B'hive of activity

Coimbatore's Bobby Balachandran does not just have out-of-the-box ideas. The entrepreneur is also keen on mentoring youngsters and giving them a chance to hone their business skills

February 22, 2012 04:46 pm | Updated 04:46 pm IST

IDEA TO IMPACT Bobby Balachandran and his team at Exterro. Photo: Special Arrangement

IDEA TO IMPACT Bobby Balachandran and his team at Exterro. Photo: Special Arrangement

A Coimbatore boy gets a degree in Computer Engineering from the Government College of Technology, flies to Oregon in the U.S. for a Computer Science Masters when “no one was using computers very effectively”, finds the campus a good mix of people from industry, with programmes geared for practical applications, does co-operative work with Intel, takes a full position for a year-and-a-half, learning and growing, finds the pace too slow, moves to “sunny parts”, works with top corporations on on-start systems, gets engaged to a college junior, returns to Oregon to “settle down”, joins a U.S. Bank for IT-business aligning, dabbles in all aspects of the business, discovers in himself skills to enhance systems in the legal department and manage chaos, quits to start his company Exterro, steers it to success, opens offices in New York, Chicago and Houston, and decides to make Coimbatore his next big area of operations.

So what's new? His product. “Suppose XYZ is suing Exterro,” booms Bobby Balachandran, president and CEO, adjusting his tall frame in the executive chair in his genset-supported office in Coimbatore. “It could be civil, criminal, IP, employment (routine) or SEC investigation. In every regulation, change or litigation, what's critical is evidence, which now revolves around e-data. All documents are in e-form, as in e-mails preserved in phone, tablet, PC, or social media such as Sharepoint, FB, Twitter, or our networks. This is retrievable.”

The Eureka moment

To do that the company hires consultants and lawyers at hefty pay-by-the-hour charges. It's a nightmare for big corporates staring at thousands of cases and shelling out millions on information gathering. “I saw a big opportunity here,” said Bobby. “Why can't I build a software platform to manage this? We came up with e-discovery (fusion platform) software to manage the whole process.”

Oh, he would only build world-class software. And let his consulting partners put them to use. “E-discovery is the foundation for everything,” he pitches his product. “It replaces manual work. It's governance, risk medication.” And no one was servicing that area. But, at this time, he had his second kid and his wife decided to quit work. “I too left my job. My leaving was big, but the bigger problem was to find four more guys to go with my vision.”

In 2005-2006, the enterprise product was ready. One of the first presentations was at a huge pharma company, which loved how it mitigated adverse references. The buzz went around, 150 big corporates came in. He had no problem delivering his expensive products. He found an Angel investor, and grew. “It's cutting-edge,” he beams. “The demand is high.” He had to go for 24 x 7 production. It was then destination India. “I have cultural moorings,” he says expansively, but the move wasn't purely emotional. “South India is a place I know, I could pin down my classmates.” In a smart move, he would pull back bright Coimbatore developers who had left the city for greener pastures. He descended on Coimbatore in 2007 and has already opened the third facility. “Growing rapidly,” he grins, implying that he needs people. Campus recruitment is fine, but they haven't had an opportunity to cut their teeth.

The solution? His B'hive Community Fair, which will be launched on February 25 in Coimbatore.

He would pick the 3-5 per cent smart, ambitious, hungry-for-adventure college students in their final, pre-final years, pay them, give them a choice to work on concepts (hives) such as social networking analysis of communication patterns, aggregating/retrieving and making sense of large amounts of information from social media and storage and intelligent retrieval of data. The course will go on for 6 months. “We will give students entrepreneurial skills, help them acquire a mindset that's relevant to society. We have learned skills that can create entrepreneurs who, in turn, can create jobs.” The students will come from all economic backgrounds, will get exposure on tech leapfrog, get empowered, think fresh. And intern at Exterro. “This is what I do best.”

Shape people

It gets bigger. “I want to make a profound impact, do stuff exponentially,” he says. “You can shape people for the better; rough diamonds can be polished.” He was driven, he says, but didn't have the opportunity. “If I had Exterro, I could have done a lot more.” He doesn't want skill sets to move to Silicon Valley, he wants to bring Silicon Valley here. “I want to be a role model.” You know, where the students will get “courage and confidence”. To his credit, his mentees in the “facility” seem fired up, and proud they're on to something big. Like Bobby.

Bobbyspeak

* Our students are like deer with headlights in their eyes. We leverage our strength to provide skill sets.

* You can't boil the ocean. So take just one problem, market the product.

* Terro is globe, X-factor, X-gen, so Exterro.

* Build the kernel and ramp up the rest.

* Don't feed the beggar; teach him to be an entrepreneur.

150 and counting

Exterro's enterprise class software is used by more than 150 of the largest and most sophisticated enterprises in the world such as Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Starbucks, Nike, Siemens, Visa, John Deere and Disney.

It partners with Catalyst, kCure, Hitachi Data Systems and CommVault on various projects.

Exterro has been recognised by Gartner as a ‘Visionary' in the 2011 E-Discovery Magic Quadrant.

Exterro Fusion® was voted by KMWorld as a “Trend-Setting Product for 2011.”

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.