Emmanuel Justus, Founder, SurgeForth Technologies – People Analytics

“Surging Forth”

Knowing what an employer is seeking and being able to accurately judge the worth of a candidate for a job are two sides of the same coin. A system that integrates the concerns of both the employer and the career seeker is a win-win situation for both. Emmanuel Justus has been instrumental in creating SurgeForth Technologies which addresses this very quandary. The Young Entrepreneur has been on his entrepreneurial journey since ’08 and has focused on People Analytics as his niche.His venture is aligned with Sun Startup Essentials and he spoke of their collaboration saying “The experience with Sun Startup Essentials has been quite good. We’re yet to realize the full benefit, but our team members have been helped in some of the technical challenges we faced.”

Business idea - SurgeForth has embarked on building the Next Generation Employability Eco System bringing together all the stakeholders. The key stakeholders who play a role in the employability ecosystem are the Employers, Institutions and the Career seekers. The challenge faced in employability is that the Career Seekers have to show case their strength only through their resumes and academic performances.

Employers have to go through thousands of resumes to shortlist a few career seekers who might be interested. Employers do not have a way of knowing the strengths an institution has other their affiliation to a certifying body or accreditation In all of this the loser is the Career Seeker since there is no way he/ she can show case their strengths. SurgeForth has taken up this challenge to bring all of them together through its offerings TalentWeaver and Career-Weaver.On the monetary side they charge the Enterprises on a Per Employee per Month Model and the Educational institutions Per Opportunity and Per Student per Month

Target Market – It’s not just the employer and the employee that benefit from SurgeForth, institutions also have much to gain. Emmanuel says “The scope of our organization is to provide an integrated Talent Management suite which brings together all the stakeholders. Our customers are Enterprises who provide Career Opportunities for career seekers, Educational Institutions (Academic institution or Training organizations) who meet academic needs of Career Seekers.”

“The beneficiaries of our systems are the Employers who subscribe to TalentWeaver who’re able to look at a Pool of Assessed Talent and their employees benefit from participation in the Career Development Workbench. Educational Institutions are able to showcase the strengths of their pool of students for opportunities from Employers. Career Seekers are able to realize the expectation of the employer and showcase their strengths quantitatively.”

What sets them Apart – SurgeForth is a one of a kind venture that aims at three consumer bases. The Collaborative Talent Management brings the Career Seekers, the Employers and the Educational Institutions on a platform of understanding.

Emmanuel states “We offer the Talent Management Service on a Subscription Model and having our product Cloud Enabled, allows us to enhance meaningful collaboration amongst the participating stakeholders”.

“The Predictive Analytics Algorithm being developed at VIT will make us stand tall amongst the rest.”

Future Plans- SurgeForth is for the moment restricted to the South Indian market but Emmanuel is looking at a pan India presence by the third quarter of 2010. He says “Our strategy is to partner with chosen Educational Institutions in a non-exclusive franchisee. This enables us to position our product and service with Enterprises with whom they have relationship.”

He aims to “build the complete Employability Eco System for the Seekers and Providers.”

Entrepreneurial Journey - Emmanuel has taken up the entrepreneurial life despite the dearth of “Access to information on funds!” for Indian entrepreneurs He asks “Where’re the ANGELS?”

He then explained why he has stuck to his work despite such drawbacks saying “It has always been my dream to realize and benefit from my ideas. I’ve been successful in implementing my ideas for various customers and it was time for me to have them for myself.”

“Our bandwidth is the cumulative bandwidth of the founding team. We always have more to accomplish and wish the days had more than 24 Hours! We’ve built up the core team of which we’re extremely proud of their contribution. They’ve taken up more than what they can to spare us the bandwidth.”

Emmanuel has learnt quite a few “hard lessons” chief among which is “Counting the eggs before they hatch.” He says “Initially we had met with a lot of employers who were ready to sign up with us and in our mind we treated them as customers and started projecting revenues based on interests. The reality was completely different although the market conditions had a squeeze on us. But now we have paying customers who’re happy with our services.”

Recognition gained - SurgeForth has grown from a two member team to a twelve member team and are still growing. They have been chosen to be incubated at VIT TBI for the development of their Predictive Analytics Engine. They have also been finalists in the Power of Ideas contest by Economic Times. Emmanuel is however of the opinion that his greatest achievement is “… customers, it is a great feeling to see customers appreciate your product and pay for the services. That is reward for our ideas.”

Entrepreneurial lesson – Emmanuel believes that the most important factor in entrepreneurship is focus. “Staying focused while there are a lot of distractions that come along the way as you build your product. Beware funds arrive only when you have paying customers.”

Yourstory thanks Emmanuel for sharing his ideas and his journey with our readers. We wish him the very best in life and hope to see SurgeForth break new ground this year.

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