At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring to our community some of the finest stories from the entrepreneurship world. As part of this endeavour, we invited yet another entrepreneur – Tram Venkatraman for an exclusive interview with us. He is a Seasoned Entrepreneur, Award-Winning Leader & Coach, Mentor, and Business Strategist. He is the Co-founder of 3C Coaching and Consulting. Let’s learn more about his inspiring journey, his background and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Tram:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur/coach, please;
I am an alumnus of 2 very prestigious institutions – the PSBB Schools at Chennai and the National Institute of Technology, Trichy. I am an awardee of the prestigious Distinguished Alumni Award of NIT, Trichy, conferred on me for my contribution in the Industry/Corporate World.
I am a high energy organization builder with a passion for incubating, establishing, and scaling new businesses; a skilled integrator with a proven track record of managing post-merger integration; enjoy scaling organizations, coaching, and mentoring people to scale to leadership roles, business and personal networking.”
I graduated in Electrical & Electronics Engineering with Honors in 1981. In a career spanning 38 years I handled several responsibilities across Project Management, Sales, Marketing & Biz Development, Product Management, Operations & Service Delivery, Strategy and M&A functions.
After 20 years in brick & mortar industry, I made the transition to the sunrise BPO Industry with a start-up, Allsec Technologies, Chennai in 2000 as Vice President in charge of Sales, Marketing and Biz Development as its first employee. I played a key role in several prestigious client acquisitions.
I joined Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in 2005 at a time when TCS was embarking on its journey of building its BPO practice. Having worked earlier in a successful start-up Allsec Technologies, I brought with me the experience of building the organization. My process-centric approach enabled me in recruiting, training and building teams initially and then building practices around key functional areas & verticals like Finance & Accounting, Retail etc.
I played a key role in growing the BPO practice from near zero to over 3000 in the first two years of operations and tripled it over the next 3 years. I oversaw the entire operations of the BPO and worked assiduously in building accounts which served as a springboard for TCS to establish its leadership in the BPO Industry. I later oversaw the integration of TCS’s largest acquisition which helped more than quadruple TCS’s strength and revenues in the BPO Industry. Before I moved on from TCS I sowed the seeds for the Knowledge Process Outsourcing practice (KPO) which has since flourished and grown considerably.”
Post a successful stint at TCS I took over as President of Scope e-Knowledge Center, a very niche Knowledge Services Co., owned by Raman Roy’s Quatrro Group. At Scope, I managed the transitioning out of the founder promoter team and led the business to achieve scale. During my tenure at Scope, I pioneered and drove several innovative initiatives like significantly digitizing the operations including the support functions, building technology-based service products, a very unique Rural Talent leverage model establishing rural operations with a 60-40 gender mix in favour of women.
This enabled educated rural women to pursue job opportunities in the knowledge services industry. This initiative saw Scope win the prestigious NASSCOM Diversity & Inclusivity Award for 2013 for this achievement. Later I scaled up the rural base by establishing an exclusive rural delivery location at Salem in an incredibly unique Industry-first collaborative model with the regions premier engineering institution.
I led Scope through a valuation and sale in 2017-18. The 9 plus year period after I took charge recorded ~ 50% growth in the top line, a significant increase in EBITDA, strategic re-positioning of the Co., in the market as a leading, technology-led niche content discovery solutions and data management services provider. During my tenure, I worked on expanding market share, building a solid high quality, high-performance leadership team, pioneered expansion into rural India creating jobs where talent existed, drove path-breaking initiatives in areas of cutting-edge technology infusion through University alliances. I also hired and inducted visually challenged intellectuals into full-time roles in the Co and made a significant change in their lives.
In 2015, along with my Engineering batch mates, I played a key role in setting up an Internet of Things Innovation Center in the NIT Trichy campus to enable students to work on IoT projects across disciplines, develop prototypes and IP collaboratively with Industry under the careful watch of Faculty and several alumni mentors. This was a very prestigious initiative by my batch to contribute back to the Institution through the deployment of leading-edge technologies in a World Class environment.
After a near 4-decade experience working building businesses and teams I reckoned my calling was to be in the coaching & mentoring space with the purpose of contributing back to society working with leaders to enable them to realize and unleash their full potential growing businesses and their careers in the process. Therefore, after transitioning out Scope to its new owners I superannuated from my Corporate Career in May 2019 and qualified and credentialed with the International Coaching Federation, USA.
In 2020, along with my two of my coaching colleagues, I co-founded a coaching and consulting company – 3C Coaching & Consulting(www.we3coaches.com) to work with corporates, entrepreneurs, emerging leaders, businesses and individuals to partner them in their growth.
