CXO of the Week: Triveni Rabindraraj, Head of Sales at GoTo, India

GoTo’ (previously known as LogMeIn), a global SaaS provider of remote work tools. GoTo’s flexible-work software – including GoTo Connect, GoTo Resolve, Rescue, Central, and more – is built for small and medium-size business IT departments, but powerful enough for the enterprise. GoTo software is designed to support end users’ unified communications & collaboration (UCC) and IT management & support needs, and nearly 800K customers contribute to the more than 1 billion people joining meetings, classes, and webinars through GoTo’s UCC products, and half a billion connections on the company's remote access and support tools. With over 3,000 global employees and over $1 billion in annual revenue, the remote-centric company’s physical headquarters is in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional offices and thousands of home offices in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and beyond.

To be a woman who is determined, and independent is an immensely powerful combination and especially so when it comes to the sales as a profession. Recently promoted as  Head of Sales, India, Triveni Rabindraraj is one such accomplished veteran in the sales industry who leads direct sales efforts for GoTo in various market segments in India. She has made significant strides in her career as a technology sales expert and has profound cross-functional experience in sales, consulting, and learning & development.

Recently we have engaged in an interview with Triveni Rabindraraj, Head of Sales at GoTo, India. She shared about the success of SaaS is greatly influenced and how it copes with the latest trends in technology, her entrepreneurial journey, the company’s growth, and much more.

Introduction.

Recently promoted as  India Head of Sales, Triveni Rabindraraj is an accomplished veteran in the technology sales industry. Triveni has 20+ years of cross-functional experience in sales, consulting, and learning & development. Her role is instrumental in driving GoTo's sales growth, leading India talent, fostering partner relationships, and adding value to customer’s IT transformation.Her core expertise lies in sales &account management, consulting, and attitudinal & behavioural effectiveness. In her extensive career, she has worked with companies likeCitibank, Amex, Wipro and Dun & Bradstreet.

Triveni is passionate about simplifying the adoption of technology and strongly advocates for making technology accessible and user-friendly. Her forward-thinking mindset and exceptional leadership abilities have enabled her to excel in a fast-paced, high-pressure technology work environment.

What are the latest products/services offered by GoTo in India?

GoTo, previously known as LogMeIn,is a flexible-work technology provider that makes IT management, support,and business communication easy with flagship products GoTo Resolve and Rescue. Currently GoTo powers more than 1 billion remote support sessions and serves over 1 million customers worldwide. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, GoTo has physical offices and over three thousand employeesacross North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Last year, GoTo achieved a 20% YoY customer growth in India due to the success of its IT management and support solutions, GoTo Resolve and Rescue. GoTo Resolve is a cost-effective tool that consolidates IT remote monitoring and management capabilities to help IT agents improve agility. Rescue is an enterprise-grade scalable IT administration software that enhances productivity and customer excellence. Both solutions prioritise multi-platform support and advanced security to account for the complexities of modern workplace needs, and at the same timedeliver simplicity of use and ease of IT administration to reduce downtime and improve productivity.

Today’s modern workplaces are increasingly being shaped by powerful technological forces likegenerative AI tools. These open endless possibilities for businesses and to help our customers stay ahead of the curve, GoTo is making great strides to integrate ChatGPT in its IT management platformas a part of over 30 new features across the GoTo portfolio. These new features include an integration between Rescue and Google Translate and a new integration between GoTo Resolve and Zendesk.GoTo Resolve has also enhanced its IT helpdesk with a customisable ticketing portal, tailored to meet customer workflow requirements.

Through cutting-edge product development and enhancements, we continuously look to help our customers take their productivity, savings, and usability to the next level while empowering them to make smart decisions and improve their overall IT experience.

How has Covid-19 accelerated the transition to digital for the IT industry? What will be the new normal in the industry?

In the last few years, IT faced continuous disruption andunprecedented demands- from a global pandemic and the shift to remote/hybrid work culture to the present threat of cybersecurity and a worldwide economic recession.

According to KPMG’s Report, 66% of organisations have been very or extremely effective in using technology to advance their business, with most experiencing significant growth in profitability or performance from their digital efforts. This report supports the claim that the pandemic sped up adoption of digital technologies by several years, and many of the changes that it brought have long-lasting effects on reshaping work. However, the rapid adoption of digital technologies has helped SMEs and large enterprises become resilient in the face of adversities. Today, one can say that the technological shift to a cloud-based digital infrastructure has become the backbone that facilitates better outcomes for businesses, and companies with robust digital systems in place are better placed to ensure business continuity.

GoTo’s recent IT Priorities 2023 survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan reported that the hybrid work model remains the gold standard for business leaders, with nearly half the respondentscurrently using a hybrid working model. Further,owing to the workplace shift, the importance of consolidated and flexible IT tools will increase as90% of SMEs in India consider consolidation of communication, collaboration, and IT management and support tools as an important initiative for the year, in order to streamline workflow and ease IT burdens.

Lastly, as companies are facing the effects of economic uncertainty and reprioritised budgets, doing more with less will be the key for businesses in this new normal. In India, the top objectives for business leaders this year emerged as growing revenue, improving operational efficiencies, reducing costs, and increasing customer satisfaction. To do so, theymust optimise their technology costs by investing in IT tools that can unlock simplification and efficiency in business processes.

