Anand Justin Cherian: The Gamechanger in Human Resource Solutions

Employees form an integral part of any organization for their important role in mobilizing every function through their skills and comprehensive acumen. Hence, it becomes essential for every business organization to have profound human resource strategies for the sustenance and growth of the business.

However, the company’s management does feel the heat of certain challenging situations, which can be disruptive to business operations and the organization culture. Hence, it becomes essential to hire experienced human resource consultants who can provide effective employee management solutions in creating long-term systems that not only streamline the organization structure but also build talent pipelines to make the business more future-ready.

Anand Justin Cherian, Principal of inQsights, stands to the testimony of professional HR consultants who support business organizations in building and developing a robust HR architecture with the objective of enabling a continuum of progress.

Justin, an MBA from IIM Calcutta, has over 12 of diverse experience in various dimensions of HR, which include talent management, learning and development, organization design, and more. His dynamic and creative approach brings in powerful analytics, encouraging ideas and deployment skills for his team.

Justin started his corporate career with the corporate learning and organization development team in Essar, India’s renowned infrastructure organization; before teaming up with Inqubex – inQsights. An avid lover of arts including music, painting, and photography; Anand has been instrumental in crafting customized and scalable solutions for various business organizations in scaling the desired progress to achieving their goals in the modern business arena.

In a brief interview with the Insights Success team, Anand Justin Cherian shared valuable facts highlighting his professional journey, his experiences, and how he made important decisions in the process of offering effective human resource solutions.

Anand. please tell us about the saga of inQsights since its inception.

As an idea, inQsights started taking shape sometime around 2017-18, when we (at Inqubex) found ourselves working on several productivity improvement assignments, all of which entailed a certain amount of data analysis and visualization.

Working with an Analyst across the different projects, we toyed with the idea of automating the analysis in a manner that would be fungible across organizations. Though we brainstormed a bit, the flood of projects meant we got pulled into more immediate priorities, and this idea remained dormant till we, like the rest of the world, were shaken up by COVID-19.

The pandemic and the resulting lockdown gave us a moment to reflect on our organizational journey and pushed us to think more actively about enhancing our consulting offerings with the power of technology. From there, it was an incredible adventure with its fair share of highs and lows till we got in place a suite of HR Tech tools early this year and went live with inQsights.

Tell us about your source of inspiration behind venturing into the business arena?

Well, I called myself a fossil at Inqubex, the parent Consulting firm behind inQsights, having joined it back in 2013. The challenge of building a new business from scratch, that too in the exciting HR Tech space, was too interesting to pass!

What were the initial challenges that you had to surmount to ensure inQsights’ success rate reached greater heights?

The first challenge was internal for me—the shift from a Consulting mindset—where the answer to most answers is ‘It depends, to a more productized and scalable construct, took some effort. That bridge, however, was more or less crossed in the course of the product development.

Our strong experience base, which forms the basis for the tech portfolio, together with the space we have left for tool customization and configuration for unique client needs, gives me the confidence to pitch our HR Tech solutions to organizations across sectors.

What professional values and qualities do you think your clients value in you and inQsights the most?

I think clients like us for our straight-talking and implementation-focused approach to partnership. As consultants, we always work as extensions of our client HR teams, and we have carried the same ethos forward with inQsights as well.

What are the USPs that highlight inQsights’ uniqueness in the Human Resource Management sector?

Firstly, inQsights offers an array of easy-to-deploy, cloud-based HR Tech tools. So, there are no elaborate IT system integration efforts needed, no complex project management–just simple solutions to complex problems.

That brings me to the second highlight – the offerings address diverse HR Management needs – from organization productivity to talent assessments, to employee engagement and more. We are a one-stop shop for needs across the employee lifecycle and deliver our solutions seamlessly, combining technology with our legacy strengths in consulting.

As an experienced professional, what would you like to advise the budding aspirants willing to enter the modern business arena?

All I’ll say is that there is a lot more to starting up and running a sustainable business than funding fairy tales that go viral on social media. If you have a sound value proposition for your clients and a good team to help you deliver the same, then it’s a matter of time before things click – of course, with tonnes of hard work and some sleepless nights to make things interesting.

How do you envision your company’s operations with the emerging technologies and automated tools that are revolutionizing the business world by enabling innovations?

inQsights itself aims to make data and technology a more active part of a function that has traditionally lagged on this front. Technology is a great enabler; however, I don’t see it as driving innovation in isolation or replacing human intelligence anytime soon. We still need smart practitioners to derive maximum impact from the technology. I am fascinated at the potential of what can be achieved when HR Tech-enabled insights meet HR practitioners with the skill and will to make things happen. It’s a great time to be part of this journey!