VIKAS CHADHA

VIKAS CHADHA

A VISIONARY LEADER AND HIS DYNAMIC TEAM SCRIPTING THE SUCCESS STORY OF GI OUTSOURCING

While treading on the journey dedicated to picking out the most distinguished corporate leaders, the Business Connect Magazine came across the incredible journey of GI outsourcing and Mr. Vikas Chadha, a dynamic and astute leader shining in the business world. Vikas Chadha – who is a leading, respected, and highly accomplished professional in Finance circles with over 25 years of rich experience is the leading man behind GI Outsourcing – an award-winning Global Accounting and Financial services outsourcing firm.

In relentless pursuit of excellence in his 25 years career, Vikas has played a pivotal role in guiding MNCs; Berggruen Hotels (Keys Hotels) Bharti Airtel, Thomas Cook, Ampersand Education, Marico Ltd, Tata Global, and Mahindra & Mahindra Group. After completing his Chartered Accountancy in 1996, Vikas joined the biggest business corporate house Tata Group and worked with their Group company Tata Global beverages and got an incredible exposure to values that he nurtured throughout his career; the highest level of service standards, Customer centricity, the importance of quality, integrity, and ownership.

Apart from his business expertise, Vikas has also written a motivational book “Secret of Success and a Happy Heart “that featured on the list as the Number one Amazon bestseller in 2020. Vikas’s career portfolio is enriched with several awards and accomplishments by some of the most revered organizations. These majorly include:

• Honoured with CEO of India Award by World HRD Congress 2022
• Honoured with the Pride of India Awards by Economic Times
• Recognized as the Best Chief Financial Officer in Digital Learning and Education space (Asia)
• Named as the “One of the Most Influential CFOs of India” by Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK
• Honoured with the UDYOG BHARTI AWARD by India Achiever’s Forum

GI Outsourcing also bagged the dream company to work for award for two consecutive years under Vikas’s leadership. Along with this, he also got featured on several business panels and leadership forums including Zee, Business World, CNBC, ET CFO, CEO World, etc.

GI OUTSOURCING, AN EVOLVING LEADER IN THE ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY
Incepted in 1999, GI Outsourcing is a leading account outsourcing company, offering a comprehensive accounts outsourcing service. It comes up with customized service packages to suit customer needs. The key services offered by the firm include bookkeeping, management accounts, smart services, statutory accounts, payroll taxation, IT software, virtual CFO, controllership, and GI Cloud consultancy with specialization in the hospitality, legal, recruitment, property, and healthcare industries.

Following its vision to revolutionize the way traditional outsourcing works, GI aims to be a truly Global Interconnected solutions provider by enriching the working lives of others through enhanced efficiencies, automation, and expertise. The firm strives to transform its least profitable client into a profitable one by nurturing an innovative culture within the organization.

Talking about the major driving force behind GI’s rapid growth, Vikas Chadha stated – “GI is on a strong growth journey and it has been only possible due to the collective zeal and effort of our teams in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, and London. We could differentiate ourselves from our competitors through a deep understanding of customers’ needs, customer centricity, innovation, and relentless pursuit of improving our competitiveness by focusing on solving even small issues that are often overlooked. They exhibited incredible resilience even during the pandemic by responding swiftly and adapting to the changes in market conditions.” 

HURDLES FACED BY C-SUITES & THE LEADER’S RESPOND
We questioned Vikas on the current hurdles and challenges faced by leaders.

As per Vikas, Challenges faced by the C-suite have always been distinct from their teams in any organization, as they echo challenges of the enterprise and are not restricted to any department, time horizon considering the fact that they need to balance current and long-term objectives. Adding to this, recovering from a pandemic hangover is another tough task for the top executives today.

Recently, a study has identified the capabilities of top teams into four categories: Adaptability, Perspective, Atmosphere, and Team Leadership. Each category involves a spectrum of behavior, capturing the essential tensions top teams must navigate.

• Adaptability – the balance of making new paths through innovation versus staying on course with current initiatives that top teams need to navigate.
• Perspective – multifaceted trade-offs between long-term and short-term investments, business unit, and enterprise concerns, and internal and external needs that a top team must align around.
• Atmosphere– the culture of the top team and the extent to which members are encouraged to compete versus collaborate.
• Team Leadership- offers specialized consideration for the CEO’s distinct role in leading the group and the level of detailed direction vs general support that is required to optimize performance

These elements allow a CEO to build a great team dynamic that fits an organization’s current strategy and helps the team grow and adapt to changing priorities and ensures that the team meets the strategic vision of the company.

