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From starting a product company with his personal
savings to competing with global majors—it has been an eventful
journey for Jay Raghavendra Pullur. He tells Srinivasa Rao Dasari
why he foresees India as a source of world-class IT products
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Jay Raghavendra Pullur, CEO and Founder,
Pramati Technologies |
Promoting a technology venture and transforming
it into an international standard product company was not a cakewalk
for Jay Raghavendra Pullur, the CEO and founder of Pramati Technologies.
Building products, particularly in India, a country known for its
IT services and not for its products, was a very tough task, but
Jay Raghavendra made it possible with his vision and commitment.
“Crossing over all teething troubles, the
Hyderabad-based Pramati has now reached a position, where it could
compete with world majors like IBM, Oracle, etc,” says Pullur
with evident pride. After completing his post graduation from IIT-Kanpur,
Jay Raghavendra along with his brother Vijay Pullur, joined Wipro.
Both the brothers served there for about a decade, did enough of
services and wanted to get into products business. They left the
organisation to start their own venture six years ago. “A technocrat-led
product business that is initiated with a product vision always
has excellent potential. IT business and integration with markets
were the prime factors behind starting this venture,” he states.
Vijay Pullur serves the company as a chief technology officer (CTO).
Coming from a middle-class family from Mysore,
Pullur could not get any financial support from financial institutions
and banks as his business model was very new to these institutions.
He started it from a gross-root level with his personal savings.
Picking up Java as a technology platform for server side development
in the early days of Java, shows Pullur’s vision.
Pullur received his first VC funding after getting
response for his ‘JavaOne’ prototype presented at an exhibition
in San Francisco. The first expansion plan of the company was implemented
with this funding and the current headcount stands at around 100
from the initial size of ten. As part of his vision of building
world-class quality products, Jay Pullur focuses on recruiting a
world-class team. He always believes in the concept: “to create
a world-class product, it is essential to form a global standard
team.”
Pullur’s recruitment policy focuses on four
factors—knowledge, experience, attitude and aspiration. “We
prefer candidates with good knowledge of technology, then we see
what kind of experience he/she has. If the knowledge is good and
the experience has been with small and mid-sized companies, we don’t
bother because we can mould the candidate according to our needs.
And here comes the important aspect of the candidate’s attitude
and aspiration. We are very keen on these two important characteristics
of an individual. The attitude of the candidates shows how they
mingle with the team and work culture of the company. We also examine
the aspiration factor of the candidate, whether he/she has personal
aspirations to build strong products or not,” Pullur elaborates.
He adds, “Size does not matter for an IT products company.
Do with less people and get good quality, but we should ensure that
optimum level of headcount is determined.”
He took full advantage of the Indian customer
base, as the domestic market was important for cost-effectiveness.
This helped the company to shape its products for a global market.
Pramati has so far developed three products—Pramati Server,
Studio and Design Viewer. “In December, 2001, Pramati server
J2EE 1.3 version got certification from Sun Microsystems. The server
has undergone 25,000 tests to get certified and it also competed
with international majors like IBM and Oracle,” says Pullur.
Since he enjoys his responsibilities and the
kind of work he undertakes, Pullur considered every challenge as
an opportunity to realise his dream. A few of the challenges were—financial
problems, no recognition for Indian products, impact of 9/11, people’s
preference for products of well-known companies, reference-based
customers, people-related challenges, etc. The greatest dream for
Jay Pullur was to get global recognition for his company’s
products. He also dreams of contributing his part for making India
a source of great products, not just a provider of IT manpower and
software services.
Says Pullur, “A large number of companies
in the country have been confined to developing products for a few
clients only. Many of the companies are not taking bold steps to
address the large market needs. The requirements of 100 customers
are totally different from catering to a small number of customers.
Hence, products should be designed and developed to serve a even
a hundred customer base. Risk will naturally be higher in product
business when compared to software services, but at the same it
is highly rewarding also.”
“India has the potential to dominate the
IT products market and at least 10-15 Indian IT product companies
in next five years will reach global standards and international
markets,” asserts Pullur.
Being a tech entrepreneur, Pullur enjoys running
a business, which for him, is his main hobby. He also likes music
and sports but finds very little time to enjoy them.
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