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July - 2014 - issue > Startup of the Month
Exceptionaire Technologies Extending a Different Approach
Anitha TS
Thursday, July 3, 2014
In the U.S, the real estate, manufacturing and healthcare were seen as the fastest growing industries. With technologies like the mobile becoming an integral part of the industry and as the new channel for information distribution, there is a plethora of opportunities for technology companies. Understanding this Shrigovind Tiwari founded Exceptionaire Technologies, an offshore software product and solutions development company.

The firm's areas of expertise spans across Mobile applicaitons, Web based applications, Cloud based models, Social Media marketing and Digital Marketing while they offer digital marketing expertise only to their existing customers.

The renowned company has 45 employees serving customers from the U.S, Europe and Australia. In fact, about ninety percent of their 150 plus clients belong to the U.S. Exceptionaire exclusively serves foreign customers, as Tiwari is of the opinion that Indian customers are too difficult to deal with owing to their high-expectations and very limited budgets. Within a short span, the organization has served customers belonging to health care, real estate, manufacturing and others.

It all began when Shrigovind was working with a software start-up owned by construction company that encountered many roadblocks that further led to its closure. This was the time when the ambitious Tiwari decided to go ahead with his plans of starting a company, banking upon his sales expertise and previous experience of working with leading names like Tech Mahindra.

The initial days at Exceptionaire were tough, recalls Tiwari, "Exceptionaire had a humble start in a small house. To add to it, we were without customers and no funding. The sole relief was the money we secured from our initial customers as advance within 10 days of inception". However, the determination and hard work eventually paid-off as Exceptionaire is on its way to the top of the food chain.

The Key Strengths

Exceptionaire is selective about their projects, opting for projects that suit their time-line and technical expertise. The firm believes in identifying the right opportunity and going beyond customer's expectations in delivering them. Unlike several others, there is assurance at every step that a value-based approach is brought into the process, where customer's preferences are taken care of. Finally, the Exceptionaire customers are highly satisfied about the visibility that the team brings into the project as well as its completion, coupled with a quality-bound payment system that surpasses the contract-bound payment system. Exceptionaire has had a phenomenal referral rate and repeat business of over 95 percent from its customers.

This can be witnessed from over a dozen success stories that include one of the leading sandwich chains in New York that started as an underground sandwich shop over a year back. The eatery was a small-level endeavor, devoid of even tables or chairs. Their requirement was initially for just a website where the entire information about the shop could be included in a perfect manner. With the growing demand another shop was in plans, and it was then crucial to have a single inventory in place with multiple locations synced with all the digital distribution channels. Therefore, the solution ended up constructing a web based application, website and mobile apps as well, which could link the different eateries providing the entire information on the website and the hand held as well. Having delivered this successfully the customer also wanted to build an ecosystem that was more fun for their customers and integrate a social media driven loyalty program.

Working on it, Tiwari decided to leverage the benefits of social media by incorporating a loyalty program that was tightly integrated with social media. "The idea was that once an order is placed, customers could share their order on social media such as facebook and earn points that could be redeemed against discounts and also if they got new customers", explains Tiwari. The plan proved to be extremely successful with the chain now handling over 200 orders a day through the digital channels.

On-Job Training

The firm's employees undergo aggressive training programs, wherein significant amount of time and money are spent. Employees are given encouragement to enroll for certifications. Despite having to encounter all hurdles and work pressure of being a start-up, the firm makes sure that on-job training is provided on a day-to-day basis. A proud Tiwari attributes his ability to deliver fairly complex development capabilities to this regular training, which also assists them in maintaining an edge over others.

Tackling the Hurdles

Though Tiwari has been successful in securing deals in the U.S, working from India, he admits that it remains a tough task as the project size increases. Going forward, in sync with the growth, it becomes crucial to secure bigger deals, which could be highly challenging if managed remotely. Continues Tiwari on this perspective "Initially, for a work force of 50-75 people, it is sort of manageable to bring the business without any local presence, especially in the technology services space. However, going to the next level, it is imperative to have local presence that gives a higher degree of confidence in the company's capabilities. We have already taken this initiative and now have a team in the U.S. as well".

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