::AZURE Knowledge Corporation Pvt. Ltd.::

Corporate Overview
Strengths
Key facts
Vision and Values
History and Milestones
Board of Directors
Leadership Team
Awards/Recognition
Group Companies
Corporate Social Responsibility

Azure Knowledge Corporation has a wealth of business and development experience in information technology, market research, customer interaction, and transaction processing.

Azure is a preferred service provider to market leaders

in Market Research, Telecom, Insurance, Healthcare, Banking & Finances, and other major industries. Azure also serves big businesses engaged in Energy & Utility, Automotive & Transportation, and BFSI & Consumer Goods sectors.

Azure provides market research services, Financial research services, customer support and helpdesk services, transaction processing services and platform based solutions that depend upon a skilled professional workforce and strong organization.

Azure’s strengths take into account:

Thousands of skilled professionals
Multi-location operations presence across the globe
Practice of strict compliance with business norms, policies, and ethics
Multicultural and multilingual staff
Industry-best hardware, software, and data centers
Top-notch data security practices and environment
Recognized domain expertise in providing Research Services, Customer Interaction Services, Financial Services, and Transaction Processing Services

Azure has been successful in both complementing and supplementing back-end processes of Fortune 500 companies with superlative performance, and keeps winning industry acclaims and awards with consistency.

In 2011, Azure’s international brand position as a service provider listed Azure within the Best 10 Rising Stars of the IAOP Global Outsourcing 2011 Sublists, in multiple categories, and in overall evaluation.

Azure Knowledge Corporation operates out of its corporate headquarters in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, with delivery centers and offices spread across, India, China, Kenya, and USA.

What clients appreciate about Azure are its

Process Oriented approach in providing services by meticulously planning the workflow and support systems,
Setting the right benchmarks for quality and delivery
Using technology as a backbone to provide faster, better and cost-effective services to clients

Azure trusts good management, absolute commitment to client instructions, and the nursing of talent. Our management tightly integrates our infrastructure with client backends by open and continuous channels of communication.

We ensure a service situation for the client, where the results and responsiveness is as close as possible to the client's own workforce if working out of our offices. We try to create a tight symbiotic relation between organizations, and that's why Fortune 500 companies prefer us as service providers.

Service Quality Assured by:

Service Friendliness Assured by:

Process-oriented approach
Focus on continuous training and improvement
Minimum of 100 man-hours of training before commencement of any process
Experience in contact center/KPO industry of more than 10 years
Skilled workforce of 3500 trained professionals on various processes
Being the only Company in India to support 15 Foreign languages including German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malay and English.
Owning State-of-the-art People/Client Interaction Centers/Contact Centers with 3200 seats
Having 7 delivery centers in 4 countries
Efficient mechanism of storing and management of data
Reuse of data and customer/respondent history to increase efficiency and effectiveness of future transactions
Knowledge Portal for each domain with incentives for submission and usage of data
SOP (Standard Operations Procedures) manual defined for each process
Process driven Operations and Delivery model

Having Dedicated Operations Floor for key clients
Having High-end Quality Labs
Having Live Simulation rooms
Having Access Management System for access control to different areas within the infrastructure

SBU Structure of Process Units

Greater ownership to Client Process Team
Agility of a small company, Clear accountability
Diversification of operational risk

Transparency

Real-time reporting and statistics to client
Live monitoring of agents from clients’ desks placed anywhere in the world

Assured Business Continuity

1:3 redundancy on voice and data connectivity; 1:2 redundancy on all technological equipments
Disaster recovery plan
Strong financial health supported by global investment firms

Azure Knowledge Corporation:

Is among the biggest KPO/BPO service providers in western India and China
Has been serving Fortune 500 clients since 2001
Has research process access across 75 countries
Provides services in 15 international languages including French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Dutch, Arabic, Bahasa, Japanese and Korean among others
Has a strong service demand base with major Fortune 500 companies providing regular work contracts
Has 3500 professional employees across 7 delivery centers in 4 countries
Maintains ISO 9001: 2008 certified quality processes and IS27001:BS 7799 information security practices
Has robust financial health bolstered further by global corporate investment firms like Benett & Coleman and Greater Pacific Capital (UK)
Possesses industry expertise in Research, Telecom and BFSI as primary verticals, and Retail, CPG, and Healthcare as secondary verticals

" To be a leading provider of knowledge based outsourcing services to a global clientele by offering value through innovative use of technology and harnessing the highest potential of its people ".

