Selecting a software is a humongous task for any organization. There are multiple software choices available but, SMBs are never sure of the one that will perfectly fit their requirement. Large companies have full time CTO and hire consultants to help them select the right software, but for small and mid-size companies, more often than not the computer admin acts as the consultant and the CTO. This leads to wrong selection of software, ultimately results in unnecessary hassle. “The core of the problem is lack of organised information and reviews on the software options available”, says Ankit Dudhwewala, Co-founder, SoftwareSuggest.com.
SoftwareSuggest solves this problem, by helping small and medium business select the right software. It has more than 2000 software listed, for 50+ business functions like Accounting, Human Resource, ERP and Clinic Management. Users can find in depth reports, screenshots, rating, buying guides, request for demo or opt communicating with a software analyst for any suggestion they need on software selection. The start-up calls itself a Software Discovery and Recommendation Platform.
The Start-up aims at earning revenue from advertisement from software vendors on the website and have managed to software vendors like Busy, Marg, Greytip and Profitbooks as their partners. They also boast of Times Group, V-Mart and Zari Silk as their clients. It is founded by Ankit Dudhwewala , 28, an MBA graduate from NMIMS, Mumbai, and Piyush Patel, 25, a Computer Science engineer from Dharmsinh Desai University, Gujarat. Including the founders they now have 9 members in the team.
But is there a market for Online Software Discovery in India? “From our experience, we can say that India is not ready to buy software online. However, they are ready to research online.” Says Piyush. As per the founders, SoftwareSuggest don’t intend to complete the transaction online but aims at bring the software search down to 3-5 software vendors fitting the requirement. The sales is then closed by the vendors, offline and in person.
The organisation claims to be the first in the Software recommendation space in India, however the world market has quite a players like Getapp.com and Capterra.com in this space. Both these organisation are doing exceedingly well and thus build a strong case for SoftwareSuggest. One of the player name SoftwareAdvice got acquired by Gartner in March 2014, and another player Credii.com with Indian founder was selected in the 500 Start-ups.
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