Informist, Tuesday, Aug 2, 2022

By Vivek Kumar

MUMBAI – Happiest Minds Technologies Ltd is working with two clients to build expertise in immersive technology, known as metaverse, and hopes to go live with a pilot product in the next few months, says Joseph Anantharaju, the co-founder and head of product engineering services.

"We hope to have that done when we meet next quarter. We should be having something that is launched and live out there," says Anantharaju in an interview with Informist.

Metaverse is a three-dimensional virtual world that one enters using virtual reality equipment, such as VR headsets and suits. It is believed that people will soon log in to this virtual reality environment, instead of using a screen and a mouse or a touch.

Most technology companies in India and around the world are investing in metaverse and other emerging technologies to understand how they can be used by different sectors. They believe metaverse will transform the way companies engage with their customers.

In the interview, the co-founder of the Bengaluru-based company also speaks on how high interest rates and inflation have affected customer behaviour and have made them more prudent.

Following are the edited excerpts of the interview:

Q. There has been a lot of buzz around what IT companies are doing in metaverse these days. Most of these programmes are in the exploratory stage, we are not really sure where they are going to go and to what extent one can commercialise them. What is your take?

A. Under our Chief Technology Officer Sridhar Mantha, there is a technology council looking at these areas. We have two small teams working on understanding the underpinning technologies. We already understand some of these because they involve things like blockchain, augmented reality and virtual reality. We are leveraging that expertise and doing three things:

One is, coming up with some use cases for which we can build demos that can show customers both the fact that we understand this case and give them some ideas. Second is, we are also exploring if there's any platform solutions or frameworks that we can build. And it is still early days, we are not clear about that, but we are exploring that. The third is, we are also actively working with a few customers, developing use cases specific to their industry or to their company.

Right now we have two customers with whom we have statement of works to build experiences in the metaverse. One is in the manufacturing and the other in the healthcare space. We hope to have that done when we meet next quarter. We should be having something that is launched and live out there. 

For a long term, your guess would be as good as mine. Some technology you think is really like a no-brainer, and it just does not take off. If you ask me, five years ago I thought that blockchain, through implementation for various use cases where you need to establish trust between multiple parties, would just take off. Whether it is in the logistics industry or the real estate industry, and even in higher education, where you have certificates and other things which blockchain would ensure that there is trust in the system. But you have hardly seen much of that being deployed. And there is no actual reason you can think of for why it is not happening. So I don't know what will happen in this case, but there is a promise. 

And the other thing is the GenZ and the adolescents who are coming of age now, they are all used to operating with the technologies that form the underpinning of these uber technologies. Therefore, at some point, sooner or later, people will have to adapt to these and provide experiences through these technologies.

Q. You talked about some use cases in metaverse. There have been some interesting ideas in terms of how metaverse can be used in different sectors like in real estate it could change how people look for properties, look for houses. Same is the case with automation and other sectors, right?

A. One of the use cases we are developing is if you want to make any experiential purchase, for which you have to go do some touch and feed, like a furniture or a car, similar to the real estate thing that you said, you can provide that in a metaverse setting.

So I think there are multiple use cases that will get developed, and we have to see whether it is going to be delivered through some kind of device like Google Class and Oculus, or it will be on a more enabled device like laptops. Because I think at the end of the day, how many people own one of these devices to have an immersive experience, that will be the key. 

Q. You mentioned that there are a couple of clients with whom you are working on metaverse experiences. Could you explain how big they are?

A. The initial thing will be small because I think customers will take a tentative step. First, we will develop an experience, and it will take over two to three months or even four. So these would be long programmes. People will first try to see what kind of adoption they get, what kind of feedback they get, and then they will commit to a larger engagement. And I think that makes sense actually rather than doing some big bang thing and then suddenly realising you spend money, and you haven't got anything for it. 

Q. Are clients talking about recession and other macroeconomic concerns that the world is facing currently. And is there any delay in decision-making when it comes to new deals? 

