LK, as fondly called in the industry circle, is a nickname his colleagues bestowed upon when he started his 10-year stint at China. Co-founder of Pune based Deven Infotech Private Limited, Laxmikant Bhakre is amongst one of the top 30 inspirational leaders from Marathwada region. Defying the notion, he has made it large from being a small town guy with a focused vision and sheer determination that has and will continue to undoubtedly help pave the path for a reputed Indian IT organisation having footprints globally. We bring the untold story of LK, an Indian Technopreneur who has crossed international boundaries from early on in his professional life.
Mr Bhakre comes from humble beginnings but his journey has been nothing short of remarkable and excitingly eventful. Hailing from a middle-class family in Marathwada, the tourist and cultural capital of Maharashtra, he had never thought of starting his own business. His father, Dasarao Bhakre, was a government surveyor with the state land records department. LK and his elder brother have been very fortunate to always get quality education throughout their lives and for this, they give credit to their progressive parents. His elder brother, Balkrishna, became the first-generation entrepreneur after graduating in Civil Engineering, with ventures like dealing in real estates and developing a budget as well as luxury housings and commercial complexes in the Marathwada region.
LK’s early years in Marathwada have played an important role in shaping the man he is today and the future he has created. “The people here are nice, co-operative and warm-hearted,” he says. Born in Nanded, he undertook his primary education till the 8th standard at Beed and then moved to Aurangabad, where he matriculated in 1985 from Saraswati Bhuwan Junior College to then eventually graduating in Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College in 1989. The next year, he completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Management from Saraswati Bhuwan College. “Marathwada has a rich cultural heritage,” he continues, stating that Aurangabad is one of the oldest cities in India with a unique offering to the world tourists of two world heritage places -Ajanta and Ellora. In addition to this, the city also houses several large, medium and small scale industries serving customers all across the world.
Marathwada helped him in his early career as the people there formed close to 90 percent of his network. His early knowledge and learnings came from his friends, peers, and teachers from Marathwada. LK also recalls that as he lived in a small house with little privacy, which led him to seek out ‘his places’, like for example he used to study in the gardens of the Bibi-ka-Maqbara (exact size replica of the Taj Mahal) in Aurangabad. He reckons that it is hardships such as these that taught him to appreciate and utilise all available resources while always keeping him grounded and attached to his humble roots.
After completing his education, LK worked with Bajaj Auto, one of the leaders in Auto industry from India, in a technical capacity for eleven years where his first boss Mr. Kailash Deshpande played a crucial role in shaping his career and imparting a lot of professional values in him. After this, he took up a brief stint at LML Vespa in Kanpur, but within two years, destiny called him to the big dragon, which had him eventually moving to China and where he remained for a total of ten plus years. These ten years have further added many more facets to his career and has been a very important part of his life, professionally as well as personally.
When LK first landed in Hong Kong, he was completely ignorant of the Chinese culture. An automobile start-up had run into trouble with a shipment of vehicles to the American continent and to avoid such problems in the future, the management, headed by an Indian man, was looking for technical experts that could help. With his sound experience in Bajaj and LML, LK was offered a senior position, which gave him a whole new level of exposure to things like handling end-to-end operations, thereby enabling him to enter into commercial activities, which he believes made his experience in China invaluable. China is actually where he got his nickname LK and this actually has quite an interesting backstory. On his very first day in China, the CEO then, Mr. Viveik Saigal, called one of the Chinese employees and asked him to pronounce “Laxmikant” name and the fellow literally he couldn’t do it no matter how he tried. This had the whole team laughing and the suggestion of shortening his name came up and this is how Vivek gave the birth to nickname “LK” which has kept its use 2002 onwards even in India now.
After twenty-three years in the manufacturing industry, LK’s brother Balkrishna, prevailed on him to return to India and start another vertical under family business. It was then after a large exploration ‘project’, the thought of opening an IT company catering to domestic and international customers crossed Balkrishna’s mind. In 2012, Balkrishna met Prashant Katikar, a very senior level IT expert from the corporate world, who was also from Marathwada and also had common family friends in Aurangabad. The two shared similar childhood backgrounds and along with Laxmikant who was in China that time, the three men formally founded Deven Infotech Private Limited in late 2012 and the company itself got registered in Jan 2013.
The first product of Deven Infotech was a custom ERP, which was developed for Pawan Group Companies in Aurangabad. It took over three months of extensive research and development, and the involvement of Mr Shivprasad Jaju, founder and managing director of Pawan Group, and a former president of the Industrial Association of Aurangabad, to finish the project successfully. After this success, there was no looking back. Inquiries started flowing from the industry itself, which then led to more referrals, and for this, the company LK is grateful to its loyal customers.
The second breakthrough came when one of the founding NGO trusts of the company required a website. Taking this as a new challenge, Deven Infotech developed a website www.can-trust.org which it continues to manage and host today as a part of the CSR activities of the company. This opportunity paved the way for developing new businesses in website development, and later on Mobile app development in Android, iOS in Native as well as Hybrid technologies.
