Kantanu Kundu, Chairman & CEO, a2zapplications.com

Mr. Kundu, Chairman and CEO of a2zapplications.com, is young, energetic and has a strong desire to contribute to India's development towards Vision 2020.

As the growth of country depends highly on small and medium businesses and 7 million SMBs are still underserved, he strongly feels that the cutting edge software technologies must be available to them as important business tools, as a utility service like other services such as water, electricity, mobile etc. where customers can pay for what they use on a monthly subscription basis. He is a visionary, and leads his team of professionals from the front to make his company the numero uno Software-as-a-Service Platform organization.Having spent most of his IT career in California, USA --- a land of entrepreneurs --- he returned to India with varied experience,

spanning over 10 years in software consultation, development, architecture design, project management and presales with globally reputed companies. Prior to founding this company, he worked at Salesforce.com for 4 years and was the first member of their Global Integration Services team.

a2zapplications.com is India's first Multi-Tenant, Multi-Utility Business Software Platform company founded by a Software-as-a-Service industry veteran. The name was chosen to reflect the desire to provide a platform to organizations to run complete business solutions without the need to invest additional efforts towards managing IT infrastructure and thus enabling them to stay more competitive. Moreover, social welfare service will be forming a separate division within the company, enabling it to offer even more well-rounded service to society.

The model employed by a2zapplications.com is a Subscription model. Companies have to pay subscription charges instead of paying very huge amount of money. There is unlimited scope of customization. Modules can be added to the basic model every year. So, the companies pay for their requirements in form of annual subscriptions. This business model leads to higher business growth in recessions. Because it provides an alternative solution to a big IT department, small to medium-sized enterprises find it very attractive to shift to these software solutions which are efficient and very cost effective It also saves the initial cash flow which is very important for a small scale company Bigger companies also find it attractive, for the same reasons. Mr. Kundu uses the 1:1:1 model, which translates as 1% of salary, 1% of profit and 1% of working hours. Salesforce has a similar model, and, as a one time employees, Mr. Kundu was profoundly influenced by it. Start working from the first day, and every profit that the company earns due to you is a part of your earning also. It is a model which ensures that no one loses out, because the customers receive optimal service, and the workers are reimbursed for all efforts.

Naturally, the road to successful entrepreneurship being a long and arduous one, success didn't come easy. However, a2zapplications do have a number of customers in the National Capital Region. Recently, they have acquired one customer in Mumbai, have good leads in West Bengal, and look forward to expanding his business to other regions of India. However, in spite of this success, some hurdles remain. Dealing with the government is a hassle, especially for NRIs, opines Mr. Kundu. Rent area is another problem, since it costs more to rent office space in the late evening hours. Since this us such a new area in India, it is difficult to find people of sufficient expertise and vision for the job. Retaining them is even harder. And since an NRI has no salary receipts, the banks refuse to give loans. Raising capital can therefore be complicated.

In spite of these frustrations, Mr. Kundu keeps working, keeps leading his team, because he wants a2zapplications to be the top company in India. His faith in what he is working on drives him from day to day, to keep working, in the face of all obstacles. 'Belief' and 'Passion' are his watchwords: belief, which imparts conviction, to yourself but also to others; and passion, because work done with passion results in higher success rates. These two qualities, which he feels are indispensable for a budding entrepreneur, are certainly possessed in abundance by Mr. Kundu himself. They have stood him in good stead thus far, and shall surely continue to do so in the future.