The 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders to Follow 2020

2020 | VOLUME - 2 | ISSUE- 11

The 10 Most

Inspiring business

leaders

to follow-2020

Sheetal Ramkumar

CEO & Founder White Globe

SHEETAL RAMKUMAR RedeďŹ ning the Benchmarks of the Language Service Industry

Editor’s Note

Ananda Kamal Das

EXPLORING THE CHANGE LEADERS OF THE BUSINESS ARENA

work, dedication, sacrifice, and a never give up attitude, which has taken them to the summit of success. These stories are a beacon of hope for all those budding entrepreneurs, who focus on bringing change and transforming their ideas into something new. Thus, Insights Success introduces the issue “The 10 Most Inspirational Business Leaders to Watch in 2019”, which are revolutionizing businesses with their unique maneuvers and a positive mindset.

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On the Cover, we have showcased Sheetal Ramkumar, the CEO & Founder of White Globe. She is spearheading the company confidently towards excellence.

he modern-day leader overcomes every limitation and embraces creativity to make a statement with their endeavors. One cannot define today’s leaders based on traditional parameters.

The business landscape has changed drastically, which calls for every front runner to step up and confront challenges with a game face on. A leader always understands the need of the hour, and accordingly comes up with strategies to efficiently tackle a given situation. They are self-reliant, courageous, competent, and persevere during difficult situations.

Every day, we hear about leaders who have built their own success stories with the sheer determination to take the step ahead and create something out of the box. They have overcome all the odds and impossibilities and have transformed their dreams into realities. Many business leaders started with a humble journey, being homeless, uneducated, and failed many times. However, they never gave up on their dreams and went on to build an empire out of scratch.

Every leader has an inspiring journey filled with hard

This issue also features Hashim Babu, the Chairman; Sajid M, the Director of Administration; and Dhanesh O T, the Director of Extension and Development.

We have also included Naveen Puttagunta, the Founder&CEO of Divami Design Labs Pvt. Ltd.; Om Thoke, the MD of Webfosys Networks Pvt. Ltd; Pankaj Karna, the Founder & MD of Maple Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd; Sapna Patel, the COO & Co founder of Gray Routes Technology Pvt. Ltd; Saubhagya Tripathi, the CEO of Blue 9 Technologies; Snehal Jain/ Founder and CEO; Brigade Enterprises Ltd; and Vikas Mandadewala, the Founder of TYA Business Solutions Private Limited.

Hence, go through the pages to gather more information on these elite business leaders. Happy reading!

Cover Story

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Sheetal

RamKumar

RedeďŹ ning the Benchmarks of the Language Service Industry

INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS

18

24

44

Naveen Puttagunta

Pankaj Karna

Naveen Puttagunta

A Perfectionist Crafting Innovative Solutions for the Digital Landscape

Amplifying your Business through Thoughtful Investment Guidance

A Perfectionist Crafting Innovative Solutions for the Digital Landscape

CONTENTS

CXO

Article

Success Tips

54

7 Traits Every Successful Business Leader Should Have

22 28

34 Industry Outlook Digitize or Face Demise

Chetan Patil

A Visionary Leader with the Zeal to Transform Businesses

Chintan P. Mehta A Go-getter Personality in Insurance Business

Hashim Babu, Sajid M, and Dhanesh OT

Leading Winstud Academy towards Excellence

22 30 28

30 38

Om Thoke

A Fearless Leader Embracing Innovation and Excellence

38

40

Sapna Rani Patel

40

Channeling the Power of Experience and Persistence

52 Saubhagya Tripathi

46

A Young and Dynamic Leader Inspiring Millions

46 Sujin Simson

50

Visionary Entrepreneur Focused on Healthcare and Education

58 52

Vijith Sivadasan

Master of a Trinity of Futuristic Business

50 Vikas Mandawewala

58

A Business Leader Focused on Growth and Innovation

Redefining the Benchmarks of the Language Service Industry

SHEETAL RAMKUMAR

White Globe has a pool of 10,000+ native language experts in over 300 Languages

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COVER STORY

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n an everyday basis, trillions of pages of content get created in multiple languages. With the advent of the internet and affordable accessibility of the internet, content can be made available online in multiple languages to make it accessible to the entire world. With globalization, the need and demand for language translation is increasing at a phenomenal pace. According to many research reports, the potential for language services is huge as there is more than 60% chance of selling a localized product or service compared to an un-localised product or service. There is a huge demand for localized online content, multimedia & video content as it helps in reaching out to a large number of non-English speaking population.

India which is already a multilingual country, is at the forefront of the Digital revolution and is one of the largest consumers of multilingual content. “Make in India” and “Digital India” initiatives has only fuelled the demand for localized content.

Sheetal Ramkumar CEO & Founder White Globe

Thus, we see it as an honor to introduce you to Sheetal Ramkumar, the CEO and Founder of White Globe. With a desire to support enterprises to “Go Global” and Localise their content, Sheetal embarked on her venture and founded White Globe, the Language Service Provider.

Sheetal has more than 15 years of experience and has held key roles in Customer Service, Operations, Process Improvement, and Learning Management in Telecom and Consumer Electronics industry. She is a certified TL 9000 Internal Auditor and a certified Six Sigma Green Belt.

Also, she has completed her MBA in Marketing from SIBM and MICA and has a Diploma in Telecommunications System Management Course from IIT, Delhi.

Allow us to take you on her journey that helped her to establish one of the prominent companies in India and the most admired business leaders of this year.

Take Risks: You will either come out Winner or Wiser When Sheetal first commenced on her entrepreneurial journey, she had to face a lot of challenges. At first, Language Service Provider Industry in India was

highly fragmented with no documented methods of assessing the competency of language experts. She had to invest a lot of time and effort to develop a multi-dimensional competency assessment for language experts and facilitate their collaboration to offer high quality services based on competency mapping.

She also had to keep on learning to remain relevant to the industry’s needs.

However, she faced challenges with an open mindset. She says, “Every time there is a crisis, take a deep breath and say ‘we will overcome this, let’s do the most logical thing first!’ I would like to say this to all aspiring entrepreneurs, if you want to do something, just do it, with an open mind that you may fail, but you will learn and there is no fixed formula to make this work and there is no perfect setting to start something.

Your customers will throw challenges at you, be ready to take risks and give it your best shot, you will either come out as winner or you will become wiser!”

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We have a unique model of Competency Assessment of Language Experts based on multidimensional attributes

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In this edition of ‘The 10 Most Admired Business Leaders to follow in 2020’, we at Insights Success, have come across a leader who, with her passion for languages, has been building a business supporting and servicing multiple languages. These services are the result of her vision, where people around the world will be able to consume and benefit from the localised content that they are familiar with.

Standing out from the Rest Sheetal’s journey towards excellence and becoming one of the inspirational leaders was due to her fundamental values.

1. Attention to detail: Sheetal believes, attention to detail is the foundation of any business, simplifying a complex requirement, forecasting, and responding to emergencies. She adds, one should have a keen focus on small things. It has helped her to develop Pre-Sales and Delivery teams which emphasize on details. Under her able leadership, the teams are able to notice issues quickly and work on them efficiently for error-free prompt deliveries.

2. Communication: Sheetal has mastered and learned the importance of communication which is vital for survival in the entrepreneurial journey.

She believes, explaining one’s brand and company to investors, clients and partners is a vital part of running a startup. She has encouraged open communication in her organization. It has helped her to communicate a common vision, goals and direction and made her team open to multiple ideas and pivot to changes with ease.

3. Persistence: Not giving up easily when odds seem against one, when everything seems to be falling apart is an attribute which is scarcely found in individuals. Sheetal is one such personality who is persistent and doesn’t give up easily in the face of unknown challenges.

4. Risk-taking: Sheetal and her team are known for higher-than-average risk appetite. It has helped them not only to become proficient but also inculcated values that pushed them forward and meet steep deadlines.

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I see larger sense of responsibility in young entrepreneurs for the Investors money.

THE 10 MOST INSPIRING

BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

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Sheetal founded White Globe to make her vision a reality, and provide customized and localised content as per the requirements of clients and customers in over 300 languages. The Company provides Translation, Interpretation and Localization services to Enterprise Customers across various domains.

The company has assisted many corporates in translating their operational manuals, technical documents, regulatory filings, etc. It provides Interpretation Services including Simultaneous, Consecutive, Over-the-Phone, Video-Remote, Call Center, etc.

The company, under the exemplary leadership of Sheetal, is striving to develop innovative products that will deliver its services to diverse industries to faster, cheaper and better.

Leading with a Customer-Centric Approach Sheetal, since the inception of White Globe, has created an ambiance which is customer-focused. She has been working on applying the Principles of

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White Globe has a pool of voice-over artists and many leading studio partners across multiple locations to offer its customized services.

Design Thinking and Innovation in all that the company does in all processes.

She organized a training in Design Thinking and Innovation for its Senior Management. Working closely with White Globe’s Network of Language Experts, Sheetal encourages her team to embrace change and always keep on developing products and services relevant with changing times.

Distinguished Milestones Under Sheetal’s accomplished leadership, White Globe has provided the best quality service to its more than 500 Enterprise Customers. Hence, within a short span of three years, White Globe has won several accolades and won the confidence of many large Multinational Giants.

