MobCast rides enterprise communication

By Nandita Singh

From the Startup Series

The way people communicate and engage with each other has evolved in the last decade from sms, calls, mails, Skype and social to now WhatsApp. In comparison, the enterprise communication has email as its mainstay still.

In today’s business scenario where people are always on the move and businesses are geographically spread enterprise communications needed a “mobile first” approach. With no concrete solution, enterprises (small and big) resorted to WhatsApp for their communication needs. However, not meant for businesses, WhatsApp had its limits in features, security and analytics. That was the thought that led to founding of MobCast about one-and-a-half-year back.

“We went back to the drawing board and worked on how we can make it easy and effective for enterprises to connect, engage and train its employees and other stake holders. MobCast came into existence with that exercise and feedback on its prototype from industry leaders,” elaborates Ashwin Roy Choudhary, co-founder of MobCast.

Today, leading businesses like SBI Life, Shoppers Stop, Cipla and Sanofi are using MobCast. With over 3 lakh people on the platform, the company seems to have got “it” right.

So, what exactly is MobCast?

It is secured, platform agnostic enterprise communication product that is easy to install and use. Using MobCast one could broadcast – videos, event invites, audios, images, office docs, PDFs. You can also run surveys and conduct quiz. It can support content in any language. “During Elections the NCP (political party) had used our platform to engage with their 10,000+ Karyakartas with over 1300 content pieces sent in Marathi,” says Choudhary.

The MobCast platform supports delivery of content on all devices. It smartly identifies the device capabilities and accordingly delivers content. For users with Android, iPhone and Windows – there is an app where users get an immediate notification through which they can access any new content sent by their company. Even if the user in the group does not have a smart phone – he gets an SMS summary of the content and a unique link clicking on which he will be taken to a responsive WAP site from where he could read the entire content without compromising on the quality.

As far as security goes there is a two-factor login where an SMS is sent from the mobile device to check authenticity; the content is stored in a format readable only by the mobile application so that cannot be shared with people outside the company; and remote wipe is also available. “When the person leaves the organization the admin can remotely wipe all data from the user’s mobile application,” explains Choudhary.

According to Choudhary, his biggest investment has been in right kind of talent. “Being very selective on the kind of people we wanted in our company, building the team took a great deal of effort and time,” he says highlighting that talent that can work on mobile technologies is not easy to find and afford, as many different technology competencies are required.

Going ahead, the company is looking at international expansion and is evaluating external funding options while its customer-base is growing in an encouraging manner.

“Market is maturing faster than ever and we will need to march at a fast pace. Being an early mover we have an advantage, but as a company we have to keep innovating to maintain leadership position,” says Choudhary.

Using the enterprise communication product MobCast one could broadcast – videos, event invites, audios, images, office docs, PDFs across languages and devices

Top Challenges

• Establishing presence in at least 3 new geographies.
• Hiring a number of driven and competent people for scale.

Company: MobCast Innovations; Year of Establishment: 2014

No of people employed: 25

Founders: Ashwin Roy Choudhary & Anup Burade

(MobCast bagged the Voice&Data Editor’s Choice Emerging Company of the Year 2014 Award)