The Company Culture Is More Relatable To Millennials: Anshul Jain & Balesh Lakshminarayanan
Founded by ex-Infoscions Anshul Jain and Balesh Lakshminarayanan in June 2011, Hyderabad-based ABSYZ Software Consulting is today one of the fastest growing partners in the Salesforce.com ecosystem, having registered with it in 2014. A platinum partner, ABSYZ is among the few that cater solely to Salesforce services. The two founders who hold 11 salesforce.com certifications between them, are very selective in their recruitment process preferring candidates who are highly techno-functional developers and proficient in multitasking. With offices in Hyderabad and Bangalore, ABSYZ today has 130-plus certified consulting team, and is growing at 80 per cent year on year. “When we started there were just two people with an idea and a dream to make it big. From there to a 120-plus employee company was possible only because a lot of people had the utmost trust in us and we improved our processes on the way,” says Lakshminarayanan, the CTO.
On the importance of people and profits
Both are important to the organisation. If we don’t take care of people, there will not be any growth or profits and without profits an organisation cannot sustain. The key is to balance and map corporate governance and shareholder requirements vis-a-vis employee aspirations. If everyone is aligned and aiming towards the same goals, things become easier.
On what makes ABSYZ a great place to work
We are a top-down tech company and the management layer is very lean. The culture is more relatable to millennials. This also essentially means that there is very little power distance and communication between layers is faster and easier. We also have a deep focus on Salesforce.com as a technology platform and it has helped us in creating one of the best technical teams catering to global customers in this space.
On the company’s evolution
When we started there were just two people with an idea and a dream to make it big. Our first offer letter sent to our Head of Delivery had a typo error. From there to a 120-plus-employee company was possible only because a lot of people had the utmost trust in us and we improved our processes on the way. Both Anshul and I (Balesh) are proud ex-Infoscions and believe in a strong process-oriented approach. One of the first things we did was to put policies and tools in place, even when we were just a few associates. This helped us scale rapidly later.
On people philosophy
Our people philosophy or for that matter organisation philosophy boils down to five core values: credibility, integrity, innovation, customer experience and passion and courage to experiment. When in doubt we ask people to reflect back on these values.
On the company’s brand identity
We want to be known as the go-to team for Salesforce.com consulting and implementation. We are the architects as well as the firefighters when it comes to Salesforce.com.
On the company’s road map
With the latest funding round, we are now part of a larger family — Youngsoft Inc which is a 23-year-old Michigan-based IT consulting company. This immediately takes us to a 500-plus-strong global workforce with deep access to the US and global market. We are very confident that we would be able to leverage the synergies to grow faster.
On managing people issues
There are multiple ways in which people’s issues are managed and resolved. Training and keeping people up to date is the key. Being accessible and having a specific point of contact is also key to issue resolutions. Also giving employees the confidence that the management has their back is critical. We also have strong processes for a company of our size. There is a intranet portal for employee management. Internal issues or external customer specific issues are managed quickly by having the right escalation matrix set. Informal WhatsApp groups also help in managing a lot of issues related to events, coordination, transitions, etc.
Example: A typical scenario we face is related to long vacations for critical employees. Knowing the plan well in advance helps the managers to allocate backups in time and inform the customers as well. It is not uncommon in ABSYZ for people plan to vacations 5-6 months in advance.
