Work from HOME

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It all began 3 years ago when we developed a Pan India Network for providing services and support to all our clients. We were facing a language problem. We had many clients and service partners in southern India, and lo behold, when they talked, we could not understand the accent and what we spoke, they could not understand us completely. With due respect to all parts of the country, I am sure this problem has occurred everywhere. While we were struggling to solve this, the thought crossed our minds: why not hire a few resources in Mumbai who knows the local languages of our customers? Then we thought about hiring a resource in Southern India itself. That felt better. But where would they work from? The obvious answer was Home!

 

Finally, the decision was taken: we wanted a local resource who could work from home. But there were also things to consider: trust, data security, and business systems. To solve this problem, we started building the systems and after many trial-and-error, we were able to develop a solution. And it worked beautifully! It is now known as AntMyERP, and it is a flagship solution. We hired 3 resources at local levels at Chennai, Bengaluru, and Lucknow. After a few teething issues (the usual), we were able to take care of the local clients in a more positive way. This experience of ours laid the base for working from home.

We hired a Happy Caller from the Small Town and Village to manage our service calls quality and it also worked. We were happy that we have created employment. As luck would have it, a fire broke out in our office at the start of 2019. And we were all forced to work from home till things got back to normal. That time frame where we were forced to work outside the office then laid the foundation for completely working from home. We never wanted our clients to know about the fire. Instructions were given to the team to manage as if it was business as usual. We all worked for more than 2 months from home. And after 2 months, we switched off our office. It is now nearly a year and we haven’t had a single challenge. Every employee feels fresh when they speak to clients. We meet often at coffee shops to maintain the human touch. Especially in Mumbai, the 15 of us who once used to spend time at the office are now spending more time with family, yet our productivity levels for business have doubled. As a new strategy, we have now started pushing team members whose families are not in Mumbai, to relocate to their native place and stay with their families. And still, contribute to the company. And a lot of our employees have jumped at that idea.

So what changed? Here is my deep analysis of a year of executing Work from Home

Benefits of Work from Home:

For Employees

Less time spent commuting.

Increased productivity.

Making better use of technology

Higher Morale

Higher Happiness Index

Increase in employee loyalty.

Less wasting of time on useless meetings.

More Time with Family

Employees don’t constantly feel the need for a vacation.

Employees from other companies are now jealous.

For Employers

Improved employee retention.

Access to a wider pool of applicants

More autonomous employees

Lower costs of acquisition

Can hire the best, no matter where they are.

Less wasting time on useless meetings.

Employees take fewer sick days.

Good resultant PR

Employees work longer on a day-to-day basis.

Reduced overheads like Salary

More is yet to come!

Our Journey

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” –Martin Buber

The exciting journey of AntMyERP echoes the same thought. The journey of one business led to a unique destination that became the cornerstone of – AntMyERP.
AntMyERP is an industry-specific one-stop ERP solution that effectively manages all your business functions. Designed by Solution Enterprises, it has been built by a Business Owner for Business Owners. Solution Enterprises was initially engaged in the hardware business for more than a decade. But our dynamic founder, Arvind Didwania, the visionary that he had, always thought ahead of his time. He always wanted to build a unique software solution.

After a lot of research, he finally pursued his dreams in 2017. He built ‘AntMyERP’ an in-house solution, primarily developed to manage the hardware business of Solution Enterprises at a time when competitors were not using any such solutions. The success of the product enabled the company to extend its vision and market it as ‘AntMyERP’. In 2018, the team met 100s of SME Business Owners across many segments to understand the challenges they were facing. A few of the biggest common challenges faced by all were the use of:

– Discrete databases and programs
– Time-consuming and complex day-to-day processes
– Challenges in accessing information and analytics
– Complicated IT processes and many more day-to-day challenges

So, the team focused on these challenges and started evolving and building ‘AntMyERP’. This same knowledge and experience helped in the development of the ERP solution. Once in the market, it met with a very good response from clients from within the industry. The product also received a lot of valuable feedback that went into further developing and refining the product according to the needs of the industry.

Why we named our ERP ANT? ‘AntMyERP’ is very unique for an ERP solution. Ant is the smallest and most intellectual insect in the world. It is the most organized and hardworking of all insects. They are the best team players and achieve incredible heights as a team. They are tiny but so strong that they can carry 10 to 30 times their own body weight. It is these very amazing qualities that reflect in our business, values, and team. Like the little Ant; we, too, are small but dynamic when we initially started.

Today, AntMyERP is evolving, developing, and growing each and every day with many satisfied customers. More than 20 years of experience with our customers’ unique business processes and operational requirements are built into the solution. Our flexible and industry-specific software is designed around the needs of the IT hardware, software and service sector, telecom, security systems, HVAC industry, fire, and safety, managed print service, and medical equipment industry customers.

The company holds a vision of being a Global Solution provider in the service industry, to improve business processes, and help businesses grow by cutting and adjusting wastage of resources. Already spread to 4 continents and many more to come.

