“4G or 5G, Tanla has a robust infrastructure to handle any spectrum or volume” — Sriram Vinjamuri, COO, Tanla

NSE-listed Tanla Solutions Ltd recently appointed Sriram Vinjamuri as Chief Operating Officer. Vinjamuri is a high impact leader with nearly two decades experience in Indian telecom and an overall experience of 25 years. At Tanla, he is responsible to ensure the achievement of annual targets through operational excellence.

Vinjamuri took some time out for an interaction with VoicenData to share his views on how Tanla is at the cusp of transforming into the 'leading enterprise cloud communications provider' globally. Few excerpts of the interview:

VoicenData: To begin with could you map the journey of Tanla since inception to this date?

Sriram: Tanla had started its journey as the new millennium set in with a small group of mobile messaging experts, with base in Hyderabad, India, to create a world-class cloud messaging service. From 2000 till now, Tanla has come a long way. Today, the company is proud to have achieved global leadership in our domain as one of the largest Cloud Communication providers in the world.

We are innovating the way the world communicates, continuously raising the bar through enhanced speed, ease, and simplicity of our Cloud solutions. Over the years, we have developed and delivered cutting-edge technology and products which meet the discerning needs of a diverse clientele, from enterprises to carriers across geographies.

The standards we have set are industry-defying, difficult to surpass even by us. But then, that’s what we do best, beating us at our own game.

VoicenData: Tanla’s USP is in providing cloud-based mobile communications. In the current scenario, how is the company placing its services to enhance mobile connectivity solutions for the customers?

Sriram: Tanla has built a world-class infrastructure with a fully integrated platform that can handle huge volumes of voice and data communications over the cloud. Our infrastructure is built on a distributed architecture with 100% disaster recovery and with full redundancy. To quantify, we process over 90 billion business communications annually.

VoicenData: Over the years, in terms of numbers, how many customers/clients has Tanla garnered?

Sriram: Tanla has built a very strong clientele that includes the marquee players in the banking, e-commerce, retail, consumer products, insurance, automotive, DTH and the Indian government. Tanla is responsible for the execution of campaigns and operations for about 2000 major enterprises and a large pool of  SMEs.

We are working on a strategic plan to build a brand that can be the go-to place for any companies’ communication needs.

VoicenData: Recently Tanla has made an acquisition. How do you see this acquisition important for boosting Tanla’s business?

Sriram: In the month of August 2018, Tanla Solutions acquired Karix Mobile (formerly known as mGage India) and its wholly-owned subsidiary Unicel from GSO Capital Partners, a Blackstone company, at an enterprise value of ₹340 crore.

Combination of Tanla’s strong telco partnerships and Karix’s enterprise selling expertise comes as a boost in building a global powerhouse in the cloud communications domain. As the strategic plan for our future is underway, we are focusing on the space for innovation. The combined entities will unarguably be a cloud communications behemoth with innovation-led offerings in the digital space for our partners and clients alike.

VoicenData: How far has Tanla considered the adoption of the latest technologies like Blockchain, Chat bots, etc. and how do you see these technologies transform your services in the domestic as well as international markets?

Sriram: Tanla is a diversified group of enthusiastic individuals focused on future technologies and trends. Bringing in the latest tools and applications to improve the versatility of our existing infrastructure and the product lines has been the prime agenda of the company. The latest developments after the announcement of Karix acquisition is paving the path to serve international markets to build a healthy ecosystem.

Interestingly the Indian government and telecom regulatory bodies are imposing companies to comply with the latest technologies like Blockchain to enhance customers data security and privacy. Since Tanla is the national leader in the industry, we are happy to shoulder the responsibility of protecting user’s data to a great extent. These technologies can help us in eradicating the current issues that happen at the edge of the service cycle.

VoicenData: Could you share some Gyan on the market dynamics of enterprise messaging and how is Tanla at its crux to render the services?

Sriram: The market has a wide scope for aggressive expansion with the ongoing digital transformation. As there are many companies that still operate in the traditional models for communication, Tanla has process automation solutions that can increase the efficiency of these SMEs at a very high rate.

VoicenData: The buzz on 5G is global. How is Tanla positioning itself to offer services for the 5G spectrum and also simultaneously upgrading to the ever-evolving 4G spectrum?

Sriram: 4G or 5G, Tanla has a robust infrastructure that can handle any spectrum or volumes. We can say that we are very much ready and excited to face the future challenges.

VoicenData: Last-mile-connectivity is one of the main mandates of the present Government. How is Tanla enabling this vision for the Government?

Sriram: Tanla’s mighty infrastructure has built in bespoke solutions for the organizations to customize their campaigns. The beauty is that our Infra handles multilingual communications that can be catered to any corner of the Nation.

As a proud moment to share, we have been successfully facilitating Mann ki Baat campaign since its inception. And also achieved an amazing benchmark of processing 6 million+ minutes in a single day.

VoicenData: What are the company’s short-term and long-term plans?

Sriram: Post-acquisition of Karix, we have been working on designing various strategies that can grow our revenues, investments and can build effective collaborations. At this moment we would say that the company is on the growth curve and will soon domain the global market in a big way.