Indian software firm targets SME market

India-based software company, Tally Solutions International Pte Ltd., has entered the fertile corporate market for IT solutions in the Philippines, targeting the cost-sensitive small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with its affordable software solutions.

Initially, the company has made a strategic partnership with members of the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), to capture the large corporate market serviced with the organization's members around the country.

Tally Solutions president for global operations Rokiah Ahamed was here in Cebu to personally touch based with the PICPA members during the latter's national convention held recently here.

In an interview with Ahamed she said that this year, the company has focused its marketing efforts to the Philippine market for the country's profound need for effective and affordable software especially for the small and medium scale companies.

Although, Tally Solutions has been providing software solutions to some multinational and large companies in the Philippines for about six years now, Ahamed said it is only this year that the company decided to make a strong presence in the country.

"We noted that there is a large number of SMEs in the Philippines that needing cost efficient, yet much effective software solutions, not only for accounting programs, but in other basic corporate requirements, like purchasing, sales, payments, and others," Ahamed said.

She said the company has carefully studied the SMEs issues and concerns in terms of software requirement, in the top list is the cost requirement.

"We know their [SMEs] issues, affordability and efficiency is the top priority," she said emphasizing that the company's software product offering has no "hidden cost."

In Cebu, Tally Solutions products are initially available in Silicon Valley stores as their partner-distributor. However, Ahamed said the company intends to expand its distributor-base in Cebu in the next few months.

The company has also collaborated with Intel to provide world's first concurrent multi-lingual business accounting and inventory management software.

"We believe that our products and services can best benefit organizations in emerging economies, particularly developing countries, like the Philippines. Therefore, we organized ourselves to primarily serve these markets and ensure that our products reach the maximum number of users in these countries," she said.

Ahamed emphasized that the company's software solutions for companies is specifically designed as much user-friendly, as most SMEs do not have budget for IT departments, and that using its software can be manned by any personnel, even the owner of a company.

This means, that every software solution offered by the company has eliminated all the difficult-to-memorize program commands, which do not necessarily need an IT-savvy user.

Traditionally, Tally Solutions has focused on packaged Business Accounting solutions for SMEs. Today, she said the company continues to deliver improvements on its original product, while expanding into Industry Specific Offerings, Enterprise Solutions and Education.

"Our multiple products and services are tailored to meet the needs of SMEs and large enterprises, across various industries and business verticals," she stressed.

Tally Solutions is a globally recognized name, with over two million users, in 90 countries. Based on IDC report, Tally's market share is larger than the combined share of all other accounting software brands in India.