Wolken Software: Optimizing Enterprise Service Management with a High-Touch SaaS Model
In 2011, when the term "SaaS" was just being invented and global enterprises were skeptical of the "Cloud," Rohan Joshi saw a massive white space. Having spent 25 years at giants like Phillips, Infosys, and L&T Infotech, he realized that large organizations were overspending on fragmented service management tools that sat outside their core ERP frameworks. Today, as the Founder of Wolken Software, Joshi leads an enterprise-class B2B SaaS company that is taking on the likes of ServiceNow and Salesforce by offering a high-touch, secure, and scalable solution for the Fortune 500.
Joshi's journey is a masterclass in reinvention. From a pure-play electronics engineer trained in mechatronics in Germany to a global sales and marketing leader at Infosys, he has navigated the shifting tides of the tech industry for four decades. Alongside co-founder Sudhir Prabhu, he has built a profitable organization that proves Indian product companies can dominate the global enterprise market by focusing on high realization per customer and a relentless pursuit of "Simple, Scalable, and Secure" technology.
The $85 Billion Service Gap
The global ITSM (IT Service Management) and customer service market is currently valued at $80 to $85 billion annually. While many players focus on the mass SMB market, Wolken Software targets the top tier—Fortune 500 companies—where the net realization per customer is significantly higher and the requirements for security and scalability are paramount.
A Journey of "Unusual" Choices: From Bangalore to Germany
Rohan Joshi is a true Bangalorean, but his path to entrepreneurship took him through some of the world's most elite engineering hubs. After graduating from BMS College of Engineering in 1984, he chose an unusual destination for an Indian student at the time: Germany. "Engineering in India was largely theoretical; in Germany, it was just the reverse—majority practical," Joshi explains.
Equipped with a postgraduate diploma in mechatronics, he joined Phillips Electronics, spending years in the Netherlands and the UK working on "embedded systems" (what we now call IoT). But the call of India was strong. In 1991, he returned home and was interviewed by Nandan Nilekani and Narayana Murthy, landing a commercial leadership role at Infosys that would keep him in Europe for another decade, representing the "Indian Services" wave before pivoting to "Indian Products."
"If I had remained in the corporate world, I would have retired 10 years ago. Reinvention is what keeps us going. I was an engineer, then a sales guy, then a product guy. Energy comes from trying something new that clients actually want."
The Birth of Wolken: Freeing the Enterprise from License Fees
The idea for Wolken came during Joshi's seven-year stint at L&T Infotech. He and co-founder Sudhir Prabhu noticed that while Enterprises were spending heavily on ERPs like SAP and Oracle, the service management tools (like BMC Remedy) were external, expensive, and required massive AMC (Annual Maintenance Contract) fees. They saw an opportunity to disrupt this with a cloud-native, SaaS model.
"We said we could free the enterprise from paying huge license fees by moving into a SaaS mode," Joshi recalls. Launched in 2011, Wolken was a pioneer in the Indian SaaS landscape, betting on the cloud long before it was trusted by the banking and insurance sectors. Their mantra was simple: create a tool that not only resolves IT issues but extends into HR, Admin, Finance, and Logistics—a truly unified issue-resolving mechanism.
The Wolken 80/10/5 Model
Wolken balances standardization with personalization through a unique architectural framework:
- 80% Standardization: The core code base and functionality are the same for all 45+ large enterprise clients.
- 10% Configurability: A highly flexible layer that allows clients to adapt the tool to their specific workflows without changing code.
- 5% Customization: Deep implementation support to ensure the product matches the brand's exact "look and feel" (logo placement, colors, etc.).
Focusing on the Fortune 500: High realization over Mass SMB
Unlike competitors like Zendesk, Zoho, or Freshdesk—which focus 90% of their business on SMBs—Wolken Software is built for the Fortune 200 and 500. Joshi is happy with a client base of 100-300 customers rather than thousands, provided they are global leaders with high-scale needs. Their 45 current clients include some of the biggest names in the Fortune 100 space.
The critical metric for Wolken is MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution). In the old monolithic days, resolving a ticket could take 8 hours to 5 days. Today, Wolken has brought that down to minutes. "In the consumer market, it has to be seconds. In our market (Enterprise), they give you a few hours, but speed is still our hot spot," Joshi notes.
Wolken Software: Scale and Reach (Jan 2026)
- Market Focus: Fortune 500 and sub-Fortune 500.
- Client Base: 45+ Large global enterprises.
- Tagline: Simple, Scalable, Secure.
- Core Verticals: ITSM and External Customer Service.
- Global Realization: Multi-million dollar net realization per customer.
Founder's Wisdom: The Freedom of Entrepreneurship
For Rohan Joshi, entrepreneurship is defined by one word: Freedom. After decades in large corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees, he relishes the ability to listen to a client or an internal team member and act on a revolutionary feature immediately.
Rohan's Guide for Innovators
Look for the White Space: Don't just build what exists. Build what the market is writing off or hasn't yet assumed will work (like Cloud in 2011).
Standardize to Scale: If you customize too much, you can't grow. Aim for at least 80% standardization to maintain a healthy product core.
Adrenaline Over Exhaustion: Even if you are wrong 7 out of 10 times, the 3 times you are right will give you the adrenaline rush to change how the world works.
The Future of Wolken
As Wolken Software continues to expand its footprint in the 80 billion dollar ITSM market, Joshi remains focused on the "Indigenous" methodology of solving complex enterprise problems. By combining the rigorous engineering spirit he learned in Germany with the commercial acumen gained at Infosys, he is ensuring that Wolken isn't just another SaaS company—it's a high-performance engine for the modern enterprise.
As he reflects on his journey, Joshi's energy is infectious. "We are going to change the way people work," he concludes. In the competitive world of Enterprise SaaS, Wolken Software is proving that experience, when combined with the freedom to innovate, is the most powerful technology of all.
About the Guest
Rohan Joshi is the Founder of Wolken Software. A mechatronics engineer with honors from **BMS College of Engineering** and a postgraduate diploma from Germany, Rohan has over 40 years of experience in the global technology sector. He held senior leadership roles at **Phillips Electronics** in the Netherlands and the UK before returning to India to join **Infosys** in its early high-growth phase. Later, he served as a global leader at **iFlex** and **L&T Infotech**. He is a recognized authority on Enterprise SaaS, ITSM, and building secure, scalable technology solutions for the world's largest organizations.
Wolken Software is an enterprise-class B2B SaaS company specializing in IT Service Management (ITSM) and Customer Service solutions. Known for its "Simple, Scalable, Secure" framework, Wolken helps Fortune 500 companies streamline their internal operations and external customer support through a unified, cloud-native platform. The company is committed to high-touch service and efficient ticket resolution, providing a robust alternative to traditional monolithic service management tools.