Case Study: Happiest Minds
Background
An enterpriser named Shri Ashok Soota formed a new concern venture called “Happiest Minds Technologies Private Limited” . Soota had a vision for this company to go a full service house with a planetary presence. The company was launched on August 29, 2011 with the aid of a squad of experts form the IT industry. This entrepreneurial start-up wasn’t an easy venture at first, but Soota had a assortment of experience and leading functions from his calling life.
Shri Soota was born in Pakistan and finally moved to India during his childhood. His household moved around a batch since his male parent was an ground forces physician, so much that Soota attended 12 schools by the clip he was 12 old ages old. Traveling about throughout his life made a immense impact on him as an international enterpriser by larning to accommodate and be flexible, larning rapidly, and doing connexions with people from different civilizations. He attended Roorkee Engineering College and started out analyzing civil technology but subsequently switched to electrical technology. Soota gained a batch of experience through his different occupations, but one of his most hearty achievement was going CEO of DCM company. He worked for DCM for around twenty old ages traveling head-on with many challenges and enjoyed it. Soota wholly turned the company about and set them on the right path doing them profitable. However, after making success in the company Soota lost involvement and wanted to travel on to bigger and better things. During his clip at DCM he did inscribe for his MBA at the Asian Institute of Management in 1973.
The following measure in Soota’s calling led him into the IT sector by fall ining a little IT company “Wipro Infotech” . With the aid of other executives, he turned the company into a planetary IT service company. He spent around 15 old ages being president of the company and truly had a batch of freedom until the president stepped in when the company was acquiring excessively big. Soota said “There was no negativity—just a desire for alteration and a desire to allow them happen a new way without me and for me to happen a new destiny” . This alteration led him to co-founding MindTree an Indian IT company and took leading for around 11 old ages before he resigned. He ne’er truly expressed as to why he resigned, but people guess it was because of sadness from his deficiency of freedom in the company.
Soota so went on to organize the company Happiest Minds. The first office is located Bengaluru, India and was originally 55,000 square pess. The Bengaluru location is now their official central office for the company. His end for this new company was to accomplish one-hundred million dollars’ worth of gross revenues within five old ages of operating. Within three months of the company’s startup, Soota opened up the first international office in Seattle on November 21, 2011. This market entry truly showed the company’s hazard taking abilities and action doing the company a success. They expect this Seattle office to play a immense function in their company’s growing. As of today they have clients in the USA, UK, and India giving to the company a significant sum of concern.
Happiest Minds mission, which is fundamentally stated in the company name, is to make the happiest people and happiest clients. This “Happiest Minds” doctrine besides takes topographic point in their organisational civilization intending the happiest employees make happy clients. Their mission is a changeless reminder of why they created the company and they implement their scheme through their civilization and employees. Most companies merely want to fulfill their clients by run intoing their demands, but Happiest Minds wants to travel above and beyond that bound and really do their clients happy. They value an unfastened civilization where employees can make and detect their possible through their work experience. The acronym “SMILES” represents the company’s nucleus values and what they stand for ( Sharing, Mindful, Integrity, Learning, Excellence, and Social Responsibility ) . Happiest Minds believe that it’s the company’s duty to make and supply conditions to do their employees happy. They rely on the “7 C’s” which are civilization, credibleness, coaction, part, pick, community, and communicating.
Recently, laminitis and CEO, Ashok Soota, of Happiest Minds was named as one of the 12 IT Gems of India at INFOCOM in 2013. The award was presented due to Soota’s parts to the IT industry- “for his vision, creativeness, concern acumen and engineering to take India towards its higher end in the field of information technology” ( HappiestMinds ) .
The Competitive IT Industry
The information engineering service industry has exploded since the mid-1990s and has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Competition in the information engineering industry is ferocious for Happiest Minds with tonss of established and new venture companies. Entire sum of grosss earned in the information engineering service industry surpasses $ 400 billion. The biggest rival for Happiest Minds is the world-renowned IBM Corporation, which is the top IT service company in the universe. IBM is a dominant power in the industry with a 2.6 billion dollar spread between itself and the following top IT service company, Hewlett-Packard. IBM besides compiled impressive entire gross of $ 700 billion dollars, which was 16 % of entire grosss earned by the top 100 IT service companies. With Happiest Minds being founded and created in India poses the house a great trade of rivals straight in its domestic market. The figure one rated information engineering company in India ( 2012 ) was Tata Consulting Services ( TCS ) . Tata Consultant Services had grosss over USD $ 10 billion and net incomes over $ 2.2 billion and has over 250,000 employees around the Earth. An American transnational company, Cognizant, has become one of the more powerful information engineering service companies in the Indian IT industry with grosss over USD $ 6.1 billion.
