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Great Companies: How did you begin the HRAI? When and how was the idea born? Vikas Vats: We formally begin with HR Association India in 2012, before that we were a group on LinkedIn of like-minded HR professionals to share knowledge and assist each other in various HR processes with latest Tools and techniques. Soon we realised that we need to have a formal body to meet the needs of the associated professionals. in 2012 we organised our first meet. There were three major agendas which was finalized to guide the future of HRAI To update HR Professionals with latest in HR Tools, Technologies and Conferences worldwide. To upskill HR Professionals at minimum cost. To recognise and appreciate best practices and make them benchmarks. Great Companies: How did you keep your firm Non-Profit? Because the services you give are top-notch and they have the potential to make good money. So what is the aim behind being Non-Profit? Vikas Vats: Our guiding principle is from Vishva Puran : सा विद्या या विमुक्तये। The knowledge is that liberates Our prime mandate is to spread knowledge at zero or minimum cost. At HRAI our work is that of a facilitator. We bring those people together who can create something new, innovative and useful for all HR fraternity. We have helped many national and international organisations take their products and services to HR people because we found them good and useful and we did this without any monetary association. You would be amazed to know that in our programs we have never allowed any sponsor even a single minute of stage time. Great Companies: With 22,000 and growing members, how did you grow so vast? Vikas Vats: To be candid we grew exponentially, and this was much more than what we expected. I believe this was majorly due to the fact that we collaborated with almost all like minded people we could find in India. We consider all other at HR Forums as our Associates and not competitors, and we help them in their activities. Today we are in touch with many HR forms and bodies internationally and next year we will be we give our members International exposure in many countries. Again our aim is to provide HR Association India members free of cost or heavily discounted passes of international HR conferences. We also aim to provide our senior members with speaking opportunities in international forums in coming year. Another reason of our fast growth has been new initiatives we take regularly. Last year was dedicated for women employees in corporate sector. We worked for the “Returning Women” employees who come to world of after a long gap, recently in Association with Kalam Centre we organised award function for women empowerment. Our focus this year is on Employee’s Health and we are very soon launching Organizational Health Index – An Index of Employee’s Health in any Organization. ( OHI ) OHI will help organisations compare their employee’s health with employees in other organisations. These kind of initiatives have helped us establish ourselves as research based organisation and a destination for HR professionals who want to do something new and innovative in their organisations. Great Companies: Is your platform suitable for a novice or is it just for professionals? What kind of skills can be inculcated in a HR professional if they become your member? Vikas Vats: Our platform is suitable for novice and professionals both, but we are trying our best to do more and more for our young generation. Almost all our programs are complementary for our members or heavily discounted. These programs are on topics like 1. HR Analytics Course 2. Competency Mapping 3. Assessments in HR 4. Competency based L&D 5. Coordinating Result guaranteed Training Program 6. Psychometrics for HR Professionals 7. Gamification for HR 8. AI, Robotics, Tech HR etc. Any HR professional can take benefits by becoming our member www.hrd.online. Great Companies: The HR Analytics course you offer seems to be really good, so what can one expect to learn out of your HR Analytics course? Vikas Vats: We researched almost all HR analytics courses and the need of the industry before designing this course. It has best of all the worlds like pre-training material, instructor-led training, live projects and online learning. One will learn almost everything related to HR analytics in this course but more than that our focus is what somebody will be able to DO after attending the course. We intend to incorporate six skills via this course. What the participants would be able to do is: 1. Work in / Lead HR Analytics Team OR Establish HR Analytics Function. 2. Data Analytics Based Alignment of All HR Processes with Organization’s Vision and Mission. 3. Work as Focal Point and Coordinate among all HR Analytics Stakeholders e.g. IT, Business, etc. 4. Create, Various HR Metric , Take Decisions and Do Predictive Analysis. 5. Optimization of Your HR Processes and Yield best ROI 6. Able to Develop Internal Business Cases for Various HR Processes, e.g. Impact Assessment of any Intervention. More about this course can be found at www.hranalyticscourse.com Great Companies: One can volunteer on your site for various teams like the event organising team, the jury, the outreach team and many more. What qualities should one possess to be a volunteer of your team and what can one expect out of it? Vikas Vats: The purpose of having volunteers is to create engagement and give HR professionals opportunity to be a part of something that interest them. This makes HRAI programs not a one-way process where we organise the program and our members attend. To become a member of any team one needs to have relevant qualification & expertise and passion for that team. For example in even event organising team we would like to have somebody who during college days been organising various kind of programs and functions and has it zeel for organising events. Likely in the Jury team we would like very senior HR professionals with hands on experience on one or more HR processes. Great Companies: The HR DISTINCTION AWARDS is a platform that awards professionals for their outstanding contribution of Human Resources. When is the next award ceremony and if there is any HR out there who believes he/she is capable of winning this; then how do they send their entries? Vikas Vats: HR Distinction Award, Inaugurated by Hon. Prime Minister of Mauritius has today become most prestigious HR Award in India, thanks to our evaluation criterion, transparency execution. The next ceremony of HR distinction Award is on 23rd of Jan 2020. Professional who have done anything outstanding can send entries at our website www.hrdawards.in . Their entries are evaluated on 6 criteria mentioned on the website : Innovation Replicability Scope Impact Sustainability Execution It's a completely automated process and still if somebody needs any handholding we can be contacted at phone numbers or email id at our site. Great Companies: What are the next Big steps initiative is HRAI coming up with Vikas Vats: As