Ramco @20: From systems of record to creating systems of intelligence in region

How a product-first DNA, deep localisation, and AI-native innovation are powering Ramco’s next chapter in the Middle East.

Ramco Systems marked a major regional milestone with the celebration of Ramco@20 – Experience That Matters in Dubai, reflecting two decades of shaping enterprise transformation across the Middle East. The full-day event brought together senior leaders in HR, payroll, aviation, logistics, ERP, and services resource planning to spotlight Ramco’s journey, its deep-rooted partnerships, and its ambitious vision for the future.

The event underscored how the Middle East has become a catalyst in Ramco’s evolution—from early systems of record to today’s AI-native, experience-driven enterprise platforms. Leadership highlighted a renewed focus on conversational UX, agentic workflows, platform modernisation, and region-specific innovations aimed at accelerating the next phase of digital transformation.

Sandesh Bilagi, Chief Operating Officer, Ramco Systems and Abinav Raja, Managing Director, Ramco Systems spoke to Tahawultech.com about the company’s 20-year journey, its product-first DNA, and how AI, localisation, and human-centric design are shaping Ramco’s roadmap for 2026 and beyond.

Interview excerpts:

Ramco is marking over 20 years in the Middle East. How significant is this milestone for you, and what are your key focus areas as you look towards 2026?
We’ve been building enterprise software for 25 years globally, with more than two decades firmly anchored in the Middle East—a region that has consistently shaped our product strategy. The market’s shift from contingent workforces to advanced, technology-driven industries pushed us to evolve our platforms in lockstep with regional priorities. Aviation MRO has emerged as a major strength in the Gulf, while the scale and diversity of the expat workforce have influenced how HR and payroll systems must be designed. The logistics landscape, with its country-specific operational nuances, has equally driven product-level innovation. Being a product-first company means every market shift becomes a design challenge we solve through the product itself. Today, this approach underpins our presence across all GCC countries and key sectors, including aviation, logistics, manufacturing, and HR.

“Looking ahead to 2026, the Middle East remains a priority. We operate globally but think locally here—deepening localisation, strengthening our footprint, and aligning with the region’s digital and AI-first ambitions.”

Could you briefly walk us through Ramco Group’s legacy and how Ramco Systems emerged from that journey?
The Ramco Group’s origins go back to 1935, beginning with textiles and later expanding into cement in the 1960s—now the flagship business—followed by building products in the late ’80s. The transition into enterprise software came in the late 1990s with the creation of Ramco Systems. Across these diverse businesses, a consistent theme has been innovation and a commitment to solving real customer problems.

Ramco Systems itself began as an internal initiative when one of our group companies required a modern system of record. With no suitable solution available at the time, our chairman decided to build one. The client–server product that emerged worked so effectively that it evolved into a market offering. Marshal, our first product launched in 1993–94, quickly gained traction among major Indian conglomerates and soon expanded into the Middle East, the US and global markets. This early success cemented our identity as one of India’s first true enterprise product companies.

Even with more than 25 years of product heritage, we continue to operate with a “day one” mindset—constantly reinventing ourselves to stay aligned with emerging technologies, evolving user expectations, and the pace of enterprise transformation worldwide.

Ramco has emphasised localisation as a strategic differentiator. How is localisation shaping your top priorities for 2026 in the Middle East?
Our priorities mirror the region’s priorities. While global trends shape parts of our roadmap, the Middle East brings its own set of requirements that we actively build for. In HR, enterprises are demanding technologies that elevate end-user experience. The conversation has shifted from “systems of record” to “systems of experience,” focused on productivity, mobile-first access, and AI-driven friction removal. For HR and payroll, our innovation is centred on intuitive, conversational, and intelligent interactions rather than traditional screen-heavy workflows.

Aviation is undergoing a global reset, with aircraft and engines staying in service longer due to delivery delays. This puts significant pressure on MROs to increase output without expanding infrastructure. Our role is to use technology to enhance business performance—accelerating turnaround times, optimising planning, improving utilisation of assets and skills, and ensuring regulatory compliance. The same principle applies across ERP and logistics: technology must be directly tied to real business outcomes.

Localisation remains a critical differentiator. We embed country-specific nuances—HR rules, address formats, logistics workflows, taxation requirements—directly into the product layer. This ensures that Ramco behaves like a true GCC-native solution rather than a global product retrofitted for the region.

We approach AI on two fronts: how it boosts our internal productivity and how it transforms the products our customers use. Internally, we adopted AI early across development and support—accelerating coding, testing, documentation, and ticket resolution. This has increased feature velocity and improved customer response times, directly impacting satisfaction scores. For customers, we revisited a fundamental question: what’s broken in enterprise software? Long implementations, complex process mapping, heavy data migration, painful integrations, and outdated UIs have held enterprises back for years. In a 2025–26 world, that model is no longer acceptable. AI enables us to rethink the entire lifecycle. Payroll implementations that once took four to six months can now be completed in weeks. Customers can upload policy documents, and AI interprets and configures the system automatically. Our goal: bring many implementations down to under a month.

