The office of Sandeep Sahai, President and COO of Headstrong, is bustling with activity. The 46 year old entrepreneur turned leader embarks on his new gig as CEO of the company. So what’s next? There could be no better time to ask him than now. His unwavering focus is clear and evident in his spontaneous reply - making Headstrong an undisputed leader in the world, by concentrating on one thing: Financial Services Technology.

But why the financial services area? Isn’t the space already crowded with IT services players? Sahai is quick to read your mind. “For any business to be the cynosure of its customers, focusing on a niche segment is critical to attaining domain leadership,” he says. The BFSI sector continues to lead other industries in its ability and desire to implement complex technology solutions. The IT industry cannot ignore the simple fact that financial services companies were the earliest adopters of outsourcing and remain the largest spenders on technology. With so many regulatory changes continually happening, financial instruments and processes keep changing – hence the technology needs of the BFSI never stabilize. According to Gartner, the BFSI sector’s global spend was $176.8 billion for external IT services in 2007. The BFSI sector in the U.S. alone, the No. 1 market for Indian IT companies, spent $84.4 billion for external IT services.

The market is still huge and growing, and so are the players. Sahai is clearly quite confident of tapping into this growing pool of opportunities and making his firm the market leader. He is a believer of ‘absolute standards’ when it comes to leadership and excellence.

Originally founded in 1981 as James Martin & Company, Headstrong is a global consultancy firm focused on domain-led solutions in vertical niches. Its philosophy is to achieve a level of thought leadership and business knowledge in each chosen domain that makes the IT solution look almost incidental. Once the domain becomes the center of focus, the span of services necessarily needs to be ‘total’ - from business strategy to functional consulting to application development to maintenance to business process outsourcing. This approach has enabled Headstrong to help its clients achieve measurable results and integrate their businesses with their customers, suppliers, and employees to improve enterprise value.

Headstrong has grown rapidly over the years. From its early days of pure business consultancy to its present focus on end to end solutions, the firm has come a long way. With a 25-year track record of proven results, the company’s client base includes many of the world’s most respected companies (Headstrong’s tagline that 9 of the top 10 investment banks in the U.S. are clients is no exaggeration, we checked). Headquartered in North America, with delivery centers in India and the Philippines and offices across Europe and Asia-Pacific, Headstrong’s offerings are currently centered on the financial domains of 1) Derivatives, 2) Reference Data, 3) Asset and Wealth Management, 4) Prime Brokerage and Securities Financing, 5) Mortgages, and 6) Compliance and Risk Management.