A. All customers are keeping a close watch on the macro situation, whether it is geopolitical, inflation, rate hikes or supply chain constraints that seem to be easing but have not been sorted out still. If you order a car, be it in the US or India, it takes two years to get the delivery now, which would have been unpredictable just a few years back. But all these seem to be easing.

Customers are keeping a close watch. They want to stay informed so that if they need to act, they can quickly act. That part is happening. But as of now, people are continuing with whatever plans they had, whatever budgets and initiatives they had already launched. If ever there is a need to optimise some costs, they are looking at where do we get some savings to continue investing in these digital initiatives because they know that they need to implement these programmes to just stay competitive and not endanger their own existence.

The other thing we see is there is also prioritisation taking place, where they are trying to advance and first complete initiatives that are more strategic in nature. Those that will give some immediate benefits to their end customers. But overall we have not seen customers pulling back on projects that they have started. 

When it comes to new projects, they are scrutinising them more carefully and making sure that they are doing their homework before moving ahead, which is also good, because it basically means that they are making a studied choice, and therefore they will sustain them. 

Q. In case there is a recession, or if the slowdown is a little more severe than what is expected, the spending cuts in transformation related projects could be higher than cost-saving projects. What is your strategy going to be in that scenario? 

A. I am not sure if that will actually happen, because digital spending is not seen as discretionary any more. It has become an imperative. Customers have to invest in it. These are becoming a part of their overall information technology portfolio. In fact, what we see is that, in some cases, they are looking at how to get money out of 'run and operate’ part of IT to cloud migration. They are looking at how they can consolidate their infrastructure and then get some savings out of it to invest in these initiatives. 

The customer experience part is becoming more important because that is what will sustain them in the medium to long term. For instance, we are engaged with one of the largest automotive manufacturers in India on a lot of the initiatives around customer experience and the customer management part; whether it is post sales or when the customer comes to the dealer showroom — how do you improve their experience, how do you give them a very rich and enhanced experience in a virtual world? 

Q. The share of onsite revenue to the total sales has been at around 14% for the past few quarters as compared with 20-22% a couple of years ago. Do you see it moving back to that level or do you think it is going to remain stable at this level itself? 

A. We are making a concerted effort to move that. Historically, our onsite revenue has been a lower proportion of our overall revenues compared with others and the larger companies in the industry. We did see this drop in the last year or year-and-a-half because the onsite headcount remained the same or dropped a little, whereas the offshore headcount and offsite revenue grew at a much faster rate.

This financial year when we did our planning, we consciously increased the number of headcount as well as the revenue expected from onsite for two reasons. One is that we need to have a healthy mix of revenues. But more importantly, we need to have employees closer to the customers so that we get more leverage in terms of execution and they also act as ambassadors out there. It helps us better understand the customer and develop the account plans.

It will play out over the rest of this year. You will start seeing that number pick up quarter over quarter. 

Q. What is your India strategy? Right now around 15-16% of the revenue comes from India. Going ahead, do you see it increasing?

A. If you look at all other players, our India percentage of revenue is comparable or higher, actually. And this has been a little bit of a conscious choice because working with many of the product engineering and more digitally aware companies, they would have captives out here. So a big chunk of our revenues actually come from working with the captive units of these types of companies, and it gives us a bit of leverage. In some cases, we start working with the captives out here, and then we have been able to expand to both the US and Europe, and expand our footprint out there. In some cases, when you're working with the US or Europe entities, they do ask us for some areas which are fully owned by the captive unit, to work with them directly.

Having said that, in a couple of areas, we have also targeted local industry. We have seen a fair bit of traction. In the pharmacy space, we just started our health care domain. We are seeing a few of the companies express interest and some of them are working with us for their digital initiatives. So we will take a very strategic approach to the local companies, and the captives will continue giving us a majority of the India-based business. But this will continue being a strategic area for us, the Indian geography. But I expect the revenue to remain around this number itself as a percentage of overall revenue.  End

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2022. All rights reserved.

