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V Rama Kumar is CEO & Chairman of Tarang Software Technologies, At Tarang, Rama handles Strategy, Sales and Marketing and Customer Delivery. Prior to founding Tarang Rama worked with Wipro. Rama was the Chief Executive of Wipro's e-business worldwide (of $100 Million) across various verticals (e-commerce, ERP, CRM enterprise Application Integration and Data warehousing). Rama also was Vice President: Mission Quality at Wipro where he led Wipro's Six Sigma initiative. Rama holds a B.Tech degree from Madras Institute of Technology and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.
Q: Tarang Software today is a major player in two domains viz; Payments and eLearning. Can you share with us the highlights of Tarang's journey since inception?
Ans: Tarang was founded in the year 2000. We were funded by GIV and Sequia Capital India (formerly known as Westbridge Capital), with an initial funding of $5.5 million. We started off offering niche solutions in the wireless and pervasive computing, that gave us an edge over our competition. But before long we realized we were ahead of our times.
We made an acquisition of a firm called CyberCash India in 2001 that gave us 60 payments consultants and marquee clients such as Verisign, First Data Management Services and eOne Global.
We then extended our relationships with our customers to include services around our products in the payments space as well as standalone offshore development and maintenance services. We leveraged upon our domain knowledge in the payments space to maximize value to customers.
We provide services and solutions to Banks, Payment processors, Card Associations and Point-Of-Sale terminal manufacturers.
We have also made an effort to have our solutions certified and endorsed independently by various authorities in that space. E.g. Celent rated us as one of the top 10 account aggregation vendors in the world. We also received a Visa 3 D certification for our Merchant Payment Gateway.
To extend our footprint into the Enterprise, Tarang forayed in 2002 into eLearning. We deliver superior learning experience for Enterprises, Publishers and the Kindergarten-to-Grade 12 (k-12) segment using a potent combination of content and technology. We do everything from content development, content management, LMS build outs and Instructional Design.
Q: When & how did Tarang enter the eLearning space? What are the various service offerings in eLearning?
Ans: Tarang forayed into eLearning in 2002, which comprised both content and technology services. We started off working with eLearning companies in the US for whom we developed the LMS on the web and CD-ROM. Our clients were N American and European.
Tarang specializes in both content services and technology services. Our custom content solutions group specializes in creating highly effective and engaging courseware to support unique corporate learning objectives.
Web Based training, Computer Based training, Simulations, Content Translation and Localization, Publishing services, Content Management are the forte of the company. On the Technology side we deliver Learning Management Systems, Learning Content Management Systems, Authoring tools and Portal development.
Q: Share with us some of Tarang's unique HR practices? Why would you say that Tarang is an excellent place to work despite being a mid size company?
Ans: There is a rich culture at Tarang. This is embodied in the acronym P.R.I.D.E . Each alphabet stands for what makes Tarang unique.P stands for Principles of ethics and integrity. R is for Relief from Stress - fun activities like Fun@Tatang make a tough day easy at work. I stands for Innovation the spirit of this young company that is constantly reinventing itself. D is the motto of the last six years - Delight the Customer. E is for Elearning, a learning company. Tarangites take PRIDE in working here.
Q: What CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative(s) Tarang is involved in?
Ans: We are exploring possibilities by which we could contribute back to the society. As we are in the eLearning space it was natural that we do something in the same. We are in talks with some Non government educational institutions where we are looking at developing coursewares for slow learners or the trainers who train such children. Tarang value addition is in creating "Elearning for Slow Learners" - we can touch thousands of children through the usage of web as a medium to deliver these courses.
Q: What are your views on the quality of manpower available in India? What are the talent requirements within your organization?
Ans: There is a dearth of quality manpower in the IT sector across all levels. There is lack of depth and experience. This will result in poor quality of work delivered to clients. There is a need for bodies like NASSCOM to bring in some discipline to prevent frequent job switching and specify minimum years in a company. Industry ombudsman are required to drive maturity in the work force. Tarang has need for domain specialists in the Payments domain and Instructional Designers in Elearning.
Q: What are your current and future growth strategies? How does Tarang propose to expand and grow over the next few years?
Ans: We aim to snag some marquee clients in both Payments and Elearning to grow faster. New offerings in both domains such as EMV certification, Mobile payments on new devices such as Blackberry and leveraging content delivery through new channels like iPod are on the anvil. In addition, there will be inorganic growth through acquisitions in Elearning.