Azure envisions being a company owned, managed and shared by Azureians.

Core Values

Azure core values are summarized in its SPRITE philosophy:

SPIRIT:

Azureians shall always work with a positive spirit and an attitude of getting things done

PROCESS ORIENTATION:

All activities undertaken by Azureians will be based on processes that are defined, documented and continuously monitored and improved.

RESPONSIVENESS:

High responsiveness to the needs and expectations of all stakeholders.

INTEGRITY:

Integrity in all transactions with all stakeholders including clients, vendors, other Azureians and the society.

TRANSPARENCY:

Transparency and fairness in all transactions and decisions.

EFFECTIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY:

Use Azure’s strength in IT effectively to delight clients and maximize returns for them.

Year/Period	Key Events
2000	Set up a 200 seats Global Contact center to provide Market Research and Financial Services to Fortune 500 companies
2003	Added Mortgage Processing and Mortgage Origination Support services; First multi-country, multi-lingual B2B Market Research Project executed successfully
2004	Expand MR capabilities to include Survey Programming, Data Processing; Conducted more than 30,000 web and phone interviews
2005	Added 2 Fortune 500 companies as key clients with long term contracts; Financial services expansion to UK, Europe and Australia; Expanded multi-lingual capability to cover 12 international languages
2006	ISO 27001 certification; Azure bags financial services contract from one of the top 5 global financial companies; Bags large IT solutions contracts
2007	Launched China office in Guangzhou; Took 49% stake in Citizens Financial Mortgage; Ranked among the top ITES companies by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B); Launches IT solutions company: SuccessCraft
2008	2008 Azure wins "Best Customer Responsiveness Practice" award instituted by Avaya Global Connect, adjudged by Ernst & Young and ACNielsen; Setup 100 seat facility in Philadelphia, US; Azure opens new facilities in Pune, Chennai, Noida (New Delhi). Azure receives $12 Million funding from Greater Pacific Capital, UK.
2009	Azure wins " Best BPO/KPO company, Highest Employment Generator of Gujarat" Award by Gesia Azure wins "Top 50 ITES Companies of India" Award by Dun & Bradstreet Azure wins "Best Service Partner for Hiring Excellence" Award by Vodafone
2010	Azure wins "Top 50 Emerging IT/ITES companies of india" Award by NASSCOM Azure wins "Excellent contributions towards business initiatives" Award by Reliance Azure wins "Best Service Partner for Hiring Excellence" Award by Vodafone
2011	Azure wins "Best Rising Stars in Revenue Growth" Award by IAOP Azure wins "Best Rising Stars in Number of Employees" Award by IAOP Azure wins "Rising Stars in Employee Growth" Award by IAOP

Center Expansion Timeline

Year/Period	Locations	# of Seats	Professionals
2000- 2004	Ahmedabad (1)	200-310	100-300
2005	Ahmedabad (1)	450	550
2006	Ahmedabad (3)	1000	800
2007	Ahmedabad (4),Guangzhou	1500	1600
2008	Ahmedabad (4), Guangzhou, Philadelphia, Pune, Chennai.	1800	2500
2009	Ahmedabad (4), Guangzhou, Philadelphia, Pune, Chennai.	2200	3200
2010	Ahmedabad (4), Guangzhou, Philadelphia, Nairobi, Chennai.	3200	3500

Dushyant Joshi

Founder
&
Managing Director

Dushyant Joshi, Founder and Managing Director, is a management graduate from Anand in Gujarat, India. He started as a first generation entrepreneur at a very early age in his career. He launched innovative business models in the IT Training industry in 1991 and expanded IT Training business to become the largest player in the state of Gujarat by setting up more than 100 IT academies across the state. In 1996, he formalized all his business ventures under the name of AZURE, thus making AZURE a leading IT Training brand in Western India.