Informist, Tuesday, Aug 2, 2022

By Vivek Kumar

MUMBAI – Happiest Minds Technologies Ltd is working with two clients to build expertise in immersive technology, known as metaverse, and hopes to go live with a pilot product in the next few months, says Joseph Anantharaju, the co-founder and head of product engineering services.

"We hope to have that done when we meet next quarter. We should be having something that is launched and live out there," says Anantharaju in an interview with Informist.

Metaverse is a three-dimensional virtual world that one enters using virtual reality equipment, such as VR headsets and suits. It is believed that people will soon log in to this virtual reality environment, instead of using a screen and a mouse or a touch.

Most technology companies in India and around the world are investing in metaverse and other emerging technologies to understand how they can be used by different sectors. They believe metaverse will transform the way companies engage with their customers.

In the interview, the co-founder of the Bengaluru-based company also speaks on how high interest rates and inflation have affected customer behaviour and have made them more prudent.

Following are the edited excerpts of the interview:

Q. There has been a lot of buzz around what IT companies are doing in metaverse these days. Most of these programmes are in the exploratory stage, we are not really sure where they are going to go and to what extent one can commercialise them. What is your take?

A. Under our Chief Technology Officer Sridhar Mantha, there is a technology council looking at these areas. We have two small teams working on understanding the underpinning technologies. We already understand some of these because they involve things like blockchain, augmented reality and virtual reality. We are leveraging that expertise and doing three things:

One is, coming up with some use cases for which we can build demos that can show customers both the fact that we understand this case and give them some ideas. Second is, we are also exploring if there's any platform solutions or frameworks that we can build. And it is still early days, we are not clear about that, but we are exploring that. The third is, we are also actively working with a few customers, developing use cases specific to their industry or to their company.

Right now we have two customers with whom we have statement of works to build experiences in the metaverse. One is in the manufacturing and the other in the healthcare space. We hope to have that done when we meet next quarter. We should be having something that is launched and live out there. 

For a long term, your guess would be as good as mine. Some technology you think is really like a no-brainer, and it just does not take off. If you ask me, five years ago I thought that blockchain, through implementation for various use cases where you need to establish trust between multiple parties, would just take off. Whether it is in the logistics industry or the real estate industry, and even in higher education, where you have certificates and other things which blockchain would ensure that there is trust in the system. But you have hardly seen much of that being deployed. And there is no actual reason you can think of for why it is not happening. So I don't know what will happen in this case, but there is a promise. 

And the other thing is the GenZ and the adolescents who are coming of age now, they are all used to operating with the technologies that form the underpinning of these uber technologies. Therefore, at some point, sooner or later, people will have to adapt to these and provide experiences through these technologies.

Q. You talked about some use cases in metaverse. There have been some interesting ideas in terms of how metaverse can be used in different sectors like in real estate it could change how people look for properties, look for houses. Same is the case with automation and other sectors, right?

A. One of the use cases we are developing is if you want to make any experiential purchase, for which you have to go do some touch and feed, like a furniture or a car, similar to the real estate thing that you said, you can provide that in a metaverse setting.

So I think there are multiple use cases that will get developed, and we have to see whether it is going to be delivered through some kind of device like Google Class and Oculus, or it will be on a more enabled device like laptops. Because I think at the end of the day, how many people own one of these devices to have an immersive experience, that will be the key. 

Q. You mentioned that there are a couple of clients with whom you are working on metaverse experiences. Could you explain how big they are?

A. The initial thing will be small because I think customers will take a tentative step. First, we will develop an experience, and it will take over two to three months or even four. So these would be long programmes. People will first try to see what kind of adoption they get, what kind of feedback they get, and then they will commit to a larger engagement. And I think that makes sense actually rather than doing some big bang thing and then suddenly realising you spend money, and you haven't got anything for it. 

Q. Are clients talking about recession and other macroeconomic concerns that the world is facing currently. And is there any delay in decision-making when it comes to new deals? 

