Gaining accolades in the consulting space for industry leading solutions: Novus Global Solutions, LLC.

Over the last decade, every consulting firm has invested heavily in the offshore models across the world. The offshore business model requires a very costly infrastructure that has led all consulting firms to drive business out of every country into offshore countries for a single reason – To recover their costs. All consulting firms are built around a single KPI ‘Customer Success’. However, over the last decade the single KPI of most consulting firms is to recover their investments made in offshore countries where local taxation and increasing cost of utilities and infrastructure is driving their operating cost out of control.

Amidst such a market scenario, North Brunswick, NJ based Novus Global Solutions, a well-known name in the consulting industry known for its unique expertise in revitalizing SAP ERP and SAP BI projects, is bringing consulting jobs onshore since 2010. A firm supporter of the onsite consulting model, Novus’ CEO Sushrut has built a reputation of delivering projects as well as global programs using its innovative onsite model that delivers at lower TCO than offshore models. Today, the company focuses on SAP suite of products as well as custom application development using most known technologies.

The trendsetter in the consulting space
The current industry models have left the customers with missed deadlines, multi-year contracts that drain their budgets and constantly changing remote resources that converts a few minutes of face to face meeting into hour long conference calls and hundreds of emails. Change orders and change documents along with an army of delivery, project leads and managers lead to a frustrated business that has to focus the best of their resources to an IT program instead of running their own business.

Known as ‘the consulting firm for the 21st century’, Novus is probably the only firm designed ground upto drive consulting services onsite using local resources at a total cost lower than any consulting in the world today. And with business practices that focuses on accuracy in solution design, speed in delivery and an agile model that adapts to the client’s varying business needs, the team at Novus understands the need for change and carries the ability to adapt to the changing business requirements on the go in their tailored solutions!

Uniquely shaped solutions for one and all
A firm believer in ‘Customer Success’, Novus partners with their customers for project and program delivery in strategy management, process improvement and technology implementation projects. In fact, every employee, consultant and the management team including the founders are focused on customer success and are compensated or penalized based on customer success and satisfaction.

Over the past six years, Sushrut has led an uphill battle of convincing C-executives that consulting can be delivered locally at qualities unmatched by offshore and a total cost lower than offshore. The CEO’s relentless pursuit in doing the right thing for customers and employees and his firm belief in his entrepreneurial business model has led some of the fortune companies to move away from the offshore model and leverage the Novus onsite model. In fact, within the last year and half, the company’s footprint has expanded to Brazil, UK, Hungary, Germany, Singapore & Malaysia. “Our resources with a minimum of 18 years of experience have proven over the last 5 years that they can design and configure in a week where most consulting companies require months. In every country Novus adapts the same model – no work leaves the country and leverage local talent” said Sushrut. While Novus is well known for its expertise in SAP solutions and business intelligence the company also provides expertise in custom application development in Java and .NET as well as infrastructure covering Windows and Unix, PCI compliant security as well as operations.

Recently, Novus has launched its infrastructure and operations management in the United States with the commitment of hiring local citizens with a total cost lower than any offshore model.

Knowing the CEO’s thoughts…

Q. Tell us about your first product that was launched?
A. Our DNA is of consulting services firm, we are the first firm that has re-invented the consulting model and has proven that we can do consulting services onsite at a total cost that is faster, accurate and economical than any other consulting model even as we operate only with local citizens or residents.

Q. Brief us about your journey till now?
A. The journey was not an easy journey, because we decided to create a model that is against the industry at a time when everyone from the largest player to the smallest player was adapting the same model i.e. move low cost people from other countries or move work out of the country. Disrupting any existing model poses its own challenges but proving that a handful of local people can deliver higher quality service in half the time of any offshore model was quite difficult to sell.

A typical start up consulting services firm always partners with a larger service integrator firms. The larger SI’s pass consulting business that the smaller firms usually fulfill without owning the risk of the project or the programs. Due to our disruptive model, we decided to do it all on our own. We were truly delighted when the software giant SAP decided to leverage our model on multiple large implementations propelling the attention of some fortune 50 CIO’s to look closely at our model.

Q. What were the Challenges faced by your company in the initial years?
A. The biggest challenge was disrupting the existing market service model of convincing our customers that a handful of 16-18 years experienced people onsite can do the work faster than 60 or 70 people sitting offshore. The other challenge was that we launched ourselves in our home country and regardless of how much we try to bring it all home and try to create jobs at home, there really are no government programs that are visible and available easily for any start-up company who is trying to do the right thing. Banks are not welcoming to services firms and venture capitalists are keen on valuations and balance sheets instead of the P&L.

With a family to take care of, the decision to leave a high paying corporate job that had recognized Sushrut as a Top Talent fellow three years in a row, to take an entrepreneurial plunge was considered “a suicidal plunge” by most of his friends and family. All of these combined made the journey challenging and interesting.

Q. Briefly explain about your organizational structure?
A. We started off as a typical start-up firm and had some venture capitalists who were interested in investing in the firm but they did condition us to have an offshore model and that was something I was absolutely against. No one knows this but to prove my model, Novus started as a one man firm with me handling Marketing, Sales, Operations, Recruitment and Finance.