mentioned earlier we are Launching Organisational Health Index. The employees of the organisation will be assessed using an app on health. Employees will get detailed analysis and prescriptions for their health. The organisations would get detailed report about the Organisation’s and Employee’s Health on various parameters like how many of them are obese, have blood pressure, diabetes, on medication, or different kind of diseases etc. This would help them not only tailor make their welfare programmes but also they will be able to compare themselves with other organisations. They would be able to link their OHI ranking with their spending on employees health, their productivity, efficiency, rework, absenteeism, motivation and various other data points. This year we intend to cover only 100 organisations on First Come First serve basis. Great Companies: How can you help HR professionals who are not in big cities there not many avenues are available for their development Vikas Vats: We would love to help and upskill these HR professionals. They can anytime get in touch with us and we would guide then how we can organise conferences and training programs at their location. And need not to say most of this would be free of cost. Anybody who wants to take lead to organise such events in small cities we welcome them to be in touch with us. Vikas Vats, vikasvats@vikasvats.com President – HR Association India ( www.hrd.online ) #HR #Awards #HRAI #Association

Great Companies: Well, to being with, there are a lot of similar wallet apps out there like PayTm, Google Pay to name a few. What makes Niki.ai distinctive from the rest of your competitors? Sachin Jaiswal: The existing alternatives for online transactions have complex user interfaces that first-generation internet users find very hard to navigate. Niki.ai solves this problem by empowering users with a multilingual conversational interface that makes online transactions extremely convenient. A virtual agent built for the next billion users of Bharat, Niki handholds first-time internet users from Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns for online transactions. Users can simply talk to Niki in their own language, using just their voice while it assists them through every step of the payment process. It is also designed to overcome the trust deficit that surrounds online transactions, ensuring that users never get stuck online and providing insurance on all payments made on its voice and vernacular platform. Another differentiator is the fact that it is completely driven by AI(Artificial Intelligence) and its algorithms have been designed to understand even the minute nuances of different languages. Great Companies: Your Niki bot or your virtual agent is not like typical bots and is actually fun and simple to use, how did you come up with the idea of making it the way it is? Sachin Jaiswal :The goal has been to simplify online payments for the next billion internet users emerging from Indians living in tier 2 and tier 3 cities who are yet to transact online. Inspired to fill this huge gap and enable the Non-English speaking population of Bharat, we wanted to build a product where one could take care of all the important payments and bookings over simple conversations, in a language that they are comfortable with. While doing so, we realised that these first time internet users have leap-frogged the technology revolution to use internet directly on their smart-phones. In order to make technology accessible to them and for them to move beyond entertainment apps to things like digital transactions, they needed excessive hand-holding and assurance.Thus, Niki was built for Bharat, to cater to these specific requirements. Niki assists the user right from discovery, to initiation till the task is finally completed and also provides insurance on all online transactions, removing all inhibitions that come in the way of making Indians transact online. Great Companies: Your app seems to have a wide range of services and is certainly not just another wallet app. Can you name a few unique services and offers you give to your users? Sachin Jaiswal: Voice and vernacular support: With multilingual support, Niki is the first app to make online transactions possible for the next billion users. Niki’s Hindi voice feature gives power to over millions of Hindi, Bengali and Tamil speaking Indians, to use technology in their first language. In other words, users can talk to Niki in their own language while it assists them through every step of the payment process, helping the next billion users become self-reliant for online transactions. Social Payments: This exclusive feature on Niki helps new internet users send payment links to their social contacts or nearby merchants/Niki partners to complete the online transaction while they can pay in cash. Insurance Card: To counter the trust deficit surrounding online payments, Niki provides users with an Insurance card for their online payments which assures them 100% fulfilment guarantee. It gives them a contact to reach out to in case they get stuck anywhere during the payment process or after their money is deducted. Great Companies: What are the benefits of being an Elite User of Niki.ai and how do you become one? Sachin Jaiswal: Benefits: Pay Later: Niki Elite users can transact for a service whenever required, and pay for it later. Higher credit redemption limit: For Elite users, Niki credits are redeemed automatically for 50% of the transaction amount while making a payment, while for other users it is 25%. Exclusive offers: We introduce amazing deals every now and then, which are exclusively offered to Niki Elite users. Becoming an Elite Member: Niki automatically chooses a user to join the 10,000+ strong Elite Club, by intelligently observing their behaviour. Becoming friends with someone doesn't take any special effort, it happens over simple conversations. The same applies here. Great Companies: What was the idea behind creating Niki.ai and when did it begin? Sachin Jaiswal: As technology revolutionised the way consumers shop for products and services during the last decade, with Niki, the goal has always been to build a product for Bharat to simplify digital transactions for the next billion internet users emerging from tier 2 and tier 3 cities, who are yet to transact online. Niki was thus designed as a virtual agent for the new internet users who can avail online services just by talking, keeping the experience similar to the offline world, where every service is availed through conversations. Users can talk to Niki in their own language while it assists them through every step of the payment process, helping them become self-reliant for online transactions. All the founders, Keshav Prawasi, Shishir Modi, Nitin Babel and I are batchmates from IIT-Kgp. Once we had the idea, we decided to move out of our jobs in March 2015 to co-found Niki.ai. In the early days, we rented a small space in Udaipur where we worked on NLP technology and our MVP. Within three months, we managed