The company has created a record of sorts by translating and delivering 15 million words from Japanese to English for an Automotive giant within a month. It has provided Interpretation Services in various languages for more than 10,000 hours.

When it comes to online content, White Globe is a leading player for Multilingual Dubbing and Subtitling. It has localized the website of a few leading consumer brands and assisted them in their digital marketing efforts.

Further, White Globe has seen an increased requirement of Corporate Language training and provided Language training to many Private Sector and Govt. organizations.

Marching Ahead with a Vision With White Globe, Sheetal will continue to find ways to develop innovative services. She, along with her proficient team, scans the market and the industry to understand the

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White Globe is already servicing language service requirements of more than 500 Enterprise Customers

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What White Globe offers

latest technological trends. They constantly evaluate use cases to consider any technologies’ implementation.

She also believes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will play a crucial role. Hence, White Globe has embarked on the journey of leveraging the power of AI and ML, Deep Learning across all its services and portfolio. The firm is also working on its Translation Memory Tool using AI, ML and Deep Learning to further Boost up its productivity and creating its Intranet for better collaboration. The platform will be one of its kind with seamless integration of workflows, CAT Tools and Customer Interfaces.

For the company, Sheetal plans to expand across 20 large towns of India as well as few countries in the Asia Pacific, Middle East, Europe, Africa, and America by 2022. She envisions White Globe to be amongst the top three global language services providers and continue to support localization and globalization initiatives of its partners.

To know more about the company, visit: http://whiteglobe.co.in/

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Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Shambhavi Mhetre

sales@insightssuccess.com

Publishing Control Team Shruti, Rahul

February, 2020

Quality Assurance Team Darshan, Abhishaj, Sneha Contributing Editor Ananda Kamal Das

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NAVEEN PUTTAGUNTA A PERFECTIONIST CRAFTING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR THE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE

he entire world is moving towards digitalization and UI and UX design plays a major role in any industry. When it comes to designing a page or a website, there are various factors which have to be looked upon.

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the driver’s seat of this change by directing our interactions with the technology to be seamless, easy and fun.

One company leading the UI and UX space is Divami Design Labs led by Naveen Puttagunta, the Founder and CEO. Divami majorly focuses on digital transformation, SaaS platforms, mobile apps and enterprise products. It has been providing services across various sectors which include finance & banking, hospitality, logistics, healthcare, social media and enterprise software.

Running a business is nothing but a constant stream of challenges that one must overcome competition. It comes from other established players as well as new entrants, pricing pressures, customer retention, projects that seem to run away from you. Finding and retaining talented people is also one major challenge that almost every business has to go through, and we are no different.

In the following interview, Naveen shares with us his journey with Divami and how it is aiding towards the development of digital world.

The key is in how we tackle them and keep our cool in tough times. When times get a little challenging—inevitable in every business—we remember the ‘why’ of our business.

Remembering the reason we started it, what was our purpose and the mission of the company, and the goal that we have in front of us, keep the fire going. We believe in managing energy than time.

1. Please introduce yourself to our readers and share your vision for Divami Design Labs In my 20+ years of experience in the software industry, I’ve had the opportunity to work in fields ranging from databases, availability, to user experience. I started Divami after holding senior roles in product management and development at Sybase (now an SAP subsidiary) and GoldenGate (now Oracle). While the degrees (a Bachelor’s from BITS, Pilani, a Master’s from the University of Houston, both in Computer Science, and a Business degree from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad) have prepared me well, none have taught me as much as I have learnt in the past 11 years working with clients in a wide variety of fields.

Our vision for Divami is to become a global leader in human-technology interaction. Technology is changing the world at a pace that even the most agile of us struggle to keep up. We believe Divami’s role in this world is to be in

18 | February 2020

2. Being a successful business leader, what difficulties and challenges do you face? What keeps you motivated?

3. Describe the one aspect Divami possess which makes it unique?

I will give you two. Our time-tested process and attention to detail in our methodology set us apart from others in the field. I feel that the strength of the process and our approach towards it ensures that individual designer bias is eliminated from the designs, and the result is truly a usercentric design.

Secondly, apart from a great design team, we have also built excellent development capabilities. Our ability to not only deliver designs, but also deliver a pixel-perfect working UI is a huge differentiator – as one of our customers verbalized it. Since we are responsible for the design, we are also the best people to ensure the designs come to life the right way.

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INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTSSUCCESS

Naveen Puttagunta Founder & CEO

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19| February 2020

4. Brief about Divami and its services We are a User Experience and User Interface design services company, creating digital footprints with our designs that are both elegant and practical. We specialize in designing UX and UI for SaaS & Cloud-based platforms, Enterprise Software products, Consumer Applications and Portals, across diverse verticals ranging from fintech, logistics, health-tech, telco, retail to social media, entertainment, education and hospitality.

5. How do you motivate your team to be innovative and productive at work?

All of us share a common goal – of seeing Divami in a leadership position. We believe the best way to do that is to focus on our clients, and what is best for the project. As a leader, my job is to align the team with the goal by sharing the vision and getting people to buy into it and invest into it emotionally. Once you do that, all you have to do as a manager is to keep removing any roadblocks and hurdles so that your team can achieve their true potential. The key is to have people who truly own a problem, rest is easy.

Fortunately, we have an amazing set of folks who live up to that description.

6. What is your opinion regarding the current landscape of the market your company caters to?

Over the past three decades, information has become more digitized, and this has also remodeled the realm of design.

Digital starts with design, thus design plays a significant role in turning ideas into reality. UX/UI development requires numerous technologies and frameworks beyond web and mobile application development space. Today, design is moving from ‘nice-to-have’ to ‘need-to-have.’

Enterprises cannot afford to have a not-so-good design; as people’s attention spans are becoming shorter and companies have to convey as quickly and clearly as possible with a cohesive and powerful design.

7. Please tell us about your achievements and accomplishments We have got numerous recognitions globally, and one of the latest one has been by CII for the best interaction design and also for the best mobile application design.

Internationally, we have also been recognized among the Clutch 1000 global B2B companies and also as among top 5 UX UI design agencies by some ranking publishers.

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In numbers, we have successfully completed 150+ projects in the last 11 years. I take pride in saying that our projects have reached 2.5 million end users and have served 13 countries with our projects, consultations, and designs.

8. Where do you envision yourself and your company in the near future?

We at Divami look forward to a long term relation with the clients rather than just delivering the project.

Augmented reality has been a major influencer for us.

Designing connected, ubiquitous experiences across multiple devices are the challenges they are looking forward to.

One thing which is constant in this digital era is that everything is continuously evolving and changing.

Technology is moving at such a rapid pace that it is sometimes difficult to keep up with all of it. So we have to pick our battles carefully. What we used to see as the future, is no more the future. Everything is here, it just needs to be scaled up.

While we are already working beyond AI enabled mobile and web applications to IoT applications and wearable technology, now we have also started working upon AR/VR. Our vision is to be the pioneers in the human interaction technology. We are looking forward to partner with companies across wide domains and deliver meaningful experiences with our strong UX UI designing capabilities.

9. What is your advice to the budding and aspiring entrepreneurs?

I’d say, play the long game. It’s relatively easier to sail a ship from the shore but imagine losing fuel when you are in the middle of the ocean. We often get caught up in the dayto-day challenges of running business but one must take some time every week to introspect and analyse the longterm health of one’s business. That includes training, marketing, employee development, community engagement and capital development. Small seeds if sown well will give more and more fruits in the future.

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Chetan Patil Co-Founder and CEO

CHETAN

PATIL

A Visionary Leader with the Zeal to Transform Businesses

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nspirational business leaders are driven by positive attitude and the focus to bring change through their dedicated endeavors. They believe in working together with the team and achieving not only the organizational goals, but also each employee’s objectives. These leaders never give up in the face of adversity; rather they face each situation with conďŹ dence. They are ethical, fearless, and constantly motivate everyone to achieve their best.

One such dedicated change leader in the business arena is Chetan Patil, the Co-Founder and CEO of Aiddition Technologies. Hailing from Vijaypura situated at 600 kms from Bangalore, he was passionate about electronics since his childhood. This passion made him pursue the BE course from his home town. His desire to learn concepts of embedded

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

package. This opened the doors to catering services to hospitality, retails, restaurants, educational sectors, and so on. Chetan is constantly working hard to highlight the products in the global market.

The Beginning Chetan’s childhood dream was to make products, and coincidentally, Bangalore had started nurturing startups during that time. Initially, he joined a start-up to gain necessary exposure and learned the nitty-gritty of rapid prototyping for nearly 2 years. Then, he joined hands with his professor in PG studies, Mr. Kumaraswamy K and his friend and mentor, Mr. T R Vishwanath. After quitting his job, he established Aiddition Technologies in 2016.

A Dedicated Front Runner Chetan states that he is a maker, who believes in disrupting the retail shopping experience technologies by adopting innovations. He focuses on providing customers and the brands same kind of experience they derive from online shopping environs. Under his ardent leadership, the company launched India’s first home grown Hardware-As-a-Service (HAAS) model on professional grade public interactive displays and its software for retailers and brands.

Facing Challenges and Achieving Goals Under Chetan’s leadership, the first product of Aiddition was a digital signage software that was deployed on 3rd party display players. “Since we were from electronics background the limitations of supplying Signage software didn’t satisfy our inner desire to make something big. By understanding the limitations of deploying mere software we started developing our own Interactive display with built-in processor,” he said. Like any other start-up, they also faced monetary problems at the beginning.

