INDIA'S MOST EMPLOYEE CENTRIC COMPANIES TO WATCH
2020 Vol.-10 Issue-01
COMPANY OF THE MONTH
Sumit Ganguli, CEO GAVS Technology
VENKATRAM VASANTAVADA MD & CEO
SeedWorks International Private Ltd
I
WHAT DID THE COMPANIES LEARN TODAY?
n a corporate set-up, especially in the Information Technology (IT) sector, each employee is given a set of skills to master during a financial year. Part of their Key Responsibility Area (KRA) these skill sets are chosen as per their job profile and accordingly a course curated by the Learning and Development (L&D) department. These courses are meant to help them hone their current skills, learn new things, fill the gap that they feel in their work style which they think is a hindrance to development and upskill. While these courses are allocated with all the good intentions, more often than not, all that these allocations manage to meet is the KRA hours requirement. An employee completes a course allocated to him/her, gets the hours credited and thus completes the KRA making him qualify for the next appraisal cycle. But is that the only thing the employee and the employer need out of something as crucial and trending as Upskilling? Since the pandemic hit India, the traffic on upskilling sites saw an all-time high and if analysts are to be believed, the upskilling trend is here to stay. Compare this to the before lockdown scenario when employees were rushing to training sessions because their KRA’s were not complete yet. So, what changed the intention behind the upskilling rush? Was it the time at hand or the content or both and more?
From the The first issue is that of typecasting. When employees grow good at something, say a technology or a process in the organization, the employers are more likely to keep them occupied with what they are comfortable with, or rather the company is comfortable with. So, in a few years, most of the learning content becomes repetitive for the employee and the upskilling ceases. The second is the lack of flexibility and choice. The L&D department puts up a content that runs around for quite some time or when something extraordinary happens in that field. Also, the instructors, in case of instructor-led courses, are fixed too. So, you have one or two instructors leading a course. It does not matter if a batch is full of freshers or experienced folks or a mix of both. Therefore, if an employee takes the same session (which is very likely due to typecasting) more than once, he is bound to lose interest in the session. Compare this with what the learning sites are offering - interactive content, content on the latest technology, learning at customized pace, hybrid sessions, multiple subject matter experts and more. All these make upskilling more fun. So why not leverage the current trend for a better future. Now that work from home trend, or rather a hybrid style of work, is here to stay so should learn from home or learn at your own pace. Instead of courses being assigned to the employees why not turn the tables and help them to learn what they want. Why typecast them and not help them explore their hidden potentials? Afterall happy, creative, updated and upskilled employees are what an organization needs to stay ahead. This is just one of the many needs or expectations that an employee has from his/her organization. Those who manage to understand, take care of their employees and help them grow along with the organization are truly called “India’s Most Employee Centric Companies to Watch”. This special edition by Insights Success presents companies that treat human resources as the most precious investment a company
EDITOR can make. On the Cover, we have SeedWorks International Private Ltd, an agri-research corporation. The core of SeedWorks is collaboration, teamwork, openness, transparency, and data-based decision-making and compliance with the right values. The edition also features Aktiv Software Pvt. Ltd., a company providing ERP and eCommerce services that creates opportunities for succession planning and training to their employees; GAVS, a privately held IT Consulting and Systems Integration company that believes in nurturing intellectual humility across levels, to establish a deep-rooted connection to the greater purpose; ISHIR, a globally diversified leading offshore software development company that has several best practices to support the impact it wishes to have on the people associated with it; Lennox India Technology Centre Pvt Ltd (LITC), a leading provider of climate-control solutions that is all about enjoying one’s work with great fun, unlimited creativity, appropriate flexibility, and great team members; and vPhrase Analytics, a young technology company that provides AI-powered business intelligence and reporting automation solutions and maintains a college-campus like atmosphere in the office. We also present an insightful Interview with Surabhi Shenoy, Founder and Director, Tejora, who believes that every individual has inherent capabilities of creation and innovation; we always strive towards bringing out that quality in all our employees. Do go through the articles curated by industry leaders and in-house editors. Keep Learning to Stay Relevant!
Sneha Sinha Sneha Sinha
sneha@insightssuccess.com
10
SeedWorks International Private Ltd RedeďŹ ning Agri-Living the Right Way
COMPANY OF THE MONTH
Cover story
22
GAVS
A Committed Team, Innovative Solutions, Delighted Clients
article
Con 38
Lennox India Technology Centre
The Median For The Workforces
42 Employee Retention
Factors to Eliminate Employee Retention Challenges
26
Aktiv Software Pvt. Ltd: Supporting Transformations for Better Business
INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS
ntents 28
ISHIR
34 Tejora Technologies
Leveraging Technology To Deliver Seamless Innovation
44 vPhrase Analytics
The Blueprint for Businesses
Editor-in-Chief Sumita Sarkar sales@insightssuccess.com
Managing Editor Sneha Sinha
October, 2020
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INDIA'S MOST EMPLOYEE CENTRIC
COMPANIES TO WATCH
Company Name
Management
Brief
Aktiv Software Pvt Ltd aktivsoftware.com
Mr Devang Mehta Director-operations Mr Jainesh Shah Diretor- Technical
Aktiv Software is a company serving businesses to fulfill their digital transformation needs.
Altimetrik India Pvt Ltd altimetrik.com
Altimetrik is a business transformation accelerator.
GAVS gavstech.com
Sumit Ganguli CEO
GAVS Technologies (GAVS) is a global IT services & solutions provider enabling digital transformation through infrastructure solutions.
ISHIR ishir.com
Rishi Khanna CEO
ISHIR is a globally diversified leading offshore software development company. Headquartered in Dallas
Lennox India Technology Centre Pvt Ltd lennoxindia.com
Ashwin Upponi Vice President
Lennox is a leading provider of climate control solutions for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration markets around the world
Litmus7 Systems Consulting Pvt. Ltd. litmus7.com
Venu Gopalakrishnan CEO
Litmus7 is a Retail Maximization company specialized in accelerating digital revenue and profitability for Retailers, Brands and CPGs.
Rapidops Inc. builds Digital Products, Experiences and Platforms that provide real world solutions, engage users and scale on-demand.
Rapidops, Inc rapidops.com
SeedWorks International Pvt. Ltd seedworks.com
Mr. Venkatram Vasantavada MD & CEO
SeedWorks is an agri-research corporation with a market name US Agri Seeds that brings the confidence and loyalty in all stakeholders.