to secure seed funding and move to Bangalore. It was officially registered on June 4, 2015, and launched to the public a month later at YourStory’s TechSparks, being one of the Tech30 companies. Niki.ai received seed funding in the same year from Ronnie Screwwala’s Unilazer ventures. Also backed by Mr. Ratan Tata and SAP.iO among other investors, the company continues to resolve the pain-points of Bharat’s next billion internet users and as of today, boasts of 4.5mn+ users and a massive 300x GMV, contributed by Hindi users after adding Hindi language capabilities in October 2018. Great Companies: What does the future look like for Niki.ai? Sachin Jaiswal: Our focus lies on building a one-stop digital solution for all of Bharat and making technology accessible to all despite their age, gender, social or ethnic background. With our in-house, patented NLP and text recognition accuracy of 92%, we already have an edge in the space and are currently enabling more than 4.5 million users spread across 12000+ locations. We’re working on removing language barriers and enhancing ease of use to bring the next billion users online to make India truly digital. #Nikiai #Coversational #AI #Bot #Multilingual

Great Companies: How did the idea of Fidypay came into being? Manan Dixit: FidyPay is connecting Bharat (Rural & Semi Urban Population) with India (Digital Economy) through its offline and online kisok model for various financial and banking service solutions. It is Co-Founded by Manan Dixit & Ariff Manji. Manan is Tech Junkie who has worked in IT companies like Tech Mahindra & Amdocs for 4 years. With working in IT Industry, he understood the power of technology and the gaps it can fill in the Financial Literacy in India. Ariff is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded ventures into Print Media, Outdoor Media, Radio Stations, Bakeries, etc. He comes from business background family and has been the visionary in the journey of FidyPay. Manan comes from small town of M.P. and saw that people in this type of regions are still lacking the access to Digital Economy be it e-commerce transactions, Payments, Financial Services, Insurance or Store Digitization. These people don’t get the access and exposure of such services. All they see is an Ad on the TV about the service but when it comes to accessing them from their home is a difficult journey. Hence, I (Manan) discussed this problem prevailing in rural India with Ariff and embarked on narrowing this gap by building digital products & providing access to such services at low/no cost solutions. Great Companies: Why did you pick Rural over Urban, unlike most of your competitors? Manan Dixit: India has a vast unbanked population, most of whom stay in the rural areas. Currently, the estimated unbanked population of India is 40%. Most of these areas are so remote that the banking system cannot reach there. Therefore, they do not have the access towards digital payments and financial services neither offline nor online. Banks, wallets, and fintech companies have major focus upto Tier 2 & 3 cities. In rural or tier 4 cities their penetration is nil or low and operational viability is difficult for them. We are reaching this unbanked segment through our assisted model network which are enabling this segment to make digital transactions like bill payments, remittance facilities, micro finance, online store, digital banking, micro insurance, mobile wallet, value added services (VAS) like recharges, ticket bookings, etc. through our platform FidyPay. Great Companies: How do you plan to connect Bharat to India? How is it going so far? Manan Dixit: There is lack of basic infrastructure like power, network in rural areas, keeping this in mind we have brought in India’s First Solar Powered Manned Kiosk which can be installed in rural areas to provide financial inclusion services. We have installed more than 20 such kiosks in M.P. that is providing various kinds of financial services to people who are not familiar with technology and Banking operations. Secondly, we are narrowing the gap of Micro Digital Payment space by providing single platform for the Merchants to accept payments, digitalize their operations & provide VAS services using Bharat QR Code. Our strength lies in offline play through offerings such as point-of-sale terminals, Aadhaar based banking, micro ATMs that allow users to carry out banking transactions. Great Companies: With a cashless Rural India, what will the future of India look like by the eyes of Fidypay? Manan Dixit: With the push from Government for Rural India we at FidyPay has a vision to create Digital Bharat and Democratizing Digital Inclusion in the country. We see in coming times Rural India is going to be the epicenter of all the future growth that India would see. By making sure Rural India is Digital and less Cash dependent the economy of the country will be taking a steep jump and every citizen will be benefited from the same. Great Companies: How do you plan to educate the rural population of India to go Digital? Manan Dixit: We did a Pilot in a small village near Khandwa (M.P.) named Sihada having population of around 10,000. We learnt that people in this region wish to use digital solutions for transactions but due to lack of literacy and knowledge could not adopt these new technologies. But with our solutions of assisted channel it will be empowered to create awareness of digital platforms and enable people in rural areas to understand and adopt these new technologies. With these advancement and growth we are pretty confident that FidyPay would be the Gateway of choice for Rural India for performing any banking, insurance and micro finance transactions. Great Companies: What is success mantra of Fidypay? Manan Dixit: Our focus area has been Rural & Semi Urban region from Day 1 because if the root of the country can be made strong with Technology then the whole nation will grow at a faster pace. Hence our success has always been to go where no on goes and to uplift the people in those region with the aim to Democratize Digtial Inclusion. We have been able to acheive some amazing results with Skill Development Deparments where in we are creating Rural Entrepreneurs across the nation to make them sustainable and financially strong in their own Home Town by on boarding them on FidyPay Assisted Network. By being associated with us the Rural Entrepreneur is able to deliver services to his people which he has always thought of doing it someday. These are the people who are contributiing towards making FidyPay a successful Gateway of choice for Rural India. Great Companies: How did the idea of installing a solar-powered kiosk come to you? How does one operate this ‘one of its own kind’ Kiosk? Manan Dixit: When we started working on the idea of FidyPay we realised that the terrain where we are going to deloy our services has multiple issues with irregular electricity supply, slow internet connectivity and lack of basic infrastructure. Hence we came up with the idea to install Kiosk which are powered by Solar so that FidyHuts (Outlets) gets a uniteruppted electricity supply, better internet connectivity and importantly a Manned Kiosk to help people perform their financial, banking, etc.. tranactions with our guy assisting them. This person then also work on various financial literacy workshop from time to time as guided by our team. #FidyPay #Kisok #Financial #Banking #digital #Economy

