CXO of the week: Amit Prasad, Founder and CEO, SatNav Group

SatNav Technologies is a company that was established in 2004 in Hyderabad and has become a global leader in cloud-based IT and custom mapping solutions. The company's founders, including Founder, MD, and CEO Amit Kishore Prasad, have played a pivotal role in its journey since inception. At the core of their offerings is QuickFMS, a facilities management software used by over 1.8 million users across six countries. 

QuickFMS is known for its versatility, offering modules such as property management, space management, asset management, and maintenance management, among others. The company offers QuickFMS in various deployment models with a transparent pricing structure that includes one-time deployment fees, mapping or customization charges, and software license fees tailored to the chosen model.

Amit Prasad is the Founder and MD of the SatNav Group with business interests in IT Products, Preschool, corporate Creche, and Web Reputation Management. Amit’s flagship business is SatNav Technologies. Having launched multiple products earlier, the current focus is on
QuickFMS Facilities Management SaaS software that has over 1,800,000 daily users, across
50+ customers in 6 countries. His other venture Sunshine Preschools focuses on Corporate
creches. It is a Joint Venture with a UK Education consulting firm and has a network of 30+ branches in 10 cities in India. Amit is also the promoter director of a Digital Marketing Company that focuses on the Healthcare vertical.

Recently we have engaged in an interview with Amit Prasad, Founder and CEO, of SatNav Group. He talked about exciting projects that SatNav Group is currently working on and also, he spoke about the latest trends and developments in the IT industry and much more.

Introduction.

It has been an interesting and exciting journey; A School Prefect in 1990, College President in 1991-95, 2 Proprietorship companies set up in 1992, 4 concurrent Degrees acquired by 1997, Leading ISO implementation in 1997, Launching an Ecommerce Portal in 1998, Youngest CEO of a listed company’s group entity in 2000, Launching India’s 1st Navigation Portal in 2001, Building a high-end GIS Applications team in 2002, Launching India’s 1st GPS Navigation Product in 2005, India’s 1st Preschool &Daycare chain in 2005, Global Marquee VC Investment in 2008-12, Expanding in CAFM domain in 2013, Expanding Corporate Creche in 2015, Launching a SaaS product in 2016, Media Panels, Speaker dozens of times in different cities across India and a couple of them abroad too. Now scaling the businesses across various verticals and geographies since 2022.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur, and how did you get started in the IT industry?

After my Engineering, I joined as a CAD/CAM trainee in a newly formed division of Satyam Computers in 1995, which gave great growth opportunities as the business grew rapidly. Later, bringing various new technologies and services of global standards to India was my passion when I stumbled upon the idea of implementing GPS navigation while traveling in the US. My business idea was approved as an Entrepreneur incubation program of the company I worked for, incidentally, the only project they ever funded. 

What are some of the most significant challenges you have faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge as a first-generation entrepreneur has been raising funding for the products I have developed. IT Products need deep pockets and it is only with help from Family, Friends, and Business Associates who believed in my vision from time to time that I was able to overcome this challenge which would have otherwise made realizing our goals impossible.

What, as per you, are the five important things that SatNav should be looking at today?

First is growth, size earns you respect and we have to now show that we can scale up, we showed growth last year and would like to do more. Second is to have a market presence beyond India where we are already recognized as a leading player, we are currently having our product deployed in 6 countries, and we should deepen our presence there. Thirdly, in order to achieve both the above, we need a strong set of partners and resellers who believe in the Facilities Management space so they also see the potential, we already have partners in 11 countries and we need to strengthen our engagement with them. Fourth is the Product being upgraded with the latest technologies, it is important to keep abreast with competitors and also whatever is new technology from time to time, which we consistently do every quarter. Fifth is Fanatic customer service, we always ensure the best possible customer service irrespective of the size of the customer, we need to keep raising the bar there to give them more than they expected when they signed up for our product.

What are some of the most exciting projects that SatNav Group is currently working on, and what impact do you hope to have with these projects?

Our entire focus is on our product QuickFMS, we already have 8 modules that are deployed for various customers, post-pandemic based on market demand assessment we have added two interesting modules, Hot Desking as an extension to our Space module and Remote Monitoring Checklist as an extension to our Helpdesk Module. Through Hot Desking we are enabling our customers to save significant amounts of money by not opening up offices that are surplus, by optimizing the usage of those that are open. Their employees now book seats and depending on the number of bookings, admin teams through us are able to contribute to the bottom line of their companies. Our Remote Monitoring module helps companies save on travel costs and Managers get daily morning updates in real-time on how their locations across any geography are functioning, against a checklist that is predefined to suit every scenario. This helps them run their businesses better.

How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the IT industry, and what strategies do you use to ensure that SatNav Group remains at the forefront of innovation?

Reading a lot and from various sources is the only option here, and fortunately today there is no dearth of information available to those who search for it. Following leading companies in our space and the industry landscape in general, being a part of industry forums where we hear about what others are doing are also key efforts that need to be made. To remain at the forefront of innovation we always strive to earmark a decent part of our earnings for improvement of our product, but truth is that there is no end to it and we constantly strive to keep investing more and more.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who are just starting out in the IT industry?

Don’t take up anything without doing in-depth market research which includes competition analysis. Aspiring and recently minted Entrepreneurs I meet at industry forums or as part of mentoring groups are so convinced that their idea is amazing, without even having benchmarked it. A few who have, are so confident about their own idea or their own prototype that they believe their output will be much better than the ones that exist. Entrepreneurs need to remember that only a small percentage of start-ups survive and an even smaller percentage of those make it to the big league. So when the risks are so high, one needs to be very careful before staking your career in that area.