India & Philippines LEVERAGING CLOUD TECHNOLOGY FOR CATALYZING BUSINESS TRANSFORMATIONS WORLDWIDE

Starting with a little introduction about the brand, HSO was established in 1987 and has emerged as a trustworthy technology company right from its inception days. Under the leadership of Mr. Prabhat Nagaraj- Managing Director at HSO India and Philippines, the brand has grown by leaps and bounds. After completing his MBA in Strategic Management, Mr. Prabhat joined Microsoft US and helped build the Dynamics business in the US. After several leadership roles with various organizations such as Hitachi, DXC, Amazon and RSM, he moved to India for his passion for creating a business venture where people have the opportunity of growing and learning continuously for the long term. Keeping this as the source of his entrepreneurialism, Mr. Prabhat started the company amidst intellectually challenging situations. HSO is a boutique shop with an astute consulting mindset. The people who’re associated with the firm enjoy valuable corporate ethos like accelerated career growth, directly dealing with global customers, and working on the latest technology. HSO’s near focus is on campus hiring, investing in the youth of the country, and expanding the horizons of local outreach.

Our Prime Insights team is heartily proud of the brand’s journey so far and thought to weave the same for our global readership panel. We had a wonderful and joyous virtual interaction with the dignitary leader. Mr. Prabhat’s outstanding business ideas and future roadmap are at par excellence and have so much to learn from. We will be exploring many lesser-known facts about the company and sourcing deep insights into real-time motivation.

A Glance at the Service Portfolio

As an eminent IT Consulting and IT Service organization, the brand handholds its clients to modernize business operations, inculcate intelligent automation, deliver realtime performance insights, and connect the enterprise with its target customer base. With all these endeavors in action, HSO is known for accelerating the impact of digital transformation and empowering the business models of their clients. The unique and accurate international delivery model is their differentiator. Along with that, HSO creates the pedestal of differentiation with its capabilities of providing global project services and global managed services to multi-country, division, and site enterprise clients, through a single point of contract. HSO has a diverse Microsoft Cloud Service portfolio. The brand has picked the momentum of delivering excellent digital innovations, AI-backed Cloud Infrastructure, and other allied security services via Microsoft Cloud.

In recent times, HSO acquired the Dutch-based Cloud Transformation and Digital Innovation Services company,” Motion10” on Microsoft Cloud. This has given them the access to collaborate with more than 140 clients across different verticals including Retail, Finance, Public Sector, and Professional Services amongst others. This achievement will further strengthen HSO’s position as an influential Microsoft Solution Partner globally and will accelerate the process of offering all Microsoft services to its clientele. In addition to it, this acquisition has elevated HSO’s current Cloud Transformation potential and has increased its capacity to deliver robust cloud infrastructure and data-enriched innovations.

Knowledge-Led Business

As discussed above, HSO functions as a reliable business transformation partner with immaculate industry expertise and global reach, utilizing Microsoft technology to revamp how businesses and people operate. The end goal is to witness efficient improvements in the business performance of the clients. Today, the brand has more than 1800 professionals deployed throughout the European market, North America and Asia. It has traced a decades-long journey of becoming one of the world’s preferred business solution and implementation partners and a member of Microsoft Elite Inner Circle.

Manufacturers need to acknowledge that there is no upper bound to getting value out of their data. Microsoft offers technology that connects and integrates systems via data. Such connected services help in early maintenance and generating fresh income by selling smart, connected products. For this, powerful industry experience, calculative practices, and technical knowledge are essential to fetch the right digital transformation. HSO serves as the one-stop destination to find the ideal and customized digital roadmap. To serve this purpose, HSO offers numerous engagement activities under the expertise of their inhouse solution architects.

Defying the Odds

For any organization, the most vital asset is to have the dream team! Mr. Prabhat highlighted the fact that the foremost challenge during the initial business days was to build a high-octane team that moves along the mission and vision of the company. In terms of resource hiring, many times HSO had to face proxy interviews of the candidate with moonlighting, fake experience, communication skills, business etiquette etc. It is quite understandable that for a start-up culture in the Indian market, branding plays a crucial role and the company needs to evaluate every perspective of strategic marketing. Mr. Prabhat believes that proper and grounded marketing helps to boost a brand’s visibility and gives that needed edge to stay ahead of the competitors. Along with marketing, he also asserts that maintaining the top-notch quality of the services being offered must be inevitable in a brand’s business model. Dealing with the pandemic was also a challenging phase for HSO but with ardent efforts and determination, the brand surpassed the pandemic and revived back with full energy. Earlier each entity within HSO functioned as individual units in their capacity. The team is maneuvering its way to bring the mindset of working with global services.

