The 30 Influential Business Leaders to Watch in 2019

VOL 3 MARCH-2019

30 Influential

ISSUE-4

T H E

BUSINESS

LEADERS TO WATCH IN 2019

EXPERT’S NOTE A Guide to Stay Calm and Focused in the Lowest or Turbulent Phase of Business

Up, Close & Personal Business Personas Who Made India Proud

Dr. Thumbay Moideen Founder & President Thumbay Group

DR. THUMBAY MOIDEEN A VISIONARY’S LASTING LEGACY

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Devasish Kanojiya Executive Editor Rahul Niraj Art & Design Head Amol Kamble Associate Designer Poonam, Shweta Art & Picture Editor Rahul Kavnekar Co-designer Sapana Shinde Business Development Manager Akansha Garewal Sales Executives Snehalata, Tarun, Asif Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Prashant SME-SMO Executives Swati, Manoj Circulation Manager Tanaji sales@insightssuccess.com

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From the

Editor

Inspiring Minds, Empowering Future

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ountless opportunities and innovative ideas are driving today’s leaders to explore new territories while giving the entrepreneurs enough market space to embrace new business models and implement ideas. We often get enthralled while analyzing the miraculous achievements attained by the global leaders who have been at the forefront in revolutionizing the change in the business fraternity. This is a continuous process wherein we witness various success stories that fuel our determination to aspire for new prospects.

These influential leaders have evolved as a symbol of triumph and fortitude as they redefine the boundaries of the business eco-system by following their ideologies and work-culture. Strong conviction and years of experience have led them to achieve the podium of success and their journey of life is an inspiration for young entrepreneurs.

Armed with innovative ideas, funding strategies, analyzing untapped opportunities, these entrepreneurs have one thing in common – they always look up to some leader who has crafted their own road and written their success stories. For the budding professionals who don’t shy to embrace key learning’s that helps them to be the leaders of the future generations are laying the foundation for a better future.

To summarize the conversation, leaders are playing an ardent role in cementing the platform for the upcoming professionals and on the other hand, nascent entrepreneurs are following the traits of successful leaders to embark their journey!

vasish

K. De

Devasish Kanojiya

COVER STORY

10 DR. THUMBAY

MOIDEEN A Visionary’s Lasting Legacy

ARTICLE

Business Personas Who Made India Proud

CXO

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Up, Close & Personal

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Expert’s Zone

Expert’s Note

Why Market Research Should is an Integral Part of a Business Plan?

A Guide to Stay Calm and Focused in the Lowest or Turbulent Phase of Business

INTERVIEWS Frameboxx 2.0 CAPTURING CREATIVE EXCELLENCE WITH AN EYE FOR QUALITY

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Leading the Robotics Solution in Unmanned Vehicles

Journey fostering Creativity and Innovation

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Buteos Aerobotics Corporation

Anil Modi

Intellika Technologies Driving the Digital Transformation

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MATTLOOK Everything You Ever Wanted

Hubert Enviro Care Systems Innovating Trends in Environment Management

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Ankur Goel Revolutionizing the Face of Indian E-commerce

Nebu K Abraham Embracing Technology to the Core!

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Pradeep Janakiraman The Intellectual Entrepreneur Leading With Excellence

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Pradyumn Jain Enabling the Idea of “Cloud Computing & Cyber Security�

Prashant Kumar Leading PromptCloud as a Pioneer in Data as a Service

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Priya Sachdev Delivering Enriching Sales Solutions

Uday Zokarkar A Media, Marketing and Business Articulator

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Vipul Thakkar An Entrepreneur in Disruptive Times

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Creating Leaders of Tomorrow

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t’s often said that great leaders are the craftsmen who shape an ideal society and contribute to building a powerful nation. In today’s new-age, leaders are exhibiting innovative traits that have been unheard of and the best part is – they aren’t afraid to embark journeys to unexplored territories.

In this exclusive edition, we bring you up, close & personal with “The 30 Influential Business Leaders to Watch in 2019” who have cemented their dominance by sheer hard work and the zeal to succeed. Having worked in diverse industry segments, these leaders have been at the forefront in leading the change and in redefining a whole new eco-system that exhibits the finer traits of these distinguished leaders. The unsaid contributions, countless milestones, and determined to surpass the challenges are what make these leaders stand tall amongst us in the society.

Commencing this exciting journey, on the cover page we have Dr. Thumbay Moideen – Founder & President of Thumbay Group. Thumbay Group is a diversified international business conglomerate with its headquarters in DIFC – Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Right from his early days, he was a young ambitious businessman who always had the aspiration and inclination to expand’ their family business beyond the Indian shores.

Alongside, we have encompassed other noted leaders who have outperformed themselves and are constantly progressing forward. Starting the list we have Abishek Moses - Director, Hubert Enviro Care Systems Pvt. Ltd who has shattered the traditional customs of managing a family business and talks about novelty and evolution. Next is Ankur Goel who envisions every opportunity as a gateway to attain greater entrepreneurial creativity. He is the Founder of Zencommerce India Pvt. Ltd. Manu Abraham Mathew – MD of Barcorp wherein he is the Chief Architect for BAC’s inception, designing and evolution. Nebu K Abraham – CEO of 7Nodes Technology Solutions. His passion and eagerness about technology fueled his determination that laid the foundation of a sprawling professional career. As the Founder & CEO of Drive-Analytics, we have Pradeep Janakiraman who is a seasoned technocrat with a sprawling career spanning over two decades.

“Seeing my team succeed and gain positive feedback from our customers is what keeps me going” – is how Pradyumn Jain, Chairman – NetDataVault likes to build his teams. An IITian, Prashant Kumar – CEO, PromptCloud was initially at crossroads in deciding his professional journey. Priya Sachdev is the Sales Director of Miller Heiman Group. She is a straight -talking, transparent leader with a trademark low powerdistance persona. Founder of Mantra Media Pvt. Ltd, Uday Zokarkar believes in co-creating values on a sustainable basis and making a positive difference. The best way to describe Vipul Thakkar - Chairman & Managing Director of Silver Touch Technologies Ltd is a person who is an entrepreneur by choice and a technocrat by heart!

Alongside, industry leaders like Biswas Bhaskar Nair, Siddharth Lal, Arpit Shah, Vaibhav Dobriyal Dobi, Manav Garg, Rajan Ramesh Navani, Rohit Kishore, Nandan Umarji, Sudhir Gandotra, Vaibhav Jadhav, Pawan Kumar Bhageria, Aravinth Subramani, and Abhishek Mago have also been featured in the listing of ‘The 30 Influential Business Leaders to Watch in 2019’.

Additionally we have some interesting insights penned by some of the industry stalwarts and finally to complete this journey, our editor reveals his choice of Indian business leaders who have inspired every Indian to believe in them and are admired globally.

Flip the pages further to unveil the success stories along with the other noted sections in the magazine!

Cover Story

Dr. Thumbay Moideen Founder & President Thumbay Group

INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS 30LEADERS T H E

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DR. THUMBAY MOIDEEN A VISIONARY’S LASTING LEGACY

A vision to create a diversied corporate business entity with global presence

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ver the last decade, global healthcare has witnessed a gigantic transformation and continues to shape up the sector as innovation and awareness have emerged as the key parameters to deliver premium health services. As the fraternity of the global business leaders are at the forefront in empowering people and the industry with all the possible resources, the real beneficiaries are the citizens spread across the globe!

One such persona who needs no introduction and has bought a renaissance in the healthcare sector is Dr. Thumbay Moideen. As the Founder and President of Thumbay Group, Dr. Thumbay Moideen holds an honorary doctorate and is often ranked as one of the top Indian business leaders in the Arab world. Starting his odyssey by launching the Thumbay Group in the Persian Gulf in 1998, he is at the forefront of crafting the canvas of healthcare in the UAE. Under his affluent leadership, the growth of Thumbay Group from a single-entity company to a diversified global conglomerate has been a remarkable journey that has created countless milestones and continues to be at the helm of unveiling new chapters. With numerous global awards and recognitions been bestowed to Dr. Thumbay Moideen and Thumbay Group for their contribution to the industry, the group continues to progress ahead with grit and high on energy.

The Early Life Coming from a business-oriented family, Dr. Thumbay Moideen learned the ropes of the business from his Father and Grandfather, who were very successful businessmen. Honoring his father’s contribution, Dr. Thumbay Moideen expresses, “I owe my success to my father for bringing me up the way he did, giving me the freedom to experiment and excel, while teaching me the importance of values and ethicality. I learned a lot, working in his company for 19 years”.

As a young ambitious businessman, Dr. Thumbay Moideen always had the aspiration and inclination to expand their family business beyond the Indian shores. He was particularly fascinated by the vast opportunities in the Gulf region as the countries within had a robust economy, had excellent air connectivity with the global regions and had true visionaries at the helm of their governments.

point for Dr. Thumbay Moideen as all of Thumbay Group’s subsequent accomplishments sprouted from this initial venture in 1998. Recalling the early days, he asserts, “As a businessman venturing out into new terrain, I had my apprehensions in those initial days. Nevertheless, I had hope and focus and was willing to work hard. My family gave me their wholehearted support”.

After an initial meeting, the Government of Ajman extended an invitation for setting up a Medical University in the Emirates. This is how Dr. Thumbay Moideen became the first expatriate to establish region’s first and only private medical university - the Gulf Medical University. This pathbreaking decision turned to be the most decisive turning

Building an Empire with Family Values His family has been one of the greatest sources of inspiration for Mr. Moideen. Introducing his family, he expresses – “My wife, Zohra was already an accomplished artist when we got married. My sons also help me in business; Akbar, the elder one is the vice president of

Growth Through Innovation

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Thumbay Group’s healthcare division, while Akram looks after the Construction & Renovation Division as well as Thumbay Technologies, as Director”. He proudly accepts that marrying his wife has been the best decision of his life and counts her as the pillar of his strength. While Akbar’s wife Nousheen Salma is the Editorial & Design Advisor of HEALTH magazine, Akbar and Nousheen are blessed with three boys, Ahmed, Omar and Rashid.

Thumbay Medicity In pursuit of delivering unmatched services and aiming excellence, the Thumbay group is going to inaugurate ‘Thumbay Medicity’ that aims to serve 20,000+ people on a daily basis. Situated in Al Jurf, Ajman, the regional hub will

have state-of-the-art healthcare facilities and plans to evolve as the futuristic medical education hub for the 21st century. As one of the latest additions to the healthcare sector, Thumbay Medicity stands to be a first-of-its-kind venture in the region’s private sector. Gulf Medical University, Thumbay Labs, Thumbay Pharmacy, Blends & Brews Coffee Shoppe, Body & Soul Health Club and Spa, Thumbay Food Court, Thumbay Housing Project, Theatre, and much more, this healthcare centre has everything for everyone! Cementing technology and innovation as the pillars, Thumbay Medicity is going to be one of the most iconic healthcare cities in the Middle East. Counted as one of the most preferred and reliable healthcare systems across the region, the Thumbay group has showcased itself as a

brand that is synonymous to treatment, healthcare, and academic excellence. In words of Dr. Thumbay Moideen – “At Thumbay we are busy erecting an effective and reliable network of healthcare services ranging from hospitals to clinics, pharmacies, and laboratories, where patients can repose their trust.”

Center for Advanced Simulation in Healthcare (CASH), Thumbay Research Institute for Precision Medicine (TRIPM) are some of the unique services that constitute the core areas of Thumbay Medicity. Thumbay Dental Hospital is the first private dental hospital in the country and also the largest academic dental hospital in the Middle East region’s private sector. Thumbay Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Hospital is the biggest state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility of its kind, in the country. Thumbay Medicity also includes the Thumbay University Hospital, which is envisioned as a

500-bed academic hospital, the largest one in the region’s private sector.

The Group As one of the most admired healthcare ‘icons’ in the region, Dr. Thumbay Moideen describes ‘diversification’ as one of the group’s key strategies. With its network of academic hospitals and medical centers, the Thumbay network of hospitals has blossomed as one of the largest healthcare providers in the region. Today, the business has diversified across twenty sectors; however, the group’s core businesses are in the sectors of healthcare, education, and research.

Most of the subsidiary businesses such as pharmacies, nutrient outlets, health clubs, retail opticals, publishing, health communications, hospitality and trading, marketing and distribution, diagnostics, and real estate are related to its core businesses. It has grown and diversified as per the

Our commitment to quality and innovation remains as sincere today as it was at the start

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Group’s vision and its focus has been significant in the process. Intelligent diversification and timely innovation are considered to be the mainstays of the group’s continued growth.