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
After a near 4-decade experience working building successful businesses and high-performance teams, I reckoned my calling was to be in the coaching & mentoring space with the purpose of contributing back to society working with leaders to enable them to realize and unleash their full potential growing businesses and their careers in the process. Therefore, after transitioning out Scope to its new owners I superannuated from my Corporate Career in May 2019 and qualified and credentialed with the International Coaching Federation, USA.
In 2020, along with my two of my coaching colleagues, I co-founded a Coaching and Consulting company – 3C Coaching & Consulting(www.we3coaches.com) to work with corporates, entrepreneurs, emerging leaders, businesses and individuals to partner them in their growth.”
It was my passion and successful track record working with people, coaching & mentoring them to achieve success, making a huge impact in the lives of several young professionals that I decided that I needed to follow my passion. I stepped off from my corporate career and qualified & credentialled as a coach with the globally recognized ICF, USA and then co-founded our company.
‘3C Coaching & Consulting’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem you are solving with the help of your startup?
Three of us coaches, now co-founders, got together in June 2020. That is when we decided given our business backgrounds and common purpose + vision of contributing to society through leadership development, we should try and do a series of webinars and coaching interventions with leaders, executives, businesses especially MSMEs on how they navigate this phase of life where things were looking uncertain.
All our interventions were well received and the power of 3 coaches came together very well in these programs. Right then based on our success we decided to do some promotional brochures in order to reach a larger market segment and were discussing on a routine phone call – it hit home for all three of us and the agency which was working with us also just loved it – we kept it simple – we named our Co as 3C Coaching & Consulting.”
3C is essentially the three of us – the three coaches.
We work with leaders of all experience buckets, with a special focus on emerging leaders, businesses, with a special focus on MSMEs and in a very unobtrusive way coach them – we help them explore themselves using a process we have trained on and got credentialed in with ICF – our clients gain awareness on their self-limiting beliefs, blocks as well as their strengths and decide themselves on a bunch of action items they would like to work on to realize their full potential as leaders, individuals, businesses etc. It is a complete inside-out process and therefore not prescriptive or instructional and our clients decide and work on what will work for them.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures you have undertaken to continue your business without disruption?
There was no disruption at all. Because 3C was born right in the middle of the pandemic. Coaching is an inherently low contact business. All our assignments are virtual, and we moved into a 100% virtual model seamlessly. We made our investments on the platforms necessary to be able to execute our programs with no contact. Our clients have also loved the experience working with us in this on camera mode.
We worked on differentiating ourselves and positioned our services accordingly. We put together our website real quick – in 10 days. Given that we were from a business background having held senior positions, creating new teams, establishing new business models etc. we were well acquainted with a lot of very smart agencies who were happy to reconnect with us and deliver what we wanted. We worked like a typical start-up – very cost-effective & efficient, good quality in our brochures, web site, all our collaterals and were able to establish an ecosystem which would support us.
How do you manage yourself and keep on going despite the challenges? What drives you?
It is my passion as also my colleagues’, business background, multi-functional, multi-domain expertise and successful track record working with people, coaching & mentoring them to achieve success, making a huge impact in the lives of several young professionals that brought us together. Also, we were all ICF credentialled coaches.
As coaches, when there are challenges is when we have work to do. So, we are loving it and there is not a day when we do not connect to discuss an idea or an opportunity or a market approach.
We are all guys who have finished with our careers as corporate professionals yet we ideate, agree to disagree, challenge ourselves to get to the markets in the most attractive efficient manner to work with more and more clients. We could very well have switched off or binge-watched stuff on TV etc.
In fact, we believe in continuous learning and even now we are upskilling ourselves to gain more knowledge and be more effective to provide great customer experience – and whatever modest income we got in 9 months we have invested back in the business.
In your opinion, what is more necessary: An idea or a good team for a successful startup?
No business is born without a good idea. Once there is a good business idea the others need to follow. You will need a good competent team to execute the idea – there is no need to splurge right up front, one can be very professional about it and build out brick by brick.”
Having said this certain must-dos have to be done – spending on go to market, products, hiring the right talent etc. We have seen many startups spend upfront extra-ordinary amounts on things that can be done in a phased manner and burn a lot of cash when there is no need to.
Summing up – a good idea backed up by a good team and smart execution is the key.
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
I enjoy what I do – the only reason is that I choose to do what I enjoy. This has been my belief and practices all my life. Many times, I have walked out of cosy comfortable positions the moment I stopped enjoying what I was doing. Most importantly I have never regretted any decision in all my life – I am a strong believer in driving forward and this can never be achieved by looking at the rear-view mirror.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
a) Ensure you have a good workable business idea – research thoroughly before you embark.
b) Execute smart, be careful with your cash.
c) Build a solid team, empower them and work together.
d) Stay laser-focused.
e) Failures happen, roadblocks will come up – learn fast and never hesitate to reach out for help. It is always available.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