Analysing the timeless trend of Indians for their love of Gold and Silver, there would hardly be a household in Urban India who wouldn't have gold or silver coins at their home once they start saving. Adding to this thought was the fact that there was no specific platform in this niche who could give variety of options at transparent rates with 100% Guarantee on Quality of products being sold. This led to the beginning of thought behind CoinBazaar. CoinBazaar was founded in Oct ' 2012 & is based out of Mumbai [The Financial Capital of India]. In addition to being the home town of all 3 co-founders, Mumbai's Zaveri Bazaar is regarded as the most trusted place for all Bullion Brands and it sets the benchmark for pricing of bullion coins & bars across India. The GOLDEN team Mr. Pankaj Jain is a Masters in Computer Applications [MCA] by qualification and his family are traditional jewelers. He has worked with Infosys for more than 7 years as 'Technology Lead' in various domains and creating innovative solutions before starting CoinBazaar.in in 2012. Mr. Priyesh Shah is a Chartered Accountant [CA] and a Certified Financial Planner [CFP] by qualification. He did his Masters in Commerce and worked as a Chief Financial Planner with experience of more than 7 years before starting CoinBazaar.in. Mr. Rakesh Jain is a Bachelor in Information Technology with expertise in software domain [BSc-IT]. He has worked with TCS for more than 7 years helping clients with their technical issues before starting CoinBazaar.in Products Offering CoinBazaar is the curator & aggregator for various bullion brands in India and also offers precious coins from various mints across the globe. The pricing of Gold and Silver Coins is as per "LIVE" bullion market rates which gets regularly refreshed on CoinBazaar several times during the day. This gives Transparency in Pricing and Best rate across all marketplaces and local jewelers selling precious coins and bars. Tough Market Coin Bazaar works on a mix of Real time Inventory & Ready Inventory Model to cater to widest range of Brands and Products. Coinbazaar Team has complete control over the products being despatched. This ensures a 100% trust on the product, which is both certified and verified before it is shipped. The special courier partners specialized in handling precious deliveries are onboarded for executing a safe and insured delivery to clients doorstep anywhere in India. Most of the clients make Online payments , however for those who can't even Cash On Delivery [COD] is available up to certain limit. Gold Business Coinbazaar have explored in extremely niche area and is not a "MeToo" company where they have learnt from the experience and expertise of existing company. The team has faced challenges in each and every front like Gaining Trust, Technical Challenges, Logistic Issues , Packing Issues, Financial Challenge etc. Technical challenges they could understand better with Co-founders expertise. Trust they built by only having Top Premium Bullion Brands, BIS and Hallmark Products which come with Certificate and Secured Packing. Logistic was a big challenge however over a period of time they improved their packing and tied up with precious metal handling companies for safe logistics. The Future is Shining 2019-20 The team of Coinbazaar is looking at scaling-up operations and look at raising angel funds to kick-start their expansion plans. They are looking at adding "Digital Gold" as well which would exponentially grow the clientbase. Also Coinbazaar App is on the cards for Android and IOS for daily price check and saving regularly SIP in Gold or Silver Coins. https://www.coinbazaar.in/ #Coinbazaar #Gold #Silver #Online #Digital #Pricing #transparency #100

Some personal experience whilst moving household goods in 2015 and other professional engagements with Logistics players and clients in their past assignments gave the founders of Decker Logistics first-hand knowledge and insight into the extent of fragmentation and unstructured nature of the Logistics and supply chain sector in India. FOUNDATION OF THE STARTUP VALUESHIPR began its journey on Apr 14, 2016, and is based out of Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Western parts of India account for over 40%+ Cargo and goods movement and hence we took a decision to be based out of Western India. THE GOLDEN TEAM Jyotheesh Kumar, Dr. Sharad Nair & Prashant Halari are the founders of VALUESHIPR. Jyotheesh Kumar – Co-Founder & CEO An Entrepreneur Manager with over 20 plus years of work experience spanning across Banking, Capital Markets, Logistics, Automobile and Consulting with Educational qualifications in Engineering and Management from premier institutes in India Dr. Sharad Nair – Co-Founder & Director - Strategy A Management Graduate and Doctorate in Philosophy with over 20 years experience across Banking & Financial Services, Learning & Development & Media, he has held Top Management positions with Top Banking Brands viz; Bank Julius Baer, Barclays Bank, Bank Sarasin, Mashreq Bank, Stanchart, Citibank across International Geographies – Asia & Africa. He has also been a serial Investor and Entrepreneur. Prashant Halari – Co-Founder & CTO A computer science Engineering graduate and a post-graduate degree in business administration from IIMs; Prashant started his career as a Research Associate with IIM, Ahmedabad and thereafter spent over a decade at Patni Computers (now Capgemini) as part of the leadership team. He has been an Entrepreneur and Investor. PRODUCT SERVICES Full truck/trailer Load (FTL), Part Truck express (PTL), Odd dimension Project Transportation, Movers & packers, Project Logistics, EXIM, Ocean & Air Freight as core product offering and other value-added services include Loading, Unloading, Coastal Shipping, Warehousing, Reefer, Insurance, Consulting. Valueshipr has various pricing models for different products. They charge a percentage of the Freight as commission as well as the ARR model for their SAAS offerings. TOUGH MARKET Since it’s a fragmented, unstructured and highly intermediated market, they have had their own share of challenges such as getting the workflows and pedigree established amongst the stakeholders at the beginning. They used a phase-wise and product vertical wise approach to test captive markets. They had their own fair share of learnings and pivots to get their act together and make meaningful inroads. The product-market fit has been established and customers love their offerings. TARGET AUDIENCE Target Group of clients are MSME cos, Large Cos, Freight Forwarders, NVOCCs, Warehousing cos, 3PL / 4PL Cos, Ecomm- cos, Chaz. ValueShipr has marquee clients that cut across sectors viz; Engineering, raw materials, plastics, Machine tools, pharma, FMCG, IT peripherals and Agro sectors. Some clients include Mahindra, Mala Foods, Jain Farm Fresh, Panalpina, Agility, VVF, etc FUTURE GOALS They believe they have covered a fairground, led a capital-efficient growth with the product platform, offerings and distribution with their bootstrapped funds available at their disposal. They are ambitious and want to expand, replicate the distribution reach to at least over 250+ cities and Industrial clusters and establish a formidable franchise and hence are in the process of seeking investments for growth. https://www.valueshipr.com #DeckerLogistics #Logistics #Valueshipr #SupplyChain #Cargo #Warehousing

