‘Next Generation’ is a word that seems to fit Belmont Tech to the T. The flourishing company, headquartered in California, the Mecca of technological innovations, has a whole array of solutions to offer. Their impressive portfolio lists global giants in education, corporate, defence, administration and other sectors as their clients.
Belmont Tech provides innovative, next generation solutions that make an enterprise future ready. Providing customized solution is their forte, as they have proved with their track record. Straddling various areas of competence the company functions as consultants, tech developers, production experts and designers. Their unique business approach enables them to devise strategies and solutions that transcend the limitations of geography and technology, helping companies to achieve their goals. The company with their customer-centric ethos is marching ahead providing unique solutions to the challenges and changes thrown up by the permeation of technology into our everyday lives.
Offering many niche services, Belmont Tech’s verticals broadly fall under the categories of Education, Enterprise Mobility, Security Solutions and IoT.
The solutions leverage the latest technologies to create new avenues for businesses and also to streamline business activities. The range and diversity of the firm’s products and services point to the knowledge base, skill and ingenuity of the team.
The Founder & CEO, Mr. Ganesan, has extensive experience in product development, SAP, services delivery, pre-sales support, and consulting, particularly in the e-learning and IT sectors. Managing Director, Althaf Basha heads global business development. He is known for accessing new markets, ensuring the growth of the Belmont Tech.
Knowledge is indeed power. The rapid pace of change brought about by technological innovations has made it imperative for each one to keep updating his/her skill sets. Technology has brought a sea of change to the process of teaching/learning. In fact, it has only just begun!
Belmont Tech’s nhance range of products is geared towards the learner, teacher and the educational institutions. By seamlessly integrating various platforms they provide the students a learning experience that is effective and engaging – all on the mobile! Educational institutions can benefit immensely from making their courses available to a larger body of learners. The assessment module is beneficial to both the teacher and learner to evaluate and fine tune one’s progress. Campvision ERP seeks to automate crucial yet necessary tasks enabling schools to better utilize their resources and streamline their workings.
Knowledge management is yet another strength of the company. By analysing existing info, organizing it, creating an infrastructure, devising the process, and putting in its adaptable governance structure, Belmont Tech saves governments and allied organisations innumerable man-hours and revenue.
Harnessing the potential of the Smartphone via mobile apps is another key focus of the company. By creating customized, high performance apps, Belmont Tech gives the clients a sharp edge over their competitors.
While Belmont Tech offers solutions and products to deal with the challenges faced today, they are gearing up to take on the technologies of the future. At present, Belmont Tech provides scalable IoT products and solutions that enable industries to connect, manage and secure technology rich products for business purposes. The extent of the enterprise and its expertise is hard to capture in brief. CH took the opportunity to engage the man behind the operation, the Founder & CEO of Belmont Tech, Mr. Ganesan in an email interview in which he opened up about some of the key products of the company and the current business environment.
How did Belmont Tech come about?
Belmont Tech was incorporated in California in 2012 and we have since then extended our reach globally across several locations. It is built on the foundation of ‘Engage, Empower and Enhance’ and was created with the vision of becoming a global name catering to the learning and development needs of the current generation. We provide consultation and state-of-the-art application and software solutions encompassing a broad range of services across multiple verticals to institutions and government entities across the globe.
What was the turning point in the growth of the company?
Since our inception, we have been aligning our state-of-the-art products and solutions with the vision and goals of educational institutions, corporate and government entities worldwide. However, our major turning point was establishing our base in Malaysia, Singapore, and Middle East and working with esteemed clients such as Qatar Development Bank, Qatar Islami Bank, and Ministry of Education, Malaysia, to name a few.
How would you describe the business and start up environment in Malaysia?
The business and start-up environment here is booming and is in an excellent phase due to its multi-racial and multi-cultural diversity. The IT industry, at present, looks quite promising as the Government of Malaysia encourages the foreign investor.
What made you turn to the field of education? How has the Malaysian education system responded?
I strongly believe that education is the sole weapon that enables an individual to bring about a positive growth in the society and his own life. That, coupled with my former experience of working in the educational sector has encouraged me to venture into this domain.
The Malaysian education system has been one the earliest in South East Asia along with Singapore, to adopt ICT into the teaching-learning and administration processes. Apart from having our own educational domain experience in running premier educational institutions across India, Malaysia has always been special to us for making us a part of their numerous ICT initiatives since the early 2000s. Be it their academic curriculum design, mobility or learning/teaching platforms, we have been a part of every bit of it. And the journey still continues with the latest milestone being the supply of tablet PCs to 430,000 teachers along with the provision of a Mobile Device Management software to the Ministry of Education which Belmont will continue to support for the next 2 years.
What is the universal potential for adaptive learning? Will it help to mitigate the gap between the rich and poor societies?
The blending of traditional methods of pedagogy with technology-centric learning that looks after the unique needs of every learner is gaining pace all across the globe. The current generation of educators and learners endeavour to leverage technology for creating a technologically enabled learning environment aimed at disseminating education in an interactive way to boost higher assimilation, retention, and engagement from the current generation of attention deficit and tech-savvy learners. Adaptive learning strives to promote the role of a learner from a mere receptor of information to an active collaborator in the education process.
However, educational institutions often consider blending of technologically-enabled learning with the persistent methods as a major hindrance to its adaptation and implementation in the current system. We at Belmont Tech, help in overcoming this fallacy by collaborating with educational institutions in understanding their current infrastructure, challenges and requirements and offering them with bespoke solutions to transform the way learning is imparted.