Opinions about the Industry Chetan believes that the digital era leads to lots of transformations in our daily life. Technology is enabling us to feel anything is possible these days. In his opinion, the lifestyle of the people is changing & everyone is looking for something new in whatever they do.

Be it shopping or doing anything, everyone just wants to explore the innovation everywhere. “Even in the retail industry, it hasn’t been a different story. Retailers are behind modern solutions to give a better in-store customer experience at the stores,” he adds.

The company had to hire interns and freelancers from industries on per-task basis. This helped them in making their own interactive displays. Chetan said, “Believe me it took nearly one year to find suitable manufacturing partners for getting spare components as the Industry was relative new for many players. In fact we had to train many partners to get our design done”. His team worked 24/7 to ensure that the product was ready in time. These efforts resulted in the launch of Aidio All-In-One- Interactive Displays bundled with Interactive software

Chetan believes that, even in the Ecom boom, India has the highest number of outlets per person. With CAGR 20-25%, organized retail has an enormous opportunity to make the shopping more convenient than ever before and be neck to neck with Ecom. Retailers don’t approach this opportunity with ‘one size fits all’, rather they find solutions to make it more ‘personalized and interactive’.

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About Aiddition Technologies Situated at Bangalore, Aiddition has developed an interactive software stack

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We focus on making our products stand out in the global market

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systems brought him to Bangalore, where he pursued post graduation in embedded systems and VLSI design.

He is a maker, who believes in transforming fantasy into reality, through dedication and a never give up attitude.

with the brand name Aidio, which is an integrated all-in-one interactive display having smart sensor interfacing, designed for interactive applications.

Aidio displays are packed with in-store customer experience software suite.

This enables retailers/brands to give a better customer experience at offline setup by capturing unprecedented instore customer activity data. This product brings online/ e-commerce environment in offline store helping customers to check digital catalog/ self order, which helps in increased order rate for the store.

Approaching towards a Bright Future Chetan states that he wants Aiddition to be recognized as a pioneer/ leader in interactive display and in-store experience technology market. He aims to assist brands/ retailers to create virtual shopping store to reach every corner of the country and in creating leading in-store customer experience solutions.

Words for the Future Generation Chetan advises budding entrepreneurs not to be afraid of failure. He asks them to work with their full potential and to give the best of their efforts in achieving their goals. He concludes by advising them to chase their dreams and transform them into realities.

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nvestments are a vital process in any business.

However, there are very few people who have gained expertise in this niche. Advising people to invest in the right business is indeed a challenging task and Maple Capital Advisors has aced it. Pankaj Karna, Founder & Managing Director is an experienced investment banker with over 22 year’s experience. He has worked in institutions like BNP Paribas, Rabobank and Grant Thornton prior to establishing Maple Capital Advisors. He has advised over 100 M&A, private equity and structured finance transactions in his career. Maple Capital Advisors completes 10 years in 2020 with a successful track record and has engaged with some of the best names in the industry.

With an interview with Insights Success, Pankaj and his team provide us with an overview of the challenges and success story of Maple Capital Advisors.

1. Being a successful business leader, what difficulties and challenges do you face? What keeps you motivated?

In our journey, we have faced challenges ranging from

Pankaj Karna Amplifying your Business through Thoughtful Investment Guidance

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Founder & Managing Director

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ENGAGING TO CREATE VALUE

Pankaj Karna

25| February 2020

business slowdown and consequent stretch/delay on our deal outcomes to having faced stiff competition from a potential acquirer to significant staff churn at one point. We kept our heads down, continued to persevere and eventually recovered successfully and mitigated these risks today in terms of client diversity, market presence, staff mix and overall standing. Our Highest motivation is proven success in our engagements and adding value to our clients.

2. Brief about Maple Capital Advisors and its services and your vision for your company Our vision is to establish as a premier pan India mid-market investment bank and early-stage investment firm highly focused non-new age entrepreneurs and new-age businesses especially in the consumer, financial services and technology domain.

Maple Capital Advisors is a premier mid-market investment bank focused on mergers & acquisitions, private equityadvising on mid-market private equity capital raise, accelerator-backing promising early-stage startups and leverage capital-advising on structured debt and corporate finance.

3. How do you motivate your team to be innovative and productive at work?

Our business is very goal and performance-orientated and hence outcomes define motivation very directly. This is the case in investment banking, successful mandate closures are directly related to motivation as all in team benefit from such outcomes, careerwise and monetarily.

4. What is your opinion regarding the current landscape of the market your company caters to?

In the current landscape, we are well-positioned as the go-to investment bank in mid-market in North India and we mostly compete with much larger players especially the Big 5 Nationally there are similar players as us in Mumbai Bangalore and Chennai. So we think we are regionally strong and emerging at the national level.

5. Please tell us about your achievements and accomplishments

the last 10 years and with our focus of engaging to create value we have had numerous repeat relationships that attest our ethos and track record. From the largest consolidation in the ceramic tiles industry(Bell Ceramics) in India to the largest M&A in Fitness(Fitness First) to the largest capital raise in coworking business(Awfis) in India are testimony to our track record and ability to deliver beyond our size.

We have featured multiple times in the league tables of top investment bankers in India by VC Circle. Was profiled by IBEF in its book ‘Ordinary Indians and Extraordinary Enterprise’, a book profiling 25 - 1st generation entrepreneurs in India.

6. Where do you envision yourself and your company in the near future?

We see us emerging at the national level across multiple cities as a leading mid-market investment bank. We also plan to develop the early-stage investment thesis through a larger portfolio of proprietary investments and potentially managing a larger fund pool in this space in years to come.

7. What is your advice to the budding and aspiring entrepreneurs?

High perseverance and conviction coupled with pragmatism and being grounded pay well in the long term and success of the business. Working with the brightest and most motivated talent is important for successful scale-up. Being open to change and criticism is equally important.

We have consistently delivered successful mandates over

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Chintan P. Mehta CEO

Chintan P. Mehta: A Go-getter Personality in Insurance Business

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I want to build an enterprise which takes proud in delivering every promise made to clients which value our advice.

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re leaders born or made? This is a never-ending debate with no definite answer. However, irrespective of what the answer is, some great intellectuals and remarkable people enter the world with confidence and do whatever it takes to make difficult decisions and lead. They have a natural tendency to attract followers, influence and motivate others.

So, why is that only a few people achieve success or are labeled as a leader? Truth to be told, anyone can be placed in a leadership role, but, only a few thrive in that position. Becoming a great leader is not an accomplishment that can be attained through a degree. It has to be earned.

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

If you ask the same to a few of the remarkable leaders they would tell us that, “great leaders not only have to help their team to move forward and achieve the goal, they also have to know which step they need to take to achieve superlative benefits.”

And this requires continuous learning and evolving. Regardless of the field, a leader operates in, it is safe to say that the methods they are working keep evolving with time. Innovations, products, and processes keep making their way into their field. And the only way to adapt to these changes is by self-adaptation. Learn the new technologies and processes and apply them in your business, if required, or find a new methodology to stay ahead.

Keeping an open mind towards new possibilities, opportunities, and consistent learning is the reason why certain people outshine others and accomplish what they did.

to learn, work and learn again at various companies. In the last one and half decade, he earned an extensive knowledge and experience on insurance. He worked with many companies including India Infoline, Way2Wealth, Shriram Group and Auto Hangar India (AHI).

Mehta’s evolution has been gradual and consisted of constant learning.

Today, he is one of the finest taskmasters of bridging awareness & operational excellence in the Insurance domain. Currently serving as the CEO of AHI Insurance Brokers, he is an expert on innovation and disruption for mass & class of the society. He places his every situation right with in-depth insurance business analysis, claims management, reinsurance, and customer retention. His team manages client business through most trained data-center and field associates.

A Humble Being & Forever Learner

Here, in this edition of Insights Success, we take the liberty to introduce one such dynamic personality, Chintan P. Mehta, CEO of AHI Insurance Brokers who, with his unstoppable ardor and consistent learning, goes beyond the call of duty to achieve success.

Evolving as a Leader Mehta’s journey to the top began with his career in International Business Development. He has successfully developed various markets across the globe and built many successful enterprises. After working for several years in different countries like Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom as well as West Africa, Mehta decided to come back to India.

This was the turning point in his professional life. Before stepping into the shoes of a leader, he took his time

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When we talk about the great qualities of a leader, charisma, bravado, and vision stand atop. However, here is another quality, added with the aforesaid that makes Mehta an effective leader; humbleness. This quality of his makes him a leader, who leads to serve. He feels that even after having accomplished a career of two decades, he still is a student, a student of life. He quotes, “Life is a unique journey. On every fold, you get endless opportunities to learn and improvise.”

Though he believes that life teaches him valuable lessons for both professional and personal journeys, he also admires other leaders and even reads about them. He says that one can find the deep impact of preachings of Shri Pandurang Shastri Athawale of Swadhyay & Swami Vivekananda during interaction with him.

About AHI Insurance Brokers AHI Insurance Brokers is one of the fastest-growing IRDA approved insurance companies in India. It helps customers in choosing a different insurance policy and products like motor, health, life, travel, investment, pension and business among others.

