With startups playing a larger role in the global economy than ever before, it can be easy to lose sight of a simple fact: Becoming a successful entrepreneur is both extremely difficult and rare. Even if you’ve got the best product or service out there, it still comes down to possessing the right traits and skill-sets as an entrepreneur.
Raj Kellampalli, Founder and CTO of NetScore Technologies, has over 15 years of IT consulting experience. He posseses expertise in Procure to Pay (P2P), self service procurement, sourcing and supplier self service with proven experience in implementing enterprise wide procurement applications using SAP SRM and Ariba buyer. He has also worked across industry verticals, including Retail, Software, Government, Telecom, Higher Education and Healthcare.
Envisioning a Future to Help Small Businesses
While doing SAP consulting, Raj was looking for opportunities to build a consulting practice. SAP being a mature market with very few opportunities for upstarts, Raj was looking for new ERP technologies and stumbled upon NetSuite cloud ERP that was catering to the SMB market. This was a promising technology with a growing market. Therefore, he decided to take the plunge.
Raj started off with a mission to get experience in NetSuite and build a consulting practice in the future. He envisioned a future that will help small and medium sized companies innovate and respond quickly to changing customer needs using NetSuite cloud solutions. NetScore Tech isn’t the first venture in the market for Raj, he has prior experience starting Infoage Media and EXL Healthcare in film distribution and healthcare industry sectors, respectively.
In his own words, Raj would describe himself as a “driven and hardworking entrepreneur with a passion to make a difference and raise above the crowd.”
Responsibilities as a Young and Dynamic Entrepreneur
As an energetic entrepreneur, Raj aims towards creating an entrepreneurial culture in the organization, a tolerance for failure and building the processes and systems to scale the business. He attempts to provide a solid platform to nurture and groom technical talent, while also building their careers at NetScore, so as to give them the ability to try new things. Providing diverse exposure to different technologies, working on personality/soft skills development are some of the key opportunities for the team, to which Raj looks forward to, which would prepare them to excel at serving their customers.
Having prior experience in IT and ERP supply chain was a starting point for Raj to move into the cloud ERP market space. With NetScore Technologies, Raj is helping entrepreneur’s run their business in the cloud by providing high quality and cost effective NetSuite cloud ERP/e-commerce services and solutions.
NetScore Technologies: Providing Cloud ERP services
NetScore is currently on a growth curve and they are expanding their technology stack on the NetSuite platform to offer cost effective and scalable ERP/e-commerce solutions for retail and wholesale distribution customers.
Some of the recent initiatives include the NetScore Mobile App, which integrates NetSuite with iPad/Smartphones, streamlines sales, purchases and inventory by scanning Barcodes/QR codes and processes data in NetSuite. This app helps retail/wholesale businesses selling products in store or for handling warehouse operations.
NetScore Product Configurator is another app developed for light manufacturing companies that helps customers to place an order for a customized product based on the attributes selected and builds the product in real time in NetSuite. This feature is enabled on the Estimate, Quote & Sales orders.
NetScore Recurring Billing App helps in automating the billing and payment process in NetSuite for e-commerce and ERP customers. Customers will be charged based on their subscription billing frequency and their cards will be connected to these subscriptions. It helps to manage both upgrades & downgrades, also providing an option to the customer to renew & cancel the subscription. Benefits include Flexible payment schedules and improve collections.
NetScore Loyalty App provides automation capabilities for NetSuite customers in the area of loyalty. It provides a standard loyalty solution for B2B and B2C customers. It is based on basic points-based system utilizing NetSuite transaction functions -Gift Certificate, Cash Sale and Invoice.
The NetScore Marketplaces connector is an innovative plug-in from NetScore that integrates NetSuite with online market places like Amazon, eBay, Newegg, JET, Wal-Mart and Sears. The one plugin that is scalable and can connect with multiple market places saving time, integration issues and money.
Staying Focused on his goals
Raj has a long way to go forward, but whatever success he has had so far, he attributes it to, his willingness in staying focused on his goals despite setbacks, the courage to try new things and adapting to circumstances and get the most out of it. However, he doesn’t relies on his laurels and always works hard for a better tomorrow.
According to Raj, ambition, the need for achievement, tenacity, leadership qualities, adaptability and continuous learning, are some of the qualities that constitute a person to become an entrepreneur. He further adds, “Entrepreneurship is an inborn trait and some of the core qualities cannot be taught.”
Advice for Startups to Continuously grow their Businesses
For someone who is just starting his own business, Raj has some very important insights. He says, “Have a dream, develop a passion for what you are doing, persevere through setbacks, continuously innovate your products/services with changing customer needs to make the enterprise viable and successful.”
According to Raj, “In order to survive for the long haul you need to build your business on ethical/moral values, continuous learning, and building an innovative organization culture that adapts to changing customer needs.”
