CHAVANS TECHNOLOGIES

Adding substance to the IT space

This exclusive cover story is an outcome of a freewheeling interview session that we conducted with the founding head and CEO of Chavans Technologies- Sumanth Chavan and other members of the leadership team. In this conversation, the technocrat shared some valuable nuggets of wisdom that gave us some food for thought. And we sincerely hope our global readership will find this read equally fascinating.

“We are committed to creating insanely great experiences for our customers, partners, vendors and employees. And it’s certainly evident in the work we do.”

THE COMPANY OVERVIEW
Incepted in 2015, Chavans Technologies has become a reliable IT service provider across India with its speciality in System Integration & IT services. Being the founder of this venture, Sumanth has established an adamant mission to create smart spaces that are intelligent and can ensure a high level of accountability. Summarizing his overall entrepreneurial journey, he conveys that being an entrepreneur is an uphill climb and especially hailing from an Indian middle- class, non-business family is a struggle itself.

From starting a business out of a tiny garage with zero venture capital to conducting multiple businesses successfully for the last 6 years, he defied all the odds to ensure exponential growth in his favour. “I’d say, it has been one hell of a journey. If this is not a result of passion & dedication, what is?,” he asserts.

Chavans thrives on a people-centric approach where their offered solutions span from edge to core to cloud. In brief, they strive to offer end-to-end IT solutions – be it data centre infrastructure, cloud computing, DevOps, applications & databases, end user computing, cyber security or relevant services.

REVAMPING THE TECH-SPACE
Today, the technology space is brimming with several service providers increasing the competition significantly. But, Chavans has made a unique reputation here owing to its dedicated team of highly skilled individuals possessing extensive experience in the IT industry.

Many of the associates in the company have spent years working with tech giants like IBM, EMC, Dell, VMware, Cisco to name a few. Moreover, what speaks volumes is that they do not focus on selling point solutions like most of their competitors. They have a crystal clear purpose of assisting organisations on two core aspects — to overcome their existing IT challenges and aiding them to adopt newer technology that will have an impact on their businesses directly. These strategies have stimulated huge acceptance of their services among the targeted clientele which includes many Fortune 500 companies as well as many promising start- ups.

As software will be defining and redefining the future of the world we live in, Chavans aspires to be a key contributor to this direction. When today, mankind can effectively lock/unlock and control any household device by a simple touch or even a voice command, we can consider the impact scale of rapid innovations that have been creating a digital space around us. “It’s even more exciting to watch what the future has in-store. That implies, every organization is under intense pressure to deliver innovative services for their markets and do so as rapidly as possible, but this speed can come at the expense of security, reliability and operations,” opines the CEO.

Acknowledging that, Chavans is focused on helping its endcustomers in five major areas- Modernization of applications, Building software-defined data centres and the running and managing of multi-cloud environments, The connecting of them to a virtual cloud networking solution, The delivery of a digital workplace with world class edge solutions and Providing a holistic intrinsic security portfolio.

Primarily, Chavans was started with the thought of just bridging the gap between the value-added partners and the end- customers. But with passing time, the senior executives broadened their vision where they decided to address the unmet and unarticulated needs of their valued customer base. As the company enjoys a leadership position in its space, it takes pride in empowering organisations & businesses in the direction of reaching their desired goals, alongside enriching people’s lives by creating tech intensity.

Sumanth claims that they have been able to make leaps by this purpose only because of the enriched experience and skill- sets that they as a leadership team brings-in while establishing a robust work culture. Leadership in the company has spent years working with tech giants like IBM, EMC, Dell, VMware, Cisco to name a few.

As he reveals more about the work culture, he affirms that for companies to be successful over a long period, innovative ideas and impeccable strategies play a significant role. Chavans culture fosters the growth of every individual where simplicity, continuous innovation, continuous improvement, empowering individuals, passion to win and creating insanely great experiences – have been the core values.

He is certain that their cultural principles have had an impact on the interaction process with all their stakeholders -be it the customers or partners. Furthermore, he proceeded to talk about the primary traits the management prominently seeks in an individual to survive in the organisation which is the ability to adapt to continuous change while possessing an aptitude towards continuous learning.

Chavans is focused on helping enterprises in five major areas Modernization of applications, building software -defined data centres and the running and managing of multicloud environments, connecting of them to a virtual cloud networking solution, delivery of a digital workplace with worldclass edge solutions and providing a holistic intrinsic security portfolio.

‘MANTRA’ FOR CLIENT CONTENTMENT
Sumanth resonates with the concept — change is the only constant. Hence, Chavans has been able to adapt to various changing technology trends in the last five years. He adds substance in this direction by revealing, “Let me give you an example – it’s been 2 quarters since we started Chavans cloud, and today it’s the fastest growing BU for us. The pace at which we ramped up our cloud business is something we are very proud of.”

It has been the utmost reason behind the trust earned by them from their clientele that spans across all large, medium and small enterprises coming from industries such as IT, ITES, BFSI, manufacturing, pharma, fintech and education. Customer satisfaction has always been the key to them which is not just a process but a part of the organisation’s culture.

