Mahesh Jain, CEO QX F&A, shares his thoughts on the outsourcing industry

Background

Mahesh has been on the 15 year journey with QX. Working alongside founder Chris Robinson he joined the outsourcing business in Ahmedabad back in 2004. QX Ltd is now one of the biggest KPO and RPO businesses in West India. Mahesh has held various leadership roles in the last 15 years leading to his current role of CEO, running its successful Finance & Accounting Services division. A Science graduate and a qualified Chartered Accountant, Mahesh lives in Ahmedabad with his wife and 2 young daughters.

Describe your experience of the Outsourcing Sector?

In my early days the concept of ‘outsourcing’ took some explaining to potential clients as the service was relatively new. I tend to describe the Industry as having 4 phases. In the beginning we were in a stage of Doubt: clients doubted that they could risk outsourcing their work to independent offshore companies like ours and gain a saving in the process – they feared losing control and of what their own clients may think.

We built some very strong relationships by working very hard to overcome these objections and winning our client’s trust. The second phase I call Acceptance, where outsourcing as a business solution is commonly accepted. As the sector continued to grow, we moved into a Curiosity Phase where clients were engaged more as partners of change and worked with providers to gain greater skillset efficiencies in all areas of the value chain.

And finally, we have reached a phase of Optimisation, where established clients are looking to gain efficiencies through robotic process automation. QX has been keeping a good track of the changes in new developments within the industry to serve its clients in the most efficient way. We are confident that QX will continue to gear up for the changes that come with industry evolution.

How does QX differ from other outsourcing companies?

We have always aimed to work to a core set of values and pride ourselves on our ability to build long-term strategic partnerships with our clients – I am immensely proud but not complacent about our excellent client retention record since we started out.

It’s all about building trust through balancing a flexible support network for our clients with a pro-active consultancy approach where we regularly review processes and recommend new solutions to increase their value. We are a strong and broad team that balances true specialist experience with the bright new thinking of the Millennials that make up over 50% of our growing workforce.

QX is a diverse business that is rigourous not rigid and offers specialist services to our clients based on their evolving needs. Sometimes it feels that our competitors have a fixed offer that they attempt to shoehorn businesses into. That’s not the QX way!

What are the main challenges facing the Outsourcing Sector?

As I mentioned earlier the sector has evolved significantly over the last 10 or so years – consequently we have seen new players entering the market some professional – but others less so and with that comes a risk to the perception of the sector. We may seem more conservative than some of our competitors, but we prefer to see ourselves as more stable and rigourous than others – ensuring Quality & Excellence(our foundation stones) are upheld at all times.

The new generation of graduates that have entered the workplace have brought with them new and different expectations. Along with their passion for learning they also bring a restlessness for personal growth that can manifest itself in a career impatience with companies that don’t offer a rewarding career path.

At QX we have a number of progressive initiatives to both attract and retain talented Millennials and ensure that they feel rewarded both financially and culturally as part of the QX career path we offer them.

What about the future of QX?

We have very ambitious growth plans and our founder Chris has an exciting vision for our business. We are attracting new specialists and are keen to leverage their expertise into exciting new sectors. Our core sectors of Accounting and Recruitment still represent high potential growth and we will continue to look at new ways to develop our services for our client partners.

The UK is our main client territory but we are also seeing high potential in the US and other English speaking countries like Australia and Canada. It’s an exciting time at QX and we are hiring young talent keen to gain corporate experience in one of Ahmedabad’s most dynamic and diverse businesses.

How do you decompress?

At QX we are lucky because we work to a Western week profile, with long weeks but the chance to chill out over the weekend – we also benefit from the UK Bank Holiday system. I travel a lot with the company, visiting clients and meeting new prospects so I appreciate my down time when I get it.

I am a family man so my free time is spent with my girls playing badminton, heading to the cinema, bowling and fun family activities like that. It’s a perfect way to switch off and reboot ahead of another busy week at QX managing my team of over 350 highly motivated and talented co-workers.

Do you have any business bugbears?

Funny you should ask me that – I am always complaining to my family about the behaviour of poorly trained, over-confident, inexperienced retail sales staff. They don’t try to listen to your needs and are too quick to over-sell services and products that you don’t really need and that they can’t actually deliver. I’ve got good at spotting these people so have to try really hard to keep my cool and offer a polite NO to stop them in their tracks before they annoy me too much.

Listening to your customers is so important and it’s at the heart of everything we are proud to do at QX.

Follow Mahesh Jain on LinkedIn to see his posts and articles.

Originally published Nov 07, 2019 09:11:39, updated Jan 29 2024

Topics: Finance & Accounting Outsourcing