As economy moves from largely informal set-up to a formal one, staffing and industrial services major Quess Corp sees newer opportunities.
“Three-four levers are available to us to maintain our pace of growth in the medium to long term, one being additionality, for example customer lifecycle management is something that we don’t do. It’s something that we can offer in areas like physical deliveries of goods and services,” said Jaipuria, president and CEO, global services, Quess Corp, told DNA Money.
Elaborating the opportunity in customer lifecycle management, he said, “When you buy an air-conditioner or a dish television antenna, someone is needed to get it installed and then service it. These things are almost handled exclusively by the informal sector. Maybe we can do these things. There is a large opportunity here.”
With the JAM trinity, or coming together of Jan Dhan accounts, universal acceptability of Aaadhar and mobile-based transactions, along with demonetisation, there’s a big shift happening from the informal to the formal.
“When formalisation of economy takes place, opportunities open up for large companies like ours. It’s something we are banking on to a large extent,” Jaipuria said.
While many start-ups like UrbanClap or Housejoy operate in this space, Quess Corp isn’t quite excited about investing in them for partnering.
“We are also open to work with start-ups (in these areas). But we will never burn money. For a start-up to gain scale is going to get very tough. What it takes (to succeed) is a nation-wide presence, and select, train and deploy and then monitor so many people. Except us, very few people have such capacities.”
Quess Corp, which had a stellar IPO, has been growing mainly through relentless acquisitions, about 14 in the last five years, the recent ones being Simpliance that added technology muscle to compliance management, Comtel, largest IT staffing player in Singapore, and stakes in Heptagon and Vedang Cellular, while it formed a joint venture with Trimax.
But its major deal was acquiring majority stake in Tata Business Support Services that offers customer experience management to some 130 marquee clients, including some top telecom, private banks and life insurance players with a headcount 27,000.
For a company that has been growing rapidly through acquisitions in sectors that find technology as their backbone, cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence haven’t been focus areas in its recent buyouts. Quess is looking at acquisitions that might bridge the gap.
“These (recent acquisitions) haven’t brought those in (techs like AI) but we are looking at few which might. AI can be greatly helpful in the way how you manage to automate certain processes such that the process of selection much faster and much more accurate. That’s what we are trying to move towards.”
ADDING VALUE
- With coming together of Jan Dhan accounts, universal acceptability of Aaadhar and mobile-based transactions, there’s a big shift happening from the informal to the formal.
- While many start-ups like UrbanClap or Housejoy operate in this space, Quess Corp isn’t quite excited about investing in them for partnering.
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 "Amitabh Jaipuria")
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