FUTURE BUSINESSTECH: Past Perfect, Present Continuous, Future Bright

Counted among one of the leading SIs in Bangalore, Future BusinessTech's
success story is all about its MD, Jayessh Mehta's, foresight and
determination. From selling electronic components to assembling PCs to IT
trading to systems integration, Jayessh has done it all. He now wants to make
Future a completely process-driven company.

Bangalore-based Jayessh Mehta can be called a veteran in many senses. He has
been in the IT business for almost as long as the have been selling in the
country. He assembled and sold his first PC in 1985-a time when there were
hardly any assemblers in the country. 

He was one of the first partners of Godrej reselling Panasonic DMPs in 1990.
Seven years later, he was one of the few channel players in the country, who
made a swift but determined transition from box-pushing to a solutions business.

Today Future has become a partner of choice for leading brands like HP, IBM
and Acer. And despite the fact that all the three vendors have very similar
product offerings, Jayessh has been able to manage all the vendor relationships
in an equally justifiable fashion.

STRONG FOUNDATIONS

Jayessh began his career in IT immediately after finishing his engineering in
1985. He, along with his cousin, started a company called Mahavir Computers
selling electronic components.

In the initial days itself, his quest to do something different made him
assemble a PC, that too at a time, when procuring many components for the same
was extremely difficult. But his determination got a big fillip, when this PC
was sold within two days.

Few months later, he received an order for 100 units, the value of which was
Rs 37 lakh, which was a huge amount. "We took about a month to fulfill this
order as we had to procure components from various sources," informs
Jayessh.

And guess, who supplied the cabinets for these PCs? It was none other than KR
Naik, the current CMD of D-Link India. "Our relationship with Naik dates
back to those days and till date we have very close ties," reveals Jayessh.

Jayessh founded another company called Future Computers in 1990 and thus
entered into full-fledged IT trading. Starting as a three-men outfit, the
company recorded a turnover of Rs 17 lakh largely by selling Panasonic DMPs.

By then Jayessh had established very strong credibility and customer
relationships, which helped him get repeat business. "In fact even today,
nearly 80% of our business is from customers who have been dealing with us for
over 10 years," states a proud Jayessh.

In 1995, Future also dealt with Digital PC brand while continuing to sell
other IT components and peripherals.

CHANGE IN BUSINESS MODEL

By 1997, Jayessh had realized that to survive, Future had to venture into
services as well. "We wanted to slowly dilute our box-pushing business and
increase our focus on services, which could fetch us better bottomlines,"
reasons he.

His determination showed in Future's turnover (which was now known as
Future BusinessTech), where nearly 20% of company's revenues came from
services. Also, Future was dealing with end-users and had stopped reselling to
the channel.

Luckily for Future, a focus shift on box business didn't tell much from its
toplines either and the company continued to post 20%-30% year-on-year growth.
"Our service component also remained constant for quite a few years between
20% and 25%. We had realized that products would be largely incidental to our
business and only services can help us stay profitable," explains Jayessh.

Service contributed nearly 23% of Future's business in 2003-04 and Jayessh
is looking at nearly 37% contribution this year. The company currently sells the
entire range of HP' products, Unix servers, PCs and laptops from IBM, Acer's
desktops and laptops, networking products from Cisco and AMP. But despite having
such premier brands in its kitty, Jayessh is determined to make Future
Businesstech a service-oriented company.

A FORESIGHTED VISION

Working with a team of nearly 80 people, Jayessh leaves no stone unturned
for investing on skillsets development. "Last year we invested Rs 8 lakh
towards training and this figure will only gradually rise in the days to
come," says he.

For him, skillset development, its retention, making the company a
process-driven instead of people-driven are some of the areas where he would put
lot of focus in the current fiscal.

Further elaborating on Future's plan of action, Jayessh adds, "We
would be stressing much more on certifications this year and also increase our
focus on storage and networking technologies as well as spruce up our interest
on offering software solutions."

Future currently addresses export-oriented units in a big way and for the
coming years, it plans to tap the opportunities in manufacturing and education
sector. "We are also looking at expanding in the southern region,"
says he.

The company clocked revenues of Rs 23 crore in FY 2003-04 and is pretty
confident of posting a growth of 25-30%. Last year, one of the significant
projects was setting up a DR site between India and US for Siemens, which was
valued at Rs 2.5 crore.

"However, we would be doing certain amount of consolidation in our
business this year, hence we are keeping our growth projections little
low," says Mayank Parekh, VP-Operations.

Mayank has been with the company for over 11 years now. Ask him the secret
behind such a long relationship and he explains, "Future gives us an
opportunity to grow, to experiment with new things, freedom to work on our
ambition. Also being a relatively small organization, each one of us is able to
maintain an identity for ourselves."

And there are many, like Mayank, who have been working with Future for over 7
years. "Our biggest strength which helps us minimize attrition is our
transparency with the staff," points out Jayessh. A strength, he believes
will make the company grow more, not just in terms of headcount but also
revenues in the days to come.

For now, Jayessh's priority is to see that Future Businesstech becomes a
completely process-driven company and to establish a strong brand in services.

GOLDIE

SECRETS OF SUCCESS

l Well-thought transition from box
business to systems integration and services

l Foresight to invest on
skillsets and dealing with premier brands

l Maintaining transparency with
workforce