Impressive Organizational Culture

In the day and age of start-up boom & bust, bringing a company with steady growth from 1987 goes a long way in showing an inclination towards measured growth & sustainability. The brand has always manifested a steady pattern of growth! Empowering HSO’s entrepreneurial responsibility, the entire workforce has a major contribution to the success of the organization. The brand always invests in the holistic professional and personal development of its employees.

“We invest in our people with ongoing training programs and provide official proof of work experience with respect to their employees for the organization. Apart from that, we look forward to employees pursuing certifications related to their skills which will also prove beneficial for the organization in the longer run. We also give them exposure to onsite opportunities to face real-time customers. For training the fresher we provide entry-level opportunities as well. We also got certified as a “Great Place to Work” last year. I would also like to mention that our brand was felicitated by the “Outlook Business Spotlight Business Icon Awards” as, “The Best Emerging IT Company of the Year- 2022.”

Elevating the Realms of Customer’s Trust

In today’s business era, customers are profoundly aware of what they want from a brand, in terms of quality and trust. HSO has always adhered to a customer-centric approach and caters to a variety of industries. Customer satisfaction at HSO is anchored by a team of professionals with experience in the zeal of making customers the priority.

“The relationship between customers and a credible organization is timeless. Every time a customer has an interaction with us, it is an evaluation of their experience. Customers are looking for partners that are interested in making their success the ultimate goal to achieve. At HSO, our customers come first, and we are the results company! At HSO India, we have the privilege of dealing with two customers always, our regional internal customers and the end user (clients). The customer is the one that gets the most value out of our services and has had multiyear relationships with HSO. HSO is headquartered in the Netherlands and is purely known for its long-lasting relationships with customers. Our journey is a result of their faith in us”, says Mr. Prabhat.

Evolution of Marketing Initiatives at HSO

Following are the marketing initiatives/programs adopted by HSO to spread practical words of authenticity about their services and bolster the skills of the employees for the same.

• Ascend Certification- Great Managers InstituteManagement training program that focuses on improving an individual’s skills as a leader and manager.

• Great Places to Work Institute, India conducts “Great Place to Work Certification” which is recognized all across the world by employees and employers alike. It is considered the ‘Gold Standard’ in identifying and recognizing great workplace cultures. HSO completed the assessment and bagged the certification of “Great Place to Work-Certified Organization”. The company has created a healthy and amiably competitive work environment to get the best of its employees’ potential. With this, employees are excelling in the five dimensions namely; High-Trust, HighPerformance Culture – Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Pride, and Camaraderie. This is more than just badges and bragging rights.

• On-site opportunities: To experience face-to-face real-time customers.

• Flexible timing: Employees can work according to their productivity timing and choice of location.

• Certifications: Employees can go for certifications related to their skills. All such certifications are reimbursable provided the employee clears them.

Meet Mr. Lalit Mohan Gupta: An Industry Maven in the Interior Designing Landscape Creating Greener, Turnkey, and Iconic Workplaces

It all began for Aeiforia Constructions with a dream to provide exceptional Design and Build Solutions for sustainable architecture. In India, eco-conscious interior designing projects are attracting everybody’s interest and Aeiforia is one brand that understands the eminence of well-furnished interiors but not at the cost of the environment. The entire workforce focuses on curating sustainable corporate infrastructures all while maintaining top-notch standards of quality. We had the opportunity of having a detailed conversation with the company’s CEO Mr. Lalit Mohan Gupta who holds the chords of leadership for Aeiforia Constructions Private Limited. After working with JLL India for 15 years, he joined Aeiforia Constructions as the CEO. Witnessing the marvelous entrepreneurialism of Mr. Lalit Mohan, we now know the primary reason behind Aeiforia’s supreme legacy. Drawing motivation from the years-long experiences of his father, he is spearheading the path of perfectionism. Through his story we have the opportunity of bringing a surreal dose of inspiration to our global readership panel and our team couldn’t be more excited for the same.