Here at, the skilled brokers of AHI Insurance Brokers have crafted their expertise not by selling but also by imbibing their knowledge into all its offerings.

“Our uniqueness lies in seeking to consistently execute better and perfect this recipe of Life Cycle Management for continued success,” comments Mehta.

Mehta insists that the role of a good brokerage is to represent the customer first and not the insurer during the entire life cycle. He asserts, “We are on the right track – I want to build an enterprise that takes pride in delivering every promise made to clients who value our advice. We are creating niche segment offerings and create our ‘blue ocean’. Warranty solutions, specialized personal asset insurance cover, pet insurance are some of the few.”

Words of Wisdom Time and again, it has been proved that hard work is the only ladder to success. Here too, the same is the case. If not for Mehta's persistent zeal, none of the accomplishments would have been possible. “There is no shortcut to success. In the service industry delivering promise is vital & in insurance moment of truth is ‘Claims’.

If you can be true to all your sales pitches at the time of claim settlement, you have no competition,” he concludes.

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

Hashim Babu, Sajid M, & Dhanesh OT Leading Winstud Academy towards Excellence

Hashim Babu Chairman

S

uccessful business leaders never give up at the face of adversity. They are driven by the enthusiasm to introduce change with their dedicated endeavors. These leaders believe in working as a team. They focus not only on fulfilling the company’s objectives, but also individual goals of every employee. Such leaders are result focused and possess a compassionate and growth-oriented outlook.

The above mentioned qualities accurately describe the three torchbearers of Winstud Academy– Mr. Hashim Babu the Chairman; Mr. Sajid M, the Director of Administration; and Mr. Dhanesh O T, the Director of Extension and Development.

Mr. Hashim is known for his pleasing manners and wisdom. He is a resilient and creative leader, who maintains the cohesion and goodwill among the directors and leads the institution efficiently. Mr. Hashim is a brilliant coordinator and administrator of educational institutions who always keeps a keen eye on the quality in the system and management of organizations.

About Winstud Academy Established in 2014, Winstud is a private limited company registered under Govt. of India for spreading quality education through courses which are not only meant to prepare the job-seekers but also to instill confidence and capabilities of

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entrepreneurship in students. Hence, vocational courses designed by Winstud cuts an edge over the similar courses in the field of education.

The curriculum plans of all courses conform to the Mr. Sajid controls the operations of Winstud and maintains relations with the franchisee network. An energetic leader with prompt and appropriate reactions, he is the live wire in the institution. Mr. Sajid bears long years of experience in the field of financial administration in reputed institutions and as an organizer of business, he had many laurels on his collars.

The Inception Saga Under the leadership of Mr. Hashim, Mr. Sajid, and Mr. Dhanesh, the academy set foot in the business arena in the year 2014. They established the institution with a grand plan of extending and redefining the concept of technical and vocational education. All courses carry curriculum plans which conform to the latest requirements and competencies in the employment sector of the modern age.

The three of them believe that although the academy has completed half a decade offering its services, it is a very short period with regard to the life of an institution. They add, “As we look back, we are astonished to see the cross roads and blind lanes we left behind in our growth. At the start we had only a vague idea and concretization came with the implementation. As everybody knows, extension activity in education service sector is like selling a concept without finding immediate clients”.

Delivering Excellent Services Mr. Hashim, Mr. Sajid, and Mr. Dhanesh state that

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Sajid M

Director of Administration

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Certifications of Winstud Courses by institutions of international repute lend a cutting edge to win a prosperous professional life

“

latest requirements and competencies in the employment sector of the modern age. It offers courses in Management, Education, Fashion Designing, Interior Designing, Architecture and Engineering, Health and Beauty, IT, Accounting, and so on. These are implemented through 200+ centers enrolling more than 15000 candidates. It also offers the facility of online courses for people who cannot attend regular classes.

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IDOA(The International Diploma in Office Administration), IDAAM (International Diploma in Airport and Airline Management), and many more.

Mr. Dhanesh is a major foundation of Winstud.

Always on the wheels to widen the franchisee network, he is a man of hard work who aims for the moon with the firm belief to hit a star at least. Mr. Dhanesh has 14 years of experience in marketing management in British, German, and Indian MNCs and is a wizard in the field of marketing.

Winstud has also designed its dream project of establishing Newtons’ Kid for imparting preprimary education re-defining montessori principles on the basis of real Indian situation and developing it to the higher levels.

Achieving Numerous Laurels

Dhanesh O T

Director of Extension and Development

the company offers online and offline courses in accountancy, management, education, fashion designing, health care, and many more. Students successfully completing these courses get the opportunity to be recruited in renowned organizations in India and abroad.

They further say that the services the academy offers fall under categories such as management school, teacher training, communication and soft skills, online education, health care, Winstud Publications, Newtons’ Kid International pre- school, and so on. Exams are conducted online and the program to install a unique exam portal for all exams is on the anvil.

The trio of Mr. Hashim, Mr. Sajid, and Mr. Dhanesh has led Winstud to accomplish many landmarks throughout the journey of excellence. The academy developed association with FICS, the UK based certification program for professional courses. This helped Winstud to enhance the value and acceptability of its courses and certificates.

This certification has increased the credibility of the company, while providing placements to students in reputed institutions of India and abroad. The trio asserts, “we were able to step up the quality of education and add brilliance on the basis of our association with FICS. Studying the Winstud courses culminates in securing certificates recognized internationally”. They are proud of gaining the accreditation of IAF, ELC, IATE, and IMS, which add glory to the company certificate courses.

Under the astute leadership of the three dedicated front runners, the company offers a wide variety of dynamic courses which include, IDHFA(International Diploma In Hospital Front Office Administration), IDCAT (International diploma in Corporate Accounts Training),

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Industry Outlook

Digitize or Face Demise A

s I was growing up in India in the 70s and the 80s, one advertisement that always caught my attention was the “Kodak Moment”. Kodak was world’s largest photography and print media company, capturing over two thirds of the share of global market. They said that the job of a sales person in Kodak was a comfortable job, because the KODAK products sold themselves, there was very little sales marketing effort required to sell them.

Around the turn of the century, Kodak developed the digital Camera. It was a great invention that did away with the need for films in camera; instead recording the image on a backup memory. However, the senior management at Kodak refused to let the new invention hit the market, for the fear of losing the film business, which constituted 60% of their top line and 90% of the film business in the US. At a time when digital technology was reshaping the whole world, the leadership at Kodak was in a denial mode. Sony and Canon saw their opportunity and adopted the digital imaging technology in a big way. Digital imaging swept through all segments of photography. Kodak shares started to decline. Even then kodak thought that their marketing effort will be able to reverse the trend. Nothing of that sort happened and Kodak went bankrupt within a decade of refusing to accept the advent of Digital photography.

Similar story repeated itself in Nokia. Nokia was the world's biggest and leading mobile phone manufacturer.

Within a span of 4 years from 1995-1999, it had quadrupled its turnover from $1billion to $4 billion. By 2003 it was the world's leading mobile manufacturer. In 2007 Apple launched the iPhone. It changed the perception of a mobile phone from just a communication device to a device for multiple functions like music, photography, entertainment,

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information and communication. iPhone introduced another very interesting feature of iTunes. Anyone with ideas could add an App to the iTunes and hope to make money by its sale. Thousands of young minds thronged the iTunes platform with bright new ideas. While they uploaded the Apps to the iTunes store, millions could use these apps for a very small nominal sum of money. Invariably less than $10/-. Apple had created the first platform for producers and consumers of value to come together on the platform, exchange value, enrich themselves and in the process and also enrich the Apple company. It was win-win for all the stakeholders. Nokia failed to notice this new business model that worked on creating the network effect around the platform for value exchange. Nokia started fading away and by 2013 had become a spent force in the mobile market. Finally, it got acquired by Microsoft and Nokia brand name vanished from the mobile phone market.

The above two cases show a very important trend. Digital technology shall touch all businesses the way it had never touched in the past. Amazon, riding on their internet platform has captured the retail market and is giving tough competition to the established players like Walmart. Uber, riding on their ride sharing platform is already valued higher than GM motors; an auto company established nearly a century ago. Airbnb, without owning a single room is valued higher than Marriot, that runs a hotel chain of thousands of hotels across the world and a company like Netflix has sent the giants like the “Blockbuster” to the annals of history in USA. So, what is common between Amazon, Uber, Airbnb and Netflix. All these companies have heavily adopted the digital technology and taken quick advantage of giant leaps taken by the digital industry in

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Wg. Cdr. Pradeep Valsangkar

About the Author

faster communication (In excess of 100Mbps), huge data storage and retrieval and advanced techniques in data analytics and ArtiďŹ cial intelligence.

The time for adopting digital technology for just an advantage in the market place is gone. Now it is the question of survival. Either adopt the digital technology or some tech entrepreneur with a new platform business shall gobble up your business even before you realize what is happening around. Digital technology in general and Digital platforms in particular are re-writing the rules of the business strategy.

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Wg. Cdr. Pradeep Valsangkar is a postgraduate engineer from the IAF. He completed his M.tech in Computer Science from IIT Powai and MBA from FMS Delhi. He is also a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College of India. After leaving service, he has worked in various capacities across different IT services companies. He has been working as a senior consultant of the world bank for the last 15 years, a visiting faculty at the Institute of Management Technology and runs his consulting ď€ rm Global Consulting Solutions.

