Sales Enablement a Tool to Measure ROI for Entrepreneurs "We realized that there was no organization which could think about the sales impact in a service and that is the gap we set out to bridge."

In the rush for hunting the target audience and acquiring larger pie of market share, the Indian companies over the last two decades have spent millions of dollars on door-to-door sales and marketing to advertising on print, TV, radio, online platforms in the absence of having a concrete solution measuring the ROI on their marketing activities.

With the evolution of sales enablement tools and software the $7.61 bn Indian sales and advertising industry, led by pure play marketing service providing organizations or the organizations that could provide pure warm bodies, have fast matured to think about the sales impact in a service.

Thus, understanding the niche gap in the market of absence of a organization which could think about the sales impact in a service 18 years ago Ex Wipro-Microsoft Snehashish Bhattacharjee, Global CEO & Co-Founder, Denave India Pvt Ltd., ventured in to fill the void in the industry of a service provider that can provide end-to-end sales enablement solutions with clear focus on revenue acceleration, ROI optimization and measurable impact. Talking about his entrepreneurial journey Snehashish Bhattacharjee spoke to Entrepreneur. Following are the excerpts from the interview.

Market gap an inspiration

Almost 18 years ago to fill the void in the industry of a service provider that can provide end-to-end sales enablement solutions with clear focus on revenue acceleration, ROI optimization and measurable impact. When we started, there were some noticeable gaps in the industry. There were a lot of service providers in the market but they were either pure marketing play organizations or organizations that could provide pure warm bodies. We realized that there was no organization which could think about the sales impact in a service and that is the gap we set out to bridge.

The initial challenge was customer's limited understanding of sales enablement. Another important part was talent required to drive simple effective sales strategies and that was the other thing we tried to bridge with our services.

Earning ROI for companies

When the customer wants to increase their reach in a segment or market we first try and understand their existing strategy and then redefine the strategy based on our knowledge of the market and create an execution plan. Our strategy could include a mix of people, technology, learning and training or it could be a mix of marketing technologies. We implement the strategy and provide a measurable impact. This is called as sales enablement where we understand thepart was talent required to drive simple effective sales strategies and that was the other thing we tried to bridge with our services.

Creating a niche

It took us approximately about 3 years to break even and another two years to get noticed as a player who could also make a difference. And that is when we started working with the leading companies as our clients. Around 18 years and over four billion dollars in revenue contribution to clients, we understand the industry pulse and what it takes to be profitable in the marketplace. We have delivery centers in India, Singapore, UK and Malaysia with reach spanning five continents, 50+ countries and 500+ cities globally. We are generating revenues for the largest brands in the world.

Leaving lucrative job to be an entrepreneur

I would attribute a lot of it to our orientation in Microsoft which made us think big. So when we, the three co-founders, were in Microsoft, it was still in its formative stages in India. Therefore, we were involved in every aspect of the company's business or at least had a view to almost every engine in India. We got exposed to finance, business, marketing, distribution etc. while identifying the gap that we would fill in with our services. Also, at that time the whole environment of VC funding broke the initial worry about service relevance, funding for the business and how we will run the business.

Initial funding

It was a completely bootstrapped organization. Till date it is a self-funded organization with Rs 200 crore plus organization. We started with a princely sum of 15 lakhs and an OD limit of another 25 lakhs.

Future plan and vision

Our vision is to impact global revenues for the next 100 years. We are a $30 million company today and aiming to be $200 million company by 2020. We are aiming to set up 3 more delivery centres by 2020 to expand our reach across the globe. Our current focus is on completing the sales enablement bouquet of our offerings by introducing new competitive service lines and incorporating and leveraging major industry trends to enhance the relevance of our services.

With the emerging trends linked to mobility, cloud, whitespace discovery, analytics, marketing automation and localization of speech recognition we are building core competencies that our customers can benefit from.

Sales industry in India

We operate in a market that showcases huge potential owing to its diversity of the service line. Globally, the Total Addressable Market (TAM) is as huge as over USD 600 billion. Looking at the Serviceable Accessible Market (SAM) which looks at the industries we operate in across markets where we are present. The opportunity is over USD 250 billion. Even the Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) presents a potential of USD 30 billion globally.