The 15 year journey of building a company generating INR 100 crores of revenue: Maveric Systems
Maveric Systems is a company providing assurance services across the technology adoption life cycle. It was started by four individuals who hailed from diverse consulting background- Ranga Reddy, P. Venkatesh, N. N. Subramanian & V. N. Mahesh. The company was started in 2000 when the IT world was in a state of flux. Software testing was in a nascent stage and had not yet transformed into the booming sector it is today. Realizing the growth potential offered by software testing as a service, the team decided to focus on domain-led testing as their dedicated line of business. Over the years, the company has consolidated and grown steadily. Here, Ranga Reddy takes us through the journey.
The Idea evolution and the growth curve
The idea was to bring a diverse pool of talent to work on a very niche area in the software support services sector. This idea led us to focus on creating multilayered competency (Functional, Product & Testing); and thereby positively impact application quality.
Over a period of working in this space for 10 years, we have now decided to move upstream and have evolved into becoming a leading “IT Lifecycle Assurance” provider and have expanded our services to cover 3 specific services - Requirement Assurance, Application Assurance & Program Assurance. Thus, making us capable of offering comprehensive assurance services spanning from requirements to release.
We haven’t followed a conventional growth curve. It’s been about slow, strong and steady growth that has sustained us for over a decade. Our focus has been on building strong organizational fundamentals and more importantly on creating differentiating services. This has benefited us in three ways:
1. Helped us build Competitive Differentiation
2. Create client loyalty
3. Build strong relationships with a large pool of professionals who we worked with & worked for. This has protected us from being transactional & helped nurture long lasting, valuable relationships.
Focus in terms of the market
Initially, we started by working for India-based product and end-using companies in the banking & financial services industry. We work with diverse international Tier 1 Banking & Financial Services companies. With a track record of successful transformation projects with global BFS clients where our services were highly valued, we have now grown towards the Insurance and Telecom verticals.
Growing the team
We are 1100 strong currently and are rapidly growing. Organizationally, team development is equivalent to competency development. When we started out, we started with the promise that working in Maveric for 3 years is equivalent to working for 5 years elsewhere (in a Multi Services/ Composite Services Companies). Consequently for a team member, working for 5 years at Maveric will result in rich experience of working in at least 3 regions (eg: India, Middle East & UK etc). And working for 8 years at Maveric, will mean gaining competence in 2 core services at least (Requirement Assurance, Application Assurance and Program Assurance). And we are fortunate that we are keeping our promise to date. That’s how we have managed to create a valuable resource base.
Financials and the key learnings
Our current revenue is about INR 100 Crore (2012-13) and we are headed towards becoming an INR 400 Crore company within the next 5 years (by 2017-18) with 30% of our revenues coming from new / IP led services.
Key Learnings from operating in the BFSI and Telecom sectors
Both the verticals place enormous premium with respect to managing the short “time to market” span; which predominantly depends on stable requirements. If we are not investing in ensuring stable requirements, all the other efforts put in to meet the “time to market” is like putting good money behind bad money.
Constant requirements changes contribute to significant risk during software development, testing and implementation. If not controlled and base lined, requirements often continue to grow, increasing cost and schedule risk, besides resulting in increased defects being discovered in the applications during system and UAT testing phase and also during post implementation. Thus, a robust requirements management process with appropriate commitment at all levels can result in reduced number of defects and improve the overall quality of the project.
Things that could have been differently and the road ahead
I would have raised more money on day one, so that I could have had more allowance. But, in hindsight we were also fortunate not to have started with a large pool since we did a better job of managing our resources and were better focused. Many of the companies that started big around the same time have either sold out or have folded their operations.
The roadmap is to become the leading provider of integrated IT Lifecycle Assurance services for our clients (BFSI & Telecom), and partner with them across their technology adoption lifecycle from requirements to release with innovative IP-led solutions. Maveric will continue its thrust on innovation, R&D and IP creation, to power its end to end service offerings.
Website: Maveric Systems