Bhavna was the first person I hired as an executive assistant, and within a few months, she was smart and bold enough to pick up finance and operations. Bhavna now Heads Global Finance & Operations for Novus and is a key factor for the growth of Novus.

With a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, and Master’s degree in Human Resource Management, Bhavna has all that it takes to manage a company. A one woman army, Bhavna has made it possible for Novus to serve clients within the most Challenges deadlines and circumstances, without having to compromise on quality services since 2013.

Novus is the only company in the world where there are no printers, fax machines or scanners and yet, anybody can pick up and say ‘we need an accurate balance sheet in 60 minutes at any given point of time’ and they would probably get it in 45 minutes. This requires a lot of effort, dedication and commitment to improving processes and ensuring that the systems are adapting the processes, this is what we coach and do for our customers. We have to be the role model for our customers. Bhavna is agile and ready for change.

The firm today has about 60-70 experts and each one has about 21 years of experience. We do not talk about average years of experience like other companies. I manage the firm as its CEO, but we are all a family of delivery experts that love to do what we do. We are now building our advisory board to take it to the next level.

Q. Where do you see Novus a couple of years from now?
A. We started the journey in late 2010, and December 2016 will mark our sixth anniversary. Recently, we were awarded the third fastest growing consulting services position in the United States at an awards ceremony hosted by Kennedy Research Group and Boston Consulting Group (a leading name in the consulting services worldwide). This has given the entire firm tremendous confidence as to how well we are doing on a global platform. After being ranked as the third fastest growing firm by them we really want to see our name in the Gartner quadrant as one of the leading professional consulting services firm in the world over the next five years. Our next vision is to hire fresh talent from colleges and mentor them, with our senior staff to build a new generation of consultants that deliver a combination of industry knowledge, process experience and systems integration to our customers who can focus on what they do best.

…Novus

• Understands your business needs and makes management recommendations.
• Works closely with your leadership team to define and develop strategies to define and achieve your business.
• Provides the specialists and generalists as and when required converting your fixed people costs into variable costs.
• Leverages its network to find the most optimal business model for you to penetrate and grow your business.
• Your business people focus on business while we manage your process & technology enablement & optimization for you.
• Does not bring an army of consultants to the table. We bring the right skills to the table from the local market who understand the urgencies of the business and can deliver with exceptional quality onsite.
• Has proven experience and expertise in creating a strategy and delivering it on the field. This unique blend allows us to work closely with the business leadership in building the right strategy blueprint for the company.
• Ensures that the processes are optimal for delivering the strategy in a very rapid time frame.
• Selects the right technology to manage the tactical and operational aspects of delivery.
• Engages in the field directly if required to drive success.

CEO Corner

Meet Sushrut Shrotri

Sushrut has a Baccalaureate in Engineering and a Master’s in Organization management. He started his career as a Mechanical Engineer but over the past 21 years he has played multiple roles in corporate America from consulting to executive management; from setting up global organizations to managing high risk accounts and legal de-escalations. His global footprint spans 12 countries before taking the entrepreneurial jump. Besides his professional consulting venture, Sushrut has also produced a movie in Bollywood and has launched a new venture called Novus Films which has launched two movies. Sushrut also spends his personal time to mentor people who want to be entrepreneurs as well as other start up organizations. Sushrut also runs a self-funded initiative where he identifies young individuals who have the aspiration to learn but are faced in financial hardships. He not only funds these individuals for their under grad and professional education but also mentors them to succeed in corporate world.

In 2010, Sushrut took over as the Managing Partner of a startup company called Novus Global Solutions LLC. with less than $10,000 of annual revenue. Within the first month of his joining, Novus signed a million Dollar contract and has grown at an average annual rate of over 112% year over year converting it into a multi-million-dollar firm. In 2015, Novus was ranked as the 3rd fastest growing consulting firm in the US at an event hosted by ALM & Boston Consulting group and has earned many accolades from the American Business awards, Golden Bridge awards and B2B awards to name a few.

2016 brought great recognition to Novus and Sushrut as it took away 7 business awards including most Environmental Sustained company of the year, Fastest growing consulting firm and CEO of the year for mid-sized firms.

DID YOU KNOW??

Novus was set up as a Paperless and Plastic Free organization and has worked with customers as well as all vendors to ensure that all customer contracts, vendor contracts, incoming and outgoing payments are electronic. Novus boasts an environment with NO Printers, Scanners or Fax machines worldwide.

The firm boasts a women empowerment model in leadership roles and has been built as a 21st century firm leveraging cloud and mobile technologies. The firm has no printers, scanners, fax machines, checks or any form of paper in the organization. It does not accept physical checks and uses 100% digital banking for its banking in 7 countries.

At Novus, Sushrut strives to create a work life balance by promoting a work from home culture thereby allowing the Novus employees to balance their work and life while having a successful career at Novus. All the top management positions at Novus including the Heads of finance, recruitment, marketing & HR are held by women.