Interview with Ashay Sawalkar – Founder & CEO of Pasistence

Tell us something about yourself?

Family

My father works in Central government and mother is a doctor and my brother has just joined the company for expansion in marketing.

Childhood till HSC 

I am a KVian from small town and spent 12 years of my life in OFV Bhusawal., which is a ordnance factory estate near to 25 Kms to Bhusawal, Maharashtra. I have worked as NSUI College president further promoted to City President of Busawal, reporting to Devandra Singh Patil (nephew of Pratibha tai patil) who was district head of NSUI Jalgaon that time.

My journey in Pune from 2008 to 2013

I call this phase as first part of learning. I have started working when I was 17 years old as an assistant for Sr Advisor of LIC. At the age of 18 I was eligible for MNC job and I decided to be self-funded and quit my option of engineering. I opted for BSC IT course from Purrandar University to be able to work in night shifts while studying together. The first MNC job at 18 was at IBM BPO UK TECH process. From there I worked graveyard shifts for Ventura for tech sales. I was not getting exposure required to get into leadership skills and so at the age of 20, I gave interview in domestic BPO and got selected as a TL. I was youngest TL working for Intellenet – a Serco company.

All these jobs were the best for me but I was passionate to know how business actually works. Second level of learning started for me. In the search for practical exposure I joined Prance, a small company which offered me post of business analyst and made me the face of company for after sale services. But as we know perfection is a thing desired and not achievable. To get global exposure I joined Amdocs as SME in Jan 2012. I was a graduate by then and this seemed to be a big break to me. But still remember, we are in persuit of hapyness, and in search of my passion to run business I had to join Edu pristine for financial course to know how finance actually works. After the course I worked as a freelancer in pursuit of business in real and ended up earning Rs. 10K in remaining 6 months of 2013.

Tell us something about your business. 

Pasistence, is an IT services provider company which has skills and expertise to facilitate complex business solutions. We offer services of entire software, web development, Content Management Solutions and Creative Design from the very beginning until the end. Our overall process includes concept, design, development, incorporation, and implementation.

Highlights

1.      Let it be 60 year old Global Logistics Company mid cap company “Robinsons” or PCMC’s largest 30 years Old “Seva Vikas” co-operative Bank of working capital worth INR 1000cr to India’s innovative ecommerce startups like “Itel” selected us from more than 1000 vendors in Pune.

2.      At Pasistence, we provide free respective services to every customer after delivery of project to ensure quality.

3.      We are a team of 10 out which 7 are permanent.

What is your philosophy towards work?

So what can we do to make above things bunched in single things for our philosophy – Passion drives, Persistence delivers And that’s how I named the company as Pasistence.

Whom do you admire as your role model? And why?

I admire many great leaders however the person who has influenced me the best is John D Rockefeller.

Why?

Because he was a genius who started as an oil field worker and ended up as dominant Standard Oil Companies co-founder whose dreams had no limits, he had been behind getting lights into American houses through kerosene supply. When electricity came as alternative threat he got gas into Ford’s T model Car. He made pipelines (first ever) for taking oil to distant locations. Finally, I believe to share similar traits in me and look for similar kind of business and thus, he is my role model.

“Management is core to every individual, organization & society.” Give your views on it.

Let me take some time to answer this. Before naming the company, I wanted to have clear vision for the company’s future which can motivate people and build ground for managing business throughout the lifespan. I always knew that persistent business procedures are required to be ideal, managed and time bound for reliable and sustainable growth of business and hence employees of any companies play a major role in delivering its goods/ services. However, being IT Companies CEO, my job is to mostly deal with people managing people or dealing with people managing machines. And that’s how Manage+men concept came into me as a larger prospective all together, people need directions in managing machines but freedom of creativity in coding as well. All of this, boils down to managing rational with irrational or subconscious with conscious. The ability of making making is the key for management. And one can become trained in this area of management with experience, mentoring and training.

Name 3 qualities of prime importance that a businessman should possess.

o    I believe passion is important for driving you and persistence for delivery in adverse conditions. I will call this benchmark as Pasist quality.

o    Second, in my opinion would be clarity of thought. A confused businessman is a confused businessman period.

o    Management, to manage work after clarity of thoughts. To market with 4 P’s or finding Root Cause Analysis with Fish bone or let it be simply managing his work-health balance is important for a businessman.

According to you, what are the challenges for Entrepreneurship today?

There are many like laziness, lack of technical experience and management skills to lack of motivation and ability of decision making etc., but, funding tops all the list. Nobody is going to be funding you without a business plan and if you are an average but aspiring entrepreneur – you will only learn to make a business plan after doing business.

Can Entrepreneurship be taught in B-Schools/Management Institutes/Colleges?

Well, the college would require funds and not be facilitating funds but, I believe in possibilities and if someone can create environments and challenges faced by entrepreneur in real as an option for opting it from serious B-school, then why not?

Is the Name of the Institute from where a student pursues his/her Graduation/Post Graduation or other courses important while setting up your business?

Nope. One of my favorite reality show is “the pitch” which is streamed on Bloomberg.