A. All customers are keeping a close watch on the macro situation, whether it is geopolitical, inflation, rate hikes or supply chain constraints that seem to be easing but have not been sorted out still. If you order a car, be it in the US or India, it takes two years to get the delivery now, which would have been unpredictable just a few years back. But all these seem to be easing.

Customers are keeping a close watch. They want to stay informed so that if they need to act, they can quickly act. That part is happening. But as of now, people are continuing with whatever plans they had, whatever budgets and initiatives they had already launched. If ever there is a need to optimise some costs, they are looking at where do we get some savings to continue investing in these digital initiatives because they know that they need to implement these programmes to just stay competitive and not endanger their own existence.

The other thing we see is there is also prioritisation taking place, where they are trying to advance and first complete initiatives that are more strategic in nature. Those that will give some immediate benefits to their end customers. But overall we have not seen customers pulling back on projects that they have started. 

When it comes to new projects, they are scrutinising them more carefully and making sure that they are doing their homework before moving ahead, which is also good, because it basically means that they are making a studied choice, and therefore they will sustain them. 

Q. In case there is a recession, or if the slowdown is a little more severe than what is expected, the spending cuts in transformation related projects could be higher than cost-saving projects. What is your strategy going to be in that scenario? 

A. I am not sure if that will actually happen, because digital spending is not seen as discretionary any more. It has become an imperative. Customers have to invest in it. These are becoming a part of their overall information technology portfolio. In fact, what we see is that, in some cases, they are looking at how to get money out of 'run and operate’ part of IT to cloud migration. They are looking at how they can consolidate their infrastructure and then get some savings out of it to invest in these initiatives. 

The customer experience part is becoming more important because that is what will sustain them in the medium to long term. For instance, we are engaged with one of the largest automotive manufacturers in India on a lot of the initiatives around customer experience and the customer management part; whether it is post sales or when the customer comes to the dealer showroom — how do you improve their experience, how do you give them a very rich and enhanced experience in a virtual world? 

Q. The share of onsite revenue to the total sales has been at around 14% for the past few quarters as compared with 20-22% a couple of years ago. Do you see it moving back to that level or do you think it is going to remain stable at this level itself? 

A. We are making a concerted effort to move that. Historically, our onsite revenue has been a lower proportion of our overall revenues compared with others and the larger companies in the industry. We did see this drop in the last year or year-and-a-half because the onsite headcount remained the same or dropped a little, whereas the offshore headcount and offsite revenue grew at a much faster rate.

This financial year when we did our planning, we consciously increased the number of headcount as well as the revenue expected from onsite for two reasons. One is that we need to have a healthy mix of revenues. But more importantly, we need to have employees closer to the customers so that we get more leverage in terms of execution and they also act as ambassadors out there. It helps us better understand the customer and develop the account plans.

It will play out over the rest of this year. You will start seeing that number pick up quarter over quarter. 

Q. What is your India strategy? Right now around 15-16% of the revenue comes from India. Going ahead, do you see it increasing?

A. If you look at all other players, our India percentage of revenue is comparable or higher, actually. And this has been a little bit of a conscious choice because working with many of the product engineering and more digitally aware companies, they would have captives out here. So a big chunk of our revenues actually come from working with the captive units of these types of companies, and it gives us a bit of leverage. In some cases, we start working with the captives out here, and then we have been able to expand to both the US and Europe, and expand our footprint out there. In some cases, when you're working with the US or Europe entities, they do ask us for some areas which are fully owned by the captive unit, to work with them directly.

Having said that, in a couple of areas, we have also targeted local industry. We have seen a fair bit of traction. In the pharmacy space, we just started our health care domain. We are seeing a few of the companies express interest and some of them are working with us for their digital initiatives. So we will take a very strategic approach to the local companies, and the captives will continue giving us a majority of the India-based business. But this will continue being a strategic area for us, the Indian geography. But I expect the revenue to remain around this number itself as a percentage of overall revenue.  End

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2022. All rights reserved.