CXO of the Week: Harishanker Kannan, Co-Founder & CEO, ProMobi Technologies

Harishanker Kannan is the Co-Founder & CEO of ProMobi Technologies. With an extensive experience of 20 years, he brings forth a wealth of expertise in technology & SaaS products. He holds an MS in Computer Science and has previously worked with six different software startups. He leads the day-to-day operations of ProMobi, including hiring, legal, and growth, and is responsible for the overall strategy and direction of the company.

In a recent chat with Harishanker Kannan is the Co-Founder & CEO, ProMobi Technologies, he talks about the Indian tech industry and what ProMobi Technologies has been up to.

1. Introduction - (A brief non-promotional profile)

ProMobi Technologies is a SaaS product company headquartered in Pune, India with offices in Gurugram, Hyderabad. It also has global operations in Canada, France, USA & Mexico. ProMobi Technologies’s flagship product Scalefusion MDM facilitates enterprise IT teams to have optimized control over the devices on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows operating systems.

Over 8000+ companies across 120+ countries trust Scalefusion for their mobile device management needs. Our products are designed to meet the growing needs in the field of device management technology across different operating systems and ownership models. Our mission is to make device management simple and effortless by providing world-class products and customer support.

The product portfolio of ProMobi also includes NuovoPay- a solution that helps Telecom Carriers, Resellers, and Finance companies to simplify mobile leasing, reduce EMI defaults and assure payment requisition. The third product is Nuovoteam which facilitates team communication within a secure environment and permits teams to share business documents and files and paves the way for group communication without compromising data security.

2. What is the vision behind ProMobi? Please tell us about the journey of the organization?

ProMobi Technologies is a SaaS company driven by the mission to build world-class SaaS products from India. Our vision is to create products and experiences that are admired and loved by companies across the globe and that solve critical business use-cases, making a social impact.

We initiated our journey in 2014 as a parent company to Scalefusion, which was then known as Mobilock Pro. It was our pioneer product. Launched as a kiosk-based locking solution compatible just with Android, Scalefusion evolved to become a full-blown mobile device and endpoint management solution for Android, Windows, macOS, and iOS.

We always strived to create an easy-to-use simple product that removes complexities and defines what we call an effortless user experience. And since our inception, we have continuously added more features and capabilities to our solution. Hence, by 2019, it became a solution that could cater sufficiently to manage endpoints for large businesses across various platforms. That was also the year when we rebranded to Scalefusion.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, almost all the companies converted to a remote working environment without any IT intervention. We gained a quick market penetration during that time when remote working and remote learning were on the rise, and Windows 10 device management was paramount.

Our capabilities have constantly evolved, making Scalefusion more and more industry-agnostic since then. Having cultivated OEM partnerships in around 22 countries, we have expanded our geographical presence to 120 countries, garnered over 8000 customers, and garnered quite a few awards during our tenure. Scalefusion has been named as a Leader in G2’s MDM Grid Report Summer 2022. It was also listed in Gartner Midmarket Context Magic Quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management in 2021. We were also named as one of the best IT management software by G2 in 2022.

We added two more products to our portfolio, Nuovopay, and Nuovoteam, serving in the SaaS space as an Enterprise Communication and Collaboration Solution and a Smartphone Financing Enablement Platform, respectively. We believe that this is only the beginning of our journey into the SaaS products market. We are all prepared for huge milestones to come.

3. What, as per you, are the three important things that ProMobi should be looking at today?

The first and the most important thing that we as a team or an organization have always been focussing on is building the product features that customers need and use, and making the products as easy to navigate as possible. This will continue to be what we look at. Our focus will continue to be on creating a product roadmap that aligns with the needs of our customers.

The second thing that ProMobi is focussing on is building a great team. Our employees are our assets and ensuring that their professional development is discussed regularly, they are provided with the L & D that they need to excel, and supporting them with intuitive benefits and programs is our prime agenda.

The third thing we are looking at is the exciting pace at which the SaaS space is evolving. We are learning from excellent examples all around the world that are making it big in the SaaS space and contributing.

