Thoughts reflecting the Verinite journey of 9 years!

My Verinite journey

It all started with a car backseat conversation with Ashish while working for one of the top multinational organizations in the IT services. We had just achieved a huge financial milestone for our Indian client which other teams with US and European clients were dreaming to achieve. That day a small seed was implanted in my mind for believing in the fact that we could do something similar that too independently. A lot of planning happened over the next few years and the year 2011 was chosen as the year to start something on our own. We had even contemplated naming the organization Hamaika (meaning 11 in Basque language) to signify the year of incorporation. Finally, on the 1st of June 2011 the dream became a reality and Verinite came into existence.

Today we complete nine year of existence. And when I retrospect I realize that, no matter how much you plan, the journey will always throw up challenges which you never expected. But that is also the best part of the journey, because, the learnings you get from these challenges also teaches you to adapt to different situations. Finally, it all boils down to the culture which you inculcate within the organization and that helps you to sail through these challenges with ease.

I have tried to capture some of my learnings which have helped me to tackle a lot of situations during this journey.

1. Focus on your core skills: In Verinite we have always followed the motto of “Inch wide and mile deep”. This aspect has helped us to be a tough competitor even against much larger organizations. The goals for each teams are aligned to continuously improve and add more depth to their key skills. During the initial days this was easy as the focus was on limited number of skills. However with time business started to expand and we kept adding newer skills. To ensure that our motto was not compromised, we adopted the strategy to start small and improve the skills continuously and consistently thus gaining the required depth.
2. Nurture your relationships:We deeply value our relationships – be it our customers or our associates. In a challenging business environment it is easy to be professional and stop caring about the personal side. But a little bit of empathy greatly helps in creating a positive environment. Our culture pushes us to be empathetic in our business dealings. We celebrate each other’s success, we encourage during failures and we are a part of each other’s life’s important milestones. As such our associates have turned into our greatest brand ambassadors while our customers have become our biggest salesmen. On multiple occasions new customers have come knocking on our doors with projects because of some offline feedback they received from our existing customers.
3. Learning when to say YES: One thing which I am very excited about is taking up new challenges. It builds up an excitement which drives most of us to give our best. The fear of unknown always holds us back. But when we overcome those fears we achieve newer heights. Over the time we have undertaken quite a few projects and initiatives which were completely new to us. When our clients needed us, we said ‘YES’. Our clients trusted us with their mission critical endeavours and we ensured that their trust was not broken. We encountered all the road blocks and delighted our clients with positive outrageous service.
4. Learning when to say NO:A lot of organizations get carried away while improving their sales and acquiring new clients. To push business many organizations breach the line of ethics. After all who cares if business thrives? Not in Verinite. One of the core culture in Verinite is Integrity (the name itself denotes infinite integrity). We have said ‘NO’ multiple time when we were asked to compromise on our core culture. Our customers love us for this attitude and we walk with our heads held high.
5. Be a lifetime learner:Life is all about change. And organizations that adapt to these changes tend to excel. And to embrace change organizations need people to learn and be a better version of themselves. In this fast paced life, it becomes difficult to introspect and identify areas of improvement. But the lifetime learners are the once who find time within this superfast journey to continuously and consistently improve themselves. We at Verinite encourage people to be lifetime learners. We have encountered a very unique situation in this life. Nature has thrown at us the COVID-19 challenge. The style of doing business is up for a change. A lot of focus will be on executing projects remotely. Organizations which learns the new way of doing business quickly will be on the path to success.
6. Involve your people in decision making:Although it is said that running an organization democratically is difficult, I believe that it is time organizations start involving their people in making critical decisions. Initially it may be difficult to get a consensus and things might be pretty chaotic. But when practised multiple times, this becomes a part of organizations decision making process. With the involvement of people across the organization in this process, the entire organization is aligned towards a single goal and works as a team to achieve success. In Verinite, we have multiple leadership levels who help to build the vision statement for the organization and drive the teams towards one common goal.

There are innumerable other learnings which I got during this journey with Verinite. These are the top six learning which will remain with me for the rest of my life.

The year 2020 started for us with a detailed account planning session spanning across 2 days at an offsite location. The leaders from across Verinite were part of this session. We made a lot of important decisions – both short term and long term. The objectives were set for each one of us. One of the key objectives for me is to create our footprints in the products space. New year – new challenge. But, the approach for tackling these challenges are still built on the strong foundations of learnings that have been gathered during this journey with Verinite. Start small, adapt to changes and keep digging deep – the footprints will automatically get created.