Practus aims to become a global consulting leader with $1-bn valuation: CEO Narayanan

In an exclusive conversation with Bizz Buzz, Deepak Narayanan, Founder & CEO of Practus, delves into the challenges and trends facing the industry, emphasizing the crucial need for continuous upskilling and re-skilling. As the traditional consulting landscape evolves with the advent of newer technologies, including Generative AI, Narayanan sheds light on the necessity for individuals not only to acquire 'hard skills' but also seamlessly integrate technological innovations to solve real-life client problems.

Providing insight into his professional background, Narayanan details the journey from co-founding Wealth Tree in 2007 to its evolution into Practus. With a focus on assisting overseas companies entering India, Narayanan outlines the pivotal role played by himself and co-founder Venkat, both Chartered Accountants, in bridging gaps in business practices and finance within Indian family-managed businesses.

In your opinion, what are the most significant challenges and how are you equipped to address them?

As an industry, continuous upskilling and re-skilling people remains the most significant challenge. Consulting in the most traditional way that we know is under threat and will get disrupted with the advent of newer tools, technologies - the latest one being Generative AI. People do not just need to be trained for the ‘hard skills’ but also in terms of being able to work seamlessly with technological innovations/disruptions and for them to be able to contextualize it to solve a real life client problem.

Can you provide an overview of your professional background and experience related to Practus? What led you to specialize in this field?

Venkat and I co-founded Wealth Tree in 2007, which is now Practus. Between 2007 and 2010, we were predominantly helping overseas companies which were looking to establish a footprint in India. We assisted them with conducting market research, putting together business plans, building a leadership team, conducting feasibility studies to help them set up manufacturing facilities, appointment of distributors amongst others. Venkat was the CFO of two large Fortune 100 companies and was instrumental in setting up/ was part of the team that set up their India operations. Back in 2005-2006, India was still a relatively unknown market for a number of companies and his own experience prompted him to start Wealth Tree as he saw this as a massive gap. I joined him in this journey almost immediately. Both Venkat and I are Chartered Accountants, Venkat is also a Cost Accountant and has an international degree in risk. I started my career with AF Ferguson, a leading firm back then (which became a part of Deloitte) and subsequently at Ernst & Young, advising large Indian and Global corporations. Venkat also worked for PwC before his stint as a CFO and the solution driven DNA was embedded in both of us. We knew each other which also made things easier for us to agree on the white space and get going.

Post the Global recession in 2008, we felt the need to relook at what we were doing since the number of companies setting up operations had dramatically gone down and it was time for us to press the reset button. Between 2007-2010, while we were servicing global companies, we were dealing with a number of Indian family managed businesses since these global corporations wanted to do a JV, bring them on as a distributor, sub-contract manufacturing and so on. We realized that while most of the Indian companies had been around for a very long time, there were glaring gaps in business practices and more significantly in finance/CFO’s office and given our backgrounds both in consulting and in finance, we felt there was an opportunity to add significant value to these businesses.

Moreover, consulting even today is largely an industrial era industry; charging customers by the hour, people’s costs being computed by the hour and more importantly value to the customer not being expressed in dollars and cents (not tangible). The standards have remained unchallenged for the longest period of time except maybe in some cases and under certain situations, consulting firms to offer the value pricing model. This is not yet a part of the DNA. We wanted to change this and we commit to an ROI before we move into implementation for clients rather than this being a discovery process along the way. A certain portion of our fee gets tied to delivering the ROI.

How does technology assist Practus in achieving its goal?

Technology is an enabler at Practus. We believe that technology is not a differentiator (the ability to deliver an ROI consistently is a differentiator), though application of technology is one of the key elements of the Practus’ delivery model. We work extensively with tools, frameworks, methodologies which are developed in-house and proprietary at Practus as well as third party solutions while solving problem statements for clients. We call this methodology as ‘The Practus Way’

How does Practus plan to innovate and differentiate itself in a competitive market?

As I mentioned earlier, committing and delivering an ROI is the differentiator for Practus. Some firms may deliver an ROI without committing (under promise), while at Practus demonstrating ‘skin in the game’ is an essential part of our DNA

How does Practus develop a business transformation strategy?

Practus invests significant amount of time in hiring individuals who fit in to the ‘Practus Way’ (culture, value alignment). Once these individuals are into the system, time is spent in providing them with ‘on the job’ exposure in addition to upskilling, reskilling through our ‘Gurukool’ program. This covers topics across skills and competency, leadership and management, technology adoption and client management.

Could you share a notable success story or accomplishment that Practus has achieved under your leadership?

Over the last 10 years, revenues have grown at a CAGR of close to 40 per cent. Between 2020 and 2023, revenue CAGR was close to 50 per cent. We are certified as a great place to work for the last two years and were ranked 51 last year out of over 1000 companies that participated in the ranking. Our attrition rates are significantly lower than competition. Our customer NPS is in the top 10 percentile in the industry and we pride ourselves in the culture that we have built

Can you describe the Practus' overall vision and mission for the future?

At Practus, our mission is to disrupt the consulting space and challenge the status quo. The impact that we generate helps improve business outcomes for clients significantly. Our team collaborates successfully with stakeholders to deliver tangible results with technology as an enabler. In doing so, we play a critical role in building a better world for our people, clients, business partners, and community. Practus’ vision is to lead the way for Indian consulting firms to think and act global and for us to achieve an enterprise valuation of $1billion by 2030.