Exclusive: Shikhar Aggarwal is writing a new chapter of success
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The credit goes to Shikhar Aggarwal for making BLS International, which provides citizen services along with visa-passport service, the country’s largest and the world’s second largest service company. Shikhar is the joint managing director of the company. He has provided employment to more than 60 thousand people with more than 50 thousand service offices in the country. The company has presence in more than 64 countries and is also providing services to the governments of 40 countries. Here are excerpts from Rakesh Kumar’s conversation with Shikhar Aggarwal.
How was BLS International founded? How did this company start?
It is about 2008-09, when many people from India started moving out of the country. A crowd had started forming outside the embassy. People were having a lot of trouble in getting visas. There was no solution to this. People had to stand in the sun for four hours each. There was a lot of crowd and there were less people in the embassy. We were already associated with some embassies. Used to do background verification work for them. During this time we came in contact with the Embassy of Portugal. He said that you do outsourcing for us. People should not come to our embassy directly. We started a model that way. Focused on the Government of India for many years. Indian Government embassies also outsource. Foreigners who want to come to India need an Indian visa. The Indian diaspora lives outside. They need many things like their passport renewal or OCI card. The Government of India also gave us the opportunity to outsource that. We remained associated with him for many years. In the last six-seven years, we have also started working with the governments of many other countries.
How many countries have your services reached now?
We currently work in 64 countries. Right now 40 of our clients are governments themselves. Like- India became a client. There are many clients like Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland etc.
Q. Will there be more companies doing such work in the country?
No. We are the only Indian company which provides such services in the world. Yes, if we talk about the world, we are at second place. Our company is also listed on the Indian Stock Exchange in the name of BLS International Services Limited.
Q. How did you get success in working abroad?
Working abroad was very difficult. Had to work with governments within Europe. European companies were working. Getting the work done despite them… but as India has taught us, we continued to persevere and persevere. We did not give up. Don’t accept fear. Only then we got success. This is how the company is moving forward.
Q. What kind of problems did you face?
When we started, we had only one office in India. We had no experience of working outside the country, but gradually we opened our offices in 20 countries. When we tried to work with foreign governments, we faced a lot of problems. Was not getting a chance to talk to the government. They were saying that you are an Indian company, you have not worked with us, you do not have experience, so we caught the smaller countries first. While the volumes were not there, the processes were equally difficult. We slowly started work there. Gradually they gained confidence in us that we could follow their process and their laws. Then he started giving big work. Gradually their confidence in our working style increased. Problems did arise. Had to be very patient and finally we got success.
Q. Any work or success that you would like to share?
Although there are many incidents, but the story is of 2016, when we won the global contract of the Spanish government for the first time. All the Spanish visas are issued all over the world, be it India, UK, Russia, China, everyone has to come to our office to get the visa. This is a big achievement for us.
Q. Where and what kind of services is your company providing in India?
Now we have more than 50 thousand offices in India, which are in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. We work as banking correspondents with State Bank of India. Provide state government services in different states. Also does the work of Aadhaar and Arm license renewal. We have established our presence in many states.
Q. Are you opening offices in villages also?
Absolutely. Not only this, we are also providing employment. More than 60 thousand people are working here in India. Educating and training the youth here. Empowering them. Our goal is that they should learn from us and enhance our work, also enhance their work and move forward.
Q. The company has covered a journey of 15 years. What is the turnover of the company now?
The company has been growing continuously since 2008. Till last year the turnover of the company was Rs 1500 crore.
Q. What is your goal now?
Compared to last year, we have achieved 100 percent growth. Our aim is to move forward every year. The desire is to make this company the world’s largest Indian services company.
Q. What kind of support did you get from your family?
I come from a joint business family. Since childhood, we have learned business from morning till evening and from evening till night. Work is one thing in life, basically we are very attached to the family. Family is more important for us. We spend a lot of time with family. One gets to learn a lot from father, uncle and aunt. We are able to apply the things learned from them in our lives. My father is also associated with the company. He is the chairman of the company.
Q. You have achieved such great success at such a young age. What message would you like to give to the youth of our country?
I would like to say that if you have confidence, then nothing is impossible. If you have the determination and resolve to never give up, no goal is far away. One should move forward wisely with courage and never give up.
Q. What is the working model of your company?
Today, all governments are facing difficulties in providing their services. All over the world. Visa-passport is a service. Apart from this, we have come into citizen service. Every country has the same problem. Governments do not have the capacity to provide civil services, so everything can be outsourced. We are its model. Be it any civil service of the government, visa, passport, birth certificate, driving license, we can do all that. Our model is that we want to become the interface between the government and the citizens using technology.
Q. Are your services in Patna and Ranchi?
Of course it is. We work as banking correspondents in Patna and Ranchi. We do not do visa work here. Provide bank service. You can visit our company’s website www.blsinternational.com for the services of BLS International.
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