VERVITUDE
CONSULTING REDEFINED
WHO CAME UP WITH THE RULE THAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK 5 DAYS A WEEK AND 9 HOURS A DAY, WHY CAN'T WE CHOOSE OUR OWN TERMS?" ASKS JAY AND ANSWERS IT WITH 'VERVITUDE'.
A business consultant is a professional who has both the expertise and the experience to advise you on what to do and how to do it, saving you money, time and energy. Startups as well as any business that wants to grow, many times need outside experts who can guide them on the right path and provide the right resources in executing a plan.
A Business consultant should be able to understand your business and its vision, break it down into realistic milestones and goals, and guide you in getting on the path to success. Finding a right consultant, can be a challenge and for startups and small businesses it's even bigger as hiring a consultant can be quite expensive.
One can either go to the big consulting, which is not in reach for small businesses and startups or hire independent consultants whose credibility is difficult to assess.
Understating this gap Jay Datta – Founder and CEO of Vervitude ventured in the consulting domain to provide consulting solutions for startups and small businesses as an independent consultant 3 years ago.
Over the last three years, while working as an independent consultant Jay realized that "The consulting industry, which works towards structuring the unstructured business processes, itself is an unstructured industry, there is no way to verify independent consultants, neither are there any guarantees for businesses and decision makers when working with independent consultants.
The same is the case for consultants, there are no set processes for independent consultants and an independent consultant is a one man army, who has to, not only consult, but also has to manage sales, marketing, payments, basically run their own business along with supporting their clients business; it gets overwhelming", Jay says.
This realization led Vervitude to what it is today. A structured platform for businesses and decision makers to find the curated/verified consultants at the same time, providing support to consultants with other consultants, accounting, sales, marketing and much more, so that they can focus on the actual projects rather than choosing between their own business and client projects.
Jay Datta is the man behind 'Vervitude', before starting this venture Jay already had more than 14 years of work experience. He has worked with Fortune 500 brands such as HSBC, Dell, JP Morgan Chase, TCS, Citi as well as market disrupting startups such as Housing.com & OLA during his corporate stint among others.
In the last two startups, he was responsible for building processes from scratch, while working he realised that there are a lot of start-ups and small businesses which can do much better with the right support and guidance which led him to start an independent consulting firm in 2017 and 'Vervitude' was born.
Vervitude is definitely on the path of being the most valuable management and business consulting company because the real value that 'Vervitude' brings is empowering consultants to choose their hours and projects, which means they can be their boss.
It also brings value to a business owner as now they can hire an expert on a project basis or fewer hours which is within their budget.
"A consultant is not someone who has the right answers, it's someone who has the right questions and the ability to discover the right answers." – Jay Datta
It started as a traditional management consulting firm but while working as an independent consultant 'Vervitude' realised that there is a huge market gap in the consulting industry itself.
The major challenge that consultants face is that they spend most of their time doing administrative work rather than doing actual work so 'Vervitude' is focusing on solving this issue. Therefore, it has evolved from a traditional consulting firm to a platform for independent consultants.
The demand for consultants is growing but slowly in India as awareness about consulting grows, there is a lot of information on the web but it is very generic. It can be difficult to understand and apply the information for business owners and many a times may need an expert who can guide them for their own set of challenges.
"Despite having a lot of useful information on the web, many business owners and decision makers are either not aware of consulting as an option or are uncertain it can help them.
The challenge is convincing them value in having a consultant. What we try to do is to help them understand that, when it comes to your business and your passion, one size cannot fit all", say Jay Datta.
'Vervitude' believes that technology has helped them to reach their audience with much ease. Use of technology should be amplified over the years because small businesses are not using technology to its full potential and that's where a consultant comes into play.
'Vervitude' has helped in digital transformation and process automation for several small businesses which has helped them grow, as now they need less manpower for day to day operational activities and the employees are more focused on pushing the business further rather than just running it.
"Automation of small and unproductive tasks is important for small business as it can save time as well as money" – Jay Datta
Being an independent consulting firm, one of the biggest challenges that 'Vervitude' has faced is that small businesses give more preference to save money by cutting corners and tend to cut the wrong corners which hold them back at times from growing.
Business owners and decision makers make the usual mistake, to hire less skillful people to save money which many a times hurts them in the long run.
Another challenge that consultants face is to convince a business owner or a decision maker that she/he might be doing something wrong that will hamper their business. If a consultant can cross this barrier then the rest of the process becomes easier.
"Not only in this industry, but it is a great time to get into entrepreneurship in general." – Jay Datta
To venture into the consulting industry or become a consultant, one needs to be an expert in a particular domain and have industry experience. Vervitude also plans to help individuals become domain experts and in turn become consultants.
'Vervitude' aim is to break the rule that one has to work 9 hours a day and 5 days a week because being a consultant allows one to choose their own hours and terms.
In the future, 'Vervitude' looks like it is going to be the go-to consultancy for businesses as they would get the right support and consulting from 'Vervitude – Consulting Redefined'.
'Vervitude' is derived from three worlds:
Verve which means enthusiasm or passion
Virtue which is ethics
Attitude which is a set way to approach things
These are the core values on which 'Vervitude' works, besides this; they also focus on ethics, passion and process.
"It always should be process over people not people over process. People should adjust to processes, process should not adjust to the people, because the process is above everything else in a successful and sustainable business. If you focus on process only then you would be able to build something that will grow." – Jay Datta
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