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In the industrial era businesses, value was created by people, processes and technology. Such a value in the form of goods or services was taken to the market where it got sold for a premium over the cost of manufacturing or service delivery. Since the technology and processes created the value, all the companies kept these secrets very close to their heart.

But this model of value creation changed with the advent of the Digital platform business model. Such a digital technology platforms brought four players together on a single platform. These are as shown in the diagram below:

In the above diagram the platform owner (Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Airbnb etc) is neither the producer of core value that gets consumed nor the consumer of that value. Instead it just facilitates bringing the producer and the consumer together on a platform. It provides several facilities, driven by modern digital technology of data analytics and AI. This facilitates an easy value exchange between the producer and the consumer there by creating a network effect. This network effect gets hundreds of thousands of producers to throng the platform market because it promises quick sale and higher volumes. It also attracts millions of consumers and clients, since it is now so easy for them to look for the exact producer available at the right price for them to buy and consume that value. They can now compare and contrast hundreds of producers of a good or service, compare their prices, see what others are saying about them and finally decide on the exact purchase. This network effect multiplies as the time goes by and consumers become more and more comfortable with the platform and begin to choose the platform instead of brick and mortar businesses. Over a period of time the brick and mortar businesses either adopt the digital way of doing business or face the prospect of complete extinction.

In whatever business you may be in, it is time for you to apply the digital lens to your business. Look at the speedily changing landscape in your industry. Look at what new technology trends and advances are happening in the digital world and how these are getting applied to products and services in your industry. Sit with your strategy team and create the “Digital Business Strategy” rather than just the “Business strategy” for your company. Unless you adopt the digital technology for your business, you may be the next Kodak in the making (or may be dying).

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

Om Thoke

A Fearless Leader Embracing Innovation and Excellence

A

focused business leader is always on the lookout for new opportunities, while scaling existing businesses. They never give up in the face of adversity and always emerge with innovative solutions for solving difficult problems. Such leaders are determined to bring change through their focused endeavors. They are fearless, ethical, and focus not only on organizational goals, but also, on the employees’ objectives.

One such torchbearer marching towards excellence is none other than Om Thoke, the Managing Director of Webfosys Group. Being a serial entrepreneur, he is currently focused on collectively growing the group’s brands to a $100M+ revenues in the next 3-5 years. The group’s renowned brands include Webfosys Networks, Shopping Corner, GlowWorms Ventures, DOTS, Inspiracion Media, Xpress Seo Solutions, and Sanshray Ventures.

Webfosys Networks specializes in web development; it has built sites like Audi Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, and handled their digital campaigns in the past. Some of its other noteworthy campaigns include Davanam Sarovar Bangalore, and Country Inn Manipal (part of Radisson/ Carlson Group).

GlowWorms Ventures focuses on lead generation for real estate agencies/builders, car dealerships, BFSI sector, and generates sales in affiliate marketing model for e-com and tech brands.

DOTS enables global media buyers to enter Indian e-com markets on cash on delivery model, handling everything from importing, warehousing, storage, packaging, and shipping. Currently, it’s processing 2000-4000 orders/day, and looking to pump up these numbers to 10,000/day before the end of 2020.

Under Xpress SEO Solutions, the group runs one of its ecom brands, and also offers guest posting and link building packages to big brands in travel, entertainment, automotive, and education sector.

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The company also offers strategic consulting and quarter SEO packages to funded startups or SMEs in growth stage, looking to strengthen their traffic (and in turn, conversions/ sales) in the long term. It further sells bulk PBN packages to brands looking for hundreds of high authority guest posts, blog outreach, and influencer connections.

An Inspirational Journey Om started his career as a blogger during the second year of his college after losing his dad, and very little money in his bank, and he tried his hands at all possible options to make money ranging from working at call center, taking tuitions for his juniors, data entry, freelance writing, selling Amway products, promoting MLM down to door-to-door sales. He started making money with Google Adsense, and after acquiring sufficient experience, he moved on to establish a digital agency.

He led the company to gain expertise in handling clients and web development projects, while evolving and enhancing their operational procedures. Om believes that the digital world is so dynamic that it faces new challenges almost every day. However, it’s all about survival of the fittest, and one has to adapt to the changing landscape, and fight through, otherwise they will have a tough time surviving against other competitors.

Om bootstrapped Webfosys to a multi-national multimillion dollar company, and eventually five more companies from zero to million dollars in revenues over the last 11 years. He states - “now I love launching/investing in a new startup each year, and scale it to a million dollars in revenues in 12-18 months”.

Winning Various Laurels Om has won various recognition and awards for his dedicated endeavors. Under his devoted leadership, Webfosys has spread its footprint across India, Singapore, Middle East, Europe, and USA. This has given the company the opportunity to maintain a global presence. He is planning to expand to Australia and Brazil in 2020-21.

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“

It’s okay to make mistakes, but you must learn from them, and NEVER repeat the same mistake twice!

Om Thoke Managing Director Webfosys Group

“

Om has won the award of SEO Consultant of the Year 2017. He has also spoken at tons of Indian & international events during 2018, and was invited by IIM Visakhapatnam during Dec 2019.

On Dec 5, 2019, Om recently spoke at the world’s largest affiliate conference, AWA, held at Bangkok, and he has already been invited to DMIExpo Tel Aviv 2020 and a few other global conferences this year.

Furthermore, Om is making his online presence felt by providing free tutorials on his YouTube channel to help aspiring bloggers, startup founders, and e-commerce store owners/dropshippers. Under Om’s ardent leadership, Webfosys Group has collectively clocked over $10M+ in sales across all companies.

Opinions about the Industry Om believes that the digital landscape is ever-evolving and it is essential to stay at the top of one’s game to make a mark in this highly competitive industry. His company witnesses new challenges every day, and it’s about the survival of the fittest in the digital world. He opines, “you need to keep honing your skills on a daily basis, and keep looking out for newer opportunities”. He believes that just like Facebook advertisements were a great way to earn huge profits, now Tiktok advertisements are a lucrative opportunity – if one encashes it, they’ll be able to make money, before it gets saturated.

model is another great opportunity, where global players can enter and build multi-million brands in a matter of 3-6 months. He states, “we’re enabling such global brands to do it, and a few of them have already generated $100,000+, $200,000+, $250,000+, and $500,000+ worth of sales in India in 2019, and scaling rapidly in 2020”.

Word of Advice for Emerging Entrepreneurs Om runs communities such as Bloggers World, Bootstrappers World, Dropshippers World for helping budding entrepreneurs, bloggers/vloggers, and dropshippers/e-commerce enthusiasts through respectives Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram groups. Om has mentored thousands of emerging entrepreneurs and blogging enthusiasts free of cost.

He advises the young blood to give at least 24-36 months of their lives to their startup, and work towards achieving goals by setting realistic timelines, and checking the progress regularly to ensure that they grow progressively, otherwise, it will be difficult to transform dreams into realities. He advises them not to give up until they reach the pinnacle of success; this perseverance will lead them to achieve greater goals and make a mark in this competitive world.

Om adds that E-commerce in India via cash-on-delivery

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Sapna Rani Patel Channeling the Power of Experience and Persistence

I

n the year 2016, The ‘Nature’ magazine announced that a computer designed by google’s DeepMind defeated a human master in a Chinese game, 'Go'. Now, this impressive achievement of technology has once again raised the expectations of a predicted future; which would be led by technology. First, we had the computers, then ‘www’, then the IoT, and AI, and more technologies are invading our lives in every way possible. As a result, there exists a persisting debate, whether machines will rule the human world?

However, we cannot rule out the contradicting fact that it was humans who created these technologies and hence, as humans upgrade technologies, they will also upgrade themselves to say abreast of the changes. Hence, it is safe to say that both humans and machines will be ruling the world at par.

Yet, in midst of this, there are certain people who manage to lead, irrespective of the advancements in technologies and competitions. This is because of their willingness to learn. While every aspect of machines is programmed, humans learn as they go. They learn from experience. This calls to mind the words of Albert Einstein, “the only source of knowledge is experience.”

Featured in this edition is the story of Sapna Rani Patel, COO, and Co-Founder of Gray Routes Technology, a leader and influencer of the millennial age. She took the lessons of experience to grow wise.

Ms. Patel is at the forefront of a new age. Starting from working in some of the best companies to an NGO, Ms. Patel has smiled her way out of every challenge and has evolved a leader with indepth knowledge and experience.

“My experiences have been varied. I have worked for one of the best companies in the world and also with an NGO where I got the opportunity to work very closely with the underprivileged section of the society. Right from working for a startup to cofounding one, I have come across numerous challenges and hardships in scaling the company to a global level,” she recalls.

Today, Ms. Patel stands at one such a podium that is untouched and this is the result of her effort. The journey began with

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COO, & Co-Founder

“

Empowering Brands to reach the Epitome of Success

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Shaped by Experience

Sapna Rani Patel

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020 working with Google, Teach for India and an education startup based out of IIT Bombay. Her undying zest has helped Ms. Patel to focus on a single purpose and to strenuously get involved in her business.

“Today, I am the COO and Co-Founder of Gray Routes Technology. I handle Marketing/Business Development, people, investor and customer relations at Gray Routes,” she shares.

