Technology today does not just form a part of business strategy but is a key determiner of business success. Technology, being a fundamental requirement for any business today, was the driving factor behind the thought of starting the Opiant Group by Nagendra Singh and Aarti Chitkara.
Opiant is Nagendra’s brainchild and its beginnings were very humble. Ex-colleagues turned co-founders, Nagendra and Aarti started building the business brick-by-brick. It was not until two years after starting the company, that they had an office space and started hiring full-time resources, prior to which it was through random hiring.
In the initial phase, it was only through word of mouth that Opiant started getting projects, which is ongoing to date as the company has never had any focused sales and marketing for its business. Unlike many other IT companies, Opiant is mainly a services company with a mission to build, grow and maintain loyal communities at every touchpoint. Its main strength as an organisation is the ability to transform ideas from business to technical. It has become one of the recognized Information Technology and Consulting Company delivering software solution tools with expertise in developing easy-to-use, search-friendly, mobile-friendly, database-driven websites, enterprise resource planning and content management systems.
Tracing the journey
There is a point in life when you suddenly realise your true calling. It does not matter where you are or what you are doing. When that moment arrives, you surely know this is what you have been waiting for. So, we asked Nagendra about his eureka moment, to which he says, “We have come a long way in this journey of entrepreneurship, which we began some seven years back. And it has been an immensely satisfying and enriching journey! We belong to small towns where we had our respective basic education, and then moved to the capital for higher education and later settling down in our respective careers. If we talk about how we came together, it would be apt to say that destiny brought us together; we met in an organisation where we worked together as colleagues for about five years, though we never lost touch even after that. It was sometime after we had switched over from that company, we met over a cup of coffee, and this idea to start our own company was born!”
The objective behind Opiant was to provide IT services and consulting to mid-size corporates and government sectors to provide customized solutions, which was then influenced by big players only.
Complementing Each Other
Nagendra, being from core technical background, needed support on Operations areas. As both of them were professionals from corporate setups, they could fairly envisage the way they wanted to build up their organisation. To begin with, starting the organisation was not a cakewalk, as it was full of challenges, more so when it also involved giving up their full-time jobs along with the regular income; it was a tough decision.
Nevertheless, both Nagendra and Aarti had a passion to build something of their own, where they could be the risk-takers and decision-makers, it gave them the momentum to take the plunge. “Having said that, surviving through rough waters was possible only with the support of our respective families and well-wishers,” admits Nagendra.
He says, “With qualifications and experience tied to our backs minus any seed funding, we dived into setting-up our first company in 2013. To be precise, Aarti is a Cost and Management Accountant Professional with more than 18 years of experience in the field of Finance & Accounts and I, a certified Project Management Professional with experience of more than 22 years in the field of Information Technology. With this, it seemed a perfect combination for building our business.”
Well-Researched Products and Services
Opiant group has offices in New Delhi and Estonia (in Northern Europe), that comprises of a well-rounded team of technical and functional experts and in-depth capabilities to help valued customers develop resultoriented software products and services in a costeffective and timely manner. It enables businesses to accelerate time-to-market and address evolving market challenges with commendable expertise in the Application Development Services, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Custom ERP Development and Embedded Devices to name a few areas. Additionally, it has successfully delivered projects in data sciences and has started venturing into more areas of Artificial Intelligence (NLP and ML). It has delivered projects in varied domains such as Healthcare, Shipping & Logistics, Construction, Interior Designing and most importantly Wildlife.
While the management aspires to grow and leap into new things, it is the same spirit that they have instilled in the employees. The company believes that the growth of its employees is the growth of the organisation. Keeping that in mind, it promotes its employees to not only focus on work and delivering, but also on personal growth and focused development through learning. We inculcate in our resources the concept of team building through various measures from time to time.
“We believe that learning doesn’t have an age limit and try setting examples; so much so with us participating in Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum (EMC) by Delhi Government in 2019 to Nagendra learning the Spanish language during a pandemic, we both hold a strong zeal to learn and develop. We roll up our sleeves and are always ready for discussion”, adds Aarti.
Facing the Pandemic
COVID-19, the pandemic, brought a whole new set of challenges and even with technology, every situation still demands some adapting. The initial days were a bit difficult where every employee had their own set of obstacles like setting up an office at home but having like-mindedness towards working, team Opiant collectively did overcome a lot of obstacles. While there were many people focusing only on the negative side of the situation, the group, as a business, needed to see the positive light. With all the travel time saved and working in the comfort of the homes in such times, the company saw an increase in employee productivity and flexibility.
All the employees though have been missing the month-end celebrations combined with the monotony of working remotely, without any physical interactions, now look forward to connecting on video calls every month and have some fun albeit in the virtual model. Opiant continues with its tradition of acknowledging and rewarding the employees’ efforts and participation every month, which is an additional motivation for them.
Nagendra’s Views on the Indian Start-up Scenario
India is in the third position just behind the USA and UK in technology-led start-ups. The Indian government’s initiatives like Start-up India, Atmanirbhar Bharat and Digital India in the past decade have led to an immense rise of start-ups not only in the technology area but in other areas as well. While metro cities like Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai continue to be the start-up hubs, tier-II cities too, have not been far behind due to availability of talent, government initiatives, local investor confidence and infrastructure support. Technology acts as a boon as the innovations make customers’ lives easier. The advances in the technology like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Blockchain, Storage and Computing as a Service and Robotics leading to better business opportunities to chase. Government support is increasing as the Indian government has floated many schemes for start-ups to promote talent in the country.
Going Ahead
Opiant is proud to be associated with the Wildlife Conservation Society to deliver solutions globally. It has also worked with NSTFDC and UNDP in the past, and currently working as a consulting partner to an organisation in the USA. In future also, it plans to continue to deliver services and solutions across the globe in niche areas of technologies to benefit existing and new customers.
