Role Model
Meet the Mentorpreneur
 From working as a sales engineer to becoming a mentor of today’s entrepreneurs, his journey has been driven by a passion for doing something substantial. Meet Sanjiv Bhavnani, Managing Director, Vishesh Infotecnics
By Sharmee Roy
“Been there, done that, and now I’m taking others there,” says Sanjiv Bhavnani, the MD of Vishesh Infotecnics, who has spent 25 years in the industry, and, all through these years, has been looked upon by his peers as an innovator.
Today a role model himself, he grew up idolizing his father. “My dad was a thoroughly principled man. It was from him that I learned the value of working hard, and that working for satisfaction counts for more than working for money. My entire value system comes from him,” declares Bhavnani.
Early years
Soon after finishing his graduation in engineering, Bhavnani started his IT career with Blue Star in 1983 as a sales engineer. During his three-year stint at Blue Star he was involved in establishing several ‘computer rooms’ for clients such as NIC, Maruti, Uptron and CMC.
He then moved to CMC, where he worked in all areas of IT applications before he moved to a French transnational as VP, Marketing, in 1989, and worked extensively in the area of software exports. Thereafter, in 1990, he joined MIT as CEO. “By then IT was ingrained in my blood as I had been a part of the transformation of India into an IT power. How could I not have got into the IT business?” Bhavnani exclaims.
To give shape to his endeavor, he established Infotecnics in 1991 as a proprietary firm doing software projects and network consulting. He started with a seed capital of Rs 50,000. What is more interesting is that within 24 hours of setting up the company he was able to crack the first deal from HP for a software project in the US.
“It pumped confidence into my team and we were rearing to go ahead. The project ran over a year and was worth $2,00,000,” Bhavnani recalls.
There was no looking back. The company became aggressive in the market, fishing for bigger projects one after the other. However, while doing so, Bhavnani ignored smaller projects, and in 1994 the company received a major setback involving two tenders.
Bhavnani explains. “We had put in over three years of concerted effort on two tenders for telecom applications floated by MTNL, and emerged as the strongest contender for winning these against global majors after the technical and commercial short-listing had been done. These tenders could have got us revenues in excess of Rs 50 crore, mostly for our proprietary software, which we were ready to demonstrate as working prototypes. Unfortunately, both these tenders got shelved due to the alleged role of the then telecom minister, Sukh Ram, in a paging scam. So where we could have hit a goldmine we almost went broke. We had made an investment of over Rs 20 lakh in it.”
The fiasco became a boon in disguise as Bhavnani remodeled his business and moved into systems integration in 1995. “The adverse happenings convinced me that while we needed to work on large projects, we also needed to take on small projects to maintain viability. It simultaneously got me to decide on making the shift to become an SI,” says Bhavnani.
Following this, Infotecnics started partnering with vendors such as Cisco and Novell, and also forged distribution tie-ups with PC vendors like IBM. According to Bhavnani, this period was the evolution of the company and led it to the big league.
By 1997 the company decided to focus on two verticals, telecom and finance, and started working with two telecom giants, Bharti and Essar. In the finance vertical the company implemented the largest ISDN network for brokers in the country.
Accepting change
But then in 2001, before he could realize it, the next twist in the tale arrived—the company’s plans for an IPO received a blow due to the stock market collapse following the dotcom bust. Bhavnani was forced to shelve the idea. Instead, in 2002, he chose to merge Infotecnics with a Bengaluru-based ERP company, Vishesh Infosystems.
He recaps how it happened. “Investors in Vishesh came forward and offered to merge the two companies to create a different entity. I happened to be on the board of directors of Vishesh. The idea was to build everything together. It seemed to be a great idea for both the companies, and thus in 2002 Vishesh Infotecnics came into being.”
Bhavnani adds, “The major shifts that came about due to circumstances seemed the logical way to go when they happened. They were not planned, or anticipated, but I went ahead with them nevertheless.” The end-result was a new company worth Rs 35 crore in 2003. (Infotecnics was a Rs 18 crore company before the merger.) From then on it gained momentum, and today the turnover of Vishesh Infotecnics is Rs 105 crore.
Business overview
A strong believer in India and in the India growth story, Bhavnani’s business is a mix of IT solutions and product support which contributed Rs 97.68 crore, enterprise software which brought in Rs 2.18 crore, and IT-enabled services which accounted for Rs 5.43 crore for the fiscal 2008-09.
Bhavnani attributes this to a conscious effort to put processes in place, as well as to the consolidation of the high growth experienced by the company post-merger. “We were witnessing 100 percent-plus growth after our merger, but for the last three years or so we decided to consolidate what we had already achieved and put systems in place for making our current business more efficient.”
In spite of this, last year, the company did some fairly large projects including one for setting up control panels for hosting services. It was worth $1.8 million. The next notable project was providing value added services (like ring-tones and do-not-disturb services) across major mobile operators. This project was worth Rs 8 crore.
Bullish about opportunities in the managed services space, Vishesh Infotecnics also has a contact center, VConnect, with 200 seats, in Gurgaon. “This center offers managed services specifically designed to maximize the efficiency of our clients’ direct marketing efforts, or to be a part of their technical support team,” Bhavnani informs.
Focused primarily on Delhi and Gurgaon, the company has its Indian branches in Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Jaipur, while its overseas branches are in Singapore, Bangkok and Portland (US).
Today, with 150 employees, Vishesh Infotecnics has a dedicated team catering to the requirements of messaging and workflow solutions for its clients on the Novell, Microsoft, Oracle and Lotus platforms. Some of its key vendors include IBM, HP, Lenovo, Cisco, Zyxel, Oracle and Aspect.
Now the mentor
Bhavnani is passionate about working with like-minded people who have the ability to either generate scalable new ideas or deliver to perfection on those ideas that he has long nurtured. This is what gave birth to Mentorpreneur.
Explaining the rationale behind the venture he says, “Since time immemorial, mentors have helped shape great leaders. During my career I had no one to guide me or I couldn’t afford to take guidance. Now, after coming so far in my career, I thought it’s time I gave back what I couldn’t get myself.”
Through Mentorpreneur, Bhavnani plans to impart entrepreneurial guidance and seed capital, or guide the entrepreneur in raising private equity or even taking the IPO and/or GDR/ADR route to raise capital to fuel growth plans. Mentorpreneur has 40 people working for it, with expertise in specific domains. Bhavnani has already invested in a few young businesses with the intention of giving each of them five times their current growth over a period of two years.
While Mentorpreneur has become the focal point now, Vishesh Infotecnics has been put in an auto-pilot mode. This is possible because systems and processes have been put in place, and Bhavnani is confident that his managers will run the show for him.
One can see the man brimming with the same passion at social gatherings. “When I am not working you will find me socializing over a couple of drinks, or partying. I like to be the life of the party,” he grins. From being part of a rock band in school to listening to old Hindi movie tracks, Bhavnani’s interest in music is as varied as his persona. And what a persona it is. |