Adaptive learning is fast penetrating into the rural landscapes and has an immense potential in empowering the poorer societies and making them an indispensable resource for the country as well as the world.
Could you elaborate on nhance Verify? Who are your target customers for this software?
Educational transcripts and certificates are documents which are of paramount importance at every stage of an individual’s life. Any tampering of these documents can potentially jeopardize a student’s future prospects, as well as, irreversibly tarnish the image of the educational institution issuing it, and bring discredit to the nation as a whole.
We, at Belmont Technologies, are committed to preserving and protecting the integrity of students, and the brand identity of an institution. nhance Verify is our secured certificate/license management solution for combating counterfeit certificates and licenses prevailing in the market.
Our target customers for this software are primarily educational institutions and other organizations that issue certificates/transcripts/licenses validating the completion of a course, certification, program etc. Our proprietary QR code embedded app-based solution empowers such institutions with the agility to seamlessly scan QR codes embedded in the transcripts to enable the verifier to quickly check and assess the legitimacy of documents.
What sort of response has it received from your customers?
As of now, we have extended our services in this regard to reputed educational boards and varsities, exclusively in India. Our stream of happy customers include Mahendra Institutions, Anna University and FLAME University, who have been empowered by nhance Verify to track down counterfeited documents and people with dishonest motives, which in turn enables them to preserve their integrity as an academic body. It has been a huge success in enabling organizations in streamlining the verification process and providing them with a robust mechanism to rapidly analyze the authenticity of documents anytime and from anywhere.
What is your take on the risk levels of today’s electronic and online services?
Technology has been a boon in most areas of business operations today, but it can be bane too if used by people with ulterior motives. The devious skill of the human mind is now leveraging technology to execute more sophisticated methods of crime. Therefore, while digitization and the proliferating and widely popular electronic and online services have simplified how a business works, it has also made it imperative for an organization to exercise caution while sharing and transmitting data to mitigate data breaches and security lapses.
Is absolute security even possible in today’s scenario?
Information Security is a challenge for any organization as it involves a complex mixture of activities such as securing business-critical information from unauthorized access, performing identity and authentication checks prior to access of information, and other information management policies encompassing computers, servers, routers, telecommunication equipment, and various other electronic systems. While it is possible to secure business-critical data, organizations often lag in adopting appropriate measures to do so due to lack of awareness and resources. We provide an end-to-end management of data security by examining the current processes, identifying loopholes and potential threats, and providing solutions to strengthen an organization’s data and intellectual properties.
Talking of security, how did Safe City come about?
Crime rates are increasing at an alarming rate all across the globe. Each day one gets to hear of some incident or the other where the safety of a public place was compromised by the influx of dangerous entities. Safe City was conceptualized with the vision of incapacitating a potentially perilous entity even before it has the opportunity to act. Additionally, it enables in-depth analysis and investigation of untoward events in their aftermath for prevention in the future.
Safe City seeks to empower law enforcement agencies by empowering them with an app-based solution for crime mapping and control. It integrates available resources with the latest technology to facilitate rapid integration between police units and sharing of crime locations to handle crimes more efficiently.
Which cities/countries are using it? What is the response from the law enforcement agencies?
We have implemented parts of our Safe City solution exclusively in India as of now, to enable complete digital surveillance in certain areas of Bengaluru, the Mangalore Coastline, and the Goa and Tuticorin ports. It surely has reaped a bounty of benefits for law enforcement agencies and the nation as a whole as it had substantially reduced manual intervention and facilitates the improved safety of both law enforcement personnel and the citizens.
What is next for Belmont Tech? What is in the pipeline? What are your plans for expansion?
We are currently looking forward to expanding our reach globally, particularly in the East African markets. We are rapidly extending our presence globally and endeavor to become the pioneer as a next-generation software company catering to multiple verticals in the fields of learning, mobility solutions, application development, IT infrastructure management and IoT. We believe in both organic and inorganic growth to widen our reach and strengthen our foothold in this highly competitive and dynamic global market.
What challenges do you figure the company will face in the coming years?
In the present and coming years, we strongly foresee challenges arising out of the competition from the rapidly mushrooming small and medium-sized businesses in this field. Additionally, the dynamic price war and increasing commoditization of products and services have spoilt consumers for choice causing them to be increasingly drawn towards cheaper products while compromising on a quality outcome.
Who are your mentors?
All our customers have helped us in becoming a leading product company. So I always lend a listening ear to them and consider them as my greatest mentors.
On a more personal note, what inspires you? What are your hobbies and pastimes?
Dreams inspire me. Way back in 2008, when I started the company with a bunch of like-minded folks, we never thought we would be a thousand plus multi-vertical focused company as what we are today. And we cherish every moment of our progress till day and keep dreaming to inspire us further. All companies like Tesla, Hyperloop, SpaceX, OpenAI were once started from a dream. My favorite pass time is reading books, listening to music, plus playing chess always excites me.
What advice would you give to those setting up an IT related business?
Please listen to your customers intently to help you identify the problem areas. Thereafter, diligently address the problem with your innovative ideas that customers will appreciate. This will, in turn, make your customers your brand ambassadors.
Lastly, can you share a favorite quote or maxim that speaks to you?
We, at Belmont, strongly believe that a customer is the most important visitor in our premises. This is because he is not dependent on us, we are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work, he is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider for our business, he is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him, he is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.
The maxim or quotes by Mahatma Gandhi always inspire me to strive for success and excellence while also staying firmly grounded at all times.
