Since creating the company, Mr. Murad has focused Optimal Satcom on developing new applications for its fully-integrated, enterprise management system. In addition, he continues to pursue various market opportunities around the world, targeting satellite operators and satellite service providers and their requirements for optimizing their satellite capacity.
Prior to Optimal Satcom, Mr. Murad worked for over 19 years in various positions across the satellite communications industry. Immediately before founding Optimal Satcom, he held senior management positions at Lockheed Martin and COMSAT Laboratories. In these positions, he headed product development for transmission planning and satellite capacity management and led system design for a number of commercial SATCOM and MILSATCOM projects. Mr. Murad honed his satellite engineering expertise while working at the NASA Center for Satellite and Hybrid Communications Networks where he supported research and development for the modeling and simulation of hybrid satellite-terrestrial mobile communications systems.
Mr. Murad graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, with a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering. He holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park.
SatMagazine (SM)
Would you please explain to our readers what your Company’s presence is within the Asia-Pacific satellite communications and ancillary market arenas? What sort of experience does your Company possess within the Asia-Pacific satellite markets?
Ahsun Murad
The satellite communications market in the Asia-Pacific is quite challenging, with a relatively large number of satellite operators and service providers. As the world’s only provider of enterprise satellite capacity management systems catering to the needs of satellite operators and service providers, Optimal Satcom’s area of expertise is providing our customers with the technical, operational, and financial management of their satellite business.
One of our first significant projects in Asia supported ChinaSat’s capacity planning systems in conjunction with its launch of ChinaSat 6. (China has since consolidated all its satellite companies into a single entity, China DBSAT.) Optimal has also provided systems and actively supports the operations of GE Satellite for its GE-23 Pacific coverage satellite, Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS), Singtel, and VinaSat. We also work with a number of global satellite operators including Harris Caprock, Vizada, Marlink as well as the U.S. Government.
SM
Why did your Company enter this market? How long has your Company been involved in this segment?
Ahsun Murad
We have been in the Asia Pacific region for about eight years. Our business in the region has been driven by the growth of our customers, and a number of initiatives for business process modernization by regional companies.
SM
Are you focused on any particular segments, due to their growth potential? (i.e., launch, manufacturing, teleport, security, milsatcom, imagery, satellite broadcast, and others.) What market segments in Asia-Pacific do you believe are the most promising for your Company?
Ahsun Murad
Our business focus is SATCOM and MILSATCOM, supporting satellite companies and government entities with software systems for efficient satellite capacity management. There are a number of innovations in the SATCOM market that are being rapidly adopted across the industry, innovations such as DVB-S2, Double-Talk/CnC, PCMA, Ka-Band Satellite systems, managed services models, airborne systems with phased-array antenna systems, low-rate spread spectrum, etc. We are helping our customers take advantage of the technological and operational strengths these offer, and incorporate them into their business models and product offerings.
SM
The challenges are numerous for entry into, and for business sustainment within, this area of the world. What do you see as among the most formidable challenges to surmount?
Ahsun Murad
The diversity of business cultures and practices create both challenges and opportunities. For Optimal Satcom, it means that our systems need to be flexible and customizable to fit various business process models. We also have to give consideration to issues such as multi-currency operations, multi-lingual end-user reporting, and similar processes. So far, our innovations in this regard have been a discriminator for our products and a business advantage.
A second challenge is the perceived value of software. In many regions around the world, investment in a software infrastructure is still a new concept, especially for operating a company effectively. Organizations often employ highly inefficient and labor-intensive manual processes and need to adapt to software’s operational and technological advantages.
The third challenge is having our system management tools fit into the customer’s business culture. The high level of integration our systems can provide with free flow of information, and the resulting operational efficiency, often represents a significant shift from a more compartmentalized style of management and operations. We have found that acceptance and support for the project at all levels is important and enables a smooth transition. We work hard to present a value proposition that has significance for executive and mid-level management, as we well as the hands-on operational staff.
SM
Given the state of the global economy, how do you rate the Asia-Pacific market as far as its viability for income generation and growth over the next year or two? Where do you believe the opportunities for growth exist?
Ahsun Murad
In today’s economic environment, diversity is a key to maintaining business success, predictability and growth. As global satellite operators and service providers pursue the Asia-Pacific market to diversify their operations and sustain their growth, they compete with a host of regional players. Our systems help improve operational efficiency and the easy ability to tie in additional offices and integrate operations worldwide that facilitate such expansions. On the other hand, regional operators seeking to compete and expand to other parts of the world also benefit from our technologies. We have customers that fall into both categories, and we believe both of these trends will foster our continued growth in the Asia-Pacific market.
SM
What applications are driving the demand for satellite-delivered communications in the Asia-Pacific region? What do you see as the major focuses for driving existing and new business in this arena?
Ahsun Murad
Enterprise infrastructure growth, support for off-shore oil and gas operations, airborne and maritime operations are all important verticals that drive growth for our customers, which in turn, drive their need for our products.
SM
What new technologies and/or products can we expect to see or hear about from your Company over the next year?
Ahsun Murad
We continue to create and offer innovative products for the satellite market. Our Enterprise Capacity Manager (ECM) product is going through a series of innovative enhancements in support of new technologies, some of which I mentioned earlier. We will also be deploying new mobile apps and expect to launch new service-based and cloud-based offerings for our satellite operator and satellite service provider customers.
Further information at the Company website: http://www.optimalsatcom.com