IDenizen - Empowering Educational Institutions Date:   Wednesday , September 30, 2009 It used to be a Herculean task for Universities to monitor the activities of the various colleges under its umbrella. They could also see the trouble the administration faced in consolidating all the data related to admission, fees and student information from different institutes. It was not the challenge of creating data; the bigger challenge was availability of data for easy reference when required. Manual intervention was needed to organize the data in the required formats. With the increasing data getting piled on each year it was imperative for the group to have a strong data base to maintain records of students & staff. This apart there were bigger issues of submitting various reports on a timely basis to the statutory bodies like DTE affiliated universities. The process of pre-admission, managing all the applications and short listing the students who have applied and completing the selection of suitable candidates for admission, was even more complex. This is when they visualized a system that could centralize and automate all the processes from pre-admission to placements including a staff biometric attendance solution, single library control system for multiple institutions, and enhanced student feedback amongst others in a virtually transparent, efficient, and foolproof manner. It was at this point that IDenizen, a technology solutions provider for the education vertical, pitched in with the SmartCampus™ solution. Founded in 2004, this Bangalore based company transformed the institute with its integrated application which covers all the important functionalities of the institution from the time the student applies for admission to the time of his placement. The system automates the complete administrative and academic processes of the institution, and enables easy access to critical information. Not only has it brought together all the stakeholders, which includes students, staff, faculty, management, and parents but has also ensured continuous and real-time communication between each of them. “Despite spending a lot of money on the infrastructure connecting all the institutions we faced challenges in accessing relevant data. IDenizen helped us achieve the desired campus productivity by seamlessly integrating all the institutions through its product SmartCampus™. This has brought a lot of academic and administrative excellence within the group colleges” explains Anand Patel, Member-Academic Council of Ganpat University. Now he is not only accessible to his stakeholders but also gets a sneak peek into the processes and procedures of his group at the click of a button. Today IDenizen has more than 100 colleges as clients and more than 1.5 lakh students using its solution. By heralding this new digital trend, IDenizen is scripting a silent revolution in the education space. The company has enabled automation in vital areas like Library Management, Student and Staff Attendance, Payroll & Accounting, Academics, Examinations and Hostel Management among others thus improving the efficiency and productivity of administrative processes. With the promising growth in the subscription base IDenizen has established offices across India for increasing sales and operations depth, and forging strategic partnerships to successfully cater to the larger market opportunity. This also helped addressing the service demands of each territory more effectively & efficiently. “Our present focus is to reach out to the length and breadth of the vertical. The prime objective is to integrate the entire life cycle of a student in the campus, from pre-admission to placement. The institute can increase their brand equity by building in Information transparency among all their stake holders. This tool has helped many institutions showcase themselves during the visits of committees & Accreditation bodies”, explains Mohan Sharma, General Manager, Sales. Girish Baliga, Founder & CEO of IDenizen, has enough reasons to feel good. Five years back, when he had a chance to interact with the stakeholders of an educational institution, he was quick to recognize the gap. Seeing all of them working in silos and the overall time wasted in the mundane administrative processes made him realize that though the Indian education was growing steadily and rapidly, the sector was not exploring the true potential by leveraging technology that would help them scale greater heights. This made him set his eyes on this vast unexplored market. “Though the education sector has grown twelve fold since the days of independence, the sector lacks proper investments in infrastructure and technology, which is a constraint in coping with the growing market demand and global competition,” says Girish. This realization hastened his step towards building SmartCampus™, a product that today addresses the challenges of all the stakeholders. IDenizen now provides an innovative technology solution that enhances the productivity and marketability of students and educational institutes and helps build a vibrant community connecting all stakeholders. The Changing Scenario The education sector is facing the challenges of new age competition like any other corporate sector. “With government opening up the education sector and giving more and more autonomy to established institutions, they are getting more tech savvy whether it is for industry interaction or academics.” elucidates Dhirendra Kulkarni, General Manager-Customer Solutions. Hence, the educational institutions in India are presently focused on the deployment of IT systems that will enable them to improve the educational process for their students and to stay ahead of the competition. India’s education sector is forecast to increase its IT spending from an estimated $356 million in 2008 to $704 million by 2012, reflecting in a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19 percent during 2007-2012, according to a study by Springboard Research. Today’s competitive market scenario dictates that educational institutions need to invest in scalable campus technology solutions in order to become ‘smart campuses’. These solutions should seamlessly integrate and significantly assist in campus automation and optimized resource management. The Success Quotient What makes