As a symbol of superior service, quality, and innovation, the group is playing a dominant role in the UAE’s medical tourism industry. Dr. Thumbay Moideen reveals that the need to provide training avenues to GMU students prompted him to establish the Thumbay network of academic hospitals. As time progressed, this has evolved as the largest chain of private academic hospitals in the GCC region. “Doctors at our hospitals are also academicians and researchers, and are hence abreast with the latest developments in healthcare,” explains Dr. Thumbay Moideen. Together, GMU and Thumbay academic hospital network train up to twenty percent of the doctors and up to

Innovation is the key driver of growth

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sixty percent of the healthcare professionals in the UAE region.

Thumbay Foundation – Touching Lives Thumbay Foundation is committed to achieving lifelong change that transforms people’s lives. It was formed as a charitable arm to support charitable activities in Healthcare, Education and other areas for the upliftment of the weaker sections of society. The ultimate objective is to influx a positive impact in the society as a whole, through comprehensive activities addressing the needs of education, healthcare, employment, as well as other social needs. Few of the core services that are touching the lives of the people are listed below: • Free medical & dental camps • Sponsors a student Program • Happiness Hour • Coffee on the Wall • Patients Affairs Department • Staff Welfare Activities

Insight to Indian Healthcare Expressing his thoughts about Indian healthcare segment and its growth path over the next decade, Dr. Thumbay Moideen feels that Healthcare has been among the priority sectors for successive governments in India. The focus remains to increase the existing healthcare infrastructure and improving the quality of service delivery extended to the people. By identifying and implementing PPP modules, the country has successfully found a realistic solution to its ever-growing healthcare needs.

On a parting note, Dr. Thumbay Moideen is confident that medical tourism is the next big ‘thing’ that is in the emerging phase. He is optimistic that the next decade will not only see huge investments but will also witness a transformation in healthcare technology and showcase the country into a major medical tourism destination.

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Anil Modi

MD

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INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS

ANIL MODI JOURNEY FOSTERING CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

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s the pioneer of driving customer experience revolution, Anil Modi is the Managing Director of Aryan Labs and is a seasoned entrepreneur & Angel Investor in Analytics, ML, AI and CX Domains.

With over 25 years of experience that includes CEO, CMO, EVP, and VP positions till today, how would you like to define this journey?

My journey can be best defined as “Expanding the frontiers”. In all of my roles, I was fortunate to lead initiatives that delivered innovation in business plans and then leverage these innovations to do some marquee deals.

It all started with my first business role in Hughes, before that I was more of a technology Geek. I was given responsibility to initiate a key function of revenue; it was fun painting on a clean slate and makes a success out of it.

Gaining confidence, I was able to steer the largest deal of the industry for Hughes. At GTL, I started remote management of IT infrastructure for Global corporates, won a marquee global deal from a large consumer goods company. Later on, industry caught on to this practice, now popularly known as “Remote Infrastructure Management”.

At Aegis, the journey involved multiple roles, watching the firm grow from a few millions in revenue to more than a billion dollar. Here too I won a large outsourcing contract, which turned out to be the most profitable deal ever. At the helm of Aegis Marketing, I ensured a number of innovations leading to strong brand recognition, so much so that we were being pegged in the same set as our much larger competitors. Innovation Lab, a unique initiative, delivered some path-breaking products like LISA, ANN and Analytics. It was at this point, Ananto Analytics took birth, a firm that delivered business analytics as a service. An insightful journey for our customers, once again the innovation in algorithms, process excellence and integration of diverse tools brought together to create solutions that industry considered as cutting edge. Aryan Labs now raises March 2019|

the bar still further and targets better understanding of “Customer Experiences” using proprietary Algorithms, Marketing Innovation, and Customer Centricity.

Expanding horizons excites me, it’s in my DNA and I shall continue to do so.

Kindly brief us about the key milestones you have accomplished or some of the mentionable moments of your professional journey.

Some of the key professional milestones were; being youngest business manager, fastest growth to business role, largest deal closure in the history of the firm, recognition as business leader in various forums, featured as one of the 12 Global Marketing Leaders by a book from Thomson Press, Marcom professional of the year and brand leadership awards among others.

However what truly excites me are the personal milestones, which truly shaped me. I started as a hard-core technologist in R&D, yet pivoted to a business role when I wanted to. In business roles, I was fortunate to get opportunities for closing marquee deals, start new functions and lead innovation. More than professional success, recognition by industry leaders and gaining the significant trust of my bosses was most rewarding. At the height of my professional success, a leap to entrepreneurship happened.

Jumping in an unknown, risky and financially draining entrepreneurship came only naturally; comfort zones never challenged me enough. For last year and a half, I am developing another paradigm shift in the way businesses understand and deploy customer experiences. This shall yield a significant change in their business outlook. In addition, I spent time helping young budding entrepreneurs with advice and capital, another milestone that gives immense satisfaction.

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What is the one thing that is acting as your motivational tool? Or, who is your role model and how the person inspires and motivates you?

Sustained motivation is largely an inner calling.

“Challenge” me to get the best out of me. Don’t challenge me and I shall find a way to challenge myself. My competitive spirits are kindled by challenging situations and warrior traits of sharp mind, meticulous planning, and detailed preparation come afore.

There is no particular role model per se, however, over the years two of my bosses had a major impact on my work life. One is Aparup Sengupta and other Partho Banerjee.

They have been instrumental in building some of my work principals and ethos.

What are the distinctive services offered by Aryan Labs?

Aryan Labs services are quite simple to understand. Based on three pillars - Leadership Priority, Customer Intelligence, and Empowered Employees, we advise firms to become customer-centric. Behind these pillars is a plethora of competencies of Research, Management, Change Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Market Surveys, Satisfaction Surveys, CX measurement among others. It’s unique to bring these competencies together for an integrated CX outlook.

Net-Net we help from design to implementation to measurement of CX in your organization.

Kindly explain the Customer Experience Management as a successful business model.

CX Management is going to be the way of life for most consumer-oriented businesses. No longer is the product or service a key differentiator; it is going to be all about meeting customer expectations. Both Wal-Mart and Nordstrom have happy customers and both are quite profitable as well; a strong example that meeting customer expectations is the key to sustainable and profitable business, irrespective of nature of your market. As to the business models, it’s about time that consumer-oriented organizations realize that Gross Margin increments are less because of the decrease in direct costs and more due to higher revenues by happy customers. Making a customer happy is no longer in the marketing domain; it is equally impacted by all the major departments of the firm. Imagine a telecom customer who gets fantastic service and coverage 20

but ends up getting incorrect bills each month, CX levels shall be obviously low in spite of great service.

Kindly share your perspective on the current industry scenario and how do you see the future at the Industry level.

The market is in transition; firms are still struggling with imbibition of some recent technologies of Analytics, BI, AI, and ML. The insights so gained are however used to improve one of two business parameters. With CX Management, the emphasis is on the overall functioning of the firm. Think of it this way, Analytics can help a particular marketing campaign to be most effective and bring success to the campaign. Even if the campaign were successful, CX management would suffer if let’s say implementation or service or billing department are not delivering as per the expectations. All functions have to be effective, work cohesively and deliver on firms overall promise to get a high margin customer.

Today firms are yet to transition to such a thought process.

Aryan Labs is ahead of its time; we choose to be early, in the process working closely with early adopters.

Encouraging news is to read how Big-5 consulting and management firms are now pinning CX Management as the next frontier of game-changing business advantage.

What would be your advice to the budding players waiting to make a mark in this industry?

Be aware of the complexity of the solution you are offering.

Combining Marketing, Analytics and Customer Service fundamentals in one outcome is much more complex than it sounds. However the market is nascent, there is a significant opportunity for innovation, market expansion, growth, and sustenance. Try and be a relevant and trusted partner to your customers. Deliver this with focus, commitment and perseverance and Market will soon enough take notice of you.

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ABISHEK MOSES

INNOVATING TRENDS IN ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT “If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.”

- Dhirubhai Ambani

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eadership quality is one of the few in-built characteristics that cannot be learned, conveyed, or incorporated within. The mindset that drives us to think ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas and more importantly, stand by the outcome is what nurtures us to evolve as the leaders of tomorrow.

The Journey of a Maverick Leader This inspirational story is about a young, dynamic leader who has broken the traditional customs of managing a family business and talks about novelty and evolution. The man of the hour is Abishek Moses – Director, Hubert Enviro Care Systems Pvt. Ltd. Driven by ‘hunger for change’ Abishek has successfully managed to scale up the family business to optimum heights.

“Never tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon” – With such intent, Abishek has cemented his space in the corporate fraternity as he continues to explore untouched possibilities with utmost passion and confidence.He believes that business models should evolve with time and as a leader, patience and perseverance are the two key characteristics required for running a successful business. After completing his B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Anna University, Chennai he did his post-graduation in management from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai followed by Masters in Finance from University of Sheffield, UK.

Abishek Moses

Consistency and Constant Efforts Balances the Wheel

Director

Hubert Enviro Care Systems Pvt Ltd is India’s leading Environmental Management Company and a service provider that is serving as a catalyst to the cause of environmental preservation for the industrial and domestic sectors. Founded by his Father, Dr. J R Moses in 1998, Abishek joined the business a decade later and since then looking back or playing within the safety lines was never an option for the young leader.

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Unique Business Models The young leader has crafted an innovative concept under which HECS assists the companies throughout their life cycle – from inception to operations. This unique proposition has been the USP of HECS that makes it stands ahead in the market. Over the last two decades, the company has been growing steadily as compared to various other Water Treatment / Environmental Management companies that have lowered down their shutters or have become bankrupt. With a focus on the bottom line, combined with efficient operations, the company manages to lower-down the operational costs, which ensures the company is able to provide quality solutions at the most competitive rates.

Illuminating the Young Minds Abishek believes that this field is still in the nascent stages and as the country develops and people become more aware, the environmental space will witness a huge transition. As India evolves into a superpower in the next March 2019|

few decades, the biggest strength of our country will be its vast demographics, which will ensure that demand keeps increasing year on year. So for the budding entrepreneurs, patience, persistence, and focus on technology are the key parameters to taste success in this industry!

Defining the Journey Ahead With a focus on technology and delivering value-added services to clients, Abishek is carrying the torch of HECS with high esteem. He has designed an overall growth pattern for the company instead of targeting a particular segment. HECS would be shifting to a sprawling new 30000 sq. ft. facility in Guindy, Chennai by the next quarter.

Investing about 250 million INR, this facility will be having state-of-art technology with latest equipment’s and resources. It is also looking to expand in the BOOT/Leasing space as well for water and waste-water treatment plants in the coming future. Other distant areas that have been marked are the eco-buildings development along with other environmental-friendly green technologies by next year.

Aiming to cross the horizons, HECS has evolved as one of the top environmental management and water treatment companies in the country; however, Abishek is not stopping or limiting himself to explore new markets. It considers the middle-east and south-east Asian regions as the potential markets for the future. It has aimed to double its revenue in every four years and in which it plans to achieve about one-third revenue from outside India. One of the most key milestones would be to transform into a 2 billion INR listed MNC in the next five years.

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HECS strives hard to provide world class products and services at the most compe ve price and in the commi ed schedule of me

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Under the affluent and aggressive leadership, the company has grown in heaps and bounds. In the last ten years, since then the annual revenues have grown by over ten-twelve times and is expected to touch the magic figures of one billion next year. Incepted in Chennai, today it has eight branches in the country and still counting! In 2017, the company started its one-of-a-kind e-commerce platform - PurityPortal.com and in its continuance aim to touch the untouched territories, in the next fiscal it’s planning to set up a subsidiary in Oman to cater the middleeastern global market. Acknowledging its operational and financial performance, Hubert Enviro has been ranked as SME1 by CRISIL – for the last five years in a row! The company has aligned with strategic global partners like Daiki Axis, Japan to bring Jhokasu Technology packaged sewage treatment plants to India under the brand name HECS-Daiki. These automated sewage treatment plants are much efficient and consume about 80-90% less power than the conventional plants. Under the leadership of Abishek Moses the company hasn’t just grown organically and through strategic tie-ups but also through acquisitions, the company has acquired BI Marketing & Service Private Limited a water engineering firm which provides solution to water pumping, distribution and heating needs in the year 2017 and Essaar Instruments Private Limited a company involved in the business of providing online process & pollution control equipments in the year 2015.

