It is difficult to catch Manish Sabharwal dressed below par. Here he walks in with a spanking new orange coloured tie, and pin striped suit. ?Sorry for being a little late,? he says. It?s not that he was late, but probably I had arrived five minutes ahead of schedule.
So how does he feel to be a successful entrepreneur? ?You know what, it is difficult to work for someone after starting one?s own firm,? he says, while settling down at the lunch table. Not exactly one wants to hear, but there is no chuckle on his face. So he must have said that quite as a matter of fact.
Manish is known to be an outstanding networker?one who has deep connections through the country, cutting across sectors. While having lunch I discover that he knows the hotel staff by name as well!
Manish, the chairman of temp staffing firm TeamLease, started the company along with his school mates Mohit Gupta and Ashok Reddy. That sounds like fun. ?Well, we all have our own strengths. There is no one who knows everything. So it?s nice to have three people running the company. We try to ensure that we have different friend circles as well for our social life. We don?t want to meet each other for dinners as well!?
After college, Manish went to Wharton for his MBA while Ashok took off to IIM-Bangalore and Mohit pursued his MBA from Australia. It was in 1998 that all three were bitten ?quite hard at that?by the entrepreneurial drive that was gaining momentum in India. Together they started the Indialife Pension Services with the intention to take a dip in the burgeoning Indian outsourcing success story. Taking India?s peculiarities into consideration they built a new service model to deliver outsourcing of payroll and pension administration, which went on to become huge success.
Outsourcing of payroll and pension administration was a new concept then, though it has to be said that some of the MNC players were used to this concept. Before too long, Indialife sort of became the largest player in the game in India and Hewitt joined the business as a strategic partner in year 2000. By then it was a profit making body. Soon, Indialife Hewitt acquired a company in Singapore to take its operations to the next level. In 2002, Hewitt acquired Indialife.
It was while promoting Indialife that Manish realised that temporary stagging has a huge potential in the country. While on a global scale, the temp staffing sector was worth around $200 billion, in India it was not considered a market at all. ?I realised that here was opportunity to do something good for India, which was fun and also profitable.? TeamLease was set up as a result of this dream in 2002.
TeamLease Services has today transformed into one of India?s leading staffing companies and provides a range of temporary and permanent manpower solutions to over 1,000 clients. The temporary staffing group establishes a co-employment relationship with clients and takes responsibility for all compliance, HR and administrative of employees on assignment. The permanent staffing group undertakes turnkey and recruitment mandates for permanent fulfillment. The firm today views itself as a liquidity provider that enables better matching of demand and supply in labour markets.
?Now it?s time to go to the next level. The government has to understand this sector better. We are in it for the long haul. We hope to serve the country?s needs better in the coming years. This country needs better skills and in large numbers,? adds Manish. With his networking ability and gift of the gab, the path may turn out to be a little less taxing.