Bringing a See Change in SME consulting

A lot can happen over coffee. That is what S Prakash and MK Anand, who were selling IT products and running a software company respectively, found out when they met for a cup of coffee. That is when they hit upon the idea of floating See Change, a consulting company for small and medium enterprises.

Their journey started in West Mambalam, Chennai in early 2000 when Anand wanted to request Prakash to take a dealership for his IT company.

“When we met, Prakash gave me a book You too can sell and the contents of the book matched the thought I had on offering training consulting to SMEs and corporates. We discussed the possibility of having a platform to share our knowledge and help SMEs that can’t afford the big consulting firms. We floated See Change Consulting in 2002,” says Anand, a first-generation entrepreneur.

The business started off with Intel Singapore approaching them. See Change conducted Art of Goal setting sessions for 1,000 Channel CEOs of Genuine Intel dealers at Intel channel in 2003. For this 5-city programme, See Change was paid $1,000 per city.

This was followed by an assignment for AMD. Gradually, corporates started feeding the company and See Change provided coaching and training programmes to many. It simultaneously stepped up focus on SMEs.

It has completed and handled more than 400 enterprises whose revenues range from ₹50 lakh to ₹5,000 crore, including MRF Ltd, GHCL, Igarashi, Arihant Retail, HIRA Group and Atlas Exports.

Prakash and Anand explained that it wasn’t easy to crack the SME business. SMEs perceive consulting firms as expensive. See Change worked on a proof-of-concept model and offered companies solutions to show them what it can do.

There were two kinds of enterprises they had to deal with — sick firms and ones that had capability, but were not hitting the curve.

In sick cases, See Change helped them rebuild, approach financial organisations and suggest other revival measures. In the second, it showed them how they could reach to the level they wanted to.

“By the time we displayed our capabilities in case of 5-6 organisations, word started spreading. Most of the SMEs are partly business-driven and partly community-driven. In many ways, they are all networked. Hence, through referrals, projects started flowing in,” says Anand.

See Change has a smart business model. It has roped in 80 experts from various fields who work on a project basis. They help SMEs overcome the topline and bottomline challenges, arranging finance, working on capital issue, gaps in marketing and sales.

“By designing a complete platform for SMEs to decide where they are and where they want to go to grow, we bring the subject experts, create the solutions and bring our panel of experts together. On an average, we engage 4-8 consultants depending on the project,” says Prakash.

Today, See Change is being invited by McKinsey for some assistance in their projects.

See Change has a vision of becoming the No. 1 strategic consulting company for SMEs by 2020.

While it is taking up some marketing and branding initiatives to be more visible, it plans to accelerate its business by roping in more marketing partners, who can bring projects and share revenues on the realisations.

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