Damnish Kumar, Rajeev Gupta, Vishal Gupta and Neeraj Varshney, Founders HyTech Professionals India Pvt Ltd

Freedom in entrepreneurship comes with a lot of responsibility. The entrepreneur should handle this very carefully and remain focused, keeping his or her eyes open to new opportunities and being open to change. These are the words of the founders of the HyTech Professionals India Pvt Ltd.

Formed in 2004, HyTech Professionals delivers quality solutions for the Indian software services industry through engineers who are among the best in the country. The services offered by the company bring in economic value through the employment of highly skilled but inexpensive resources that ensure high accountability with minimal risk.

HyTech Professionals nurtures a company culture of going that extra mile for its clients. The company brings in local consultants to better understand its clients’ businesses, ensuring seamless communication with the Indian development centre in Noida, thus reducing the clients’ risks associated with offshore engagements.

On the other hand, the ‘global consulting’ approach ensure that the workforce is globally trained, and the clients enjoy the benefits of low-cost services, low-risk engagements and top-quality solutions.

HyTech Professionals was established in 2004 by Damnish Kumar, an MS in mathematics and scientific computing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK); Rajeev Gupta, a BTech in civil engineering from IITK and MS from Purdue University, US; Vishal Gupta, a BTech from the Marine Engineering and Research Institute, Kolkata; and Neeraj Varshney, a BE in metallurgy from the Government Engineering College, Raipur and MS in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, US.

However, the four of them insist that HyTech Professionals is an employee-owned company. “Our people are our assets. We believe in bringing diverse highly qualified individuals on board to ensure a work culture that fosters personal growth through our internal mentorship programme. Our people have years of experience in software development, domain expertise and a desire to help you achieve your business goals,” they aver. “Our primary goal is to convert a client’s vision into a cost-effective and efficient business solution.”

The founders of HyTech had a vision of setting up their own venture and shape it so that it may benefit a large segment of society, with the aim of creating wealth and jobs within India. With a focus on finding business ideas that required minimal capital investment and had maximum potential towards this aim, they started their firm from a friend’s basement in Noida with a few computers.

HyTech Professionals began without any significant seed funding. It has grown organically on its own and has been debt-free from the start. Beginning with four employees, it now has more than 200, with offices across the globe, on the way overcoming the challenges of finding the right people and partners to make a successful team. The industry it functions in has global footprints that throw up challenges including currency fluctuations, dependency on the US economy and protective regulations promoting a local workforce — all of which HyTech prevailed over.

HyTech differs from its competitors in several senses: it operates in a niche market, utilising matured processes and employing a global delivery model, with a focus on customer satisfaction, growth and retention, as well as quality delivery, privacy protection, integrity and equal opportunity. Its approach is driven by domain skills and solutions, and is based on knowledge upgrade and adoptability for better processes.

With the Indian software services industry growing at a fast pace, HyTech Professionals is in a niche market for healthcare solutions, media solutions (audio and video technologies), e-learning and customised software development. Its target market is growing, giving it a boost for expansion in the current financial year. Its figure of more than 200 associates around the world is expected to more than double by 2011, thus boosting its vision of being among the top 50 software services firms in India.

HyTech Professionals registered year-on-year growth of 4 per cent in 2004, 30 per cent in 2005, 60 in 2006, and 120 and 150 in 2007 and 2008, respectively. It has expanded tremendously and now has branches in the US, Germany and Sweden. Its development centre in Noida is equipped with the latest technology, with secured systems and comfortable working conditions to boost productivity and quality. The company maintains 24 hours a day, seven days a week service supports for its engagements.

The firm plans to enhance its services by laying focus on the existing customers, retaining and growing accounts, and concentrating on a quality global delivery model. Its business model of ‘deliver locally, work globally’ has been a success since the company bridges the communication gap with its customers with a local resource pool.

HyTech Professionals has been ranked by NASSCOM as the ‘most exciting emerging company to work for’ for two years in succession, in 2007 and 2008. It was the smallest as well as the youngest in the list of similar companies, and the firm accepts this as a certificate of recognition of its value system.

In line with its aim of creating new job opportunities in India, HyTech Professionals has diversified into a new service portal, bookmykhana.com, which was launched earlier this year. Customers can order food with a single click on the portal or by calling a toll-free number, within the Delhi NCR region, where it is already the number one food ordering portal. The company is now working on making this innovative service available nationwide.