ET BureauMUMBAI: Tech Mahindra is taking its Saral Rozgar program --- a mobile employment platform serving blue-collar workers -- to the Middle East and will looking to bring in outside investment to help scale the platform and spin it out as a separate company.
This will the first time TechM is tapping investors to grow a product incubated in-house, though other startup teams within the Mahindra Group are following this strategy. It will also be the first for a large Indian IT firm.
“With the current subscriber base of 6 million+, we aim to scale this to 100 million over the next 5 years. We plan to expand our distribution and our operations aggressively. Currently this has been funded from within but to expand we will definitely look at strategic investors to fund the next level of growth,” Vivek Chandok, Head of TechM’s consumer business, told ET.
Saral Rozgar is currently part of Tech Mahindra’s Growth Factories business – a unit that focuses on new opportunities for the company. Jagdish Mitra, Head of Strategy and Marketing, said the company was already taking its first steps to spinning out the platform.
“Saral Rozgar is our most mature offering in Growth Factories. We think the opportunity is huge and would look at strategic investors for investment. We have already started the process of assigning the unit a valuation. We are even separating it out of Tech Mahindra. From next month it will operate out of its own offices. We want to preserve its DNA,” Mitra told ET.
Tech Mahindra has invested ‘in the double digital million dollar range’ so far in Saral Rozgar, spending on product development, advertising, promotions, setting up sales teams & distribution channels across 20 states and 80,000 retailers. The unit has about 300 people. TechM overall has a little over 100,000 employees.
TechM is first focusing on the Gulf countries, already large employers of Indian semi-skilled labour, for its international expansion. Saral Rozgar, which has more than 6 million registered job seekers, is planning to introduce more features to make the platform more valuable.
“We will up with third-party providers to give guidance on getting passports, visas, processing documents. But, unlike the agents that currently operate, the pricing will be transparent,” Chandok said.
The platform has also been earning revenue. When it was introduced last year, job seekers could buy a Rs 50 job card at a mobile recharge or kirana store and, using a code on the back of the card, contact the call centre and set up a profile. He would then get relevant job alerts, based on his profile, and could contact the call centre and state the identification number of the job he is interested in. The employer, advertising the job is then notified and can contact the candidate directly.
The company is now introducing a domestic job card for Rs 100, which will also provide counseling on the kinds of jobs a candidate could target, his appropriate salary band, cities that could provide more opportunities and other services. Candidates looking for international jobs will have to buy a Rs 500 job card.
This will the first time TechM is tapping investors to grow a product incubated in-house, though other startup teams within the Mahindra Group are following this strategy. It will also be the first for a large Indian IT firm.
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Saral Rozgar is currently part of Tech Mahindra’s Growth Factories business – a unit that focuses on new opportunities for the company. Jagdish Mitra, Head of Strategy and Marketing, said the company was already taking its first steps to spinning out the platform.
“Saral Rozgar is our most mature offering in Growth Factories. We think the opportunity is huge and would look at strategic investors for investment. We have already started the process of assigning the unit a valuation. We are even separating it out of Tech Mahindra. From next month it will operate out of its own offices. We want to preserve its DNA,” Mitra told ET.
Tech Mahindra has invested ‘in the double digital million dollar range’ so far in Saral Rozgar, spending on product development, advertising, promotions, setting up sales teams & distribution channels across 20 states and 80,000 retailers. The unit has about 300 people. TechM overall has a little over 100,000 employees.
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TechM is first focusing on the Gulf countries, already large employers of Indian semi-skilled labour, for its international expansion. Saral Rozgar, which has more than 6 million registered job seekers, is planning to introduce more features to make the platform more valuable.
“We will up with third-party providers to give guidance on getting passports, visas, processing documents. But, unlike the agents that currently operate, the pricing will be transparent,” Chandok said.
The platform has also been earning revenue. When it was introduced last year, job seekers could buy a Rs 50 job card at a mobile recharge or kirana store and, using a code on the back of the card, contact the call centre and set up a profile. He would then get relevant job alerts, based on his profile, and could contact the call centre and state the identification number of the job he is interested in. The employer, advertising the job is then notified and can contact the candidate directly.
The company is now introducing a domestic job card for Rs 100, which will also provide counseling on the kinds of jobs a candidate could target, his appropriate salary band, cities that could provide more opportunities and other services. Candidates looking for international jobs will have to buy a Rs 500 job card.
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