Cloud hosted CRM solution HuHoKa trying to tap multi-billion dollar CRM market
This article is brought to you in collaboration with Windows Azure.
According to Gartner’s forecast for worldwide Enterprise Software markets, 2013-2017, CRM (customer relationship management) market is predicted to reach $ 36.5 billion by 2017. Among all the enterprise software sectors, including enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, supply chain management, web conferencing and collaboration/social software suites, CRM market is growing the fastest and is predicted to be on top of the enterprise software ladder by 2017. Last year, 40 per cent of CRM systems sold were SaaS based.
Employee productivity can be greatly increased by using CRMs. But often SMBs are hesitant to use these as the learning curve is steep and results are not immediate. Moreover, using different tools for different purposes is not affordable either.
Mumbai-based CentraLogic is trying to address this issue with their flagship product HuHoKa. It is a cloud hosted SaaS offering which enables businesses to implement their best practices and methodologies in the functional areas of their choice, be it sales and marketing, support, operations, data storage, email communication, accounting and more. They have integrated these multiple business functions into one product so users need not manage multiple tools. HuHoKa CRM solution is targeted at small and medium businesses and can be accessed through desktops, tablets and smart phones.
This Tech 30 company of 2013 was co-founded by Ajay Navgale and Sanjay Navgale in 2010. Before Ajay started CentraLogic he worked at Syntel software for more than 11 years. Sanjay has 12 years of IT experience working with Cognizant. “Passion for beautiful software was our biggest inspiration to start CentraLogic,” says Ajay, adding, “That’s why we named our product HuHoKa.” It gets its name from the Hindi song, written by renowned poet Girija Kumar Mathur, ‘Hum Honge Kaamyab’ -- an adaptation of ‘We shall overcome’.
Though Ajay has worked with many technologies, including Mainframe and Java, most of his experience was working with Microsoft technologies. Thus when they wanted to choose a cloud solution, they decided to go for Windows Azure. HuHoKa is built completely on it and they are using Windows Azure Compute, SQL Azure, VM, Windows Azure AppFabric and Windows Azure Storage as well.
Ajay believes that using Windows Azure is easier than other cloud technologies as one can apply existing knowledge and easily train team members. He also found Microsoft’s Go-To-Market program to be of value as it can help businesses launch their solutions easily.
HuHoKa is in a space dominated by biggies. Zoho, Intuit, Sugar, SalesForce are their competitors. “Our size, flexibility and ability to work closely with our customers set us apart from others. We have worked with our customers to understand their problem areas and what really matters to them. We want our customers to succeed in whatever they do and want to become part of their success story. This ‘customer for life’ mantra differentiates us from others. We are not running behind numbers, we know we will get those if we get satisfied customers,” says Ajay. He credits his company’s achievements to his dedicated team who shares a common passion for HuHoKa.
