Sanjay Bakshi: A risk taker and an opportunist

Sitting in his cozy office with soft music playing in the background, Bakshi
comes across as a soft spoken but determined man. It is perhaps this
determination that has helped him steer his company-QuantM-over 14 years
towards success. Bakshi, who is an engineer by profession, began his company in
1992, when the company was called Quantum. Later the name was changed since
Quantum was too common. In order to retain the same sound of the name Bakshi
decided to spell it differently, and as coincidence would have it the new name-QuantM-also
had a German meaning, which was 'large size'.

With 180 employees and presence in 11 locations over the country, the company
today boasts of a turnover of Rs 80 crore. Their main business is storage,
networking and integration. An initial challenge that Bakshi faced was that of
turning his company into a full-fledged organization. “Initially business runs
as it is but then turning it into an organization and gaining credibility in the
market were a few challenges that we faced,” commented Bakshi.

According to him the system integration market is one where there are not
many players but the opportunity is immense. He cites Wipro, a principle
company, as one of his competitors. “I wouldn't say there is no competition
but as of now partners are focusing more on reselling and less on actual system
integration. There are many principle companies at the high-end like HP, IBM etc
but at our level there is currently less competition,” he informed.

Opportunity arises

Like every company that has to take risks to reach the top, Bakshi too has taken
risks to see his company where it is today. But he prefers to call the risk an
opportunity explaining that one has to always balance risk and opportunity. “I
have never taken a blind risk but there is this one opportunity, when we decided
to focus on integration business, which I grabbed. We were the first channel
partners of IBM in the country. We had a relationship with them even when the
company didn't have a channel policy. That was a sort of turning point for our
company,” Bakshi elaborated. The company's dealings with IBM are among its
biggest assignments though they also have a relationship with companies like Sun
and HP. “We implement and push mostly IBM services though we don't actively
sell the principle products, it is rather more of advising customers,”
explained Bakshi.

He said the company would continue to provide value added services and as of
now they have no plans to become a principle company. But QuantM is in the
process of appointing resellers to implement services and for expanding their
reach across the country. “We have an informal channel of resellers comprising
of approximately 30 organizations who use our services. These resellers sell our
services for various reasons like either they don't have a presence in a
particular region and if for instance they don't have expertise with a certain
vendor.”

Area of expertise

One of the areas that QuantM is working on is that of their service delivery
portfolio. The company recently re-engineered this model called Spectra
(strategy, planning, evaluation, classification, implementation, training,
recurring operations and audit), and is planning to get a patent for it. Bakshi
emphasized that the company's USP is that they are 'enterprise' system
integrators. 90 percent of QuantM's business comes from the enterprise space
and the company does not have plans to focus on the SOHO or SMB market. Some of
its major clients include Coke, Aviva, Hutch, Sony, Panasonic and almost all
automotive companies. For their clients, QuantM not only deploys services but
also maintains them.

While most people are looking at government sectors as a major opportunity
for IT companies Bakshi confides that that is one sector QuantM will not be
looking at. He clarified that the company's expertise is the enterprise
segment, which is where they will continue to focus.

The road ahead

Apart from getting a patent for its new service delivery model, Spectra, QuantM
is also gearing up to launch management systems, which will offer remote
management to their clients. QuantM's vision is 'To constantly learn and be
leaders in the business of designing, integrating and supporting the most
scalable, reliable and available technology infrastructures.' The company
comprises of three directors-Bipin Ahuja and Anuj Joshi, apart from Bakshi
himself. Seeing the company as a professional managed organization, Bakshi
opined that he doesn't see his daughter, who is all of 10 years old, joining
in his footsteps. “I don't think she has any interest in this line of work,”
grinned Bakshi.

Ruth Samson