Glimpses of Mr. Lalit Mohan Gupta’s Journey

It was quite natural for us to be intrigued to know about the different phases of his entrepreneurial story. He shared, “Honestly, it is quite a long story, and wrapping it into a few words is a little challenging. Aeiforia’s inception was laid back in 2005 and it took us almost six years to cement its potential. But all I can say is that my journey has been nothing less than a roller coaster ride, it is filled with new enthusiasm every day. I have witnessed so many ups and downs. Project-wise, there are lots of times when we have to spend days and nights continuously on sites. If I look at the overall picture, it has always given me the enthusiasm to move forward. I have been in the industry for more than 20 years and my family has stood with me like a strong pillar. I look at my father as my motivation and I feel he is still more energetic than me.”

Aligning with the Marketing Trends is Fundamental for Aeiforia

“Changing yourself with the ever-changing market trends is always a versatile thing to do, as it is necessary to align with what people need and look for. If a business doesn’t have the agility to change with multi-disciplinary drifts, one would never be able to succeed in the market. First is the technical way, where we talk about upgrading all the systems and incorporating efficient technological/ technical tools/machinery. To bring everything under the roof of efficiency and creativity, we hire a lot of young, enthusiastic, and idea-creating individuals. These young talents always come up with modernistic ideas, new technology, and significant solutions to existing problems. We have fostered a work culture where everybody has the freedom and confidence to bring their ideas to the table. With their ideas, the entire environment keeps on vibrating with an essence of innovation.”

Essentiality of Research and Development

“Technology and R&D have brought so much exposure and strength to the business fraternity that their imperativeness can’t be expressed enough. R&D is so important for evolving with new activities and involvement. Acknowledging the same, on weekends we always organize virtual meetings with our associates from different cities in India and talk about new products, and technologies entering our industry. We discuss imparting the training to our people and empowering them with robust skills to handle various complexities. Our success story has grabbed attention across the business community and R&D has played a persuasive role in that. Some of our mega-successful collaborations have been with tycoons like Sony, Bharat Petroleum, BPCL, IOCL, HPCL, and other dignitary PSUs.”

Mr. Gupta’s Thoughts on CEO’s Competition

“There is always an equal call for competition among CEOs of today’s corporate world. I have always looked forward to learning new things from our industry’s fraternity during various seminars. This way I can incorporate improvisations in myself also. Competition is brewing at an exponential rate and in order to stay ahead of the competition, a brand must have its secret sauce to win its customer’s trust on grounds of authenticity, transparency, and integrity. Not only CEOs, but top management also plays a vital role in giving the right direction to the workforce. I believe that work culture doesn’t come from bottom to top; it is the other way around. It comes from top to bottom and CEOs should know how to channelize their employees’ potential and take the best out of them. The behavior and thought process of the top management become the ultimate source of enlightenment for finding the correct path. For those leaders who doubt their entrepreneurial passion because of some downfalls or stereotypes, I would like to let them know that the beyond-beautiful phases of success come only after passing the challenges. Many new opportunities are opening for you. The only thing you need to have is the grit to face and learn lessons from them.”

Guaranteeing an Enthusiastic Facet of Employees

“There are different HR activities that we perform for our employees other than academics and training. We take them out offsite once or maybe twice a year across cities for at least a week. We also conduct a lot of site visits within different cities to shuffle their regular responsibilities. This gives them a full-fledged ground to exercise and experiment with their capabilities. We also celebrate even the smallest of their achievements, birthdays, work anniversaries, personal occasions, and other moments of ebullience. This creates a sense of togetherness amongst our employees and keeps them motivated inside out. From a target perspective, we set up two kinds of targets namely Personal Development Target and Financial Growth Target. We give equal opportunities to our employees for their career advancement path. We give them small targets to improve their lagging perspectives and appreciate their achievements after the successful completion of those targets. It creates healthy competition for other people as well to constantly improve. Their empowerment is our empowerment!”

Plans for Future

Mr. Lalit plans to turn his business venture public by 2025. The background activities to pursue the goal were already initiated last year. Being a servicebased company, Aeiforia Constructions is also planning to enter the facility management domain. After venturing into facility services, the team will work with a 5X business model. Aeiforia’s services are flag-bearers of green endeavors and promote the agenda of environmental conservation in all horizons. The team will also be coming up with many strategic initiatives to take this agenda on a broader footprint and create more energy-efficacious workplaces for the corporate industry. Technology will be a profoundly exemplary feature of Aeiforia’s upcoming services. We also support the education of children of the tribal area and workers as a token of giving back to society and we will continue performing many noble endeavors for the betterment of society.