The roots of Hivve Creative Solutions are based on a problem the founder, Mr. Adnan M Alam had faced himself, with his first start-up, that small companies and start-ups do not have access to professional marketing agencies due to lack of resources and funds. Established as a solution, Hivve Creative Solutions was founded with a single goal in mind, help companies share their stories through branding, identity development, and Digital Marketing/ Advertising. FOUNDATION OF THE STARTUP The company was founded in May 2018 and is based out of Mumbai. Hivve is the brainchild of Mr. Adnan M Alam, who holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration Honours from Cambridge University, London. A Professional Web and Graphic Designer, Motivational Speaker and a professor of Digital Marketing, Web Design and Entrepreneurship at several well-known institutes, he is an all-rounder that is conquering it all one step at a time. Hivve is a play upon the word 'Hive' which is indicative of a well-built network used by worker bees. The same philosophy is followed by Hivve Creative Solutions where the aim is to connect the right people through Design, Strategy, and Marketing. Hivve Creative Solutions comprises of a small yet powerful team of Designers, Writers, and Marketers who create powerful brand identities and marketing campaigns through design and storytelling. Hivve works closely with its clients, delivering constant work updates and feedback which helps in creating a very customized and personal marketing solution for every client, based on their current needs. PRODUCT SERVICES Hivve Creative Solutions offers the complete suite of Marketing solutions which include Digital Marketing, Digital Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Branding, and Brand Identity Development, Media Planning and Buying, Brand Management, etc. In terms of Digital Design and Development, a full suite of services are available which cover website design and development, app development and Content Production. Hivve Creative Solutions follows a flexible pricing model based on the needs of the client, but services start at INR 25,000. TOUGH MARKET What differentiates Hivve from its competitors is the way they operate. Following a core culture of delivering more than what is promised, through which they add a very personal and committed touch to each project that is undertaken by the organization. Another unique selling point for Hivve Creative Solutions is the flexible and competitive pricing structure which enables even the smallest of business or start-ups to get access to professional marketing and advertising services. During the first year of operation, Hivve had been actively working with the then recent start-ups in several different market niches. Some of their clients include ->Spreading Bliss Foundation - NGO, ->JobTalk - Online Learning and Development Platform, ->Swing of Life Foundation - NGO, ->Auto Assist - Automotive startup in UAE, ->Upstacle - Women Empowerment Blog ->Aiming Darts - Corporate Service Providers ->Digital Culture Institute - Institute of Digital Learning Hivve Creative Solutions faces tough competition from other well-established marketing agencies who have captured most of the market share and market penetration for the company is slowly but quite steadily increasing. FUTURE GOALS Hivve is a self-funded company. In the journey so far, the most memorable moments have been when clients had started generating revenue or securing new leads, prospects, and customers through Hivve’s intensive marketing and branding solutions. Their future goals are focused upon up-scaling and securing more international clients and hopefully larger companies. #Hivve #CreativeSolutions #Marketing #DigitalMarketing #SocialMedia #branding #BrandIdentity #MediaPlanning

EarlySalary Before inception of EarlySalary, there was a large credit undeserved population in India. The founders realised, easily accessible financial assistance was non-existent for young professionals and job beginners. They experience month-end cash crunch and due to lack of credit-score knowledge, they are unable to borrow money from the traditional credit facilities available. FOUNDATION OF THE STARTUP EarlySalary was founded in 2015 and is based out of Pune. Akshay Mehrotra, the Co-Founder and the CEO of EarlySalary chose Pune to launch his own start-up for a number of reasons. Firstly, being close to Mumbai, they get access to the best financial insights. Secondly, operational expenditure is 30 percent lower than Bengaluru-based startups. And finally, as their employees say, Pune offers them a better lifestyle, where they can manage with low rentals and stay close to the workplace, commute time is less and still enjoy all facilities like other metro cities, Choosing Pune has proved worthwhile when on a monthly basis, the company contributes almost Rs 35 crore to the balance sheet. Moreover, performance wise the company has disbursed 9L loans amounting to Rs 1,500 crores, which further proves Pune is an emerging startup hub and has a huge potential to grow. THE GOLDEN TEAM Akshay Mehrotra is the Co-Founder and CEO of EarlySalary, India’s largest consumer lending application. Ashish Goyal is the Co-Founder and CFO of EarlySalary; India’s largest consumer lending application. He oversees the overall strategic direction of EarlySalary. PRODUCT SERVICS EarlySalary is a mobile-based app that helps young professionals with Instant cash, Salary advances and other EMI options. Unlike, traditional credit facilities, EarlySalary charges much less interest rates, i.e., starting 2.5% TOUGH MARKET EarlySalary differentiates itself by focusing on solving a singular problem faced by its core TG – young salaried working professional. It introduced the concept of instant digital Salary Advance for the first time in the country. The company also provides flexible loan amounts starting from ₹ 5000 to ₹ 2, 00,000 on various loan categories – Shopping, Travel, Education, Medical etc. EarlySalary also serves as Financial Wellness Partners for more than 300+ companies and employees. Yes, there are competitors but EarlySalary leads from the front and continues to stem on its growth focus. The company is dedicated to solve specific problems faced by their customers and going deeper in building products to help many more customers. Today, while they are leaders in the digital salary advance and instant loans space, they have also integrated into many company’s HR systems to help even first jobbers and Blue-Grey Collar employees borrow instantly. Focusing on consumer credit needs has helped the company build additional products like EMI Credit for Shopping and Travel with leading online partners with No-Cost EMI offerings. Also, with a special focus on Education and Skill upgradation EarlySalary has introduced education loans on the app. FUTURE GOALS EarlySalary’s TG of young working professionals is the fasted growing segment in the country and hence would like to build EarlySalary as a market leader in this category. And in next 3 years, they aim to build a billion dollar balance sheet. https://www.earlysalary.com #earlysalary #salary #InstantCash #EMI #AdvancesSalary

