Startup of the Day - TEG Business Solutions

The BizSpark startup of the day is TEG Business Solutions, based in India. You will find below an interview with Arvind Nagpal, founding partner of TEG Business Solutions. All the best to them and congrats for being the startup of the day!

Website: www.theenterprisegenie.com.

Interview with Arvind Nagpal, founding partner of TEG Business Solutions

Tell us who you are and your role in the company.

I am one of the founding partners of the company. My role is to continue to enhance our IP, deliver customer delight and develop the European and Asian markets.

What did you do before creating your company?

I was the Chief Operating Officer of Mu Sigma, an Analytics services firm, responsible for scaling its operations in India. Prior to that I was part of the leadership team at Cognizant to setup the SAP practice from ground zero which included securing key clients, setting up partnership with SAP and leading the Delivery and Operations in India.

How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?

It is very exciting and further strengthens our belief that we have an interesting solution to bring Analytics to the mainstream. Analytics till date has been used by large companies to gain a competitive advantage. Through our solution, we have demonstrated that it can be leveraged by companies of all sizes as long as they have the fuel for the Analytics engine which is DATA.

What is your company’s mission?

Help businesses make better business decisions using one of their most important assets: the DATA. Our vision is to bring Analytics to the mainstream. Our initial target is Global 2000 companies. However, we believe Analytics can be made affordable to the SME sector as well. To this effect we have created a Hosted Analytics platform to make it easy for SMEs to sign up and start deriving actionable insights from their data in a short time which can be as little as 1-2 weeks.

How did you get the idea for your company?

The idea of forming a company was based on the potential of Analytics to solve complex business problems. When you look at the key ingredients: the need was there so we had to “simply” educate the clients to convert need into demand. India has abundant quantitative talent so raw material was available in plenty. It had to be converted into a good deployable Supply through structured training program. The opportunity was up for grabs.

In a nutshell we are applying the well established principles of mathematics, statistics, and operations research to solve the complex business problems.

Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?

We are self funded at this stage. Some of the seed capital came from family and friends. We were also fortunate enough to sign up key customers in the early stage. We have been ploughing back all of our profits into the company. Our biggest investment goes into developing and enhancing the IP and professional development of our team. We want to stay “Hungry and Foolish” for some more time. We are not actively looking for capital at this point. However, we are always interested in talking to VCs that can bring value above and beyond the pure play capital.

How many employees do you have? How many developers?

We are a small company with less than 50 employees. Our focus is on developing the IP and serving key customers. We call our team Business Analysts because everyone at the end of the day is involved in solving a business problem. We rotate employees between IP development and client delivery so the IP is aligned with solving true business problems.

Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring and where?

We are always looking for good people that share the same passion as we do. As a small company we have the advantage of hiring as and when we come across good candidates that align with our company goals. We have positions open for Retail expert, business analysts, and decision science in India. Our selection criterion places a significant emphasis on assessing a candidate’s natural analytical bent of mind and service oriented mindset.

Which platform are you building on? Why?

We operate on multiple platforms. We have chosen the Microsoft platform for servicing the mass market as it provides the highest value for the segment.

Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/internet area?

We see opportunities in the Saas model to reach out to a broader audience and provide a hassle free environment where the focus can be entirely on solving the business problem and not dealing with underlying technology components. It has significantly lowered the entry barrier for companies to leverage the power of data analytics.

Internet is part of our day to day fabric so anything that has to be done has to be delivered over the net.

What do you think about the BizSpark Program?

It is a brilliant initiative by Microsoft to promote entrepreneurial spirit and technology adoption without bounds.

Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?

Always ask the basic question: “so what?”

Does it make business sense? Is it actionable?

Business comes first; software can be one of the enablers. Solve the business problem, manage the customer experience and rest will follow.

Who’s your role model?

I have learnt a great deal from many business leaders that I have interacted with during my professional life and books by great business leaders. If I was to pick one, it would be Lakshmi Narayanan, chairman of Cognizant for his humbleness, customer centricity, and belief in his people.

What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview

Data is your asset. You can get an unfair advantage over your competition using insights from your DATA.