Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Suchit Bachalli, CEO of Unilog (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: We’re with you. One thing you’ll find is that our audience is a sophisticated audience. We know the space. I got your point that you are trying to provide something that is more comprehensive to the mid-market that can give a lot of the functionalities that is available in the higher-end of the market at a fraction of the cost. My question is, given that is your positioning, are you telling me that there is no other player in that market? That’s hard to believe.

Suchit Bachalli: There are other players in the market. Hybris will have a search functionality. It may have PIM function. Endeca will tell you that they don’t have PIM functionality but they could potentially piggyback on any other PIM that’s out there. Our closest competitor is a company called Insight Software. They partner with SiteCore because they don’t have the CMS portion of it. Hybris partners with Endeca for search. Yes, I don’t think you need to have all of the pieces of that ecosystem, but usually two of them will come together to compete with us. In all the deals that we come into, we’re competing with two people. We’re either competing with a Hybris–Endeca or Insight–Sitecore combination. We’re competing with combinations but they do not necessarily require all the pieces. Additionally, I don’t think we would get time of day at Walmart.com because I think we’re not messaging to them. We’re not selling to them.

Sramana Mitra: Your target customers are mid-market e-commerce companies?

Suchit Bachalli: Mid-market, non e-commerce companies that need to get to e-commerce.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of mid-market, non e-commerce TAM, what is the scenario right now? How many companies have quite a bit of scale because the numbers – $600 million-  that you were quoting indicate that it is a sizeable company? We’re sitting in 2015. How much of that market is still non e-commerce?

Suchit Bachalli: I would say upwards of 70%.

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. That’s something that if you could elaborate on would be very interesting for our audience to learn because we live in this technology-intensive universe. I’m based in Menlo Park, California. Our world view is very warped.

Suchit Bachalli: It is absolutely surprising, right.

Sramana Mitra: It’s actually an interesting discussion to understand the dynamics of that space. Are there dominant segments where you see lack of adoption of e-commerce for example?

Suchit Bachalli: PVS, HVAC, and industrial. Of all of those segments, electrical is the early adopter but several of these are just way behind.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Suchit Bachalli, CEO of Unilog
1 2 3 4 5