The business world today runs on sales. Sales is the bread and butter of corporate offices and businesses. It is the oxygen needed for any business to survive and thrive! However, many organizations lack salespeople who are updated with their sales game and Sales5X helps to bridge this gap. A sales training and consultation firm, Sales5X helps small and medium businesses increase their sales by offering sales training for their sales staff ranging from prospecting, qualifying, pitching, handling objections, closing the deal, nurturing, asking referrals and upselling. A rigorous training process with a promise of successful results has resulted in many business owners seeking out help from Sales5X. The company was founded by Anmol Garg and Joseph Dass, each of them having worked intensely in the field of sales with the latter having an experience of over 25 years and the former, having an inspirational tale from being a software engineer to a sales engineer! Joseph Das has done it all, a master of all trades, sales-related, he started his career in sales by selling vacuum cleaners door to door in the 90’s. He then became a sales manager at Samsung working in both B2C and B2B markets for 10 years. Then he took over as VP, Sales at Eurostar, managing a team of over 300 members across 5 countries. Anmol, a connoisseur in the field of sales is capable of even “selling ice to an Eskimo.” A digital marketer by passion, Anmol has worked with and helped over 35+businesses with their sales and marketing strategies. Being a popular anchor across India, having hosted 500+ corporate & social events, he has mastered the art of building rapport with a huge audience within 30 seconds, improvising on the spot & influencing people - all essentials skills for a great salesperson! As successful as Sales5X has become, the founders have talked about challenges that business owners typically face with their sales teams. Speaking on the same, Joseph says, “Lot of salespeople in these businesses don’t come from a sales background, hence the lack the ability to engage with the customer. They might be able to do a great presentation but are completely clueless on how to close the deal. They are unable to handle customer objections.” On handling and guiding new age business owners, they have found them struggling to create a growth roadmap and executing it. Though business owners have shown their capability, having come as far as they have today, it takes understanding strategy and well-planned execution of sales plans to take the next step of growth. Entrepreneurs are unable to come up with a winning digital marketing strategy and therefore have issues with leveraging the opportunities available online. Without a healthy pipeline, poor conversion rates are the norm. Currently, Sales5X claims to have trained over 6000 sales professionals and has been credited to have effectively transformed 200 businesses. Recently featured on All India Radio, they were called out for sharing some of the best practices in sales and how to do sales in the 21st century! With services being offered both online and offline and putting out free webinars every Thursday evening, they are continuously helping corporates & businesses achieve their high sales targets! https://www.sales5x.com/ #Sales5X #sales #salestraining #Consultation #B2B #B2C

Cabs providing intercity transport? Check. Food delivery options across the country? Check. Efficient intercity logistics? Still under development. It is this market that attracted entrepreneurs and husband-wife duo, Amarjeet Singh and Sangeeta Yadav set out to utilize this gap and establish Portflip. Drawn along the same lines of functioning as any other app-based transport, Portflip provides truck booking services for means of transportation in Mumbai and Pune. Customers can simply book a truck, either through a phone call or on their website or Android app, track its location and status and have options of either directly paying the drivers or paying online. The platform is only a facilitator bridging the gap between customers and truck drivers, owning none of the vehicles partnered with them. With over 20,000 downloads on the Google Play Store, the company has a separate app for its driver-partners that enable them to decide their working hours and accept trip requests. Portflip founders claim that “driver-partners are on-boarded only after thorough vetting.” “Initially, we did research and development and studied the market for over six months. We faced issues and challenges in getting the right skill set to execute our vision, getting partners adapted to use technology, training them, and maintaining the supply as partners can log off from their devices, leading to a lot of rejections for customers,” Sangeeta says. Facing funded players in Intracity logistics like Tim Draper backed Blowhorn, HipShip, etc, Portflip refuses to be fazed. With a mission to “create a logistics system through innovation, dedication, and technology”, the duo concentrated in constructing a business model and recruiting employees that can understand, positively contribute to the same as well as come up with creative solutions to overcome challenges. Currently, a team of eight, the founders claim that the app completes a total of 350 orders in a month and earns a revenue of Rs 40 to Rs 50 lakh. An important aspect of their business model is to build strong working relationships with every participant in their professional vicinity. The Portflip team holds regular meetings with investors, partners and clients to take into consideration opinions, views and suggestions and working to incorporate them into the company. Based on a commission-based revenue model, their key clients include mostly rental furniture-based companies, FMCG, industrial and petroleum goods and products. Creating an “efficient, sustainable and reliable solution”, Potflip is all set to innovate their way through to the top of the transportation game. http://www.portflip.com/ #Portflip #truckbooking #driver #bookingServices

