The products that you have are mostly low-end products like accounting software, advertising agency management, etc. What potential do you see in continuing with these products?

Though these products are low-end, there is lot of potential in each of these areas. Accounting itself is a powerful area, where almost everybody has got something to do. Similarly, if you take the chit care business, we already have sold 500 licenses. There are more than 10,000 chit fund companies in A.P. alone. And even if 30 percent of these go in for computerization, one can imagine what business this can translate to.

Do you expect these products to fetch you recurring revenues?

As far as recurring revenues are concerned, they are mainly from upgradation and from Annual Maintenance contracts (AMCs). For each of these companies that go in for AMCs, we charge around Rs.5000/- per year per branch for AMCs.

Are you trying to tap the markets other than A.P.?

Yes. For example, Tamil Nadu has good potential for chit fund software. So we will be setting up our marketing offices there soon.

Why didn't the company go in for a trade mark registration all these days?

We have filed for a trade mark registration and will be getting it soon. All these days, we didn't really face the need to go in for the same. Hence the delay. We have faced competition in our line of business from more than 50 companies, but nobody has been successful.

Are you targeting to market these very same products in the overseas market?

We are planning to launch these products in the markets of Singapore, Malaysia and US. For that, we have studied the products that are available there and also the kind of accounting practices they have. We will be incorporating the same in our products before launching them.

Will the development of these products be in the other countries?

What we have is something else in mind. We will develop the products in India only, modified as per the requirements of the other markets. Subsequently, we will be marketing the products and after the initial launch, we will also go in for upgradation. But the development will be in India only.

Do you generate any revenues from manpower placements?

No. We are not into the business of manpower placements. What we are concentrating on is getting AMCs. What I personally feel is manpower placement business will go down the drain in an year or so. Instead, the requirement of manpower in India is expected to go up.

What kind of tie-ups are you looking at in the overseas office, especially US, Malaysia and Singapore?

We have tied up with two US companies. One, Clear Water Technologies Inc. and two, Gigatech Corp.of Florida. One is for marketing our products and the other is for fetching off shore projects.

What is the business Essel is getting from its tie-up with Satyam Infoway?

We will be designing the web sites for Satyam for the orders received by them or directly received by us. And for that, Satyam will be paying us. Web site designing is however not our core area. It contributes to just about 2 percent of the total revenues. We have plans to increase it on the lines of e-commerce. Just content designing is not what we want to concentrate on.

We are planning a portal named itsmyorder.com. It covers virtually everything from a consumer point of view. We are also starting a portal ustoguntur.com. What we feel is that if somebody wants to send a gift from US to Guntur (that being our starting place), they can do it through our portal.

In FY2000, the revenue has increased from Rs.41 lakhs to Rs.100 lakhs. What has contributed to this growth?

This is because of two reasons. One, the spread of the products. For example, in the last financial year, chit care and 4to4 have picked up extremely well. These are the main two products. And third reason is Y2K. And most of these people went for upgrades. People were postponing decisions for a long time because of Y2k. After January, our business has really picked up.

For the current year, you expect the revenues to increase three times? How do you plan to achieve this target?

Our product Essel X-Plus, which is a add on tool, is priced at Rs.950/- only. We have 1.5 lakh users for Essel-X. Even if 25-30 percent of the users of Essel-X go in for Essel X-Plus, you can understand what kind of figures we are talking. Even apart from that, when we are looking at other states, our business is likely to go up. 

Do you have any plans for manpower expansion?

Yes. Currently we have around 65 people which we are planning to expand to 100 to 120 by the end of March.

What is your future focus of business?

Unlike others, we have been concentrating on products. In the domestic market this is very important. For the overseas market, projects are important. And we are trying to get that too.