Tejora Private Limited tejora.com
Surabhi Shenoy Founder & Director
Tejora makes better organizations out of existing banks and insurance companies by making the latter’s offering sharper and clearer.
vPhrase Analytics Solutions Pvt. Ltd. vphrase.com
Neerav Parekh Founder & CEO
SeedWorks International Private Ltd RedeďŹ ning Agri-Living the Right Way
stor
Cover ry
T
he third US president Thomas Jefferson once said, “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.” This understanding of our earth’s cultivators, of our farmers, led to the inception of one such firm, the existence of which relies on our nation’s farmers. We are talking about the firm, which singlehandedly changed the life of 10,000 farmers, and its commercial seeds influenced close to 2.3 million farmers and enabled them to increase their farm production and profits. A firm which increased employment in diverse regions by providing technical training and employing local youth for technology transfer, generating close to 6,80,000 jobs. A firm that has served farmers by providing them with the best quality seed solutions and by using the same farming community to produce seeds. We are talking about SeedWorks International Pvt Ltd a Portfolio company of True North ( Formerly India value fund ) which has launched five independent investment funds with a combined corpus of US $ 2Billion. It is an agri-research corporation with a
history spanning more than 20 years and the market name US Agri Seeds that brings the confidence and loyalty in all stakeholders. Years in Making Dr. Balaji Nukal and Wand Partners, a US PE fund, formed SeedWorks in 1998. The business started with vegetable crops and acquired reasonable market share in Okra and Tomato. Hybrid seeds in Field Crops was started in 2006 with BT cotton seeds entering in 2011. With this humble yet robust introduction, SeedWorks grew to become the largest household breeding company in India. The company had some business acquisitions and mergers within the span of five years wherein amidst June 2015, SeedWorks Vegetables seed business was acquired by Bayer. True North acquired the Field Crop business in 2016. In November 2017, under the US Agri Seeds name, the company resumed the vegetable business. In recent years, it has been gradually rising in the market shares of Cotton and Hybrid Rice and becoming one of India’s fastest-growing companies in terms of revenue. In 2019, it bought Millet and Mustard in order to broaden its portfolio.
Offering Agricultural Excellence SeedWorks International Pvt Ltd is an enterprise dedicated to hybrid rice seeds, cotton, millet, mustard and vegetables seeds’ research, production, and marketing. The products are carefully tested at 1022 agricultural environment locations preceding commercial sales. The outstanding infrastructure, including the pathology laboratory, the entomology laboratory, and the biotech center, helps plant breeders to speed up and grow the farmer’s new varieties. In addition, the state-of-the-art supply chain and QC facilities, together with 570 team members work closely with farmers to help educate and guide farm productivity, and farm income.
We are a plant science company with a legacy of more than 20 Years
AN ERUDITE LEADER Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Venkatram Vasantavada has more than 20 years’ of experience in leading MNCs including Monsanto, Dupont Pioneer, Advanta-UPL, Deépak Fertilizers and Petrochemical Corporation (DFUC), and is the leading manager of Seed, Crop Protection and Crop Nutrition in India, Asia, and Pacic. He has a proven expertise in developing and running corporate enterprises efciently with sustained revenue growth, productivity, market share gains, and global expansion. Mr. Vasantavada has been bestowed with The HMA entrepreneur of The Year 2020 and the RMAI Leadership Award – 2016 for his remarkable contributions to the leadership role in rural markets and agriculture input industries. He has also featured twice as many as 50 of India’s most popular rural marketers. Mr. Vasantavada graduated from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), a Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM) and is also a Graduate in Dairy Technology. With his procient leadership, the company has metamorphosed from being just a 100Cr+ company with a limited sales base and a poor level of protability, to being a renowned market leader. Mr. Vasantavada has also been instrumental in attracting talent, build an aspiring organization, develop sustainable revenues and protable operations processes and systems, as well as the investment in technology. The company is ranked 24th among India’s big mid-size workplaces in 2020 and Best Employers Brand in all these efforts.
We serve farmers by supplying them the best quality seed solutions and on the other end also use the same farming community to produce seeds Meet the Team A large Business development team of 514 is in place, who collaborate closely with the 2.3 million farmer base to supply them with the new seed technologies from SeedWorks. The department also offers flexibility for best crop management activities in order to achieve the highest production and profits. With such a team, the company has reached and digitally engaged with customers through SeedWork’s official social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, etc. Informative Crop & Product updates, Interesting Product Campaigns, and farmers’ User Testimonials help the customers identify, differentiate, and decide on the offers from competitors.
Unity in DNA The core of SeedWorks is Collaboration & Teamwork, Openness & transparency, Data and evidence-based decision making in compliance with “ Right Way”. The team solves problems through inter-functional projects and empowers individuals at all levels to participate in and give input (i.e. STAC-51 projects) in projects. “The senior leadership team demonstrates openness and transparency in every transaction thus, inculcating the same in each of their respective team members. As a result of this, all employees find everyone approachable. The way we promote inhouse talent, enable them to
We impact around 10,000 grower farmers and Our commercial seed impacts close to 2.3 Million+ farmers and helps them improve their farm productivity and income
think out of the box, and explore new ideas has resulted in positive developments in the organization,” expresses Mr. Vasantavada. The company motivates and inspires the workforce with various human resource policies, awards, and appreciation. SeedWorks Ratna for permanent employees and SeedWorks Star for temporary employees. The company also provides leisure trips to teams both in India and abroad that perform consistently.
For the R&D department, the organization provides the chance to collaborate on innovative projects. This guarantees that people treat themselves equally and that any case is judged correctly and with a face value. Mr. Vasantavada cites, “This being the center of everything we do—Building trust and confidence among all employees towards each other, towards the management and their supervisors, is one of the aspects which we are conscious and practice day in and day out.”
INDIA'S MOST EMPLOYEE CENTRIC
COMPANIES TO WATCH
The Road Ahead Continuing its mission, in the coming years, SeedWorks will place itself as a technology-driven business combining biological, chemical, and digital technologies, and supplying farmers with continuous seed solutions to increase quality and profitability. It will also invest in new-age technology to help grow crops that optimize natural resources such as water and soil. Mr Vasantavada shares, “Living up to its mission SeedWorks will strive to position itself as a Technology driven business combining Biology, Chemistry and Digital to provide superior seed
We solve problem through cross-functional small projects, Individuals at every level are empowered and are given an opportunity to participate in these projects and give their inputs
solutions to the farming community thereby optimising their cost, improving their income and overall profitability. It will continue to invest in technologies that would help conserve natural resources like Water and Soil and help mitigate the issues of Climate Change.”
