Mr. Sunando Banerjee, Channel Business Manager, APAC & Middle East, Openbravo shares his views with ITVOICE – on company business & future outlook 2014
Ques: Brief about Openbravo and the business.
A: Openbravo is the provider of the preferred Commerce and ERP Platform. Openbravo Commerce Platform offers agile retailers the combination of a very compelling commerce solution build on top of an easily extendible development platform, ready to adapt to company needs. Openbravo ERP Platform offers an unmatched combination of an easily extendible development platform with horizontal ERP functionality embedded, ready to power company ideas to build smart enterprise solutions for any industry. All solutions are available in the cloud or on premise and are exclusively distributed through Openbravo channel of global partners.
With 3M+ downloads and 1,000s of organizations using Openbravo solutions every day, Openbravo is a world leader in the Open Source enterprise software space.
In India, Openbravo started operation 2008 and from then to now it has become a hub for Openbravo to serve the Asia Pacific and Middle East market. Today Openbravo has more than 50 channel partners, which are primarily managed from India.
Q: On the presence of Openbravo in the Indian market and your comments on the market conditions prevailing here.
A: India is an important market for Openbravo, particularly keeping in mind the huge small and medium enterprise (SME) sector in India. Openbravo ERP makes it easy for SMEs to have an integrated system that can be easily customized to manage all their operations including procurement, inventory, production, sales and projects all the way to accounting and finances. Openbravo accounts with satisfied customers in the region like Federal Bank, Venkys’, Decathlon India, Hisar Metals, Quick Heal, Esmech, among others.
Many Indian IT companies are feeling the need to study and switch towards open source owing to its large-scale corporate advantages. Similarly, the Indian government has also shown increasing support of the Open Source Software movement. The government in many states has adopted Open Source on different levels over the years bringing in large cost savings. Cost savings apart, companies can escape from vendor lock in. Another advantage and probably a reason that will play a role in greater adoption of the software in India is that it enables easy localization of software to Indian languages while supporting internationalization with the multi-currency and multi-language features.
Openbravo is also localized with Indian Accounting system.
Q: A brief on the launch of your latest solutions & Products.
A: Openbravo Commerce Platform offers agile retailers the combination of a very compelling commerce solution build on top of an easily extendible development platform, ready to adapt to company needs and which helps clients to compete effectively in today’s demanding retail market.
ERP platform: Our ERP platform offers an unmatched combination of an easily extendable development platform with horizontal ERP functionality embedded, ready to power business ideas to build smart enterprise solutions. This flexible ERP platform allows companies to power their ideas and develop smart enterprise solutions for them, whatever business they are in.
By adopting the Openbravo ERP Platform customers will be able to succeed in today’s highly dynamic markets.
Commerce platform: Our Commerce platform offers agile retailers the combination of a very compelling commerce solution which is built on top of a easily extendible development platformwith horizontal ERP functionality embedded, which helps clients to compete effectively in today’s demanding retail market.
Aside of company verticals, an expanding range of over 400 free and premium Openbravo solutions and extensions are available ‘in app’ through the company’s Openbravo Exchange repository, enabling a unique, modular “assemble to fit” capability that provides best in class adaptability while preserving upgradability.
Q: A brief on your 2012-13 Annual results & future outlook
A: Openbravo grew its software revenues by 280% in 2012. Openbravo had further strengthened its international presence in the past year. There has been particularly strong growth in emerging markets like India, Brazil, China and Mexico. The customer base saw a 70% increase. Decathlon India and Federal Bankare couple of Openbravo’s premier clients in India. The reason for this growth over the past year is that companies are increasingly valuing the flexibility and the competitive cost of Openbravo’s business applications. Unlike other traditional solutions, our business management software is cloud ready, open source and therefore putting the customer in full control of the solution and is easy to scale.
Open source platform is set to grow in the coming years. It has become increasingly popular over the years. The awareness about the Open Source technology has penetrated to even the lower levels of a company’s management team. Today, even Gartner is predicting the exponential growth of open source based business applications globally. People have understood the simplicity or the flexibility that open source brings to its user. As far as India is concerned, apart from the enterprises, even SMEs are showing great interest in open source technology, in general.
