mPowerForce to wire up Britannia sales staff

Trichy-based tech startup mPowerForce Mobile Technology India Ltd is poised to win a contract to provide mobile technology services to about 200 outdoor sales personnel of FMCG manufacturer Britannia India Ltd.

The contract, which is likely to be signed within a week, could eventually cover over 2,000 Britannia sales personnel nationwide, M Pari, co-founder and chief operating officer, mPowerForce Mobile Technology, said.

mPowerForce is in the final stages of pilot projects for its mobile marketing system with ITC, Britannia and Amrutanjan. The company, which has a staff of about 30, is keen to leverage the traction by managing full-fledged mobile services projects for these companies.

mPowerSales has been developed at a cost of Rs 25 lakh, as a next-generation marketing system to support FMCG sales and sales force activity over mobile phones, PDAs (palmtop digital assistant) and MFDs (multi-functional devices).

The J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition)-powered platform also helps mPowerForce to deliver business process automation functionalities to mobile work forces.

mPowerForce has a 25-member data centre in Kentucky, US, on IXWeb Hosting and will manage outsourced mobile services out of this facility. It has a bandwidth to host about 20 clients, each averaging 500 field users. Plans are afoot to sign on Amazon.com to provide additional hosting services as the client list grows.

The mobile technology-based service is compatible with most telecom transmission standards in operation today and provides the user with updated information about all units in the market.

"This helps the company keep track of changing sales statistics, as well as guide sales teams through automatic information sharing. mPowerSales will also help sales professionals transfer the data they capture while on the move to their corporate computing systems," Pari explained.

Started on a shoe-string investment of Rs 15-20 lakh and supported by supplementary angel investment of Rs 10-15 lakh, the company is looking at further fund infusions, in the region of $1 million (about Rs 4 crore), when it signs on more customers.

"We are looking at somebody who can bring in investments as well as business," Pari said.

The one-and-a-half year old company is still in start-up mode, and the Britannia contract is among the first large-scale projects which will help the mobile minnow break even in the next 6-9 months.