【印度】Avaamo：想解决“企业使用WhatsApp不够安全”这个问题
在成为创业者之前，Ram Menon和SriramChakravarthy都供职于TIBCO，这是一家企业通信软件企业。在TIBCO工作的那段时间里，他们开发了一个名叫TIbbr的企业通信应用，这个应用成为了Yammer和Chatter的主要竞争对手。这段经验让他们了解到了人们在工作中对于通信应用的需求。目前工作通信软件最大的问题之一，就是大多数这类软件都是基于桌面型电脑所开发的。当人们希望在移动设备上使用这些软件的时候，总是会陷入许多麻烦。在过去的五年里，这两位创业者一直在想办法解决这个问题，于是他们成立了Avaamo这家企业。
Chakravarthy在接受采访的时候表示：“在看到消费通讯应用的趋势之后，我们意识到移动应用的最大价值在于其简洁性。”站在普通用户的角度来看，Chakravarthy和Menon最大的贡献，就是让应用下载变得极其快速，而且还大大降低了用户的使用学习成本，缩短了用户之间在进行沟通的时候所需要的时间。而站在企业的角度来看，这个产品最大的优势则在于其安全性和数据的隐秘性。
Chakravarthy以一家总部位于班加罗尔的企业举了个例子。这家企业在于地产经纪公司沟通的时候，一直在使用WhatsApp这个应用的群组聊天功能。然而这个群组并非安全群组，也不会合适群组成员的真实身份。加入群组内的某一个人某一天离职，而群组管理人忘记将其移除群组，那么公司的许多私密信息就很有可能泄露出去，从而对企业的数据安全造成威胁。
Chakravarthy和Menon决定彻底解决这个问题，于是他们在2014年成立了Avaamo。这家在印度和硅谷都有办公司的初创企业为企业提供了一种安全并且便于监管的通信应用。这个应用分为免费版和付费版，企业可以根据自己的需求来选择。
免费版的Avaamo与WhatsApp非常类似，用户可以添加群组成员，并且发送无限量的消息。而付费版则提供了数据保护功能，它可以自动移除已离职成员，群组管理员也可以手动管理成员。为了方便管理，企业管理者还可以安装Avaamo的网页版应用，并且使用其中的控制面板来更加快速的管理聊天组成员。付费版的价格由企业的员工数量所决定。
Chakravarthy表示：“这个应用有着非常方便的控制机制，企业可以随时对聊天成员进行管理，避免数据出现泄漏。”
WhatsApp isn’t safe enough for business messaging; Avaamo fills the gap
Before turning entrepreneurs, Ram Menon and Sriram Chakravarthy worked for TIBCO, an enterprise communication software company. During their stint there, they built a product called Tibbr, an enterprise communication app that competed with Yammer and Chatter. This gave them a first-hand experience in understanding how people use communication apps in their professional lives. A clear drawback was that these apps were primarily desktop based. The apps did not have the elements of ease that people look for while communicating on mobile. This became more apparent as Menon and Chakravarthy noticed the big shift to mobile in the last five years. That inspired the duo to co-found Avaamo.
“After seeing the trends in consumer messaging apps, we realized that there was an inherent value proposition in the simplicity of mobile apps,” Chakravarthy tellsTech in Asia. The main points that Chakravarthy and Menon worked on, from the consumer point of view, were how quickly the app could be downloaded, how easily it could be maneuvered, and how to ensure minimum response time during communication. From an enterprise point of view, the main elements were security and data privacy.
Chakravarthy cites the example of a real estate company in Bangalore which uses WhatsApp to communicate with the real estate agents through groups. These are not secure groups in terms of assessing the identity of the members. In the case where a member has left the company, an admin might not necessarily have remembered to remove him from the group. A lot of private and confidential information is exchanged in these groups and without centralized monitoring of members, the company might be compromising on its security and data privacy.
