“This new role gives me a good chance to make a significant difference”

You have recently been promoted to the role of President and COO. What does this appointment represent for your career?
I was thinking I had maximized my talent many years ago when I was a decently good Development Manager! I have been very lucky in my career and have received a lot more than I have deserved. I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with many great people and they have made me look better than I actually am. I personally do not get too high based on things like titles and promotions. I am very committed to working hard to make Bally Technologies as great a company as it can be for its employees, customers, and shareholders. This new role gives me a good chance to make a significant difference. Nothing more. Nothing less.  

Could you give us some insight on your professional background?
I graduated in engineering (Metallurgy) and then earned my MBA from a couple of India’s premier academic institutions. After working in a couple of general management roles in India, I took up a career in application software about 24 years ago – almost all of that time in the U.S.  I served as a Specialist Systems Analyst at Mattel Toys and as a Director of Information Systems at Bugle Boy Industries. Later, I worked at Manhattan Associates, a leader in supply-chain execution software solutions, for seven years (1998-2005), holding several positions. In March 2005, I joined Bally Technologies as Executive Vice President of our Systems business unit.

What are your main objectives in this new role?
I will be overseeing both our Games and Systems divisions with the objective of keeping an unrelenting focus on our core games and systems products and our core business principles surrounding customer-centricity; while keeping our extraordinarily good innovation engine running well. As one of the very few providers of end-to-end technology for the gaming industry across both games and systems, we are in a great position to bridge the gap, create synergies, and provide comprehensive value through technology for our customers. We are in very good position to create new and interesting entertainment experiences for our customers’ patrons that will make gaming much more fun for them. My main objectives will be to maximize the opportunities we have created for ourselves so far through the fantastic competitive position we have achieved thus far.  

What markets are your main focuses?
All of the markets where we conduct business are very important to us. We do sometimes have to use additional resources in new or emerging markets. We have had good established presence in markets like South America, Macau, and Europe for many years. At the moment, we are in the process of setting up solid foundations in other markets like Italy, South Africa, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. North America continues to be our number one revenue-generating market and we will never lose focus there.  International as a percentage of our overall revenues has grown consistently during the past few years. Bally will keep developing compelling innovations to delight players and increase operators’ return-on-investment in all markets. We are committed to becoming the global technological partner of choice, and that will not change.

What Latin American market has more potential for Bally's business strategy?
Mexico has shown exceptional growth for us over the past year and we plan to continue taking advantage of the short and long-term growth opportunities we are seeing there.  Since the new law allowing Class III machines came into effect, we have seen accelerated growth and a much greater interest in our slot and casino-management systems product lines. We now have a strong local sales and support presence in Mexico. We have also had very significant market share in both games and systems in Chile and Argentina. Other up-and-coming markets like Colombia and Peru offer interesting opportunities for us in the near future. We are putting ourselves in a position to succeed by establishing strong local presence and infrastructure in these countries.

Are you planning to launch new products and solutions? What do they consist of?
We are always launching many new products both in games and systems. We recently launched the Pro Series family of cabinets driven by the power of our new ALPHA 2 operating system platform. Thanks to this technology, we are developing new and exciting play mechanics such as U-Spin, Hot Zone, and Directional Wilds, and there are many more to come.  We have launched the industry’s first and only curved LCD cabinet (Pro Curve) featuring the unique game Code Red as the first game title for that cabinet.  We have acquired several ‘tier-one’ licensed brands that we plan to unveil during G2E this October. 

Also, thanks to the versatility of the iDeck, our award-winning touch-screen button deck, we have been able to develop extremely impactful games that offer enhanced levels of interactivity and mystery bonusing. On the systems side, we will continue to enhance our existing casino-management, slot-accounting, and table-management solutions. With our Elite Bonusing Suite applications delivered though our iVIEW DM picture-in-picture player-user-interface, we are able to offer fascinating second-chance-to -win opportunities for players, and dramatically change the experience for casino guests. We continue to create many new groundbreaking floorwide-bonusing applications for our customers.

What are Bally’s projects for the coming months?
We are gearing up for an exceptional showing at G2E and SAGSE Buenos Aires this year.  We’ll be showcasing a host of innovative technologies in our traditional games and systems lines of business, as well as new mobile applications, multi-touch interactivity, and a number of trailblazing products and licensed, branded game themes.  We will remain true to our customer-centric philosophy, putting our customers’ needs and expectations first in everything we do.