The most recent client that Happiest Minds has acquired is Datawind, which are the manufacturer of the Aakash Tablet PC and sell wireless web entree merchandise and services. Sunseet Singh Tull, CEO of Datamind, commented on the new strategic partnership with Happiest Mind by saying,
“Datawind has been focused on democratising entree to internet and calculating with our versatile and robust, yet low cost tablet platform. The UbiSlate platform now evolves to the following degree with our partnership with Happiest Minds. Happiest Minds is known for their expertness in riotous engineerings like cloud, mobility, analytics every bit good as embedded solutions. Through this partnership, we will be able to make a complete mobility experience by offering entree to be effectual cloud applications and solutions to our customers.”
In May of 2013, Happiest Minds agreed with Kidozen, based out of Boca Raton, FL, to get down a strategic confederation with each other. Kidozen is an enterprise mobile-first platform. Happiest Minds helped confer with the jobs and present solutions to KidoZen’s new nomadic app. Happiest Minds besides signed an impressive 25 companies in the first twelvemonth of its operations.
When Happiest Minds announced the gap of the company, venture capital was a immense necessity to assist the startup screen its costs. It merely took six months for Happiest Minds to set down its first beginning of support when Canaan Partners and Intel Capital provided the house USD $ 45 billion. The company laminitiss, including Shri Soota, besides provided the house with a significant sum of startup capital. Those financess were implemented into assisting the company happen “world-class talent” , set up substructure, and accelerate gross revenues through selling.
The scheme of Happiest Minds is ingrained in the civilization of the company and is besides stated in the mission statement, “Happiest Peoples. Happiest Customers.” The company instills that the employees working for them have great attitudes in the workplace and while working with clients. “The Happiest Minds” doctrine is that happy employees make happy customers… . Though felicity is a really personal emotion, Happiest Minds believes that it is the organization’s duty to make enabling conditions for a individual to be happy. ” ( Sage Journal ) . This is one of the major competitory advantages for Happiest Minds, holding a great attitude. Happiest Minds believes that people are one for the most built-in constituents of the concern.
Happiest Products & A ; Servicess
Happiest Minds Technology’s value proposition provinces that they are a “Next Coevals IT services company, presenting Transformational Solutions for Enterprise by Leveraging Disruptive Technologies.” Their services include: package merchandise technology, IT services, substructure direction and security, along with technology R & A ; D services. These four focal points lead to incorporate communicating, seamless could and mobility capablenesss, accurate analytics and successful societal computer science.
Standing out from other IT Outsourcing suppliers, Happiest Minds plans to better every facet of the concerns that it serves. By leveraging the power of IT, the company improves market portion, client battle, invention and distinction, legerity and efficiency of operations, all while conveying down the costs of procedures. Happiest Minds is a caput above its rivals in footings of the sum of services provided. When asked what makes Happiest Minds different, laminitis Ashok Soota told a newsman that,
“What we are basically selling is the experience of our squad. The company may non be old, but the squad we have has every bit much experience and expertness as any of the people in the largest of the companies. We ne’er went and told any company that we ‘d wish to be their 3rd or 4th spouse. Companies come to us because they think we can rapidly turn around things in 3 or 5 months and that ‘s truly our Sweet spot.”
Along with experience, the company focuses on new and emerging engineerings to distinguish, such as its cloud, societal media and analytics services, and supply concatenation direction. Happiest Minds Technologies’ mark clients are concerns around the universe that involve Manufacturing, Retail & A ; CPG, BFSI, Travel & A ; Transportation, Telecom and Media. They have offices in the US, UK and in India to make their audience.
Happiest Minds is taking advantage of the speeding growing of engineering by supplying services that can embrace an full concern. Businesss normally look for a speedy 3 to 5 month turnaround which is the “Sweet spot” for the company harmonizing to Soota. Small IT companies can manage undertakings up to a certain size quicker for companies than larger 1s due to their legerity and direct communicating within the company.
Soota’s company provides a new solution to concern intelligence and analytics. Software on the market that is normally used can non garner information and information in a set clip bound. Harmonizing to their web site, “We provide confer withing, solutions, methodological analysiss, and frameworks that assist our clients in non merely turn toing the flood in information growing, but besides in replying inquiries refering to the information hidden in informations.
To battle the rapid alteration in the package merchandise kingdom, Happiest Minds created something that they call a Changeless Access Paradigm. It is consisted of two constituents, uninterrupted services and affiliated devices. This allows their service to be on demand 24/7 while being able to link it to multiple devices and people. Independent Software Vendors are served by Happiest Minds in the country of Product Lifecycle Services, Lab on Hire, Mobility, Cloud, Social, and Testing.
