Managing a workforce and processing their payroll amidst the pandemic has been a challenge for most organizations. Since contact-based attendance systems were prohibited and social distancing became the new norm, organizations had to either go back to paper-based systems or consider a technological upgrade to manage their payroll and attendance. However, most facial recognition systems are either unreliable, expensive, or pose a threat to security.
Thankfully, KENT CamAttendance was created with the above considerations in mind, which is why its facial recognition software has been widely applauded by organizations of every size. Featuring state-of-the-art security features, easy usability, and great accuracy, this face recognition solution offers flexible deployment, improved and instant reports for HR teams in over 500 organizations.
We are fortunate to have interviewed Mr Varun Gupta, the Director of KENT Systems, and learn about his journey, mission, and vision for the future. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
In Conversation with Mr. Varun Gupta, Director at KENT RO Systems Ltd.
We are glad to have interviewed Mr. Varun Gupta, Director at KENT RO Systems Ltd., and gained insights into his company’s journey so far.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
A warm welcome from SoftwareSuggest Mr. Varun Gupta. Our readers are keen to know what prompted you to create KENT CamAttendance? Tell us about your journey so far.
Thank you SoftwareSuggest, After the 1st lockdown in Mar 2020, we re-opened soon as water purifiers after-sales service was given an essential service tag. Offices, warehouses, and factories shortly opened partially across the country. As fingerprint-based attendance systems were banned, we managed the time and attendance of employees using gate registers and excel sheets.
But it was complete chaos when we were processing the payroll for the first time after re-opening. There were innumerable reconciliation errors, typos, incorrect entries, etc. And that was the eureka moment for me. Having seen wide adoption of facial recognition-based attendance/access control systems abroad and leveraging the experience of developing computer vision and AI-based solutions for the connected car camera that we had launched in 2019, we quickly developed barebone solutions and deployed them in 5 of our offices. The prototypes worked well, and the genesis of the product was based on challenges faced by us in our own business. It was a very rapid development and the time to market was hardly 5 months. We finally launched in August 2020 and the journey has been very fulfilling since then.
I derive a lot of happiness and satisfaction from the fact that more than 500 organizations and 100,000+ employees are currently being benefitted from this solution as it is giving them the confidence to return to their workplaces.
What is your success mantra? Something you have followed personally that has helped you in your journey.
My success mantra has always been a single-minded focus on customer delight. We are a very customer-oriented company and deeply research our customers to find out their pain points. Once the problem area is identified, we try to find innovative solutions to solve those problems. We aim to provide an end-to-end solution to customers based on cutting-edge technology and a keen focus on execution has really helped us succeed.
How has KENT CamAttendance equipped itself to deal with the Covid-19 situation better?
As mentioned earlier, KENT CamAttendance’s genesis was prompted by COVID-19 circumstances. So, we had conceptualized our product with a central thought of being a completely TOUCHLESS solution. Fingerprint-based attendance machines involved employees touching a common surface area with their fingers for marking their attendance and this sort of action is just not very wise in today’s times. So, touchless had to be one of the crucial aspects of the solution.
Apart from that, we have also thought of ways in which we can make the offices and workplaces safer through the deployment of our solution. For example, during this pandemic wearing a mask is important. So, we gave a functionality to organizations that help them in enforcing mask compliance in the office premises. Employee’s attendance shall not be marked if a mask is not detected while recognizing his face.
We also felt a need to safeguard the solution from mischievous elements trying to fool the system with their high-quality photos for marking proxy attendance, so we developed a patented algorithm called real person detection to deal with such cases.
We have come up with a range of devices so that every corporate’s unique needs can be fulfilled. We have come up with a FR 5”, FR 8” KENT CamAttendance device and a terminal app solution for organizations who are not interested in investing in hardware. Apart from that we also have a pure-play software solution, which works on a mobile app so that employees can mark their attendance from anywhere using their own mobile devices.
What is your vision and plan for taking KENT CamAttendance to greater heights in the next 5 years?
My vision for KENT CamAttendance is to penetrate thousands of organizations every year and I see a lot of growth potential in the attendance management space. I am sure that we will be able to become the #1 solution provider in India for this technology as we have a far superior solution compared to our competition. The accuracy of our solution is close to 99.99% and it recognizes faced within a fraction of a second.
Also, since this technology is geography agnostic, we also plan to enter the Middle East and Southeast Asia in near future. South America and Africa will be our next targets.
I enjoy cycling and cycle 20-25 Kms at a stretch at least thrice a week. Daily meditation keeps me calm and helps in connecting to my inner self. I also play piano and love teaching it to my sons.
What motivates and strengthens you to keep up with the competition?
I think my single biggest motivation is to overcome challenges thrown by the situation and then help my customers in getting a solution, which truly makes a positive impact in their lives. I derive a lot of satisfaction when I hear how happy our customers are and how beneficial our product/service is. Obsession with customer satisfaction always pushes us to be better than yesterday and keep pushing our boundaries further.
What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs starting out in this field?
Firstly, learn how to dream and dream big. If you cannot dream about your idea, then you have already killed it. Second, believe in your idea and persevere to take it from ideation to execution. It will get very challenging for you but do not lose hope and work on the fundamentals of your business. Do not look for complicated questions and answers. Get the basics right and things will fall in line.
Recently, we have launched KENT CamCall, a first of its kind SaaS-based video call platform, for inbound calls that help businesses to fuel sales growth and provide unparalleled customer experience. We are planning to come up with a range of Home Cameras, which are going to be revolutionary products in the inside-home security space. These will be 4 G-enabled on-cloud solutions and will be the very first to hit the Indian markets. We are also bringing up improved car cameras and baby monitoring cameras in the coming months.
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