Taking What Life Gives You Time and again, it has been recorded that success only comes after hardships, failures and endless challenges. Ms. Patel too had her share of hardships. “I would like to believe that entrepreneurs are blessed with two very unique qualities. One is the ability to take a humongous amount of risks even in the direst situation and the other one is perseverance which keeps them going when things become tough. As a women entrepreneur the challenges become more profound because their contributions are very often dismissed,” she recalls about her initial days.

However, that did not stop Ms. Patel from achieving the desired result. Starting from securing funding for the company at the right time to acquiring global customers as clients, Ms. Patel had to work hard even while she had to face the uncertainty of her actions at every point.

What helped her to achieve superlative success was her driven problem-solving skills. As entrepreneurs, the details of the problems they face and maybe even skill sets differ, but at the core, the spirit is the same. So is the case with Ms. Patel.

“As entrepreneurs, you have to be consistently working towards building a brand for your company by building the trust of stakeholders, employees, clients and all the parties that are a part of your journey. The biggest challenge is to be able to maintain balance and professionalism in the face of numerous expectations with maturity,” shares Ms. Patel.

She believes that challenges have helped her grow and become the person she is today. “I love taking on challenges, especially the ones that are difficult to achieve.

This helps me set bigger goals for myself and the company,” she adds.

Pioneering AI-driven Marketing Ms. Patel 's contribution in Gray Routes has helped it earn titles including, Best AI & Cognitive Technology Provider

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of the Year 2018 in CSI's IT Innovation & Excellence Awards, Only B2B Software Tech firm invited to work with NTRO, intelligence agency of Govt. of India in the year 2018 and Top 5 companies chosen for Next Big Idea by Govt. of Canada and DST for the year 2018.

So, what makes Gray Routes unique or why has it evolved as a leader in the market? Founded in 2013, Gray Routes is a profitable, angel-funded and institutional financing backed from Private banks, Private Equity as well as Product engineering sectors. It is also advised by North-America based UC Berkeley, SFU Professors, Canadian Retail Consultants, and MNC CXOs. It is a market leader in GPSbased location intelligence, Distribution planning apps and data solutions that automate critical sales, supply chain logistics & distribution processes intelligently, bringing Sales, Delivery & Retail iQ at the fingertips of its clients such as Proctor & Gamble, GSK, Shalimar, Bluebird, Safari and several thousand retailers, pharma, courier and transport associations among others.

“Gray Routes has evolved into a profitable and highly scalable company over the past few years. We have worked very closely with our clients and build products that are sensitive to customer needs and evolve with their requirements and new-age technology. We hope to be the pioneers in Artificial Intelligence technology globally helping clients take quick and accurate decisions about their marketing and distribution strategies,” asserts Ms. Patel.

Turning The Tide Well-positioned to become a global leader and a true champion of AI-automation in Sales & Distribution, Gray Routes is scaled to shake the business world. To date, it had the opportunity to work with the most elite clients helping them streamline their marketing and distribution tasks. The success that Gray Route enjoys today is the result of Ms. Patel and her team’s unfathomable persistence. Hence, it is evident that the company’s continued endeavor will bring a revolution.

“With the use of AI and very sophisticated technology, our products disrupt the way the industry functions by leveraging the power of data and demography to enable decision making. All the major enterprises will make use of AI industry by industry in the future to improve their productivity and we are confident that Gray Routes will play a vital role in leading the revolution from the forefront,” she concludes.

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Assisting your Company to Choose the Right Candidate

Snehal Jain

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T

he most important aspect of any company is hiring an appropriate candidate. However, many a time, companies aren’t very sure about candidates. At the same time, the candidate also needs to know what he/she will be acquiring if he decides to join the company. Fostering all the HR needs of the current world, Human Forte, headed by Snehal Jain is providing endless quality service.

Snehal Jain is the Founder and CEO of Human Forte. After a due thought on career options, HR is something that really caught Snehal’s attention.

Realizing how important it is for organizations to find the right people and for people to find the right organization was fascinating. After all, it’s nothing less than a relationship, though a professional one.

After giving herself some good exposure and experience in renowned corporates, Snehal gained the confidence to give her dream a beginning – her own end to end human resources advisory firm.

Through this interview, Snehal elaborates about her exciting life journey along with her career growth.

1. Being a successful business leader, what difficulties and challenges do you face? What keeps you motivated?

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INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS When I started, the challenge was to put everything you have at stake to make it a success and to make it big. The kind of market and the situation was not at all in favour of the way you expect things to be otherwise. Today, as a workforce requirement, there is always a tight timeline plus a mismatch between what an organization is anticipating and what they’re getting. Therefore, I have decided to opt for a different path, providing quality.

The service industry is all about delight and when our clients reap the benefits of this hard work, that’s what keeps us motivated.

2. Describe the one aspect you possess which makes you unique?

Being a mother, a wife, an entrepreneur has definitely given the edge of being a multi-tasker. At the same time, being a people’s person, people management is something that comes naturally to me. Last but not the least, choosing a profession that is also your passion has its own perks. Your clients can experience the difference.

3. Brief us about the vision of Human Forte and its services.

My vision for Human Forte is to be able to keep doing better, keep learning from the best practices from across the globe and even create new benchmarks for the world ourselves. Like they say, ‘Dream it, then make it happen!’

Human Forte is an executive search firm which focuses on start-up and mid-sized companies. When you hire for a start-up, you just are believing in the idea which is going to work so its very niche and challenging too. We have successfully helped them scale to the next level with our personalised recruitment services plus providing with manpower planning, organizational structural planning, performance management systems as well as training and development.

4. How do you motivate your team to be innovative and productive at work?

We have built a culture of excellence at Human Forte. We keep doing something new. We do training and development programs, keep looking for solutions for the challenges we face and that our clients face.

We also focus on creating a good working environment that people can cherish and grow in so that they are motivated to deliver and outdo themselves.

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5. What is your opinion regarding the current landscape of the market your company caters to?

In spite of the slowdown, we think there is a tremendous amount of scope in the current business landscape, be it domestic or international. With the new start-up culture across the globe, people are exploiting their potential to the fullest and people will always be required to fuel companies’ ambitions further.

6. Please tell us about your achievements and accomplishments Being able to serve delight to our customers and their loyalty towards us has been our best accomplishment. I’m glad these efforts have also been applauded by Silicon India when they crowned me with the title of Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015 and the CEO Magazine that featured me as - one of the 25 Most Influential Women in India in 2017.

7. Where do you envision yourself and your company in the near future?

In Jeff Bezos’ words, “If you’re competitor focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something.

Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.” We have our entire focus on our customers.

That’s where our ideas come from. That’s where our efforts go. Doing that has brought us a long way and I’m sure will take us far ahead. We’re working towards bringing some innovations and keep getting better at what we do.

Furthermore, I will also continue to nurture my relationship with my daughter and my family, while exploring newer skillsets and qualities of my own.

8. What is your advice to the budding and aspiring entrepreneurs?

When you think, start it, build on it and don’t look back.

Toughen yourself up for the hard work, not the short cut.

The road can be challenging but the satisfaction when you get back home is matchless. When you can become a catalyst in making your people’s dreams come true, when you can become a partner your client can rely on, you’ll know you’re doing something right. And the roads will keep opening up and giving you more and more opportunities. It’s your time. Take the leap of faith within yourself.

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

Saubhagya Tripathi A Young and Dynamic Leader Inspiring Millions

With similar thoughts, Saubhagya Tripathi is impacting businesses as well as lives positively. Saubhagya is the CEO of Blue9 Technologies. He believes in providing a helping hand not only through his business but also through charity and community work.

Saubhagya is always on a mission to help businesses grow, scale-up and take their performances to the next level. He emphasizes on creating a difference in other’s lives by providing inspiration for constantly working towards their goals. Supporting others to overcome the obstacles has always been Saubhagya’s key quality. There are many instances when people get distracted which is when Saubhagya motivates them.

The Initial Journey

Saubhagya Tripathi CEO

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eing a business leader means playing multiple roles and at the same time leading others on the path of success. Such leaders are not confined to bringing change through their own businesses, rather they work towards the overall growth of the society in whatever ways possible. Though the journey of a successful business leader might seem sugar-coated with success stories, there is always lots of effort, dedication and constant sacrifice.

It is not hidden that a successful person has to go through a lot of ups and downs throughout the journey. Saubhagya stepped into the startup ecosystem when he was just 19 years old. It was difficult to believe that a 19-year-old is leading a company with a handful of people in the team. As a very young and dynamic personality, Saubhagya led his team to glory. Soon, Blue9 Technologies was awarded and recognized as Company of the Year, in Application Development from Silicon.

There were times when Saubhagya had to face criticism.

But, he took all these criticism positively and worked on it to better himself. He adds, “Constructive criticism is what will help you challenge yourself, your ideas and eventually lead to better processes. I have thought about giving up many times but that lasts for a few hours and then I am back on my bull riding through the corporate ring.

Whatever highs and lows it brings, I am loving it.”

Leading Blue9 Technologies

The challenges and obstacles indeed transform a person into a successful leader who encourages others to do the same.

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According to the research consultancy IDC, the global

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work to “ I always create a supportive team environment that in turn leads to more diversity in thinking and innovation, differentiation and business growth. It is a virtuous cycle of leadership and creates a win-win situation for all.

