NEW DELHI: In an interaction with PageOne, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Xoxoday, Manoj Agarwal speaks on how his company helps organizations in managing Rewards, Incentives and Loyalty Programs. 

Edited excerpts:

Tell us about your company and its vision?

Xoxoday is a SaaS Commerce Company that helps companies build a happy and engaged workforce. HRs and CXOs use Xoxoday to align, motivate and empower employees or channel partners to improve productivity, satisfaction and happiness. Xoxoday has over 500 clients across APAC, US and Australia. The company has been awarded as the Best Tech-HR platform by People Matters. They are ranked 9th amongst the top 50 fastest growing tech-companies by Deloitte and have also won India SME Award in 2018.

How has the company grown over the years?

Back in 2012, I along with Kushal Agarwal, Sumit Khandelwal and Abhishek Kumar started Xoxoday. The concept of Xoxoday as an employee engagement software evolved over time with the changing requirements of the Human Resources. It began as a product company, and then ventured in into gift vouchers and experiences. Xoxoday’s rewards platform was built to incorporate the HR workflows of our clients.

Today, Xoxoday has diversified into 3 products namely Xoxoday for Employees, for Channel and for Rewards. As a company, the strategy was to ambitiously pursue growth and search for scalability in the process. Xoxoday is now a SaaS commerce company which helps reinforce positive behaviour and drive a high performance culture which has reached 100 crores turnover this financial year.

What are Xoxoday's future investment plans (India and Abroad) and tie ups etc.?

Out plans include extensive investments in Technology for Tools, Systems, Integration, ISO, VAPT and Compliance. International expansion is of prime focus across APAC, US, UK and Australia.

What are you sales plan/target market (Indian and abroad)?

The Xoxoday for employee product targets small/mid-size companies (200 to 1000 Employees) and existing clients are nurtured and used for cross selling. There will be significant improvement in SaaS revenue due to increased SaaS related market reach. Acquiring high value Channel Platform customers is also our priority.

How would you differentiate your organization from the other organizations operating in the same sector?

We combine alignment (OKR), motivation (rewards) and empowerment (pulse surveys and feedback) - with a collaboration layer. This helps organisations take a holistic approach to building a happy and engaged workforce and improving HR metrics like employee NPS, attrition, turnover, etc.

What growth potential do you see in the field which you have entered?

It's a well-accepted fact that the technology boom has changed the way people think and feel about work. At the same time, HR technology is rapidly adapting to a changing work force leading to advent of new HR software and application with several analytical capabilities. The need of the hour is to get the right technology that can be leveraged to integrate HR and Business strategies. 

Xoxoday for employees is intended to align the work of managers and employees to ensure everyone’s efforts are towards the organisation’s goal. It creates focus and transparency while helping teams prioritise on tasks that have the biggest business impact.

Our findings on how most HR technologies available in the market today are not employee-centric but are organization-centric inspired us to develop people's first employee engagement solution. Xoxoday is the go to product for a happy force for any small to medium to large companies.

What are your expectations from India as a business market?

According to Deloitte Consulting LLP, the market for HR technology solutions in India is estimated to be Rs 40,000 crore. Interesting revelation is that more than 70% of the HR Tech expense is made up of HRIS, Payroll and Workforce management. Even though performance assessment and employee engagement are key areas in HR they form hardly 5-10% of HR Tech expenses. Here is where Xoxoday stands ahead of our competitors and this would indeed carve a niche for our product in Indian market.

How has the experience and activities gifting ecosystem developed in India?

Xoxoday envisaged experiences as rewards and recognition solutions at a time when corporate gifting was only considered worthy if it was tangible. It was indeed a major challenge to convince organisations about the benefits of gifting an experience to employees instead of cash rewards. 

We have managed to establish that experiential rewards is the most effective way to recognise and engage employees with our wide range of curated and personalised experiences  that suit all occasions like Birthdays, Anniversaries, Team Outings, Project Success and more to be enjoyed with friends and family resulting in strong emotional connect which is not possible with material things.

What are Xoxoday’s key focus areas?

Xoxoday is intended to build a Fun-Engaged-Happy Employees for enterprises. HR technology is generally perceived as automation and integration of HR practices like online payroll, record-keeping, resume capture, interview and hiring, performance appraisals, compensation etc.

Xoxoday has enhanced its focus to outcome and productivity for team-centric organizations. Employee satisfaction, motivation, value based recognition, employee engagement and retention are key areas taken care of by our product - Xoxoday for employees.

What are the key challenges faced by Xoxoday and how you are planning to overcome this?

We’ll do this by:

a. Hiring and retaining talent: We have created an ambitious benefits plan for the new financial year for the employees to enrich their experience. As an organisational we are also enabling mechanisms of constant feedback and culture of transparency.

b. Managing expectations of customers and delivery: We are in the process of hiring great talent as a response to the growing market opportunity and customer demand. We have turned into agile methodology to quickly execute and respond to customer demand.

c. Changing client mind set: From HR investments as a cost to an investment, corporates are required to convey the importance of investing in HR tech and in the process, investing in sustainable HR Management. Our sales teams are highly trained and nurtured to help clients realign to this thought process.

How is Xoxoday contributing towards the Government's Digital India and Make in India program?

As an Indian HR tech start up, we are a proud part of India’s burgeoning digital startup ecosystem withholding the spirit of Indian entrepreneurship.