In order to resolve the hurdles C-suites face, Vikas follows a unique approach:

• Ensure that the team meets the strategic vision of the company: As a foundation step, he takes a moment to re-evaluate how roles are structured in the organization: identifies the strengths and development areas of the people, etc.
• Ensure that the team is aligned to a common goal: While it is important that employees work fantastically in their roles, Vikas finds it critical that they work cohesively to achieve the company’s vision.
• Install accountability mechanisms to track the team’s performance against expectations: He introduced clear metrics and timelines for tracking the team’s performance and invested in learning and development to help the employees to get up to speed and accelerate their career paths.
• Ask for feedback on the current leadership: While he came up with various measures to quickly adapt to the changing business environment, it was equally imperative to gauge the response and feedback from our teams as well as trusted advisors.

A GLIMPSE OF VIKAS CHADHA’S BOOK
Vikas Chadha wrote his book, “Secrets of Success and a Happy Heart” during the first lockdown as an attempt to infuse enthusiasm and positivity among the people when they were deeply struck by sorrow, financial instability, and mental stress. The book is a compilation of many short motivational stories that may influence them to rebound and relook at life with zest.

FORECASTING, AN IMPORTANT QUALITY OF A CEO
Business connect asked Vikas for his thoughts on how business leaders plan and forecast for the future. As per Vikas, Forecasting is valuable to businesses because it gives them the ability to make informed business decisions and develop data-driven strategies. Forecasting allows your company to be proactive instead of reactive. In a business like ours, especially with the past few years of a pandemic; we have seen a surge in business as the economy reopens.

I had forecasted this response and we had prepared ourselves for this tremendous growth through expansion and spreading ourselves across multiple cities with new offices in Mumbai, Delhi, and Ahmedabad. This has proved favorable for Vikas and the GI Outsourcing brand as they have been able to leverage their strengths and capture market share and grow.

Helps set goals and plans: Forecasting allows businesses to set reasonable and measurable goals based on current and historical data. Having accurate data and statistics helps businesses decide what amount of change, growth, or improvement will be determined as a success. Having these goals helps to evaluate progress, and adapt business processes where needed to continue on the desired path.

Helps budget: Having visibility into potential trends and changes helps businesses to know where to allocate their budget and time spent on certain offerings such as products, services, or areas internally such as hiring and adjusting strategy.

Helps anticipate change within the market: Having insight into not only current data but projections of what could happen in the future help businesses to make adjustments to business strategy and alter current operations in order to change their outcome.

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE ACCOUNTING LANDSCAPE
On the emerging trends in Accounting, Vikas shares that there was a time when the bulk of the work of accountants consisted of bookkeeping, data entry, and number crunching. Today, the modern accountant is faced with client demands that require one to do much more than these traditional services. Much of the evolution in the accountant’s role and the industry, in general, is aided by technology like accounting software, which eases the burden of workload so that one can focus on strategic, value-adding tasks.

The expansion of the accountant’s role is just one of the many examples of emerging trends in accounting:

• Automated Accounting Processes
• Rise of accounting software solutions
• Outsourcing accounting Functions
• Cloud-based accounting
• Focus on data analytics
• Blockchain
• Advisory services
• Big data in accounting
• Trust accounting
• Due Diligence support
• Valuations
• Audit and compliance support
• Taxation support

KEEPING THE TEAM MOTIVATED
Challenging your team is always one of the top priorities of any CEO, however, this grew multifold due to remote working during the pandemic. As per Vikas, GI has initiated various steps for motivation of the teams:

GI Academy: GI Academy is a niche learning academy by the company that provides world-class, dynamic structured training program and growth opportunities and support its members to progress in their long-term ambitions and goals with confidence.

It covers a wide range of training courses including UK accounting and technical skills, people management skills, feedback sharing, technical training, persuasion skills, and access to external professional qualifications through a blend of classroom and online training.

The aspirants are offered free and comprehensive training and employment. In their comprehensive selection process, the candidates are handpicked by Vikas. The aspirants are hired and undergo comprehensive training including live on the job training where they get an opportunity to learn from UK GAAP apart from Indian Accounting Standards and IFRS. GI opened the course for external trainees as well in 2021.

Understanding the significant value of mentorship, Vikas has included mentorship as a strong pillar of the entire GI Academy curriculum. Pulling in some of the seasoned and passionate GI senior professionals as mentors who can help the trainees interact, learn and grow from their experiences, the course helps the young candidates to enhance their skills and move in their careers with confidence.

This also complements and supports the call by the government of India for providing skills and employment opportunities to professionals wanting to pursue the accounting profession in India and will be an opportunity for qualified CA passing out from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, qualified CIMS aspirants, ICWAI candidates, ACCA and CPA aspirants to look at career international accounting with GI.

GI Academy provides employment opportunities through its training program for qualified /semi-qualified professionals like CA/ICWA/MBA Finance / ACCA/CIMS freshers who are trained in the UK Accounting process and work as executives with GI Outsourcing.

The initiative is a game-changer and a career-enhancing model for fresh and qualified /Semi qualified professionals Cas/ICWA/CIMA/ACCA.  Apart from the UK, this model will also be a great opportunity to extend the expertise of these Cas who are trained in ACCA and CIMS to other geographies such as the US, Australia, etc. GI has also partnered with ACCA, UK, and is a Gold partner working closely to provide opportunities to talented ACCA aspirants to work with GI.

