LogmeIn sees better future for e-commerce in India

BANGALORE, INDIA: Busy lifestyle in urban areas as well as lower prices compared to brick and mortar retail driven by dis-intermediation, besides reduced inventory and real estate costs, have also been cited as factors driving the growth of e-commerce in India.

In an interview with CIOL, Anil Sharma, Sales director, LogMeIn, India talks about role of technology is the evoling e-commerce landscape in India and the latest offerings by his company.

Q: How is the e-commerce landscape in India compared to developed nations?

Anil Sharma: According to a recent report from Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), total Indian market for e-com is around Rs. 50,000 crore, of which 80 per cent or Rs. 40,000 crore is captured by travel e-commerce (online train, bus and airline tickets) while non-travel or retail e-com is only 20 per cent or Rs. 10,000 crore. Experts hope that by the year 2025, the total e-com market will reach at least Rs. 4,00,000 crore and the share of retail will be half at Rs. 2,00,000 crore.

E-commerce is still in a nascent stage in India and I personally foresee a huge growth opportunity for this sector. I believe e-commerce in India is here to stay and grow over the years.

Q: Which are the verticals that LogMeIn focuses? What is your offering to them?

Anil Sharma: Our customers in India range from large MSPs, BPOs, Enterprises to SMBs and individuals.

For large enterprises, the benefits they experience using LogMeIn includes increased customer satisfaction, decreased operational costs, and improved agent productivity. For SMBs and individuals, the benefits are typically around personal productivity and ease of access to important devices, data, and files.

3.What are your plans for the India market?

Anil Sharma: India is a very important market for us. In the last 18 months we have grown our customer base to include some of the larger Managed Service Providers. Accenture and Quatrro are few bigger customers for us in India out of more than 20 enterprises who are using our solutions.

The key markets/ verticals that we plan to target in India are managed service providers, outsourced IT services organizations and Managed Service Providers.

Any organization providing Technical Support to internal and external customer can benefit from our solutions.

4.What is the difference between using LogMeIN solutions Vs other freely avaialbe VOIP services such as Skype or Gmail?

Anil Sharma: At LogMeIn we are committed to innovation, our objective is to offer easy to use, fast, and secure solutions that help people stay connected to their devices, data, and each other anywhere, anytime. When more people collaborate, more gets done. By tearing down the technical obstacles to instant screen sharing, our join.me offering keeps the conversation flowing and the ideas building.

We launched join.me, in October 2010. join.me offers free online meetings for both personal and commercial use to up to 250 participants - with absolutely no registration, plug-ins or accounts required. It's fast and easy to start or join a meeting, eliminating the set up hassles most people experience with other meeting tools. The pro version offers additional features such as a personalized URL and personal background, meeting scheduler and meeting lock, user management, and international conference lines. join.me has been recognized by PC Advisor (Recommended), PC World (5 stars), MacWorld Editors Choice, and MacWorld UK Best Business Software 2011.

We recently added VOIP capabilities to join.me. The new VoIP calling works in conjunction with a join.me screen sharing session and is available for free for all join.me users, with no registration or additional downloads required. join.me works on any PC or Mac via a web browser or a desktop app, as well as on the iPhone and iPad via a free app. The join.me Android app, already available for free on the Android Market, will be updated to add the new VoIP capabilities in the near future.

5.Can you tell us more about the LogMeIn's BoldChat and its features?

Anil Sharma: We acquired BoldChat in January 2012. The acquisition move is part of a larger strategy to expand LogMeIn's portfolio of web-based services aimed at customer care organizations - call centers, external help desks, and customer service teams. The solution is a premier live chat and click-to-call customer service solution used by thousands of retail, financial services, manufacturing, software, and telecommunications organizations. We're seeing a shift in the way companies are approaching customer care, as well as the ways they are gauging its impact and effectiveness. Where just a few years ago, self-help and deflection may have been the predominant approach, companies are now seeking opportunities for meaningful engagement with their customers and prospects. We believe this acquisition significantly expands the unique services we can offer to help facilitate customer engagement, while broadening the value to a wider group of customer service staff.

The solution is offered in several versions, with increasing depth of functionality at each version.

©CIOL Bureau