What are your responsibilities as the new director of Interact Commerce corporation India?
My focus will be on enhancing the presence of Interact Commerce in India, in increasing the market share, building a strategic focus in vertical segments such as insurance, brokerage, retail, finance, pharmaceuticals, ISPs, media houses, software houses, publishing companies, FMCG, IT companies, and getting our business partners to specialise in vertical companies. As a company we have to meet a lot of organisations directly, to accelerate deployment of CRM in vertical segments. What we are going to do is launch a marketing campaign that will include direct marketing. Keeping in mind the CRM solutions required for Indian companies, we would enhance the technical support that will be offered to the companies and business partners adopting Interact's products - Saleslogix and ACT.

Could you expand on the plans that Interact has drawn up for India on the CRM front?
The company realises the potential of the entry-level CRM market and is addressing the SOHO and SME segments. Interact offers its product - Saleslogix, which has an entire suite of solutions addressing sales, marketing, support and e-business and the other product ACT is an entry-level CRM product, which provides sales force automation. For Saleslogix, we are developing an ad campaign that will appeal to the Indian market and customised direct marketing to different vertical segments. ACT, which will be launched this month will have a significant appeal to small businesses. We see a significant opportunity for corporate licensing for ACT. The company has marketing plans and ACT will be finalising the distribution agreement with a major distributor sometime this month.

How does the company plan on generating awareness about these products?
For starters the company will be appointing ACT consultants across eight cities and will have a large channel of resellers as well. In fact one of our focus areas is to increase our presence in the major cities by signing up business partners who will provide customisation and implementation capabilities. Interact will host and participate in seminars to evangelise the benefits of CRM to companies in India. We will also participate in leading exhibitions across the country to propagate CRM as a significant productivity tool for organisations.

What are the future plans of the company?
Interact commerce will potentially look at India as a location for setting up a software development center in the future.