BScaler reinvents 'cloud' business functions

Milpitas company offers integrated software to manage client data in order processing, accounting, inventory, customer contact, sales proposals

By Ali Abdollahi, The Milpitas Post - January 1, 2009    Print PDF

BScaler Founder and Chief Executive Officer John Pham sits in his Milpitas headquarters. His company offers an integrated software system that manages client data in areas including order processing, accounting, inventory, customer contact and sales proposals.

January 1, 2009 - Milpitas Post - Photo by Ali Abdollahi

The software BScaler provides is designed to use the information gathered throughout the process to complete sales force automation ("SFA") tasks, like automatically generating sales proposals and price quotes; and even forecasting the probability that a customer will purchase a certain product and how much they might purchase. The sales automation is indicative of BScaler's motto, "Click and It's Done!" The phrase, according to Pham, represents the ease with which previously arduous business process can be completed with BScaler services.

The system uses what Pham termed "cloud computing." He said the term is based on the fact that BScaler services are offered through a secure Internet address for their clients, allowing clients to access information that is "floating digitally," like a cloud.

Pham said a popular current example of cloud computing is online banking, where transactions can be initiated and completed using an Internet browser.

This model of data collection and processing is sometimes referred to as "Software as a Service," or "SaaS."

Clients of BScaler are not asked to make any up-front investment in servers or software licensing, but instead pay a monthly subscription fee based on the number of employees the client has that require access to the information from BScaler.

"We have a pre-sales team go out to the company and interview them to make sure we have what they are looking for," Pham said. After a service agreement has been signed, the client delivers all of their customer, inventory and accounting records to BScaler for input into the software system.

"We manage by volume," Pham said. "With the same amount of staff, we can monthly process 100 times more information. This helps companies reduce costs in this tough, tough economy. We guarantee that this will reduce costs in (information technology) and administration, and prevent human error."

Though Pham said he never encourages companies to reduce workforce, he said BScaler services allow them to redeploy their employees to be more productive.

"There are many firms and services that are experts in certain areas (of enterprise resource management), but nobody has integrated the services in an affordable way." Pham estimated that a mid-sized business could utilize BScaler services for approximately $5,000 a year.

BScaler has approximately 100 staffers at its various sales offices, and 25 staff members at its headquarters, located in the same Milpitas building where Acropolis was founded 19 years ago. More information on their company and services is available at www.bscaler.com.

As the high-tech business landscape in Silicon Valley has evolved and transformed over the past two decades, John Pham has attempted to remain ahead of the curve. His pursuit of visionary approaches has led him to the creation or re-creation that is BScaler Inc.   Print PDF

BScaler is the reincarnation of Acropolis Systems Inc., the informational technology infrastructure start-up company that Pham founded in Milpitas in 1989. In 1998, Pham created an intricate software system that integrated the data organization and processing needs of his company into one program.

"It was something I created out of necessity for our own company," Pham said. "We could not find a solution that we could afford. We were stuck using five different databases that still didn't do everything we wanted."

After the dot-com bomb of the early 2000s, Pham decided to market the financial software he had designed to other companies.

"In 2001 we redesigned the software, added a host of bells and whistles, reformatted to use the Java platform, and basically created a much more robust version of the software that we then commercialized to go to market," Pham said.

After five years as an enterprise resource planning firm, Pham changed the name of the company in 2006 to BScaler. He said the name is rooted in the term "scaler." A common instrument in the high-tech world, a scaler collects and captures high volumes of electronic signals, amounts impossible for humans to capture and process.

Pham said his software performs similarly high-volume functions impossible for humans to process on their own. Since his software focuses on business needs, he added the "B" to create the title BScaler Inc.

The company's description of services uses numerous acronyms that, though common in the high-tech business world, could be confusing to those unfamiliar with the industry. But Pham said the principles at work in BScaler software are rooted in traditional business models and practices.

He said the basic model is the simple "front office and back office" design of business management. The back office tasks (which BScaler calls enterprise resource planning or "ERP") consist of: processing orders and transaction data; management of inventory (called material resource planning or "MRP"); and accounting (accounts payable, accounts receivable and balance sheets).

The front office responsibilities are referred to as customer relations management, or "CRM."

The services BScaler offers in this regard are: management of contact information for past, present and prospective customers; customer track records of purchases, payments and dealings with the company; and marketing tools.

It is perhaps the front-office marketing tools that best demonstrate the intuitiveness of the BScaler software system.