Umesh Sachdev

Uniphore’s mission is to harness the power
of voice to transform any ordinary mobile phone into an enterprise-class
service delivery platform. Uniphore’s solutions connect businesses with
customers, partners and employees via multilingual speech recognition and voice
biometrics capabilities by elegantly integrating voice and data (GPRS, 3G)
technologies to deliver an efficient, cloud-based, enterprise mobility service
delivery platform. Uniphore boasts a roster of high-profile, satisfied
customers across multiple verticals – Financial Service Providers (mobile commerce & banking), FMCGs
& NBFCs (sales force automation), and Agriculture, Healthcare, &
Education (content delivery services).As a leader of
voice-based solutions in India, Uniphore has pioneered the development of
mobile applications with the combined capabilities of Speech Recognition, Voice
Biometrics, and Data. Since its inception in 2008, the company has grown at an
exponential rate, and today it supports nearly half a million registered end
users on its platform every month. Uniphore is the honorary recipient of
various prestigious awards from around the globe, and the company is renowned
for its publications on the unique value of voice in enterprise mobility.

Risk
of adoption:  To understand how applications are being used
on-the-ground, Uniphore has invested in a field adoption team. The team goes
on-site and learns how the application is being used. This evaluation method
helps Uniphore to not only keep an eye on the utility of their applications,
but also to effectively work backwards and gain insights into any new
revenue-generating activities that are coming out of application practice. As we
learn more about languages and BOP interaction with technologies, we’re also
constantly adapting our product offerings, so that they are most responsive to
the needs of the end user and face the easiest adoption curve. Risk of scale (of remaining small
for a long time).Competition
and regulation

Of
weather to model to business as B2C or B2B. We discussed our core strengths in
the founding team and realized tech was forte- hence B2B.When the company was founded, the co-founders launched it as a B2C
service, but their research efforts taught them that they should be operating
in the B2B space. They learned that to reach out to end-customers directly
meant that Uniphore would have to be “masters of content and technology
providers”: customers need information and assistance to execute transactions
across various industries with whom they interacted. Sachdev and Saraogi
realized following a B2C model meant the company would be stretched too thin
and, therefore, decided that the company focus should be on its core
competence, speech technology. Uniphore shifted its target customer focus to
industry leaders who could adapt to content relevance in their respective
fields.

Vernacular
speech recognition is a non-trivial problem to solve. Indian dialects vary,
noise conditions are different from the west as usage can happen even on
highways etc. Also
voice biometrics in Indian conditions is non trivial- but we overcame.

1)Fiscal
discipline is of paramount importance.2)A good team is the differentiator.3)Good
corporate governance is the only way to grow.

 Seeing
that our solutions can impact the lives of the end user. There are hundreds of
millions of underserved people in India who can vastly benefit from speech
based solutions. 

We look
for motivated, driven, enthusiastic people. We don’t mind taking people who
need more training on the technical skills, as long as they are passionate
about our solutions and want ownership in moving the company forward. 

Our
first customer was Thompson Reuters. We saw that they were sending important
information to farmers about market prices, weather updates, etc. At the time,
they were doing the entire thing through SMS. However, because of the
restrained literacy levels of farmers, we believed could enhance and expand
their offering by producing the same content through a voice-based medium. It
took a lot of time to convince them that as a young company we can give them
robust service, but we managed to make it happen. We had to learn fast to show
that we were a process oriented organization which could support them

Ravi and I have always been
conscious of the fact that we are a young team with limited experience before
Uniphore. However, our passion and diligence has enabled us to build a
robust network of wildly successful mentors and advisors from all walks of
life. I use them to bounce off tough situations and avoid mistakes. 

Entrepreneurship
is a way of life. It is about living each day striving to give the maximum
value to all stakeholders- employees, customers, investors. 

Like
most entrepreneurs, I truly admire Apple. Not only for their innovations, but
the way they have built innovations into their processes. Moreover, I admire
their ability to have faith in their gut – which is not easy to do, given the
data-driven world we live in.

One
should learn to keep the head low and focus on execution even as you think of a
larger than life vision. The ability to take the right baby steps is as
important as having a large dream