(A tribute to our MD, Mr. Gaurav Agarwal from Team SMVA)
This is the inspirational story of SMVA Consultants, where a young Entrepreneur from Kolkata, appalled at the general state of affairs of the recruitment consultant market, decided to start a new venture, with the one simple goal, to assist the job seekers in the best way possible.
Indeed the name, SMVA Consultants, reflected as such :
- Systematic Recruitment
- Managed Exim Services
- Value added training
- Assistance Outsourcing
The Story
Let’s have a look at the Entrepreneur in question, Mr Gaurav Agarwal. Hailing from Kolkata, he did his academics from West Bengal Board, and as a school topper, he secured himself a position in St. Xavier’s College, the handicap of the English language notwithstanding. Mr. Gaurav Agarwal then went on to complete his Chartered Accountancy course, before landing a job at Capgemini Bangalore, and eventually to Unilever, South Africa, for his assignments. At this point in time, he was the youngest CA with foreign exposure.
If this was a fairytale, the journey would have been smooth. However, real-life has something else planned for all of us. Shortly afterwards, because of his family commitments, his parents, who were still in Kolkata, Mr Agarwal had to leave his cushy job and was back at his hometown, Kolkata. It was then that Mr. Agarwal tasted the first-hand experience of what a harrowing experience a job seeker has to go through while searching for a job !!
One of the quacks promised Mr. Agarwal a job in an MNC, but against an upfront service fee of Rs 15,000. As quacks do, his particular “gentleman” also vanished into thin air, as soon as he had received his “fee”.
“walk the talk, not talk the talk”
It was then that Mr. Agarwal decided to start an enterprise that would “walk the talk, not talk the talk”. SMVA Consultants started in 2013, with a small team of 6 consultants, but with the idea of providing value to its clientele. It was, as the experts called it, Baptism by Fire. Clients and corporate houses wouldn’t want to associate with SMVA Consultants, for we didn’t have a “portfolio”. SMVA Consultants would take up the challenge of the hardest positions to close. And we have been successful in most of the cases, if not all. I recall a famous advertising house, who didn’t want to associate with us in 2013, gave us our first business in 2015, after much pestering, and have been associated with us even in 2020 !!
During our course of Interaction with many people over the next 5 years, we realized that there were many people who wanted a change – either salaried employees who wanted to start their own business, or women who had severed their ties to take care of the family, or kids, or wanted to start a business from home, without the capital intensive nature of starting a business from scratch. In 2018, SMVA Consultants, started its Franchise Division, for those who wanted to make a new life for themselves. Such soloprenuers & mom-prenuers have welcomed us with open arms.
Nowdays
Today, in just 2 years, SMVA Consultants has 33 units pan-India, with over 60+ employees providing quality services in the domain of Human Resource Consulting – Recruitment, Payroll, Training. Add to this, SMVA Consultants has also started with Co-Founder’s Planet, an initiative to assist the Bootstrapped Startups, who did not have the blessings of an incubation platform, with the rightly aligned leadership, to channelize the aims of the leadership and the company, as well as provide them with branding assistance via our multiple platforms.