In the year 2000, under his leadership AZURE decided to diversify into IT-enabled services (ITES) and set up Gujarat's first BPO center in Ahmedabad with 190 seats, which has now grown to more than 2500 people to become the largest BPO company of the state of Gujarat. He is recognized as the pioneer of IT training and ITES industry in Gujarat.

Jay Ruparel

Co-Founder & CEO

Jay Ruparel is the co-founder of Azure Knowledge Corporation and currently serves as it's Chief Executive.

Jay is an Electronics & Communications Engineer with a management degree from IIM, Bangalore. He has worked as a Sr. Project Manager with Infosys Technologies in Bangalore for 4 years and with Bell Labs in Boston, prior to starting Azure Knowledge Corporation.

Jay is Chairperson of India@75 Committee team and Co-Chairperson for the ICT Taskforce at CII Gujarat and on a Director on the Board of GESIA. He is the immediate past Chairperson of Young Indians (Yi) Ahmedabad and is currently on the Board of Advisors of the Entrepreneurship Development Center at MICA and on the Academic Council Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI).

He has been a visiting faculty taking sessions on Entrepreneurship at IIM Ahmedabad, MICA and EDI. He has presented white-papers and articles at leading international symposiums and conferences. His recent paper on Customer Centric Contact Center Management practice was awarded the best paper as adjudged by Ernst & Young and AC Nielsen.

He has been invited by industry bodies like CII, Nasscom and FICCI to address audiences at various national and international conferences.

Joe Sealy (Director)

Previously a Managing Director in the Investment Banking division at Goldman Sachs, Joe is founder-partner of Greater Pacific Capital, a specialist private equity firm based out of London. Joe is a specialist in providing strategic advice to clients covering communications, media, entertainment, advertising and security. Based in London, he is an experienced strategic advisor to clients

across multiple regions and industries. Joe client coverage includes corporations, investors and government institutions. His other previous roles include his work as a Partner at KPMG in strategy consulting and implementation and as a strategic financial advisor in the public sector, specializing in privatization and outsourcing.

Pradeep Udhas

Advisor

Prior to this, Pradeep was Managing Director of Greater Pacific Capital, an Indo-China private equity firm, heading India operations.

Previously, Pradeep was a partner with KPMG where his responsibilities included heading Sourcing Advisory practice globally. He also headed Markets for India which covered major sectors, including Consumer Markets, Industrial Markets, Private

Equity, IT, & Telecom. Pradeep also had responsibility to oversee Risk Advisory Services for the Middle-East and South-East Asia (MESA) region as Chief Operating Officer.

Prior to that, he was one of the partners from KPMG USA, who founded the Indian practice. Pradeep held responsibility for KPMG’s ICE (Information Communication & Entertainment) line of business. Pradeep established many long term client relationships like Oracle, Lucent, Cognizant, Hughes telecom, etc. He also played a key role in a major KPMG Europe initiative to set up an end to end IT solutions supply chain for e-business.

Pradeep also founded e2e Technologies, along with other partners from KPMG and some leading information technology professionals. e2e had offices in NJ, USA, Hong Kong and Mumbai and offered solution architecture and program management services to clients like Verizon, PCCW, Hong Kong, etc. Pradeep has been a major contributor to the technology industry. While working in IBM, USA, Pradeep, along with other IBM colleagues, pioneered the offshore delivery paradigm for IBM, US and setup operations in India in 1990.

Pradeep has served as a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, a think tank of Indian Software Industry consisting of CEOs/Country Heads from companies such as IBM, Tata Consulting Services, Infosys, Oracle, etc, which influences major policy decisions of the Indian Government. His contributions to the Indian Software Industry have been well acclaimed. He was closely involved in strategy formulations of major software companies. Pradeep was also appointed as an Information Technology advisor to the Prime Minister Perry Christie of the Bahamas. Pradeep is currently serving as western region President of of the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce and is also the board member of TiE, Mumbai.

Pradeep has an MBA with MIS / Computer Science major from Union College, Schenectady, NY.

Abhilash Mankad

Chief
Operating Officer

An efficient person with top people management skills, Abhilash Mankad has 16 years of experience in heading IT infrastructure supporting 75 countries in 3 continents.

