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 K
L Bala Subramanian chose international marketing in IT field
as his calling. He tells Punita Jasrotia Phukan how an early
focused career choice can help a professional succeed in any field
“Mergers
and acquisitions are never easy,” says K L Bala Subramanian
(better known as ‘Bala’), the general manager of Asean,
India and Greater China region for Hummingbird. He would know it
well having gone through two acquisitions in his 12-year long IT
career. What helped him sail through those challenging times were
his ability to adapt to different circumstances and working with
multi-cultural teams.
Subramanian’s
present resp-onsibilities include driving Hummingbird’s enterprise
portal division’s products into regional markets like Singapore,
Malaysia, Hong Kong, Phili-ppines, Indonesia, Thailand, Greater
China and India. He is also in-charge of building new markets for
the company’s Enterprise suite of products. Hummingbird is
one of the leading players in the Enterprise Information Management
Systems (EIMS) market.
After
completing his MBA from Delhi University, Subram-anian worked with
a small Delhi-based accounting firm. However, it was software export
marketing, which was his career choice. He joined a diploma course
in export marketing from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT),
Delhi. Then along with a few friends, he decided to start his own
entrepreneurial venture in the software field, called Uninstall.
The
company was involved in selling all types of enterprise software
(from systems to applications software), to various public and private
sector companies in India.
Looking
at greener pastures, Subramanian decided to migrate to Singapore
after two years of working with the company. There he joined a local
organisation called INT Solutions, which was primarily involved
in Document Imaging and Document Management (DM). Responsible for
pre-sales and sales activity in the Asean region, he travelled extensively.
This was a challenging time for Subramanian. Besides understanding
the document imaging industry, there were a lot of cultural and
technology shocks in store. However, he was successful in turning
these challenges into opportunities and obtained some very prestigious
accounts, besides establishing the channel network for the company.
Wanting
to gain more international experience and make a career in the Enterprise
DM market, Subramanian decided to join PCDOCS, a leading DM player,
in the year 1995.
A
Canadian software company, PCDOCS specialised in the DM marketspace.
“With the market evolving, there was a lot of pressure on the
smaller players to invest into R&D, which was difficult for
many companies,” he says.
In
PCDOCS, Bala was instrumental in establishing PCDOCS Asia, the company’s
South Asia headquarter operations in Singapore. Joining as the first
employee for PCDOCS in Singapore for managing sales and pre-sales
activity, he was later promoted as channel sales manager in ASEAN
region. His contribution included building the market and increasing
the company’s installed base.
In
1997, PCDOCS acquired Fulcrum Inc, a Canadian search engine company.
This was done to expand their portfolio, from just data management
to knowledge management. Working as a channel sales manager, he
re-established PCDOCS/Fulcrum’s focus into document and knowledge
management (KM) business in the region.
Subramanian
however confesses that “managing the brand” and “channel
network” during this transition phase was a difficult task.
Though PCDOCS’ initial focus was on the legal market, Bala
helped them tap different verticals in the manufacturing and utilities
sector as well.
In
December 1999, Hummingbird acquired PCDO-CS/Fulcrum group of companies.
A strong connectivity player, Hummingbird wanted to get into the
DM and KM areas. Two years ago, Subramanian was given the responsibility
of handling the Asean region, India and Greater China.
In
addition to this, he is also responsible for a wide portfolio of
products that address the information management and data management
areas for any enterprise, including DM, KM, portal, collaboration
and business intelligence, etc.
Commenting
on the increasing competition, Subramanian says that presently the
market is in a consolidation phase. “I believe it is the companies
with the right vision and R&D capabilities, which will emerge
as a winner,” he says.
Subramanian
is also an accredited Certified Professional Marketer (CPM) from
the Asia Pacific Marketing Institute and a Certified Professional
Marketer from Singapore Institute of Management.
Contact
the writer at punita@expresscomputeronline.com
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