Ms.Yeshasvini Ramaswamy Director, e2e Business Solutions 

What is the greatest strength of a business? If your answer - like ours - is an unequivocal ‘its people,' then Yeshasvini Ramaswamy's work is likely to interest you.

As director of e2e Business Solutions, Ramaswamy heads a company incorporated in 2005 by a few professionals associated with the Velankani Group, to offer human resource (HR), legal and financial services.

Ramaswamy brought shoals of HR experience to the job, thanks to her past stints as senior management consultant at Infosys BPO where she delved in policy formulations, people structuring and audits, leadership training and talent acquisition; as head of the People Practices function for the Velankani conglomerate comprising four companies in very diverse fields; as manager of ‘Build Operate Transfer' models from countries like the USA, Australia and England in the areas of people engagement for the financial, BPO and IT industries; and at MphasiS (now called EDS) in the Learning & Development Division that anchored learning and performance management systems centrally for 15 countries.

Passionate about people

A certified Psychometric Analyst from the Team Value Profiling Services (an associate of Thomas International, UK) and qualified in the Basics of People Capability Maturity Model® (P-CMM) V 2.0 from SEI, USA, Ramaswamy sees her transition to head a unit focusing on HR as inevitable. Says she, "Getting into HR wasn't a conscious decision, but it was a right decision for I have always been passionate about people management."

Hearing that she has trained around 1800 people in leadership principles, self-management, managing people in a dynamic environment, personality development, certification awareness programs etcetera, and has been instrumental in building robust recruitment processes that have hired over 3000 employees, we're not questioning her dedication to her passion!

A New Paradigm to Talent Retention

e2e Business Solutions primarily recognizes that talent retention is the key to excelling in business performance, and hence maximizing ROI. However, its approach vastly differs from most HR consultants, as it envisages recruitment as but the tip of the iceberg representing the vast field of people management.

Skill development and proactive interventions are essential to address employee issues before these snowball into a crisis; to send out strong ‘we care' signals so that the employee base feels attuned to management goals; and enforce greater accountability in evaluating the contribution of HR towards ROI. e2e works on a turnkey basis on complex HR processes ranging from organizational development, training, interventions and introducing personalized operating procedures (POPs).

HR is a core business development enabler

Ramaswamy highlights what she sees as a major problem in today's corporate world - "The loss of high-talent-performers, as replacing them takes time and effort. By the time a newly appointed person settles down and reaches his peak, much more time has elapsed." For this reason, she says, "With the IT industry booming and attrition at its peak, corporate bodies should look at proactive interventions to retain their employees."

Drilling this understanding into the mindsets of senior management is what Ramaswamy cites as having been e2e's greatest challenge. It took time for CEOs to accept their view - that upgrading skills, moving up the value chain, and basically just making the employee not merely a part of the vision but an integral contributor towards his career and the company adds to its overall long-term wellbeing.

Fortunately, CEOs are now taking people management seriously, as they have largely recognized that talent has a direct impact on a companies' bottom-lines. As a result, each of e2e's four intervention models are much appreciated and sought after.

TRIM: Talent Retention Intervention Model, CORE: Creating Ownership and Responsibility, TEAM: Team Effectiveness Across Multiple Cultures and the Intrapreneur- Entrepreneur approach - all these models have a high degree of accountability built-in. e2e translates this accountability - its focal point - towards its clients quite simply, as ‘what we promise, we will deliver.' Period. Leave no room for customer complaints!

Success lies just round the corner

It comes as no surprise then that inspite of being a young company, e2e has never had to actively market for work. It also boasts a 100% return of its clients, some of whom - facing rapid expansion - ask e2e to function as their HR department from day one.

As e2e launches its expansion strategy, revolving around implementing turnkey projects across verticals in the domestic market, targeting international SMBs and forging ahead with vertical-specific strategic alliances, it is all set to open a branch office in Chennai, followed by four more offices across the country and global offices in the Asia Pacific region. Its extended core team of 36 is slated to double within two years.

Being a woman at the helm of affairs

Evidently, the right attitude and approach pack in a punch. We ask her to opine on ‘the going' for a woman - is it tough to be both a boss and a woman? Ramaswamy says, "I don't think gender has been a hindrance till now and definitely don't think it has made my work easier as well. At the end of the day, what matters to a client is the service outcome and how effective we have been in handling a given project."

And do women make better managers? Her response, "Some people talk of HR in terms of gender specifics. My take on this is that when your passion becomes your work, you excel in it. So - there are either good managers or inefficient ones, and this is irrespective of gender."

She's been quoted in the media and invited on NDTV. But reviewing Ramaswamy's work leaves us in no doubt that she and e2e Business Solutions, will go many more places. 

Charu Bahri is a freelance writer and author of two books. She also writes funding grants and software for a charity working in the health sector. 

Issue BG77 Aug07

Related Items:

---

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.