Ramco Systems Ltd is on a major rebuilding exercise to take on global giants such as SAP and Oracle in offering its products and solutions on the cloud, which is the next big wave in the information technology industry.
Six months ago, it roped in an industry veteran, Virender Aggarwal, as the new CEO and recently recruited nearly 25 young software engineers from other companies such as SAP, Oracle and Capgemini.
New age customers
With an eye on new age customers that will use mobile gadgets to a large extent, Ramco’s new thrust is on MUSIC, an acronym denoting mobility, usability, spatial, in memory and context-aware.
“There is a general perception in the market that our products and solutions are only for small companies. We need to first change this and tell the world that we also cater to large players,” Aggarwal told
Senior officials such as Kamesh Ramamoorthy and Jim Fitzgerald – both veterans with Ramco for over two decades – left the company to make way for young blood. “You will hear a lot more about young minds joining us as we go on a major rebuilding exercise,” he said.
Targeting US
Aggarwal’s first focus is to increase presence in the US, the biggest market for Ramco. It has a presence in New Jersey with around 70 people and plans to open two more offices in other locations to tap large companies that require Enterprise Resource Planning on the Cloud – a combination of software and hardware offered in a network, which could be Internet, on a pay as you use basis.
Being small in size and lack of brand visibility affected the company in the past. Ramco is changing this with a focus on digital marketing. It is using Google AdWords to woo new customers, and professional networking sites such as LinkedIn to increase brand awareness. In fact, profiles of Ramco’s top officials, including Aggarwal, on the company Web site has a link to their LinkedIn profile.
R&D
Earlier, the research and development team developed products based on what they thought would be fit for the company. However, today, the R&D is based on what the market wants and in line with the expectation of the sales and marketing team. “We have always been an engineering-driven company and not user-driven. We are changing this by solving customers’ problems than boring them with long power point presentations,” he said.
Keeping in mind the new age customers, Ramco’s R&D will first design products and solutions that are compatible with mobiles and then for desktop computers. This is a major reversal in strategy, he said.
For the quarter ended December 2012, the company reduced its net loss by nearly half to $1.31 million, from $2.35 million in the previous quarter. “Our challenge is to sustain this momentum, and the US market is a key for this,” he said.