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An engineer with a love for Web technologies
Ashish Bhatnagar, CTO, Kinobeo (mydala.com) has stayed
ahead of the learning curve. Today he works on scalable, high performance Web
2.0 technologies. By Manjari Juneja
Ashish Bhatnagar |
Ashish Bhatnagar, CTO, Kinobeo started his career with Logicool
India where he built various small and medium scale e-commerce Web sites on
the Microsoft platform and then moved on to HCL Technologies. In his heart,
he yearned to be back home in India and so he joined Venture Infotek as the
Project Head and worked with Teletech as a Project Manager where he automated
the company’s Web CRM system with features like coBrowse, WebCallback etc.
This was the same system that was used in the launch of the Sony PlayStation.
He also built a Credit Card Generation system for Tata, moved on to Bechtel
India to stay close to Web technologies and headed and built the WebProcurement
Automation System (WebPO). He was also the head of Web e-Governance Automation
System at Intelligent Information Systems Inc. (IIS), where he handled complex
government projects and helped implement the company’s product at various
US counties in North Carolina. He has also served as the Director- Engineering
at ibibo.com where he worked on various Web products.
Bhatnagar said, “I have been fortunate to always stay ahead of the learning
curve and to work on some amazing technologies like CTI, building complex Web
products with sizing of over 5,000 function points and working on scalable,
high performance Web 2.0 technologies. I consider my biggest career achievement
to have automated businesses processes for various companies.”
“The biggest challenge that I encountered was handling and building highly
scalable Web oriented designs especially in e-Governance products as the complexity
of the product in terms of valuation of properties made scalability and performance
highly critical. At ibibo.com, the initial products were not ready to scale
up with the growing traffic. The biggest challenge that we encountered there
was to reengineer the product to achieve high scale and performance,” he
added.
Engineering was always close to Bhatnagar’s heart and he loves to identify
simple solutions to address complex problems. As he moved forward in his career,
he developed an interest in new-age Web technologies, which he considers to
be an amazing communication platform that allows both consumers and businesses
to connect effectively with each other. It was immensely gratifying for him
to be able to build these virtual communication bridges.
Current job
mydala.com is a ‘power of group buying’ social commerce portal. Bhatnagar
views his present job as enabling and simplifying the process of connecting
merchants with consumers in the fastest and most-efficient manner possible,
harnessing Web technology as the platform.
He said, “Being a start-up, we realized that both challenges as well as
achievements come fast, and you need to be on your feet at all times in order
to be able to handle them. We analyzed all aspects of what consumers could possibly
need and tailored our technology platform to address those needs.”
Since e-commerce is still opening up in India, the company realized that several
Indian Web consumers would be skeptical and that they would have questions or
need assistance before they could be convinced to buy the deals online, despite
such huge discounts. Therefore, it enabled Web-chat, automation of CRM systems
and implemented Single Sign on (FB), easy payment options, etc.
Role as a CTO
As a CTO, he focuses on two aspects: firstly operations and cost (how to ensure
that the IT infrastructure is fast and effective and figuring out where it can
be hosted so as to ensure a high level of effectiveness) and secondly, technology.
Bhatnagar stated, “Cloud computing is moving quickly in India but the cloud
is hosted somewhere else. Therefore, if we would have taken advantage of those
cloud services, our site would have performed slowly. We evaluated and hosted
a data centre which is in India and, as a result, our site works faster. Secondly,
the available Microsoft and other platforms are expensive and non-scalable in
terms of growth. So we opted for the open source LAMP platform, to be able to
meet the objective of integrating mydala with various other open source applications.”
He has also focused on process automation in a simplified manner. For example,
mydala has enabled a voice payment gateway, mobile payments and partnered with
i-mint, India’s first multiple partner consumer rewards program with over
nine million members across India, to offer a varied and simplified portfolio
of payment mechanisms through the Internet. He believes that a successful e-commerce
site needs strong user tracking and user activity analysis, which they have
implemented using various technologies and processes, such as tracking transaction
failures, user exit points, etc.
He added, “We realized that the product needed to be quickly integrated
with various other Web sites/portals to mutually leverage each other’s
strengths and offer the customers a wholesome experience. Keeping that in mind,
we designed the entire architecture in the FACADE model—an Open API, highly
scalable structure, which allowed us to integrate with other Web sites rapidly
without needing to do any new programming. Keeping scale in mind and foreseeing
infrastructural issues that we may face in the future, we
have already moved to a high performance environment which helps mydala.com
become relatively future-proof by providing it with the capacity to scale up
to ten times its current volume. We have also ensured that upgrades in the future
will not be time consuming and effort intensive. The beauty of mydala.com is
that it is effective despite being structured in a simple way.”
Bhatnagar is also harnessing social media as a medium to generate real-time
feedback on consumer preferences, for example deals/discounts on parties, shopping
and travel.
“The initial trends are encouraging in terms of reverse inquiries from
merchants wanting to associate with mydala in various verticals including garments,
jewelry, education etc. for showcasing their deals. At the same time, we are
also witnessing encouraging consumer behavior and a mindset favorable to mydala.
Repeat customers who have benefited through mydala.com regularly come back and
ask for more than just the daily deals that we showcase.”
“We know that we have established a robust business model and have tested
the waters to fine-tune our systems. We are gearing up to expand and monetize
on our sizeable merchant-network base and the relationships that we have established
with them with the intent of becoming a one-stop solution for consumers who
have started trusting mydala as a platform that helps them save money,”
said Bhatnagar.
Also, currently, he is evaluating CRM tools and trying to incorporate some Web
tools to generate faster operations internally.
Plans for next year
Bhatnagar said that 2010 and 2011 would see him focusing on the mobile world,
where the first significant change was going to happen with the 3G launch which
would result in some amazing Web and mobile products rolling out. The industry
would also move towards enabling convergence of e-commerce and m-commerce in
India as is visible from a lot of applications and technologies that working
in that direction.
In the coming year, mydala would require high scalability in terms of technology
and infrastructure, as the Web and mobile traffic increases (especially once
mobile 3G is available).
Bhatnagar commented, “We have started putting new business plans and process
enhancements in place. One of the biggest areas for me is to maintain my focus
on developing a comprehensive IT strategy that covers all the aspects of mydala.com,
and not just a piecemeal approach. We must constantly keep improving every aspect
to make things more effective. My first priority, of course, is to keep the
technology and the process execution simple. Secondly, we will focus on executing
effective, agile processes of building and enhancing mydala.com. The immediate
next priority will be to further automate the processes to make operations more
effective. At the same time, we will need to be on a constant look-out for aptitude
engineers, who can help meet and fuel our expansion plans and also improve business
processes innovatively.”
2010 expectations
2010 looks promising, he felt. The industry remains cautiously optimistic and
emerging trends are being monitored closely, at the same time, the improvements
and recovery are happening and that’s important in order to avoid the creation
of a bubble.
In the technology workforce, aptitude engineers who believe and use technology
as a platform to facilitate the enablement of process and business and make
the business simple, are emerging.
He said, “Our biggest focus area in terms of technology this year is going
to be on simplifying the process of connecting merchants with buyers, along
with enhancing payment mechanisms, automating various processes for merchants
and buyers and managing to keep our technology scalable at the same time.”
Sharing his success mantra, he concluded, “I believe that leaders should
have a clear vision of what they would like to achieve and have the passion
to achieve that.”
manjari.juneja@expressindia.com
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