Matrix Business Services: The Kingpin of Verified Business Assurance Sway Date:   Tuesday , December 15, 2015 Mark Twain once said, \"Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it\". Seems Scott Thompson, Yahoo!\'s ex-CEO, was ignorant of this phrase. As honesty does not pay well these days, hence Scott cheated in his resume about his educational qualification. When the ice broke, he had to abdicate from his job.The earlier resume fraud stories that were limited to junior and mid-level have taken a new route and are fast moving up the value chain. With increasing number of such frauds, companies tend to lose considerable revenue and vitiate brand value too. To nullify such discrepancies, companies look for such organizations that can do a thorough background check of the candidates extending from address verification to academic, prior employer, referral and criminal/judiciary verification. Doing so not just mitigates the risk but also sends right signal to the entire work force. Though there are many players in this background verification domain, Matrix Business Services India Pvt. Ltd. emerges as the de facto winner of the sway. A business assurance company with deep focus on 3Ps - People, Product and Process, Chennai based Matrix has won customers\' heart with its impeccable service since its inception in 2003. Under the strong-willed leadership of G. Vishwanathan & P.C. Balasubramanian (Executive Directors & Presidents, Matrix), the company focuses on employee background verification and audit & assurance services for companies in the front end supply chain (products & process assurance) across industries stretching from IT, BPO, BFSI, FMCG, Retail, Consumer Durables, Lifestyle products, Mobile telephony, and Pharma to other manufacturing companies. As there are very few entities that are run professionally in this space in India, Matrix enjoys a leadership position. Today, Matrix has a pan India presence through its network of branches and associates at over 60 locations with approx 800 touch points in the country. This enables the company to offer its services in precision and speed at reasonable pricing. The Dynamic Approach While the employee background verification services industry will move towards consolidation and only the top few providers would be able to sustain and grow; the fragmented audit & assurance services hardly has any sterling player. This positions Matrix at a much stronger spot as it offers an end-to-end assurance services in the entire front end supply chain. Balasubramanian asserts, \"Very large MNCs or CA firms don\'t find it feasible to operate in this space given their cost structure and smaller entities are not equipped to handle this business on a sustainable basis. We have an edge on account of the stringent process, great team and passionate involvement in executing the services\". The dependency on human resources is relatively high in the business assurance industry; hence any risk associated with manual intervention remains. Matrix\'s time tested measures and use of technology, build over a period of time, mitigate these risks spotlessly. The company uses mobile technology in certain cases (for audit and assurance services) to ensure that the data captured is correct and it also leaves an audit trail on when and where the audit has been executed. The speed of transmission of data also helps to shrink the timelines and improves its service delivery capability. The employee background verification is handled through an internally built workflow platform MATEX and almost the entire process is driven by technology. \"As a new initiative, we are also rolling out a SMAC based tool to manage and monitor all assignments from initiation stage to completion stage. This is an internal workflow tool and would help us further to scale up our efficiency and productivity,\" explains Balasubramanian. For distributor and seller who sellers their products through a distributed network of channel partners and retailers, challenges await at the front end as it needs validated data from various points. Multiple auditsare also required including trade schemes audit, inventory management & upkeep, statutory compliances, and an efficient sales & distribution process along with market spends validation. For the organized retailers like fashion, garments, lifestyle products and others, Matrix offers stock checks that address the shrinkages at retail outlets apart from handling stores process audits. A proud Vishwanathan adds, \"We are unique because of the fact that we are a set of professionally qualified team that runs the business hands on. Our domain expertise and geographical reach are also very unique and certainly we are the first ones to setup such a successful model\". The growth of the company has been profound in past two financial years, from Rs.3558 lakhs to Rs.4732 lakhs. And with the judicious mix of formal and informal work culture that believes in empowering team, the company is revisiting and creating a new Matrix CUBE - Culture & Behaviour. This will help Matrix to achieve exponential growth in the coming days. The company has equipped itself to explore opportunities with other industries, embrace technology wherever relevant and possible and continue to offer valuable and delightful services to its customers whilst creating value for the shareholders. Panel Key Management: G. Vishwanathan & P.C. Balasubramanian, Executive Directors & Presidents Vishwanathan and Bala, Chartered Accountants, holds years of extensive experience in the industry. While Bala heads the Audit & Assurance business, Viswanathan heads the Employee Background verification services. The other key people include Jayasree Srinivasan, the COO of the company and P Sankararaman, the Head of Finance, both are co-onwers too. Offices: Chennai (Headquarter), Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Chandigarh & Vijayawada. Additional presence in 50 other cities through a network of associates Headcount: Over 1,000 Achievements: Listed in the \'Emerge 50\' under \'Services Category\' in India by NASSCOM in the year 2009 Ranked as the Best Background Check Service Provider for three consecutive years by one of India\'s largest employers First company to set up an efficient verification, validation and processing of market returns for the FMCG industry in the country Clients: Matrix services over 350 corporate customers and out of this over 25 are in the Fortune 500 list. Almost all the top companies in the FMCG, IT, BPO, Retailing, Banks are its customers.