“We are collaborating with many Start up’s in solving farmer and farm issues thru Advisory, Market Linkages, Real time solutions and educating them on new technologies to grow their crop better. Our investments in skill development and capacity building will
continue both for full time employees and associated.” To conclude SeedWorks will be looking forward to the New Year with lots of positivity, confidence and hope to help our farmers with superior seed solutions and help our employees reach their full potential in delivering our commitment to all the stakeholders.
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GAVS
A Committed Team, Innovative Solutions, Delighted Clients
T
he best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose.” - Charles Dickens And how do you define your purpose for life? For most, life is all about going through it and living it as it comes. And for some, life is all about making it worthwhile – not just for themselves but also for those around them.
From a business’ perspective, the ultimate purpose or goal is to make profits. Still, some businesses consider profits as just one aspect of their purpose in addition to other critical elements such as people, relations, service, and the ultimate success of their customers. This belief is central to GAVS’ philosophy. Believing that its success lies in its Customers’ Success is core to GAVS’ DNA. A privately held IT Consulting and Systems Integration company, GAVS is perpetually obsessed with the “Why” for everything. This drives everyone at GAVS to bring their best to work every day. This thought process helps everyone at GAVS to drive creativity, take quick decisions, and stay on top of customer needs and perceptions. Core Strength – Employees CEO Sumit Ganguli shares, “GAVS is truly committed to become a true employee-oriented company, with strong values of Respect, Integrity,
Trust/Teamwork and Empathy. We believe that our people centric initiatives and investments enhance our ESAT, CSAT, productivity, growth and innovation; and GAVS will be able to recruit and retain the top-drawer talent from around the world.” GAVS believes in nurturing intellectual humility across levels, to establish a deep-rooted connection to the greater purpose or the “Why” is critical – thus making GAVS a transparent, empathetic, and purposeful company. The Litmus Test Leadership in uncertain times requires resilience and empathy. GAVS’ response to COVID-19 was guided with this belief. GAVS ensured frequent communication across the board, where leaders were visible, accessible and employees were heard. The leaders took time to understand and address the fears of all GAVSians alike, around uncertain times. They were quick to adapt to a digital working environment, seamlessly transitioning to remote work while taking measures to ensure psychological safety. GAVS ensured that all infrastructure needs of employees were taken care of at employees’ homes. There were efforts taken at the offices too. “We ensured our offices across the globe had contact-less entry points with digital entry cards, facemasks were made mandatory, and hand sanitizers 22 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | OCTOBER 2020
were available across the premises, and we stepped up the cleaning regimes.” shares the GAVS Management. GAVS management believes that their transition to times post COVID will be about instilling a sense of safety and well-being. While monthly celebrations, relaxing workspaces, ping pong tables, and catered meals show employee experience in a physical dimension, there was immense focus on ensuring a humane approach is shown by how employees are treated, ownership levels, mutual trust – even in a digital environment.
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GAVS believes in achieving its goals with a culture that fosters Respect, Integrity, Trust and Empathy towards all stakeholders, with an IP-led focus.
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“
While most of the IT companies in India and around the world, either deferred promotions and increments this year or suggested a reduction in the overall compensation, GAVS ensured that all employees received their Annual Performance Appraisal letters on time in addition to promotions and increments being awarded to all those deserving of these.
CEO
COMPANY OF THE MONTH
Sumit Ganguli
A Culture that Celebrates Everyone’s Contribution GAVS espouses and engenders a zero hierarchy and a zero-bureaucracy mindset. Mr. Ganguli says, “We promote a flat, egalitarian culture. We celebrate zero tolerance towards Disrespect, Lack of Integrity, Complacency, and Apathy towards our employees, clients and all stakeholders.” In the New Normal, wellness initiatives at the workplace were transitioned to virtual yoga sessions for mindfulness, teleconsultation sessions replaced physical medical practitioner visits for availing medical guidance, and a 24/7 COVID-19 helpline was set up to address ongoing employee queries and address any level of increased stress and anxiety. Interactive sessions with health experts were organized to ensure mental well-being as well. GAVS made important information available to all through a COVID-19 Updates page on its intranet. Virtual live events, contests, and informal catchups were launched to maintain collaboration, and regular tips to stay engaged, healthy, and productive in a pandemic were shared via mailer campaigns. Water cooler conversations happened through virtual coffee meets of the teams. It started online Friday happy hours, as the company wanted to keep its people engaged, and alleviate stress in the remote work set up.
OCTOBER 2020 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | 23
Caring for the Society at Large GAVS, through the Private Equity firm Basil Partners, is involved in an initiative to nurture and support a small isolated village named Ramanwadi in Maharashtra, through a project named Venu Madhuri (www.venumadhuri.org). The volunteers involved in supporting this small village have brought success in several areas of rural development and the small hamlet is inching towards self-sufficiency. Basil Partners along with Apar Industries (GAVS’ sister concern) seed-funded (www.annamrita.org) an NGO that has been feeding over 1 million underprivileged students through the midday meal program in India and has served over 17 million meals to the displaced migrant workers and other poverty-ridden families during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have also promoted the Bhakti Vedanta Hospital in Mumbai. “The celebration of conscious capitalism is only complete when wealth is shared with the society,” quotes the CEO.
dialogue with our employees and act as a probe to get our employees’ opinion about GAVS, and this is truly important during these remote work practices, that have been inflicted on us.” What Next?
Technology - The Galvanizing Partner In the New Normal, GAVS recognizes that embracing newer technologies will be the key. Having been an early adopter of Digital Transformation, GAVS is well placed to use new age tools and resources to be productive, creative, and secure. With the intent of keeping the experience seamless and consistent for all employees, it leveraged technology for learning and upskilling in these uncertain times. A mix of micro-learning, and virtual sessions were launched to enable learning needs. With lines between work and family becoming blurry, GAVS’ culture of “listening with intent” is something that it has nurtured further. Mr Ganguli explains, “We are in the process of setting up a platform to gain insights through real-time employee pulse – as it will really help us keep a daily 24 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | OCTOBER 2020
Post-COVID-19, GAVS envisions a workforce that will be more technology agile, diverse, and comfortably productive being remote. The management team would want to nurture this mindset change with newer workplace practices, experience, and governance. GAVS has always strived to be among the better places to work for women, especially for returning mothers, and they aim to enhance their workplace practices to tap into a wider pool of talent with flexible work arrangements, redefine roles where appropriate, and look at productivity and performance again. Mental and Psychological well-being of employees continues to take precedence. Workspaces will be redesigned with temperature checks, the safe distancing of cubicles, and spaces for occasional social interaction will be created. Continuous and real-time customer and employee feedback will remain critical, to be nimbler. Last but not the least, empathy is the need of the hour in the New Normal.
