Delivering excellence through leadership: Novatium Solutions Pvt Ltd

Novatium is a pioneer in providing enterprise-grade management, security and mobility solutions across devices and platforms. The company leverages cloud based technology to provide an end-to-end framework to manage and orchestrate existing, as well as new ICT infrastructure in education. They are India’s single largest cloud based end point management and delivery solution provider with over 2 lakhs managed endpoints.

Meet Alok Singh (Founder & Chairman) and Vinod Kumar Gopinath (Managing Director & CTO) of Novatium Solutions, a revolutionary path breaker in the field of managed computing, founded in 2004.

Under their able leadership, Novatium has taken giant strides from being a start-up technology product company in Chennai to being an established technology product and service delivery company catering to educational institutions and enterprises around the globe.

Novatium has partnered with a number of large organization to provide managed computing and services delivery across the globe and has one of the largest cloud based device management deployment in India. Alok Singh has been an integral part of Novatium since its early days of inception and has been instrumental in broadening the horizons of Novatium’s innovations and fostering enduring corporate relationships.

The deployment leader
Over the last 10 years, Novatium has Over the last 10 years, Novatium has developed solutions for Managed Computing as a Service (MCaaS) concept and is now offering this solution to educational institutions and enterprises on a broad scale across India and world through Partners, Telecom operators and Government organizations. At present, the company is working with Intel for development and deployment of solutions as part of Digital India Implementation while its POC for Digital Chhattisgarh is up and running successfully.

Novatium has worked with a number of State Governments and the Central Government for deploying efficient managed software and computing solutions on Tablets, Laptops, Desktop PCs and Mobiles. This includes software solutions like secure content management, work-flow and MIS dashboards, mobile applications, secure & collaborative classroom solution, local & hybrid online document sharing solution, cloud-based streaming solution, customer support system and customer relationship management.

Funded by Emergic Venture Capital and several individuals, the company has also successfully deployed over 200,000 computing devices across the states of Chhattisgarh, Assam, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, including the devices deployed and managed as a part of USOF initiative with BSNL and other initiatives with MTNL and Airtel.

With a list of clientele including names like, State of Chhattisgarh, Government of Odisha and Connect to Learn (C2L) in the field of education, team Novatium has seen the emergence of a number of players catering to different needs of an educational institution, coupled with the affinity to different players. Although there appears to be a fragmented market and solution for different institutions, the company’s education grid integrates the different education solutions and provides a coherent solution, instead. Thus in the coming days, Novatium plans to extend this solution to bring in all the players in the education market by creating an education framework into which any player in the education market can plug into.

In conversation with team Novatium

Q.What was the motivation to start the company?

Alok- “Novatium started with the goal of simplifying computing for the masses. The vision of the company is “Computing for the next billion” meaning, to come up with a computing solution that can be used by the next billion users. For that Novatium decided to provide a superior and convenient computing experience at a great value and thereby make it accessible to all people around the world.”

Vinod- “This strong urge to make computing simple for the masses and thereby providing an impetuous for adoption of computing for the next billion people was the key motivator. Novatium always believed in making computing system that does not bring in the complexity of purchase and management. Over the period, Novatium has made new innovations and developments in the field of computing without compromising on its vision. The most recent proof for the same is its Education Grid, which puts an end to the worry of fragmented suppliers in Education domain by orchestrating the platform through a ready to use grid.”

Q.Tell us something about the current market landscape? What are the shifting trends that you have noticed?

Vinod- “With BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) having gained momentum in enterprises and MDM and cloud solution providers having emerged to cater to them, the concept of BYOD is getting popular in schools as well. And without incurring the purchase cost of a device for each student this is the way of increasing access to technology.

It has been noticed that in the past few years, a consensus about the benefits of ICT in education has emerged and many educational institutions have made large investments on ICT as it drives operational efficiencies by improving the administration, teaching & learning. In fact Governments & Educational institutions across the country have distributed digital devices to students. But unfortunately the effectiveness of many of these deployments has been low due to a number of challenges faced by ICT deployments in the field of education. This is hindering the effective spread of education in the country.”

Alok- “We feel biggest areas of concern for educational institutions are in the implementation of ICT due to their requirements of fragmented hardware, software & solution providers. The major challenges include-

• Multiple providers across different domains with narrow vertical focus.
• Limited amount of interoperability and collaboration
• Stand alone devices, applications and content with little visibility of effectiveness
• Sponsors do not get a view on utilization due to lack of effective feedback mechanism
• Emerging technologies like cloud computing, analytics, cloud based management, etc. not being effectively leveraged in tandem

Q.Amidst all the challenges faced, how does Novatium make a difference to the scenario in today’s world?
Alok- “In the current market scenario, for an educational institution to get a complete education solution, it has to depend on multiple vendors & products and achieving an end-to-end implementation includes, infrastructure setup, software procurement like school/college management system, learning management system, content management system, classroom management module, online examination module etc, contents providers, game providers and many more.

As we said before, there is a huge gap in ICT implementations in educational institutions due to the fragmentation of solution providers. But Novatium’s Education Grid puts an end to this worry of customers by orchestrating the platform through a ready to use Grid.”

Vinod- “This grid based management starts from the time the devices are rolled out in institutions by the Sponsor (Government, NGOs or private / third parties) and provides mechanism to plug in new components with minimal effort spent on interoperability, besides overcoming the issues of fragmentation by providing a framework to accommodate third party applications and content providers. So our end users (students, teachers, etc.) will have the freedom to choose devices and OS. We are proud to say that the grid has the ability to provide analytics based on end user profile, geo-location and interactions with the end user device.”

