Ganesan: Revenue drops after most acquisitions due to cultural and process friction
Shivakumar Ganesan · 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel · Sep 5, 2025 · at 16:29
Exotel co-founder Shivku Ganesan explains the recurring S-curve dips companies experience immediately following M&A integration.
0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.9s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“In most acquisitions, what happens when an acquisition happens is that the revenue actually tanks because new people are coming in, processes are changing. There is uncertainty culture is changing.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Shivakumar Ganesan
Mumbai Angels Refused Exotel Clawback Relief After Pivot, Says Shivku
“One of them was that there'll be a clawback if it hit 500 customers. After about three 50 customers, we shifted to enterprises. Naturally, The number of enterprise customers is not as important an enterprise as the revenue itself, right? So, so we didn't actua…”
Ganesan: Generative AI on call audio makes CSAT and NPS obsolete
“So actually voice of customer or customer feedback is no longer necessary. You can now run generative AI on all these calls and you'll automatically now know earlier you used to ask for CSAT and NPS. All of those things are not required. You can actually prett…”
Ganesan: AI will eliminate 80% of contact center seats in 3-5 years
“So broadly, I think the total number of contact center seats will come down. My estimation is that it will come down by about 80% over the course of three to five years. By the way, timeframes are actually anybody's guess. As you know, in AI, things are changi…”
Ganesan: Enterprise MRR will 5x despite 80% drop in contact center seats
“So you start with a hundred seats, you go to 20 seats, but you do AI conversations, your bill will now increase from, let's say you started with one lakh MRR, you'll actually go to about five lakhs MRR. So so we find ourselves in a really interesting situation…”
Ganesan: Contact centers will never reach 100% AI automation
“But some of these older processes, I don't ever think they will become hundred percent replaced by AI. You will have people who will be needed for complicated questions, for overseeing the bots, for teaching the bots, for compliance purposes sometimes to take …”