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PeopleLink has become the first Indian video conference company to disrupt the market by its approach of offering secure, custom video applications for each industry vertical. With a 13,000+ customer base across 32 countries, PeopleLink is today the strongest, Indian alternative to foreign video conferencing and Webinar brands. The company recently won the Grand Challenge for Developing Video Conference Solution by MeitY.
The company’s InstaCollaboraton Suite fits into the user workflow, instead of trying to force fit all customers into a standard video conference format. Its unique vMCU pricing enables organisations to save up to 70 percent of cost, compared to the prevalent host-based licensing offered by other products.
With operations in over 32 countries including Middle East, Europe, Africa, over two lakh touch points globally, and a team of over 200 people, the PeopleLink solution is currently being used by clients like Indian Oil, Fortis, Bajaj, NBCC, and RISL, in addition to multiple state government departments including Karnataka, West Bengal, Rajasthan, UP, and Kerala among others. Popular government initiatives like Ayush Mission by the Uttar Pradesh government, and eSanjeevani, the healthcare platform for COVID-19 which is being currently used by 18 states – have been powered by the PeopleLink video-conferencing application InstaVC.
Amit Chowdry, co-founder of Hyderabad-based company, PeopleLink, started his life journey from a small town called Udhampur in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Bootstrapped since it was founded 12 years ago, Amit has brought PeopleLink at a stage where it is now recognised as one of the leading enterprise communication solution providers globally. As claimed by the founders, the company has been growing at an average CAGR of around 22 percent. “More than 1.5 lakh video consultations have been done on the eSanjeevani platform in the last four months. In Rajasthan alone, more than 21,000 gram panchayats are connected through PeopleLink making it the world’s largest deployment,” commented Amit.
Amit started his career with a US-headquartered software-based video conferencing company FPC Corporation early in 2000 as a Country Head, however, due to the lack of internet and digital infrastructure, the company was shut down within three years. He then joined another company where he got the opportunity to learn how audio features work in a conferencing solution. Leveraging these learnings, Amit began PeopleLink in 2007. Digital infrastructure in the 2000s, however, was a far cry from what it was now.. The infrastructure in India was in a nascent phase which made starting up a technology product company in India another challenge to deal with. Not only was the product much ahead of its time, but there was also no ready market, particularly for a software-driven video conferencing platform. The existing top players in the market were Cisco and Polycom, who dominated the market with their hardware solutions. “I believed it was the right time, even though it was a bit ahead of its time. However, the stage was being set and it was inevitable that software-driven video conferencing would soon come of age. I launched PeopleLink in 2007 along with my wife Damanjeet Kaur as a co-founder – around four years before Zoom entered India,” adds Amit.
PeopleLink currently offers multipoint and interoperable hardware, software, web conference, cloud and on-premise video conferencing solutions. The company aims to create differentiation by venturing deep into different verticals and building specific applications for each. At present, the company has 12 video conferencing applications, with the most popular being the healthcare and education solutions. The other popular sector applications include commerce, virtual offices, consultation, digital broadcasting, and law.
With video conferencing receiving fresh interest in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, international players like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and Google Meet have seen an increase in market share.
The Indian government’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative has given impetus to local players, “Considering the billion dollar market valuations of international brands operational in India, the prize money of Rs 1 crore may not seem enough. However, the branding and credibility we have received with this recognition is incomparable. This will certainly help in strengthening and levelling the field for local players like us,” says Amit.
Commenting on the impact of increasing popularity of local players like Say Namaste, KL Meet, Airmeet and the recently launched JioMeet, Amit said PeopleLink has always been competitive on the pricing front. Also, the team has the capability to keep tabs on the market and introduce solutions that are needed for the hour, with the potential to take them to the next level. “Since we started in 2007, we have seen many companies in this industry starting up and closing down. Regardless of whether the venture is bootstrapped or funded, what matters the most, is the experience offered to the user and the market knowhow,” he adds.
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