Former SAP troika brings technology to the farm

Career with multinational companies entails endless travel, racing for competitive positions and meeting spine-chilling deadlines.

Sreeram P, Ravi Mandayam and Jayaram Srinivasan, after years of experiencing the glamour and grind that go hand in hand with a corporate role, decided to change track and channelise their expertise to solve problems occurring frequently in agriculture.

Extensive travel across the country while implementing SAP solutions in the area of supply chain for food companies had exposed the trio to the issues faced by people working in the farming sector.

They realised that agriculture and businesses associated with it were subjected to an array of problems due to the unpredictability of weather, which resulted in fluctuating prices and so on. Moreover, technology adoption in agriculture, unlike other sectors, was limited.

The three techies, who were working with SAP Labs India, felt they could use their combined experience of 50 years in business and product development to implement solutions for local companies engaged in agri business.

“People in rural areas and those engaged in various roles in the agriculture supply chain need technology the most. So we decided to create solutions that can help in procurement, manage large supplier bases and reduce transportation and inventory costs, among others,” says Srinivasan, who has 20 years of experience in developing business applications and worked with SAP as vice-president (product development) for supply chain management solutions before taking the entrepreneurial leap.

Food industry estimates suggest that in another 40 years, farmers across the world will have to produce more food that they have in the past 10,000 years combined to feed the ballooning population.

“To produce more food, increase sales and maximise returns, technology adoption is necessary. Large businesses have gained from adoption of technology but smaller players are yet to experience the benefits. Thus we wanted to leverage this opportunity existing in the small and medium enterprises by bringing out software products,” says Sreeram, who worked with SAP as vice president, business development.

The two, along with friend and colleague Mandayam, who worked as vice-president technology development with SAP, quit their positions to start their venture, FrontalRain Technologies in Bangalore last November.

The firm has delivered software solutions in supply chain to customers in Karnal in Haryana and Karnataka. 

“Our Karnal customer is a rice mill, Saifco group, which manages the procurement of 70,000 tonne of paddy rice from mandis, and its automated plant for producing basmati rice with the help of software from us,” says Sreeram.

In Karnataka, an exporter of organic produce, Phalada Agro Research Foundation, uses software from FrontalRain to manage food safety, quality and ensure compliance for global standards.

Agriculture is a challenging sector to work in, says Srinivasan. “To understand the issues confronting the sector, we have to go to the grassroots level, in remote areas, face language barriers,” he says.