Any queries, please feel free to contact us, and we will be more than happy to assist you in transforming your business into a colony that cannot be trampled on.

What Customers Need and Want

“Hello Everyone”, I greeted all my colleagues while entering the meeting room.

We had a meeting about upgrading our product and making it more dynamic and vibrant.

Our company had done a survey on software products in the market, especially for the service industry. We were discussing the views of different observers and we found out that most observers claimed that they have different features and they spoke about their attractive pricing. Although, I felt as if most of them are the same.

I started thinking outside the box, and asked, “If products are similar across all competitors, why are some companies excelling and others are still finding their way out? Does it really depend only on the product?”

My colleague Mr. Amit, who is my senior replied, “It mainly depends on the company, the values under which that product has been wrapped, and the attractiveness that it provides to customers to be hooked on to. This is what we plan on doing. We have to work towards creating the complete package around the product.”

“Dhara, please start noting the MOM’s to the “How to make our product successful. And, let’s also start discussing it from scratch to work on the improvisation of the system and product” prompted Mr. Amit from the other end of the desk.

I started noting the MOM’s from the discussions to beautify our product; not only as a product but also working on different parameters around it and how it needs to be presented to our potential clients.

Our MOM’s came out as a Super factor that would direct us to enhance our product and its strategies.

• understanding of conditions the software has to work in and living up to the necessary requirements, showing your customers that you understand their pain

• compassionate and caring responses. This enables you to understand their requirements

But, your objective is to ensure that every Potential client gets the cost-effective approach with dedicated service and integrated solutions to their business

• Customers are the lifeblood of any business. If you want your business to grow and stay healthy, you need to listen to whatever input your customers give you in their customer feedback. This will help improve your customer loyalty program

“Always remember team, people don’t buy products”, addressed Mr. Amit. “They purchase the instruments of organizations that they value, support, and feel happy with; the values that coincide with their own.”

Solution to a Problem Lies in the Problem Itself

It was a lovely evening, I sat on my Veranda with a cup of coffee, initiating to write an article for my organization. I found myself to be quite clueless since I had no idea what I should write about. Being lost in my thoughts, I looked around to get some inspiration and motivation to narrate something.

My neighbor waved at me.

I waved back at her and said “Hello Aunty! How are you doing?”

She smiled and excitedly inquired, “So what are you writing today?”

“Still in search for some topic, I’m not able to think of anything to write about. And, how is Uncle doing? Haven’t heard from him for a long time”, I responded back.

Aunty being in her own thoughts started talking about Uncle, “Yesterday, he met with the doctor to discuss my hearing problem.”

I felt concerned and asked Aunty, “Do you have a hearing problem?”

Aunty said stunningly, “Pehle meri baat toh sun lo (Listen to me first).

I don’t know what the doctor advised him but he was being weird after coming back home. I was in the kitchen cooking food when he shouted from the last corner room, “What’s there for dinner today?”. After a while, he came to a room nearer to the kitchen and again yelled, “What’s there for the dinner today? Again, he shouted standing at the kitchen door, “What’s there for the dinner today?” Now, finally when he came closer to me, almost standing next to me and shouted “Darling, What’s there for dinner?” Rama, this is for the 4^th time I am saying, “Its Chicken and Rice!”

He looked disappointed when he left the kitchen

I wondered, I had cooked his favorite dinner, still, why was he sad. So I went behind him to talk to him. I tapped his shoulder and asked him, why are you sad to hear about your favorite dinner? Do you want to eat anything else? You had been shouting all this while inquiring about dinner.

He sat on a couch and started narrating that this activity of shouting from a particular distance was suggested by the doctor to measure your hearing deficiency.

But….

We sat in silence and both of us had a hearty laugh.”

You asked me about Uncle. So, this is your answer!

Aunty went back to her routine saying, she has to accompany Uncle to a Doctor.

I waved goodbye to her with a smile.

A pool of thoughts was running through my mind.

Uncle and Aunt’s adorable activity left me with this thought.

How many times do we think that the problem is with someone else, but it ends up lying within us?

Here, Uncle was so concerned about his wife that he forgot that he may as well have the similar problem.

We feel so concerned for our loved ones that we tend to forget our own problems.

So many times, we fail to think that the problem may not be with others but could be within us.

Between Uncle and Aunty, Uncle was worried for Aunty that she has a hearing impairment that needs to be treated.  He never realized that the problem might be within him.

To be able to think from someone else’s point of view is a very subtle and tricky quality. It can happen only when we step into their shoes and try living there (Here the Doctor understood the problem and made Uncle do the activity to make him believe that he is who is actually having to hear the problem.) When we absorb the thinking of another person, only then we can learn about what that person feels. Thinking from someone else’s perception is a talent.

When we think about the problem within us, we need to understand that the solutions also lie within ourselves. It’s just a matter of realizing the same.

Many times, we are not aware of how the solution lies within the problem or, how can we find the answer so easily attached to the question!

But that’s the fact.

The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.  – Zig Ziglar

-Dhara Boricha