On user experience, we’re moving beyond traditional interfaces. Enterprise software shouldn’t require training or certifications. Our roadmap centres on conversational, UI-less interactions where AI agents execute tasks behind the scenes. Users simply ask—through text or voice—and the system responds intelligently. This is the foundation of our shift from systems of record to systems of intelligence: faster go-lives and intuitive, conversational experiences that feel natural and frictionless.

You’ve spoken about AI-native applications, conversational UX and agentic workflows. How do these next-generation capabilities redefine enterprise experiences for your customers in this region?

Building on that foundation, two elements define our AI approach: predictability and control. AI must remain human-in-the-loop, especially because it is inherently probabilistic. Any configuration, recommendation or workflow step generated by AI is surfaced for human review and approval where financial or operational impact is high. We are also introducing natural language workflows, allowing admins to define processes in plain English. The AI agent then follows these steps—validating data, calling APIs, generating reports—ensuring predictable outcomes while preserving customer control. Personalisation is another focus area. Users can tailor the AI’s tone and interaction style to match their organisational culture. Beyond text, we are expanding into multimodal inputs such as speech, images and video. On an MRO shop floor, for instance, pointing a camera at a component can trigger real-time interpretation and guidance.

“For the Middle East, multilingual and voice-driven interactions are essential. The region’s diverse workforce requires enterprise systems that work in the user’s preferred language and mode of communication. This is core to our vision of making AI both highly intelligent and genuinely human-centric.”

Localisation once meant importing a global product and adding regional patches. We’ve reversed that model. With more than two decades of on-ground experience, much of the Middle East’s business logic—regulatory rules, sector nuances, city-level variations—is already embedded in our platform. We’re now adding intelligence that enables the system to learn and adapt faster, eliminating the need for customers to repeatedly explain, “This is how we do it in Riyadh or Dubai.”

On the people front, our view is straightforward: technology doesn’t remove the need for people; it elevates the work they do. We want our teams focused on customer value—pain-point discovery, business mapping, and transformation guidance—not repetitive tasks.

We’re investing heavily in:

Technologically, this region sits high on our roadmap, especially for AI-led features and compliance with emerging regulations. Innovations such as air taxis and eVTOLs expected in 2026 present significant opportunities where our aviation and drone management experience can deliver strong value.

Two examples illustrate our impact — one in aviation and one in HR/payroll.

In aviation, we replaced long, linear implementations with a “left-shifted” model. Rather than starting with blank-sheet requirements, we begin with an 80–85% ready solution, let customers react early, and front-load testing and automation. This approach helped a Saudi aviation customer go live in just 45 days instead of eight months, delivering value from day one. In HR/payroll, scale is the challenge. A customer processing over 100 million monthly records for 40,000+ employees needed eight to nine hours for arrears runs. Our in-memory, agent-based engine cut that to under 45 minutes, enabling multiple reruns close to cut-off and reducing hosting costs through dynamic scaling. That same engine now powers complex MRO planning — optimising technician schedules, parts movements and turnaround times — solving problems that spreadsheets simply cannot handle.

You’ve spoken about ‘doubling down’ for the next 20 years. What does Ramco’s region-aligned roadmap look like, and which AI-driven innovations will define your next phase of enterprise transformation?
We don’t define our ambition primarily in revenue terms – those are outcomes, not goals. Our core ambition is to be among the top-tier solution providers, the top quadrant, in every business area we operate in. If we achieve that in terms of product strength and customer impact, the revenues, customer numbers, and people growth will follow. For the Middle East, we clearly see accelerated growth. The speed of change here in the last three to four years has been remarkable – from the composition of global interest in the region to the appetite for cutting-edge tech and the push towards AI-driven economies. In such an environment, accelerated growth is the natural outcome if you are aligned and prepared.

“AI-driven agents, in-memory optimisation engines, conversational and multilingual UX, and deeply localised features will be at the heart of our roadmap. We see this region not just as a market for adoption, but as a co-creation hub where many of these innovations will be shaped with customers.”

We ensure our AI remains human-centric by keeping people firmly in the loop. AI can automate tasks and make recommendations, but final decisions—especially those with financial or operational impact—always require human sign-off. Natural language workflows give customers full control, allowing them to define how agents behave step by step. This keeps AI predictable and transparent. We also personalise tone and interaction style so the AI communicates in a way that fits each organisation. Accessibility is equally important. Multilingual, voice-driven interactions matter in a region with diverse workforces and varying digital literacy levels. Users should be able to work in the language and mode they are most comfortable with. Our goal is simple: AI should empower people, not replace them—removing friction so employees can focus on higher-value work while the system handles the rest.