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Krishnakant Panchal Founder & CEO

About the Author Krishnakant Panchal is a Founder and CEO of the company. He is young, enthusiastic and most innovative in the eld of Market Research. Rushi Market Research Services is a Marketing Research and Consultancy rm, incorporated in 2012, with Team and Expertise to provide the best Market Research Assistance to the companies of different Sectors. Krishnakant has more than 16 years of experience in the eld of market research and analytics.

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Expert’s Zone

Why Market Research Should be an Integral Part of a Business Plan

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he product or service your company has to provide.

Its end use is a set of people and purchasing power.

Those are known as target markets. Where they share their needs and characteristics. The target market helps your company to develop appropriate and effective marketing and develop business.

There are different improvements in the ever-changing market of ever. If you want to know about the change of the modern market and want to give your business the right place in a competitive market, then marketing research is needed for continuous research. It is necessary to understand market research, to reach your target audience and to know the competitive company. Which is full of great importance for you to increase your sales.

The risk of running any new business is high. You may need to search for money to start a new business. Those who wish to invest in your business. Those people may need to give some evidence. You can show them the evidence prepared by Market Research. And a good report prepared by market research helps you reduce the risks and risks associated with your business.

If you are running a business for a long time, then a different part of your daily business’s operations should be market research. Which is very important to you.

You can learn about the risks and opportunities in the

March 2019|

market through market research. And with that information you can make specific decisions in your business. A good decision can be made because of the exact information you have. The market risk reduces the risk of the business due to the wrong decision taken by you and the cost of money.

Helping you make the right decision because of accurate information you received in your hand.

Market research helps you in this.

• Help identify new products and services in the market.

• The trends or changes in the market help in the immediate or expected event.

• Knowing the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the customer and being dissatisfied, help find out the reason.

• Help your competitors stay ahead of one step.

• Helps to know the signs of a quick decision and warning in your own business.

• In your business, it helps to know where the advertising medium is more effective.

• Helps your business get updated with the new technology coming up.

• Helps you find out whether the new ideas you have are likely to be in the market.

Your new concept reduces the risk of failure. And it provides a proper way. It reduces the risk of getting into your business. Market Impact is a tool for the business. It helps in settling your business in a short time and increasing profits in the business. Due to lack of knowledge about

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market research and being unsure of running market research properly, much less market research is conducted in most of the business.

your customers, it becomes easy to target them and therefore get your sales route Is there.

Research in the business industry is the first step in market research to keep current active and the latest changes in market use. However, changing of market research varies with the nature of the industry. As an industry husband or marketing giver. You need to know the importance and meaning of market research in business.

One of the reasons for common reasons in the business is market research which helps in increasing sales in a short period and in transit. To increase sales in businesses, people work on different methods and themselves are familiar with new technologies and used in businesses which are used for more sales. Market research is an effective way of identifying the areas of success for the business.

You might not have thought that large industry husbands allocate large amounts on market research for their business. The reason of its importance is that. That they can help to understand and understand new information every day in the market and gain proper guidance in their business. Companies such as Google, Google, and the Railways are investing money for the research of the latest trends for gaming technology and market research.

Improvement in customer relations and management Market research is used to get a better understanding of your target audience and by providing them products and services that are connected to their desires and needs, asking them to ask questions about your business and getting them a good response from your customers. Ask them how they know your brand about your brand vs. Pick and choose what areas of

Conservation behavior can help the contestants know better, so they help them to move forward.

Develop in business A complete market research helps you find more and more challenging opportunities that can help you grow your business better.

Your business, products or services are able to meet the needs of your target audience. If your answer is yes then it is possible that you have invested money in market research since the very beginning. But if your answer is no, you need market research to move your business forward and target.

Reduces risks in your business.

Handling the market research helps in measuring the risks involved in implementing different decision-based measures for your business, after detailed research and deepening research, it provides a proper guidance for whether to work on decisions or not. Probable to be. If there is a market research with remarkable evidence, you will have to go for it. However, providing a lot of data or selfconfidence is not a research, then you should not take risk.

If there is a need for a bigger investment, if there is a new specific activity, you will need market research for market analysis which will help you to understand how this risk will remain.

Sales rise By repeatedly researching market research, you can make your business products / services more effective, which indirectly leads to your sales. If you hold on to the ideas of

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To increase your business, you need to do something better than promised promise that will delight your customers and connect your brand to your business will be easier to grow.

Size Brand Reputation How can any business know if they like their brand or not?

Market research helps in measuring its brand reputation in the market among its target audience in periods of time, it is a great way to see what is the need or extraordinary to move forward in your business and to compare your situation to your expectations.

We believe that before you start a business, market research further explains how important it is. A detailed analysis of the situation, consumer, environment, and marketing trends can give you a better understanding of what is needed to succeed in your business. Helping businesses in the better understanding in all the activities that work well in the market Market Research in Business for Summary This factor is not limited to. Start marketing expertise and give her proper importance to market research and check out what works best for your business.

March 2019|

In an exclusive interview, Rajesh R. Turakhia – Founder of Frameboxx talks about his journey and the state of current Animation and Visual Effects industry.

1. Kindly brief us about the inception story of Frameboxx?

Frameboxx was founded in 2008 with the idea of providing industry relevant courses, so that student can come up as an industry ready artist.

There was always a huge gap of proper on-job environment during student’s education cycle. We fulfilled this void by a concept called ‘Incubation Centre’ at Frameboxx. We trained students through live projects. There was the pressure cooker environment of client handling, providing quality output within deadline, working as team and other such challenges that come from typical production processes. Various studios appreciated this methodology very well. The whole idea was to make Frameboxx to become very industrial relevant education training institute.

2. With over 2 decades of experience in Animation and Visual effects, kindly talk about your professional journey– starting from your initial days, success stories, and challenges, to name a few.

Rajesh R. Turakhia Founder

I started my first journey with an educational training institute named MAAC (Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics) as a Founder in 2001. My biggest challenge was that there was not enough manpower available to take up that demand which was coming. We designed a course which encompasses softwares, required by an Animator. It was named as ‘Techno Artist Training’. So, if you are an artist, we teach you technical skills and you become a Techno Artist, who in turn becomes viable artist in the industry.

The other challenge was that the parents were not willing to let their children enter into this industry. We held many seminars all across India to give them exact idea of

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Interview with Insights Success

prospects that this industry offers. Another challenge was on software and hardware side. They were pretty expensive.

But, around 2002-03, we saw decline in prices. This also helped to get boom in the industry.

We saw tremendous success because the employment was very good at that time and all our students were picked up by leading Animation and VFX studios. We were successful in providing the industry with much required artists. This led us to have phenomenal growth of almost 100%, year on year, for all our institutes.

Later on, in 2008, I started Frameboxx. During this time, we also tied up with leading education brands including Seneca College, Canada to and Anglia Ruskin University, UK to give international certification to our students. Apart from ‘Frameflixx Awards’, our student movies have also won in FICCI BAF Awards, Golden Cursor Animation Awards, AAROHI Film Festival, Mofilm, CGT Awards and many more.

Working on the notion of continuous development, we launched our self in a completely new avatar named ‘Frameboxx 2.0’. It is ‘Premier Academy for Media & Creative Arts’ which is amalgamation of various creative and technical skills, required by Media & Entertainment industry. We enlarged our gamut of creative design and visual art, by adding new verticals of new media technologies and creative research.

3. After completing your MBA from University of Hartford in Finance & Marketing, what inspired you to indulge into this world of creativity?

I started off in a business of importing and selling high-end computer equipments to Animation and VFX studios. I sensed it as very attractive business. I saw great potential in Indian industry to become hub for Animation outsourcing.

As I was always inclined towards education training side, it attracted me to launch business of education training. I got this opportunity when I joined Maya Entertainment Limited in 2000. In 2001, I launched this initiative of training institute.

4. Kindly elaborate your views on the evolution of the Indian Animation Industry over the last decade along with the key areas that have driven this growth?

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The Indian animator is very well versed with English language and is computer savvy, which have been the major key factors. Our artists understand the language of international directors, their instructions and scripts. It made possible to get quality work from foreign market.

Majority of today’s Hollywood block buster movies have some components of Indian work, as they are outsourced to us. Credentials of artists range from entry level to lead job roles. Many important sequences of ‘The Jungle Book’ movie were executed by Indian artists at MPC, Bengaluru.

Baahubali 1 and 2 are also majorly conceived, supervised, produced and executed by Indian artists.

It also led to lot of international Animation and VFX studios to open their own setups. Some of the best examples are Dneg, Method Studios, MPC, Mr. X, The Mill and Framestore.

The second stage of the growth was mainly due to increased number of TV channels along-with local and international OTT platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Voot, ALTBalaji, Sonly LIV, Eros Now, ZEE5, Hotstar).

5. Frameboxx is run and managed by Industry experts and professionals – kindly elaborate on the contribution of these experts.

From day one, every course designed in my education ventures, have always been in consultation with industry professionals to make course industry relevant. We have continued to keep them on our advisory board and governing panel to keep constant watch on quality content.

Seeing this professional approach, lots of software companies gave us huge technical support by providing us latest updates and trends of the market.

6. Kindly explain the various courses offered by Frameboxx. How does an industry-orientated course differ from the traditional courses offered by other institutes and organization?

Basics of the courses are the same regardless of them being taught by any institute. But the fact is that, when the teaching is done by industry people, they teach you what is relevant with its complete set of tips and tricks used by the industry. The examples are also taken from post production pipeline, not from books.

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Frameboxx focuses on teaching techniques and creativity, not just the software tools. How would an artist approach a software is more important rather somebody teaching how to use the software. We blend this very artistic approach in our teaching methodology to give the best knowledge to the student.

7. Kindly brief us about the various collaborations with internationally acclaimed technologists along with animation & VFX studios that have helped you to gain a breakthrough in creating jobs in this field.

We are associated with Unity as ‘Authorized Training Partner’ for AR, VR and Gaming. Unity is already working on new technology to make animation artist’s life easy by truncating the time of animation process.

We are also associated with MESC to ascertain that our students are trained as per industry parameters and norms.

Pixel Digital Studios is our industry partner. We are affiliated with Jagannath University to provide B.Voc. MAV (Media, Animation & VFX) and YCMOU to provide B.Sc. MGA Degree (B.Sc. in Media Graphics & Animation).

8. Kindly share a piece of advice for the budding students who aspire to make it big in the Animation industry?

My one piece of advice which has been constant from last 20 years is that anybody who wants to enter in the industry must work as per international standards and expectations, when it comes to quality and deliverables.

We in India tend to compromise for giving quality output, we don’t hesitate to deliver less than 100%. While abroad, as I have seen, they have mindset and determination level to provide more than 110% quality output in stipulated timeline. They also don’t hesitate to say no, instead of accepting whatever work that comes in their way.

I realized it when some of test projects were submitted to international studios and got rejected. International supervisor pointed out small details that were overlooked by our Indian animators. I understood that, to get success in the foreign market, we will have to give more than 100%.

To overcome this technical challenge, I roped in international supervisors in our production work to check our quality and making sure that we deliver the best output.

Don’t mess on these three and you will have the world’s work handed to you.

9. With your expertise and knowledge, what kind of challenges do you incur – in terms of emerging market players and freelancers, Animation industry, costs, and in projecting these courses as a career alternative?

Apart from India, there are also other countries which are delivering various local and international projects of Animation and VFX, including China and Singapore.

We are seeing a new wave in software market which cut down production cost. There are so many open source softwares which permits an artist to work on commercial purpose. Blender, Krita, Synfig, Pencil2D to name a few.

Even for AR and VR, there are open source softwares / engines available like HoloKit and Apertus VR. There was a time, when VFX was a part of miscellaneous budget of a movie. But, now-a-days, VFX had become an integral part of the movie. Ra-One, Krissh, Robot, 2.0, Baahubali 1 and 2, Eega are most known. Many people are switching from typical studies to Animation and VFX to cater this huge market.

10. How do you analyze the key differences or shortfalls (if any) while comparing with the global VFX standards?

As I stated earlier, we intend to compromise in our output.

‘Chalega’ and ‘unnes-bees’ are common terminologies in our production and post production pipeline. It will not help us to receive outsourced projects from international market, as they seek for 110% quality.

11. “Hard work has no substitute” – how do you relate your journey with this quote?

I completely agree with the said sentence that to succeed, you have to work hard but also work smart. If you follow these two, surely you see success coming. In this industry specifically, there is a very different kind of commitment, it requires passion. If you have these three, then definitely this industry is for you. https://frameboxx.in

So, my first and only advice is that make sure your commitment to quality, deliverables and timing are 110%.

