Futurenet Marks 2 Decades Of Excellence In IT Industry

59

Chennai: It was a decision for Ashok L to start an IT services organization in 1996 and thus ended up in formulating the concept of Futurenet Technologies. Even the birth of the organization doesn’t hold any personal motives- but cater to the needs of the corporate companies. The profile of the organization, according to their official website reads as Ashok assists customers in aligning IT with their business. “He provides consulting services to corporates in areas such as Bullet proofing IT Infrastructure (High Security & High Availability), blue print for cloud migration including business benefits, cost saving and risk mitigation. He lends his expertise to businesses with capacity to convert business/ functional requirements into bullet proof IT infrastructure and also advices on cyber forensics and information security”, he concludes.

Today, Futurenet is successfully marching towards its silver jubilee completing 20 years of experience in the industry. Thought leadership resulted many initiatives in Futurenet which eventually resulted in edge over competition. Today Futurenet known as open source & high technical and high service delivery organization.

Wishing Ashok and Futurenet team a wonderful years ahead, V Anand, CEO, Raksha Technologies, says,

“Futurenet has carved an unique space in providing solutions on open source solutions

and they help organizations adopt various IT solutions and optimize their IT investments and  they provide also help organizations to achieve their it goals in an effective and optimised manner.” Manasi Saha, CEO, Macaws Infotech, a good friend of Ashok terms him a man with a lightning smile , great leader, amazing personality , technically sound, a successful entrepreneur. ” I could call him an embodiment of  a perfect entrepreneur. I wish him all the best for the future and I hope he will take Futurenet  into a different level and the sky is his limit.”

In a quick chat with B Swaminathan (Swami), Ashok Lakshmichandran (Ashok) shares his organization journey these days. Edited excerpts.

Swami: : How were the initial days of your organization?

Ashok: It was exciting and tough.  We were starving for working capital and managing both the ends was a challenge. Back then, It was my friends and family that helped me through it. Besides that, getting business wasn’t that difficult as there was a need for good service organization.  Keeping pace with growth and customer requirements were the key which we caught on to from the very beginning. We have introduced new services like managed email services, facility management services , remote support etc to fulfill customer need and growing business demands. This helped us grow. With a workforce of just 4 in the beginning, we now employ over 150 people.

Swami: What were the key challenges as a fresh organization you had faced?

Ashok: Working capital , attracting talent and competition from established players

Swami: What were the key milestones of Futurenet Technologies in this 20 years?

Ashok: It’s not a number or a name that we consider as milestone. What leads to continued growth and success matters the most to us. Going by that, I’d say four things.

• We were a profitable company from day 1
• Introduced and established services practices like infrastructure, application & database
• Our ability to retain talents
• Long and continued association with key customers

Swami:. What according to you, are the top 3 things any IT firm should keep in mind for long run?

Ashok:

• Staying relevant in product and services offering
• Attracting and retaining talents
• Efficient financial management

Swami: List out all the changes you notice in the IT sector compared to Day 1 of yours till 20 years?

Ashok: Quite a long list! But to mention the most important ones,

– When FN started, it was an era of emerging internet. While it was difficult to even get a  64Kbps then, we see 80-100mbps of internet broadband are available right at our homes

– The way computing were done has completely transformed from a client server technology to web 2.0, on premise computing to a cloud computing

– PCs were predominantly used to access information whereas now, it’s a tap away on our mobile devices.

– The skillset required were primarily on hardware (infra space) whereas now, engineers should have knowledge of scripting and coding to get themselves relevant to the current cloud era.

– Information security threats were predictable because it was limited within organizations but now it is completely unpredictable as threat can come from anywhere.

– Designing IT infra were simple with more predictable loads whereas currently, designing an IT for unpredictable loads like e-commerce portals is more complex

In short, we are learning to unlearn to relearn.

Swami: What are the key mantras of Futurenet Technologies?

Ashok: Our values are our key mantra. They are Honesty, Integrity, Innovation, Excellence and Care. We keep this in mind during every business activity.

Swami: What are the companies CSR activities?

Ashok: We believe in equality and while we are progressing, it’s still a long way to go before the word loses its need to exist when it comes to progressive change in a patriarchal society. As a contribution and in line with our belief that education can change lives, we sponsor towards girl education.

Swami:A How is the road ahead for the IT industry? What is your company’s plan?

Ashok: As stated above, we are going through a re-learning process and now creating a new service delivery architecture to scale up to new requirements and global standards.