Even though some workplaces are opening, and businesses have picked up their pace, there is still uncertainty in the market. The second wave of Covid-19 has undoubtedly left a deep scar and with rumors of the third wave being equally capable (if not more) of causing similar damage, businesses are cautious.
Expansions are on hold, while consolidations, automation and use of AIs/technology enabled business facilitators has gained momentum. Having said the above, it is equally heartening to see that the growing competition has also led to the evolution of multi-skilled resources, innovation in ways of how organizations market themselves, package their products and its pricing.
“We are hopeful that given the tenacity of the vaccination drives in India and the way the medical infrastructure is being ramped up, the country will be better prepared for the third wave,” says Dr. Vivek Das, Founder and Principal of Pro Consulting Solutions. It will boost the confidence and momentum of business activities and encourage the citizens to carry on.
With this confidence, he shares some valuable information about the dynamics of his company in an exclusive interview with Insights Success. Here are the highlights of the interview:
Describe your company in detail.
Pro-Consulting Solutions is a management consulting organisation focusing on providing realistic and executable solutions for growth. We work with our clients to help them achieve their business objectives through improvements and assist them in enhancing their performance while ensuring sustainability.
We specialize and assist professional firms and companies with:
- People Strategy and Talent Sourcing requirements
- Enhancing Presence, visibility and ensuring effective outreach
- Analyse and assist in improving people and business Performance
Pro-Consulting Solutions in its first year of operation was recognized as ‘India’s Top 10 Emerging Consultancy Start-Ups 2021’ followed by a National Award for being the ‘Best Consulting Company of the Year 2021’ at the Time2Leap National Awards-MSME Edition for its outstanding accomplishments in the field of Business and Law Firm Management Consulting. Additionally, Pro-Consulting has been adjudged as the “Company of the Year 2021” by the coveted “The CEO Story” magazine while the Founder has also been awarded the ‘Young Entrepreneur Award 2021’ by the Indian Achiever Forum recently.
Walk us through your professional journey.
Pro-Consulting Solutions is founded by Dr. Vivek Das. As Founder and Principal of the organization, he has more than 16 years of extensive experience in business consulting and law firm management, and Talent sourcing and management.
He specializes in Strategic Communications and Client Outreach, and works closely with the senior leadership, partners, and practice groups of leading Indian law firms, assisting them on areas pertaining to branding and market visibility, internal communications, business development and network management, talent management and strategic growth.
He has serviced some of the best brands in the Legal, Software, Telecommunication, Hospitality, Healthcare and Retail businesses among others. Besides, the above he has also assisted firms with their team building and hiring strategies, and manpower requirements.
What made you venture into the business world?
Prior to setting up Pro-Consulting Solutions, the core team of Pro-Consulting had worked with leading consulting and top law firms as part of their core squad. Pro-consulting have worked in the Consulting field for the last 16 years, it was a natural progression for us.
Besides, as the industry was growing and firms were looking for assistance to professionalize their set-ups, we found a perfect opportunity to kick-start our venture. We feel extremely lucky to have received such great support and patronage from our clients, team, peers, and our well-wishers who have backed us during this period and thus, contributed to our success so far.
What kind of offerings do you provide to your clients?
We assist professional firms and companies with:
Talent Acquisition: Manpower Strategy, Talent Sourcing and Hiring
Law Practice Management: including performance analysis, growth strategy, compensation benchmarking, appraisals and drafting and implementing HR /IT/operational policies
Visibility and Brand Awareness: developing an outreach strategy, creation of brand identity elements, building web presence, media placements, networking and industry relations management, content marketing, social media optimization and Online-offline event support
Practice Development: Strategy and plan for expanding practices and to other sectors or jurisdictions including building relations with global firms, database creation, prospect identification and engagement, effort mapping and analysis
Growth Strategy and Business Performance: Advisory and implementation of tailor-made campaigns
What kind of challenges have you faced while entering the business world?
The business and the key stakeholders were thankfully known to us. However, the inherent challenges (that holds true for any business) – skilled employees, clients, good vendors, working capital was always there and had to be tackled. Starting during the pandemic just multiplied our difficulties. Since Consulting requires investment into human resources, ensuring an access to data and developing a technology backed structure for data crunching and research, dependence on high client interaction and secured technology to keep data safe, it presented a new set of challenges for us during the pandemic as everything had to be organized very remotely.
Setting up an appropriate IT Infrastructure, approaching clients and convincing them for more e-interactions were a very learning experience for us. Since all of these required finances, it did delay a few things for us owing to lack of steady cash-flows. At the same time, it also encouraged us to think out-of-the-box and evolve our products to suit the requirements of our clients.
How much your company/business was affected in these pandemic times and what were the steps taken by you to curb the damages all the while helping your clients and maintaining the safety of your employees?
As stated above, with the Covid situation being under way, we had to innovate and invest to ensure a good IT Infrastructure for remote accessibility and seamless communication; although, adjusting to the virtual mode of working was a big challenge initially.
As the nature of consulting requires a lot of personal interaction, attention, deliberation, and discussion; the otherwise shorter physical meetings were getting replaced with longer virtual calls, thereby, leading to higher engagement and longer working hours. Though the higher client engagement was heartening, the delayed cash flows coupled with mounting fixed costs kept testing.
During lockdowns, we all were working from home and all office work, data, client and team interactions were held on virtual modes. We further encouraged our employees to take vaccinations.
However, as the lockdown norms were eased, and business activities slowly started, things are now shaping up albeit slowly. Our office operations have resumed following all safety protocols and the client physical meetings have begun too.
What would you like to advise the young generation of entrepreneurs?
Our advice to the budding entrepreneurs is to – first introspect and be sure of what they want to do, and then keep calm and be focused. In the Consulting industry – experience and reputation matters, which takes years of perseverance. Hence, not meant for people looking to achieve quick success. Education, professional affiliations, and relationships in the industry count, and therefore, one needs to have a thought through strategy and be prepared to invest time in order to be a successful consultant. One more thing: reading and being aware is very important.
Where do you envision your company/business to be in the long run and what are your future goals? How do you plan to embrace the changes happening in your industry?
Lockdowns have helped us evolve as human beings and as an organization. Understanding the value of technology and its implications, we have blended it into our solutions and have successfully rolled out IT-enabled solutions for our clients. Having acquainted with virtual modes of operation, we have become more flexible and prepared for challenging situations.
Our vision is to be the most trusted professional organisation; inspiring innovation and enhancing performance while promoting healthy work culture through our values, ethics, and integrity.