SUPPORTING TRANSFORMATIONS FOR BETTER BUSINESS
F
or the 21st century organizations, it is very important to have a digital presence. Digital transformation in this century proves to be necessary. In today’s world, the digital standing of a company shows its credibility. The digital transformation process involves replacing non-digital or manual processes with software supporting various business requirements. As necessary as this is, it is difficult to find a team of experts who can provide unfaltering software support during and after the process of transformation. Aktiv Software Pvt. Ltd. is one of the companies serving businesses to fulfill their digital transformation needs. The company was incorporated in 2015 by a squad of four intelligent brains. With the vital experience of working with global customers, the idea to dive into the service industry popped in their head. Being in the industry for the past 5 years, they have set up a team with a strong base. They also have a satisfying figure of partners as they pave their way towards ERP and Ecommerce Industry. Aktiv has executed more than 1000 projects so far and counting. Delivery of Services Odoo (suite of business application) and Magento (eCommerce
development platform) have been the core set of services for Aktiv Software. Till date, they have served customers from more than 30 countries. They provide a broad spectrum of ERP and Ecommerce services while solving known or unknown business glitches. They also help businesses in development, implementation, integration, customization, or migration. They serve all sizes of companies, startups, mid-size, or large enterprises, facing issues with their business processes. Aktiv remains a support partner to the clients helping them address any post go-live issues ensuring successful delivery. Founding Motivation The company was founded by four partners, two of them being Mr Devang Mehta and Mr Jainesh Shah, and their common objective was to increase process efficiency by decreasing manual jobs leading to enhanced productivity. They recognized the lack of guidance from the service providers in most of the ERP/eCommerce project failures. As a result, they formed a business approach that consults clients, evaluates the business factors, and then comes up with a best-fit solution. Through a basic questionnaire, they discover and understand the client requirement, create a design path, and define the scope of work (SOW), 26 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | OCTOBER 2020
develop, and finally deploy the solution. They place great emphasis on post Go-Live issues as well. Positive Benefits Benefits from Services: The company provides around the clock business support with smooth communication, technical/functional quality checks, streamlined business solutions, etc. to boost client business. They follow rigorous and comprehensive standards to identify high-quality solutions for the partners. Benefits from their Solutions: Businesses looking for enhancing their sales, integrating services, streamlining operations, building websites, managing accounts, etc. could gain benefits from their business solutions. They evaluate the business requirements and suggest a suitable business solution. All in all, the businesses could increase their operational and managerial efficiency from the solutions provided by Aktiv. Benefits from their Technology: Aktiv works with ERP and Ecommerce technologies to custom-make solutions as per business requirements. Odoo is a suite of business application that helps eradicate the need for painful integration. It gives everything needed for a business in a single software.
INDIA'S MOST EMPLOYEE CENTRIC
COMPANIES TO WATCH
Odoo has got everything to automate the business processes that include CRM, HR, Sales, Project, Finance, or Website. Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce development platform that helps businesses create rich shopping experiences for their customers. Dynamics 365 is yet again a suite for CRM and ERP applications specialized for bigger enterprise market. The Ups and Downs Like every other company, even Aktiv has faced various limitations and obstacles over the years. The main challenge while hiring lies in bridging the gap between employee expectations and organizational goals. It is no secret that employees often ignore open conversations and end up switching companies. The company has been trying to adopt
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The Aktiv Approach: Review Idea, Refine Strategy, Repeat Excellence.
retention strategy like encouraging employees to aspire roles and responsibilities within the company instead of looking for advancement opportunities outside. Due to the company working with a niche product with scarce resources, the company requires trained professionals. They recruit developers who are strong on their fundamentals and train them with respect to their product. Driving Force Professional development is very important for employees. Keeping this in mind the company tries to provide opportunities for succession planning and training to their employees. Due to this training, the employees get opportunities and confidence for taking on additional responsibilities or cross OCTOBER 2020 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | 27
functional assignments that could boost their morale. Future Sightings
The long term goal for every company is to be successful and achieve their goals. Aktiv Software has the goal of becoming a solution-based company rather than a service based company in the coming years. By becoming a solution based company, they want to imply integration of services and products focusing on customers’ unique business needs. It will be possible to fulfill client requirements in a better way.
F
ISHIR
or any organization to thrive, an implied focus must be placed on its core strength – its employees. When it comes to employee satisfaction, the aspects of work culture, amenities, privileges, and growth opportunities play key roles. A company that ardently caters to these aspects can evidently be termed as employee centric. This edition, India’s Most Employee Centric Companies to Watch, exhibits organizations across India, which focus on being the best workplaces for their employees, possessing a forte in inculcating the above mentioned aspects, other than being the experts in their respective markets. One such company that we came across is ISHIR, a globally diversified leading offshore software development company. Headquartered in Dallas, with a global delivery centre in Noida, ISHIR showcases a strong expertise in custom software development, managed cloud services, software testing, application development services, and automation. The company additionally offers next-gen Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and Big Data services. ISHIR is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, AWS Consulting Partner, VM Ware Solution Partner, and Google AdWords Company. It has gained recognition and reputation as 3X INC
5000 as America’s fastest growing 5000 and 2X Fort Worth Magazine Fastest Growing companies. The company is minority-owned and certified by NMSDC and NCTRCA, and also received its SEI-CMMi Level 3 certification in 2007.
afloat during a global pandemic.
In the following interview, Rishi Khanna, the CEO at ISHIR, takes us through the company’s business competency, employee centricity, and his perspective on keeping the business
We are one of the most preferred offshore software development companies with a unique combination of talented people, world-class processes, and robust technology.
Below are the highlights of the interview: Tell us more about ISHIR and its journey so far.