Q.What are the pain points of the industry addressed by the company?

Vinod- “As we said, the educational institutions will have to approach multiple vendors like infrastructure providers, applications providers, device manufacturers and content providers for their various needs. But Novatium is a one-stop answer to their requirements as it addresses this issue of fragmentation with the help of its educational grid, which provides a vendor agnostic, technology neutral, inclusive and free to opt framework for the purposes of education.”

Q.Why should clients avail Novatium’s services and not its competitors?

Alok- “Our clients are free to choose from all the options available in the market. But as a part of team Novatium, I can vouch for the fact that our aim is to focus on education as separate entity (The Education Grid), is what makes us very different from all others.

In fact, since the product can continuously evolve and scale up to adjust in different geographies, segments in education, various sponsors and educational projects, various 3rd parties in infrastructure, content and applications also have the option to come together and give composite solutions. So our framework offers flexibility, visibility and effectiveness for the sponsor to partner or choose any provider. To sum it all up, I see no reason why clients need to approach anybody, but us!”

Versatile Offerings for clientele

1. Novatium Education Grid
Novatium’s Education Grid converge the buyers and their requirements for an ICT deployment in any educational institutions by putting an end to the worry of fragmentation in educational domain. Novatium’s ready to use educational grid provides a vendor agnostic, technology neutral, inclusive and free to opt framework for the purposes of education.

Novatium’s Education Grid, uses Novatium MCaaS solution to a larger extend.

2. Novatium’s Management Control as a Service (MCaaS):

Novatium has developed a secure managed cloud based computing and real time collaboration platform which includes Mobile Device Management (MDM) / Legacy Device Management (LDM). The platform focuses on easing the deployment and management of computing devices across a large geography. At the same time, the platform puts in a special focus on improving collaboration through collaboration tools. The solution provides a centralized management control center that enables administrators to easily deploy applications, content and set rules based on contexts to groups of users across a vast geography. Another aspect of the solution is the web based dashboard, containing audit trails and reports, which enables officials to make informed decisions. A highlight of the platform is the collaboration features provided by the platform through the seamless integration of audio-video enabled services such as multi-party conferencing in education, healthcare, mobility, telecom, analytics and surveillance, security, social media, collaborative learning, entertainment, banking and insurance, content services etc. The solution is unique & currently there is no other player offering such end-to-end solution

The solution resides as an application and acts as an overlay or interface on the end user device. This application provides the rights to an organization to let the user only use services that are appropriate for the context in which the user is, such as storage of content and safe browsing.

Novatium MCaaS solution encapsulates the features available in many Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Enterprise Management System (EMS) solutions available in the industry and provides a coherent interface through the concept of context. Besides, this solution provides application delivery and a single window to manage devices of different form factors and OS. This concept provides maximum flexibility to the employees of an organization in solving the challenges of the expanding mobile perimeter and secure use of mobilized information. The solution consists of Novatium Enterprise application and the optional email access control application, hosting infrastructure and lifecycle management, supporting besides the mobility platform of Android, Windows and iOS the computing platforms like Linux, Windows & OSX.

3. Novatium Child Tablet:

Novatium’s child tab enables parents to manage & control the tablet usage of their child. Besides helping on the child’s growth and development, the tablet also lets the parents protect their children from hazards of internet, excessive usage of tablet and getting addicted to specific applications

• Decide websites the child can access & thereby blocking rest of the websites.
• Block specific websites alone that their child should never access.
• Control their child’s access to social networks & games based on time of day and day of week.
• Either allow or deny permissions for downloading of unwanted applications
• Manage child’s usage based on a context, like day of week, time of day, type of network etc.
• Monitor the tablet usage data like most visited websites, maximum used applications etc.
• Customize the controls that need to be applied for child or select a pre-defined package based on age-group of child or copy controls from the child tablet of their friends or relatives.
• Parents can setup the environment using easy to use wizards.
• Parents have a separate password protected account in the tab and can use the tablet like a normal tablet.

Did You Know??

• Novatium is India’s single largest cloud based end point management and delivery solution provider with over 2 lakhs managed endpoints.
• Novatium works with various business partners including government organizations in India, telecom operators, service providers, enterprise partners and OEMs
• It provides off the shelf and customized products and solutions to educational institutions and government organisations across the globe to suit their requirementsIts revenue model is flexible, monthly and annual, licensing model
• Its education solution has been effectively deployed across the globe with a lot of users, who are efficiently using it.
• Novatium brings BYOD and bundled computing management solution across the cloud, which is built on its MCaaS solution, offering contextual management on user’s computing, devices.
• Novatium MCaaS solution encapsulates the features available in many Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Enterprise
• Management System (EMS) solutions available in the industry and provides a coherent interface through the concept of context.
• Novatium has 19 patents filed in India and abroad. There are 5 critical process components engineered for maximum performance at every stage.

Novatium’s Leaders

Alok Singh: Founder & Chairman
Prior to founding Novatium, Alok has held executive posts at Cummins Auto Services Ltd, Satyam Computer Services Ltd, Tata Cummins Ltd and Tata Motors. With 25+ years of accomplished experience in service marketing and service delivery, solutions designing, marketing, manufacturing and consulting, he has also played a crucial role in establishing to other successful start-up companies.

Vinod Kumar Gopinath: Managing Director & Chief Technology Officer

Responsible for leading Novatium’s growth and its technological innovations, Vinod directs strategic planning and provides technology direction to ensure that the company’s product development is moving ahead and is in alignment with the company’s vision. Vinod has over 20 years of experience in leading product and software development. He was associated with IBM prior to joining Novatium