Mantec International LLC: Excellence in Service & Technology

Ishwinder S. Brara, President

For Mantec International, this moment was when Microsoft invited the Mantec team to their Redmond headquarters to discuss the feasibility of running its first MSN tech support center out of India in the late 90s. At the time, the most significant hurdle for Microsoft was that the concept of support centers was fairly new to India. So, in order to fulfill this goal, Microsoft needed a partner who could exercise their extensive market knowledge, scout fresh talents, and train them for providing outstanding customer service and technical support. Mantec checked all the right boxes.

With a strong foothold in the U.S. market, the company was striving to bridge the gap between Indian and the U.S. market by organizing seminars in collaboration with the World Trade Center in Los Angeles and the Consulate General of India in San Francisco. This capability of seamlessly operating in both of the markets attracted Microsoft, and so, the two entered into a strategic alliance.

Working in liaison with Microsoft, Mantec demonstrated its potential by selecting the right facility as well as people and was able to set up the tech support center in one year. The success of the project set the company on a winning front and paved the way for its growth. In fact, one of Microsoft’s vendors, DecisionOne, offered Mantec the opportunity to operate as its India unit. “We became a captive unit for DecisionOne and started catering to their clients. They offered tech support for large enterprises like Netscape at the time, and we became the supporting entity to run their BPO operations from India,” mentions Ishwinder S. Brara, President of Mantec International.

From a Captive Unit to a Full-fledged Autonomous Entity

While working with DecisionOne, the Mantec team witnessed first-hand how several small and mid-sized companies struggled to run their daily operations due to the high cost of acquiring, training, and retaining efficient employees. To elucidate, even after recruiting an employee, businesses had to invest a considerable amount of time and money in their training. Unfortunately, such efforts often went in vain when employees left their respective companies. As a result, employers had to hire new people and significantly invest in their training to fill the void. Such a struggle of small- and mid-sized businesses propelled Mantec to enter the SMB market in 2003 and help the underserved businesses save money by outsourcing many of their operations to India.

Since then by offshoring operations to India, Mantec is able to offer faster turnaround time, provide 24/7 email and voice support services, and ensure a quick software development cycle for their clients by efficiently leveraging the 12.5 hours of the time difference between India and the U.S. This invites immense monetary benefits for SMBs. Brara, in this context, mentions, “instead of contacting our India office during an issue, clients can directly reach out to the U.S. office, and we can solve the problem without any delay.”

Mantec is the gateway that makes a connection between the best of these two countries and leads the business relationship with a focus on quality, ethics and productivity

Today, under Brara’s leadership, Mantec has grown exponentially to emerge as a trusted call center (phone, email and Chat support), software development, and backend service (loan processing, data entry, photo editing, to name a few) provider. The company works collaboratively with its India affiliate, Mantec Consultants, to provide cost-effective services across the globe, and its services are not targeted toward any specific vertical. “We recruit talented people who have extensive knowledge in their respective fields. This helps us serve our clients better and ensure that they meet their goals without the need to hire or maintain in-house teams,” Brara notes. “Unlike other firms, we don’t believe in sharing staff among different clients. Instead, we become experts in our clients process by focusing on that clients work.”

"We are a boutique firm that always strives to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction by customizing the approach according to the client’s objectives"

A Seamless Process at the Core

Alongside its expertise in both the U.S. and Indian markets, what helps Mantec stay a notch above the rest is the focus on quality. Their engagements typically begin by closely understanding the client’s goals, objectives, and expectations. The same information is then relayed to their in-house HR team in India for hiring efficient and competent people in line with the client’s requirements. After this, Mantec follows its unique “train the trainer” approach, where it allows clients to train a handful of selected Mantec employees. They then share the knowledge to the first batch of new hires and help the newly acquired talent get accustomed to the culture of clients’ company, their expectations, and, subsequently, be more efficient. More importantly, clients only need to provide this direct training once. Meaning, if clients require additional staff to be added or any employee leave voluntarily and needs to be replaced, the company replaces the members by hiring another set of personnel. In such cases, the client does not need to allocate any additional resources for their training because Mantec takes all the responsibility, which ultimately helps businesses save a lot of money and resources on future training.

The approach is very flexible. To illustrate, clients can directly visit our office complex or we can organize video conferencing sessions according to their convenience. Having such perks, the process has so far been very effective and received spontaneous accolades from our clients,” Brara mentions. Mantec also maintains an in-house quality control department that monitors workers’ performance regularly and advises them where improvements are needed.

Management by Objectives: The Key to Success

Such a business strategy is backed by the organizational culture that Brara has gradually cultivated over the years.
He mentions that the company believes in “Management by Objectives” (MBO)—or the idea of clearly defining company objectives between management and employees—that the great management educator and author, Peter Drucker, popularized in his famous book “The Practice of Management.”

“During my MBA program, I was blessed with the opportunity to attend Drucker’s lectures. His thoughts on MBO inspired me. Hopefully, I have been able to inculcate the principles of MBO in my organization. It promotes clarity and ownership of work in the employees,” Brara comments. He goes on to mention that his primary aim is to build Mantec as a true employee-centric organization where everyone can wholeheartedly contribute to the larger organizational goals. “We encourage our people to live a healthy balanced life because a proper work-life balance is a very important aspect of ones life,” he elucidates. In addition to this, Brara has successfully instilled his zeal of continuous learning and strong work ethics into his team to serve their clients better.

This healthy employee-centric culture, forged with Mantec’s expertise and Brara’s strategic leadership, has enabled the company to cater to a legion of clients throughout the U.S. For instance, one of its clients was struggling due to the high cost and inefficiency of their in-house software development team. When this client contacted Mantec, it provided the client with an opportunity to interview a handful of shortlisted people.

The client then finalized on the candidates who met their expectations and started working with them. These new workers provided Mantec’s client with glitch-free software, on time development and immense cost-savings. Being extremely happy with their performance, the company continues its journey with Mantec. Another client was losing money in its customer service department and it was a major cost center for them. When Mantec took over customer service for this client, their policy of assigning dedicated agents and their up-selling and cross-selling skills turned the customer service department into a profit center for the client by generating a lot more revenue.

Having such unwavering instances of client success up their sleeves, Mantec has drawn a comprehensive roadmap. The company will continue to grow organically by improving the quality of its service and building long-standing relationships with more clients. Apart from it, the company will allow its employees to work from home—even after the pandemic gets over—to retain talented personnel.

“We are a boutique firm that always strives to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction by customizing the approach according to the client’s objectives. We are in this field for more than 20 years and know how both the Indian and U.S. markets work. Mantec is the gateway that makes a connection between the best of these two countries and leads the business relationship with a focus on quality, ethics and productivity,” Brara concludes.