Happiest Minds puts a batch of attempt into their research and development services. Their market for this preponderantly involves concerns in the Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Communications, Networking and Storage Fieldss. Harmonizing to their web site this is the Happiest Minds Edge:
- Strong focal point on riotous engineerings to acquire the best usage of affiliated and smart devices
- Strong eco-system of confederations and spouses
- Scope of solution gas pedals
- Lower development costs & A ; shorter merchandise lifecycles
- Entree to solutions that focus on next-generation engineerings
- Well Governed bringing procedures
- Value added services like analytics, mobility attack and cloud attack
- Dedicated NOC/SOC for clients who require Managed services or proficient support after merchandise releases
Basically, this is a company that acknowledges the invariably altering nature of the engineering services industry. It is good reflected in its services how good it can maintain up and manage the alteration.
Happiest Minds’ Resources
Happiest Minds has benefitted greatly from the success of Shri Ashok Soota’s old experiences as an international enterpriser. Experience is an entrepreneur’s best friend when seeking to venture into unknown markets to take advantage of an chance. There are so many hurdlings that can acquire in the manner of a good thought coming to fruition and going successful. If the enterpriser has experienced these barriers and found ways to acquire around them, they have an exponentially better opportunity of making a concern that can last. This is Happiest Mind’s most valuable resource. This priceless resource has shown to do the company a success in its early old ages so far. Because Soota’s early life was spent in many different topographic points, sing different state of affairss, he grew up with the ability to accommodate to altering state of affairss. This early life experience allowed him to accommodate rapidly to altering environments and make solutions when things got tough.
Co-founding MindTree gave Soota penetration on ways to acquire an IT company off the land. The huge success of MindTree gave a design for Soota when he decided to go forth the company and make Happiest Minds. Because of his old success, Soota was able to acquire the $ 45 million in venture capital to get down his new company. Having working capital at the beginning of a budding company is improbably of import because it gave them the ability to acquire the right equipment and still hold money for the right employees and a good selling program. This effort is non easy for many companies so Happiest Minds truly seemed to hold lucked out from holding Soota at the helm. He was a sure person in the industry and proved to many investors that he had the ability to do them money.
The company besides had the great resource of Soota’s wealth. Most entrepreneurs start their companies while traveling through tough fiscal state of affairss. Happiest Minds non merely got funding from outside investors, they benefitted from internal support from the adult male who started it all. Soota made 1000000s while working with MindTree and was able to self-fund a good part of the initial operations with Happiest Minds. This experience from MindTree besides helped Happiest Minds happen its first clients. The relationships Soota built in his old work experience in the IT field gave Happiest Minds a solid client base. These clients knew they could swear Soota to supply a quality service so they were willing to give him their concern. Most new ventures struggle with happening a client base because they have no repute to construct off of. Having an established repute in the industry gave Happiest Minds a leg up on any competition from other similar new ventures.
Despite all these things working in Soota’s favour, there were surely roadblocks that got in the manner of the success that Happiest Minds is sing. Many of Soota’s equals were non really supportive of his concern theoretical account when they discovered his thought to discontinue MindTree and get down Happiest Minds. They felt like his concern theoretical account was a successful one ten old ages ago, but the IT industry had changed so much that this concern theoretical account couldn’t win in the industry today. They didn’t believe he could hold success once more after MindTree. Soota took unfavorable judgment ab initio for making another service company.
His equals believed he should hold tried to make a new, advanced merchandise alternatively. It would be hard for him to distinguish his service company from the 1000s of other similar concerns in the universe. However, Soota shrugged off this unfavorable judgment because he knew, deep down, that he had an thought that would certainly work good. Happiest Minds decided that the manner they could happen this distinction was by concentrating on emerging engineerings such as cloud computer science and societal media. However, there were already companies working on these engineerings that had a good biennial advantage on Happiest Minds.
Other complications faced Happiest Minds in its early old ages. They had to enroll and happen at least 2,000 skilled workers in an industry where most people were comfy at the occupations they were already at. Soota would hold to happen a manner to do his company more appealing so people would desire to leap on board. If Happiest Minds wanted to accomplish their end of $ 100 million in income by twelvemonth 6, happening skilled workers was an absolute necessity. To happen these people and convert them to fall in a smaller trade name like Happiest Minds, they were certain to see some pay rising prices as offering higher wage would be one of the lone ways to acquire these skilled workers to fall in. Luckily, Soota’s experience gave people a ground to acquire on board with Happiest Minds.
Mentions
Kumar, N.. “ International Entrepreneurship: Case of Happiest Minds. ” South Asiatic
Journal of Business and Management Cases: 17-30. Print
“ The list of the largest IT services companies – 2010 Edition. ” Services Top 100: : : The WorldA’s
Largest IT Service Companies. N.p. , n.d. Web. 7 May 2014. & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.servicestop100.org/ & gt ;
“ Mission, Vision and Values. ” Mission & A ; Values. N.p. , n.d. Web. 7 May 2014.
& lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.happiestminds.com/about-us/mission-and-values & gt ; .