What, as per you, are the few important things that GoTo should be looking at today?

2023 is shaping up to be a year of IT consolidation, customer-centricity, and thoughtful technology investment.As customers forge ahead, keeping these priorities at the centre, our goal is to deliver greater value by creating digitally enhanced offerings based on their business objectives.

To address customer needs in India,GoTo will be looking at:

• Permeating the diverse SME market:The growth of SaaS has dramatically transformed not only the technology industry but also the diverse set of enterprises it serves. As technology is becoming more democratised, more SMEs are adopting digital tools to cater to their dispersed workforce and enhance productivity, which is also a tailwind to the growth of SaaS tools. This presents a huge opportunity across a wide spectrum of SME marketsand verticalsto tap into in India, and GoTo will continue to create and offerall-in-one flexible ITsolutions that are easy, affordable, and secure for SMEs in the long run.
• Continuing innovation on a robust IT management and support suite: Today, technology is no longer an enabler but an integral part of survival that gives enterprises the ability to thrive in a rapidly changing business environment. Particularly where modern workplaces are defined more by teams’ ability to be productive rather than present at one location, getting hybrid working right through powerful technology enablement is one of our key objectives. That’s where GoTo’s IT management and support suite is a great fit because GoTo Resolve and Rescue make IT completely hassle-free.
• Strengthening channel partnerships: Today, the relationship between vendors, technology providers and channel partners has changed. The ecosystem is working more closely than ever trying to crack the challenging and uncertain business market. The provider-vendor relationship is no longer a simple reselling partnership but rather one that requires continual support, education, and value-add for the customers on both ends. At GoTo, partners and GSIs play a crucial role in the business. Leveraging our partner’s network and customer base to complement our direct sales effort is a core part of our business strategy. Going forward, to permeate in the India market on an organisational as well as on an industry level, together with channel partners and GSIs, GoTo will be at the forefront of developing business innovations that will make enterprises digitally future-ready.
• Listening to the customers: Nearly half (48%) of business leaders surveyed in GoTo’s IT Priorities 2023 report said it was very important to consider reducing the burden on IT teams when choosing new software. We believe that we can only become a trusted technological choice for customers when we clearly understand their needs. For example, today’s work happens in messaging apps on mobile devices, so when employees hit a roadblock and require IT support, they should be able to easily send a chat that allows help desk agents to provide instant resolution within the messaging platform. At GoTo, our product developments – from delving into mobile device management to integration of ChatGPT– are completely in line with today’s market dynamics. By having a micro-level understanding of the business landscape, our vision is to become the go-to IT management and support tool for enterprises of all sizes.

What are the main challenges faced by GoTo in India? What is your market positioning and brand USP?

The success of SaaS is greatly influenced by how it copes with the latest trends in technology, how it is keeping up with customer needs, and more importantly how it can be used to encourage the customers to adopt digitalised tools. Recognising how important it is for businesses to plan ahead and to address their digitalisation challenges, GoTo has dedicated customer success teams in place to help customers transition smoothly during new technology adoption. From collaborating with customers on change management to setting them up to reach their goals and make the most out of the product, GoTo’s customer success managers ensure they offer support throughout the customer’s digital transformation journey. Not only that, GoTo’s IT tools are simplified, can be deployed in minutes or hours, not days or weeks, and are user-friendly. A part of supporting our customers through their digital adoption or transformation also includes providing them with technical knowledge base through clear and comprehensive resources and training modules.

We believe flexible working software should lift businesses up, not weigh them down, and that includes IT support and management technology. While the pandemic accelerated adoption and awareness of digital workplace IT solutions, the key differentiation for GoTo is that ithas always been at the forefront of building cutting-edge innovation and our tools have been enabling workplaces to become smarter and more efficient, even before the pandemic.  With 20 years of pedigree, GoTo knows how to make IT easy, anywhere, with tools powerful enough for SMEs as well as large enterprises.

What are GoTo's plans for expansion in India?

India has the largest medium and small business base in the world after China. As per Government, the sector is expected to contribute $2 trillion and create 50 million additional jobs by 2024, as India aims to become a $5 trillion economy.

SMEs need to be more resilient, flexible, and ready to adapt. Research shows that in the past three years, companies that adopted technology across their organisation are now growing faster than those who didn’t.

Therefore, India is a key market for us andGoTo has witnessed strong growth last year, including 14% revenue growth across our IT solutions,and this successdemonstrates the effectiveness of GoTo’s robust IT managementand support portfolio. We will continue to innovate for our customers and deliver solutionswith channel partners that will help them improve efficiency in their business processes and generate optimal throughput for their technology investment.

With India being a key hub for SaaS-based technology with ever-increasing number of SMEs and various enterprises scaling up, we aim to expand here at both the corporate and product levels. Today, as the association between customers, partners and providers keeps evolving, capitalising on channel and ISV partnerships will be the key catalyst for us. Those partnerships will help us gain market share across the geography and strengthen our brand amongst customers.