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information technology industry is on pace to reach $6 trillion in 2020. Economies, jobs, and personal lives are becoming more digital, connected, and automated.

At Blue9 Technologies, there is a clear vision to navigate into the future. Innovation and creativity have always been Blue9’s strategy in numerous challenging situations. Blue9 constantly strives to support a culture of performance that is matched with integrity.

Blue9 focuses on providing transparency with respect to its services. Hence, it has 5 CLEAR values that help it be at the top of the industry.

C - Client Focused L - Leadership E - Execution Excellence A - Aspiration R - Results Each company has its own set of procedures to succeed and Blue 9 Technologies understands this and helps its

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customers by providing customized solutions. It helps customers across the entire enterprise technology stack with differentiated industry solutions. The company basically modernizes IT, optimizes data architectures, and makes everything secure, scalable and orchestrated across public, private and hybrid clouds.

Through the combination of years of experience with the latest digital innovations, Blue9 Technologies delivers excellent services. This enables the company to deliver better business outcomes as well as focus on high levels of performance, competitiveness and experiences for its customers.

To date, Blue9 Technologies has been successful to serve more than 800 private and public sector clients around 5 nations. Blue9 Technologies’ extensive partner network helps drive collaboration and leverage technology independence. Currently, the company has established 8 strategic partners: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, HCL, IBM, Micro Focus, Microsoft, Oracle, and VMware.

Awards and Recognition At a very young age, Saubhagya has been able to achieve great heights in his career. Along with his personal growth, he has led Blue9 Technologies to become one of the pioneering companies in the global information technology industry. The company has received a few prestigious awards such as Company Of The Year 2017 by Silicon and 30 Most Trusted Brands to Watch. The company has also been DIPP Recognized by The Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Apart from that, due to Saubhagya’s exceptional leadership quality, he has been nominated by the ZEE Business Leaders & Summit Award. He is the keynote speaker at IIT Roorkee and IIM Rohtak. He was also the Chief Judge at a startup event at IIT Roorkee. Along with this, he has been nominated by FORBES 30 under 30, 2020 for Enterprise Technology. He currently is a mentor with Startup India.

Future Roadmap Blue9 Technologies is currently in process to create an extensive partner network with other industry leaders.

Saubhagya concludes with the note, “We will soon launch our in-house digital solution, in collaboration with IBM Watson. We are also looking to extend our operations to Canada and Finland by the end of 2020.”

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

Sujin Simson Visionary Entrepreneur Focused on Healthcare and Education

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ecoming a successful person is an exciting process within itself. From challenging the monotonous mindset of society to competing with the competitors, there are numerous hurdles that should be tackled with caution. On the route to success, there are times when everything seems to be working against you, but that’s also when your true potential is tested.

Sujin Jekash Simson started his first company Medryte Healthcare Solutions Private Limited, at the age of 31 in the year 2012. Medryte specializes in USA based medical billing and coding. He started the company with four medical coding trainees and currently has over 200 employees. Medryte has extensive experience in handling end-end medical billing services starting from provider credentialing, eligibility verification, charge entry, payment posting, multi-specialty coding, account receivables, and provider contract renegotiation.

Over the years, Sujin started various companies in different domains. In 2013, he came up with an interesting idea—Breezen Technologies. Breezen Technologies specializes in providing software-related services to multiple clients from diverse industry backgrounds.

Speaking about its specialty, Breezen has been providing exceptional service to numerous educational institutions.

Through its specific application, educational institutions can connect parents and teachers to monitor the progression of each student continuously.

After a huge success of these two ventures, Sujin started his third company, Total Activation Private Limited, in 2017.

It is skincare and nutritional supplement product sales company. The Total Activation products are manufactured in the USA and sold in India, UK, USA, UAE, and Germany.

Overcoming the Obstacles After completing his Bachelor of Physiotherapy degree from Dr MGR Medical University, Sujin went on to found Medryte Healthcare Solutions Private Limited. While starting his first venture in 2012, most of the peoples discouraged him. A few relatives and friends were working in the USA as Doctors. Sujin sought their help; however, no one helped him in getting projects or referring him to

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prospective clients. Later on, due to his continuous efforts, the USA based medical billing industry started recognizing his efforts and the quality services offered by Medryte.

Working on his next venture was another milestone that had many hurdles. In 2013, Breezen Technologies introduced MySchoolMylogin, which is an ERP and SMS service for schools. He traveled across Tamil Nadu with his team of marketing experts and visited hundreds of schools. While he was visiting a school in Kanyakumari district, the school correspondent behaved in an unpleasant manner as he had not taken the appointment. Nevertheless, the exciting part is that later that school accepted the MySchoolMylogin services, and they have been one of Sujin’s happy clients since 2014.

Journey to Success Sujin started Medryte as a Medical coding training company. At the time of the inception of Medryte, there was no awareness in Kanyakumari district about the career opportunities in medical billing and coding. He started giving advertisements in various leading newspapers for medical coding training. However, there was no positive outcome to it. Then, Sujin visited colleges and took sessions of the final year college students to create awareness about USA based medical billing and coding. Slowly, this created a perception in the Kanyakumari district about medical coding jobs. At the end of 2012 Medryte started to work on an HCC coding project, and currently, the company has offices in two locations Nagercoil and Tirunelveli, with over 200 employees.

Later, Breezen Technologies introduced a new recruitment platform named ‘eCollaegeue’ in 2018. Sujin conducted free eColleague job fairs in Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts. Over the time, 3634 job seekers got placements in leading companies by this free job fairs.

In 2019, Breezen Technologies introduced a new pedagogy concept of teaching and learning using advanced technology. Sujin named the product as “Smart Learn” which is expected to be a successful product across the nation in the next 2 years. Over 100 schoolteachers are working from home as a part-time job in creating advanced lesion planners, which are then digitalized by the developers at Breezen Technologies.

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Through constant motivation and dedication, Sujin and his team work towards providing quality services in the field of healthcare and education

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Future Roadmap Sujin says that today, our companies continue to grow with customer satisfaction and quality as our top priority. Medryte has been providing outstanding medical billing and coding service at an affordable cost. We are continually strengthening competitiveness in the quality of our services. We do not just do medical billing and coding; we look beyond, analyze, and help clients to minimize their workload and expenses while maximizing their revenue. Our goal is to help the clients keep on growing so that we build with them. My target is to expand our business in the field of USA based healthcare services and have over 2000 employees in the next five years.

Breezen Technologies will continue to find ways to develop innovative solutions in the field of education.

Sujin, along with his proficient team, scans the market and the industry to understand the latest technological trends. They continually evaluate use cases to consider any technologies’ implementation.

Sujin also believes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will play a crucial role in educational technology. Sujin says that he looks forward to promoting his new product Smart Learn nationwide, and the target is to grow the company to serve a minimum of 1 million students in 2022.

In 2020, Total Activation Private Limited has decided to introduce a new line of products in India based on the research conducted by their team of business analytic experts.

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Sujin Simson

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Vijith Sivadasan

Vijith Sivadasan Master of a Trinity of Futuristic Business

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I’ve built my career on the pillars of Codelattice, but I have always made targeted investments outside the Group

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ijith Sivadasan grew up in a business family learning the dynamics of intelligent money management from an early age. By the age of 21, when he landed his first job, he already had a handful of small businesses to his credit and had managed to self-fund his college education.

Once in the corporate world, Vijith soon transformed into a jet-setting professional and built a global work profile with companies like GE, AON, Northwestern Mutual and Infosys before deciding to go it alone.

Thus was born the technophile entrepreneur who now has a soaring global investment portfolio spread over a dozen companies and diversified

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

Vijith’s multifaceted core trinity of companies, Codelattice, V2Angel and Igloopupa, is spread across technology, investment, growth, marketing and most importantly sustainability.

The self-starter’s affinity for ingenious and creative ideas and his passion to aggressively hunt down path-breaking solutions has made him an excellent mentor for budding startups.

This, added with his impeccable and dynamic technical expertise and global exposure, has sure given him a gleaming edge in the distinctive business pursuits bringing the best out of every concern he has been associated with.

The core trinity Codelattice is an adaptive and accurate marketing solutions provider that streamlines a client company’s growth needs on a three-stage Activate, Elevate, and Accelerate program.

Employing highly efficient digital technology and a unique tech-first approach to tailor-made marketing and customer-centric solutions, Codelattice is now on a non-linear growth curve shifting from a service-oriented approach to more of a solution-centric approach.

Over the years the company has expanded its presence to eight countries globally by starting AI and cloud centres of excellence. Today it is one of the prominent Amazon Web Services & Google partners in the region and caters to global giants like Air Arabia and the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

V2Angel is an innovative technology incubator that identifies and strategically invests in early-stage, high-growth technology startups. Via

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V2Angel, Vijith has expanded his portfolio to include highly popular names like FreshToHome, Above-5, Booked Happy, B0A8, Bayzon and Digital Orange.

Vijith is also the co-founder of Igloopupa- a carbon-negative travel company. A globetrotter himself, Igloopupa was Vijith's sustainability reality check and he chose to up the game of the social enterprise infusing some much needed deep technology.

