Hot Seat

A matter of exclusivity

Venkat Tadanki, CEO, Secova eServices and Co-founder of Daksh, explains to Sudipta Dev what makes HR outsourcing an exclusive business in BPO space.

Success for Venkat Tadanki does not mean reaching a targetted goal and basking in the limelight of achievement. He is a man obsessed with generating new ideas and creating new milestones in unknown areas. It is the thrill of the journey that keeps him going. And this would probably explain how this IIM Calcutta grad who worked with ITC and Pepsi became a Co-founder at Daksh and then changed track to start the country’s first HR BPO, Secova eServices.

Talking about his early career days with ITC, Tadanki, in particular, mentions his initiative of organising the Wills Cup at Sharjah in 1992. He worked with Pepsi from 1998-2000 and was on the board of Pepsi’s management committee for South Asia. In early 2000, he joined Daksh and took care of the company’s US marketing and sales activities. “I had a green card, an American credit card, a driving licence and was qualified to go to the US. From 2000 to 2003 I was raising business for Daksh in the US. It was towards the fag end of 2003 when I started thinking of Secova and brought in the other three founders,” says Tadanki.

He concedes that leaving Daksh was a difficult experience. “When we started business it seemed like a crazy idea that four guys were getting into. I had a secure and comfortable job at Pepsi, but it lacked excitement. By all definitions, I would say that it was a mid-life crisis. We had even discussed the aftermath in case we failed. Surprisingly, we met our targets for four years within three years. Going from zero to 100 and 1000 is exciting but not going from 3000 to 4000, and it is then that I thought of exiting,” states Tadanki.

Following a great success story like Daksh, why an HR BPO? “In the process of selling business for three years I realised that the call centre business has become commoditised. It was becoming difficult to differentiate between yourself and others. My aim is to go up the value chain where others cannot emulate. An HR BPO suited what I wanted perfectly—it is not completely offshore. For instance while payroll processing is being done in our set-up at Chennai, printing of the cheques is done in the US. Further, in a call centre the client is everything while in an HR BPO the domain expertise is with us. It is for us to tell the clients about federal tax, state tax, etc. This specialisation is a barrier to entry for others,” explains Tadanki.

He points out that in a call centre business people pay by the hour, while in an HR BPO clients are charged according to their number of employees (which assures predictability of revenue stream). The revenue stream is also not related to the cost element of an HR BPO. The downside of his business, according to him, is that the selling cycle is too long. “The upside is that the contracts are for five years. We have recently signed a contract with a company for their 5000 employees,” informs Tadanki. 50 percent of the company’s workforce is in India and the rest is in the US. 10 percent of the staff are software programmers. Tadanki aims to increase the workforce in the US by 25 percent and in India by 150 percent in the next 12 months. He takes pride in being a team builder and acknowledges that he does not want his people to think he is rigid or unreasonable. For him a true team leader is the one who inspires people to stretch out voluntarily and go beyond their line of duty.

The blend of onshore and offshore called the ‘best shore’ strategy, that works so well for his organisation, is in many ways reflected in Tadanki’s life who is based out of both the US and India and finds it ideal for himself. “I want to create values on both sides and this gives me immense satisfaction.” An expert on offshore outsourcing he has delivered lectures in forums like the Strategic Research Institute, World Outsourcing Centre and the University of Maryland, among others.

sudipta@expresscomputeronline.com