service to all verticals has been our motto for the past 21 years.
Our focus has always been to help the companies run their business smoothly and
that is the reason we never become vertically focused. We ensure that the
capabilities are provided on a horizontal basis.

Bharat Goenka, CMD, Tally Solutions

Tally was once considered the undisputed market leader for accounting
solutions in the SME, SMB segment. However with Oracle and SAP wooing the SMB
sector, is your market share affected?

There is hardly any competition from the vendors in the space in which Tally
operates. We are still the leaders in the accounting solutions space.

However, we need more players in the market. On the other hand, we are
confident that whoever enters the market will give us a healthy push to better
ourselves further.

Brief us about Tally's latest offering ERP.9.

Tally ERP.9 is specifically for the small and medium enterprises. It uses a
particular architecture that serves the SMB environment. With Tally ERP, we
introduced the concept of remote access for ordinary businessmen for the first
time. Since March 2009, we have more than 60,000 customers benefiting from
remote access.

The ERP also allows our users to gain access to their charted accountants.
Companies are also able to run without any IT specialists. Additionally, the
multiple copies of ERP.9 installed across various locations of an organization
could be administered centrally. People can get much more from the application
once the Internet is integrated into the application.

Have you undertaken any channel initiatives post the launch of ERP.9?

Our channel programs have been pretty innovative even before the launch of
ERP.9. Today, we have the most unique channel program due to our two-way connect
into the channels.

While the channel is managed by Master Tally Partners, we have a direct
connection with another set who sells Tally, both technically and commercially.
The combination of two-tier and single-tier partners has really worked wonders
for us and this concept helps us manage our reach properly by addressing
problems and solving them at ground zero.

What about Tally's penetration into tier-1 and tier-2 markets?

Our penetration in tier-2 and 3 cities has been significant. The penetration of
IT in the tier-2 cities has been really good in the past two years and these
cities have not really been affected by the slowdown, which has also been a
beneficial factor. Business coming from tier-2 cities has gone up from seven
percent to 12 percent. However, metros still cater to majority of our business.

Your partners are facing the issue of double taxation. What is your take
on this?

It is a huge issue for us as well as our channel. With the new government in
place, we feel that the issue will become a thing of the past.

Along with NASSCOM, we have discussed this issue with the ministry to find a
solution. We have taken certain calls and not played safe like other vendors. We
have tried to absorb as much of the risk as possible on behalf of our partners
to ensure that they are not much affected by this issue.

What is the roadmap ahead for Tally?

At present, our products are gaining momentum and we are spending a lot of
time educating the channel about the benefits of working with us. Right now, we
have 8,000 partners for Tally and by the end of this year we hope to reach the
11,000 mark. It is a full time task for Tally employees to appoint partners and
enhance their sales skills.

What is your take on the piracy that is affecting the growth of software
industry?

Piracy is the direct result of the absence of penetration. As our penetration in
the market increases, we realize that we need not bother about piracy. This has
been our philosophy for the past 20 years.

People do not deliberately delve in piracy or go out of their way to buy
pirated software. As long as we reach out to people and teach them about the
importance of original software, piracy is not a major hindrance to growth.

NR Sethuraman

(sethuramannr@cybermedia.co.in)