The founder of Hrishee Strategic Advisors, Keyur Shah, once said: “However, very few people know that I am professionally not a qualified CA.” Shah adopts a futuristic business approach that has established strategic partnership through a consulting approach. Even as he also talked about tennis with the Senior Editor of Business Era Magazine, Sugandh Bahl and told him about his tight work schedule which sucked up all his time for playing tennis. However, there is no shortage of content that would make it worth reading from his life’s pages. Although he does not belong to financial business doing away with, but today he has made it into a million dollar company. Let us see what these years have brought forth in terms of hard work.
Year in Establishment
Founded by Keyur H Shah in 2003,Hrishee Strategic Advisors (HSA), has been described as next generation Strategic Advisory, Business& Financial Management consulting firm providing Next Level Solutions.” In contrast to those who have always failed scrutiny this was considerable an offering new at market then.
With increasing globalization and rapid development across sectors it became even more difficult for companies to change their landscape or keep pace with growing businesses. “We at HSA enable businesses address their greatest challenge of ensuring consistent growth through our range of services ranging Operational support, Process re-engineering, Strategic, Financial & Business Consulting to Banking & Funding solutions,” says Shah. Pre IPOs or Post IPOs among other fundraising activities are part of the array of financial services provided by his venture to business houses.
Although not from a family business heir but still his relatives were involved in textile trade. Therefore this was his first project which started working in 2003 only. That year when he was with a loan company during 2001he realized that sales representatives could not properly sell their offerings and decided to go into this sector so as to organize the market further. “Interesting numbers were my personal favorite areas of interest and as a result they have been growing exponentially in my company”, says Shah.
Toward the Next Level Bottlenecks
Shah’s major focus was on aiding an effective and orderly operation of the financial sector while starting something new within it. His new firm had faith in providing Next Level Solutions to its clients so that they could move to the next phase of growth, which was preconceived that Indian consultants lacked deep expertise into their own fields.
It is, since the year 2003 that it was founded, this organization has managed over twenty plus small prestigious clients and SMEs more successfully transformed their businesses past many bottlenecks of not having reputable homegrown consultants initially available in India. However, as with anything new and disruptive, the company had to fight against the “pre-conditioned mindset” of many prospects which acted as a bottleneck for starting new relationships. But however, with an outlook that work should go on, time of gradual customer acquisition came and got engaged by magical deliverables in targeted locations. This made existing customers come back for more services again.“In addition referrals from our satisfied clients also turned out to be a critical business enabler for us. Quality and Professionalism are what Keyur says have been helping us succeed.”
This is how far the company has gone since it started off. Having already gained strong client base in India, HSA has also been successful to establish itself in UAE market and now they are targeting their new market in London too “I realized that Dubai’s market was unstructured and its companies needed professional consultants other than Big Four”-Keyur Darvesh Group Dubai recognized HSA’s endeavour as an advisor in 2009 after which HSA went ahead to be a successful business model globally.
Every firm today tries to become profitable according to Keyur. Nonetheless young companies do not have competent people internally .Having understood these needs of small and medium businesses so that they can hold on/ sustain such growth levels Keyur diverted his attention towards various requirements of clients/small & medium businesses. Thereafter he again Launched HSA on another platform forming Private Limited Company inviting other professionals on board; he brought all services under one roof so that clients do not have run door to door for services while critical inputs can flow through one supervisor only; The Company formed association with the professionals; CA Yogi Derasari for the same.
This youthful enterprise advises clients on capital raising, conducts management audit to enable them identify profit areas that would lead to sustained growth. HSA has serviced over 75+ businesses so far which have grown exponential due to its superlative services
The company looks at nitty-gritties of the business model and then tenders banks and financial institutions for syndication of debt either for new business creation or growing existing ones. “We believe in a holistic appreciation and understanding of the needs of our clients rather than on prima-facie evaluation,” explains Keyur.
Based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the company spread across 7 Indian States and is present globally in 11 countries and has expanded its reach even more by serving additional clients who have productive requirements.Working on exploring options to provide more products to meet the needs of their clients, HSA is determined to aid budding entrepreneurs to attain success.