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Ankur Goel

Revolutionizing the Face of Indian E-commerce

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he motivational story that is going to unfurl in the later stages of this excerpt is the perfect example of grit, patience, and the will to out-class own milestones. Renowned global business leaders hitting the news or reaching the book stands with their contributions and success stories is a common phenomenon in today’s modern era. However, exploring the journey of a commoner with a modest lifestyle who had the audacity to cross the horizons with his sheer confidence is much more appealing.

An Adroit Leader One such avid leader and persistent entrepreneur, who not only dreamt of a castle but rather built a complete online e-commerce platform is Ankur Goel, the Founder of Zencommerce India Pvt. Ltd. He envisions every opportunity as a gateway to attain greater entrepreneurial creativity. His biggest strength has been sensing, researching technology opportunities and executing the planned design with economic benefits. One key element that has transformed Ankur as a person is the days when he started as a trainer. He asserts that “I always believed that training is something a subject, which in my opinion, everyone should take up in life. Everyone should take that particular cycle. Yes, I was a trainer in life because training gives you a lot of benefits”. What impacted him the most is the fact that since he trained people from diverse age-groups, the questions asked were unique and spontaneous in nature. Ankur realized that patience is one of the key things in life and also learned the art of handling multiple questions coming at a time.

Ankur Goel Co-founder

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Ankur has been an ardent speaker at various forums and has conducted webinars as a corporate trainer in prestigious companies including Boston, Aptech, Softpro, NITIEE, and Datamatics. As an IT management professional with extensive experience in operations, planning and execution, Ankur has steered Zencommerce through various phases March 2019|

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and has cemented the company as a matured player in the Indian e-commerce industry and abroad .

Flipping Back the Pages Ankur started his professional career in 1999 as a faculty for computer institutes and it was the year 2001 when he launched his first venture – AIM Computers that was a computer institute. Although the venture failed to prosper, it was the learning’s that drove Ankur to taste success at later years. Shifting his gears and prioritizing his needs, he joined NETEsoft India Ltd in 2007 as a Project Manager and led various projects for the hospitality sector & US Government related to website development and mobile applications. As a proficient project management consultant, his hard work paid off as he was appointed as the head of India operations. He continued to scale up and gather experience by finishing projects within deadline and implementing various life cycles like SDLC, Agile and Waterfall under different delivery models.

Alongside experiencing the life of a corporate professional, Ankur and his wife – Ridhima Goel decided to launch a new venture – Arkloop IT Solutions in 2010. ‘Once bitten – twice shy’ – this phrase seems to be apt for this situation as the Goel’s carefully avoided the mistakes committed in their past venture and steadily progressed to fortify Arkloop. The company offered quality web solutions including designing, marketing collateral, web applications, and digital marketing. As the company flourished Ankur left NETEsoft in 2012 to join his wife in taking Arkloop to new heights of success. As the company prospered and revenues soared, the Goel’s took a crucial decision to cross the boundaries and collaborated with a European company – DreamCommerce S. A. The two companies later formed the brand - Zencommerce that is presently headed by Ankur as a CEO. Identifying the Needs of the Clientele Right from the inception, Ankur was absolutely crystal clear about managing the operations at Zencommerce. He was swift in incorporating the effective learning’s from his past exposure – building up a long-lasting relation with clients and delivering quality products in the Indian market.

As time progressed, the business scaled up as clients appreciated the premium quality of deliverables offered to them. As one of the best-rated e-commerce software’s, it operates on a SaaS-business model and has been awarded March 2019|

Think big, Think ahead, and Think fast, ideas are nobody’s monopoly

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BUSINESS 30LEADERS T H E

as the ‘Best Online Store Platform’ for three consecutive years – 2013, 2014, and 2015. Offering more than 250 built-in options that a customer can drag and drop as per their own requirements, the platform is integrated with Messaging apps, Payment Gateway & Logistics companies that lead to a hassle-free experience for the buyers.

Compared to other players, Zencommerce has crafted packages which are all-inclusive of hosting and domain charges and it comes as a great benefit for the customers who have just 100-200 products to sell. In its endeavor to give maximum benefits to the customers, the minimum package is designed to upload up to 10000 products that can go to 50000 products without any glitch or extra charges.

The platform has evolved as a complete ‘solution-provider’ that works seamlessly with all modern gadgets including tabs, mobiles, laptops, and desktops. Over the years, Zencommerce has worked towards creating new possibilities and offering innovative solutions to clients at optimum prices and erasing the traditional concepts in this arena.

The Propositions for Future Ankur carries a very optimistic view of the future. He acknowledges the fact that inspiring professionals entering into the business arena are settling down in some way or another. Ending the conversation on a higher note, Ankur has crafted the roadmap of Zencommerce that takes them forward to create new milestones. He shares that within the next two to three years, he plans to increase the turnover by approx. 50 - 80 cores per annum.

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Up, Close & Personal

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usiness Leaders who have succeeded to reach to the epitome of success have one thing in common - to encompass out-of-the-box ideas that have ultimately evolved as the game-changers in their respective domains. For these leaders, neither the road to success was easy and nor were they born with a silver spoon having a sprawling business legacy. It is the sheer commitment and dedication of these leaders that created opportunities and opened new ventures along their business journey.

To honor and acknowledge the contributions of such leaders, we talk about some of the business personas who are the trendsetters – within the global business fraternity as well as the mega-icons in the society who have made it big by walking the ‘hard way’.

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Ratan Naval Tata - The Strategic Industrialist A recipient of India’s most distinguished civilian awards - Padma Bhushan as well as Padma Vibhushan, Ratan Tata needs no introduction on the global platform. Belonging to a family of industrialist and philanthropists, Ratan Tata rose to become the Chairman of the Mumbai-based conglomerate TATA group in 1991 and had a brief stint in 2016. Apart from his business acumen, it was his grit and determination that led to the expansion of the TATA group at the global map.

London-based Tetley Tea, South Korea’s Daewoo Motors, Anglo-Dutch steel manufacturer Corus Group, UK-based Jaguar and Land Rover are some of the international acquisitions and purchases under his affluent leadership. He fulfilled his promise and dream of making India’s first ‘People’s Car’ – Tata Nano with a starting price of just one lakh rupees! Although it was nearly impossible for other automotive companies to even think of the same, Ratan Tata had the vision of delivering something moderate and economical mode of transport for the Indian middle-class family. He is also the Chairman of Tata Trusts, - one of the oldest foundations in India, that works in 170 districts across 17 states and has partnered with 450 organizations for various causes.

Dilip Shanghvi – Sun and Simplicity While his Father was a wholesale drug distributor, Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi has crafted his own roadmap and has been successful in building India’s largest drugmaker company – Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Reckoned as one of the richest in the country and a self-made billionaire in Asia, Dilip Shanghvi is the man to reckon in the Indian healthcare industry. Under his leadership, Sun Pharma has grown extensively in terms of acquisitions and takeovers of various firms at the global level. His meteoric rise has truly been a journey to watch out for! Insiders term his style of working as ‘consultative’ and ‘democratic’ that has actually helped him to think of innovative ideas that proved to be the talking point of his career. His acumen to spot business opportunities has assisted the company to rise and evolve as the biggest market player in India.

His personal life is equally inspiring for the young generation. As a self-made personality, he has been awarded the civilian honor of the Padma Shri in 2016. Apart from pharma, he has a great interest in the field of renewable energies. Along with his wife – Vibha D. Shanghvi, Dilip Shanghvi is an active supporter of numerous charitable organizations and together they donate millions to such organizations annually.

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Azim H. Premji – A Philanthropist at Heart Indian tech-magnate Azim Premji is an ardent philanthropist and investor along with being the Chairman of Wipro Limited. With a presence in approx. 58 countries, Wipro is a pioneer in leading environmental initiatives that helped them to evolve as a global leader in sustainability. Azim Premji is known as the driving force behind the diversification and growth of Wipro over the last four decades. His determination in creating a culture of striving for excellence in business operations has led Wipro to be the first software company to attain an SEI Level 5 certification. Azim Premji walked against the wind and transformed Wipro into an IT powerhouse along with cementing itself in the foreign soils. Across the global business platform, he is been regarded as a highly ethical entrepreneur who is a role model for countless Indian firms.

Recently he has been bestowed with the highest French civilian distinction - Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the French Ambassador. This award marks his contribution in developing the IT industry in India along with his economic outreach in France. It further acknowledges his outstanding contribution and initiatives launched under the platform of the Azim Premji Foundation and University. He is also the first Indian and only third non-American to give away twenty-five percent of his wealth as a part of the ‘Giving Pledge’.

Dr. R A Mashelkar – The Warrior of Haldighati Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar is a well-known eminent scientist who led the legal crusade against the US patents on turmeric, neem, and basmati rice and hence got the title of ‘The warrior of Haldighati’. As the DirectorGeneral of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – CSIR has a network of thirty-eight laboratories with about 20k workforce, Dr. Mashelkar has made numerous contributions that have inspired millions of people in India. His initiative to transform CSIR into user-focused, performance-driven, and an accountable organization is hailed as one of his biggest contribution in the field of Indian Science & Technology.

Conferred with prestigious civilian awards like Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, as well as Padma Vibhushan, Dr. Mashelkar has received countless awards and accolades in his career. He is only the third Indian engineer who has been elected as Fellow of Royal Society (FRS), UK along with being the first scientist to win the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award. In his constant endeavor to work for the underprivileged people across the globe and fighting for the upliftment of the developing nations, he is honored and appreciated at the global platform. His business acumen has put forth him as the Board of Directors of various companies including Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, to name a few.

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March 2019|

Mukesh Ambani - The Charismatic Business Tycoon The Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited, Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani has the perfect blend of hard work, determination, and the zeal to cross the horizons that has cemented him as the richest business magnate of India. However, he was not born with a silver spoon as believed, as his Father – Dhirubhai Ambani was still laying the foundation of Reliance Industries. His perseverance and vision have made him set up the massive empire and claim success at the international business platform.

He is a true inspiration for the budding entrepreneurs as his optimistic approach has led to the astounding growth of Reliance Industries over the years.

As one of the most respected business leaders at the global canvas, Mukesh Ambani is the face of the Indian business that represents the new-age personas that are embracing innovative ideas and changing the concept of business. Reliance Foundation – founded by Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian philanthropic initiative that promotes sustainable growth in India. The foundation works in diverse areas like rural transformation, health, education, and urban renewal to name a few. It has received the prestigious - Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Award in 2017 for its initiatives to promote grassroots sports.

N R Narayana Murthy – The Sparkling Gem of IT As the legendary co-founder and ex-Chairman of Infosys – the name of Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy is synonymous to the evolution of the Indian software professionals across the globe. Times magazine had crowned him as the ‘Father of Indian IT’ due to his contribution to outsourcing and has been listed among the top 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our times by the Fortune magazine. A recipient of Padma Vibhushan & Padma Shri, Narayana Murthy has been instrumental in articulating, designing, and implementing the Global Delivery Model that has become the foundation for the IT services outsourcing from the Indian subcontinent.

An iconic figure In India, he is widely admired for his ethics, personal conduct, and a living a simple lifestyle and his vision and leadership have transformed the business arena in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship. He is a trustee of Murty Foundation and Murty Trust along with being a Trustee of the Infosys Science Foundation. Having an astute business sense, he is equally concerned about the social upliftment issues prevalent in the country. Incorporating the family values and lessons with utmost honesty, Narayana Murthy has walked and preached the same lessons throughout his life.

Devasish Kanojiya, Editor March 2019|

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Nebu K Abraham Embracing Technology to the Core!

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utomation and digital disruption in today’s business market have compelled the business leaders to comprehend and embrace technology at a rapid pace. The business environment has transformed from the past and is much more aligned, fast and collaborative. This renaissance has enabled the ‘new-age’ leaders to be more agile and shed the traditional concepts of executing business decisions.

This story is about a young and dynamic business persona who has successfully delivered and spearheaded countless tech projects by working on multiple platforms for a wide client base across different regions.

A technocrat and an avid entrepreneur – Nebu K Abraham is the CEO of 7Nodes Technology Solutions – a Web Development company that delivers innovative Internet & Web-related technology solutions. His passion and eagerness about technology fueled his determination and completing his academics in Computer Science along with BS (Hons) in IT and Business Information Systems was just the foundation of a sprawling professional career ahead!