During the first two years, Deven Infotech focused solely on the Indian market; with the help of the teams own network and valuable referrals from customers, the company later ventured out into the world. Till today, Deven Infotech has already catered to several customers from different countries in the world like USA, UK, Switzerland, France, Australia, etc. The IT services it offers include:- Customised ERP and CRM, Mobile Applications, Websites and e-commerce portals, Digital Marketing, Testing and Infrastructure, and Staffing.
The company has faced daunting challenges in the beginning. “There were several companies in IT present in India, and we called ourselves the 10,001st company”, shares LK. Inexperienced, the company faced multiple difficulties in gaining business opportunities, delivering the right solutions, and most importantly, retaining talent, as people in this booming industry were constantly on the move. The other big challenge was finding the right price in such a price sensitive market, despite being largely unaware of proper pricing for services. The peripheral challenges included building good delivery systems which were effective for growth and that too on a limited budget.
As the three founders were from three different industries, their own networks helped them acquire a diverse customer base. Delivering quality in time was the basic principle followed by Deven Infotech, and within no time they got customer references, and their base started expanding, not just in Maharashtra but slowly to other parts of the state, across India, and ultimately all over the world, especially in the US. LK credits his success to the people around him, Balkrishna, Prashant, and his wife Manisha who were constant pillars of support from the beginning and invaluable the team members.
He credits Prashant in having done a wonderful job in creating and nurturing a team out of scratch and giving shape to the company on the way forward. Generating business, getting delivered, and building consistent and reliable collection cycles are the most important aspects of running a successful business and this is where Prashant played a very crucial role during his tenure at the company. LK also says that he learned a lot about the IT business itself from Prashant while closely working with him. Balkrishna was also always generous with support on connections, financial support, and business guidance as and when needed. Manisha joined the management team later on but now leads the human resources, operations, and the accounting departments of the company. “We try our best to consistently give invaluable learning experiences to our people,” says LK. “We try our best to reward them, respect their contribution from time to time, and it’s a pride for us to have our first two members, Aditya Joshi, and Sanket Bansode, still with us and with them continuing to take on greater leadership roles and the team as a whole who are driving the technology and delivery game very successfully in our seventh year.”
As to the pricing challenge, “The first year was messy,” LK sums up candidly. “We took time to settle down, understand the industry standards, then we started building prices, having effective negotiations, and to be honest, it was quite a journey!” he laughs. Initially, they never added their time into price calculations, which was taken for granted, but finally, the learnings from each experience caught up to the team and they started to hit the right prices.
The rise of Deven Infotech has been dramatic. Within five years from inception, they were awarded as the best IT organisation in Pune. Today, the backbone of Deven Infotech lies in building trust and transparency between its team, customers, and partners. The company also plays an instrumental role in laying the foundation of new entrepreneurs, both young and old, by working with startups as their technology partners. In the last two years itself, Deven Infotech has worked with over 25 such start-ups.
Deven Infotech’s vision is to become a world-class solution provider by creating the best consultants and offering quality, service, and value to all customers worldwide.
Deven Infotech’s mission is to become a sustainable company which will: Create more jobs directly and indirectly; Aid in the economic growth of the country; and Uplifts the underprivileged through various CSR activities. At the core of Deven Infotech’s philosophy lie values of trustworthiness and transparency; the company has a quality-first approach in delivery and intensive-research principle for new developments.
LK is an avid reader. One of his first- and favourite- books to this day is Shiv Khera’s You Can Win, which he read many years ago. “[The book] has taught me to believe in myself and my inner strength. I would definitely recommend this to each one out there,” he says. Another book he recommends is Good to Great by Jim Collins, which his boss, Vivek Saigal, gave him as a present when he was in Hong Kong (2006). One of his favourite quotes from the book is: “…they first got wrong people off the bus and sat the right people at right seat on the bus – and then figured out where to drive it.”
His absolute favourite, however, is “Bhagavad Gita for all Times” by DM Sinha, a former IAS officer from Merath, Uttar Pradesh. The book, along with Mr. and Mrs. Sinha (whom LK met in China), have acted as guides for him. It helped him understand and implement spiritual concepts in both his professional and personal life. Another person who has a significant impact on him is Sister Shivani from the Brahma Kumaris Mission.
Deven Infotech is aiming for closer association with manufacturing enterprises to offer a greater variety of services, rather than become a one-stop-shop for SMEs. LK is aware of the potential of Information Technology. “IT has been abuzz since the last decade. It is a part of our lives- soon it will be more than that,” he observes, “The industry is going upwards, but it is also dynamic and changing,” adding that, compared to the earlier days, customers are more demanding now. Enterprise mobility, IOTs, AI, and analytics are the biggest factors in the IT industry today. Deven Infotech is focusing on enterprise solutions and mobility and planning to carve out a few products of their own.
Deven Infotech believes in going beyond its customers’ expectations; its core consultant group constantly gives its best efforts to deliver remarkable solutions to its customers. The same group is instrumental in training and instilling the values and principles of the company in its fresh members. The company has accumulated turnover of over `12 crore in the last six years. It is aiming to achieve a 25% year-on-year growth, so it can have an annual turnover of `10 crore in the next three years. “By 2030, we are looking at the `100-crore mark by adding more verticals, acquisitions, and having one of the largest families of employees, customers, and partners in India.”
You can write to LK at laxmikant@devengroup.in or visit www.deveninfotech.com