Abhilash has expert insight in the Chinese markets and previously headed various market research projects in China. A fully focused person, Abhilash is a multitasker who plays a vital role in overseeing that the infrastructure is able to meet day-to-day qualitative benchmarks and quantitative targets of the company.

C J Shah

Executive
Vice President
North America

C.J.Shah, Executive Vice President oversees business planning, sales and marketing strategy for Azure’s Americas region comprised of U.S., Canada and Latin American operations. C.J.Shah leads Azure’s efforts to capitalize on long-term growth opportunities and align the company’s sales and support organizations with key customer segments. In this role he is responsible for the strategy and direction of Azure’s sales operations across the company’s diverse service lines.

Previously, CJ spent six years at Zensar, where he served as Head of Sales-BPO in the US.

Prior to Zensar, CJ was Chief Customer Officer with US based BPO service provider. He has also held senior executive sales positions at HCL Hewlett Packard Ltd and Fujitsu ICIM Ltd.

Recognized as a vibrant leader, CJ has a track record of building highly competitive team, developing enduring partnership and establishing rigors processes to deliver superior customer services and value. He is an accomplished speaker and an active member of IAOP and other industry associations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics, a Diploma in Marketing and Management.

Sohil Parekh

Chief
Finance Officer

Sohil Parekh is a qualified Chartered Accountant, LLb and a Commerce graduate with over 10 years of experience in heading Finance and Accounts with IT-ITES firms.

Sohil heads global finance at Azure and posseses thorough knowledge in corporate structuring, banking, funds mobilization and management, finalization of Business Strategy and plans, budgeting and forecasting.

While business leaders take the company forward into new campaigns, Sohil guards the availibility and distribution of resources without which campaigns are impossible to sustain.

Veeresh Radharam

Vice President, Domestic CIS

Veeresh Radharam has overall experience of around 11years in Customer Services and 9 years in BPO operations and Client management. He currently manages end to end Operations of Domestic CIS for Azure which including key accounts like Reliance BPO (24*7 inbound process), Kotak Insurance (Tele-sales Out bound) & Domestic Market Research.

Veeresh Radharam has more than 12 years work experience in handling important client accounts and adds value to every vertical he is involved with.

D. Chidambar Srinivas

AVP
Indian Domestic Business

D. Chidambar Srinivas has more than 9 years experience in managing the entire gamut of Customer Life Cycle Management in Telecom direct operations and setting up of customer contact centres, inter face points and process transition.

He possesses expertise in implementation and compliance of Customer Service Deliverables - Service guarantee and delivery, QRT, Complaint management, Customer maintenance, Contact center operations and Customer Retention.

Chidambar Srinivas has thorough working knowledge in BPO Verticals and processes – Telecom, Insurance, Banking, Customer Life Cycle Management (Acquisition, Cross selling and Up selling, Customer Care, Retention, Collection and Win Back), Recruitment & staffing and Back End processes, and serves as AVP (Indian Domestic Business) in Azure.

Rising Stars in Employee Growth
Awarded By : IAOP
Awarded Year : 2011

Best Rising Stars in Number of Employees
Awarded By : IAOP
Awarded Year :2011

Best Rising Stars in Revenue Growth
Awarded By : IAOP
Awarded Year : 2011

Excellent contributions towards business initiatives.
Awarded By : Reliance
Awarded Year : 2010

Top 50 Emerging IT/ITES companies of india
Awarded By : NASSCOM
Awarded Year : 2010

Best Service Partner for Hiring Excellence
Awarded By : Vodafone
Awarded Year : 2009 And 2010

Top 50 ITES Companies of India
Awarded By : Dun & Bradstreet
Awarded Year : 2007 and 2009

Best BPO/KPO company, Highest Employment Generator of Gujarat
Awarded By : Gesia
Awarded Year : 2009

50 Best Work Places of India
Awarded By : Great Place to Work Institute
Awarded Year : 2008

Best BPO/KPO company, Highest Employment Generator of Gujarat
Awarded By : Gesia
Awarded Year : 2008

Best Customer Responsiveness Practice Award
Awarded By : Avaya Global Connect
Awarded Year : 2008




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