ABOUT THE LEADER Rishi Khanna is a serial entrepreneur, thought leader, mentor and founder of Leading Technology companies like ISHIR, ENO8, ISHIR Gaming (which was acquired by Aristocrat Gaming) and ISHIR Octavian (which was acquired by Octavian International). Mr. Khanna enjoys building great teams and guiding leaders in organizations to become better decision makers, stay strategically aligned and operationally agile. He has a proven experience in building and operating businesses in the US, UK, and India. He started his business when he was 23, possessing a drive and risktaking appetite and was seeking freedom to define his own future. He went through early challenges in business resulted from dot com burst in 2000, 9/11 terrorist attack, 2008 financial meltdown and outsourcing backlash. But the business consistently grew in the first few years and he was able to achieve his early goals. Eventually, Rishi realized he was not living his life with purpose. He was only chasing goals and vision with a flawed premise that when he achieves these goals, he will be happy. There started his journey to discover himself and living his life with purpose, intentions, and impact. His purpose today is helping every member of the company become the best version of themselves every day, at home and at work. He has built ISHIR around continuous learning, growing, and being intentional about how we live. 28 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | OCTOBER 2020
INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS
Rishi Khanna CEO
OCTOBER 2020 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | 29
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With our internal teams and our network of global resources we want to bridge the gap between customers and IT talent.
systems in its employees and that reflects in their day to day working with the customers and make the relationship with our customers work.
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What obstacles and or limitations does the company face while hiring and retaining employees?
ISHIR’s business was divested into multiple business entities in 2016 to ensure that we are more focused in the services we wish to deliver. The business has had its ups and downs based on economic and political changes over the last 20 years. We saw tremendous growth from 2002 to 2007, much like other companies experienced. We saw a flat growth or decline between 2007 and 2010 and since 2011, we have been continuously experiencing growth. Our focus on core purpose, core values and maintaining the culture of the business along with focusing on acquiring talented people, leveraging their unique abilities, and assisting them in defining their purpose in their life plans, has given us a foundation of great talent and business leaders who are passionate about what they do, and are able to work on the unique abilities to create a path of continuous growth and learning. Our people, our culture and our continuous desire to grow has been the reason for our long-standing success. What are the benefits gained by your clients/users through your products, solutions, and services? In our journey of 20 years we must have touched about 1000+ businesses and helped them solve their business challenges and problems in many ways. Our clientele is a mixed bag of small to SMEs to Enterprise level customers. In the IT sector, the concerns of smaller and small-medium
We believe in hiring top grade talent which makes our hiring process very thorough yet cumbersome sometimes for the candidates. A candidate must pass through several rounds of repeated grind including technical, cultural fitment and top grading interview before the final selection. size businesses are mostly around budget, timelines, and their fear of lack of technical knowhow at their end and their apprehensions about not fitting into the mold of IT giants, and that’s where we fit in rightly. We hear them out completely, understand their pain areas, make them comfortable about the solution despite their technological handicap and the budget. We maintain complete transparency with our customers which they love. We do not mind saying ‘No’ to unfeasible projects and immature ideas unlike companies who just want to win a project and leave the customers in lurch. Similar to this, the big enterprise level customers are very comfortable setting up teams with us and as a testimony to this, they have kept their virtual teams with us for as long as 5-10 years and some are still working with the teams beyond 10 years. ISHIR is a culture driven company which inculcate its 10-core values
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There is no scarcity of IT talent in India, however we want to keep mediocre, short term thinkers and only money driven resources at bay. At least 60% of candidates in the pool are driven by only money, they would play between 2-3 in-hand offers till the joining date of the latest and highest offer. For such candidates, the company culture, type of work environment, exposure and learning curve do not matter. They will keep you on the toes till the joining date. Let alone the joining date, some of them even join the organization, while they are still negotiating at other places and disappear for few extra bucks within couple of days. Some Start-ups had given further breed to candidate greed, which is detrimental to the growth of Indian IT sector and its image in global market. For a good and culturally fit talent we are willing to go global now, blurring the geographical boundaries and we have already started doing it.
How do you maintain and drive individuals to build a strong team? How do you inspire and motivate people at the workplace to make it interesting and creative? We have several best practices to support our mission, vision and support the impact we wish to have on the people we touch and are associated with us. ISHIR’s best practices are inspired from Entrepreneurs’ Operating System (EOS) derived from Gino Wickman’s book Traction. It enables us to keep everyone on the same page and ensure that we are aligned to our vision, annual and quarterly rocks, and collaboratively resolve organizational issues and challenges that impedes our vision and mission. Teams attend several meetings in each department and report up to the management through the weekly Management Level 10 meeting. To reinforce alignment, accountability, and planning for the future, we have Quarterly and Annual meetings. Our teams use several thinking tools offered by Strategic Coach to deliberate and discover the impact to our initiatives and projects. Once we are clear about the objectives, our teams are empowered to make decisions on their own. We have rewards and recognition for people who best demonstrate our core values and achievements that are recognized on our internal portal named ‘Excellence’, during our weekly meetings and monthly company-wide HR meeting called ‘all hands’. Every employee starts with orientation and induction into our unique Onboarding program. Our Onboarding program includes introduction to our
Business Operating system, which introduces our new hires to understand all the tools and best practices our business leverages to stay focused on important rather than urgent and stay focused on outcomes. We also spend considerable time in orienting our teams to roles, helping them identify their life’s purpose and unique abilities, defining their life plans, personal vision boards, getting understanding of their KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and KRA (Key Responsibility Areas), and setting their Goal Achievement Plans. Our people also leverage opportunities provided by our Leadership Development and Apprentice Program. What new can we expect from ISHIR in the coming years? COVID has changed the way people would do business going forward and how the companies would operate. Remote is the new normal and as mentioned above, to rise above the mediocrity and provide the best resources and solutions to our customer, we are truly going ‘Borderless’ now. Despite our production center in Noida-DELHI NCR, we are picking up resources from PAN India and other parts of Asia, Latin America, and East Europe, without having to relocate them to our office. They can work from anywhere. ISHIR is poised for an even robust growth in 2020, thanks to acquisition of accounts and consistent service to them. We want to be the top IT talent provider for the world for the short term and long-term needs. With our internal teams and our network of global resources we want to bridge the gap between customers and IT talent.
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Exhibiting Excellence The following are popular services and solutions offered by ISHIR: MODERNIZE SOFTWARE ISHIR focuses on outcome-driven software development that creates end-user customer satisfaction. We provide agile, real-time build and deployment, data and analytics around customer adoption, and built-in feature flagging. In addition, we provide flexible delivery models to meet the unique needs of our clients. OPTIMIZE CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE ISHIR designs future-ready best-fit cloud solutions for its clients to solve their unique business problems and infrastructure challenges. Optimization techniques that drive workload performance, compliance, help increase ROI, and control cloud cost. LEVERAGE AUTOMATION ISHIR helps clients to outpace competition and leverage the most from the power of digital automation. Its approach positively impacts client’s business by doing more with less by introducing smart workflows, RPA, insights using Big Data/Data Science, AI/ML, and optimize their redundant business processes.