I don’t think anything will work more for the businessman than a balance sheet in black and white.

Do you think today’s economy is conducive for a new venture to start upon?

o    Dr. Subash Chandra telecasted Zee network from foreign satellite in India and we all know in DD era it was illegal. Zee network of Essel Group is one of the biggest tele-network group in the world.

o    Now, I have got no financial support but if you look promising some kind of demand and supply of scare resource is always available to be packed and served as product or service. If on it, turn every stone turned to check opportunities and because someone else was relying on economy – you might fall into high returns with respect to risk exposure.

“Earning more & more is the motive behind any business.” Is it justifiable?

A company must be profitable and if you are not earning more and more YOY – Year on Year/ QOQ – Quarter to Quarter, then you are not growing. And Companies can either be a growing one or losing. You can’t be just one amongst the best, you have to be the best to position the USP and for this money gives you the freedom from investing to incentivizing and hence I support this factor.

Share with us the most enjoyable moment you had experienced on work.

 The day I took my first step to start my company and paid 5k deposit to rent owner for small house which I turned into office. It was exciting and I can still recollect the moment – I was full of fear of future and anxiety as well as furious of the bold steps taken, I felt strong and energetic. For 15 days I had a smile on my face. It was simply – Beautiful.

Your feedback for BMS.co.in?

o    BMS.co.in is an entrepreneurial success story itself. It simply shows how passionate people see an area where demand is present and served effectively. A great site to visit and in my good books – bookmarks. The commitment towards maintaining  originality can been observed by any person visiting the site as googles analytics is shown for visitors confirmation in about us section and stories of entrepreneurs like me is being highlighted. In talks section, alumni’s and teachers are highlighted with as many as toppers and entrepreneurs, this shows precise understanding of BMS.co.in towards their readers from every section. Thank you for making me a part of this masterpiece.

COMPANY PROFILE

History-

In October 2013 I thought to start my own company but couldn’t secure funding from banks or VC due to unclear thoughts and amateur business plans. So I borrowed money from friends and family about 1 lakhs – all lost due to no experience in managing funds in activities like painting a house where employees would work and buying things I didn’t had to. Thanking to my credit cards who let me fund for my recurring expenses in these years and my employees who managed without salaries for 2 months – informed prior hiring them. I was new to sales with zero experience or exposure or even network – so scored zero for three months. I got my big breaks with biggest Co-Op banks with working capital of more than 800 cr – Seva vikas bank and one of the oldest Shivajirao Bhosale bank of Pune. Slowly by focusing on quality features we established leadership position fighting with big companies and their marketing budgets. I then got my breaks with biggest Co-Op banks with working capital of more than 800 cr – Seva vikas bank and one of the oldest Shivajirao Bhosale bank of Pune and slowly by focusing on quality features we established leadership position fighting with big companies and their marketing budgets. I was the only salesman and Operations head, the CEO and the cleaner sometimes. Also we have served clients from MNC Mumbai like Robinsons – a 60 year old logistics MNC. I have learnt a lot of things and also hired employees in this journey out of them – 2 have completed a year with me. All of them are either PG or BTECH or SEED certified. We have maintained quality of business and spent more in operations than marketing.

Vision/Mission-

Vision

‘Passion Drives, Persistence Delivers’

Mission

To revolutionize IT communications in India by using Internet based Technology as a source of and partnering with similar minded people to enhance customer experience and reduce delivery lengths to 50% than our competitors.

Products & Service-

We offer services of entire software, web development, Content Management Solutions and Creative Design from the very beginning until the end. Our overall process includes concept, design, development, incorporation, and implementation. We also offer AMC’s, consulting services, training and other consultancy services as per customer’s needs.

Marketing Strategy-

We offer people with qualitative products in affordable cost and unique designs from best of class developer to anywhere in India through online channel.

Existing Market Presence-

We boast of being able to do what others could not and ask customers to check our delivered products/ services and compare with any comparison they have. 

We have covered biggest Co-Op bank of PCMC  – The Seva Vikas Bank to Shivajinagar’s Biggest Bank – Shivajirao Bhosale Bank and soon would be launching Pune Districts biggest PDCC Bank  due by March 2015. Also we have covered mobile/DTH recharging ecommerce platform for Itel – Pune’s only B2B RetailMLM based recharging platform and traveling platform for Tranzita for BTT. We have also covered Aurangabad’s biggest water treatment provider –SDES and Mumbai’s global MNC Robinsons India. We also managed to cover renowned MLC – Anil Bhosale from Pune. There are multiple other projects delivered by us in similar areas in Pune in areas of ecommerce. Please visit our site for further details.

Future Plans-

We are in contacts with angels and are looking out for funds to take this model on national level. We are also targeting android market and have received 3 projects from January 2015 followed by targeting on other mobile app markets. In software division we have launched our management software after a year long preparation which will connecting homoeopathic services to Pune and Mumbai through online medium, this platform would be launched by 27th January 2015. We have also completed final phase of one answer – our management software which helps user to manage SLA’s and TAT’s in escalation matrix views efficiently in business and going to taget operation focused companies.