4. Please tell us about Scalefusion?

Scalefusion is the flagship product of ProMobi. It is a mobile device and endpoint management solution that makes the monitoring and security of the device fleet in an organization, effortless and simplified. It allows companies to configure their mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, rugged devices, POS and digital signage, and other digital devices for business use across multiple operating systems such as Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows 10. Organizations can get started with their mobility journey without a specialized IT team and use Scaleufsion for several deployment scenarios such as dedicated/fully-managed devices, COPE (Corporate-owned, Personally Enabled) devices, and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

To maximize employee productivity, Scalefusion restricts device usage to business-related apps and websites, protects critical business data, and ensures seamless, authorized access for employees. The solution extends across a wide range of industries, including construction, healthcare, mining, logistics, transport, education, hospitality, telecom, retail, delivery, BFSI, and IT. With no complicated onboarding or complex dashboards & policies-driven flows, Scalefusion offers a simple, clutter-free dashboard that assists organizations in managing their endpoints.

We live by our motto to create an effortless MDM solution for our customers, and hence we like to affirm, ‘it’s simple, it’s Scalefusion’.

5. What is the USP of ProMobi that keeps the company ahead of the competition?

The USP of our device management solution is its simplicity and ease of use together with a robust support and customer success team that offers the best customer experience. To ensure our customers' success, we offer free year-round customer support and pre-sales consulting where our product experts provide assistance with business-specific use cases. Our goal is to assist our customers throughout their tenure with us, no matter how long it lasts, or how big the deployment may be. What sets us apart from others is that we build features that our customers need and use.

6. What will be the strategy for expansion and growth in the coming years?

Our strategy for Scalefusion in the coming years is first, to explore uncharted territories across diverse industries and craft solutions for niche markets. We have recently introduced Scalefusion Patch Management for Windows to help IT admins identify and remediate security vulnerabilities and improve the security posture of the organization. Along the same lines, we are also planning to introduce another feature, that is Mobile Threat Defense.

We are expanding on our OEM partnership base to drive the Scalefusion Infinity Partner Program in full swing. We plan to channel our endeavors into tapping new geographical regions and focusing on certain key areas. This will help us enhance our geographical footprint and we will be able to deliver maximum impact through Scalefusion, globally.

7. What is the scope, benefits & strategic deployment of SaaS for banks and FinTech companies?

As the BFSI sector continues to transform, cashless, digital, mobile, and on-the-go payments will be available to everyone around the world. These transformations are fueling the demand for SaaS as traditional banking organizations embrace mobility.

SaaS for BFSI presents ample benefits that go beyond primary advancements like operational excellence and enabling digital transactions. These products help organizations enhance employee productivity as the pen-paper model is replaced by the digital model. At the same time, SaaS elevates customer experience and satisfaction. The use of mobile applications, digital wallets, and banking kiosks are some of the factors that accelerate day-to-day banking operations. Data security is paramount for BFSI, SaaS products like Scalefusion bullet-proof the data and devices used in the industry.

Deployments of SaaS in BFSI need to be very strategic and must be implemented with caution, due to this being a sensitive market. Convincing organizations to adapt to cloud-based deployments from the traditional on-premise model will be the biggest challenge. Here’s how solutions like Scalefusion appear as the key, as it provides on-premise deployment for organizations that are skeptical about making an extreme shift to a cloud model.

8. How will work-from-home lead to a paradigm shift in the Fintech Companies?

With remote ‘everything’, the demand for digital payments saw an upsurge. Just like every other industry, the work-from-home phenomenon has led to a paradigm shift in the Fintech space as well. Fintech organizations deal with extremely critical data and maintaining a strong security posture has become more crucial than ever, since employees no longer work within the confines of an organizational network.

Maintaining data and network security, establishing firewalls, and enforcing VPNs while ensuring that remotely working employees have access to business resources to be productive is important. The expectations of the customers have also dynamically changed, and the footprint in physical fintech spaces and banks has reduced and this needs to be addressed with prompt customer service in a remote working environment- and an act of balance for sure.