Usha Comm eyes buy-outs

The $10 million Usha Comm, the telecom billing software provider, is eyeing acquisitions in Europe and Middle East for inorganic growth.

Usha Comm is looking at acquiring companies in the range of $5-10 million.

The acquisition is expected to help Usha Comm grow its customer base.

Speaking to Business Standard, Saugata Banerjee, executive director of Usha Comm, said, "We are looking at acquiring companies in both our existing markets and in markets where we have a smaller presence. These could be similar billing product or service-based companies, acquisition of which is expected to help us grow our customer base. The acquisition should also help us acquire its expertise and offerings that we don't have as of now."

Usha Comm, as of now, caters to tier II and III towns and cities. It is also looking at acquiring companies that would mark its entry into metropolitan cities as well.

"Funds are not a problem. The acquisition budget would be decided depending on the opportunities the company would throw open for us," said Banerjee.

Usha Comm, so far, has served only telecom operators in US, Africa, Europe, Middle East, South-East Asia, and in India where its clients include MTNL and Aircel.

"Now we are also looking at expanding our market reach and designing a product that would address the utility industry and financial services," informed Banerjee.

Usha Comm is also looking at partnering with system integrators who are already into utility practices. This, the company feels, would enable it to cater to other industries also where they do not have clients right now.

Usha Comm is also in the process of upgrading its billing software in order to make its existing telecom clients more competitive and help them retain subscribers with more value-added services.

"Telecom needs are changing everyday. We are therefore trying to upgrade our product into an integrated billing system that would handle several complications with operators' and end-users changing requests and needs," said Tamal Bardhan, head - marketing and alliance group of Usha Comm.

For instance, the product's architecture should be able to handle the next generation billing complications that include moving from 2G to 3G and then 4G.

Product upgradation is also necessary as the dominance of voice-based revenue for a telecom operator has come down considerably over the years and other value-added services like data and ISP cards have been introduced.

Also, the billing system should be able to produce one simplified converged bill which would take into account all modes of communications like ISP cards, voice, data, etc.

Subscribers' needs are also changing. For instance, a subscriber may want to be on postpaid during office hours and on prepaid after work. So the billing software should also be able to accommodate such flexibility.

"The billing system itself should be intelligent in order to ensure an effective way of retaining subscribers. For instance, a billing system should be able to understand a subscriber's lifestyle, his needs and habits so that the software can help him buy more without any extra labour," explained Bardhan.

However, product upgradation would not necessarily mean a more expensive licence fee, claimed Banerjee.

As of now, the licence fee for Usha Comm's products varies from $30 per subscriber to a few cents, depending on the number of subscribers an operator is buying the licence for. For instance, a telecom operator buying the licence for 2-3 million subscribers would have to pay only a few cents.