
mathematical analysis, technology solutions and domain-specific understanding. We have worked in vanillas to the most exotic options and assets including currencies, interest rates, equities, credit, commodities, hybrids and cross-asset structured products."
"As the venture matures, the vastness of our products and services will unfold more clearly. However, at this time, we believe that we have identified a very specialized and large global market. The scope of our products and services is immense owing to the increasing importance of analytics and risk management, growing dependencies on mission critical systems / services for large treasuries and surge in capital markets and alternate investment activities in recent past. Innumerable people will be positively affected with our services since banks, insurance companies, exchanges and other financial services companies criss-cross the lives of millions of people everyday."
The services Beans & Intellect offers are in a segment that has gone largely unnoticed. With the efforts that the team at the company is putting in, their business model is even more unique than the usual entrepreneurial brain wave. Anshumann talks about their segment saying "Niche, virgin and the having potential for explosive growth…it caught our eye in the beginning. As we moved ahead to explore the vast territory of financial markets, we found that we have the advantage of being early in the area of outsourced & niche treasury technology business models, a niche focus on risk modeling, askance for the present day financial crisis and ever growing activities in capital markets. An amalgamation of technology, quantitative modeling, and domain expertise makes us completely different from the rest of the companies in this segment."
"High-end knowledge services are delivered to our clients by outsourcing their technology, modeling and risk management requirements. We also work onsite by augmenting existing client teams with our mission-critical resources, off-the-shelf products and proven services. Our model is highly flexible on service projects adaptable to specific needs of our clients. The product play, targeted to institutional treasuries, is based on annuity and support. "
He also explained the future direction he envisions for the company saying "We are looking at emerging markets as our basic target, particularly, in the present times when the economic superpowers are crumbling under the severe stress of financial crisis. Other than having offices in Mumbai and Bangalore, we have representatives in Singapore to cover the ASEAN market. We have a client in the Middle East based on the success of which, we intend to penetrate our services to other financial companies in the MEA region. "
"We are looking to raise requisite funds for building relevant business development teams. Recently, we have also merged a treasury advisory company based in India which has increased the length and breadth of our services, also bringing on board a banking veteran of more than 20 years of work experience. We intend to hire experienced MBA’s / CA’s in the coming few months to rapidly cater to clients on treasury consulting."
His journey towards entrepreneurship was decided by a career that made him a jack-of-all trades and a master of several. He explains "Like multi-strategy hybrid funds, entrepreneurship has many flavours. It is a multi-career high-end job. I was looking to work on multiple assignments, roles and varied areas which can only be possible in an entrepreneurial set-up. Everyday experience of creating strategies, jobs, newer avenues, thoughts, ideas, missions, plans etc. is more satisfying than what any 9-to-5 job has to offer."
He also had a few failings along his entrepreneurial journey as Anshumann reflects, "Understanding people, I think, has been the biggest challenge of my young career. Behavioral pattern recognition of the various characters with whom we interact, I have come to realize, is one of the most important ingredients in creating a successful venture. Emotional intelligence is rarely found at a young age and is difficult to learn early on in one’s career. I think I have learnt to fathom people better now – a trait that was amiss in the fostering years and needed my conscious effort all through the last 5 years. The key was incessant interactions with hundreds of people, reading of minute behavioral details and extrapolating those to form multiple skeletons of people."
"Initially, my team selection was poor. Because of allocating wrong weightings to attributes, I have made blunders in my first company that led to its closure. One can never work with a team with no common goal. My first company had no consensus on a common goal within the management team, leading to different people pursuing different goals. Before starting out, one must find a team that gels together with passion as an important commonality."
With his personal savings, and funds from a few private investors to the tune of a couple of lakh rupees set Anshumann on to the path of entrepreneurship. Since then the company has been on a roll, he says "we have grown at 600% year-on-year in 2008-’09. The plan for 2009-’10 is to grow by more than 1000% over the year gone by. With 15 employees and representatives in Singapore and Middle East, we are looking to hire a few more recruits in the business development team for more effective sales activities. There is a plan to open a Bangalore office in near-term."
With a billion dollar company and a Top 100 global brand as one of their clients, Anshumann considers his venture to be blessed and lucky. He also says it is a notable achievement for his young company to be counted amongst the Top 25 Tie-DFJ companies of 2006. Beans and Intellect has also featured in the Top 30 innovative ideas in India by the India Innovation Program of the Government of India, 2009.
After all these accolades it is a small wonder then that Anshumann is not keen on quitting his dreams for a regular job, he says "No. It has not occurred as yet. I guess the passion to create exceeds the need to find a regular job. Apart from being a multi-career high-end job, everyday challenges with a more than satisfying career keep me going at Beans & Intellect."
Aiming for a year-on-year growth of more than 1000 % for Beans & Intellect by 2010, he has plenty to keep him busy. To the entrepreneur who is seeking to replicate his success he advises "Don’t give up. It just takes a little time before things starts falling in place. One always needs to intuitively pick the larger frame of reference - in other words have the big picture drawn to the last possible detail - to keep going the entrepreneur’s way since it is often a long haul that needs unrelenting efforts."
Yourstory wishes Beans and Intellect grows from strength to strength to achieve all their goals with more beans and much intellect.