The fairytale journey of an entrepreneur

One of the great American authors and motivational speakers John Maxwell had
once said, A great leaders courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion,
not position.

True, but how many leaders actually epitomize this adage and drive home the
message that it is passion that takes an entity from one position to another?
Very few. Sajan Pillai, executive of UST Global, ranks one amongst them. As we
enter a suburban hotel in Chennai, the venue for the interaction, Pillai breaks
the ice by quipping, As a youngster even I wanted to be a journalist and had
this concept of customized media in my mind. That sets the tone for the
interaction with the chief catalyst who started things from scratch and with a
modest team of fourteen over nine years ago. Today, UST Global is a 5000 plus
team offering optimal solutions for IT/BPO efficiency across industries.

Our interaction picks up steam when he elucidates on the essential elements
put in place when the company was in its formative years. We figured out that
in order to build a company that would last and stand the test of time you need
to have a few elements in place. It wasnt about making one customer or two
customers.

From day one, we wanted to build the greatest company in the arena, which
meant that whatever we did was long term, sustainable. The first and the
foremost thing was to have the right value system in the company - what are we
doing and why are we doing it, he adds. The second focus for his entity was to
develop a model wherein it was maintained less customers, more attention. It
was extraordinary to have that discipline and when you are starting, you want to
get anything and everything that you can. And thats human instinct. We always
focused on carefully selecting a customer relationship and investing in that
relationship right upfront, Sajan Pillai points out.

In an eon where companies are looking at transactional profit and loss, UST
Globals investments in each of its customers and sticking with them for long
periods of time comes as a breath of fresh air.

Another important facet in the growth course of UST Global is the importance
given to people practices. According to Pillai, identifying and grooming talent,
creating bench strength, empowering individuals has always been the key areas of
interest.

After this was put in place, the tough job of convincing customers to come on
board would have given sleepless nights to any entrepreneur but not to Pillai
who enthuses, It never really mattered that we were a new company or a smaller
company and the customers realized that our company had the passion and our
employees had the intensity.

We question him on the temptation of taking the inorganic route and his reply
is honest Its very tempting to go the inorganic route but we are not looking at
one or two year relationship and if you aim at building the best company not in
India but in the world, you have to see to it that the entity fits your
culture. The discussion moves onto the unique program started by UST Global
coined as Colors of UST Global, an initiative close to his heart. Each and
every employee would represent a color.

A constant traveler across different geographies and time zones, Pillai,
however, manages his work-life balance. He admits to having quite a few hobbies
from music to outdoors and is quite excited with a program in Kerala to
re-invigorate Swathi Thirunal music. He has been instrumental in creating a
school that would offer free classical music education to everyone. Yes, he is a
happy family man, a hardcore entrepreneur and above all a socially responsible
human being who brings about perfect balance among whatever he does.

As told to Prasad Ramasubramanian

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in