FACT FILE CEO Sanjeev Agarwal POSITIONING Primarily a customer service company STARTED IN Jun-05 OWNERSHIP CDC Capital, Citigroup, General Atlantic Partners TOTAL FUNDING $28 mn REVENUE (2002-03) $ 29.5 mn NO OF PEOPLE 5,000 + (as on 31 Oct 2003) CORPORATE ADDRESS 186 Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon, Haryana WEBSITE www.daksh.com  NO OF CLIENTS 12 QUALITY COPC certified Benchmarked by John Anton  LOCATION FACILITIES: 5 (Gurgaon—4, Mumbai—1) SALES & MARKETING: New York & Florida (US), London (UK)

Daksh in many ways represents the aspiration of Indian entrepreneurs. It was started by people who did not come from a financial services company doing or considering offshoring to India. These were a bunch of people who read the opportunity, started with an idea, a plan, and a lot of spirit, and—most significantly—no direct association with a potential outsourcer. Yet, they have not only survived but have grown to become one of the few top-bracket companies.

More admirably, Daksh is one of the few companies in the bpOrbit Top 15 club that do not have or did not ever have a direct ownership by any big corporate! It is an out-and-out VC-funded company.

And look at the kind and number of VCs it has been able to attract successfully! CDC, Citicorp, General Atlantic Partners—the biggest names in private equity. What’s more, the funding has been at regular intervals with Daksh among the very few companies to be able to raise the third round of funding of an impressive $20 million.

This has given Daksh a unique positioning among the VC-funded companies that are dreaming to grow independently. Daksh has been tipped among the few companies to make it to the $100 million revenue mark by 2005, which if it does will be an impressive show.

The company has been talking of nothing less than an IPO. It remains to be seen, though, whether it can actually do that successfully. Apart from the $50-100 million IPO within a year or so, that Daksh has been talking about, it has also been actively looking for acquisition, within or outside the country for rapid ramp-up. Daksh has appointed Kotak Mahindra to look for a possible acquisition in Philippines, Malaysia or Mauritius. If listed, it would be the first BPO company that would grow to an IPO.

While Daksh has a few big clients like Amazon, Yahoo and Sprint to show, as a testimony of its ability to execute, what has made it a stable company is its emphasis on organization building and good corporate citizenship. The company has emerged # 5 in the recent Dataquest-IDC Survey on BPO Employees. The best compliment to the company’s credit is that every single employee surveyed said that they would recommend the company to a close friend.

What was not exactly a good thing in its financials was a heavy dependence on one client with more than 60 percent of the revenue coming from it. For a company of this size, it is a major risk factor. However, the company has managed to bring down it drastically. It expects to bring that figure to almost half at 32 percent. In fact, that has been one of the two conscious efforts on the company’s part, the other being widening the vertical portfolio.

From just three segments in 2002-03, to about seven by the end of 2003-04, it can be an achievement of sorts. It recently announced its entry into travel, a fast growing vertical.

Another interesting de-risking strategic initiative at Daksh is the hiring of 80 German-speaking Indians to service that market.

By reiterating time and again that it would remain independent, Daksh leads the companies who dare to dream. It’s success or failure to ensure a good IPO would in many ways set the tone for the next phase of growth in the Indian BPO industry. 

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