Ksolves: Journey of a global IT Solutions brand

Ksolves journey

Passion is the main difference between leading an ordinary and an extraordinary life. While we all go along with our lives doing our work and daily chores, the one who does these things with passion, dedication and hard work often ends up with a success story. Ratan Srivastava, founder and CEO of a global technology firm Ksolves Pvt Ltd, had imbibed this formula to success very early in life.

After working at multiple marquee names of Indian IT industry such as Persistent, Tech Mahindra and Birlasoft, he took the proverbial entrepreneurial plunge and started Ksolves India Pvt Ltd in 2012. No business background meant that he had to grasp the ABC of entrepreneurship all on his own. And indeed he did.

Eight years down the line, Ksolves has worked with 300+ satisfied clients all across the USA, Europe, Australia and Middle East Asia and is a 250+ employee strong team across two sprawling development centres in Noida and Indore an onshore sales centre at California, USA and Moambique. Company works primarily on cutting edge technologies such as Big Data, SalesForce, Apache NiFi, Spark , Cassandra and Mobile Applications. It has also developed a big techno-functional expertise in Financial, Telecom, Cyber Security and e-commerce domains.

This wasn’t an overnight success and had its own ups and downs, but with his determination to do well and firm belief in hard work, accountability and integrity, the company has grown at a CAGR of 35% since inception.

What Ksolves Brand stands for?

While K is Ratan’s favourite alphabet, “solves” represents the company's total and non-compromising commitment to provide end solutions. Since beginning Ksolves differentiated itself by focusing on not being a mere service provider but a solution provider. While difference may sound subtle and small, in execution it makes a massive difference for a customer.

A service provider will only do a predefined task and raise hands at each possible hiccups. On the other hand, a solution provider will understand customer needs, will ensure solutions suggested work within constraints of time and cost as well as its executions. This sense of accountability by a technology partner allows clients to focus on his other important business aspects.

Ratan as a CEO, front leads client engagement functions and believes that a personal connection is a must. This is more important for a firm like Ksolves, as the majority of global clients trust you with work without having physically interacted with you.

Covid Tailwinds

Ksolves has observed increased adoption of technology across existing and potential clients and has strong pipeline of sales leads specially in Digital technologies as well as Big Data/Machine Learning. While physical offices remain closed, the organization has successfully adopted the ‘work from home” model and observed increased productivity and resource utilization while keeping data security standards intact. Company also completed its annual salary appraisal cycle in Oct '20. This covered all employees who were due for annual revision. This appraisal cycle, in spite of general business stress in the IT sector due to Covid crisis, is testimonial to the company's strong track record of delivery in the past and confidence for future growth.  

Ksolves also continues to do a major employee hiring drive to create a qualified/talented pool for future growth. Employee headcount as on date is 250 at Ksolves group level and reflects ~100% growth compared to last year's same period. This is in line with the revenue growth company announced in H1 20-21.

Technology Partnerships

This is part of the company's focus to join partnership programs on leading technologies leveraging past track record of delivery to multiple clients across the globe.

Adobe Solution Partner Program (SPP) : Ksolves has joined the Adobe Solution Partner Program (SPP) as bronze partner.  This will allow the company to benefit from sell, promote & learn opportunities on Adobe Solution Partner Program and is testimony to the wonderful past track record of delivery on Adobe and Magento technology.

Odoo Partner Program : Ksolves has joined Odoo Sliver Partner for select geographies. This service partnership compliments Ksolves’ product suite on Odoo global marketplace.

Similar partnerships are work in progress with other leading technology providers including with Salesforce.

Focus on Product Division for non-linear growth

In 2019, Ksolves started a product division which is often considered a tougher nut to crack. But, Ksolves has defied general wisdom by gaining quick and early success where, currently, two of the applications developed by Ksolves are in the top ten global apps listed on the Odoo Global Marketplace, Belgium.

Ksolves recently launched its own Product Store (https://store.ksolves.com/) where potential clients can directly come and buy products.  This in addition to Ksolves products listed on Odoo, Belgium app store (https://apps.odoo.com/apps) where Dashboard Ninja, a product by Ksolves India Limited, continues to be a top two application.

Listing on National Stock Exchange and Path Ahead

Piggybacking a strong growth track record along with constant profitability, Ksolves launched its IPO in July’2020. Investors lapped on the offering and the issue was oversubscribed in the middle of a major health crisis. Since then , four times increase in market capitalization within the first six month showcases the market's confidence in Ksolves potential.

Listing also provided a major credibility boost to Ksolves in the eyes of potential customers and employees and the company has already witnessed a shift in that direction.

Any organization needs to constantly weigh the needs of different stakeholders. Ksolves has an adopted strategy to balance needs of all stakeholders and minimize conflict perceptions between shareholding stakeholders and non-shareholding ones, such as customers, vendors, employees, and the communities in which Ksolves operate. To do so, pre-defined operating principles as well complete transparency on outcomes is a must. Highest form of corporate governance is underlying of all things Ksolves does.

Path Ahead

To retain the high growth path Ksolves is focusing four levers i.e, a) focus on new-edge technology, b) multiple products lined up for launch in next 12 months c) Technology partnerships with top global Tech names and d) winning enterpriser customers.

Going into 2021, the company is also working on launching products on other technologies such as Magento, Shopify , Prestashop , and Salesforce. This is part of the company's target to diversify revenue streams by having an optimal mix of IT services and products. Company aims to increase revenue % of Product and customization services from currently 10% to 25% in next one year.

Product division compliments service division sales efforts as these products owned by Ksolves works as artefacts showcasing Ksolves’ capabilities in these technologies to new clients. Also Ksolves balances resource utilization between on-demand service products and long gestation products. This helps reduce bench strength to minimum and results in better cost dynamics.

 If more than 120% YoY growth delivered in H1 result announced in Oct’20 is any indication, Ksolves is marching on with increased discipline on executions and higher responsibility to deliver on its potential.

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