One company that has marked its presence in the IT consultancy and services industry is Global Consultants Inc. (GCI). With a consistent ranking among the nation’s fastest growing technology firms for over five years, this enterprise has unceasingly surpassed its own targets, which exceed the industry averages, and as a result has established itself among the top 5 Indian-owned IT Services firms in the U.S. GCI has silently scaled heights without being noticed.

It is Jack Welch whom Hiten Patel, the Chairman and CEO of Global Consultants Inc (GCI), keeps in mind while running his company. “Be number one or number two in your market,” was the mantra by which Welch ran G.E. for two decades. Hiten, a former IBMer, runs his company on the same principle. His leadership guides well over 2000 employees in pride and determination: “We need to be in the top 3 vendors of each and every one of our customers. Of course, the question of dropping a customer does not arise.”

Hiten’s standards and convictions are shared by all of his employees. A common belief in hard work and the aspiration to become an integral partner to its clients has resulted in the company’s accelerated growth and success. Hiten has not been engrossed or lured by the flash bulbs of a subjective media. Instead, he has focused on the intrinsic principles and a creed that is responsible for taking GCI from a 1.2 million dollar establishment to a 120 million dollar megacorp in seven years, all the while overcoming obstacles such as the dotcom bubble burst of the late 90’s through 9/11.

Strong beliefs, right values
“As the Cliché goes, It indeed started in a garage in 1997,” reminisces Hiten. Hiten, with two colleagues, took over the management of GCI, fired it up and changed the scope of its offerings by making available, onsite-consulting services to its clients. At the on-start, AT&T was the company’s sole customer. Hiten serviced the telecom giant by focusing exclusively on this prospect and devoting all of the company’s effort and attention on the project. “Our primary concern then wasn’t company building but customer building,” says Hiten. From its inception, GCI’s management built the company by maintaining a sense of near frenzy and a resolute drive to avoid the loss of any opportunity to gain business. Throughout its journey and growth, the management of GCI has continually relied on two guiding principles. ”Every opportunity is a last opportunity” to run the business. “When you know it will be your last opportunity to do something, you will obviously do it to the best of your ability.” GCI, in fact, even today, views all its opportunities—from sales to delivery, to answering a phone call—as the last opportunity. By doing so, Hiten believes there must exist an aggressiveness that will lead to the fulfillment of each and every opportunity. In business, it’s the performance that determines the quality of, so his second theory was on the quality of service, cost effectiveness, experience, responsiveness and flexibility—a universal theory.

GCI did not believe in numbers alone. Taking one customer a time and providing them with the utmost and it the best of its service, was its Modus operandi. One lesson that Hiten learned was: Company building doesn’t mean to constrain yourself with a vendor-client relationship, instead you form a partnership. Partners always extend support to each other and neither of them tries to control the relationship, and this is exactly how he aspired. Today GCI stands among the top-five Indian owned IT services company in the U.S.