As a professional with multi-faceted excellence, Investment Management & Strategy, Product Management, Startup’s, E-Commerce, Fundraising are some of the diverse areas where Nebu has excelled and continues to look for new learning platforms. The exposure and acumen he attained while working with various IT companies strengthened his thoughts to step into the world of entrepreneurship in 2010. With a hawk’s eye on the ongoing tech advancements across the globe, Nebu finally launched his venture that included a wide-ranging portfolio of innovative internet-based products to assist the small, medium, and large businesses.

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Alongside 7Nodes, he is also the Founder, and Director of AEN Information Technology LLC an IT firm based in the UAE and is also the CEO of Cocoon Venture - a venture capitalist firm that supports startups with growth funding. His grit and the zeal to cross the horizons have fueled his determination to acquire knowledge and in-depth insight into diverse business verticals. Over the years, under the affluent leadership of Nebu, 7Nodes has been bestowed with several awards and accolades that cement their credibility and prominence.

7Nodes – Aligning Services RUBY ON RAILS | PHP DEVELOPMENT | APP DEVELOPMENT | DIGITAL MARKETING Ensuring impeccable quality all-inclusive IT and branding related solutions mainly through prolific products, which genuinely alleviates the discomfort of hiring innumerable companies for multiple requirements is the forte of 7Nodes. It owns the expertise to define an even balance between gracefulness and functionality of the products, empowering them to deliver seamless performance.

It has partnered with some of the technology giants spread across the globe - Invokevoke, Redshift Wireless, Circles Asia, GetGrover, Eagle-Review, Markat Atlas Healthcare Group from Canada, Australia, Singapore, Germany, France, Turkey and the UAE and continues to expand its footprints in new territories. ‘Client-Centric model ’, ‘Global Delivery model and ‘Research-Backed Innovation’ are three unique business platforms that enable 7Nodes to evolve as a major contributor in today’s competitive market on the global canvas. 7Nodes is a Ruby on Rails Specialized development firm that offers a plethora of services. Additionally, it offers a hybrid Cloud Hosting and consulting services and 24/7 maintenance services for their clients on could platforms.

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Pioneering Internet products and experiences that our customers would love!

HashMyBag | AirMeLive | World Startup Expo HashMyBag is a merchant chat application built on a versatile communication platform that enables brick & mortar stores to connect with their customers and share updates. It comes with a ‘Buy In Chat’ facility that allows customers to make purchases from their stores through chat. AirMeLive is another multipurpose talent platform that allows registered user to advertise, post videos, pictures, gifs or articles, tech inventions and showcases their unique abilities in the field of technology. The World Startup Expo is an initiative from Cocoon Ventures that brings along the Global startups, global investors, corporates and business professionals to one common platform. This 3-day conference has been hugely successful and has grabbed the eyeballs of the business fraternity for organizing this event.

The state-of-the-art design solutions are inherently scalable to meet system loads along with been agile during the development and delivery process. By following global quality frameworks like SCRUM and TDD, all the software solutions come with qualityassurance. The company’s solutions enhance deal efficiencies by leveraging existing enterprise information, human capital, and customer assets.

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Nebu K Abraham CEO Future Outlook of 7Nodes Over the last decade, 7Nodes has marked its global presence in the regions of Saudi Arabia, Europe, United Kingdom, Japan, and the UAE. While continuing to explore and innovate new tech-enabled solutions, the company is committed to delivering quality services and solutions in the global market. As the IT and ITESenabled markets across the globe are exploring new opportunities, 7Nodes looks forward to increasing its business model to ensure more business from these areas. It has drafted a road map and plans to work on mobile applications, IoT and wearable technology in the near future. Developing their own new devices for these sectors is also not a distant dream for the company.

Ambient User Experience is another technology that they are looking forward to experimenting in the future.

Lastly, touching new markets along with expanding their presence in the Indian and other international markets in the segment of delivering prolific custom made technology solutions is in the pipeline.

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intellika

Technologies

DRIVING THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

ntellika Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a state-of-the art Cloud solution’s provider and Microsoft Gold partner headquartered at MumbaiMaharashtra, India. It provides sophisticated and comprehensive suite of Cloud Solution such as SAAS, PAAS & IAAS. In an Interview with Insights Success, Ashish Gupta, Co-founder &Director talks about his journey, milestones, and how Intellika Technologies is introducing changes in the cloud environment.

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From taking the first step of your professional career, till today, how would you like to define this journey?

This journey has learning involved at every step. I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for my experience with each of the company I have worked with, so it goes without saying that I’m a firm believer taking up new learnings and challenge at every moment in life. There’s no shortcut to success and hence getting hands dirty in whatever possible work assigned to you is very important as everything has learning for you! The transition into the working world can be frightening and taking over tasks which were out of my comfort zone has always worked as a stepping stone in my career. Be it my decision to move from a Software company to an MNC bank or from an MNC Bank to a PSU Asset management firm or a switch from Banking into a real estate company and finally starting my own venture Intellika. Taking up new challenges has always given me a new zeal for growth and the immense 40

learning opportunity which was not possible if I had taken a comfort zone with the company, I started my career.

Kindly brief us about the key milestones you have accomplished or some of the mentionable moments of your professional journey.

Well there have been many great moments throughout my career however there are two such incidents which holds special place in my heart. One was my first overseas assignment where I was given an opportunity to work in one of the biggest transformational projects in Banking sector impacting the way settlement between banks happen in Denmark. This was one of the best projects I have ever worked, and the result was a project which went live with lot of appreciation from the client. Second milestone off course was the first project we bagged for Intellika; it was a Sales Transformation project using CRM for a manufacturing firm.

Though project size was not large in terms of value but for us it was a big milestone in terms of the impact we had brought to our customers in terms of productivity improvement and Return on Investment.

What is the one thing that is acting as your motivational tool? Or, who is your role model and how the person inspires and motivates you?

March 2019|

Interview with Insights Success

Ashish Gupta Co-founder & Director

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My father has been my role model and he has always inspired me to take things with positive attitude. He used to always tell me that “Never look back at your past mistakes learn from them and move forward, as a person who does not make mistakes can never be successful ”. His words have always motivated me to look forward in life and try new things even though it may lead to failures. His teachings have always helped me to become a better person in life and improvise further.

How do you define ‘consummate quality work’ as the vital differentiator for you in the market?

At Intellika we believe in consummate quality work and it has always acted as a big differentiator for us in market. We are known in market for the great skills we posses around the services we offer and the passion we have to make our customer successful. All our associates are groomed with the vision to keep customer first and then work on the solutions. The customer first mission has always helped us to understand our customer better and provide the quality which is not compromised.

What are the distinctive services offered by Intellika Technologies?

Intellika is Digital transformation consulting Services Company where Microsoft stack of technologies are the pillar to our services and solution offerings. For us the Digital transformation initiative revolves around, how well we can help any company better engage their customers, empower its employees, transform products and optimize operations. We offer complete stack of Microsoft solutions to support each of these strategy for our customers be it Office 365 Solutions for employee productivity, Dynamics 365 Solution Platform for Customer engagement and Operational efficiency, Azure Cloud services as an extensible platform, integrated applications to use data as a strategic asset and innovate with new business models with shift from reactive to proactive.

Been a Gold-certified Microsoft Dynamics Implementation Partner, how does it add value and keeps you ahead of the fierce market competition?

hence maintaining them regularly requires a partner to be always on edge and deliver quality as per the standard laid.

This accolade definitely adds value to us when competing against our other players in market who does not have this competency as most of the customers are well aware of the benefits which this competency offers.

Kindly share your perspective on the current industry scenario and how do you see the future of Cloud application in India at the Industry level.

In last two years the cloud services market in India has seen a phenomenal growth. It reached 1.8 billion$ in the year 2017 against 1.3 billion in the year 2016. SMB contribution to the Cloud services is expected to grow at a rapid pace and by 2020 it is expected that by adopting cloud SMB would contribute additional 10% to GDP this making overall contribution towards GDP as 46-48% by 2020. This will help Cloud business surpass 4.1 billion dollars by 2020. In fact, a recent survey by Microsoft India and the Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI) shows that small and medium businesses can improve cash flows by up to 308%, owing to the flexibility provided by cloud solutions, and that 96% of SMBs find a positive impact on their operating expenses within two years of cloud use. India Today is second only to china in terms of the growth in cloud services across Asia Pacific. With a robust GDP growth in last fiscal year and increased penetration of internet in India, cloud services will be one of the most booming sectors for Indian Market.

What would be your advice to the budding players waiting to make a mark in this industry?

Keep innovating around your customers! The world today is changing at a very past pace and technology will play major role in what it shapes into. The simple mantra for budding players would be to keep pushing themselves and bring in innovation to disrupt the world around them. Every customer is different and hence every problem defined by customer is different. Keep innovating around those problems and this will differentiate you from others.

Microsoft has set some stringent processes to differentiate its partners and gold competency is one of them. Gold competency for a partner is set on various parameters which include product offerings and threshold in terms of minimum revenue, certified resources and referenceable customers in a particular year. This competency is renewed every year and 42

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PRADEEP JANAKIRAMAN

THE INTELLECTUAL ENTREPRENEUR LEADING WITH EXCELLENCE This exceptional story unveils the journey of Drive Analytics- an Computer Vision / AI solutions company that excels in deep analysis of visual data to solve real-world problems for businesses. Incepted in 2015 Drive Analytics is a VC backed, award-winning startup in the Visual Big Data analytics space. Their image and video analytics platform is built on the most advanced Computer Vision / AI techniques and is applicable to a diverse range of solution domains.

The core engineering team is comprised of dynamic young professionals from the most prestigious institutes.

They are inducted and trained rigorously on diverse areas of computer vision, Data Analytics, User experience, and product engineering, thereby acquiring the acumen to build world-class solutions. The company aims to empower a new generation of intelligent applications by leveraging computer vision and deep learning.

Pradeep Janakiraman Founder

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ndia is a melting pot of opportunities when it comes to startups and innovation. The whole ecosystem has become very strong compared to a few years ago. There are many accelerators, early-stage funds, mentors and various other support systems in today’s environment for budding entrepreneurs. As the overall startup ecosystem strengthens and thereby creates a fertile environment for startups to bloom and mature, it’s the most ideal situation that would see the rise of sustainable SME’s who would in turn strengthen the economy, lead GDP growth and create several job opportunities. Similarly, as cutting edge AI based solutions gain more adoption and standardize across industries, over the next decade, there would be a paradigm shift towards an AI-first and AI-led economy.

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In a very short span, Drive Analytics has successfully managed to cement its presence within the industry and its innovative approach has been well received and appreciated across various platforms. In a quick snapshot, it has amassed popular awards including: • NASSCOM AI game changer award in 2018 • The Best startup Internships in India, 2017-18 - India’s largest hiring portal ‘Internshala’ • The Top 10 startups at India’s largest VC and Angel event‘LetsIgnite’ in 2017 •The Top 10 finalists in the Wharton India Startup Business competition in 2016 Powered by the latest advancements in Computer Vision and AI, it caters to the B2B segment by offering March 2019|

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innovative cutting edge products and solutions that help the clientele to attain or retain market leadership in their respective segments. AI driven Sports Coaching for budding sportsmen, Sponsorship Analytics / Brand Insights in Sporting events, Health and Fitness, Online fashion retail, are some of the domains in which niche solutions have been developed in today’s competitive market. Core Research & Development and strategic GoTo market alliances, are the two integral factors that have fuelled Drive Analytics to gain prominence and have attracted the eye-balls of the business fraternity.

Getting an early feel of the industry pain points and analyzing the market pulse through strategic partners has helped the company to chart out farily accurate product roadmaps, and to refine the product features in order to meet the pressing unmet needs of the market.

The Erudite Leader Pradeep Janakiraman, Founder & CEO - is a seasoned technocrat having a sprawling career spanning over two decades. He has amassed expertize in the areas of Product development, Software Services Delivery, and R&D. Commencing his career with the prestigious IBM Watson research labs, New York - USA, he has managed to create countless milestones in his professional journey.

He has 3 patents filed under his name for the projects he had worked on while his stint at IBM research labs.

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Talking about role models, Pradeep asserts –“Nothing or no one in specific. I usually get motivated by leaders who have built things from scratch, and done it the hard way and the proper way. There are 100s of startups, and many might even be successful in their own yardsticks, but to me, the ones that I regard highly are the ones that built solutions addressing real customer problems, the ones that are built on solid fundamentals and the ones that are run ethically.”

