Doing Business The Fun Way

Power: The ability to face challenges that make one resilient

The best way to do business is to enjoy it. That way you will always look forward to coming back to it, day after day. This unique concept has helped Verdes build a very successful organization with a strong team, who enjoy both work and fun. According to him, responsi­bilities are not given but asked for. So, he believes in bringing commitment to work from every individual in his organization. He makes sure that his employees feel their quality of life is getting upgraded when they are with Frontier. The rest of the effort automatically comes from them.

It is not surprising that Verdes talks so much about fun - he comes from a tourist's paradise called Goa. But though he hails from Goa, he prefers to call himself a Bangalorean since he has spent most of his life here.

After this graduation, Verdes started his career at HCL Infosystems. HCL was a great place to work with and Verdes attributes his own success to what he had learned at HCL. He recalls how the work pressure was palpable there, but employees were also given the freedom to do what they wanted. And he has tried to emulate a similar working environment in Frontier.

Going with the flow
After a five-year stint at HCL, which included one-year abroad, Verdes floated Frontier Business Systems in 1994 to provide IT services. He was one of the first movers into the solutions space and faced many highs and lows in business. He believes that to truly judge the ability of an individual or organization one should see how they handle and manage the 'lows'.

The secret behind Verdes success is his ability to treat success and failure at the same level knowing that nothing is permanent in this world. This calm and patient approach helps him to handle stressful situations better. Verdes has now set a clear mission to achieve the top slot in solution providing and provide a comprehensive IT infrastructure solutions and services. Over time he has realized that it is better to draw a three-year plan and works towards it rather than plan for every year.

And, Verdes has been quite successful in this adopting this approach. He wanted Frontier to be a Rs 200 crore company by 2007, which he discussed with his management team while achieving Rs 100 crore in 2003. Now, he is well on his way to achieve this target. For the next three years, the company has set a milestone of increasing its service revenue to 25 percent by 2010.

Quite a family man, Verdes makes it a point to spend quality time with his wife Sarah and son Andrew. Though he is unable to take a lot of time off work during the routine course of business, he makes full use of every holiday to unwind with his family and have fun.

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