The ‘Tally Xcelerator’ (TX) Program was introduced to assist small and medium businesses by offering them business consultancy services at very reasonable cost. (Representational image)

Tally Xcelerator is an integrated entrepreneurial capacity-building program that provides entrepreneurship development and in-turn promote overall SME development in the nation by promoting entrepreneurship, fostering individual entrepreneurial capabilities, building institutional capacity and encouraging employment-creating investment and linkages both among SMEs as well as between large and small enterprises.

As a result, the program helps to promote the growth of innovative and highly competitive SMEs in India, thereby contributing to the development of a dynamic private sector and entrepreneurial culture within. Furthermore, it also contributes to energizing the private sector and to improve overall business environment.

To follow more on Tally Xcelerators, we had an opportunity to speak with Mr. Joyce Ray, Business Head Tally Solutions.

DC: What is Tally TX? And why did Tally launch this program?

Mr. Joyce: India is a fast-developing economy, with micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) contributing significantly to the seed of growth. Together they provide large scale employment and contribute to the socio-economic development of the company.

The ‘Tally Xcelerator’ (TX) Program was introduced to assist small and medium businesses by offering them business consultancy services at very reasonable cost. In this program Tally has appointed partners called Tally Xcelerators who will extend business advisory services, play the role of a coach, mentor or a trainer to Tally’s partner’s and also SMEs across the country. Through this program SMEs can realize better trade and investment opportunities which in turn will help them make competitive in both domestic and global markets.

DC: How has the Tally TX program helped the SME sector to grow in the competitive business environment? Could you please help us with any Case study?

Mr. Joyce: The aims of the TX program is to instila can-do spirit by building the self-confidence of an entrepreneur and make him or her aware of the potential and competitive advantage which they can unlock. The TallyXcelerator program helps build leadership behaviours, acknowledge the importance of well-structured business plans, improve daily business operations and impact the style of management overall.

Cognegix is one of our key TX Partner in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh and over the years have engaged with all Tally partners, both established and new. One such partner is based out of Kanpur and has experienced significant impact through the focused consulting services of Cognegix. This 5-star certified partner has seen good growth over the years and is today one of the top partners of the region. However, over the years they were unable to leverage their large customer base for business growth and extension of services. Cognegix conducted a diagnostic to understand the root causes and realized during the study an absence of continued connect with their existing customers and an absence of a structured strategy and plan for the same.

Cognegix then recommended a Key Accounts Management (KAM) approach to building connect with its customer base. Specific resources were identified for the purpose and were allotted a list of existing customers to connect with and build relationships with. Specific customer connect numbers were set with a well-defined tangible target. An incentive scheme was launched for making customer connect a regular activity, generating referrals, leads and businesses from them, along with a weekly review mechanism with dashboards. This KAM based initiative showed tangible results on the ground with a noticeable growth in referrals generated from the existing customers.

DC: Which are the strong regions for Tally TX, Brief first on the expansion plans?

Mr. Joyce: Our attempt is not to strengthen specific regions or select geographies, but to focus at a pan India level. To enable the same, we have identified the best Xcelerator partners in every region. Individual TX partner have had their own share of success and challenges; however, we have very rapidly expanded the TX program across the country and currently we have representation across all geographies. As far as India is concerned, we are proud of the fact that we now have the Xcelerator program as a value-added support to all our partners across the country.

DC: What are the criteria to empanel with the Tally TX program and what is the process flow?

Mr. Joyce: If you are in the business of consulting and supporting small and medium size entrepreneurs, to help them grow without imposing conditions which hamper their enthusiasm or style and are passionate about development as an agenda for SMEs, you are the right fit for TX. The process to empanel is very simple - as and when a need arises, we discuss our mutual interests and help the Tally TX partners to explore the possibilities and fitment of their business and interest with the partner eco-system and the customers of Tally, if the prospective partner is keen and shows interest, he/she is on boarded.

DC: Brief us on latest developments at TX, and its direct impact with Tally

Mr. Joyce: There are two very major developments on TX front, one is that Tally TX partners today are making a significant impact to the learning and development of our partner resources; this in turn is ensuring that the quality of customer engagement which our partner teams are delivering is perhaps the best amongst all such interactions in the Industry. Our aim is to work with Tally TX partners to ensure that Tally stands for the best customer experience and vice versa, the best customer experience can always be expected from Tally. The second major development is that in several pockets of the country advisory services of our Tally TX partners are being accepted, utilized and explored with significant enthusiasm by not only our partner eco-system but our SME customers also. The combined impact of these two will give significant boost to the Tally TX partners to continue to grow and build their business with us.

DC: Future Plans and Roadmap for TX

Mr. Joyce: One of the biggest projects that all our Tally TX partners are working on currently is to increase the footprint of our partner teams by 3X, which will comprise of a large number in hiring, training, performance management and retention programs. In order to deliver this, Tally TX partners are ready and gearing up very enthusiastically to deliver as per timelines.