Igloopupa works as an aggregator for carbon negative vacation rentals across the subcontinent and connects responsible hosts with eco-conscious travellers offering unique, sustainable and experiential stays.

A team across the globe With their eyes locked on the challenging digital needs of Fortune 500 companies, Codelattice set difficult targets for itself and made a spirited sprint across the corporate plane acquiring clients from among the who’s who in the industry.

For this, Vijith brought onboard the best talent and tapped into the flexible framework of the startup ecosystem thus offering a distinctive, flexible and positive work environment accommodating the demanding schedules of his employees, especially women.

Future Offerings Vijith’s latest product, Livelattice, is a watershed offering from Codelattice and is capable of redefining the shopping experience offered by offline stores. Infusing the power of digital technology and artificial intelligence to augment the sense of discovery offered by conventional brick and mortar stores, Livelattice can redefine customer experience on an unprecedented latitude.

Not only this, the Livelattice

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A staunch believer and practitioner in the tenets of sustainability

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business interests in multiple sectors.

‘experience shops’ will redefine the spacial imagination of shops and generate extensive operational savings.

Take on life ‘persistently consistent’ An early riser and avid reader, Vijith is motivated by a disciplined outlook on all things in life and vouches by his success mantra- ‘being persistently consistent’.

Vijith affirms that in business it is all about finding the ‘right solution for the right problem at the right time’. He believes that the right product can seize and expand the market pie for itself.

According to him creativity and consistency play a major role in building an entrepreneur's career.

A self-confessed fan of ‘people who are driven, ambitious and constant learners,’ Vijith says, “The man whom I met the other day working on a problem in a village where he was born, women entrepreneurs who strike a balance between work and personal life, my nephew who has already declared that he is a legend in the making and is striving for it..., I do not restrict myself to a particular source but derive lessons from everything around me. When inspiration meets commitment it brings some real motivation with it.”

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7

TRAITS EVERY

SUCCESSFUL

BUSINESS LEADER

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SHOULD HAVE

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Success Tips

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imes have changed now and they don’t look anything like they did 20 years back. It is a dream for many aspiring individuals to become entrepreneurs and be their own boss. These millennials have various ideas and are quite creative. They wish to achieve their goals as they have the passion for it. Being an entrepreneur is quite challenging and full of obstacles. Here are some traits that you should inculcate to become a successful entrepreneur: Self-Belief The most important characteristic that entrepreneurs should possess is self belief. To succeed in your business you must believe in yourself. No one else will believe in your products or services if you don’t believe in them. Any investor will hesitate to invest if you lack self confidence and your employees also won’t be able to perform with full productivity. Without self belief, it is impossible to yield positive results. So, boost yourself up, value the idea you have and success will follow.

Ambitious Mission Every now and then you face the question ‘why are you desirous of establishing your own business?’ The question might seem irrelevant, but the answer to this question is the deciding factor for you as a successful or a failed entrepreneur. Knowing your mission along the way of running your business will help you reach success sooner.

Executing the idea, deciding minute factors from the instillation of the business, to running the business to making it successful, etc. is simple when you know your mission.

Accept Failure Enthusiastically It is important that you understand that the ladder of success brings with itself several pitfalls and setbacks. However, instead of bowing to the pressure, empower yourself and stand strong in front of it. Business is a risk but its rewards are worth the risks. There are no shortcuts to success and you need to pass through the rough patches all by yourself.

If you research about some successful entrepreneurs, you will find that most of them continued their journey without paying heed to their failures.

game of having the right mindset. You must never think of yourself as a weak person. You must be prepared to face anything that comes your way. Success is never served on a golden platter no matter what gender you are. The more you prepare yourself for all the opportunities and failures, the better your chances are at success.

Manage Your Time Wisely Time is a major constrain faced by many entrepreneurs.

Due to the multiple responsibilities and roles that business leaders have, they usually have less time. It is quite challenging to handle everything efficiently. Making schedules and following them is the only way that everything will work out right. Delegation is an art that you need to master to tackle the issue of time. Delegate your work to others while you are at home, this way things speed up at work.

Excel in Business Skills Not every person is born an entrepreneur. You need to mold yourself through great hard work and efforts. You need to learn the skills you need to become an entrepreneur with time. There are ways you can learn like from other business people, books, internet, etc. Moreover, as an entrepreneur, people will always question you about your skills.

Acquiring knowledge and honing skills, as much as possible will be helpful.

Stick to the Process Making an accurate process and sticking to it is important.

Studies show that 90% of the businesses fail in the first 10 years because the process is not followed. You should be ready to embrace the challenging entrepreneurial process to succeed. You have to learn to bounce from one problem to another without losing the enthusiasm.

Building a successful business or becoming a successful business leader is not an overnight task. It is a process that requires dedication and perseverance. If you learn to solve all the problems that come your way with ease then you will be a very successful business leader.

-Shreevarshita Gupta

Being Prepared Success is completely based on the mindset on which the business was established. Becoming a successful leader is a

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THE 10 MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS LEADERS TO FOLLOW-2020

Vikas Mandawewala A Business Leader Focused on Growth and Innovation

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here’s a swift global transformation of companies advancing from old-world on-premise solutions to cloud-based applications. Today, the technology in India is as advanced as in any other part of the world. At the current times, where even a small business needs to mark its presence in the virtual world, the SaaS providers are high on demand.

One such company helping various SMEs expand their digital footprint is TYASuite Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd. The company was founded by Vikas Mandawewala and Praveen Dokania in 2018. TYASuite platform is equipped with the latest technology and solutions to the real-life business problems across sectors.

Vikas Mandawewala is the Co-Founder of TYASuite Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd who is also the CEO of TYA Business Solutions. Vikas is a commerce graduate from Calcutta University (CU). He is a rank holder Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA), a rank holder company secretary, a certified public accountant [US CPA (CO and NY)], a certified internal auditor (US) and a certified information system auditor. He has also gained experience in dealing with company law matters, income tax, and GST matters. Currently, he is managing multiple start-ups as virtual CFO along with being a founder member of the New York Chapter of The Institute of Chartered Accountant of India.

Taking Ahead his Career with TYASuite Being a brilliant student throughout his academic years, Vikas had a passion-driven attitude towards his career.

Currently, Vikas has 18+ years of global experience from SMEs to MNCs across multiple functions spreading over accounting, auditing, taxation and consulting. He has worked approximately 8 years with one of the largest global auditing and advisory firms, KPMG, in India and the United States of America.

Later, Vikas founded a small financial start-up consulting venture with just 1 person and scaled it to more than 120

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employees with pan-India presence. Being the embodiment of commitment and professionalism, Vikas envisions enhancement of the accounting and finance process through the use of technology.

In 2018, Vikas decided to focus more on his goals as an entrepreneurial investor and co-founded TYASuite along with Praveen Dokania. Praveen has contributed to the company through his 10 plus years of tech expertise into software development and project management.

TYASuite’s Product at a Glance Talking about the company and its products, Vikas says, “TYASuite is the result of the passion and desire of a finance veteran to transform the way companies run their business process and improve the lives of business professionals across the globe. Most employees are plagued by duplicity of data, redundant and boring tasks that hamper their productivity.”

As the companies today require to be present online, there are various factors that form an obstacle in the process. One major problem companies are struggling is to find a suitable cloud ERP which is affordable. TYASuite cloud-ERP solution is built on decades of knowledge and experience of its founders across industry type, geography and company size that can be used by aspiring companies as plug and play Cloud ERP Platform.

TYASuite is an Integrated Cloud ERP platform with below key modules among others which can be subscribed individually or together as a package Products : • Procurement to Pay Tool • Inventory Management Tool • Asset Management Tool • Warranty Management Tool • Project Management Tool • Compliance Management Tool • Finance and other Modules

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The TYASuite is a multi-industry cloud ERP platform where clients can work perfectly with the business process of their clients while providing the flexibility of auto-scaling as the business grows.

Who can be benefitted?

• Businesses that want scalability in their operation • Businesses that have or expect to have a very large workforce • Businesses that want a very simple solution at a very low cost • Businesses that want automation for non-value added process The areas of the key focus of TYASuite relies on the most affordable cloud-ERP solution in the market. This can be implemented in the client’s organization within just a few days with tons of plug and play feature.

Vikas started scaling a consulting business from 1 person to 120 people in a short span. This was indeed a huge challenge while at the same time it made him adept enough to tackle all the problems on his own.

Today, he envisions himself and his company to become the World’s 1st Plug and Play Cloud ERP platform. He is working towards becoming recognized as one of the most desired Cloud ERP solutions in the market which is dominated by Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle NetSuite and SAP Business.

As a startup, TYASuite is looking for options to raise capital through external funding to expand its technical and marketing capabilities. Vikas believes this will drive the investors who can see the potential of the market with a profitable and scalable business model.

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Vikas Mandawewala Co-Founder

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TYASuite works towards an objective that can bring ‘Affordable Cloud ERP solutions for everyone’ with easy customization and a user-friendly platform

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Growing Through Positivity Being from a middle-class family from Bihar, Vikas has faced difficulties throughout his journey. Yet, he had a positive outlook and believed that difficulties and challenges make one stronger and more capable.

Talking about his career, he was in the USA for almost 5 years where he was expected to work only 35 hours a week. After returning to India, he had to adjust to working for 60-70 hours a week. This transition has actually made him capable of handling the worst.

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