Flying High on Cloud Technology: G7CR Technologies

Technology has taken the responsibility of actual business transformation, this statement has a wide meaning. In order to understand today’s digital and business transformation, Faiz Askari of SMEStreet interacted with Dr. Christopher Richard, Founder and Managing Director, G7CR Technologies and understood some cutting edge trends regarding how technology is shaping the transformation of business.  

Faiz Askari: Share a brief about G7CR’s journey since its inception

Christopher Richard: We are a 10-year-old company, we have been providing high end and premium technology consulting for top Enterprises in India and overseas. The cloud division is relatively new, about 3 years old and we started this division with our continued focus to drive value for our customers, partner and our people. Being recognised as a country partner of the Year in just 3 years is a paramount of an achievement for us and an outright acknowledgement that value system is in the right direction.

Faiz Askari: What are the differentiating factors between you and your competitors?

Christopher Richard: The biggest differentiator factor is our vision to disrupt the partner space. We entered into a market were partners acted as a reseller, took the margins as a transactional deal and did not give any other value as a partner except for billing/transacting and charged for every other service. The whole model that OEMs sold to the partners was that the margin given was for minor part of the revenue and they will make lot more by charging the customer for the services. This is where we disrupted, we believed in a system where; when a business is hosting on Cloud they should not be paying for services to manage them. Our biggest winnings points are, we extended our high quality services, premium technical skill sets and ensure these cost were a part of the margins we earned from the OEM and there was no additional burden on the OEM.

Faiz Askari: What kind of opportunity you see in India and overseas market

Christopher Richard: As far as the Indian market is concerned, we currently see that the market is still not mature and only a small percentage has reached its true potential. The true potential of Cloud should be firing at 300% growth per annum.

We are exploring overseas market this year and will be able to comment on this the next year.

Faiz Askari: Who are your prominent customers? 

Christopher Richard: Are customers are in the likes of Subex, Symphony, Toyota, SBIL , Quest, Railyatri and tons of innovative tech start-up like Knolskape, Ask sid, Karomi, e-Retail.

Faiz Askari: What are the expansion road map for the company?

Christopher Richard: We are currently at 50 crores, with the current projects we will comfortably close our books this year at 100 crores and next year financials at 200 crores.

FA: Are you looking to raise funds, where would you like to spend the money?

CR: We may have our first funding this year. But, honestly that is not something we are aggressive about. We have only spoken to people who have approached us proactively. We may raise around USD 20 million this year, a firm has reach out to us and the discussions are in progress.

FA: According to your observations,  what level of adoption you witness for cloud and cloud based applications in India? 

CR: While Cloud brings in tremendous value, we notice that Indian market is yet to mature in terms of understanding that value that is why we think the market is still untapped. We see quite a percentage of marketing buying Cloud for all the other reason than its true value. We see customer buying Cloud because OEM is promising GTM, Discount, Free bees, Business in turn. The market is yet to mature in terms of the value and potential Cloud brings in to scale as need and paying only for what you use. That being said, we are seeing this trend changing, we are seeing more and more customers understating the value of the Cloud and running their applications in a secure, scalable and cost effective fashion without looking for free bees and discounts.

FA: Which are the areas of business processes that requires cutting edge cloud solutions?

CR: We at G7 CR believe cloud is for everyone. We see market adoption for AI, ML and IoT, OEMs like Microsoft have made this aspect very easy and Implementing these services on Cloud is faster, scalable and optimal. Like Anant Maheshwari, president of Microsoft India said I quote” Nearly eight per cent of GDP components in India are currently impacted by digital technologies and by 2021, 60 per cent of those will be impacted by AI.”

FA: What are your views on the security aspect of cloud computing?

CR: We are generally surprised with the notion that Cloud is some how not secure or needs to be discussed as a hot topic. Our view is that Cloud is lot more secure than private Data centres simply because OEMs burn billions of dollars in physical security, research and development to keep their Data centres secure. They build advance technology on their platform to make it easy for you to further secure your application and they can afford to keep us with advancements in vulnerabilities and threats. We believe this comes more from the adaptability aspect that if don’t see my server, I am not sure if they are safe. The bottom line is security is a lot easier on Cloud.