JB Hooda and Rohit Luthra : In Complete Sync

Rohit Luthra and JB Hooda met as acquaintances, bonded as friends and have
grown as co-promoters of Progression Infonet. Though Hooda handles sales and
accounts and Luthra monitors business, finance and scouts for new business, they
swiftly swap roles when required, which shows how they work in total harmony

JB Hooda and Rohit Luthra of Progression Infonet can easily be referred to as
today's Jai and Veeru from the yesteryear's blockbuster Sholay. Though their
friendship took off as a professional acquaintance, it did not take them long to
become good friends and share business ideas and thoughts.

The duo have always stood together and supported each other during odd times.
Hooda is a mechanical engineer who started his career at HCL and Luthra comes
from fashion and apparel industry.

In 1995, when the duo started their own company, Luthra was the one to name
it. “I named it Progression because I believe that the name should represent the
work and our philosophy,” said Luthra.

Tough beginning

When the duo set up Progression they were teeming with ideas and enthusiasm.

But they were low on finances. “We initially dealt with assembled PCs and
servers but gradually progressed to branded ones in 1996,” informed Luthra.

Progression's success mantra has been 'never say no'. Whatever request comes
from the customers, be it from a small enterprise or a large MNC, equal
importance is given to meet

their IT needs. But what differentiated Progression from their contem­poraries
was the company's focus to use optimum solution designs and potential services.
From 2003 onwards, the company started focusing on grid computing.

Today, Progression is an enterprise IT infrastructure integration company,
with its primary focus on enabling high availability, performance and
utilization for server and storage infrastructures. It helps organi­za­tions
identify, design, source, deploy and manage their critical IT infrastructure and
provides them with consulting, imple­men­­tation and management services.

The promoters of Progression always believed in helping their customers in
understanding the deployment; providing them with not only systems but also
helping them understand what they really 'need' as opposed to what they think
they may 'want'.

This approach is based upon understanding the customers' business needs and
through mapping these needs on technology platforms, giving the client peace of
mind and reprieve from understanding complex technologies themselves.

Streamlining opportunities

Since its inception, Progression has witnessed many transitions like
shifting its focus to server and storage with special emphasis on grid
computing. In the 11-year long journey, the company has chartered many success
stories.

Hooda is currently the Director of the company and handles sales and accounts
because of his core competencies in the two areas. Luthra monitors business
planning, finance along with pitching in for new accounts. But as and when
required, they swiftly change the roles to rejuvenate themselves.

When asked about the revenue generators for the company, both agreed that the
success of the company relies on three factors-word of mouth, repeat customers
and well-prospected business develop­ment activities. “Though we don't do any PC
sales as of now but for our repeat customers, we provide this as a value-added
service. Not only this, we look at networking solutions as a value-added service
for our customers,” informed Luthra.

Progression designs, sources, supplies, deploys and manages IT infrastructure
(for SAP deploy­ments) for clients like PI Industries, Carrier Aircon, Sakata,
Lumax Industries, among others.

Over the years, Progression has received a plethora of certifications from
various vendors, which has brought enormous value to its offerings. These
include certifications from HP across various platforms and tools, primarily
server and storage.

Progression shares a strong partnership with vendors like AMD, LG, Intel,
Microsoft, EMC-Legato and Veritas. “With its optimized IT infrastructure design,
exceptional price performance and very accelera­ted returns on investments (RoI)
we have a plethora of offerings for our clientele. We are a Premier Enterprise
Partner, Elite Blade Partner and ASP for HP,” Luthra proudly shared.

Besides this, the company has sales and technical certifications from Citrix
and VMWare and is also the authorized Sun services partner and technical as well
as a Red Hat business partner.

The road ahead

When asked to define Progression's offerings Luthra said, “Though we can be
termed as system integrators, we are steadily moving towards design,
optimization and management of IT computing infrastructure.” Today, Progression
Infonet has its branches in Mumbai and Bangalore. The total team stands at 125,
which comprises of 85 technical people supported by 15 sales people and a team
of 25 for back office and related activities. Progression's success story has
crossed boundaries and it has started working with its old and global customers
on projects in Europe and elsewhere. Though the company does not have any
immediate plans for having a direct presence and opening their offices in
Europe, it is keen on exploring opportunities outside India.

While Luthra calls Hooda, 'a great executioner', according to Hooda, Luthra
is a person with an extraordinary knack for predicting future technology and
business trends and helping align the whole team to move swiftly in that
direction.

Both agree that the success of their partnership is the way they have been
sharing a silent understanding and complemen­ting each other. Seeing them one
can start believing in a good old idiom; 'a friend in need is a friend indeed'.

Syeda Beenish

syedak@cybermedia.co.in