The definition of Total Rewards is presently more concentrated on rewards that are given on particular tasks and promotions in the form of redeemable vouchers. An organization is not giving extra special privileges if it is giving vouchers to its employees for traveling, shopping or dining. These are activities that they do in their daily life on a regular basis. Thedealspoint.com tries to bring additional value to it by giving employees extra benefits on their day-to-day needs and helps them save at least 20 percent across various categories. The advantage that organizations get is that they do not have to tie up with individual vendors separately. We give them access to a list of vendors from which the company can choose from. From the vendor perspective, lot of players want to offer their services but do not have the avenues and want to reach out to the big brands, but are not being able to do so – we offer them that reach. The overall concept is that HR departments are looking for solutions to increase employee benefits at reduced costs and vendors are looking at targeting corporates - Thedealspoint.com facilitates this. Thedealspoint.com provides an online platform through which corporate employees can access special privileges across different lifestyle categories - restaurants to real estate, through our exclusive tie-ups with service providers.

As far as acceptance of these kinds of services is concerned, IT companies are the most matured, because they are familiar with the corporate culture in the US and other countries. Other sectors like the manufacturing industries are still a little hesitant as this is a totally new concept for them. The usage of a service like ours decreases and there is no internal involvement if employees are not using computers.

We have two models for pricing - one is a basic model and the other one is the premium model. Our basic model is free for corporates and vendors, but any value additions like company branded mobile applications or special requests are chargeable. We do not charge individually for the additional services we offer, there is a paid package, which includes special features, for example, we organized the ‘Wednesday’ program for an organization where any employee of the company could show his/her I-card on a Wednesday in selected restaurants and get a free beer and hot chocolate. These are value additions. Our pricing is on a per employee per month basis ranging from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 per employee per month. If there are very few employees in a company, then we charge Rs. 10 per employee per month but for a very high number (like HCL), we might charge less than Rs. 5 also. There is no minimum number of employee criteria but again we do not actively approach small companies - if they come to us then we definitely work for them.

Regarding our own infrastructure, we have a team of technical and sales people and have an office in Hyderabad.

This space is gradually becoming popular. Internationally, there is a company named Corporate Perks whose parent company is Next Jump. They are a 15 year old company and have got such programs running for 80 percent of Fortune 100 and 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies. They are focused in UK and USA.

The difference between us and our competitors is the fact that we look beyond just the deals. There is a service level, which we aspire to achieve. If there is some issue with a vendor, our clients can immediately come to us, and as we know the right people in the vendor organization, we immediately get their issues resolved. Our offerings are different too. A lot of employees would not be comfortable producing a voucher to get a discount if they are with a group of friends. We make it easier by carrying the entire exercise on the phone. We might even consider incorporating a concierge desk in the near future.

There is not much competition in the market with regards to the kind of offerings we have. There are a few smaller players who directly share the same space as ours. One of the big players in this arena is Corporate Perks that is supposedly planning to enter India. There is another start-up in USA, which was rated one of the hottest start-ups of 2011, known as Better Works. They are into the same model and offer similar discounts like us, but they charge companies for it. There is no free model and one has to pay for every service. They are targeting the smaller companies, who cannot negotiate something on their own and they charge around $3-7 per employee per month. They have a basic and a premium model as well.

Lot of e-commerce companies are eyeing this space, but there are restrictions. For example, one can purchase mobiles, gadgets, etc., via an e-commerce site but 90 percent of employees would still prefer a physical place to do their purchases from. With thedealspoint.com, there is a wide range of hospitals, restaurants, etc., on one single platform and the best part is that the organization is not confined to only one vendor. We have various vendors like Apollo Pharmacies, Home Town, Mahindra Services, Religare, Cleartrip, Expedia, Artha Properties, Kingdom of Dreams, Radisson, Café Coffee Day and e-commerce players like Yebhi.com, firstcry.com and more. We have also designed extensive programs for companies like HCL and Ericsson. Our program with HCL is called ‘My Offers in HCL’ and ‘Erideals’ in Ericsson.