Cybernet-SlashSupport group, a provider of outsourced technology operations management services, hit the headlines recently when Goldman Sachs invested $25 million in the company.

In January, the US-based CSS group was awarded a multi-year technical contract to support products across Nortel's enterprise voice and data portfolios.

The group has 5,000 employees and has offices in the United States, Europe, Asia, including delivery centres in Chennai and Coimbatore in India.

Shiva Ramani is the chief executive officer of SlashSupport. In an interview with Senior Editor Shobha Warrier, Ramani speaks

In 2005, when rediff.com interviewed Shiv Kumar, co-founder of the CSS group, he said yours was a small company, which is growing. With the new multi-million contract and the Goldman Sachs investing $25 million, do you still call yourself small?

We are still a small company with 5,000 employees. The big companies have 100,000 to 200,000 people working for them. We are still starting up, trying to be big. If you think you are big, you stop growing. When we hit about 15,000 people, we will start thinking big.

How has the journey been so far?

It has been intense, exciting and fun. It has been like one long night. I am yet to wake up. So far, we have been going from one dream to another. It has been a dream script so far. We have been at the right place at the right time.

How important was the $25 million investment from Goldman Sachs?

It is very important, but not financially. When we go and talk to the big customers, it makes a big difference. When we say Goldman Sachs is our investor, we are welcome everywhere.

You also won the IBM Lotus CTO award last year. You were the first Indian software products company to bag the award. Which is more important, the award or the Goldman Sachs' investment?

I would say the award. Goldman Sachs was great but that happened because our business was successful. We made profits in the last four years, we have a good track record and we have good customers. So, it did not take a lot of effort to get Goldman Sachs as the investor. 

But to win an award, a lot of effort goes in -- developing the product, packaging it well and getting the right people at IBM to analyse it. All that was tough and thrilling. Rush of adrenalin was much more than one could get for the investment.

How much difference did the award make?

It did give a lot of positive energy to all those involved with product development in India. After the award, we started believing that it could be a huge product business.

In 2005, Shiv Kumar told us that of all the four groups, he expected SlashSupport to grow more and faster, and it turned out to be that way.

Among our four founders, Shiva Kumar is the man who sets directions and ideas and the rest of us execute what he tells us.

You say SlashSupport is not a call centre or a BPO which also gives tech support. What exactly is SlashSupport then?

SlashSupport is a high-end infrastructure company. In fact, we have built a large laboratory here to manage somebody else's infrastructure -- the servers, firewalls, communication equipment, data centre staff, applications, etc.

In a business process outsourcing unit, you don't do these things. In a call centre, employees don't know how to support all this. For example, I am an employee at a large financial company trading in millions of dollars. Suddenly my screen freezes. If it is not rectified immediately, I will lose a lot of money. None of the call centres know how to do this. But we do such infrastructure management.

How do we do it? We have a centre here which proactively looks at all the equipment and our guys fix a problem even before it occurs. That's how we are different. We have an excellent growth record because of this.

If we function well, our customers make more money. As we help them make more money rather than cut cost, they like us. At the end of the day, everybody wants to grow in their business. These are the factors that make us different from a call centre.

Do you have problems getting the right talent?

Because we work real night time as well, it is difficult to get the right kind of people. To counter this, we have increased  training facilities in the last three years.

From where do you pick up people?

We recruit fresh engineering graduates. We pick them up and train them for a year and tell them how they can make more money. If you employ fresh graduates, you can mould them the way you want for business. Microsoft also built their company with freshers. We are copying a bit of that.

You invest a lot in them for a year but how loyal are they? What about attrition?

Attrition is a problem for everyone. I am struggling with the word 'loyalty.' I will tell you why. In the old days, loyalty meant when you do what is right for business, business will do what is right for you. But I think to the present generation, loyalty is replaced with value addition. Today's dictum is: you help me get better so that I can help you get better. The day this dialogue stops, they look elsewhere for value addition.

I don't expect people to be loyal these days but as we grow, we think they too feel they can grow with us. Therefore, we can motivate them to stay with us and manage us. The present generation being different from the previous generation, it needs intense management.

You said you were worried about what would happen to the US economy. What would happen to the outsourcing companies if there is a slowdown there?

If something happens to the US economy, people will stop taking decisions for two quarters. Temporarily there will be a drop before it picks up again. I feel in the next 18 to 24 months, something may happen . . .  though I hope it doesn't.

If the downturn ever occurs, the next wave of people to embrace outsourcing will be those who have not touched it at all. They will be forced to do it then. This is why I say outsourcing from the US has not touched even the tip.

We will be more successful because our focus is on the customers. The big guys do not listen to the customers well, but we do. And that will make us more successful.

Is that the reason why you grew 74 per cent last year?

Yes, that is the only reason. Listening to customers and being innovative are the keys to our growth.

You decided to start your new operation in a tier-2 city like Coimbatore. Why?

It is because of the engineering talent available there. We also found that many of our employees are coming from places like Salem, Trichy, Coimbatore, etc. They will love to work in tier 2 cities like Coimbatore.

As far as the cost factor goes, it is said India is no longer a cost-effective destination and outsourcing may go to other cheaper countries. How do you look at this?

Outsourcing will go to countries where the cost is less. So, we have to create barriers for people to stay with us and use technology to reduce costs. We are investing in technology to be more efficient.

Secondly, none of the countries like China, Vietnam, South Africa, etc that provide service at a lower cost have the maturity of India in processes. Yes, South Africa can be a real potential threat.

But I feel outsourcing needs a lot of processes and you need a good ecosystem. By ecosystem I mean trained professionals, senior managers who can think like American mangers and correspond with customers. It takes 10-15 years to develop all these skills; you just can't build with just 20 people overnight.

It is not much talked about, but the key reason for India's success I think is NIIT. If NIIT had not succeeded in those years, you wouldn't have got so many people trained and you would not have had such an ecosystem developed.

NIIT has branches in China now and they are training the Chinese. Yes, they are doing it but it will take time. Before they become a real threat, we have to build our own strength.

But none of the countries mentioned has population in excess of what we have. So, the initial savings of, say, 60% for US customers may come down to 20-25%. So, I am not completely worried about work going elsewhere because of high costs. However, we have to be more and more efficient.

The reality is that we produce more talent than the rest of the world.

How is the stringent H1B visa regulation going to affect companies like yours?

It will always affect companies that are working with US companies because once you do larger contracts, you need to have a local team to do work there. So, it will affect people like us. Our own intention is to be efficient about it but we are small right now. In a couple of years from now, we will have a bigger problem.

Bill Gates has been voicing his dissatisfaction openly.

It is a different story for Microsoft. It is a US company wanting to import people. So he has to have H1, but Indian companies that are listed in India and are big also want to send talent to the US. So they will go through the L1 route. There will still be pressure, but I think they will be less squeezed than Mr Gates.

(Above) SlashSupport CEO Shiva Ramani. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj