“Indian eGovernance is expected to be a $10 billion plus market for the year 2010 - 2011” - Sudhir Agnihotri, FourBridge Technologies

Aviation Safety Management, Intellectual Property, Software Development – Pune based FourBridge Technologies is doing all of it. Swati Maheshwari catches up with its co-founder, Sudhir Agnihotri, exclusively for YourStory.inSudhir, what is FourBridge Technologies all about?

FourBridge Technologies Pvt. Ltd.(FBT), formerly known as 4eMarkets.com, is a software development services and product management company. We offer clients business automation products and custom software development services. I have been working on it since 2005, before finally finding the right co-founder and the team to incorporate it as a registered company in 2009. We are popularly known as the ‘Solutions Powerhouse’, because apart from offering development solutions we have become one of the few companies that offer high-end and complex IT solutions across major industry verticals like Aviation, Banking, eGovernance, Education & Healthcare & Datacenter Services.

On what platforms do you build your software?

We are primarily focused on open source technologies. However, we have a smaller team dedicated for Microsoft technologies as well.

What exactly do you provide under the Intellectual Property services?

We provide a range of high-end research services like - Prior art search/state of the art search, validity/invalidity search, freedom to operate/clearance search, legal status search, novelty search, family patent search, patent infringement search. Other IP services include patent alert, competitive intelligence studies, patent filing and drafting(US, India and PCT). Our IP services are targeted towards global clients in North America, Europe and APAC.

Tell us more about your Aviation Safety Management service. Are there any competitors in this sector?

This is our new offering to aviation industry. Aviation Safety Management is a systematic, explicit and comprehensive process for managing aviation safety risks that includes(as a minimum) core directions policy, safety risk management safety assurance and internal evaluation, safety promotion. These components are linked together and create a culture that promotes aviation safety by setting policies, identifying and reducing risks, providing a means for continuous assessment of the system through internal and external audits, and promoting safety through various methods and mediums. There are very few successful players globally in this space. We have now partnered with NEST Aerospace Pvt. Ltd for distributing safety solutions together into global markets.What market size are you looking at capturing in the next couple of years?

We did pretty well in our initial years. We now have presence in US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Dubai, Australia and Bangladesh. We expect a decent rise in next couple of years. We are exploring new partnerships and business opportunities globally.

How do you market your services?

Our partners are our key marketing associates; they generate enough business leads for us to be busy with. However, we are very much dependent on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and other business networking websites.

How big is your team? Are you looking at hiring?

We are currently a team of 18 people with FBT, with extended partner team of over 100. We are looking at hiring more expert hands. We are also looking at hiring MBA interns for various marketing initiatives that we have planned for the months to come.

What kind of competition do you face in this industry? How big is the pie that you are dealing with?

There is stiff competition in Banking & eGovernance business from top market leaders to some local and new players. However, we do not face much competition in software development and other businesses as they are usually partner driven. 20% of our business comes from development services, and rest from others, however there is decent share for everyone as the Indian eGovernance is expected to be a $10 Billion plus market for the year 2010-11. And the figures are relatively same for the other countries that we wish to venture into this year.

What are your expansion plans?

We are so far headed in the right direction, having over 15 partners and 20 independent consultants globally. In the next few years, we plan to have presence in over 20 countries and have more partnerships to increase our presence. Other than custom software development services, we are more focused in areas of Aviation Safety, Banking and eGovernance, that being our USP; and it is in high demand across all countries that we are currently associated with.

For more details, visit www.fourbridgetech.com

Share your feedback on this story by writing to us at feedback@yourstory.in