Spotlight

From ABC to ERP

Pacsoft wants to sweep the educational ERP market in the country, says Abhinav Singh

Since the concept is quite revolutionary, it takes us time to convince schools that they should shift to an educational ERP system Ali Sait Director Pacsoft

Pac Soft Solutions (Pacsoft) is on a drive to popularise its flagship educational ERP product, Lyceum, with Indian schools and colleges. What began as a ten-man venture today has a hundred people on its rolls with offices in Bangalore, Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad serving 255 locations across the country. The company has already signed up 850 educational institutions, including the likes of Bishop Cotton School for Boys (Bangalore), Frank Anthony Public School (Kolkata and Bangalore), Pathways School (Delhi) and the SS Singhania School (Mumbai). It now plans to target 10,000 educational institutions across the country over the next three years with Lyceum. Pacsoft is bullish about the educational market in India, and it recently formed a consortium with Intel, Microsoft and Citibank for a controlled learning programme. The company is addressing international markets in the Middle East and Singapore.

The average deal size for an educational ERP deployment is roughly Rs 3.5 lakh. A natural extension is systems integration. The company expects to get significant revenues from its systems integration business, which has standalone accounting products such as Acumen, Khata and Ca-Man. Pacsoft posted revenues of Rs five crore for the fiscal ending 2004, and is hoping to register Rs eight crore by March 2005. Says Ali Sait, director, Pacsoft, “We are targeting revenues of Rs 25 crore by the end of fiscal 2006. The growth will come from our educational ERP as well as from our system integration business.”

Moving on

Ever since Pacsoft first shipped Lyceum in 1991, it has become a buzzword among tech-savvy educational institutions. The Lyceum product family has three derivatives: the school ERP system, mylyceum.net (which is the connected learning module), and the e-governance module (targeted at education boards and education departments in the government ). mylyceum.net is an online portal that has information pertaining to a student and his or her academic growth curve. An institution has to subscribe to the portal that is hosted at Pacsoft’s site in Bangalore. The e-governance module helps education boards and government departments to share information.

SI activity to boost revenues

Pacsoft’s systems integration business is doing well. The company has successfully implemented local and wide area networks for the Indian Army and IOC. Sait says, “Since Lyceum will be implemented in many educational institutions, our systems integration business is set to leverage its benefits.”

Tough customers

However, selling ERP to schools has not been easy. As Sait explains, “Since the concept is quite revolutionary, it takes us time to convince schools that they should shift to an educational ERP system. As Lyceum’s implementation means a complete transformation in an educational department’s processes, the sales cycle can vary from 15-90 days.” Some educational institutions find it quite challenging to transfer their existing manual records to the new system, which brings complete transparency to processes. Pacsoft has also observed that educational institutions face regular budget constraints as they operate on yearly cycles; products therefore have to be pitched during the beginning of an academic session to gain management approval.

The consortium that Pacsoft has formed will train teachers and students to use the software, and help them aid their educational institutions. The tie-up’s goal is to consolidate the educational market by helping institutions acquire relevant technologies at a low cost.

Powered by .NET

Currently, Lyceum is available only on the .NET platform. Before migrating to .NET, Lyceum was also available on DOS and NetWare. Explains Sait, “We were looking for an integrated approach using the .NET platform as it helps in seamless integration and sharing of information.”

The road ahead

Pacsoft plans to extend its reach in the market through resellers. It also plans to tie up with specialised systems integrators. The product focus will continue, and going forward the company expects 70 percent of its revenues from products and 30 percent from systems integration.

Lyceum ERP for schools

Lyceum is a connected learning solution that lets Indian educational institutions offer anytime, anyplace access to students, educators and parents. The per user licence cost ranges from Rs 25,000 to Rs 8 lakh. Lyceum gives a platform to students and teachers to interact with each other. Parents are able to log in and check on their child’s performance, marks, fees, attendance and lessons completed for the day. They can have a virtual Parents Teachers Association meeting almost on a daily basis. The software also automates essential but time-consuming administrative tasks. The various modules of Lyceum include fee management, payroll management, attendance management, and marks and student monitoring. The integration of devices such as smart cards and handheld devices ensures that Lyceum eliminates most of the administrative headaches of school managements. Lyceum’s remote management capability helps educational authorities track the real-time progress of their institutions on multiple fronts. The e-governance module helps promote a seamless and transparent administrative environment for the educational sector.

abhinav@expresscomputeronline.com