Mr. Soam Shekhar after completing his Engineering graduation from MREC (now MNIT) in 1973 set up a factory in Vishwakarma, Jaipur. After running the industrial unit for almost 20 odd years, hewas on a lookout for a new business venture. Heset up a communication centre where in he provided services like maintenance of client’sBusiness Accounts along with STD /PCO etc.Life took another turn when he came across an advertisement of Tally Solutions who were looking for a Partner in Rajasthan. Mr.Shekhar applied for the same and got selected amongst manyleading software players of that time because of his fresh, innovative & simple approach. ‘Star Financial Softwares’ founded in 1993 to take up the distribution of “Tally” the famous Business accounting software even at that time talked with IT Voice
When asked why only Tally to start his IT journey, he answers smiling, “AsI was already doing business accounting for my clients on the Tally software, which was giving some perfect results,it was a natural inclination for taking up the ‘Tally’ business, I was probably the 3rd dealer to be appointed in India and the first in Rajasthan. ‘Tally Solutions (P) Ltd’ was known as ‘Peutronics (P) Ltd’at that time.
In 2005 Tally Solution started expanding their market reach by involving IT resellers as the extended hands. This was a new challenge for the existing partners as they were only habitual of direct selling till now. As a strategic move, in 2007 Star Financial Softwaresgot mergedwith Impressive-Technologies, which was engaged in the wholesale of computer accessories & Tally training as well. The new firm was named Impressive Star Softwares Pvt. Ltd.Mr. Jai Singh Bohra of Impressive Tech. started focusing more on software and the accessory business was gradually side tracked.
With the change in the marketing strategies IT resellers got a proper alignment with a big share into Tally’s sales channel. When asked to explain about the approach towards this change, Mr. Shekhar said “Yes! It was serious play as we always preferred ‘Quality of the Business’ over ‘Quantity of the Business’, and we tried to inculcate the same attitude in resellers by providing required solution/support and product knowledge to our channel partners as we used to do with our clients. Our vision is clear that only way to sustain in solution market is to keep pace with the ever changing requirements of the customer and constantly focusing on updating the product skills.”
Talking about the various strategies adopted to increase the presence, Mr. Bohra, explains, “Tally has one of the finest model for its distribution. It has two tiersstructure,First is – “Master Tally Partners” and second Tier is “Tally Partners”. The second level mostly consists of hardware resellers, the first point contact of any prospective buyer.
Piracy is a major issue that is hampering the growth of Tally in the state,but Impressive Star true to their nature of taking challenges do not take it as a threat but as an opportunity.Talking about Piracy, Mr. Bohra, says, “Factors like easy procurement of the product, affordability of the product and most importantly after sales service are contributing towardsslowbut effectivedecrease in piracy. In other industries, marketing ends with the selling of the product but for us, marketing starts after the selling of the product because customer satisfaction is of utmost importance for us.”
Continuing he says, “Many hardware resellers, who used to install free/pirated software in the new computers, are now taking the initiative licensing. We are educating them on product features and now with the support by Master Tally Partners, they are not only able to get good returns, but are also educating clients to go in for Original Tally thereby slowly and effectively stopping piracy of software.”
Talking about Tally’sacademiccentres, Mr.Shekhar said, “We werethe first to start a Tally Academy in Rajasthan. As of now due to mushrooming growth of computer training centers conducting Tally classes, we are now more focused on corporate trainings. Another initiative that we have taken is providing Tally Technology Training to enable programmers to develop extensions on Tally.”
Another ‘first’ done by Impressive Stars is designing vertical specific solutions. Explaining the concept, Mr. Jai Bohra, said, “Tally is now more than just software.We can further customize it according to the needs of the end user. This customized solution helps segments like wholesalers, manufacturers, dealers, etc to perform their tasks more personally.”
Mr. Bohra further adds“Apart from sales & service of Tally, there are about 100 ready to use Tally Add-Ons developed by us. We are offering “Shoper” the most preferred Retail Solution from Tally. For large business we are havecomplete supply chain visibility / secondary sales visibility. Cloud is the latest offering by which we are trying to change the way of doing business especially for SMEs.”
On being asked about the future of cloud computing as far as Tally is concerned in Rajasthan, Mr. Bohra said, “Though “Cloud Computing” is still in its nascent stage in Rajasthan,it is basically for people who have gained sufficient IT experience, and are now expanding their boundaries. They have a requirement of getting their information inrealtime with easy monitoring.”
Hearing the insight of these great people, one can truly say, Impressive Stars has come a long way in a world where distributors are looking for ways to mint money even at cost of their brand value, Impressive Star has made an exception they were never into earning money but were in to earning good brand value. Be it their decision of taking Tally distributorship with no formal background of IT selling or closing their Tally academy or entering into unknown territory of Cloud Computing, Impressive stars have earned the tag of RISK TAKERS. Interview covered by Shweta Sharma, IT Voice. [email protected]