Eureka
Menon and Chakravarthy decided to tackle these challenges and incorporated Avaamo in 2014. The India-Silicon Valley based startup, provides enterprises a secure and an easily supervisable communication app. The app has both free as well as paid versions. The free one works like Whatsapp and the user can add members and send unlimited messages. The paid version provides data compliance, automated user on & off boarding, broadcast to company users, support and administrator control. An enterprise administrator can install the Avaamo web app and control messaging and communication through a dashboard.
The pricing for the premium app is for enterprises and varies with the size of the enterprise and number of employees
AN administrator can create a list of members, monitor the daily user activity on the app, and manage the groups. The groups can be predefined for departments and can also be created by employees according to their convenience. An employee can download the free version and keep in touch with the company for their daily tasks. The administrator can decide the amount of time to keep the data before it gets deleted automatically.
“The app has fine-grained controls that will ensure that only the right people join,” says Chakravarthy.
For the mobile employees
There are several applications available to companies for enterprise communication in India. Skype for Business, Slack, and Flowdock, among many others, address the problem of being in touch with employees across all offices and branches a company might have. When asked about the well-rooted competition, Chakravarthy said, “These apps are great, but for the desk-bound employees. But for example, in an insurance company, if the manager wants to get in touch with an agent riding a moped on a hill in Shillong, he can’t reach him with Slack, because the agent is on WhatsApp.” According to Chakravarthy, people using their mobile phones 70 percent of the day lack an enterprise grade communication system that is easy to use. “Avaamo bridges this gap in an under-served market,” he claims.
Avaamo has 7,000 companies on board out of which, 3,000 are Indian companies – mostly insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and banks. “We focus on companies that have more employees on their mobile phones and provide a secure and easy communication platform on cheap Android phones,” adds Chakravarthy.
Messaging 3.0
“SMS was 1.0; Whatsapp, WeChat,and Line were 2.0; and we would like to think of ourselves as 3.0,” says Chakravarthy.
Recently, Avaamo introduced a ‘Smart Card’ as the latest addition to their app. Smart Cards are broadcast cards that allow sending out aggregated information to the members of a group on the app.
For example, the sales growth in a certain period of time can be sent out in the form of a card to employees. It can also be sent out as surveys for feedback or as a letter from the CEO. The employees can read it, reply, or ask for clarifications. “The read rates on HR surveys and letters are more than often under 10 percent and this feature will help them know how many employees are looking at the information on the card and responding. They can then take steps to improve the engagement rate,” says Chakravarthy.
The app also makes it possible to check-in so that the employee can be located on the map. Take an ATM servicing company, for example. It is necessary to know where their employees are so that they can promptly deal with any ATM-related issues by assigning the task to an employee in the vicinity of the ATM.
Chakravarthy believes that Avaamo is taking everyday business processes and making them mobile-ready.
The big hurdles before Avaamo in the way of further expansion in India as well as rest of Asia, in terms of communicating their product, is the bandwidth and battery. In India, people are concerned about keeping their phone alive and using their data cost-consciously. Also, the 3G infrastructure of India is less reliable compared to the other countries. Avaamo sees this as its main challenge.
The startup believes in the concept of information velocity. This concept deals with the speed at which messages are sent and ensures a short response time during conversations. To tackle fluctuating internet connection, Avaamo introduced its “fire and forget” feature, which ensures that the message that has been sent from a phone reaches the recipient irrespective of whether the sender has stable data or not.
Avaamo is a team of 40 based in both India and Silicon Valley. Menon is CEO and Chakravarthy is CTO at the startup. Even though the business has a global focus, Avaamo is currently seeing an unexpected yet welcome increase in customer traction in India. It has now set up a sales team focusing on increasing its customer base here.
In October of last year, the startup raised US$6.3 million in seed funding from WI Harper group, with participation from Streamlined Ventures, Rembrandt Ventures, Ovo Fund and Eleven Two Capital.
来源：Tech in Asia
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