TECHNOLOGIES LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY TO DELIVER SEAMLESS INNOVATION
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umanity has come a long, long way from times when any banking or insurance needs meant ONLY one thing. Visiting their designated branches which in most cases were located at known and sometimes strategic locations. Insurance additionally had agents who typically were our neighbourhood uncles and aunties who—on retiring from Govt jobs and to kill time—became the insurance company’s agents. And then came innovative technology. Almost like a tsunami, everything with a physical presence, be it brick-and-mortar offices or individual humans were uprooted from the system and thrown by the wayside of time. It is only getting stronger, the hold of technology, especially in the BFSI sector with the inclusion of automation and chat-bots, tech initiatives including AI, Big Data, Analytics and IoT. If quantum computing becomes a reality any time soon, humans could very well be completely out of the need at most levels. The last thankfully, is some distance away. What is not, and rather visibly these days, are services by organizations such as Tejora Private Limited that make better organizations out of existing banks and insurance
companies by making the latter’s offering sharper and clearer. In 2003 Tejora started its journey riding on the US offshoring boom. The India centre was established in Mumbai, catering to Product Engineering requirements from the clients in the US market. Around 2012 – 13 it started acquiring clients in the Indian market. Its innovative product design approach won it clients in the BFSI sector, and it started building products which help deliver Value Added Services (VAS) to its banking customers. Founder and Director Surabhi Shenoy shares more details about Tejora, its solutions and the road ahead. Please give an overview of the services and solutions you offer. Our business is divided across 5 pillars: 1. Product Engineering across Web,, Mobile, Cloud 2. Consulting & System Integration 3. Technology Practice 4. Mobility 5. Products Product Engineering is our forte, right from our inception we have built a
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robust product engineering practice, we have teams working on multiple technology sets like .NET, PHP, Java, and Node JS. Creating responsive applications using Angular, React and Vue. Our mature and robust delivery governance mechanism allows us to successfully deliver projects on time and meeting client requirements. System Integration and Professional Consulting business offers integration, implementation, and customisation services for business applications like Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Content Management Services (CMS), Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Applications.We work with product principals like Microsoft, IBM, SugarCRM and Adobe, providing professional services around their products. Technology Practice works on technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Big Data. Our Enterprise Mobility practice is all about extending enterprise applications to mobile, delivering accurate data inputs and action mechanisms to users
Surabhi Shenoy INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS
Founder & Director
on the move, enabling just in time decision making.
with an mobile app for recovery agents.
Our products portfolio enables Value Added Services for our banking and financial services clients:
SaffromSTOX: A CMS based Stock Trading portal framework, can be deployed quickly to enable online trading in stocks and related instruments.
SaffronPAY: Enables management of account receivables for current account holders of our banking clients, enabling bank to acquire more and more current accounts. SaffronSQUARE: is an Asset evaluation application for Housing Finance Companies SaffronCRED: Enables scheduling and allocation of debt collection powered
What are the benefits gained by your clients/users from your products, solutions, and services? Our products, solutions and services are always geared towards generating positive revenue impact for our clients, all our solutions have to pass the 3 point test • Increases revenue • Reduces cost OCTOBER 2020 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | 35
LEADING THE WAY Surabhi Shenoy leads the organisation from the front. A seasoned delivery professional, she gives minute attention to detail and that has been her success mantra. She has ensured that the organisation remains focused on delivering industry standard Product Engineering solutions. Tejora’s clients have been acquired by companies like Nokia, Intuit, and Teletech, this itself is a testimony to its delivery.
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We believe every individual has inherent capabilities of creation and innovation; we always strive towards bringing out that quality in all our employees.
• Create efficiency We always follow the customer first principal and have delivered on all 3 counts mentioned above. In many cases we have worked on outcome-based engagements with our clients, shows our confidence in the ability to deliver for our customers. What obstacles and/or limitations does the company face while hiring and retaining employees? Growing organizations like us compete with big brands for the same talent pool. This means paying more as a basic distinguisher, and keeping them engaged in meaningful ways to retain them. Acquiring right talent in shorter timelines inspite of an industry standard of 90 days’ notice is a challenge. We have effectively circumvented this with the help of our skilled IT Recruiters who are trained to ‘ find and acquire such talent.
Employee centric processes & practices ensure high retention How do you maintain and drive individuals to build a strong team. How do you inspire and motivate people at the workplace to make it interesting and creative? We believe every individual has inherent capabilities of creation and innovation; we always strive towards bringing out that quality in all our employees. When working on client projects or on internal assignments, we ensure that our team members get an opportunity to challenge the limits and we encourage that discovery process. Our Core Values are BUILD. They stand for Be the Best, United as a Team, Integrity, Living Ownership and Delivering Quality. Our core values guide our Talent Acquisition 36 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | OCTOBER 2020
Framework in selecting the right talent that demonstrates the “buck stops at me” attitude, with not just a great “can do” but a fire in the belly “will do” spirit. This simply means, well-meaning challenges exist. Talent should have demonstrated the roll up sleeve, find solution, drive, deliver and own the outcome approach. Our Performance Management Framework continues to stay aligned to reward employees who demonstrate
our core values to deliver successful outcomes. In addition, Success stories are periodically publicized in the entire organization. Our work culture has a strong employee connect that reflects fun at work, ease of access of resources, flexi hours, mentorship by the best minds & an open-door policy. Employees periodically are provided with the right space to vent their concerns. In Maslow’s language, Physiological, Psychological needs at the workplace are completely taken care of. This leaves the employees with
enough mental bandwidth to focus on thriving and achieving their highest potential in a supportive work environment. What new can we expect from the company in the coming years? Creating positive revenue impact for our customers will always be our top priority. In coming days and months we will work on creating and working on business solutions which deliver better customer experience (CX), build OCTOBER 2020 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | 37
solutions and utilities by implementing technologies like RPA, AI and ML. We see more of our focus on providing Managed Cloud Services, Development and Deployment on cloud, Data Consultancy Services, Application of IoT, AI and ML. www.tejora.com
COMPANY OF THE MONTH
Ashwin Upponi Vice President Lennox India Technology Centre & Global Program Management
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LENNOX INDIA TECHNOLOGY CENTRE THE MEDIAN FOR THE WORKFORCES
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s the world is well immersed in the era of the quantifiable employee, through which employees can be measured and improved, human resources departments are looking into platforms that provide people analytics to engage their best employees. Various companies understand the benefits of a great company culture, what it brings to an office and how it affects employee happiness. Company culture provides with a solution to creating an employee-centric office is simply finding out weaknesses, addressing them and coming up with solutions.
