AS Technolutions – Reinventing Offline Card Payments

Today, we've with us Anubhav Saxena from AS Technolutions, AS is revolutionizing the way retailers, businesses, and professionals are accepting card payments from their clients & customers employing a unique, safe and user friendly scan based hardware less soft PoS.

Read ahead to understand more about how AS Technolutions is transforming the normal POS system and helping businesses reach their true potential.

INSELLERS – AS Technolutions is nothing but a revolution when it involves card payments. AS is getting to replace traditional card swiping machines with it's a replacement revolutionary technology. it might be great if we could hear more from you about it.

ANUBHAV SAXENA – Yeah, absolutely. AS is a gift winning and patent awaiting fintech startup based out of Gurgaon. the thought was conceived back in 2016. It came into being due to the gap we experience within the market. for instance , if I wanted to order something online from Amazon or Flipkart or the other online marketplace , I even have to tell the rider to bring the cardboard board machine with him in order that I can make the payment through the card. i used to be very curious to understand why it wasn’t obvious to all or any these companies to hold a machine, what’s an enormous thing about it, that’s once I started reading about it and furthermore I found an identical gap within the neighborhood Kirana stores and salons. The penetration of the swipe machines within the Indian retail market isn't quite 20-25%. There are several problems associated with the already existing POS.Machines have rentals expensive, all the banks and therefore the service providers charge a rent . Machines are susceptible to breakdowns and need repair and maintenance. Retailers got to maintain the machine, they have to charge it a day , they have a Bluetooth connection to attach it with the phone, they have a paper appear case of old machines, they have ink and if it's out of order, they lose business. Similarly, for companies which are into home delivery or home services, riders face the inconvenience of carrying an additional hardware machine, network issues, breakdown issues, logistics issues for companies to rearrange machines to the riders and lots of more such operational concerns. That’s whereAS plays an enormous role in removing the necessity for swipe machines completely from the ecosystem. We incorporated the organization in 2017. We finally went live by the top of 2018 after a successful pilot,. Being the primary movers, we learnt tons from our customers and incorporated those learnings into the merchandise for better experience and security. Today we've around 5000 retailers and around 4 corporates with us with none marketing, we've already conducted quite 1.5 lakh transactions on our platform with a GMV of >30 crores. We are now within the growth phase and decide to touch >500 crores of GMV within the next 24 months. during this period AS has plans to launch another 4 solutions to extend the portfolio offerings and revenue sources.

INSELLERS – How did you segment this big market and which segment did you target first? How was the journey, which retailers or which geographically did your target, which metrics did you employ to guage it?

ANUBHAV SAXENA – We aren't running after the large retailers, huge chains like Spencers or Reliance, they're not my customers. AS may be a perfect fit micro small, medium retailers – spread anywhere, it doesn’t matter whether tier one, tier two, tier three, because now internet connections became way better within the rural areas also. that's one audience second is that the freelancers, the makeup artists, tuition teachers, yoga teachers, gymnasts, and every one these are the second categories of what we are watching . Our third focus and one among the foremost critical ones are the corporates. So any corporate, which offers you home delivery service, or any home service, like Urban Company are often our client. Our application is integrated with their application. So if any rider wants to simply accept payment through a card, or UPI, so he can do so with a click of a button. aside from these three segments, we also are that specialize in collaboration with the banks and therefore the fintechs. We are collaborating with fintechs and providing our software to them, which they will pass right down to their already existing network of shops .

INSELLERS – we might wish to realize your main competitors like are these only the normal machine manufacturer or there are other similar services as well?

ANUBHAV SAXENA – there's a corporation within the US, which was acquired by PayPal, which was trying to venture into an equivalent technology as we are. However, in India obviously, because we've the patent, no other company or startups thus far is into this and albeit somebody is there during this space, i'm sure it'll not be there for an extended time because we've the advantage of getting the patent, which may restrict the entry of any such company. Therefore, last , i think all the machine providers are the most competitors.

INSELLERS – Any special strategy that you simply have adopted to tackle the competitors?

ANUBHAV SAXENA – So if you check out the dynamics, continuous innovation and reinvention is that the key. watching the market, it's important that even companies which are into manufacturing of POS will need to enter the soft POS segment. So obviously to remain before the opposite competitors we are constantly innovating, we are immediately performing on a really strong product of NFC, which may be a tap and go, micro ATMs, distributor value chain, lending etc.

INSELLERS – once you visited the market, did you face any reluctance, or were the people forthcoming together with your offering?

ANUBHAV SAXENA – Yes, absolutely. People were apprehensive that way. Why is there no machine? Or what is going to you are doing with the scanning? Is it safe? Is it authorized? We received all kinds of questions from people. that's once we started putting merchandise within the market at the retail level; we also put tons of salesforce on the bottom to create trust and gain market insights and transaction patterns. Once the retailers got the hold thereon , it had been an absolute pleasure seeing the surge in transactions. In Indian retail system, it’s important for retailers to possess faith in your product because the majority of end consumers trust retailer’s recommendations & feedback about products & services.

INSELLERS – Talking about the varied verticals in your organization, have you ever ever considered outsourcing any of your verticals like when it involves digital marketing or field sales?

ANUBHAV SAXENA – We had outsourced our salesforce and digital marketing for a few time, along side our on roll employees, we also had a couple of salespeople from the third party. i feel you can't have people on board all the time, otherwise you cannot keep adding more employees to the team. So what you are doing not have you ever outsource it because the main target of the workers should remain with the technology and operations.

INSELLERS – Could you throw some light on the core team of the AS technolutions?

ANUBHAV SAXENA – once I started I founded this company alone but was later joined by my co-founder. He brings with him quite 15 years of technology experience, he has worked in Wipro and Microsoft within the past.

I usher in quite 14 years of diversified experience spanning different organizations and departments, and even countries. I even have worked with both banking and FMCG Company, so I even have had a really good mix and match of required experience to manage a corporation like AS. The founding team also consisted of two more people from my previous company; they looked into operations, as this field is extremely operation intensive. along side that, we had three consultants; they're still there with us. Consulting are some things , which I take very seriously. They keep giving their inputs in terms of what must be done and the way in both the technology and operational front.

INSELLERS – What does one think are the longer term trends of this industry and your plan for the future? Are you looking to diversify things a bit?

ANUBHAV SAXENA – There are two trends within the coming future – one is completely the offerings, you see all the players are offering quite expectations; you only can’t offer transactions. Our products and services got to become a one-stop solution. The second trend shall be the consolidations , you'll see mergers and acquisitions within the coming future because working in silos, not will add up for anyone.

INSELLERS – the other advice you'd want to offer to other budding entrepreneurs.

ANUBHAV SAXENA – a few of things, first of all, the foremost important thing is to undertake and join an incubator or an accelerator at a really early stage, it’s not that they have somebody to guide all of them the time but due to this they merge to the ecosystem way faster. The second is that the founders should attempt to get obviate all kinds of liabilities before the beginning of the startup. The third would be that don’t await the merchandise to become 100% ready, no product is 100% ready, launch your product when it’s 75% complete , and be very quick in adopting and learning, incorporating the changes and learnings back to the merchandise . i might wish to add another point. Learn to be visible. don't feel shy, be shameless, and learn to be visible to your customers, investors, and your ecosystem. These are the four things that new entrepreneurs can take into consideration before or while they're on their journey.