Sumeet Kapur, Founder, Global Groupware Solutions

“Enabling better business.”

Forging strong business relations across the world and developing strategic competitive advantages is what Global Groupware Solutions is all about. Founded by Sumeet Kapur, an ex-student of Delhi University who later did his PBDBM from XLRI, this venture promises its users of its reliable and effective performance. His venture is a provider of web based tools for relationship and people management to organizations across the world.

Business idea

Global Groupware Solutions have been creating software products for over a decade and they are the pioneers of Software-as–a-service (SaaS) model. Smiles CRM , an integrated management solution for sales and service process automation and EmployWise, a complete employee life-cycle management solution are the innovations of Global Groupware Solutions.

Global Groupware Solutions Limited is committed to enabling business not only in the country but also across the world. They develops strategic competitive advantages through lasting relationships with their employees and customers.

“We do this by providing technology solutions that combine our deep understanding of business processes across verticals with cutting edge information technology.” says Sumeet

Target market

“We pioneered SaaS or software-as-a-service in India having launched the first CRM solution in 2001 when it was still called the ASP (Application Service Provider) model,” says Sumeet. “As a leading SaaS vendor, we passionately believe in the power of SaaS to enable millions of small and medium business ventures across the world and especially in the emerging economies to unravel automation that has otherwise been restricted only to large enterprises” he adds.

He goes on to claim that organizations that implement their solutions, EmployWise and Smiles CRM can manage their entire workforce and all their customer relationships respectively with their help.

What sets them apart

The company boast of better, quicker, easy and affordable service. “A single ESS enabled system with wide and deep functionality for all HR processes, easily accessible and with great usabilty is what employ wise is all about which makes it different from others” says Sumeet.

Their services cuts people management costs through best practices, Process Integration and Process Optimization.

Future plans

The founder has a very strong feeling on whats need to be done in the coming years and says “We successfully launched EmployWise in November 2008 and are in the process of ramping up our customer acquisition.” he adds confidently.

By 2014 he expects to have close to a million subscribers using the application!

Sumeet humbly adds “Our mission is to be a relationship management solutions provider, admired for its superior products and services, quality delivery systems, professional business practices, lasting client relationships and the ability to attract and retain the best talent.”

His Entrepreneurial journey

Sumeet always wanted to be an entrepreneur, rather then sticking to a regular job, he says “I wanted   the freedom to build organisations and businesses from my own vision which was not always possible while working in a defined role in an organisation.”

And once he started, he never felt like giving it up!

Sumeet used his personal savings to start his work. Later he reinvested his earnings back into his venture to help it grow steadily.

As far as hiccups in his journey are concerned, Sumeet says that there has not been any single challenge in particular for Sumeet but there sure have been several constraints including capital and talent that he has had to overcome as an entrepreneur.

Focus and perseverance coupled with professional integrity has helped him overcome all these hurdles and challenges. However he feels that not selling out his first venture when there was both the suitable time and opportunity, would be a decision he would like to reverse if he could. “However, by and large I am happy with the way things have gone for me.” he says with a smile.

Recognition gained

“In 2008 we won the IBM Beacon Award for SaaS Innovation. This is a global award that is presented by IBM, only to the best in category partner from over 50,000 partners IBM has. Globally!” Sumeet proudly asserts.

They have created an organisation and a culture that people have enjoyed being a part of; a place which most still recall very fondly as perhaps the best place they worked at in their careers! This sure must be a very fine feather in his cap.

Sumeet further adds“At peak we have been over 200 employees with several offices across India and overseas. For the past 2-3 years our business model has evolved to doing business on the web We also have leveraged outsourcing to focus only a few tasks in-house which has resulted in the very lean 25 people organisation we now have.”

Entrepreneurial lessons

According to Sumeet, access to risk capital and the poor business infrastructure are the key challenges for young entrepreneurs that together require an entrepreneur to engage in very wasteful activities and distraction.

Sumeet shares his words of advice and says “ Don’t be an entrepreneur because you can’t stand having a boss. Believe in people and look after them, they will look after the business and the result will be fruitful.”

Yourstory wishes Sumeet and Global Groupware Solutions all the luck and hope to see them growing successfully in the coming years.