An Expert’s Advice Expressing his thoughts on the budding entrepreneurs, Pradeep feels that people need to understand the fact that a startup journey is not only about flipping money, either for themselves or the investors. “Good businesses are built on solid fundamentals. It is actually important to have a solid product, which solves some real customer problem and/or addresses some unmet need in the market, and it has to be able to fetch revenues and be profitable and sustainable. Technology and other things are just incidental” – explains Pradeep.

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Actionable Insights from Images and Videos

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Having completed his Bachelor’s degree from BITS Pilani, Pradeep did his Masters in Computer Science from Syracuse University – the US. Also, he completed the Ph.D. coursework that he pursued part-time from Columbia University. While heading the engineering team at a Big Data Analytics start-up, Pradeep realized that there weren’t enough solutions in that space to cater to the kind of features that were required while designing a proposal. This market-gap

prompted Pradeep to craft the idea for his startup venture and was supported by an early Angel investment.

The Prototype for Future Since the last few quarters, Drive Analytics has dug deep into solutions in the Mixed Reality (MR) and targeted some niche domains like Sports Coaching, Health and Fitness, Online retail reverse logistics. With innovative solutions in the offering, it aims to disrupt the current business models and the way solutions were being delivered so far. The entity is confident to evolve and be known as a company that is reckoned among the best of breed in a particular category of solutions.

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PRADYUMN JAIN Enabling the Idea of “Cloud Computing & Cyber Security” A True Leader Pradyumn is the one who likes to build teams by giving them a helping hand, on the job training, and creating an environment where team members at all levels are free to express their views and take decisions. He encourages all his team members to hone their skills and improve their own market value. Pradyumn believes in the notion of continuous development and encourages the team follow the same, working closely to support them and leads by example. He lives by the mantra that ‘Nothing is impossible’ and ‘Every problem comes with an opportunity’; one must just choose the best alternative.

The Genesis

Pradyumn Jain Chairman

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eeing my team succeed and gain positive feedback from our customers is what keeps me going.”

–Says Pradyumn Jain, Chairman NetDataVault. It is a global brand of next generation Cloud and SOC Services that are aimed at helping Small and Large Enterprises make their IT Capex-free, productive and revenue generating. It offers innovative cloud services that allow its customers to participate in the Cloud revolution by eliminating complexity, maximizing control, and reducing cost.

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Pradyumn co-founded NetDataVault’s parent company, NGBPS LIMITED in 1993 and has since served as Chairman of the Board of Directors. In 1993, he also co-founded Software Technology Group (STG), a knowledge based solutions provider in the field of software training and consulting. A true leader, he is involved in every aspect of the business. Right from inception to date he has held the record of on boarding the first customer for each line of business himself.

Pradyumn was also a part of the core team of HCL until 1990, following which he went on to setup the telecommunications division of Escorts Limited. Throughout his career, he has founded several start-ups in the IT/ITES and communications sector, serving on their board of directors and taking an active role in guiding the companies.

Moving from a product and solution centric approach to a 100% service organization in 2012 and setting up NetDataVault while exiting the Data Center build space was a big challenge and risk.

The successful execution and a rich customer base is evidence of NetDataVault’s Success.

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Current Industry Scenario

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Hybrid cloud solution is what will continue to drive overall cloud adoption in India and across the world

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Several firms have predicted that the cloud market is bound to grow exponentially by the year 2020. And, thus there is need for business agility and innovation. Many SMBs and large-scale enterprises are adopting cloud solutions as businesses gradually comprehend the complexities of data centers. Today, organizations need solution providers who can actually understand their business requirement and help them in achieving their business goals. This can be a daunting task with the proliferation of an increased number of me-too solution providers in the market that lack the knowledge, skill set and the right technology to ensure a satisfied client.

The Global Brand Today, NetDataVault is a global brand of next-generation Cloud and SOC Services and is successfully serving its clients from various verticals including, the BFSI, NBFC, IT, ITeS, and IoT. It has been able to offer simple solutions to complex requirements, where many multinational and local cloud providers failed. NDV’s Cloud services effectively assist their clients to achieve the desired performance.

Unique Business Model NetDataVault follows a highly customer focused approach, help customers to overcome challenges like security and compliance, cost management and vendor lock-in associated with cloud. It has also taken care of other major factors including reliability, performance, and support. Moreover, the company has built a robust Cloud (IaaS) Platform offering virtual machine instances on its own technology stacks which ensures high performance and maximum reliability for its customers.

The platform is highly secured and has been adopted by many reputed companies across industries like E-Commerce, BFSI and a host of new-age digital businesses.

NetDataVault launched North India’s first ANSI/TIA-942, Tier-3 Certified Data Center in North India in 2012 and the most advanced Cloud Platform in the country. The facility assists large enterprises and small and medium March 2019|

businesses in the areas of hosting, collocation, Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service and Back-up-as-aService. The NetDataVault Cloud Platform was the first IaaS platform developed in India with an orchestration layer and auto scalability. The latest offering from NetDataVault is the AiCyberWatch - Security Operations Center (SOC) as a Service offering which is India’s first AI and ML enabled SOC as a Service Platform. Built in partnership with World Leaders in the field, the platform has already become a popular choice for the BFSI and NBFC sectors.

Future Purposes With an empowered team, NetDataVault is sure to be counted among the top five Cloud and Managed Security Service Providers in India. It is striving to reach this position by 2025. It will continue to launch futuristic and world class solutions in the cloud and support its customers with its unrelenting and uncompromising service support.

Wise Words “Believe in yourself and your dreams. Work towards building your business with 100% commitment and razor-sharp focus. Let your end goal be to help your customers with solutions to their problems and the rest will fall in place.” advises Pradyumn.

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n the present time, one of the buzzwords is ‘startup’.

The world of entrepreneurship has attracted limelight as popular media, and blogs have added colors to the canvas while covering success, failure, and the huge business opportunities.

The Perfect Example of Data-driven Leadership This story is about a young entrepreneur who initially was at crossroads in deciding his professional journey. On the advice of his professors, he decided to take a plunge into the corporate world and experience a new life! Honoring the determination and the zeal to succeed, we showcase the journey of Prashant Kumar, Founder and CEO of PromptCloud – a company that specializes in end-to-end ownership of clean and large-scale web data delivery.

Prashant is an IIT Kanpur alumnus and had joined Yahoo! for a year before he launched his entrepreneurial venture. A passionate technocrat and innovator are the two best-suited words for Prashant as he was never afraid to experiment and fail. Around 2009, he tried to start a venture offering mobile VAS services; however it didn’t go the distance.

While looking for viable ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas, he realized that extracting clean web data in ready-to-use format at large scale was a tiring process. The existing sources were limited and available in a fragmented format. There was a need to have a systematic platform that offers data in a clean, structured, and ready-to-consume format, ensuring the relevance and quality of the data. This was the spark that crafted the roadmap and in 2010, Prashant incepted the company and today, PromptCloud has evolved as a leading cloud-based solution provider for web data catering to wide range of industries and companies.

Decoding the Business Model Elaborating the concept of his startup, Prashant asserts that “Over time, we have built a team of passionate data wizards who absolutely love the freedom internet provides 50

when it comes to information flow and wants to share the same with businesses across the globe.”

Founded in 2010, PromptCloud is a pioneer and global leader in Data-as-a-Service solutions. Currently its big data solutions are enabling some of the biggest names from a range of domains including travel, finance, health-care, marketing, analytics and more. The USP of PromptCloud is dealing with data on a very large scale and being able to provide low latency feeds that are clean and ready to use.

These factors position them as one of the market leaders in this segment.

Adapting to constant changes has been a key success factor for the company. With the exponential growth of data on the web and increasing complexities, the entity is witnessing sharp increase in demand for web data. Owing to this and the brand value, last year it has doubled up its revenue and increased the client base by 1.5 times that includes some of the Fortune 10 companies.

Distinctive Solutions and Diverse Services As the web crawling market continues to get congested by the advent of new players, PromptCloud leads with innovative solutions that act as the biggest differentiator for them. Some of the notable elements have been listed below: End-to-end monitoring: Web sites have dynamic content on their pages, and structure changes quite frequently.

PromptCloud tackles structure changes on the website via sophisticated monitoring system and supports clients until data gets imported into their systems.

Complete Customization: PromptCloud offers completely customizable tech stack that can cater to any type of business requirement irrespective of its complexity. For example, PromptCloud can setup custom crawlers to fetch dynamic rules as inputs in real time to control the data extraction.

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“ “ Large-scale complex crawls: Managing large-scale crawls from websites that use complex technology is one of PromptCloud’s USPs. Also, their solutions are backed by an impeccable customer support team. Embracing technology to the core, the team offers industry-leading data coverage and delivers result by going beyond the SLA. Given below are the flagship solutions offered by PromptCloud:

Prashant Kumar Founder & CEO

Datastock: This solution delivers clean and ready-to-use pre-crawled web datasets that can be instantly downloaded.

Live crawls: These are highly optimized crawls which can fetch data in real-time when the client hits custom-made API for a particular site.

Hosted Indexing: Structured data created from custom crawls is hosted and indexed and exposed to clients via APIs for query.

The Future Journey

Site-specific crawl and extraction: This solution fetches relevant data from the web that gets converted into structured data, and then delivered to clients via API. Data can also be pushed to client’s FTP server, AWS S3, Google Drive or Drop Box accounts.

JobsPikr: As a vertical-specific solution, it extracts job listing data from popular job boards and 1000+ corporate sites daily.

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Prashant holds an optimistic view for the future. He understands that to be on edge of the curve, PromptCloud needs to adapt new technologies regularly and facilitate innovation. As the parting words, Prashant gives a glimpse of his future plans – “For the next 3 years we are looking to strengthen our core technology advantage, increase robustness of our automation techniques using AI and invest in a greater talent pool”.

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Manu Mathew Leading the Robotics Revolution in Unmanned Vehicles through Buteos Aerobotics Corporation

Ethics We primarily focus on 3Ds: DeterminationDirection-Deliver. I believe personally in one thing- I’m not an Optimist or Realist, I’m just an opportunist. Opportunity whether small or big just knocks once, if you have the ability to recognize it, then you need to grab it instantly.

If not, then the old proverb comes into sayingTime and Tide waits for none!

Principle Our core principle is to penetrate, sustain and retain both global and national market in unmanned vehicles through smart robotics in air, land and sea. We are a start-up but with our in-house facilities and renowned advisors on board, we are sure to hit the target.

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Interview with Insights Success

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anu Abraham Mathew - Managing Director shares his success story in how BAC evolved and took shape as the most promising Start Up. Buteos Aerobotics Corporation (BAC) is a Smart Robotics partner with core competencies in air frame technology, avionics, embedded electronics, mechatronics and much more! It is its core mission to unleash the power of technology and innovation into robotic solutions for customers.

Brief us about the Founder/CEO of the company. What kind of ethics, principles and manner of working does he/she observes while running the business?

Buteos Aerobotics Corporation Private Limited or better known as BAC has 3 Founders. Manu Mathew, MD turns out to be the Chief Architect for BAC’s inception, designing and evolution. Bringing in and churning out all Best Practices across the globe, BAC believes in People Value and getting the best out of them. When staffs and are left loose, they absolutely turn out to be TNTs (Transforming New Technologies) in business. I had done an intensive hiring to churn out the right employees who possessed the right technical expertise in all the areas of air, land and sea; this made us outstanding from others.

Our working mannerism is simple, being a niche market; we understand and carefully listen to the requirements and then help design wonderful machines to deal with the requirements and needs of our customers. It’s the same principle that we apply as in a Doctor to a Patient. We understand the exact problem and resolve it with a perfect solution.

Share with us the accomplishments and achievements of him/her and the company’s achievements under her leadership. · Named as No# 2 top drone-uav start-ups in India · Unlike all the others, BAC is an exemption- Its completely Indigenous under Make in India banner without any foreign JV or ToT (Transfer of Technology) · Cover story of BAC covered by tycoonstory which is world’s biggest US based media. · Only known company in India and in South East Asia as OEM & Supplier for Unmanned Vehicles in Air, Land & Sea · Again the only company who provides Anti drone systems to bring down rogue/ unauthorized drones in India March 2019|

· Bring in professional Advisors to Board for commercial, operations, strategy and international business guidance.

