How GIBots Is Democratising Digital Transformation For India Inc

Since the onset of the pandemic, many corporate leaders have undergone a major shift from just talking about digital transformation to embracing it in toto. Mirroring the shift, a report by the International Data Corporation reads that the overall digital transformation spending in India is pegged to touch $85 Bn by 2026.

However, there is a catch. Firstly, there are only a few companies in the country that offer full-stack digital transformation solutions. Secondly, this transformation can be expensive and time-consuming, so much so that a digital makeover worth $10 Mn could take up to two years to complete.

While many in the country may have the luxury of time and capital, a lock, stock, and barrel digital transformation can cost Tier 2 enterprise customers an arm and a leg.

Understanding these key gaps, Anil Nair founded GIBots in 2019, to offer no-code plug-and-play solutions to companies working in the fintech, manufacturing, retail, and logistics segments.

With its range of solutions, including procure-to-pay, automated bookkeeping, document digitisation and automated help desk solution, the startup competes with software giants such as IBM, Oracle, Alteryx, and Hyperscience in the digital transformation space.

Although GIBots is only in its nascent stages, it is working with the likes of Infosys, Intel, Tata Communication, Union Bank, Tata Power, and Liberty Insurance — a few names from the startup’s treasure trove of more than 30 enterprise customers.

Further, the startup has raised $500K (INR 4.13 Cr) from key business leaders ex-TCS CEO and Padma Bhushan awardee S Ramadorai and Cognizant’s UAE head Neeraj Srivastava, who also sit on the advisory board of the Pune-based startup.

Driving Digital Transformation

With its array of digital solutions, the startup works with its clients to extract actionable data around projects and businesses, generate insights, and use the insights to take action to build a digitally savvy environment.

“The fundamentals that drive the vision of the platform are information, insights, and action,” Nair said. He added that the aforementioned fundamentals make GIBots a full-stack tech solution venture.

“We are taking the same approach as the IT industry did a decade ago – using an agile approach to implement projects,” the founder said. 

To give a digital makeover to their customers, GIBots has introduced two primary categories of products – documents/data-to-action and design-to-action (Design2Info).

Document-To-Action: Automating Document Processing

Document-to-action entails deriving information and data from documents – either digital or physical – generating insights and taking appropriate action on the same.

Under this category, GIBots offers use cases such as procure-to-pay, reconciliation, automated bookkeeping, legal document digitisation, and automated tax filing, among others.

GIBots’ workflow includes bringing together documents from different sources, running them through its AI and ML-based optical character recognition (OCR) system, extracting data from the documents, reconciling them, and finally sending the data to the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for final checks and payments.

Design-To-Action: From 2D Data To 3D Models

Under its design-to-action solution, the startup offers the Design2Info platform, which allows users to extract information from engineering drawings, generate insights and take action on the same. The platform can deliver digitised and editable content of different enterprise unit requirements, taking legacy drawings in and outputting vectorised drawings.

Simply put, GIBots’ system takes in legacy drawings and data from data tables and other sources to compile layers and enhance such drawings.

For instance, the software can scan a printed blueprint of a building, take the measurements described and create a vectorised 3D model of the whole structure. It can also do the same with maps to further streamline construction projects.

Given that the platform is very much operational on smartphones, it eliminates the hustle of field officers to visit head offices to collect information and then reach the project site,” said Nair. 

“The application is just like Google Maps. For example, you open the app and you’ll be able to see all the associated assets and create new assets on the model created by the app,” said Nair. 

The amendments made by field executives then get synced with the server and all maps are updated with new assets.

GIBots is also looking at the Design2Info platform as a way to take advantage of the metaverse. Essentially, the startup aims to create a solution to allow companies to create digital twins for designing and observing structures for their real-life applicability and sustainability.

The Road Ahead Seems Steady

The pre-COVID era was largely about strategies and plans to make organisations and businesses truly digital for the future. However, with the onset of the pandemic, things changed for a world that now demanded to be more digitally driven and connected.

With the emergence of models like work from anywhere, businesses had no other option but to adapt to the new normal and walk the digital talk. Since then, the market for digital transformation has only risen; according to an International Data Corporate (IDC) report, India’s digital transformation spending is set to reach $86 Bn by 2026.

This is where startups like GIBots decided to help businesses accelerate their digital transformation journey.

According to its founder, there is hardly any visible impact on digital spending by businesses across industries despite the ongoing macroeconomic headwinds. The startup has already bagged deals worth INR 2.45 Cr so far this year and created a revenue pipeline of 27 Cr.

Competing with startups such as Bizongo, Rezolve AI, WebEngage, Bluecopa, O4S, and E42 in the space, GIBots counts more than 30 biggies as its clients. 

The startup recently finalised a contract with Infosys and TCS for its design-to-action solution. With a workforce of 51 employees, it expects to generate a revenue of INR 4 Cr in FY23. It had clocked revenue worth INR 1.54 Cr in FY22 and INR 0.94 Cr in FY21.

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