Ringing in the top talent: GI Outsourcing has witnessed an incredible growth during the pandemic and has expanded to several new cities in India; Delhi NCR and Ahmedabad including setting up a new office in the tech hub of Mumbai. The expansion has also led the company to hire the best industry talent available in the country. With the ongoing fight for talent, GI has been able to recruit the right talent by creating a great employee experience.

Promoting Gender Diversity: Strong proponents of diversity in the workplace, GI Outsourcing is committed to driving gender diversity and inclusion.  As a result,59% of their workforce comprised women working at all levels. This significant representation of women could only be possible because of the conscious effort of the management to bring women employee-friendly policies and programs that provide holistic support.

Awards and Recognition: There is a strong reward and appreciation program. Small wins of the teams are applauded. GI also pays a lot of emphasis on learning & development –the calendar of events during the year has several useful training sessions that allow all employees to stay abreast with the latest developments in the field and upskill themselves.

Employee Well-being Initiatives: GI has been frequently organizing Yoga and mental well-being sessions by leading experts. They conduct several team bonding activities that help us to foster a strong bond among our employees and keep them connected wherever they are based.

Connected Workplace Initiative:  GI has also launched the connected workplace program which has hybrid models of working for the qualifying staff which has helped give flexibility and increase employee satisfaction.

“Our efforts have been consistently recognized at prestigious forums and awards- as the “Dream Company to work for “by Times Ascent and World HRD Congress, we recently named among the top 100 Great People Managers in India by Great Manager Institute®️.  Our leadership teams in India and UK have been proactively working to make this a big differentiator and area of strength at GI Outsourcing“, Vikas Chadha proudly shared.

Vikas has a great team who share his passion for customer obsession and delivery of exceptional experiences, by going the extra mile in ensuring quality assurance, meeting deadlines, or rising on to new challenges.

He says that he is fortunate to get the unrestricted support of his teams, even the new colleagues who have been hired in Ahmedabad and Delhi have been absorbed with open arms and are now a major source of strength to GI’s global ambitions . While GI will be soon targeting the UK , it is  well on its way to enhance their Delhi and Ahmedabad operations to 100 members.

FROM THE CEO’S DESK
“Leadership gave me the opportunity for self-actualization, it gave me a platform to perform to my peak potential and attain my deep embedded desire of achievement.  Being a leader helps me to create a culture of trust, and transparency, and drive innovation. As a leader I could help work more meaningfully by giving them the freedom to make choices, opportunities for variety and challenge, giving regular feedback, and ensuring people can see things through from start to finish.”

“Success is an attitude and state of mind where he feels the happiness of knowing that he made a difference for many, did this doing what he loves, and getting to experience many things in this extraordinary world. Customer Success starts as a function but it can only make an impact if it becomes a company-wide transformation, which can only be possible if the CEO owns it.” 

CLIENTELE & CORPORATE ETHOS
GI has helped several hundreds of clients across the globe. They support them in achieving their goals by providing low-cost cutting-edge compliance solutions by freeing up time and resources that allow them to focus on adding additional value to their client relationships. They also focus on creating a breakthrough portfolio pipeline.

Further Vikas Chadha apprised, “At GI, we understand the client’s unique needs and ensure that employees develop more agile, adaptive ways of working to meet the requirements. Having a customer-centric approach enabled us to foresee their future requirements that help us innovate our offerings. Increasing the attractiveness of our offering and keeping our price fixed ensured excellent value to all our customers. This unique approach has helped us immensely as 65% of our turnover is based on referrals – a reflection of the high esteem within which we are held.” 

PAINTING THE CANVAS OF GI’S FUTURE
GI has witnessed steady growth even during the pandemic, they have recently expanded to two new locations in India; Ahmedabad and NCR. As a company, they foresee tremendous growth opportunities in various geographies; US, Canada, etc. The company has a robust expansion plan, strengthening its footprint globally in various areas of finance and accounting. They are rapidly increasing their reach in India to nurture and acquire the best accounting talent in the industry.

While the firm would be focusing on acquiring more customers in the near future, it would also be increasing its employee strength and adding niche accounting services to the offering portfolio. Besides, the company would look at doubling itself and touching a milestone of 500 Plus top-notch finance and accounts outsourcing professionals in the next few years.  GI has been working on a strategy to take GI beyond the UK and Europe into other important markets of the USA, Canada, Australia, and Singapore in terms of market growth. This will make GI a global player with the best accounting talent and training.

GIVING BACK TO THE SOCIETY
GI Outsourcing is committed to bringing social change to the lives of orphaned and street children. It has been engaging with NGOs like Ankur Foundation and the Bring Joy Foundation to support its efforts in this area.

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