Improving Profit Margins
This Company undertakes a thorough investigation of the company’s key performance indicators and their processes to identify the underlying issues. CA Yogi Derasari said that 80% of companies have wrong perceptions about where their profit areas are. The main concern is the lack of profit analytics by most firms. They do not know where they make money and where they lose it. In fact, most profits are lost in such non-profit activities as customers, hence giving rise to only residual earnings for the company. There is a large room for improving profits here.Apart from that, HSA would help them to design focused cost optimization & efficiency building programs using these data for performance management systems and financial re-structuring.
In addition to increasing business productivity as claimed by HSA.
“Most consultancy agencies that just give advice but shy away from its implementation are not worth our time”, Keyur explains.
A number of family-owned businesses used HSA services in their transition journey from being traditional family businesses into more modern professional organizations working in complex environments like this one. About 90% of family owned organizations are growing businesses with loyal people handling everything but who lack relevant expertise or technologies.
CA Yogi Derasari says: “To enhance your profitability; such organizations need better processes, procedures, financial decision making and business insights.”
HSA comes into action right there (HSA) . This firm breaks away from old ways of doing things which restrict efficient operations and takes them through an incremental process to become leaner firms that will earn more profits. Furthermore, HSA guides organizations distinguish between revenue enhancement opportunities and leaks in profit. It also has forensic audit practice and litigation support through well equipped associates resulting in successful audits of many organizations followed by improved systems and procedures thereafter. The organization also talks much about its seriousness (in carrying out this). “If you ask any of our clients, they will unequivocally agree that we provide an extremely sincere, implementable and result oriented approach which forms our USP.” beams Keyur.
HSA has offices in Ahmedabad and Dubai and associates representing the company in Mumbai and Hong Kong. Additionally, HSA has also planned to develop a presence in London by consolidating its position.
Addressing Customer Challenges
Companies normally strive to find out how they can expand their revenue scale, increase profitability, raise funds to support business growth or make it corporatized. ‘Apart from this, diversifying the business and achieving inorganic growth also poses as a major challenge for many,” explains Keyur.This is where HSA needs step up its game. Such a move would enable it offer clients with far much more than what they actually need. Hence, by offering strategic advice at every stage of their transformation process towards becoming an innovative enterprise as well as helping them with any required implementation that may be needed so that all those concepts can become part of the corporate DNA.”We are not consultants but strategic partners taking our clients through their ‘business transformation’ journey,” says Keyur. With a range of services that cater for all aspects of business needs by giving it a 360 degree approach to service delivery, companies have been able to improve on its bottom line.Henceforth we will refer to this work of ours as “Building an Organization’s Internal Vitality”.
A company offers its consultancy services to provide the specific aspects of these organizations that have already identified their interventions. It can be an instance of this financial re-engineering, business plan and budgets, organizational planning, functional policies and systems, cost management, business performance management systems, management information systems, employee performance management systems, governance process.
Client acquisition in the consulting industry is viral marketing a global phenomenon. Therefore it is necessary to add value as well as make better performance possible.
HSA appears like no other Board advisory firm in this era of competition “We do consulting by partnership. While most firms concentrate on short-term engagements for implementation phase included in long-term engagements,” according to Keyur.
Furthermore HSA’s ‘Pay-as-you-go’ pricing model offers more transparency in relation to engagement progress for clients while being less costly at the same time. The Company has clearly created a niche for itself through its expert advisory panel comprising individuals with vast experience in driving business transformations at various stages of a company’s lifecycle and technology enabled delivery model.
The company looks forward to invest more into Expert brains to enhance its value proposition for customers with focus on gaining larger market share. “Also we want to expand our Advisory Board panel – a group that will include some of the best Subject Matter Experts across various sectors,” adds Keyur about his future plans for the organization. With its commitment towards global business transformation, HSA’s future holds nothing but growth upwards.
Due to their success accompanied by new ideas and the desire for global expansion the firm is poised for even greater heights.