Headquarter In: Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra
Founded in Year: 2011
Employees Headcount: 51-200
In Candid Conversation with Business Iconic Magazine, Capt Muthukrishnan Iyyappan, CEO of Eka Academy takes us through an interesting journey with his company.
- Tell us something about your company and its services.
Founded in 2011, we are a pioneer in providing end to end, full-service training program for mid management. We are the first Indian training company to have a legal presence in Europe and a presence in Australia.
Eka Academy specializes in end-to-end competency-based skill and organizational development interventions delivered specifically to the mid management across a wide spectrum of industries, domains and functional areas. With over 400 qualified and certified trainers spread across 80 locations in the country, we are capable of delivering scalable interventions with very short turnaround time.
While ensuring standardization in methodology, we also consciously ensure localization in delivery so that the intervention gets the maximum impact.
Our mission is to be a recognized leader and a driving force aiding an immediate and sustained performance improvement by providing a continuum of dynamic and innovative programs for people and businesses enabling them to realize their potential and achieve leadership.
Our services include training consultancy, training need analysis, content creation, training delivery (both classroom and outbound), training effectiveness study, training delivery (both online and classroom modes) and trainer outsourcing.
2. Tell us something about the Founder/CEO, and how he/she deals with current problems related to the Startup world.
The CEO of the organization is Capt Muthukrishnan Iyyappan. He had a very highly successful career in Army which includes being the youngest officer to be posted as instructional staff in the prestigious defense services staff college and commanding the highest army post in the world at Siachen Glacier at 22500 feet. Capt Muthu also is battle hardened, having borne the brunt of the first ever fedayeen (Suicide) attack in the history of Kashmir insurgency. This has taught him to be more agile, nimble and more importantly, to deal with the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world of the startups.
Capt Muthu practiced his mantra of “5P Payoffs” in letter and spirit. He imbibed the qualities of purpose and passion from his Army days and later on, his corporate life taught him the importance of performance, persistence and patience. Having traveled and worked in a wide geographic area which panned 4 continents, Capt Muthu developed the ability of seeing the larger picture under any circumstance. This helped him to steer Eka Academy in its highs and lows.
3. What is the present scenario of the Startup? How are you contributing to making it better?
As a training and consulting organization, many statups come to us for consulting and seeking advice. We find that in many, the first 2 Ps of 5P payoff, viz, Purpose and Passion are missing. While they do have a seed idea which may have great potential, the aim of most of them is to get funding and become the next unicorn.
Great organizations do not start with their focus in valuation – but they rather start with a focus on value. When a company creates value, then valuation automatically gets created.
Eka Academy has been in the forefront of helping startups in educating them and providing them a eco system in terms of industry connects and networking. Eka is a part of many networking groups which foster entrepreneurships – like TiE, Indian Angel Network etc., Eka is also an active member of the MSME and startup committee of the CII and contribute to the general development of startups.
4. What are the marketing strategies adopted by company?
Training is all about credibility and credentials. So, the most important marketing strategy is word of mouth. We are constantly in touch with our existing clients and encourage them to refer us to other peers of theirs. This ensures that our credibility and credentials are established with a potential client even before we start doing work with them.
We also heavily rely on online / digital presence. As an organization, we do not subscribe to “Paid Promotion” – but we rely on organic growth of our online presence.
Last, but certainly not the least, we also have a dedicated business development team, which proactively contacts potential clients for business.
5. How do you portray the future of company in the next decade?
Next decade for us would be the most challenging, yet the most exciting years. Covid 19 has brought a violent and instantaneous disruption in the mode of training delivery. Topics and Subjects that were hitherto considered unsuitable or unviable to be taught through a digital mode are now being delivered seamlessly through digital platforms. Technology has expanded the possibilities. The most interesting development is that even experiential learning is being delivered through online.
So, in the next decade, we will slowly adapt and adopt the new digital tools. We are already planning to create massive online open courses (MOOC) which will be available freely to students across the world. We would also be expanding our physical foot print globally for greater reach beyond digital / online presence.
But the most exciting thing for us would be the launch of our own proprietary programs which are designed and developed by us after a decade of research. Two such programs, the ASKOI principle which analyzes the fitment of a candidate to a position and “Ek Karta Dus Avatar”, a program which deals with leadership quotient, are already ready to be deployed. This will also help us to create Indian brand of training program in an international market where Indian origin products are a rarity.
6. What advice would you give to the upcoming entrepreneurs and professionals?
I have always believed in my mantra which I call “5P Payoff”. The 5Ps are
- Purpose
- Passion
- Performance
- Persistence
- Patience
And the above qualities should be exhibited in those order. The basic foundation on which all great ventures are built is “Purpose”. Purpose gives the direction and defines the focus. The purpose should be supported by Passion. Because without Passion, the purpose would lose its meaning. While many might have same purpose while starting, it is the passion which determines who wins the race.
Purpose and Passion are internal and intangible. But what would be visible would be the performance. Walt Disney once said that the easiest way to get started is to quit talking and start doing. Performance would give shape to the purpose and passion.
While purpose, passion and performance can win you a sprint, entrepreneurial journeys are not a sprint – but are rather marathons. And to win a marathon, you need the next two qualities. Persistence and Patience. Persistence helps not to loose hope and patience helps not to loose faith. Without hope and faith, any entrepreneurial journey is doomed from the start. It is the persistence that made Steve Jobs to continue with the Macintosh and it is the patience that helped him to establish the Macintosh as a brand.
7. What are the achievements of your company?
We have several pioneering achievements. We are the first and the only India headquartered corporate training company to have a legal presence in Europe through its subsidiary, Eka Europe Kft. Headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, Eka Europe caters to all the East European Countries. We also have a representative presence in Australia with an office in Melbourne.
We have also created several pathbreaking original training and development programs like The ASKOI principle, Ek Karta Dus Avatar etc., We have also created the first ever branded train the trainer program called “Project Dronacharya” which has the highest brand recall of any train the trainer program ever.
8. How many clients do you have? And how many participants have you trained.
As of date, we have over 200+ unique corporates as our clients, including all the fortune 50 companies of India. We have trained over 70,000 + participants in over 2500+ training sessions in the last one year.