When I started off with GenetechSolutions back in 2004, there was not a set goal in mind. It was like a blow with the wind kind of feeling. But as the years past and we grew, I realized that a lot of our growth had to do with our honesty and clear communication that we always kept with our customers. This played a massive role in bringing back old customers and adding to referrals. The tactic was unintentional and was part of the values that I had while growing up, but it gave us a huge leap and I was able to get my foot into the industry.
In the last two years, we started to build strategies to achieve concrete milestones. With the past experience and the repo that we had made in the market it was not impossible. Soon we started adding new people into our team to grow our expertise. We then realized that this was not going to be that simple. Not everybody followed the same protocols and values we did. At times, I had to dig deep into the code to find the short cuts the programmer had used that was causing the website to collapse, even though I’m not a programmer myself. I have sit in the office till midnight on holidays and dealt with such crap. Trust me; it’s not easy when you’re a mother of two, three actually if you count your husband too ;). It was obvious that the coder was lying to us all this time.
So we had to make a decision. We would not compromise on quality and values. We needed genuine people who understood what our client was really after and would come out and accept their mistake and promise to fix it. Initially this was tough. Not many understood why we were not taking shortcuts even though they seemed lucrative. Most IT professional in Asia are young and want to take the jump quickly. We had to explain that each project that we take up should be as important to us as it is to our client. Some understood, others walked away or were excused. Since the IT industry here is young too, they probably got jobs easily.
Gradually, the right team started to build. We have now grown from a team of 15 in 2010 to almost 40 this year. Every member of the team knows that making a mistake is ok. Coming out and facing it is a brave attempt that will be acknowledged. We plan continue to add value, the right culture and the right people to our team ahead.
