NOT many people plan out their lives 10 years ahead. And even if they do, very few would meet their goals with such precision as Anil Sachdev's, founder of Eicher Consultancy Services (ECS).

When he started ECS in 1991, Sachdev had decided that he would quit the job 10 years after to do something on his own in the area of learning and education.

On 31 March 2001 -- exactly the day he completed 10 years at ECS -- Sachdev was relieved from his high-profile job that took him round the world, 20 days a month. He had already planted the seeds of his dream project, Grow Talent Dot Com Ltd, which, as the name suggests, was conceived to develop and manage the talent of employees in an organisation.

Grow Talent Dot Com is your archetypal start-up, operating from the basement of the founder's house, working on shoestring budgets and daring to tread unconventional routes. Like launching the company at the Chinmaya Centre in the capital by organising a series of talk sessions to learn, think, relate and act. ``I didn't want to do a big splash of cocktail in a five-star hotel to launch my company.'' Sachdev is modest.

The genesis

While at the helm of ECS, Sachdev noticed that there were very few companies like NIS, a former subsidiary of NIIT, which offered corporate education in the country. Most of the times companies hired consultants to improve their efficiency, but that seldom left any impressions on their employees. ``Compared to this, I found that there are about 100 companies in the US offering corporate training,'' says Sachdev.

He also found that most of the management education in India is based on case studies imported from Europe, US and Japan. ``The Indian content and learning solutions were limited and those available were not of higher quality either.''

That led to the thought process which resulted in Grow Talent Dot Com with the mission of providing ``comprehensive services in the area of acquisition, assessment and development of talent to organisations to enable them to achieve breakthrough performance.'' Sachdev also roped in K.K. Nohria, Chairman of Crompton Greaves, and Yogesh Andley, Co-founder of Nucleus Software, as co-founders to launch the company.

The business model

Grow Talent will earn its revenues primarily from offering talent development and talent assessment services. The first programme aims to develop and enhance the capacities of people in an organisation to learn, conceptualise, relate to others and act. A combination of face-to-face interaction and Web-based technologies will be used to provide this service.

``A three-day workshop will be supported by online coaching through the Internet or intranet. We plan to start chat rooms and learning communities and are in discussion with a company to source the technology,'' Sachdev says.

Grow Talent has identified four vertical domains as its focus area to provide the services: Banking and Insurance, Telecom, IT and Retail. For example, in the IT domain, the company will help a software developer to become a successful project manager by imparting necessary managerial skills at the right time.

The second programme of talent assessment is to evaluate the competencies, capacities and values of individuals, which will help corporates decide who should be put on what job. Here also Grow Talent will use a combination of Web-based and face-to-face tools and processes to assess people. In addition to these two services, the company will also do some level of recruitment, but only if the client insists. ``We are not a head-hunting company and don't want to be branded in that league,'' Sachdev adds.

But when all these services can be provided offline, why the dotcom tag, especially when it has lost all its sheen these days? ``We don't want to be a pure brick and mortar company and end up as just another consultancy firm. The dotcom tag at least provokes this question, which after all, is another opportunity to initiate a dialogue!,'' is his riposte.

Sachdev is sanguine about the potential of his baby. He believes that every Indian company with a vision is investing in its people in an unprecedented way. ``Even old economy companies are waking up,'' he says bullishly, pointing out that Grow Talent has already had clients like Dr Reddy's Laboratories, e-Funds and Indian School of Business.

Sachdev is not after venture capitalists, at least for now. ``They want to quickly encash their investment.'' Meanwhile, Analjit Singh, Chairman of Max India, has played the role of an angel investor by picking up a 10 per cent stake in the company. He has an option to acquire another 10 per cent by year-end. ``A very large group has also approached us to invest in the company,'' he discloses.

Currently Grow Talent has 10 people. In the next couple of months, this would go up to 30 and investments over the next two years would be around Rs 4.5 crore. The company is targeting a revenue of over Rs 4 crore in the first year. ``Our target is Rs 30 crore in four years,'' Sachdev forecasts.

Sachdev may have started the company on a perfect note, meeting the self-imposed deadline bang on time and roping in big names in corporate India like Analjit Singh. And not to speak of his reputation in the industry. But only time will tell whether he will be able to make it big, especially when international companies such as Achieve Global are entering the Indian market with similar services. But back in 1991, when he was starting ECS, the McKinseys of this world had just landed in India. Looking at ECS where it is today, he should pull it off again.

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