Kochar Infotech: Simplifying the Telecom and VAS Complexities Date:   Monday , January 04, 2010 One can find many interesting and useful applications on their mobiles but most of the time users end up not using it. Hence useful features go unutilized, which creates a potential revenue loss for the operators, despite the consumer having invested in a device which is capable of doing much more than just voice calls. GizmoSupport, one of the brands of Kochar Infotech, not only creates awareness but also goes one step further by guiding users to try it out and adapt it. The company has developed a suite of many such products which has helped mobile operators, handset manufacturers as well as mobile application providers to unlock revenue. Kochar has built its products and solutions in the complex Indian market, where there are almost 10 operators in 23 telecom circles, which is not found anywhere in the world. The constant changing product profile and growth has made Kochar deploy its products in SAS model and it has been a successful strategy, in the world most price sensitive and fastest growing mobile markets. Kochar has done business with majority of mobile operators including Airtel, Idea and Aircel across India, with its delivery centers spread across Bangalore, Kolkata, and Amritsar to cater to the regional languages challenges and has been successfully providing over 80,000 solutions a day. The opportunities are tremendous in mobile industry but too much competition has forced extremely low pricing models. “Entry of new operators has been both good and bad. On one hand there is a blood bath going on amongst mobile operators on providing cheaper prices, while on the other hand operators are now more conscious of providing better customer service and applications to the customers,” says Jitender Jain, CEO of Kochar Infotech. India has always seen the growth of major telecom related big and successful companies from the metros. However, there are few companies who dare to dream and have broken these shackles by outperforming even the metro companies. One such example is Kochar Group, which started from the city of Amritsar and is now touching the pinnacle of success. Kochar Infotech consists of KocharSoft and Gizmosupport. Kocharsoft has its core competencies in providing a suite of web-enabled SAS solutions for the Mobile DataServices. Kochar is a development partner to Microsoft, Nortel and Nokia and is doing cutting edge work in the Telecom Customer Experience Management. Gizmosupport, on the business side is a mobile data services support company and is a leading solution provider in the industry. It offers services to mobile users, Telco’s, VAS vendors and Mobile Application providers. Kochar Infotech’s clients consist of Telco’s, mobile application providers, retail chains, VAS vendors and handset manufacturers along with enterprise application providers. In order to meet the demand of its various clients, the company has distributed its product into four different broad categories. Test Max – Network Testing Kochar has built a service product known as “TestMax” which is capable of helping users to get realtime feedbacks from 22 centers in the country and that too from different Telco’s in a circle. Users of SMS short codes, USSD and mobile application providers can now from a single point capture service quality analysis, do revenue assurance and get real time alarms for any failures of services across operators. The company claims that Network testing helps in tracking content delivery at a regular level. It also helps in checking whether a subscriber is getting accurate response and it alerts for any shortcoming. Under Network Testing, the company offers testing for SMS Short Code and USSD Testing, MMS Testing, Bandwidth Testing and IVR Testing. TestMax- Application Testing While the operator eco system had the above challenges the Mobile Application developers have had an equally tough challenge in managing the testing of the applications on the mobile environment. Unlike PC’s there is no single defacto platform and the situation is going to become more chaotic in the times to come. There are also many different factors like operating software, content, services and applications, which complicate the testing procedure. To solve this problem Test Max provides a ready platform of 250 to 300 devices for Application testing and Content testing, which cover the major gamut of devices deployed in the market. Application testing has become very crucial lately with the increase in the number of Smart Phones and mobile operating systems. Know Max Know Max solutions simplify technology into end-user benefit through Mobile Simulators that are used for Call Center Support, Self Service Tools, E-Learning and Training Services. The company creates its own course materials on various emerging technologies and offers it to the aspiring employees of elecom/Retail/ ITES services. Majority of the tools have been readied for the international market with local language customization. Know Max also has a highly flexible e-certification portal which complies with the latest standards on learning portals. It has features like guided self learning with audio-visual aids, multi faceted evaluation where in one can create tests with objective, true-false, subjective, case study type of problems. The work is also on for building application for remote device control and mobile device management to give users an easy way to solve their technical problems. Jain says that Kochar shall be launching it in Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which is the world’s largest mobile industry show. Kochar has been among the few Indian companies to exhibit there. Support Max The flood of mobiles, PDAs, Hybrid devices, Notebooks, and Data Cards, keeps making it a bigger and bigger challenge for the Call Centre executives to gather all the knowledge and dispense it to the customers. So to aid the companies focusing on providing good customer experience, Support Max has a set of tools which are used by more than 1000 executives every day. With the help of simulators, technical support personnel can guide user through identifying features and modifying settings. The company boasts of having one of the largest databases of Mobile Phone Simulations globally. Support Max also provides OTA solutions, CRM solutions and Mobile Devices Management solutions. Reach Max Nowadays, handsets are usually equipped with lot of features. But still voice continues to be the primary focus as majority of customers remain unaware of the true potential of their handset or its service. Reach Max empowers, educates and enables the customers with the knowledge required to make the most of their devices and services. Once customers start using other services, it creates more revenue for the operators and the Application providers as well. Speaking on what is to come in next few years, Jain says, “Mobile Device complexity is going to go be higher and become a challenge to manage because of the arrival of new operating systems from almost all significant players.” He says that new product development and R&D forms a very crucial part of Kochar Infotech and the organization is one of the largest investors in the Mobile Data Customer Experience vertical and has a team of over 100 product specialists/engineers exclusively working on it. Kochar currently has 3000 employees and has been able to achieve one of the highest growths in the region year-on-year for the last three years. The group is also planning to get into e-Learning, self service kiosk solutions for IT and telecom markets. Also, to fulfill the needs of the expansion, Kochar is building a five acre campus for R&D, software development and training center.