TELiBrahma Convergent Communications, the Bangalore, India-headquartered augmented reality solutions provider has grown consistently, at an average 300% - 400%, over the past three years.

The company develops technology and services that help consumers engage digitally, in the offline world. Suresh Narasimha, Founder and CEO, TELiBrahma speaks on the huge opportunity that India presents for augmented reality and about his company’s plans. Excerpts:

Q] What do you tell entrepreneurs eyeing augmented reality?

The next wave of consumer expectation is clear – it’s about being Online and not offline. The clutter in the way consumer services are offered is huge and it is fragmented. That’s the area you need to focus on. Our proposition – Intergrate.

The demand to improve the Online experience is huge. But if you consider creating a consumer product company, you can’t build for American consumers sitting in India. You have to talk to your consumers, you have to be the consumer. It’s a huge opportunity here, in India.

Now there are a lot of solution-strategies with regard to augmented reality – location-based, audio and camera-based for instance. The opportunity is out there but a gap exists. One needs to constantly update technology, throw away assumptions and look at IT from a consumer’s point of view.

That one single idea or application will fetch a billion dollars is far-fetched. It’s all about creating the right ecosystem. Innovation is key to long-term sustainability.

Some businesses need an ecosystem to start with. Getting the media, advertising and creative teams, and the retail industry, to come together, to create a strong sustainable value proposition is key in this business.

If I run a consumer-centric business, I should know the consumer. I must always set and meet consumer expectations.

Q] What is TELiBrahma’s game plan for 2012?

We’re looking to put together an analytics team. When it’s about consumers, getting your focus right is a huge investment and a culture. And we need to address this because we are trying to change the way the out-of-home (OOH) advertising industry works – TELiBrahma is constantly trying to give consumers a better way to find information.

For instance, at a mall you could hold a product to a TV screen and you get to read about it in greater detail. Elsewhere, you could use your mobile phone camera, take a picture of a movie poster, and that throws up show timings, reviews for a movie. We’re trying to intergrate this with ticketing and merchandise. Or, when you scan your credit card with your phone, it shows you the relevant details, a great value proposition for banks and customers. These are examples of how consumers can engage in the digital world.

Brands spend USD 300bn globally on traditional advertising, on TV and in print. Our optical recognition technology would help drive higher returns on their investment. Our USP is our technology — robust to the extent that it can recognize smaller logos and also the overall engagement is better.

Q] What are your growth plans for the next few years?

Going forward, we are open to acquiring companies that add a time, scale, skill or technology dimension. We will consider partnerships as well. People underestimate the advantages of scale. Launching a venture is easy in India, scaling up is not.

Our average growth for the last three years has hovered around 300-400% year-on-year. We hope to maintain this pace for at least two years. The challenge is to ensure that one doesn’t oversell and that one doesn’t fail to innovate.

Q] What could augmented reality look like in 2015?

Augmented reality will be a lot more integrated. I don’t expect people to hold cameras all the time. Electronic gadgets and household goods will get integrated and they would engage on-demand and will not be intrusive.

You cannot focus on just mobile phones or PCs, if you’re looking to the future. The focus is mobile phones today because most people have them. But many more devices will go mobile by (2015) and they will talk to each other and our’s will be a much more connected world.