“Leadership in the company has spent years working with tech giants like IBM, EMC, Dell, Vmware & Cisco. Thus, endorsing an inspiring work culture. Our objectives are crystal clear where we have plans-sketched to achieve them. During the journey, we do find hurdles and roadblocks. It may be during our initial engagement with customers or while executing a project at a later stage. We don’t falter, we improvise and make things happen, for our customers & ourselves.” MADHUSUDAN RAO Vice President – Sales

SUSTAINING THE UNPRECEDENTED CRISIS
Undoubtedly the pandemic induced major setbacks to the business world and Chavans also faced multiple challenges in its business functions. Social capital was the aspect that was majorly affected by remote working. “When we witness the body language, we can learn from the cues, by watching people and some of that social capital is hard to create. Sometimes meetings can become very transactional. That’s been the hardest part,” he emphasized. But here, he is not asserting that remote working is bad as there are times and situations where working from home is very productive.

Therefore, unique and intuitive solutions are the need of the hour to bring together the social capital creation capabilities, on which Chavans is also converging its energies. As remote office workspace, cloud computing and cyber security solutions are the top preferences of their valued customers, they have been at the forefront to help them adopt these technologies at a faster pace. So far, the company has formulated its own hybrid model, that has a combination of people working from the office as well as remotely. With this out-of-the-box solution, they are aspiring to generate better social capital during the course.

ADDRESSING THE R&D PROCESS
By offering knowledge and insights that facilitate the amelioration of existing solutions, the R & D process allows businesses to thrive amid the competitive scenario. For Chavans, the R & D process has proved to be beneficial in multiple ways too. Here, Sumanth spills the beans on their R&D oriented functions, “Our asset management services are a result of one such practice.

We do invest nearly 20% of our earnings on R&D. Our everyday engagement with customers teaches us about multiple complexities they face and we have developed useful services to help them.” As they have been working with some industry giants today, R&D has allowed them to recognize the pain points on their behalf and also help them improve their offerings by giving them constant feedback.

THE GROWTH PLAN
To make growth in leaps and bounds in upcoming years, Chavans has envisioned harnessing the power of rapidly evolving tech advances. Cloud Computing is the latest hype in the market, which is considered to be a future solution, to a viable alternative for many small to medium- sized businesses. When it comes to addressing the need for growing businesses – keeping control of capital expenditures is a tedious task.

Here, with virtualization technology and economies of scale, Cloud Computing is an ultimate escape to reach enterprise-grade IT that would otherwise be too costly to purchase and maintain. Sumanth also states that their collaboration with AWS, Azure & Google on which they have made heavy investment for their cloud business will propel them towards a radiant future for sure.

Security solutions are also in their bucket list with which they will be aiding the customers transition from a bolted-on, siloed, threat-centric view to something a lot more built-in, unified and focused on context absent data. “Again, security is not about just having the locks in the house, it’s about the ability to monitor what’s happening in real-time and fixing the issue with an intrinsic approach,” conveys Sumanth.

This is the focal point where the company’s association with VMware Carbon Black has paid off effectively. Today, Chavans has carved a distinctive position in securing an organization’s entire IT – with a strategy of any cloud, any application, any device. It has got an entire portfolio where its partnership with companies like Sonicwall, McAfee, Cisco, Fortinet, Sophos and PaloAlto is steering the relevant operation sophistically.

“Security is not about just having the locks in the house, it’s about the ability to monitor what’s happening in realtime and fixing the issue with an intrinsic approach”

RESPONDING TO THE COMPETITION
As we witness heavy disruption around us, it is needless to mention the competitiveness nurturing in the technology industry. Here, only those who are irreplaceable in terms of their offerings while paying heed to customer needs and fostering a creative streak will survive as well as grow.

When questioned about the accelerating competition in the IT industry, the CEO firmly replied, “ We respect the competition. When we started this business and began talking to our prospects, we were never in a vacuum with no competition, sometimes we were just extremely lucky. And if there was competition, that means somebody else knew this business as well as we did. At Chavans, we do the work, we learn more about our industry, we know about our business.

We put in the effort to know more about our industry than anybody else. That’s the brains part and that’s the effort part as well. If someone is competing with us, they better know what they’re doing, otherwise, we are going to kick them out. They’re not going to outwork us. Continuous improvement in our actions and being peoplecentric is at our core and that always gives us an edge over others.”

Chavans Technologies has become an eminent and credible name in the IT space within just 6 years of its existence. And its phenomenal presence has been acknowledged and applauded by some big publications and media houses in their recent releases while it relishes some fruitful partnerships. A few of the worthy mentions are – Named among the Top-10 enterprise security service providers for 2020 by CIO Review. Platinum Partner with Dell Technologies, Gold Partner with Sonicwall, Gold Partner with Netmagic, High potential growth partner with AWS & Microsoft Azure.

The exemplary company strives to be one of the top IT services providers in the world where its operations will be conducted in several developed as well as developing countries. And with M9RA49 which is their entity, they are formulating beneficial software tools that are stirring them in the right direction to emerge as a globally reckoned brand.

THE CORPORATE TEACHING BY THE CEO
“I’d say, creating a company and succeeding is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. What I mean to say is, it’s quite exciting for the first several months of starting a company and then the reality sets in, things don’t go as well as planned, customers aren’t signing up, the technology of the park isn’t working as well as you thought, and then it can sometimes be compounded by a recession or a pandemic and it can be extremely painful for several years.

So frankly, I think when one starts a company, he/she needs to have a clear sense of purpose, a lot of passion and dedication to making things happen and most importantly have a high pain tolerance. It’s not about having just great ideas, it’s really about making them happen.”

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CHAVANS TECHNOLOGIES