Aiming to be a game-changer, FarEye eyes billion-dollar enterprise mobility market
Entrepreneurs Kushal Nahata, Gautam Kumar and Gaurav Srivastava have a suggestion for enterprises: “Power up with FarEye, manage your mobile workforce smartly and gain transparency across field operations.”
Launched with an eye on the challenges faced by logistics managers in coordinating workers with field jobs and customer requirements, mobile workforce management platform FarEye, in just over two years since inception, performs “more than a million transactions a day, and has six happy customers per second across 25 clients and seven nations.”
Headquartered in New Delhi with offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Bangkok, FarEye was a farsighted idea. Says COO Gautam: “Companies in all industry verticals are lagging in productivity and thereby revenue because of lack of proper automation of processes and field workforce. After observing the challenges of workforce management, we decided to develop the tools to empower stakeholders.”
FarEye claims to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of operations by helping organisations identify the best worker to perform a task, schedule jobs, track execution, evaluate performance, provide analytical reports and co-ordinate with the mobile workforce, all in real time.
The venture has grown 20 times in the last 12 months, according to CTO Gaurav, and while it started with logistics, has since entered industry verticals such as hyperlocals, consumer durables, BFSI, healthcare and e-commerce. It also now provides customised solutions according to the requirements and processes of any enterprise.
CEO Kushal says, “With the festive season upon us, we have designed a robust solution for hyperlocals, marketplace/e-commerce and logistics companies to help them beat the Diwali rush. Plans are afoot to move towards Internet of Things, Internet of Logistics, big data analytics, etc.”
Sea of opportunities and challenges
Enterprise mobility is a billion-dollar market that FarEye intends to tap, considering that of the over three billion workforce worldwide, only 20 per cent has turned to technology to enhance work efficiency.
“Some of the biggest revenue generating industries such as manufacturing and construction spend a dismal amount on technology. A large portion of the technology-deprived, two-billion-plus workers are in the developing world (50 per cent in Asia-Pacific and 10 per cent in the Middle East and Africa). That gives us an immense global opportunity,” says Gautam.
FarEye has already roped in clients such as Jabong, Snapdeal, Fabfurnish, Pepperfry, Godrej, ParaMount, DTDC, Bajaj Capital, Apollo Pharmacy and Blue Dart, and boasts the distinction of being recognised in the Nasscom Emerge 50, 2014-15 Awards, selected under the Nasscom Social Innovation Honors, and bagging the CII India Innovation Initiative Award as well as the eOdisha Award for most innovative use of IT.
The COO points out that while the enterprise mobility sector is growing rapidly in Asia, most companies in the segment have domain-specific product and not a platform which can be configured and integrated across domains. “Certain global companies (such as Click Software and JDA) offer services similar to those offered by FarEye, but they are not present in the geographies that our startup is present in or planning to penetrate,” he says.
“FarEye has a niche positioning in the industry with its cashless transaction enabler (wallets), network impact and data analytics. We are not restricted by the type of industry, function (sales, supply chain, services), employee strength or geography. Our customisable solution can seamlessly integrate into the existing workflow of the organisation to increase the efficiency of field operations,” explains Gautam.
Empowering all stakeholders
The founders explain how using the FarEye platform is a win-win situation for all. The manager knows the productivity of his team, can identify problem areas through heat maps and analytical reports, and make smarter decisions with help from real-time reporting. For the field worker, FarEye reduces administrative work (manual data entry, cash reconciliation, etc) leading to increased productivity. From the customer's point of view, FarEye takes into account last-minute requests, takes feedback and shows increased responsiveness.
Looking ahead
Looking to raise Series-A funding for capacity-building, FarEye has tied up with Samsung as well as other prominent financial partners to help clients with complete business solutions. “The initial investment was Rs two crore from IAN seed funding (2013). We used it for hiring the right talent, marketing and creating a proper workplace,” says Gaurav.
The global initiative, which has earned 20 per cent of revenue from overseas clients, plans to set up offices in Dubai and Singapore by the end of the year.