"Working smart became our goal"
Aug 31, 2007 1612 hrs IST

To manage and track an organization's work, there has been an increasing knowledge and adoption of Web software among companies and users, which enables them to increase team productivity and growth. DeskAway is one such offer that provides project and task management capabilities to companies. Sahil Parikh, president of Synage Software in an e-mail interview tells Priyanka Akhouri about benefits of this home grown Web-based software that the Indian IT industry can leverage

What are your current offerings for the Indian IT sector? Currently, we're involved with DeskAway. Besides that, we also undertake various other Web-development projects for clients in India and overseas. How does DeskAway help the Indian IT industry? DeskAway helps any Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) in the world. Since it's Web-based, thousands of other businesses can benefit from DeskAway. Besides, most Web applications are coming out of Silicon Valley and the West. It's about time we make the Indian IT industry proud by launching our very own home-grown solution to impact businesses all around the world. How DeskAway is important for any SMBs? DeskAway - an on-demand project management and collaboration service - provides powerful project and task management capabilities at a very low cost with minimum training. Most SMBs - especially professional service firms (creative/design firms, architects, consulting, PR, outsourcing, etc.) in India - lack basic tools to allow their teams (sometimes in different locations) to be more efficient and productive while working on multiple projects and clients. Software is perceived to be expensive and maybe even scary, by most people. However, we're trying to break this myth. Being a small business ourselves, we see this as an opportunity to deliver simple (yet powerful) and affordable software to the maturing SMB market here in India. Our vision for DeskAway is to create a single window through, which organizations can manage and track their work, thereby increasing team productivity and growth. What are the technologies that you've used to develop DeskAway? DeskAway is built on the latest Web 2.0 technologies - like Ajax and advanced JavaScript. It runs on a Linux platform, is scripted using PHP, and uses Mysql for the backend. Why did Synage initiate DeskAway? We're a Web software company that was founded in early 2005, after I permanently returned from the States. While managing multiple (sometimes over 30) projects simultaneously, my team noticed that it wasn't practical to keep track of everything related to these projects via email, verbal communication, or on scraps of paper. There were revisions to files, people had comments and provided feedback, and there were tasks that needed to be delegated and tracked. All in all, we needed a central location to track our projects and tasks. We just couldn't do all of this through email and still work efficiently and smoothly. But the bottom line was we were spending far too much time finding and planning things that were already planned, just because there was no single place where everything was stored. We checked out some other existing solutions but that didn't meet our expectations. Other products were either too simple or lacked common features for project management, or were hard to use and get around. We wanted (and thought that the other companies would too) something simple yet powerful, which could provide us with enough features to manage our projects efficiently. We wanted to be in control of our projects at every minute, not have our projects and tasks control our already busy lives. 'Working smart' became our goal and hence, DeskAway was born for people like us who like to be in control. Why a Web-based service? We're a forward-thinking company, and this is what we see as the future of business software. If you see the numbers, according to Springboard Research, SaaS revenues in India will exceed from US $ 7 million in 2005 to US $ 48 million by 2008. What are the advantages of being Web-based solution? A Web-based service has tremendous advantages for customers and end-users. First, it's quicker to adopt and less expensive than traditional 'on-premise' software. Second, new updates and features are available immediately rather than downloading and installing something new. Third, Web-based software is platform independent - whether you're on a PC, Mac, or a Linux machine. All you need is a Web browser to access a Web-based solution. A lot of consumer-related services have moved onto the Web like - travel portals, banking, etc. It's the right time to deliver business software over the Web. There are so many securities issues while applying Web-based services. How is the company looking up with all these issues? People are now transferring money across nations with an online click of a button. The mind-set is changing as people's knowledge and adoption of Web software has increased. Most security issues are created at the individual level when they don't log out of the application or accidentally give out their password to a colleague or stranger. We understand that security is a big issue and have taken necessary steps to secure customer data. We've invested in the best infrastructure and technology when it comes to securing customer data, thereby giving them a great experience on DeskAway. Since DeskAway is a completely permission-based service, so what are the challenges they're facing in using permission-based service? None so far. DeskAway's permission-control system is built with the idea that not everyone should know and see everything. Is this a user-friendly application or do users need any training? That's the beauty of delivering software on the Web. It requires minimal training for people who're already accustomed to using the Web. For others, we've provided training videos and help tutorials to guide them through the application. We also provide stellar email support if customers need additional help. We stick to our vision of creating simple software that non-tech people can use. What competition is the company facing, since consumers have so many choices? We understand that consumers nowadays have more choices than ever. Hence, it's hard to allure each and every one of them to our service. But that's fine. We like to acquire clients that align with our vision and purpose, understand the need to plan and be organized, and grow their business systematically. Once a part of the DeskAway family, customers can expect new ways to improve their team productivity and efficiency. Our 30-day free trial is instrumental in allowing prospects to gauge the value of the service before they commit on a paid plan. Competition can come and go - what's important is how true we're toward our purpose of helping SMB's grow their business. That's what matters in the long run. Is there a growing demand for such a solution in India? Planning better, delegating smartly, and getting organized is a demand that will always require innovative solutions. So to answer your question, yes, there's a growing demand for DeskAway here. With more and more Indian companies working with teams and client's overseas (or across states) - a system to collaborate is much needed. What are your future plans? Being a software company, you'll be surprised, our future plans are more about finding new and innovative ways to educate the SMBs on the need to organize, plan, and delegate more efficiently. We listen to our clients and take ideas and incorporate into DeskAway. It's about helping them scale and grow through the use of the right technology. It's not about just throwing technology at them and saying, "Ok, use it now...."