IDenizen unique and successful in the market is the fact that unlike the applications and products available in the market, its product SmartCampus™ is thoroughly integrated. The business model is run on an easy subscription model based on per student per course. A complete outsourced service model is available wherein IDenizen provides certified engineers and trained data entry operators for the contract period within the campus. The company also invests on the complete hardware required to run SmartCampus and releases new versions of the software at regular intervals with upgraded and enhanced features, all done at no cost to the institutions. Consider this: R.V. College of Engineering (RVCE) has been using IDenizen’s SmartCampus™ software since five years exclusively for the administrative and academic procedures of the college. “This package is definitely saving us a lot of time and helping all the stakeholders easily manage and monitor their activities with the information availability. The company provides support service whenever called for and their latest updates are uploaded regularly,” explains Prof. Raja Rao, Principal. The entire solution which is smartcard enabled is offered on a subscription-based model depending on the number of students and staff, thereby giving the college easy access to complete automation with minimum investment. SmartCampus™ can change the way an institution works and increase productivity of every department in the campus. Education creates a social impact. The company believes that it can create a greater impact by bringing technology and education together and it is trying exactly to do the same. Fundamental to any success scenario is the ability to address the challenges from a customer-centric point of view. Customer feedbacks are monitored regularly through a CRM system, where customers log their issues and the help desk extends remote support. Training is given by a dedicated trainer to ensure uniformity and better quality. “Quarterly audits and discussions are held with the Principal and the management of a college to understand the way the modules are used and to facilitate the college with regard to training and upgrading the infrastructure requirements” explains Sabu Isaac, General Manager, Customer Support and Implementation. The Product Focus IDenizen’s engineering and product management teams with over 200 Man Years of experience are constantly working towards incorporating the latest technical and process innovations to develop cutting edge solutions that can be taken to market swiftly. “Unlike the scenario about a year back, the clients are very clear about their IT requirements now. They have a clear opinion about the design, UI, and the server architecture that they want to implement,” says Sanjay Balachandran, General Manager, Engineering. Our aim is to come up with solutions before they could suggest,” explains Balachandran. There is a constant endeavor to improve the breadth of offerings of the product while lowering the total cost of ownership for the customers. The Inside View The company has grown rapidly from 30 people to 110 in the last 2 years. Girish believes in open culture, discipline and togetherness. The team is driven by the “P-C-D model” i.e. Passion in the heart, Conviction in the mind and Desire to excel. Management interacts closely with all the employees to understand the needs and aspirations of each individual and to set clear and achievable goals; a 360-degree appraisal is used to get inputs in terms of development requirements of each and every employee. Training and development plans are drawn out from here and continuous monitoring of progress is done. Trainees are given on-job rotation where they are involved with different departments before they are inducted. However, it is not just work alone at the company; the employees have their quota of fun too. One of the interesting HR practices that they have initiated at IDenizen is the ‘SmartAdda’. “SmartAdda is a forum where all employees meet on a monthly basis to celebrate birthdays during the month, and to reward and recognize the performers with certificates like ‘Supernova Performer of the Quarter’, ‘Star of the month’, and ‘Kudos’ in recognition of an individual’s performance in a particular assignment”, says Seema Nataraj, HR. Another unique HR practice that IDenizen has initiated is the ‘Coffee with the CEO’. The CEO has a weekly coffee session with an employee chosen randomly to discuss about his or her aspirations and grievances over a coffee. Expanding the Horizon “The education market is still unexplored and as we move forward the horizon moves even further away,” says Girish. To empower more and more institutes to adopt technology, the company is talking to financial institutions and banks to fund the implementation. The company has received venture capital funding of $2.25 million (Rs. 9 crore) from NEA-IndoUS Ventures, to fund its pan-India growth plans. The funding has helped boost IDenizen’s countrywide expansion plans to set up branch offices and servicing centers as well as strengthen the firm’s product offering. The next target in Girish’s list is to move to the schools with a more customized version. “Till now we were focused on higher education. But now we want to focus on schools across India,” says Girish. The company is also looking at acquisitions in the Learning Management Solutions space. The company envisions targeting all segments from KG to PG level in the near future. It also has plans to take it to Africa, the Middle East, and China. In Africa, it has partnered with SugarAnt Technologies. It has recently entered the training services to improve employability and increase marketability of the students by globally recognized training certification. Powerful resumes designed by professional resume designers also help increase the visibility. IDenizen also provides cost effective training compared to other local training providers and also helps in the best utilization of time as it runs alongside the regular course curriculum. For this, it has also tied up with reputed education and technology brands like SAP & IIHT. Pioneering many new developments in the education space, IDenizen is not only fulfilling its vision to empower the institutions but is also heralding a new age in the sector.