Great Companies- How was the idea of 'Medicento ( Mediclick Healthcare Services Private Limited) born? Arpan Debasis: It was way back in 2011 while pursuing my engg from Msrit Banaglore I lost my father due to an illness due to lack of medical accessibility and availability for a tier 2 city, Berhampur in Odisha. A solution was much needed to bring about change so no other lives were lost due to the lack of medical facilities and difficulty in procuring medicines and homecare services. While evaluating various healthcare segments, medicine delivery seemed to be the biggest challenge and problem yet to be solved. To streamline the flow of medicines to masses from suppliers, made me start medicento with my long time friend and Now Co-Founder Rahul Vidyarthi. Great Companies- Your company provides a lot of distributor services and pharmaceutical services, how do you ensure getting efficient and productive results? Arpan Debasis: When we started medicento the major question asked to our fellow retailers was why do they use Flipkart of Amazon ?? The answer was simple a single platform for product discovery, order processing, service delivery and ensuring payments formed the key to get suppliers and retailers onboard. Instead of dealing with multiple suppliers the retailer use the single platform and get the product on the commitment that it makes to the customer. (Which was our major touch point ) Working around on suppliers inventory by providing a better equation of supply on the basis of demand. This ensures minimum turnaround time and minimizes wastage which in turn creates a better economic value both for suppliers and retailers. And also in house logistics ensures better service and creates a trust among the retailers with point to point to tracking. Added credit was the major tool in b2b payment systems. We devised a new credit facility system to ensure better payments. Great Companies- You must have faced difficulties when you established this company, what were they and how did you cope up with it? Arpan Debasis: On-boarding retailers to our online channel wasn’t easy. “We wanted to give an experience like Flipkart and Amazon do to our clients. But they had a traditional mindset and were dependent on the convention of keeping a notebook for stock details. So we asked them to do a trial with us for seven days. They liked our service so much that they started eliminating other distributors. Some distributors even contacted us saying we were destroying their market! Onboarding suppliers as the the initial sale value through our platform was 20,000 per week compared to 1 cr per day by top notch distributors. So as a strategy we started onboarding small time suppliers and passed on better margins to retailers to create a better ground base of retailers. Third was payments, as the market was scarred with non payments from retailers. But we tried to figure out the gap in the market and encouraged retailers to pay on time by ensuring better benefits to them in terms of margins. Fourthly, finding the right techie and a team to build the platform. As the costs soared with professionals so we went on with an intern model by collaborating with colleges. Lastly, we did struggle with funds but a healthy flow of cash from retailers to suppliers helped us in to sustain on an rotational basis. Great Companies- Medicento uses AI based inventory management system, tell us something about it and its benefits. Arpan Debasis: We automated the process of collecting data with an app instead of distributors’ salesmen going to pharmacies to collect data from retailers. The retailers just need to upload their inventory; Medicento takes care of the rest. Here we use a pull based mechanism instead of retailer placing orders using a Medicento – Unified medicine Channel traditional notebook it automatically notifies the suppliers of the stock requirement or positioning which helps them to schedule or plan out in a more efficient manner.The system uses prediction model to notify the stock positioning and forecasts the purchase according to the demand to optimize the inventory. Great Companies- Any advice you would like to give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Arpan Debasis: You can start at any point of time with or without any reason but ensure that it touches a million lives. Because in the end, a million dollars never matters but a million lives do. Keep hustling. #medicento #medicine #supply #AI

Great Companies- What made you start a company like Dishah Consultants when there are already so many companies providing consulting services? Amit Sharma | Yes, there are many National & International Consulting Companies operating in Indian domestic market, offering a wide variety of consulting services ranging from strategy to business, operation, financial etc… etc… However, there are hardly a few, who are laser focused on Sales Strategy Consulting for today’s competitive landscape. The need of the hour for a business is an optimized Sales Operation to overcome tough competition. Business today, be it corporate, Small & Medium Business or Startups are bleeding Market Share, Revenue and Profit share due to ‘cut-throat’ competition. An organization’s current Sales Operation Capability is ‘unorganized’ and ‘in-complete’ to handle current competitive landscape. The reason being, businesses are taking traditional approach to target 21st century competition. Their approach is to target a couple of top competition that is frequently encountered. But the competitive landscape is filled with multiple challenges; there is - ● Established Competitor - Stronger and Established Brands holding the lion's share of the market, giving smaller businesses tough chase for their money. Smaller Businesses in the absence of a proper ‘Unique Value Proposition’ are struggling to find a way to compete and win deals. ● Cheaper Competitor - Brands competing purely based on ‘price’ factor and snatching away majority of deals from a business. And, businesses, including their Sales Teams are ‘clueless’ about facing such competition. As such, there prefer to turn a ‘blind eye’ to it. This is hurting businesses beyond repair. . ● Unorganized competitor - Brands that are virtually ‘non-existent’ but proving fatal for businesses. Such competition show up in the last minute and steals the show with their surprise deal package and businesses are clueless about their presence and how to tackle it? This extreme situation demands a laser focused ‘Sales Strategy’ that is designed for the competitive landscape of all flavours. Unless Sales Operations and Sales Team Capability is geared towards tackling all types of competition, businesses will find themselves on the struggling end, wanting for more business, share and revenue. Dishah’s realized this demanding situation and stepped up to offer ‘Sales Consulting’ solutions to give business a sharp edge against all types of prevailing competition. Our Services are focused on building & optimizing Sales Operation and Sales Team Capabilities through our Sales Consulting and Training Services to overcome Competitive Landscape Challenges and gain 20 to 50% Revenue in 12 to 16 weeks. And the result