Technology Centre Pvt Ltd (LITC). LITC is part of Lennox International Inc. (LII), a leading provider of climate control solutions for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration markets around the world – built on a heritage of integrity and innovation dating back to 1895. They are dedicated to providing trusted brands, innovative products, unsurpassed quality and responsive service.
Solution provider Lennox India Technology Centre (LITC) is the global technology and service center for Lennox International (LII) serving Corporate, Residential, Commercial and the Refrigeration business segments. LITC consists of the following functions: LITC employees aren’t afraid to roll Controls Engineering, up their sleeves to help their Mechanical neighbors. We engage in various Engineering, volunteer projects each year to Information assist less fortunate families and Technology, Finance, Regional Sourcing and brighten our surrounding Human Resources. communities. The centre supports LII in its quest for providing innovative and cost effective HVACR systems and However, pleasing it may sound, it is solutions to their global customers. LII easier said than done, which is why it is headquartered in Richardson, Texas, is beneficial to include your USA. employees, so they have a voice during the analysis stage. The pivotal role of LII manufactures air conditioning, the management and HR during the heating, and refrigeration systems for fact-finding stage is to manage the residential and commercial uses. Its initiative and respond to any requests. brands include Lennox, Armstrong Air, Heatcraft, Ducane, Air-Flo, AAC One such company is Lennox India
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Commercial, Friga-Bohn, and Hearth Products. Spearheading the Company Ashwin Upponi (Vice President Lennox India Technology Centre & Global Program Management) has over three decades of industry experience in diverse domains, Technology management, Program management, Process Re-engineering, Productivity Management, Global Sourcing (Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America) and others. Leveraging this extensive expertise, he has been playing an instrumental role in expanding LITC’s capabilities and competencies. He leads all of the LITC operations. In addition, as the PMO leader his team is responsible for executing strategic New Product Introduction (NPIs) and Material Cost Reduction (MCR) projects for the businesses with global teams based in the US, India, and China. Prior to joining Lennox, he was with Trane/Ingersoll Rand as Director of Program Management. He also worked at General Electric in their Medical Systems, Information Systems and Transportation Systems divisions. While at GE he was in leadership roles spanning multiple functions, including Global Service Delivery, eBusiness, Six Sigma Black Belt, Marketing, Global Sourcing, Engineering, Quality and International Programs. He began his career as a manufacturing engineer at BAE Systems. Client satisfaction Lennox has worked hard to earn the trust of their customers and partners ever since the world’s first riveted-steel furnace rolled off its assembly lines in 1895 - developing reliable, innovative heating and cooling systems to keep customers comfortable. Over a century later, they continue to provide
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Besides facilitating their people to dabble on latest At Lennox India (LITC) we are technologies, they also committed to a globally diverse organize events like LennoJam workforce built on a foundation (all employees attempt to of respect and value for people ideate design thinking of different backgrounds, solutions), Design War (employees redesign an experiences, and perspectives. existing product) and facilitate them to collaborate with global customers with the most innovative of stakeholders. products and services to meet their HVACR needs. Utilizing cutting edge The company supports employee technologies in various spheres Lennox career development with increased prides itself with delivering industry responsibilities and scope, internal job leading efficiency, best in class rotation, customized learning programs products, solutions and services. and self-development programs. They also have various clubs (LII Young Overcoming hurdles Professionals Association, LII At LITC they have a robust Women’s Business Council, Society of recruitment and retention process to Women Engineers, Toastmasters, and ensure that they get the right talent other clubs of passion) to enable who is the best fit for their culture, diverse experiences. Their internal proactive, multi skilled and keen to portal Career Journey helps employees learn new technologies and take build and achieve career goals, gain ownership. Their employee clarity on their development plans, and engagement activities are customized have development conversations with based on work groups, teams or a their managers. specific business unit to ensure maximum effectiveness. Owing to Covid-19, homes have become the primary workplace for all They even have an Employee their employees like in many other Engagement Matrix to understand organizations. In order to support their employees’ concerns, proactively employees to have an effective work identify potential employee attrition from home experience, they also risks and manage it to their mutual provide a “HOME OFFICE benefit. ASSISTANCE KIT”, a benefit that enables employees to procure office They face the usual challenges like any furniture and or other items to enable a company with regards to hiring and comfortable and safe home office retention. However, their differentiated environment. work culture, employee centric programs, strong processes, and an Divulging creative motivation engaged senior leadership team are At Lennox, it is all about enjoying their core strengths and a significant one’s work with great fun, unlimited advantage. creativity, appropriate flexibility, and great team members. It is about being They are a product-based company in amongst the finest in the field and which their associates get to have feeling inspired in their presence. This hands-on experience with challenging is a place where employees have the work content and latest technologies in liberty to be their true selves. A place an empowering work environment. 40 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | OCTOBER 2020
where one can unleash their potential and cherish every moment you are there. The company conducts FRIYAY events (conducted on last Friday of every month, this event is filled with funny and exciting competitions music and more) and PARIVAAR (Lennox India’s Family Day), which is an annual dinner event with variety of cultural shows put up by their employees and fun games that LITCians along with their family participate in. Lennox also conducts yearly indoor championships and outdoor interdepartmental matches along with LIIVEWELL, a 100 days fitness program where employees engage in various workshops, competitions and challenges. Last but not least, LITC’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committee (consists of nearly 50 employees and conducts around 20 CSR programs annually) is completely employee managed with employee driven campaigns, where employees gather every month to present their ideas for a CSR activity. LITC has been able to support various Covid affected areas and families with their timely CSR programs. Future Prospects At Lennox, they recognize that being a good corporate citizen takes more than a pledge on paper. It takes visible action in the community and significant financial support. Through a combination of corporate contributions and employee volunteer activities, Lennox has gone to great lengths to bring positive change to the communities where they live and work. Through changes for the better the company expects that they would reach their ultimate in no time.
Factors to
Eliminate
Employee
Retention
Challenges
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or any company, finding talented and productive employees is like a dream come true. While finding good employees is one thing, keeping them is another. Employees have various reasons due to which they switch companies. Retaining good employees has become a challenge for all companies. It is natural that employees want to grow. Peoples’ needs and wants from their work change with time and the
Employee Retention
situation. The definition of a good job has changed these days. People not only expect good salary and financial benefits, they also expect professional growth. Like earlier times, people aren’t staying in the same job and position for ages.