Company is on its way to appoint few other International and National recognized VIP professionals as its Advisors to Board for enlargement of business and its reach. · Bring in 4 renowned chief scientists of India as Advisors to Board who are the backbone of all technical developments · Within 32 days of inception, BAC was short listed and confirmed for a UAV deal with a country in South East Asia. · Currently we are having 8 pipeline businesses (5 International and 3 national) which is about to mature in black and white · BAC’s credibility in technical development + its market reach paralely expanding in India and abroad has created high interests among the Investors. Company is shortlisting its potential investors and about to close its prospective investments by Q2 of ’19 · Company is on the final verge of closing its JV with an International Partner for Joint Production for Armored Vehicles in India.

Please tell us about the business model you follow and the services you provide that makes the brand unique in the mid of cut throat competition.

We do have a saying that Business happens only when your contacts and networks sync perfectly creating the perfect harmony. Company focused on bringing in immediate revenue through this model and then focus on what could be achieved later. It’s better to eat what’s on our plate first before ordering or looking out for other options. Prior to Civil Aviation opening up commercial activities in various countries, this part of the business was focused within the Defense segment. With the proper strategy in place, company was able to nail its target in no time. With recent changes and commercial sectors opening up, it’s always then easy to capture and pave way through with the existing credibility and technical + brand recognition. Focus on what is immediate and then spread out on all four directions both inwards and outwards helped company to diversify amongst its competition. During these periods, we have paved and mastered our presence both nationally and internationally. How we sustained? It was through a perfect techno-commercial combo and committing to our deliverance.

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Manu Abraham Mathew Managing Director

It was quite a struggle and fascination at the same time, I should call it sweet and sour, whether to start a business in the drone market as it was heavily niche and considered as a restricted product. I did not allow my passion and enthusiasm to get subsided or controlled by fear. I decide to focus on the opportunity in hand and with the passion in heart. Finally I decided to burn my risks instead and follow my passion.

Advise for the budding entrepreneurs who are trying to embark in the same field.

My only humble advice is- Chase your Dreams, Never let fear take control. The only difference between reality and accomplishments are Dreams.

What is the one thing that is acting as your motivational tool? Or, who is your role model and how the person inspires and motivates you?

State us about the most memorable and remarkable moments of your life.

On my professional and personal front- I’m living in my best moments now. Everyday seems to be new and fascinating. One thing is that there are lots of changes in life, some minor while others major. But in the end all these bring us towards a point- OUR GOAL. I’m not a person who earmarks memorable, remarkable or any other circumstances. I cherish each and every moment in life everyday knowing that this too will pass and nothing is constant. Hence do your best at all times helps in a continuous growth. There is no sit back and relax then.

Where do you see yourself and the company in future?

Or, what is your goal to mark the uniqueness in future?

I see myself running around back of technology till they chase and unwind me. As in for my child (BAC), my plan and aim is to make sure that it emerges as a global leader constructively and retain the markets with the values and principles we have come up with. We do not believe in destructive purposes through any of our products. Hope this doesn’t change as we move into the future.

Kindly tell us about the most daring challenge you took and the risk associated with it.

My motivational phrase is- Do what you need to do and allow God what He needs to do. If you start doing both, you will end up nowhere and if you don’t end up doing both, you will as well end up nowhere. Learn the balancing act in how to Trust, Do and let it go. In the end what you need to do is only what you need to do. God works out things magnificently in His right time. I’m extremely grateful to my co-founder, K M Mathew, for standing by me and supporting indefinitely and to my family members for willfully encouraging me at all times.

Share your views on the current business scenario in India.

India is revolutionizing and on its way to emerge as a Super Power in Technology. With the present concept of Data is King, India needs to secure and fasten its businesses by depending less externally and nourishing/ growing within.

But inorder to flawlessly achieve that India should focus on privatizing every sectors to enrich her growth in a nonmonopolistic manner, allow Foreign Businesses and Investments through local partners, nullifying Banking or NBFC Irregularities, Investor- Investment Attractive Schemes, Promotions for Innovations and Fundings and the like. There should be an equilibrium set to enhance and uplift the businesses so that it purely focuses into maximizing profits and services. This will enable a perfect harmony on the economy without any disparities.

One of the riskiest challenges was during its inception itself while discussing about the creation and formation of BAC. 54

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A leading sales consulting firm in the Indian marketplace enabling Indian businesses to compete in the global marketplace

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Priya Sachdev

Sales Director - APAC Region

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n brave new 21st century India, women have taken giant strides in walking side by side, even at times ahead of men in every avenue of life. We cannot escape the fact that Indian society is mostly patriarchal, and women have an uphill task, proving themselves at anything.

However, with globalization and access to education in cities, many women have been able to access opportunities that would not have been available a few decades ago.

Priya Sachdev – Sales Director, Miller Heiman Group is one such courageous woman, who has no qualms and the intelligence to grab a good opportunity by the horns.

An Ingenious mind Priya has been a sales practitioner from the start of her career, which spans two decades across industries and geographies. She has seen the corporate world evolve, and had the ingenuity to evolve with it. Priya aligned with the global sales leader, Miller Heiman Group in 2008, and became the face of this brand in India. Her journey with Miller Heiman meandered from early adopter to consultant, moving on to entrepreneur and now Sales Director for the brand in the Indian subcontinent. She actively represents the group on various online and offline platforms. Priya straddled her deep-rooted feminism with her sales expertise by launching the Indian chapter of the Women in Sales Awards in 2015.

Priya is a straight -talking, transparent leader with a trademark low power-distance persona. Her robust sales experiences and approachable, easy friendliness make it easy for her to engage with senior leaders as well as frontline executives. As a consultant, she uses her intellectual curiosity to explore the businesses that she consults for and is able to challenge standard thinking to enable transformation and top-down goal alignment. Priya has successfully delivered more than 150 projects for the Miller Heiman group in India. These projects have been with leading brands and have impacted their business results positively and tangibly.

The Spark that Keeps her Passion Ignited Unveiling her motivational mantra – “I believe in the ovarian lottery and the fact any privileges that I have are for a reason. I want to be sure that I have lived my life to justify its purpose”.

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Priya has a contagious positivity around her. When asked about this, she says that she approaches each day as a new beginning. She also finds motivation in hard working and positive people around her, especially those that were not born into privilege, and persevered to overcome obstacles and achieved lofty goals. Talking about the most remarkable moments of her life, Priya asserts that “The ability to create and elevate the strategic importance of sales is the key driver of all the work that I do. Every project where we are able to create sustainable behavioral change in the sales professionals that gets them success in their career aspirations is a memorable project”.

Of the numerous projects that she has completed, she mentions two recent projects that hold a special relevance in her life. In one project, they enabled the pre-sales function to define their sales processes and set up a small but strategic team for success. In another, they partnered with a large IT services organization to create effective large account management processes and win wallet share with their key accounts.

A Piece of Advice Priya acknowledges that Consulting services are the need of the hour and has a low entry barrier that makes it an easy career option. However, she urges entrepreneurs to think through their strategy and positioning as they get into the Consulting and Training businesses. Equating the role of a consultant in a business to a doctor saving lives, she advises budding entrepreneurs to decide if they are passionate enough to make a noticeable difference to someone’s career, and also to be ready for a lot of hardwork.

The Proposition for the Future Priya holds a very optimistic view about the current market scenario and a positive outlook on how the future is going to shape up the business. She emphasizes the need to embrace systems and processes along with investing in learning and unlearning as the answers to future challenges.

Priya is confident that the future of sales will be driven by digitalization and technologies like AI. With an eye on the future, she hopes that sales organizations will invest in evaluating their current sales systems, methodologies and processes, and most importantly, nurturing their sales talent to be future-ready.

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Everything You Ever Wanted

Yashu Jain

Managing Director

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March 2019|

Interview with Insights Success

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ow did your company’s journey as a preeminent brand begin? What was the underlying bedrock idea behind incorporating the company?

MATTLOOK Cosmetics, a subsidiary of Little Profit Trading Company, was formed in 2017. It is a brainchild of my father Sonal Jain, and I have joined along in his endeavour. Also our family has been into the cosmetics business for over 35 years, and with MATTLOOK we are taking the baton forward keeping abreast with the new fashion trends and evolving needs.

MATTLOOK endeavours to transform the concept of cosmetic picking from high end and expensive brands. The brand endeavours to bridge the gap for the middle class people for whom luxury cosmetics are aspirational brands.

With MATTLOOK women now have access to quality and trending cosmetic products.

What are the key aspects that demonstrate uniqueness of the company?

With the rapid change in market segmentation, MATTLOOK is focused on product innovations and at par quality but striking a perfect product price balance and without compromising on quality so that everybody has an access to quality fashion; also in the recent past the brand has been successful in changing the concept of buying cosmetics from expensive brands. With MATTLOOK women now have access to quality and in vogue products.

Tell us about yourself as a person, your educational background and as an entrepreneur. How do you use your skills to run your company above and beyond your competitors?

I have done B.sc honors from Hans Raj College, Delhi University. The cosmetic market is all about chemicals hence it is great to apply my learning at my own world at Mattlook! Also this sector is not new to me. My family has been into this for over 35 years hence it is also natural. My skill sets, background and the business acumen helps me keep ahead of the competitors.

How do you see your entrepreneurial journey till date?

Could you name a person/mentor/book/ who has had a tremendous impact on your entrepreneurial journey?

My entrepreneurial journey has been a learning curve. It has been a challenging one at the same time. My father, Mr. Sonal Jain is my mentor and immensely influences me and my work ethics. I have my work principles and vision intact.

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What is the biggest risk you have ever taken? What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?

Whatever I am doing is primarily based on the market demand and need hence there is no risk factor as such.

To what do you attribute your success? What motivates you at difficult/down times?

Again it’s my father Mr. Sonal Jain. He is behind my success and keeps motivated even at down times.

How would you describe your entrepreneurial skill in a sentence? What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?

I am a very dynamic person. The favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur is that you apply your learning’s while you learn!

What would you advice to your fellow peers to successfully carry their work functionalities? How do you encourage creative thinking in your organization?

It is not the typical conventional or bureaucratic culture at Mattlook rather it is more result driven. The working culture follows international corporate standards. Every employee has the independence to work with full creativity and can put forth their independent view point. We are proud that we are a flat organisation, that is, we do not believe in the hierarchy model. We give people their own space to work and they can apply their own creative aspects.

Is there any book or movie you would like to recommend to the budding entrepreneurs? What advice would you like to give them?

I believe there is nothing better than experience. Only that can be your guide and way ahead! Be a hard worker but a smart one too.

What measures do you take to ensure to grow and develop as an entrepreneur every day? How do you see yourself growing in the next five years?

I keep pace with the trend. There is no business model I replicate AS I believe that situation, trend, demand and your understanding shapes the growth. So far I have managed well and over the next five years I surely see myself along with the team at Mattlook growing!

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UDAY ZOKARKAR A MEDIA, MARKETING AND BUSINESS ARTICULATOR

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eadership often varies in form and technique, but a leader’s influence remains unparalleled. Behind every successful business, there is a leader who put forward his visionary concepts into actions. Strong leadership is about lifting the company’s vision to high sights, raising performance to higher standard and building organization beyond its normal limitations.

Leadership is the belief that people can make a positive difference in the world for customers, colleagues, and the organization. One such inspiring leader is Uday Zokarkar who believes in co-creating value on a sustainable basis and making a positive difference.

Fascinated by Media and its characteristics, Uday has worked on the business side of media for more than two decades. In December 2008; he founded Mantra Media Pvt. Ltd which is leading digital business company that provides end to end solutions leveraging the Internet and Mobile Media platform. It focuses on leveraging the strength of this New Age Medium while integrating it with traditional media such as Print & Broadcast.

company at the rate of 100% plus on yearly basis. He spearheaded the project of BharatMatrimony Centers to set up 110 brick and mortar centers within a period of one year.

In the US, he co-founded Mantram Magazine, a business, technology and lifestyle magazine targeting the South Asians in America. “Launching a Business, Technology and Lifestyle magazine in the US in record time was a very interesting and challenging assignment”, says Uday.

“Establishing “Mantram as one of the most respected Brands in its relevant target segment was a success at that time”, asserts Uday.

He also acquired exclusive rights of advertising of the highly sensational India – Pakistan Cricket- Series for the US market, when Team India visited Pakistan in the year 2004. Uday also has worked with the Times of India Group (India’s largest media conglomerate) in M.P. the market as Response Head.

