Role Model
 The saying, “matches are made in heaven” aptly applies to Neel Shah and Piyush Vibhakar. Their 20-year long friendship has resulted in the creation of India’s leading systems integration company, Insight Business Machines
By Dhaval Valia
When the late John Lennon said, “I get by with a little help from my friends,” he could have been describing the bond between Neel Shah and Piyush Vibhakar of Mumbai-based Insight Business Machines, a leading systems integrator.
Ever since they made acquaintances at an engineering college in 1987, Neel and Piyush have been inseparable as friends and later as business partners. Recalls Neel, “Piyush and I have been together since our engineering days. Interestingly, we even got married in the same year and my birthday date is same as Piyush’s marriage anniversary.”
The beginning
In 1990, after their engineering degree and subsequent Digital Electronics diploma, the two began their career as support engineers with Bradma India and Ikon Computers.
Eventually, in 1992, both decided to launch their own venture and set up Eurotech Computers with an objective to provide value-added services like networking and AMC to large enterprises.
“Initially, we set up our office at Neel’s residence as we didn’t have the money to rent a place. The first couple of years were a roller coaster ride. It was hard to convince large enterprises to give us AMC contracts. So we decided to focus on customers in cities like Vapi and Pune,” Piyush reminisces. “We often shuttled overnight by train in general compartments between Vapi and Pune to ensure that customers’ problems were resolved within 24 hours.”
This focus on customer service ensured that within two years, Eurotech moved into a new office with a team of four engineers and a turnover of Rs 1.25 crore.
Once the operation stabilized, both partners sat down to formulate the growth strategy for the company. After months of brainstorming, the duo drew up a clear plan on where and how they wanted to steer their company.
“We realized that to grow we need to expand our solutions and services, and put more emphasis on marketing,” offers Neel. “We launched our own brand of PCs called Rebellion, and decided to change the company’s name to Insight Business Machines to reflect our evolving focus.”
With an aggressive marketing campaign, Insight emerged as a leading system builder—assembling 300 PCs per month within the first year. However, two years later it realized that a substantial amount of their resources for system building was being wasted in Excise documentation and process—negatively impacting their solutions business. Hence the company surrendered its Excise license in 1998 and aligned with Compaq and IBM.
The next five years played a key role in enhancing Insight’s strategic roadmap, vision and goals. This was the period when it formed key partnerships with companies like HP, Microsoft, Lenovo, Cisco, 3Com, APC and Symantec. The company also expanded its presence in Baroda, Lucknow, Indore, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Delhi, Alomora, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
“We successfully transformed ourselves as a preferred solutions provider and bagged many large deals with multiple delivery and support schedules. Some of these included the fiber network in Uttar Pradesh spread over 3kms for a sugar company, complete IT infrastructure deployment for Sahara’s Aamby Valley and para-banking operations, and implementing the core and branch infrastructure for Nerolac Paints,” claims Neel.
The present
In spite the economic slowdown, Insight in FY 2008-09, with 150 employees and 11 branches across India, registered a turnover of Rs 56-crore. It grew 33 percent as compared to FY 2007-08, when it had garnered Rs 42 crore in revenue. As Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, HP Enterprise and Workstation Specialist Partner, Cisco Premier Partner and Advanced Business Partner for IBM, the company has developed unmatchable expertise in high-performance computing, data centers, virtualization, green IT, and messaging and collaboration technologies.
With one-third revenues coming from the BFSI sector, Insight’s clientele includes Bombay Stock Exchange, Sahara Life Insurance, Future Generali, Ambit Management. The company also has a strong presence in the media and entertainment sector as it has provided turnkey solutions to several FM radio companies like Big 92.7, Radio City, Radio One, and Synergy Media across their stations around the country over the past couple of years. Last year, it also won the prestigious project to set up the data center for India’s first indigenous nuclear power plant.
Services continue to be the core business for the company with nearly 18 percent of the total revenue contributed by AMC and FMS services. “Our strength in multi-location services has helped us maintain our service and support 250 customers amounting to 12,000 mailboxes across 400 locations. We have recently ventured into providing remote services and invested substantially in creating the infrastructure for it,” says Neel.
The company plans to take the service business to the next level and has launched its brand of services called Technology Consulting Team (TCT) services. “Tremendous amount of work and effort have been put into this new service offerings. It’s a bouquet of services that enables customers to accrue tremendous savings in IT investments by reducing their Capex and Opex,” informs Neel.
Insight is currently in the process of achieving ISO 9001:2008 compliance and automating its HR process in order to create a self-service organizational environment. “We will achieve ISO certification by this October. We are also in the process of setting up ERP and CRM which will be operational by early 2010,” adds Piyush.
The future
Insight follows the maxim: change is the only constant. “We need to realize that future will be different from the past. Rethinking and rebuilding the future is all about replacing the old mindset with a new one. The future will not be a continuation of the past, but a series of discontinuities. Systematically, we have begun to shift our business model from products to services. We have recently launched our TCT to position Insight as a technology partner, rather than a transaction fulfillment partner,” explains Neel.
The company has already started with RIMS, branded managed printing services called Unique Print Per Click solution, GAP analyses and security audit services and expects to grow its services revenues by 50 percent. “Under our TCT offerings we have 48 productized services across eight categories including infrastructure consolidation and virtualization, green IT, managed print services, unified communications, managed security, business mobility, regulatory audits, and disaster recovery and backup. Our services are based on open standard and thus vendor neutral. Over the next two years we will spend substantially in building the team for TCT and branding it,” adds Piyush.
Special bond
What indeed makes Neel and Piyush a match made in heaven is the fact that both have varied strengths and interests that complement each other. “While Piyush thinks beyond the box, my strength lies in defining roles and delegating responsibilities,” says Neel.
Adds Piyush, “Neel is often impulsive and gets excited by new ideas. While I am practical and rationalize his impulsiveness to attain the common goal. Neel is great with people and has amazing motivational skills. He is also a great social networker.” With such complementary skills, Neel manages HR and admin, purchase and services business, while Piyush drives sales and finance operations.
So how frequently they argue and fight over company decisions? “From the beginning we follow a policy ‘convince or get convinced.’ Using this policy has ensured that we have healthy and mighty discussions, but never arguments,” claims Neel.
Individually too, both of them have different hobbies and taste. “I love 3G’s—Goa, gambling and gazals (Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh). I am a movie freak and usually watch movies first day-last show. Writing is another favorite hobby and I often pen down my thoughts on random topics including film reviews,” says Neel.
While Neel is a cricket fanatic, Piyush is an avid gamer and F1 fan. “Xbox 360 is my world. I am also passionate about F1 car racing and golf,” claims Piyush who is an avid reader of fiction and management books.
However one thing in common between the two is that both are truly family persons. Both regard their respective wives, Amisha Shah and Kajal Vibhakar, as the women behind their success. “Over the last 15 years, both of them have stood behind us like a rock. What has further strengthened our relationship is that both Amisha and Kajal have become great friends,” says Piyush.
About the future of their friendship and Insight, Neel concludes with a shaayri:
“Hamari asli udan tau abhi baki hai,
Bandey! Kai imtihaan abhi baki hai.
Naapi hai muthi bhar zameen
abhi humne,
Aage saara aasman abhi baaki hai.” |