We provide IT pros

15 September 2005

Sadhana Somasekhar, director, Future Focus Infotech, talks to Venkatachari Jagannathan on how her company meets the HR needs of the IT sector.

When Sadhana Somasekhar, director and chief marketing officer, Future Focus Infotech Pvt Ltd, talks about "processing a purchase order for 50 ERP professionals" and committing to a delivery date for "handing them over", it might shock the sensibilities of human rights activists.

Rest assured, Future Focus is not into the slave trade. On the contrary, it is a flexi staffing provider applying the principles of hardware marketing in the sphere of human resources. The company retains around 500 IT professionals who are deputed to meet the short term staffing needs of clients. "Not only is the staffing industry unorganised, many of the recruiters do not have proper systems in place. We wanted to be a process and systems driven company," Somasekhar explains.

After completing her BSc in microbiology and a masters in medical technology in Mumbai, Somasekhar gave up on the life sciences to get into a marketing career selling networking products, computers and software. For a short while, later, she turned into an entrepreneur but once more became an employee. Then, she bought a stake in her boss's company and morphed into a co-promoter. Today, Somasekhar drives the Rs14-crore Future Focus, a staffing company focused on the human resource needs of the rapidly growing IT sector.

"Actually, I studied computers as I thought it would help me in my career in the medical field. But, later, I got into selling computers and from there on to marketing people. I have always loved to interact and deal with people," she explains. Future Focus, she says, has supplied IT professionals to all the top companies in the country like TCS, Infosys, Covansys, IBM, Wipro and others.