is, today, we are consulting many top brands in the industry and Dishah has been recognized among Top Sales Consulting Companies in India by CR Magazine. Great Companies- Your company provides a lot of sales training and consulting programs, how do you ensure efficient and productive results? Amit Sharma | This is the major challenge for businesses. Businesses need efficient and productive results. It is not possible with just Strategy Building or Implementation services. They needed something more to produce great results. Dishah as such came up with ‘Sales Consulting and Training’ Packages that deliver precisely what businesses need - Laser Focus, Consistent Efforts, Continuous Adjustments with varying output to produce efficient and productive results. Dishah focus on providing a strong ‘Unique Value Proposition’ to organization through its Sales Consulting Services to ensure organization is putting a strong foundation against tough competition. Further, our Sales Capability building services ensure, Sales Operation and Sales Team capability is synchronized to the greater vision of the organization to take up competition ‘head-on’ and win it easily. The result of this is, our customers are seeing a deal conversion leap of 20% to 80% within 8 to 16 weeks. Great Companies- You must have faced difficulties when you established this company, what were they and how did you cope with it? Amit Sharma : Yes, there were many. In fact, we are still facing a lot of challenges as we are growing in leaps and bounds. However, our biggest challenge during our inception was making our presence felt in the SMB & SME sector. It’s funny in a sense, we were facing the same challenge we set out to solve for other businesses - overcoming ‘tough’ & ‘unorganized’ competition to position ourselves as the ‘Trusted’ brand to solve ‘Demand Generation’ & ‘Customer Acquisition’ problem. It gets more tricky in the startup landscape who are always short of capital and resources. ‘Demand Generation’ and ‘Customer Acquisition’ are the two biggest problems that businesses of all scales are desperately looking to solve. To overcome it, we created a framework that is a combination of 21st century Sales Strategies, Content Marketing, Unique Value Proposition and Social Selling. This framework proved to be very effective to an extent that our outbound marketing transitioned to Inbound Marketing within 1 year of implementation. When we realized the results, we dropped the idea of being an ‘All-In-One’ Consulting Company like other players in the market. Instead, we re-adjusted our course to offer our proven framework as ‘Sales Consulting & Training’ that is proving to be ‘oxygen’ for today’s businesses. And, it’s not just us, our customers are also realizing the same level of benefits. Great Companies- You are trusted by many high profile companies, how has your journey been so far? Amit Sharma | Yes, we are associated with many top corporate and high profile companies. It was very challenging to make in-roads into corporate sector especially for an organization that is just 3 years old. It’s even harder to keep up their expectations. Otherwise, maintaining relationships and drawing regular business can be challenging. One thing that has been helping us keeping demanding clients happy are delivering Consistent Results. And, we could make it possible by building an in-house high level of competency with our Sales Consultants and Corporate Trainers. With top resources available, we could help our customers build and operate highly optimized sales operation that work as a money spitting machine. Great Companies- Any advice you would like to give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Amit Sharma | Aspiring Entrepreneurs are thorough with their Technical and Product Management Skills. For marketing skills, you could hire any marketing agency with decent budget to help you get the word out. Letting the word out about your business and getting the clients to your door isn’t so difficult in this age of social media and online marketing. Difficulty is to get the customer to pay for your product or service. And, this needs, Sales Skills. Entrepreneurs today, focus on product and marketing ignoring to build Sales Capabilities. As a result, they have good demand generation but it barely converts into real money. And, without money, there is no business. The problem is, by the time, entrepreneurs realize it, it’s already too late. You have already run out of time and resources. That’s the reason 90% of Startups fail within the first 2 years of their operation. My advice is - Don’t treat Sales as ‘Break-Fix’ mechanism. It’s as strategic as your business plan and marketing. Plan for Sales Capability along with product plan to yield Sales Revenue exactly when you need it. #dishah #consutants #sales #SME #demandgeneration

Great Companies- How did you get the idea of 'Avenue Growth'? Dilkash Rai Malhotra Sales is the single most important function of any company. Companies spend a sizable fixed amount on internal teams that may be heavy on costs once team size increases. We think that our mass reach will help brands penetrate to various locations within 72 hours within India. Sales is only possible once the right target segment is met. Avenue Growth’s huge value add is that it reaches to a brands target segment at scale, thus opening the pipeline funnel. Great Companies- You have collaborated with more than 15,000+ Growth Specialist, 500+Cities & Towns and 200+ brands. How has your journey been so far? Dilkash Rai Malhotra The journey has been interesting so far. I remember, we had an internal celebration when we touched 100 Growth Specialists and we called each of them and thanked them for believing in our concept. Thereafter our journey has been on an upward trend. Today we are working with some of the top global brands. Our tier 1 Growth Specialists (Freelancers) earn around Rs. 50,000 on a monthly basis. We offer them to freelance with companies that may have been aspirational in nature during the course of their careers. Great Companies- Why did you choose to be an entrepreneur rather than a fixed time job? Dilkash Rai Malhotra Based on my past experience, I am thankful to have experienced the complete business cycle in Operations, Supply Chain, Business Development, Marketing and Media. Also having worked with giant global conglomerates to the likes of Metro Cash & Carry and Proactiv, I picked-up valuable insights and learnings with razor focused approach. Great Companies- How do you define success? Dilkash Rai Malhotra Success to me is a continuous process. Doing better each day would eventually create growth, be it in professional or personal life. Great Companies- Any advice you would like to give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Dilkash Rai Malhotra Believe in yourself! That ultimately has a resonating effect which in turn aspires you to move towards your end goal. Always have a shared sense of purpose and be all in-all the time. #sales #advertising #targetsales #growthspecialists