Cashing on customer convenience

An easy accessible platform that offers Indian households access to the world of services, is Suvidhaa Infoserve. In an interview, Paresh Rajde, Founder and MD, Suvidhaa Infoserve shares the journey of his company.

Ramanjit Kaur (RK): Please shed some light on the inception of Suvidhaa Infoserve?

Paresh Rajde (PR): Suvidhaa Infoserve was established in 2007. It is a company floated to aggregate, commoditise, and distribute the services in most convenient form to the consumers. As a corporate, we are committed to develop new strategies and influence business transformations with smart thinking expertise. Our business expertise aims to address the prevailing gaps in various service sectors. Though India has grown very big on the technology side, but the actual benefits of the technologies are still out of common man’s reach. So, we created a platform from where we can integrate the various services and reach out to the common masses through our retail network for these various services.

RK: When did the company start franchising? What has inspired the company to take the franchise route to expand the business?

PR: We started franchising in November 2007. The presence of large network of small retailers like grocery stores has given us the idea of taking up the franchise route. As building a whole network from a scratch would be difficult, so we thought of using these small time retailers to expand the presence of our business by offering them our franchises.

RK: What Suvidhaa Infoserve is all about?

PR: We are basically in the aggregation of the services, delivering through the common platform. The motto of the company is to give convenience and value to all its customers who are looking for travel, utility, e-Governance and entertainment related services. We endeavour to influence business service modules by riding on the advantage of IT innovations. We work towards creating a technological environment which delivers high performance, saves time and money and higher customer satisfaction within the service sectors.

RK: What are the eligibility criteria for selecting the franchisees?

PR: We are looking at people with commercial location on the roadside with high footfall and where consumers can walk-in and buy the services. Besides this, an investment of Rs 30, 000 is required to take up the franchise, out of which Rs 20, 000 goes into the buying of computers and peripherals and Rs10, 000 in franchise fee.

RK: What kind of support and training is provided to the franchisees?

PR: We help our franchisees is setting up the franchised outlet, installing the systems and computer training to the franchisees, Besides this, we also provide training to the sales team of the franchisees.

RK: How many outlets does the company presently have?

PR: We are presently operating through 26, 000 franchised outlets across the nation.

RK: Any advice for the aspiring entrepreneurs?

PR: Look at the utility of the services or the facilities provided by the franchisor before taking up a franchise business.

RK: What are the future plans of the company?

PR: We are aiming to have one lakh outlets in the next few years across India.