A Personal Touch

There are ample cases wherein friendship has blossomed into business
partnership.

Arangasamy and Karthik S are friends in the IT industry from the past 15
years. Both had aspirations of starting their own business. In March 2003 they
decided to join hands to start their own company-Universys. They started from
Coimbatore and today the company has branches in Chennai, Tirupur, Vellore,
Puducherry, and are planning to open one in Bengaluru. They have more than 800
clients all across South India. Senthil also joined the partnership after few
years. Universys is a combined SP for video, voice, wireless, GPS and data
services. Some of their prestigious clients are MRF, Mercedes-Benz, Tamilnadu
Police, CRI Pumps etc. They have their own software and hardware developing
team.

"In the upcountry market, power cannot be gained by merely increasing volume
of the business. Instead it is achieved by sharing a trustworthy relationship
with customers. Today, Universys has given me a standard life as well as quality
of life. It has been a great journey of transformation for me as a person,''
recalled Arangasamy.

The transition

With lots of SIs offering various end-to-end solutions, the three promoters
wanted to distinguish the company from other IT organizations. They had started
off as regular SIs with an aim of becoming different from the rest. Over time
they slowly migrated into the niche segment and till date are a part of it.
Initially their small business took firm steps towards their destination,

which they reached in a very short time. But Arangasamy believes that his
company is still in the transition phase as they are adding many new things to
their existing portfolio. He prefers to spend the business revenue on conducting
seminars and participating in IT Expos.

Dealing with challenges

The founders of Universys were no exception to the rough patches that hit
the roads of entrepreneurs. Like their business, the challenges they faced were
also unique. Since it was a new organization, customers were not ready to accept
the technology that the company had to offer. It was only after a few years of
verbal publicity that they started laying a path for growth. Arangasamy handles
the entire business activities while Karthik takes care of Promotional and
Marketing division and Senthil is incharge of government verticals. Arangasamy
is a voracious reader and his favorite tamil writer is Jayamohan. His all time
favorite book is Vishnupuram. Jaymohan's writings work as a stress-buster for
him. Arangasamy's family consists of his wife Sumathi and son Aditya Bharathan.

Arangasamy won The DQ Week and Confed-ITA Best Upcoming Entrepreneur in 2009.
It was like an entry card for Universys in the corporate world. "After winning
that award, I got many offers from the corporate concerns, thanks a lot to The
DQ Week team," shared Arangasamy.

Arangasamy feels that there is still a long way to go before they can proudly
claim to have achieved the targets that they had set for themselves. They are
confident that 2010-11 would be a turning point in their business.

R Ramkumar

ramk@cybermedia.co.in