31 Parallel, Aiming for a Global Success
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
– Steve Jobs
This statement seems to have been meant especially for entrepreneurs. With new ideas flooding the market, and startups making their ways to success one after another, the world is changing every day. One of those startups that lead the world to change in their own way is 31 Parallel. It provides end-to-end Business Process Outsourcing and Management services and solutions with expertise across various domains. 31 Parallel offers exceptional inbound and outbound voice services along with back office support.
For sales, they provide voice (inbound and outbound calling) and chat based services.Their customer care &post-sales services include voice (inbound and outbound calling), chat and e-mail based services. They also provide voice (inbound and outbound calling) and e-mail based services and back office for mortgage. They handle finance & accounting, and data management and sanitization through back office services.
Based in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, 31 Parallel is a disruptor from a Tier III city in the BPO space. The location offers them the advantages and infrastructure of a modern city, along with the benefits of low attrition rates and other overhead costs. It has put Shimla on the Indian outsourcing landscape and provided employment to over hundreds of youth in the hill state where jobs are hard to come by. The company’s motto is local talent, global processes.
The company offers high-end services involving voice, chat and e-mails, with its highly trained staff’s excellent communication skills. The experienced supervisors and support staff ensure better process efficiency and control, leading to high quality of outputs. A huge Himachali diaspora working in the best organizations in the metropolitans yearned for returning to the hills, and they are the ones who contributed in building its leadership. Thus, the managerial staff consists of individuals with at least 8-9 years of experience of working with multinational organizations like Dell, AMEX, Concentrix, TelePerformance, HCL, Convergys, WNS, etc. in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Mumbai. They have ongoing extensive internal soft skill and personality development training programs to ensure enhanced contribution towards process improvement. The company has an eight-member strong general learning, development and product training team focusing on corporate etiquettes, e-mail and phone etiquettes, gender sensitization (as at least 40 percent of its staff are women), process notes and mapping, and basic computer training. The workforce has exposure to the infrastructure of a state capital despite being in a Tier II/III town and is more receptive to such programs.
Due to a well-educated and committed workforce, the quality of the output of 31 Parallel has been stellar. This is evident from the expansion of the current clients with 31 Parallel despite having other vendors in the metros. It also leads in quality for queues running in multiple centers for the clients. Another one of the strong points of the company is their 24×7 availability for their clients.
Due to their location, they have Optical Fiber connectivity and MUX on location in both centers, ensuring unhindered bandwidth. The company hasnext generation firewalls and a switch-level network to meet their current clients’ IT requirements.
There was no real corporate presence in Shimla prior to the establishment of 31 Parallel. Some of the larger Indian companies had offices, but not significant enough to change the town’s corporate culture. Majority of 31 Parallel’s senior and middle leadership have had vast corporate exposure of over 7-8 years each in the metropolitans. Initially, the absence of such a culture was obvious from the discipline, dress code, business hours and corporate etiquette followed by the personnel but with relentless concentrated trainings, sessions and now tenure and exposure, they have initiated the foundations of a strong corporate culture. IT/Telecom companies have supported and indulged them when they were just a handful, sensing their bright future. Currently, they have one of the most reliable and extensive IT/Telecom infrastructure in the state.
While some minor challenges remain, the overall positive impact is reflected in their office setup, various employee initiatives, communications, client satisfaction and every other aspect of their operations. A hybrid of sorts, the best of both the old and new worlds has been created. Given their considerable numbers, it is obvious that they will spread their wings even more.
What began as a bootstrap startup on April 7, 2014 with four associates in an attic in a Shimla suburb by two brothers, Karan (a corporate lawyer) and Vivek (a BPO industry veteran), has now grown into a company with hundreds of employees working in multiple shifts (probably the single largest IT enabled services company in the Himachal) servicing several Indian market leaders. It boasts of several achievements in the BPO industry:
- 31 Parallel was nominated as one of the ’10 Best BPO Startups – 2016′ in India by a widely circulated IT/ITes industry magazine.
- In Nov’17, 31 Parallel was been listed by a business magazine as an organization that ‘instills a new wave of transformation in the panorama of BPO services in India’.
- In Apr’18, a business and technology magazine published from Bangalore and Chennai covered 31 Parallel.
- In Feb’18, 31 Parallel was awarded the STPI Award 2018 for ‘Best Performer in Incubation’ at TiECon-2018 in Mohali. The event was organized by the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), a society set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India along with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).
Their first international client was in SEO/SMO/Internet Marketing space, who took a leap of faith based on references and their past credentials. Their first domestic client, GRNconnect, similarly took a chance and outsourced their processes for the first time. The next significant milestone was partnering with MakeMyTrip.com, India’s largest travel company who saw value in 31 Parallel and took a leap of faith to work with the company. It is a mark of their reliability that they continue to be associated with these progressive organizations.
31 Parallel has gone on to develop a niche in the travel space and 70% of its clientele are travel companies, including both B2C and B2B, and domestic and foreign. 31 Parallel boasts as its marquee clients some of the biggest names in the Indian travel vertical. In addition, it services some of the big names in e-commerce, education, finance and accounting verticals.
Their resolve and zeal increases year after year as they realize the responsibility they bear to their numerous clients, hundreds of their employees and their state. The company has come to understand the entire scope of the enterprise and the members are extremely excited, enthusiastic about its prospects and future.
