Arun Prabhu
“Data availability has expanded beyond belief. There are new technologies; there are new avenues for companies to be able to acquire people data. Technologies that are available today make it very simple and easy for businesses to ensure that they leverage it for business value,” says Arun Prabhu, the founder of “inTouch analytics”. When Arun started his venture ten years ago, nobody in India had even heard about the term predictive analysis, “Analytics by definition and predictive analytics especially is a transformational solution. Businesses can actually take their revenue, their bottom line and they can actually become healthier, they can transform their organisations, they can transform their market performance, and they can compete much more effectively, using predictive analytics.”
His first major break came in the form of Café Coffee Day, “We started with ‘Café Coffee Day’ and their other divisions. We were able to acquire a lot of data, a massive amount of data with which we started our predictive analysis services.” Though his initial focus was on Indian retail, soon he realised that it made a lot of sense to go across the industry verticals, “It helped to expand our horizons in terms of our vision, in terms of what kind of solutions were possible with data and analytics. Besides, to be able to solve some unique problems that businesses faced, which were solvable with data was highly satisfying.”
“inTouch analytics” has now progressed beyond retail towards new avenues like hospitality, education, and talent, “We see a glimmer of hope in terms of more and more businesses opening up to the possibilities. They are seeing that more and more data is available, data is sort of practically quadrupling, or multiplying over five times every year. Therefore, companies have a need to actually manage all that data and actually churn that data or analyse that data for much better value in terms of decision-making,” explains Arun. Their latest venture is people analytics, “People grow businesses, people are the ones who actually add value to businesses and therefore we believe that people-oriented analytics solution is what it takes for businesses to succeed in this new age.”
Jain Ventures has been actively involved in “inTouch analytics” projects and has been a backbone in terms of how they could grow the business. “Over these years Jain Ventures has been instrumental in making sure that we stand up for what we believe in, and we remain focussed in predictive analytics although the Indian market is nascent,” elucidates Arun. “Jain Ventures not only incubated us but they have also advised us and mentored us all along. The contribution from Jain Venture’s Board of Advisors has been extremely valuable for ‘inTouch analytics’ to grow to this stage of maturity,” he adds. “InTouch analytics” is looking to grow beyond the Indian market and start focussing on mature markets and developed economies in the future.