Ujjivan - Providing Financial Services to the Poor

Ujjivan Partner: Vindya – An Unique BPO Staffed by Differently Abled
To see Vindhya in action click here

Back in the summer of 2008, Ujjivan began its search for a partner for backend processing and data entry as volumes had increased substantially. Hence outsourcing of certain functions would increase efficiency while reduce the costs incurred on operations in house. A few players, offering back end services to elite corporates in and outside India were shortlisted. Vindhya e-Infomedia Private Limited, a Bangalore based BPO too was in the short list. While all prospective partners offered great business value, Vindhya’s ‘Philanthropy @ Work’ business model, the first of its kind, had a unique appeal for Ujjivan, with Ujjivan itself being a social enterprise. On further due diligence the Ujjivan team was pleased to see the passion and dedication with which the promoters of Vindya – Ashok and Pavithra Giri, were engaged in the business. Thus seeing both business and social synergies with Vindhya, Ujjivan signed an agreement on 13th May, 2008 for data entry services for a competi tive price offering. Since then there has been no looking back and Ujjivan has outsourced many of its core processes including customer documentation and loan processing.

Vindhya’s ‘Philanthropy @ Work’ model is the brainchild of its CEO, Pavithra Giri, who had always cherished the idea of helping differently abled by giving them opportunities to lead a life of dignity. As a policy Vindhya desires to hire at least 90% of its staff from the community of the disabled. Today, 95% of Vindhya’s employees today are physically challenged. Vindhya sources its employees from NGOs (Unnati, Enable India among others) in and around Bengaluru, trains and employs them. Vindhya also provides them food and accommodation at

subsidised rates as many come from the suburbs and are in need of suitable accommodation. As many of the inspiring stories of Vindhya’s employees reveal, employment at Vindhya has given them a fresh lease of life. “The disabled people are considered of little worth in their own families. After their employment at Vindhya they are looked upon with respect as they become the major earners in their families,” said Pavithra Giri, while quoting the story of a girl whose employment at Vindhya not only supported her family, but also the marriages of her two younger sisters. “A few of the employees have also moved on to bigger jobs at companies like Mphasis. We’ve only 2-3% of regrettable attrition,” says Ashok Giri, Executive Director of Vindhya. Ashok also adds that they are proud of their employees who move on to bigger organizations, as in each of these instances Vindhya has helped transform the differently abled into valuable members of society who are sought after by leading corporates. Vindhya today houses around 200 physically challenged employees working for various Indian and international clients. Seeing these employees at work, enthusiastically conversing in sign language and rolling in their wheel chairs with a sense of purpose is an awe-inspiring sight for a visitor to Vindhya.

Vindhya’s beginnings were humble. Against all odds, Pavithra who was working with different NGOs decided to take the leap of faith and started Vindhya. Ashok abandoned a comfortable job in the booming IT industry and took the plunge to join Vindhya, much to the dismay of friends and family. Ashok strongly believed that it was very important for Vindhya to be economically viable as only this would enable the organisation to grow and felt that the confluence of his business acumen and Pavithra’s social touch was key to the success of Vindhya. The initial days were tough with only a few small projects for local clients coming Vindhya’s way. Soon they bagged Titan for a data digitisation project and the team grew from two to become five people strong. Bigger clients, including Wipro, Airtel, Management Dynamics rolled in. Apart from these, the client list today includes Ujjivan, MetLife, Yahoo, IndusInd Bank, MindTree, Canara Bank, Janalakshmi among others.

Vindhya has picked up many accolades along the way. In December ’07, Pavithra Giri won the Shell’s Helen Keller Award for exemplary work in helping the disabled people find positions of equality and dignity in their work place. She also won Canara Bank’s ‘Successful Entrepreneur’ Award (which was conferred by P. Chidambaram in Jan ’08 as recognition for Vindhya’s social impact), International Women’s Day Award (sponsored by Canara Bank), and the prestigious ‘Stree Shakti Puraskar’ for 2009 conferred by Govt. of India for outstanding women entrepreneurs working for social causes. In March 2010, Ashok Giri was inducted into the World Economic Forum as ‘Young Global Leader’. This serves as recognition for Vindhya’s efforts for bringing the concepts of business and philanthropy together. (Read More at http://www.younggloballeaders.org).

Ujjivan’s daily volumes have grown tenfold over the last two years, and Vindhya has relentlessly supported Ujjivan in achieving its targets. Vindhya now caters to multiple business processes across regions for Ujjivan. Vindhya has always responded positively to emergency situations where huge volumes of work needed to be addressed at break neck turnaround times. Ashok says “Vindhya’s employees have an emotional connect with Ujjivan customers. They realize the value that a loan carries for an Ujjivan customer. Hence they voluntary work harder and put in longer hours when there is huge volumes especially in cases where the loan may be for a Festival or some other time bound event.” It is this commitment and ‘human touch’ that has helped take the relationship between Vindhya and Ujjivan to the next level.

“Vindhya is set apart in the BPO industry as a company that can achieve the double bottom line. At Ujjivan, the partnership made perfect sense because of the similarities of goals in reaching out to the forgotten and excluded. We take pride in knowing that Ujjivan, through Vindhya, has been a part of giving differently enabled people real opportunities for their careers while providing our customers with quality service at the same time. Our hope is that Vindhya achieves only higher accomplishments in the future,” says Brian Frazier, Head of Operations for Ujjivan. Ujjivan looks forward for a much longer and a more fruitful relationship with Vindhya in the future.

To know more view www.vindhyainfo.com