Here for you is the story of the man behind a firm that makes chartered accountants’ lives easy. Read and meet one of the founders of CA Prowin, M. Kumara Muniasamy.
People say that, Behind every successful man, there is a woman’ But here, there are two. When I spoke to Kumara Muniasamy, I realized how a beautiful and supportive family makes a man successful yet grounded.
This is the story of a boy who got his old slambook after years that reminded him of his desire to become a GOOD BUSINESSMAN. He does not get tired of talking about his wife and daughter. He paints the walls on the weekends as a part of social services. And loves to spend time with his 10 years old daughter Keerthi Prada.
A product of Big Eye Global Solutions, CA Prowin is one of the bestselling software that the CA firms in India use. It is a product of Big Eye Global Solutions.
Read the excerpts here:
What is “Big Eye Global Solutions” and what are your future plans?
Big Eye solution was started in Jan. 2019. We are registered as a private limited company. There are two directors, one is myself and the director is Radha Kasthuri(His Wife). We both are directors of this company.
We are planning to expand globally. Calling out that his target customer base that are CA firms or companies are mostly from Australia. He is focused to take it (CA Prowin) to the next level to global market.
He concludes by saying, ‘Since we are also getting some leads from overseas customers… We are planning to reach globally.’
Talking about the parent company, of CA Prowin, Big Eye Global Solutions. Kumara says, ‘CA Prowin is one of our products which deals with the customer (CA Firms). Big Eye Global Solutions is a private limited company’ Through the parent company, Kumara and his team help their customers to scale up their businesses by adopting digitalization.
He continues, ‘So it’s a full-stack development service for custom application development. We help on B2B and B2C2C customers to run their business in an effective way using technologies. And, telling us about the services he provides to his customers, Kumara says, We do consulting, product development, and digital marketing services. He also told us that he has some plans on his bucket list that are getting developed and will soon launch their Beta versions.
What is CA Prowin? What is the idea behind the name?
Yes, CA Prowin is one of our products of Big Eye Global Solutions. This product is mainly helpful for the Chartered accountant. It’s a PARADISe version software hosted on the cloud which helps the CA firms to manage their work properly. They can rely on this software to understand what is going on? What is completed? and What is the timeline? And Whether we reach the timeline or not.
Since nowadays the CA firms and GST services have been strict with the deadline, so CA Prowin software will surely help the CA firms to manage their projects and job work in a better way.
Throwing light on the name, he laughs and says When we were choosing the name, what we were thinking was to focus only on the CA audience for this product. So CA is a Chartered Accountant… P-R-O. is a Professional… CA Professional can be using this software.
That’s where the name came as CAProwin CA for chartered accountants and professionals can be using this software.
How did you get the idea of starting up a business with software?
He told us that getting into a service-oriented business requires a well-researched business plan. The question was choosing a missing product that can prove to be very good in the market.
‘First of all, we are into Service-oriented industries. We thought of getting a product which should be very good in the market and at the same time we needed to have the rooted features when compared to our competitors.’
Once he was talking to an Auditor and he got the idea. He told us that the CA firms work on multiple projects at the same time. So we felt that this is the gap that we are able to fill with our ideas, to help the CA firms better manage their work.
And then, We started engaging with the customer. We talked to the many CA firms and understood what the problems they faced were? And then, We listed three to four items before we started.
What were the challenges you faced on the personal and professional front while setting up the business?
I am not from a business background. And, since I am the first entrepreneur from my family, everything is new to me and everything is a lesson I learn from. Even setting up an office was quite hard for me.
There was a time when we were not able to find the right place and when we finally got a place, it was far away from public transport stations. And it became tough for employees to travel to that place. So we need to think about all the circumstances and employee benefits so that it was, Very challenging.
The second thing is the client interactions. He told us how he did not get the right support in the initial stage and was not able to get references even from family and friends as people got busy with their schedules.
Then he used social media to interact with the customers. He says, ‘I used to put some blogs. Whenever the customer was in a group and asked for any help, I used to support them. By that way, the clients started coming up.’
So these were the challenges. One is on the employee part, one is on the office part. and another is on acquiring the customers. These are the three things I faced at the initial stage of starting the business.
What is different about CAProwin from its competitive brands?
Kumara says that ‘I have not gone through much about the competitors’ website.’ He believes that rather than looking at what others are doing he should concentrate on what his customers need. When he got his first clients in the initial stage. He was not looking up for what others are serving, but he chose to interact and understand the demands and needs of his clients. Telling
us how he does that, he says, “At the end of the day, the customer is going to use the product. Right! So we usually talk to the customer.”
He continues saying, “At the end of every month. We have a review with the selected customers, who are helping us to make the customer experience to the next level. So we understand what they need and based on that, we start developing the product.”
How tough is it to survive and grow in this market?
We have developed a few models which were not on the competitor’s website, but sooner or later they have developed the same thing. He says that based on the demand and observing market trends, the other companies have changed something or more.
About his approach, Kumara continues, ‘So, that is why I believe in customer support’
The key to growing and surviving in the market is first, the customer support we are giving to our customers. The second thing is all about the customization based on the customer needs.
Revealing his counterparts’ approach, he said that the other companies offer ready-made products and ask their customers to use the product the way it works. But he makes sure that his customers get customized experiences as per their firms’ needs. So, that way we are able to survive in this market.
How is this software helping chartered accountants?
He told us that generally CA firms face three major challenges related to their job work and CA Prowin helps them to understand and counter those three basic things that are, First, Who is working on what job. Second, Whether the job is completed or not. And the third one is, If the job is profitable or not?, and How and When will this job be completed?
Resource Handling is a very tough job for the CA Firms. First finding the resource, and then handling and analyzing the profits are the additional difficulties. It has been observed that poor management leads to the revenue leakage and there, the software plays the role and help these firms reduce their revenue leakage. The tool also helps the firms to know which chartered accountant is working on what project and they can do this by tracking the employee performance report. He concludes, ‘So these are the challenges CA Firms face and this software helps them to make their life easier to understand what is done, what is not done, whether the job is profitable or not, they can be able to understand that revenue is leaked. At the end they are able to win using this software, they can win their challenges.’
