Ecobillz, a cutting-edge SaaS-based real-time digitization platform launched in 2016, using artificial intelligence (AI) to digitise, gather, and aggregate data as well as create sophisticated back-office automation systems. The tool streamlines data from existing systems and applications onto the Ecobillz platform, making it easier for large enterprises to manage their document flow. More information on this topic is provided by Dr. Ameet Patil, the founder and CEO of Ecobillz Private Limited.
COVID turned out to be a boon in disguise. While we reinvented our disruption in the hospitality industry through a new module called Contactless operations, we realised that the product has a huge acceptance in hospitals, retails and every other segment
Dr. Ameet Patil, Founder & CEO of Ecobillz Private Limited
Is Ecobillz? What problems are they trying to solve?
Incorporated in 2016, Ecobillz Private Limited is headquartered at Belgaum, is a product company specializing in providing innovative digitization platform that empowers businesses to digitize any document being printed from any software. It envisages a World Without Paper Receipts towards providing Sustainable Green solution for enterprises.
It uses Cloud/Mobile Technologies, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence as the base for accumulating and collecting data acquired via digitization process that can be used for generating valuable insights using its advanced AI based analytics engine.
The SaaS (Software as a service) product, connects with the existing systems, operates without any massive change in the system and software, accessing the data and streamlining them onto Ecobillz platform to ease the paper management in offices.
What are the new trends in this industry?
Every industry use paper and paperless technology based on AI is definitely going to be the next big thing in the market. The response to Ecobillz proposition itself has been overwhelming. With ZERO sales team, we are now live in almost all the top 3 hotels chains in India. Ecobillz platform and its products are being used by more than 200+ premium 5-star hotels across the country. The product has sold itself convincing the users of the need and has created significant demand in the market for us.
COVID turned out to be a boon in disguise. While we reinvented our disruption in the hospitality industry through a new module called Contactless operations, we realised that the product has a huge acceptance in hospitals, retails and every other segment.
What is your strategy for growth & expansion?
Our customers are large organizations with minimum 200Cr turnover. Today Ecobillz is LIVE in 200+ clients spread all across India and has become a household name in premium hospitality industry in India. We are a proud winner of Elevate 2021 start-up competition in Karnataka state making it one of top start-ups of the state in India. In the next 5 to 7 years, we want Ecobillz to scale globally and be known as a world-class digitization and automation platform.
What are the major challenges you’re facing in the market?
Challenges are natural when we are trying to capture and address a niche market. What we are offering is totally new in the market and no comparable competition exists. In the very initial stage of our company, customers found it very difficult to connect the dots and see the huge savings that we were forecasting that resulted after using our product. The journey was definitely. It took us a lot of effort for the first breakthrough.
Secondly, a small team lead to a crisis of enquiry management and were faced with the possibility of negative vibes in the industry. However, problems are mother of all solutions, and we also turned to automation to resolve the issue—thus becoming smarter in long run.
What is the impact of digitalisation on the hospitality industry? Are you focussing on any other industry?
The impact of paperless digitalisation in hospitality sector has to be asserted by the industry only. However, I can give an overview in what we changed:
- Savings in Paper
- Savings in maintenance of Printers (hardware/ink/cartridge/power/etc.)
- Huge Savings in reduced man power due to advanced automation.
- Tremendous Savings in time required to churn data using automation. It’s almost in real-time Vs months of wait in earlier case.
Some Metrics:
- In one of the largest Hotels chains in India, we have shown a savings of 45%-man hours on a weekly basis. Now the employee is able to do 45% extra work with the saved time.
- Account Receivable automation has brought down the total turnaround time of receivables from 180 days to just 10 to 15 days.
- There is ZERO cost now in expensive real-estate earlier used for storage of paper.
While our main focus is going to remain in the hospitality sector, the product itself is very adaptable. Maybe in future we can look at the health and retail segment.
Why is digitalisation important in today’s time?
Today’s time is governed by Industry 4.0 that is riding on technology with maximum focus on sustainability and Green processes. How can we ignore digitalisation? Paperwork is no more an option.
If we take the case of the hospitality sector, by adopting digitization, hotels are now able to get rid of paper and the storage related problems. Earlier paper-based invoices were filed and stored for over 6 years in a secure storage space due to govt. compliance. With digitization, all digital documents are safely and securely stored on cloud or data centre where that can be quickly searched and accessed in real-time.
Using deep digitization techniques not only documents get digitized, the data in those documents get accumulated, categorised and analysed. Guest consumption patterns, profiling, preferences are some of critical use cases for enhancing guest experience. Automated reconciliation, collation of stay and Food & beverage invoices to bundle them together for use in AR and conduct fully automated income audits to identify anomalies/discrepancies are phenomenal use cases for the hotel’s back office or finance.
What is the market segment you plan to target?
Ecobillz recently won the Elevate 2021 start-up competition in Karnataka making it one of the top start-ups in Karnataka state. With its current wide spread usage in the premium hospitality chains in India, Ecobillz aims to become a household name in the hospitality in industry world over.
What estimations do you have for 2023?
Going forward, Ecobillz aims to establish itself firmly in the hospitality business, while testing water in the other segments. Ecobillz dreams of impacting the Global Sustainability mandate by implementing this AI driven SaaS product worldwide and adding to the Made in India story. Ecobillz is currently working with 200 plus hospitality establishments across India and is also planning to expand globally in Africa, Middle East, South East Asia and Europe. Ecobillz is currently adding 10 hospitality properties every month to its existing list of clients and sincerely aims that they could make a foray into sustainability index of India.
