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Devesh Aggarwal: Never Say Die

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Minakshi
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A graduate in commerce from Mulund College of Commerce Devesh Aggarwal completed MMS (Finance) from Welingkar Institute of Management & Research in 1996 in Mumbai. Along with the graduation degree in hand Aggarwal did his three years of diploma in software programming from NIIT, more as a hobby than as a career option.

He started off his career with COMPUSOFT in 1997 and was the CEO and the owner of the Mumbai-based entity. Inspired from the success of COMPUSOFT's business, Aggarwal came up with Unieme Systems & Solutions. Not being satisfied with the success of being the owner of two business entities, Aggarwal then came up V-Serve Consultants, where he became the director of the company. V-Serve spans across four cities in the country. The company's motto is to redefine the way business solutions are provided and every aspect of the organization is an example in itself, leading towards high standards of performance with excellence.

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Giving a different direction

Starting these entrepreneurial ventures was never an easy task for Aggarwal, he came across several bottlenecks but was able to pass through. He was born in a family having an old family business of real estate construction and being the only son of the family, he was supposed to continue the same. Although he was involved in the sales activity of the real estate projects, he had a passion for IT and to offer business solutions to several enterprises. And, thus chasing his dreams of being an entrepreneur, he started off with COMPUSOFT, which functions as a channel partner for EX Next Generation, financial accounting software. "This was supposed to be an extra business with our family business. We soon excelled in sales of EX NGN, and were awarded the best performer by TCS in 1999. And, later became the Enterprise Solutions Partner for TCS and started developing add-on solutions around EX Next Generation for SMB customers. We also signed up with Microsoft to sell their software solutions," said Aggarwal.

Then the approach of selling products as solutions led to forming Unieme Systems & Solutions, which developed customized solutions around EX Next Generation. Also, it developed software products like BUILDEX (CRM for real estate industry), Excise Manager (Excise solution around EX solution) and VAT Simplified (Complete VAT solution). He made some big wins with these products and got recognized within TCS and Microsoft as a performing ISV partner. In 2005, TCS decided to stop marketing EX Next Generation product. Then eight enterprise partners of TCS from across India decided to come together and offer EX customer base of more than 5000 customers a logical extension to EX. "We formed a company called V-Serve Consultants in 2007 and closed the first deal for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, an ERP solution by Microsoft, even before our company got registered. This gave us a great boost and in the same year we closed some significantly large deals for Microsoft dynamics NAV," explained Aggarwal.

In 2009, the company decided to add another solution in its portfolio and established practice for Microsoft Dynamics CRM in COMPUSOFT. "Now, that Microsoft has identified CRM as a focused product, the potential market for CRM has increased many fold. Today, we have more than 10 successful deployments of CRM across industries and have carved a niche for ourselves," said Aggarwal.

A Successful entrepreneur

Talking about the three major factors which contributed to his successful career, Aggarwal said, "Collaborating with partners and helping them solve problems. Approaching customers with our solutions and adding value rather than mere selling of products. I also ensure, that maximum customer satisfaction is achieved and long-lasting relationship with customer is maintained."

Not regretting any decisions taken in his life he said, "The only thing, which I would have changed is to have spent more time in providing solutions around ready ERP, (which I started in 2007), rather than working on customized solutions and trying to reinvent the wheel (which I did from 2001 to 2005)."

Talking about his plans for COMPUSOFT, Aggarwal mentioned that he would like to see his company in the ruling charts among the top 10 business solutions partner across the world in the SMB and upper mid-market segment. "In 2010, we jumped into the cloud computing bandwagon and became one of the first three companies to offer Microsoft CRM in the cloud by hosting our servers in datacenter. We immediately tasted some initial success and are building our practice around the same."

Inspiration

For Aggarwal, his father inspires him the most and has guided him on how to succeed with limited resources and in tough times. He has taught him to always believe in ones own capabilities rather than look at others to take any decision in life. "Accountability must be understood by all across the hierarchy only then delegation can succeed. One can have organic growth by always being ready to join hands with complimenting partners; or get ready to get eaten up by the big fish in the industry," proudly said Aggarwal about his leadership mantra.

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Challenging the challenges

"The biggest challenge I have faced is attrition of quality resources within the organization at a time when the organization is ready to take the big leap. Being a small company we became the training ground for larger IT super powers. So our key management team became equipped to sell and deliver successful solutions even if the resources were not available. Today none of our projects are dependent on individuals, so even our customers are not worried about resources, as they have faith in our capabilities," said Aggarwal.

Work Management

Internally dividing the job responsibilities which are accountable for the job assigned to the employees ensures that the pressure of the entire business is not on one shoulder and is well spread across multiple shoulders explained Aggarwal.

Hobbies

Aggarwal likes to travel and explore new places when he is not bound with many work responsibilities. "I also love to play tennis, cricket and squash," added Aggarwal. Balancing his professional and personal life Aggarwal ensures spending time with his family in his leisure time.

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