BodhTree seeks nirvana overseas

Established in November 1999 with the aim of being a pioneer in Web services technology, BodhTree Consulting has now extended its focus to provide solutions in speech-automation and mobile technology. The Hyderabad-based company is now all set to tap markets in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Europe, says Venkat Pulapaka

With annual revenues of $1 million and global customers spread across verticals like banking, telecom, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, Hyderabad-based Bodhtree Consulting is ready to step into untapped markets in the Asia-Pacific region, Middle East and Europe.

BodhTree is keen on pursuing emerging technology areas that promise large potential business value to the industry, says Sanjiv Gupta

Bodhtree, established in November 1999 with the aim of being the pioneer and a leader in Web services technology, is creating a niche for itself in this field. Earlier, with HP’s eSpeak and now with Microsoft’s .NET, the company plays in the speech-automation and mobile technology industry. Bodhtree aims to be the new-age technology adopter, delivering sound business value to its customers through its offerings. Says CEO Sanjiv Gupta, “Thorough understanding of new technologies coupled with strong business domain knowledge has always been Bodhtree’s forte. We always strive not to stand in the crowd of vendors but offer unique and valuable solutions to our customers. The result of this strategy is evident and Bodhtree is entering several new areas where it is creating leadership positions for itself.”

Targeted verticals
Three main focus segments for Bodhtree are Web services, speech-automation and mobility solutions. Based on these emerging technology platforms, its offerings target industries like pharma, healthcare, banking and finance. Bodhtree provides technical expertise in Web services technologies to companies like HP, Many Futures, Silicon Image, Dr Reddy’s Labs, and Confluent Software. Its solutions range from business intelligence solutions, supply chain management and mobility solutions for healthcare, data cleansing and management, and voice-automated and computer telephony solutions for financial and call centre industry. Says Sanjiv Gupta, “At a time when Web services was thought about as a textbook chapter in the books of IT companies, Bodhtree was pioneering the effort by joining hands with Hewlett-Packard. Today, our team works with leading companies like Microsoft and Sun in this technology domain and is implementing cutting-edge solutions for various industry-leading customers.

We also offer
a voice-automation platform called ‘Vaani’, through which we provide voice-automated solutions to banking and financial services, telecom and enterprise markets. With Vaani, we compete with some of the world’s leading voice platform vendors.”

Milestones
Soon after Bodhtree was founded in 1999, the company entered into technical tie-ups with industry leaders like HP and AU System (Sweden). Bodhtree has worked closely with HP’s e-services group in development of the e-speak platform and applications. During this time, Bodhtree bagged several projects such as DMS, which was awarded by Many Futures, a company founded by ex-World Bank executives to develop an online social collaboration platform.

Bodhtree has also worked with several other US-based firms in developing e-services-based systems, which were based on HP’s e-speak technology. Says Sanjiv Gupta “Our technology vision has always proved us right. Earlier it was Web-services and now it is speech and mobile—we are always keen on pursuing emerging technology areas that promise large potential business value to the industry.”

Geographies
Bodhtree operates from Hyderabad and Los Altos, California—where the company has a sales and support office. The US market accounts for about 90 percent of Bodhtree’s revenues.

Challenges & strategies
Bodhtree has weathered rough times, both political and economic, for the past three years. In fact, its founding coincided with the economic downturn. Bodhtree has survived this recession phase with its sound principles of business and a strong customer base. “Having survived the trough of the economic cycle, we are now poised to offer the market an array of services and solutions,” says Sanjiv Gupta.

Looking at the post-Iraq-war market scenario, Bodhtree is consolidating its solutions and has put together a set of applications for industries like banking and financial services, healthcare, hospitality, telecom on the speech and mobile technologies platforms. Bodhtree’s voice platform Vaani caters to automated call centres of these industries. Another packaged solution, MobileDOC, helps physicians access patient records securely and remotely on a handheld. As these solutions are targeted at new markets, they are competitively priced. “We are cautiously optimistic about the upswing market. We feel customers are precariously treading the technology investment path and are accordingly devising our sales strategies,” says Sanjiv Gupta.

Future focus
Bodhtree’s key focus areas will be offering solutions based on its voice, mobile and Web services platforms and delivering value-driven applications to the industry. BodhTree plans to open sales and support offices in Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific to propel its marketing initiatives in these regions. “BodhTree has added several new clients in the financial, healthcare and pharmaceutical areas. We are keenly following these sectors in expanding our service offerings across their business functions,” says Sanjiv Gupta.

The future focus of the company is to consolidate its offerings for the healthcare, pharmaceutical and financial industries.