Well, now the question is, how do the companies retain the employees? This is quite a challenging task. It is said simply, but to execute is difficult. Here are some factors to be considered by employers to reduce the challenges of employee retention:
In current times like these, it has become essential for employers to retain good employees. The good ones are the ones that the company can trust to help them during the hard times.
Compensation Packages Employees always seek equitable pay for their work. As a result, the first step towards this is to enhance the compensation packages. The company can have compensation packages that include salaries, insurance, a retirement program and employee leave. An employer can give a larger portion of employees’ health insurance premiums or introduce a new bonus program based on their performance. However, any business needs to ensure its compensation and benefit packages are in line with those of the competitor companies. Recognition Recognition is a very important factor to consider. If employees don’t feel appreciated they tend to seek acknowledgment elsewhere. An employee recognition program can have a significant impact on the ability to retain top employees. Most organizations lack this feature of recognition, which makes the employees feel unappreciated. In the case of a risk analysis in such organizations, the top employees are at the highest retention risk. The process of hiring new and good employees is tedious. To avoid such circumstances companies must invest time and energy in forming recognition policies.
left for them in their current company. Skill and talent development is a basic need that people wish for from their jobs for self development. It also helps them increase their personal and professional opportunities. As a result, implementation of self-development programs is an effective tool to increase employee retention rates. Funded education programs, in-house training, offsite training, seminars, skill development conferences, etc. are things that attract employees to stay. Hygiene Factors Job satisfaction is one factor that employees of all sectors and income brackets seek. Hygiene factor is one main element that can cause employee dissatisfaction. The hygiene of the company must be maintained in order to retain employees. Every company must revise their hygiene policies every now and then. The hygiene factors mainly include work environment, the company policies or particular physical aspects of the job. Limiting the physical or emotional dissatisfaction for employees must be the main aim of the employers. A company may introduce environmental safeguards and associated audit programs to best protect the health of the employees. Small things like those stated above can keep the employees morally sound. The company can retain its employees by just doing a few simple things that are usually overlooked. Simple care of the well-being of the employees can also influence them in their decision to stay in the job. If such things are done then employee retention can become easy to an extent.
Self Development Skill development is another major factor. Employees quit a job when they feel there are no more opportunities OCTOBER 2020 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | 43
- Shreevarshita Gupta
vPhrase Analytics The Blueprint for Businesses
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Our vision is to build a society where you don’t need expertise to understand data.
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nsight is gained by analysing data and information to understand what is going on in a particular situation or during a phenomenon. This insight can then be used to make better business decisions. Data is only valuable if you can translate it into actionable insights. Moulding data to insights carves the blueprint for one’s business. vPhrase Analytics Pvt. Ltd. is a global technology company that provides AI-powered Business Intelligence and Reporting Automation solutions using Machine Learning and Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology. Founded in 2015, vPhrase is an NLG leader, headquartered in India with a global clientele.
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ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Neerav Parekh is the Founder and CEO of vPhrase. Neerav has more than 15 years of experience working in different roles and setting up businesses in Technology, Marketing and Finance. After completing his MBA, Neerav worked at Citibank and then co-founded startups in the Technology and Marketing space before founding vPhrase. Neerav has received the prestigious Leader in Innovation Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering UK. He is a thought leader in the areas of Business Intelligence and Data Science, is an advisor to institutes teaching Data Science and regularly speaks at events including those by the Government of India, CII, NASSCOM, ASSOCHAM and more.
Interview with Insights Success
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The company enables organizations to make data-driven decisions by reducing the risk of data misinterpretation and deriving meaningful insights from complex datasets, in words. They focused on building the product in the first 2 years and then started selling. Having raised a seed round of investment in 2016 and a series A in 2019, they have been profitable for the last 2 years and currently have a team of 52 employees with offices in Mumbai, Pune and New York.
mission is to empower ‘‘ Oureveryone to effortlessly understand data through insightful stories.
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In the following Interview, Neerav Parekh, Founder and CEO shares more details about the company Please give an overview of the services and solutions you offer. Our product Phrazor provides insights from data in a few bullet points. It’s a self-service Business Intelligence platform that helps users make data-driven decisions without any help from IT team. Phrazor uses Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Generation to analyse data, draw insights and then communicate those insights in words. It’s a proprietary technology that we’ve built and we’ve filed 3 patents to protect our IP.
Account Managers do to solve this problem of understanding the reports? Well, they interpret those charts and explain the insights in words for the clients to quickly understand. How could I automate this process of interpretation of data and communication of insights in words? That is when the idea of building a product was born. And when I started thinking of the product I realised the enormous potential it had to change the way data was understood not just in digital marketing but in every other place where data was being presented, which was literally in every company. Every company has to send performance reports to its employees or its customers. That’s when I decided to sell off my agency and build vPhrase.
Motivation behind building vPhrase. While I was running a digital marketing agency, I noticed that my clients always wanted my Account Managers to visit them personally and explain the campaign performance even though we used to send out a nice report with informative charts. On more digging, I found that the clients would get overwhelmed by the reports and more often than not found them difficult to understand. That is when I started wondering what changes do I need to make to the report to ensure anyone reading it is able to understand it. What is it that my
What obstacles and/or limitations does the company face while hiring and retaining employees? Employee retention hasn’t been a challenge thanks to the culture we’ve built over the years. We are not a company but a family. However, I cannot say the same about hiring. Hiring has been challenging, primarily because of the field we are operating in. There is a shortage of good talent in the fields of Data Science and Natural Language Processing within India. How do you maintain and drive individuals to build a strong team? 46 | INSIGHTS SUCCESS | OCTOBER 2020
How do you inspire and motivate people at the workplace to make it interesting and creative? We are in the new tech business, hence, most of our team members are young. To keep these young guns happy, we maintain a college-campus like atmosphere in office. If you come to our office, you’ll experience all the chatter, laughs and of course some chaos. We trust ourselves to rise to to any challenge thrown at us and hence we have kids, two years out of college, confidently leading meetings with CXO suites of listed companies. When you hire sharp people, you need to keep challenging them continuously to ensure they stay motivated and excited. Because we are operating in the Natural Language Generation field, which very few companies have dabbled with globally, it motivates them to keep pushing the boundaries to keep leading. They know what they are building is the best in the world and they want to keep striving to retain that top spot. At the end of the day, it’s the work and the culture at our company that keeps everyone motivated and inspired. What new can we expect from the company in the coming years? We are expanding into North America. In the coming years, you’ll see an increased footprint of our business in the US and Canada. You will also see us pioneering new tech in the Natural Language Generation space. www.phrazor.ai