ALGORISYS TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED, GUIDING REPUTED BRANDS THROUGH DIGITALIZATION AND INCREASED REVENUE
Algorisys Technologies is a prominent name in the IT solutions for the corporate industry today. The software development, IT business consulting and training service provider organisation is headquartered in Mumbai, India and is the brainchild of Radhika and Rajesh Pillai. While, we do not see many women leaders in this field, when we do, it is someone who has overcome various challenges and emerged as a strong and dynamic leader at the end of it.
Radhika Rajesh Pillai is one of these names. A commerce graduate from Mumbai University 1999 batch and a Diploma holder in Software Application from TULEC (Now TATA INFOTECH is today leading a tech venture as an entrepreneur and a passionate leader.
Radhika with her husband, Rajesh, incepted the brand with an underpinning idea of the building a company which can provide cost-effective solutions to the business problems in the space of finance and operations. Algorisys has been associated with domestic and international clients extended across India, Middle-east and Srilanka served with three key solutions of custom software development, analytics and technology training. The CEO Magazine had an opportunity to exclusively chat with Radhika about her brand, challenges, support system and success.
The CEO Magazine: Going back to your early career decisions, tell us what factors influenced your decision to be an entrepreneur?
Radhika Pillai: “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort” – Paul J Meyer
From the very initial days of college, I realised that I was interested and excited about doing something of my own which would allow me with more freedom to think and solve some real-life problems. As I started working, I noticed that as I was working more, the work was getting monotonous and was not contributing to solving any real issues.
It was post marriage, during my maternity break that I started re-thinking on the idea of doing something of my own. During this period, even the company with whom I was working was at the verge of acquisition and at the same time, my husband Rajesh also got an offer from his existing company to relocate to the US. This is when we realised that we are not ready to leave India, but do something really useful by staying back in India and started our entrepreneurial journey as we decided to build our analytical product suited for Indian market and ecosystem.
The CEO Magazine: Who are your clients? How do you ensure the unbreakable faith of your clients?
Radhika Pillai: We have been associated with a reputed clientele inclusive of manufacturing companies like Esselpropack, Crompton, etc, India largest FMCG Company like HUL, India’s oldest pharma company like Cipla, Startup companies and Largest Telecom companies in Qatar, etc. Our unique consulting services and other solution capabilities along with fast turnaround within the specified time and cost are the main factors for the customer’s trust and continuous business flow.
The CEO Magazine: Shed light on your team. What ethos is maintained for the employees in your company?
Radhika Pillai: “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes” – Tony Blair
The Algorisys team is a set of experts who have more than 70+ man-years of experiences in developing solutions that we offer. To motivate the team, we have various platforms including quarter awards, which are organised in the company to reward outstanding performance and quarter debut awards for outstanding newcomer performance. As I robustly believe, for every company, the most important asset isn’t data, technology or intellectual property; it is the people, the human capital and any plans to move your business forward always starts from them.
We follow very basic and relevant work culture:
- Respect: Where every team member of the company is an integral part of interaction and discussion. Every employee is important and inspires them to be committed and responsible to drive and do much better.
- Innovation: There is no limit to learning in our organisation. Every employee is encouraged to improve and do something better than yesterday and come out with new ideas in their client deliverables.
- Integrity and Ethics: This value helps us in building our entire business on the foundation of honesty and integrity. This goes a long way into building a strong, trusting relationship between employees, management, and customers.
The CEO Magazine: As your company grew, or re-grew from your pivot, what were the primary challenges? What are your challenges today and plans for the future?
Radhika Pillai: Algorisys started with no investors. In our early days, we had various overhead expenses which affected the cash-flows like paying off employee salaries and other dues which we overcame successfully with the support of family and friends. Currently, as we are expanding and our major challenge to get a good resource at a budgeted cost. For the same, we have started our own 3 months Internship programs where the college students with BSc computer science, B.E, B.Com, M.Com and CA Inter are trained on various technologies relevant as per current customer needs and project requirements. The students who will perform well in this internship program are absorbed in our development division. This year, starting April, we shall be starting a training wing Algorisys academy focusing more on latest technologies like python, r and core fundamentals and make them industry-ready.
The CEO Magazine: What do you think are the keys to professional and business success for women in India? Who has helped you along the way?
Radhika Pillai: I believe, for every woman, to be successful, a family is a major backbone. Gratefully, I had the support of my family since childhood and from my extended family after marriage. I can say without a doubt that my better half Rajesh has been one of the key factors in my success. Secondly, my friend Alpana Prabhu, Urvashi Sachdev and Rajni Nair who were supporting me and have stood hand-in-hand with me and Rajesh, since we started Algorisys. All of us saw and had a dream together and supported each other to reach our current position.
The CEO Magazine: In a society like ours, with its skewed stereotypes, how did you manage to set out on your journey? What were the major challenges?
Radhika Pillai: I believe, especially in India, if a girl has to go whole-heartily behind her career ambition, the thought of “you can” has to be incorporated from childhood. For which I would give credit to my father (Hariharan) and mother (Balambal). My father who is a Civil Engineer in Central Railway currently retired and my mom who was just 5th standard pass had dreams for their children. My parents never differentiated me from my brother. We had shared a close bonding as friends to discuss all the topics freely without any constraint and identify the pros and cons. Hence, I should say proudly that due to my parent’s protective shield, I never came across any major challenges.
The CEO Magazine: What suggestion would you give for companies on how they can contribute to a more balanced and equal industry?
Radhika Pillai: The recommendation I would like to give to companies is that we, as an industry should be focused more problem solving, generate employees not based on marks but based on passion, most importantly we should create an ecosystem which will help us complement each other than compete.
The CEO Magazine: What’s the best advice you have received in business that you wish to pass on to our readers?
Radhika Pillai: The best advice I have received was from my better half (Rajesh) and my dad (Hariharan), the two most important men in my life, “Don’t think you should be smarter to run the business, Good leaders would be smartest, but if you want to be a great leader then try find the smart team who can challenge ideas, bring new dimension to your views.”
