Embee Software : The Eastern Czar

One of the stalwarts of the eastern region, Sudhir Kothari is a supporter
of healthy competition rather than supportive collaboration in the market. DQ
Channels explores more about Kothari in an attempt to unravel this star of the
east

Embee Software had previously remained steady with its performance throughout
the FY 09-10, although it could not repeat the glowing success it had in FY
07-08. Achieving a marginal growth at five crore last FY, the company maintained
its poise of having a positive balance sheet with the onset of the slowdown.

Embee Software is one of the biggest SPs in the eastern region having a
whopping Rs 30 crore revenue earnings till Q3 this year, whereas, the company
stood at Rs 154 crore in the last FY. Having secured a continued growth for its
topline over the years, Sudhir Kothari, Director of Embee Software is now keen
in reinforcing its bottomline. In this process, not only did it streamlined its
internal work processes, Embee also focused more towards consolidating its
business with existing product lines rather that entering into any major
collaborations.

SAP-related solutions and implementation has been its prime work area since
its inception. However, this FY, the company is more concentrating on networking
solutions with IT consulting, featuring as its second priority. In its business
ventures, the company is presently deploying a network project in Tata Steel in
Jamshedpur, sharepoint deployment for Tata Group of companies in Mumbai and
holistic SAP migration project in Kolkata, which together amounts to more than
Rs 1.2 crore.

we add value to our customer's needs and offer solutions in a different way, converging into a holistic project offering Sudhir Kothari, Director, Embee Software

"I was keen on focusing on the solutions space and presently, we are a
complete system integrator company. Our positive side is that we add value to
our customer's needs and offer solutions in a different way, converging into a
holistic project offering," Kothari said.

With a presence in six major locations in India including Kolkata, Mumbai,
Jamshedpur, Pune, Bhubaneswar and New Delhi, the bulk of Embee's revenue comes
from the SMB segment, which accounts for 50 percent of its total annual revenue
with the banking and manufacturing sector featuring as its second priority. The
company has been featured in the list of the top 10 powerful channel players in
The DQ Channels this year, owing primarily to its ability to reinforce its
decision and influence OEMs and vendor's policies. However, the man behind Embee
Software, Sudhir Kothari is humble to consider himself influencing the vendors.

"I am too humble to influence vendor decisions. All I can say is one needs to
be true to his business and follow the ethics if one aspires to become large,"
Kothari stated. "God is my only friend and I don't believe in friendship in
business," Kothari said while discussing the ground realities of the channel
business.

Bursting with self-confidence, Kothari opined, "One needs to clearly draw the
line between friendship and business. The time when I tend to become
professional in friendship, I lose the friend and the time when I enter into
friendship with a fellow businessman, I lose business." However, he is an ardent
supporter of healthy competition in the market and loves to out-run his
competitors. Renowned because of his risk taking ability, Kothari has evolved
Embee from a consumables company way back in 1987 to a fully fledged IT oriented
firm in 2003.

"In the system integration space in the east, we are the pioneers, and I am
planning to enter the top three list in the west too in the systems integration
portfolio," he said while discussing his business plans. Besides, the famed
risk-taker also believes in team-work with focus on quality personnel for his
company. "I induct people who have the ability to take fast and hasty decisions
with logical flow of thought. Decisiveness in business is crucial to its success
and one must learn to be decisive", he added.

Few people in his surroundings know about his desire for traveling. Always
slotting time from his busy schedule, Kothari has traveled across the world
except the Latin Americas with the culture-rich cities of London, Paris and
Barcelona in western and southern Europe featuring as his favorite. Besides, he
is a soccer and cricket enthusiast. While Kothari continues to remain an Arsenal
fan despite the club losing to Manchester United and Chelsea in the Barclays
Premier League this season, he is also a die-hard fan of Indian skipper Dhoni,
besides Sehwag and Tendulkar. Much to one's amazement, Kothari cherishes
Rosogollah, the exclusive Bengali sweet besides Jalebi and cherishes Kolkata
primarily because of its food and the people in the city.

"I love tranquility and the mad crowd perplexes me. I love Kolkata which I
consider as the ideal place for me, however, given a choice, I also prefer Paris
as the hometown," Kothari added.

History and numismatics is another key area of concentration for Kothari.
Television programs on Nat Geo and Fox History are some of Kothari's favorites
and he love places with rich culture and heritage.

Avishek Rakshit

avishekr@cybermedia.co.in