CA Angad Pal Singh of Singh A.P. & Co. ​​Chartered Accountants

Great Companies: What is your success mantra that has helped you over years?

Angad Pal Singh: I pursue a belief, which inspired me to leave my job and bring this firm into existence in 2012 and this belief is something that has been a success mantra for us. I believe that in everything we do professionally, we have to take care of three things: incorporate the fundamental principle of excellence, endeavour to bring simplicity to the user and to ensure value creation from the service you offer. Our firm has lived by these principles, and this is why our clients trust us and we not only earn their assignments, but also their patronage.

Great Companies: That's intriguing. Can you little bit brief us about these three aspects and how do you make them come true in every assignment?

Angad Pal Singh: Excellence & accuracy, are, I believe, indispensable. They are not even a trait, They are the basic reasons for which a client outsources a process. Now with the tendency to earn more out of an assignment, firms usually leverage through trainees and less competent staff and then get the supervision done from an expert. We have done an excellence innovation by putting in place a system, wherein every task in an assignment is executed by the expert only, and that doesn't mean we earn less, we ensure our earnings in an assignment at par or at times higher than our market counterparts, by engaging technology to do major tasks with excellence accuracy.

By simplicity we mean, the interface for the client has to be very simple. The interface to provide us the inputs and to enjoy the output. We tend to achieve this by a deep interaction with the client in the beginning of the assignment to let him speak his heart out from where we gather the real objectives of the client behind deciding to entrust the assignment. We ensure that we deliver him the synopsis depicting what is of value to him instead of long lengthy reports that encapsule almost everything which the client may not need.

And value creation is something that needs no explanation, though, but in our industry, while few assignments are by nature value creating, but as you know the compliance assignments are seen as a burden, which is true to some extent because they do not create any value. We ensure to bring valuable insights for the customers from the compliance assignments as well, so that every time they pay us, they have the perception of earning out of it.

Great Companies: Why did you choose to be a boutique consulting firm? Angad Pal Singh: My personal experience says, in India we believe in interpersonal dealings. Businesses want to trust one person or organisation for as many things as possible. So to bring many solutions under one roof for the clients, we chose to be a multi-speciality firm while ensuring the focus by having a strong team of associates specialising in their own respective areas of study.

Great Companies:  What are the difficulties that are being faced by new consulting firms?

Angad Pal Singh: I cannot be very sure of that but from what I've gathered from my limited interaction with junior professionals, they face lack of negotiation capabilities with the client despite the fact that they are much competent to handle the work. This is disappointing because CA is a profession, it's not a normal service and every CA is equally competent to do the job. I personally recommend every professional to join toastmasters where you learn leadership qualities, communication and negotiation skills, and alongside you build a network of global presence. I have been a part of toastmasters since long and it has indeed helped me a lot.

Great Companies:  Are you thinking of recruiting more advisors any time soon? Angad Pal Singh: We do not recruit, we associate. Our tendency is to have more partners than employees. We associate with specialists to widen our scope of assignments. Yes we are open to build new associations at all times, provided the person on the other side has the same mindset of delivering with excellence, simplicity and value creation.