Leveraging expertise to plan growth
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When you have an exciting product in a burgeoning market, everything points towards good growth prospects. But the best of companies and teams sometimes requires an extra helping hand, an additional thinking brain. Such was the case with Saigun Technologies, which was growing well but perhaps not to its complete potential. So Tushar Bhatia, Founder and President, turned to NASSCOM’s mentorship program, which helped him shape his strategies and give direction to his growth path.
Saigun Technologies has traveled quite a bit. Started in Chicago in 1998, the company was shifted to India and registered as an Indian company in 2002. Over the last seven years, it has evolved, moving from being a regular software services provider to a product-focused company. At some point in its growth story, the management team realized that Saigun could leverage the tremendous expertise it had in the area of HR automation. From this was born EmpXtrack, Saigun’s flagship product which fully automates the HR function in an organization.
“We grew well initially and signed some reasonably big projects. A successful implementation at Honeywell won us a lot of appreciation and kudos, giving us the confidence that we were doing something right,” says Tushar Bhatia, Founder and President, Saigun Technologies.
And yet, Saigun decided to opt for the NASSCOM mentorship program. “Despite things going well, there were many unanswered questions in my mind,” says Bhatia. “Every entrepreneur goes through tremendous self-doubt – I was plagued with questions such as do I over-invest or under- invest? How do I target a particular geography? How do I build an effective channel partnership? Do I go after VCs or to a bank to fuel my growth? These questions can only be answered by people who are experts and have been in the field for a good number of years.”
Saigun had a good product and was operating in a market with tremendous potential. However, it lacked global experience and a structured growth plan. Being mentored would allow the company to leverage the collective experience of a team of visionaries who could show Bhatia the options that were available to him and help him make his decisions.
Saigun participated in the mentorship program over a period of six months. Each monthly meeting started with a recapitulation of progress made and analysis of the current scenario, before moving onto next steps and plan for the month. Mentors were also available individually over the telephone on a weekly, or sometimes even a bi-weekly, basis. “Despite being senior-level and busy people, I was impressed to see that the mentors took the time out to advise and guide us. Often when a challenge arose, I would pick up the phone and call one of them and they were never too tied-up to help me out,” explains Bhatia.
The mentoring team studied Saigun Technologies in depth and gained an excellent understanding of the issues to be resolved. Bhatia’s major concern was how he could use all the data available with the company to predict the future. “One of the mentors emphasized the importance of numbers. He told us that we need to go deeper and deeper into numbers till they start forming pictures, and these pictures will lead to predictability,” reveals Bhatia.
Accordingly, the mentoring team and the organization focused intensively on finance, with the mentors analyzing the balance sheet and advising Saigun on areas of high risk, areas where more capital was needed, etc. Another area of weakness that received close attention was channel building and management. Bhatia and his team did not know how to build effective relationships with partners, especially in Middle East and Africa. Which would be the best route to adopt – hiring a sales person, tying up with a local partner? One of the mentors had significant expertise in this area and taught them the art of expanding reach using the skills of non-employees.
Over the course of the program, the mentors made many recommendations to Saigun, some of which were in line with the growth plans of the company, and others not. “Initially, the tendency is to resist some of the recommendations since it goes against our thought-out plan of growth,” admits Bhatia. “But a mentor-mentee relationship is essentially about trust. So over a period of time we internalized their suggestions, and even if we do not implement them as is, we have culled out enough advice to tweak our strategies and plans.”
“The value add of the mentorship program really lies in the tremendous amount of expertise and insight these senior-level people bring to organizational issues,” continues Bhatia. “They have been there and done that, many times over!” Accordingly, Saigun benefited from expert advice on different fronts – financial, relationship-building and raising capital. More than anything else, the company has become far more aggressive on the sales front, and has clarified its objectives and growth strategy. “It broadened my avenues of thinking,” says Bhatia. “I was not thinking alone anymore, there was a whole team thinking with me.”
And the results are there for all to see. Since the conclusion of the mentorship program, Saigun has grown rapidly; doubling its revenues, decreasing its operating expenses and increasing its sales force headcount from 6 to 17. Profits have increased by 600% and the customer base had increased to 75+, with more than 400 leads generated per month. EmpXtrack has been recognized by CNN Money as leading HR software for small businesses.
Bhatia is a satisfied and grateful man today – not only does he recommend this program to other companies in similar circumstances, he claims that he would go through it again if he had the option! “At some point in the program, the mentors knew as much about my company as I did! They were as excited as I was, and discussions were animated and motivating,” he exclaims. “I had implicit faith in my mentors and that’s what made the program work for us!”
Contributed by Kritika Srinivasan, Prayag Consulting for the NASSCOM EMERGE newsletter.
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