About Mantra Media and Core Areas of Works

Making Splash in the Business World Before founding Mantra Media, Uday gave his fruitful contribution to various reputed companies. Uday worked with Consim Info Pvt. Ltd. (brands such as BharatMatrimony.com and Clickjobs.com) for three and half years. During his stint with the company and as a part of the senior management team, Consim went through two rounds of VC funding and secured almost USD 20 million from Yahoo Inc., Canaan Partners and Mayfield Inc. of USA.

Mantra Media works with its clients to reach out to their relevant target audiences and helps them to monetize Business Strategies and online business models. The company offers Digital Marketing Solutions, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Web Solutions including Website Designing and Development, Social Media Marketing, Internet Business Consulting and much more. Mantra Media has developed India’s first virtual property fair for CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India, formerly PBAP) Pune.

As a Business Head of BharatMatrimony.com, he aggressively worked on growing the revenues of the 64

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It’s the people in the organization that makes the difference

Mantra Media works with companies on the following aspects a) Digital Business Strategy b) Designing Digital Revenue Models c) Digital Transformation of the Organization d) ROI and P & L for Digital Initiatives e) Digital Media Promotion and Strategy f) Product Development like Customized CRM g) Start-ups and/or Early Stage Companies h) Social Media Management and Promotion Mantra Media has been working with clients across India, USA, Canada, UK and other International markets. Under the leadership of Uday, Mantra Media is working with some of the top brands as well as startups in India. The deliverables from Mantra Media are measureable in terms of ROI and Profit & Loss, and this is what separates the Mantra from the competitors.

Some Valuable Insights from Uday’s Desk Uday believes that it’s the ‘People’ in any organization that makes the difference. “Competition can catch up with you in any area of business but the only differentiating factor is going to be - the people, as competition cannot have the same set of people”, says Uday. While working with his clients, he believes in sitting and working along the side and not on the other side of the table, thereby demonstrating the ownership of tasks and strategy.

The challenge of handling or doing something new keeps Uday motivated all the time. “Any challenges for my clients motivate me to find effective solutions”, says Uday.

Uday believes that that idea may come from anyone or from anywhere. “Ideas are not monopolies, so experiment March 2019|

Uday Zokarkar Founder & CEO

and give it a try. It’s all about Possibilities”, adds Uday.

Chanakya and Swami Vivekananda inspire him in many ways. “Both were futuristic and had higher goals. One is known for Strategy and other for Spirituality, says Uday” Words with Wisdom If budding entrepreneurs were to take a leaf out of Uday’s life, what would it be? Keep innovating; keep delivering value so that people or market will follow you. Uday advices to budding entrepreneurs, “Once you have identified an opportunity or solution to a problem, just get going and just do it. At the end, it is all about Possibilities. You may hear from many that it will not work or it’s a bad idea. But, you just continue with your conviction and passion and keep working on it” Future Filled with Success Mantra Media will continue to work with Start-ups, Early Stage Companies, and Brands and Companies who are looking to grow their Revenue or Value-Pie by using Digital Business Strategy. “We see ourselves continue to ‘Co-Create Value’ for our clients and contribute to their growth and make a positive difference”, says Uday.

Mantra Media aspires to work with its clients and create another Billion Dollar Brand or company that can make a huge impact in its relevant market segment. Mantra Media has done this before and will continue to work towards it.

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I

nformation Technology sector is a field that undergoes rapid evolution with changing the shape of Indian business Standards. Today there’s a boom in the IT industry in India where Indian professionals have showcased their expertise and insight at the highest level.

The rise of IT and ITES sector has transformed the outlook of the global IT fraternity to set the right trajectory of growth regarding employment and contribution to the digital economy. IT companies continue to diversify their offerings and showcase their proficiency in managing complex IT solutions at every instance. They have managed to attract significant investors globally to provide valuable insights and views. Studies reveal that India’s IT & ITES industry grew up to 167 billion USD in 2017-18.

Information Technology as a differentiator is the phenomenon of yesteryears. We are living in the World of Gen Z and technology-led all-round disruptions, where Gen X and Gen Y have to be an integral part of the journey.

Technology-led disruptions are making the businesses to rethink & revisit their Business Model, Go-To-Market Strategy, Customer Engagement & Experience, and new concepts like learnability. Startups are giving new thinking to establish age-old businesses. SMEs are the growth engine that focuses on reach, employment, and going global.

The leading multinational Indian giants along with numerous new players have successfully managed to create their niche market at global level. They have played a pivotal role in cementing India at the global platform and in dominating the IT sector. However, it’s the charisma and business acumen of the proficient leaders who have emerged as the real game-changers with changing the dynamics of the market. By mastering the art of

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organizational transformation, today’s IT leaders are embracing innovation as never before!

In such interesting and exciting times, here is an extract from a conversation with Vipul Thakkar.

The Exceptional Journey of an Entrepreneur In this edition, we present the remarkable journey of Vipul Thakkar – Chairman & Managing Director of Silver Touch Technologies Ltd. who has taken the organization to new heights by his sheer passion, dedication, and devotion.

Vipul can be best described as an entrepreneur by choice and a technocrat by heart! As a keen observer of technology trends and results, he has developed an incredible foresightedness about new developments in technology which has helped him to bring the company to its current level of performance and scale.

Vipul is a real technology leader who has always encouraged young talent. A first generation entrepreneur started his venture at an early age, he has experienced and successfully managed to see through all the phases of business. He founded Silver Touch with a commitment to transform organizations digitally with innovative and sustainable next-generation IT solutions that deliver value to the business. As a tenacious professional with more than twenty-three years of experience in IT, he has amassed immense knowledge and understanding of the Digital India and Digital solutions.

The Inception Saga - Rising to the Occasion Silver Touch Technologies (NSE: SILVERTUC), was established in 1995 as a global IT Solution Provider and Software Services and Development Company, accredited

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with CMMI level 5, ISO 27001, ISO 20000 and ISO 9001.

Silver Touch has carried out several domestic and international joint ventures that have enabled the company to expand its geographical reach and create diverse clientele across domains, technologies, and different geographies including the USA and the UK regions.

With a vision to deliver IT solutions and by keeping the pace with ever-changing techno-business scenario in the market, the company caters reputed Indian as well as global clients. Branding itself as a complete Solution Provider©, it delivers end-to-end digital solutions under single umbrella across the world.

Multi-Faceted Excellence “We choose Digital Transformation as the best way that every organization is aspiring and adopting the same” Silver Touch has a rich pool of human capital, optimized processes, and state-of-the-art-technologies to deliver the best breed of Digital Solutions to help its customers transform in the best possible way. It has a PAN-India Presence and own subsidiaries in USA and UK to cater offshore client’s needs. It has also achieved strategic empanelment with Government of India’s GeM, NIC, NICSI & various State Governments to promote and explore the implementation by making use of new technologies.

“

If we analyze today’s competitive and disruptive world, then Vipul asserts that adapting is the foremost way to stay relevant in the market as it signifies the modern day’s 360-degree change. By offering innovative solutions in the areas of Software Development, ERP Implementation, System Integration, Business Consulting, Enterprise Mobility Solutions, and E-Governance Solutions, these firms have grabbed the eyeballs of the Indian IT fraternity.

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Matching the Global Footprints Vipul truly believes in the ideology of adapting the changes with the requirement of modern technological environment. This helps him to track on the latest technologies, industry segments and market trends in the digital solutions market by keeping the pace along with ecosystem players like IBM, Oracle, SAP, Dell, VMware, Amazon, CISCO, etc. He continuously focuses on the further enhancement of the digital platforms and portfolios, building industry and technology frameworks and staying tuned with the emerging technologies. He further adds that by adopting emerging technologies like Blockchain, AI, ML, Big Data, and Analytics will assist its customers to explore digital disruption and to have a game-changing insight.

Future Prospects Leading a workforce of 1400+ IT professionals, Vipul acknowledges the need for the organic growth of the organization. He takes pride in stating that the company has grown over thirty-five percent in last financial year and is expecting similar growth in this fiscal year. He states that the company is poised to strengthen itself in the areas related to Government & PSU solutions, Cloud Technologies, Product Engineering Services, ERP & Consulting services. It also has a structured plan to fortify its presence across PAN India and has further expansions plans in USA and UK. Silver Touch will be looking at strategic tie-ups, acquisition in ERP and cloud software area. It is currently working on a few product development areas based on emerging technologies to expand the product offerings shortly with significant revenue growth.

Silver Touch Technologies Ltd. listed on NSE Emerge on 1st Dec. 2017.

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March 2019|

A GUIDE TO STAY CALM AND FOCUSED IN THE LOWEST OR TURBULENT PHASE OF BUSINESS

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n physics escape velocity is the minimum speed needed for a free object to escape from the gravitational influence of a massive body. The gravitational influence in my case was my salary and career goodwill that I would leave behind. As Naseem Taleb says, “the three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates and a monthly salary.”

It took a lot of effort and circumstances for me to escape from the gravitational pull of my “salaried” planet. By all external parameters I was a success. I was doing extremely well with a reputed PE fund and was soon to be made country head for India. And that’s the point I chose to walk away to move to public equity investing. There was something within me that told me that this was the right move. But this was a very difficult phase in my investing career.

I had all the necessary foundation - a good educational back ground (Rank holding CA and MBA from ISB), experience of having worked with the best investors and seen the best of the bull run between 2003-08 and then saw the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-09 up close and personal. I had navigated, thrived and survived these events.

However, I still didn’t have my own investing philosophy which was suitable for my personality. I used the unstructured time to conduct research on all styles of investing and trading. I had to do this in real time. I had to pay the bills and experiment with my capital.

Same goal, different roads “Learn everything that is good from others, but being it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become others” – Swami Vivekananda

The right time is whenever you decide Once the pull of the gravity and structured and protected environment was no longer there, I was free to float like an astronaut in outer space in an unstructured and boundaryless world. I had to build my Career v2.0. While it was liberating, it also scared me. I had to first understand what building blocks were available to me and which were the ones I didn’t have.

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Among the 150+ books that I read the most influential for me was Market Wizards series by Jack Schwager. Every market wizard had their own path to reach success. Each one of them had some commonalities but the specifics of their journey were different. The goal was the same.

Success as an investor or trader. The message from each one of them was the same: There is no one path in the

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EXPERT’S NOTE market. But there are certain common principles that one can follow to build one’s own guiding philosophy.

Simple insight, deep impact After a couple of years of experimenting the plan in my head started getting crystallized. But execution in real time was not an easy task.

I had an epiphany when I analyzed my own portfolio from the day I started investing in 1999 to the year 2011. And some simple risk management was all that was missing. As a fundamental investor I had a good record of identifying and buying stocks that did well. But I had no idea when to sell either winners or losers. And that was the big lacunae in my investing tool box. I needed some frame work to address this issue. I researched on the various methods each market wizard had described and ultimate through trial and error and back-testing I found one which was suitable for my investing style and personality.

One big idea Once I had done my research and covered the wide breadth of what was out there, it was time to start chipping away and drop what was not important. Like a sculptor, I carved out my investing philosophy and execution plan from the block that I had made and after four years emerged QED Capital and our flagship investing program – AlphaBets.

The idea was simple: build a like minded group of investors who understood and believed in my investment philosophy.

All my planning and decision making is now centered around this one idea.

So I would tell those wanting to start their own venture, it is not easy but if so many before us have done it, so can we.

Have a mentor or guide and a philosophy which will be your guiding light. There are major lows and times of loneliness, but when you succeed all that is forgotten.

Always remember this too shall pass.

So apart from the above my key learnings which I go back to time and again are: • Everyone’s journey will be different but the problems that one encounters are similar. If they got past that, so will you.

• Have one big idea and then execute with discipline around it. Nothing that is worthwhile is ever easy. Whenever, I feel distracted with some other big idea, I come back to this thought. What was my one big idea and is this taking me towards that?

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Anish Teli Managing Partner

ABOUT THE AUTHOR As the Managing Partner of QED Capital Advisors LLP, Anish Teli is a Chartered Accountant and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He has been associated with ICICI Venture and Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia in the past managing senior level position.

• Practice equanimity: Try to treat success and failure the same. They both don’t last.

• Have a hobby and practice it regularly: Work tends to become an identity for most of us. However, it is important not to be unidimensional.

• Spend time with family: Every successful investor I have met or read about has stressed on this point. Work is part of your life and not life itself. Don’t ignore your family or friends • Have a supportive peer group: Surround yourself with people whom you respect professionally and/or personally and use them as a sounding board.

• Attitude: You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it.

So, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, if you can keep your balance and equanimity in good times and bad, that will stand you in good stead in life.

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