CASE VIEW ON

CHANDRIKA PASRICHA'S FLEXING IT:

FLEXIBLE WORKING = MAXIMUM JOB SATISFACTION, OPTIMUM VALUE!
Interview
with
Chandrika Pasricha

Chandr
Founde ika Pasr
r & CEO
, Flexin
g It Ser
icha,
vic
es Priva
te Ltd.

Interviewed
by
Flexing It has been founded by Chandrika Pasricha, a management Dr. Nagendra V. Chowdary

consultant with over 15 years of industry experience. Chandrika has Ref. HRM-1-0003B
worked with McKinsey & Co, Inc., both in India and in the United States, October 2014

and has more recently been working as an independent consultant in

the areas of healthcare and development.
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I. Entrepreneurial Triggers

1. Can you describe the 15 years of your illustrious career in terms of:
Highs and lows
Any life-changing or highly influencing experiences
Reflections on classroom to boardroom
My career of 17 years has primarily been in Management Consulting. An extremely exciting
and challenging journey, it has also been a stable one. I worked with McKinsey & Co. Inc.,
for over a decade both in India and the US, and later as an external consultant with their
Healthcare and Development. Around two and a half years ago, I made my entrepreneurial
debut when I started working on the prep work for Flexing It which launched in beta towards
the end of 2012.

My extended stint in consulting across geographies, industries, clients and issues has
abetted me in multiple ways in my entrepreneurial venture, I will highlight a few! Firstly,
my work experience with McKinsey & Co. Inc., has provided the ability to take a holistic
and broad view of issues given the exposure to how leaders and CEOs think. Secondly, the
short cycles for solving problems in consulting have helped me to quickly think through
issues in a structured manner! Thirdly, the ability to lead and achieve with small but high
energy teams, which are common to both consulting and startups. And finally, the need to
be organized! My first project manager taught me the value of high quality to-do lists
which I follow to this day.

My extended stint in consulting across

geographies, industries, clients and issues
has abetted me in multiple ways in my
entrepreneurial venture.

The decision to start my own venture was driven by two sets of factors that culminated at
the same time. The first set of factors was, my own experience of being an independent
consultant made me realize that there was absolute white space with regards to a structure
to connect the demand and supply of short-term, flexible skills in India. I felt that this was
a huge opportunity and a market segment that would grow only if both professionals and
companies start to look at work differently, as delivery rather than a series of activities.
The second set of factors was my own readiness to apply my consulting
learning/experiences to my own ideas and create a lasting organization. Of course, we

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are still at a nascent stage in our journey and each day is a reminder that my prior experience
has been invaluable... and that there are many, many things that I need to learn still!

2. What have been your experiences in the need for either flexi-working or flexible
working during the 15 years of your illustrious consulting career?

Having worked with multiple clients across a wide spectrum of industries across geographies
during my consulting career, I realized that while specific sectors and individual companies
may vary in terms of their business and resource requirement, certain core principles remain
common. For instance:
The need to offer flexibility as a core strategy to retain high-performing talent.
This flexibility could vary in terms of capacity, roles, options to work remotely, etc.
This is a key expectation today amongst most senior professionals as well as the
millennials i.e., the ability to craft a meaningful portfolio of work while having
control over their schedules, working style and balancing personal life along with
the professional commitments.
The need to maintain flexibility in terms of costs as a business priority, given a
constantly changing environment. This leads to more creative thinking on how
work can be delivered, what capacity is needed for base load delivery versus
additional resources that can be brought on board as needed.
Greater focus on deliverables and skills which leads to change in how the HR
teams and professionals think about learning and skill development.
3. What motivated you to leave a cushiony/high-paying job? Did your personal
experiences influence you to take the entrepreneurial plunge?

I had been in Management Consulting for over 15 years and was ready for a new challenge
when I decided to turn entrepreneur. However, the primary reason was the need I noticed
in the market for a platform like Flexing It. While we had multiple solutions to help people
find regular jobs, both online job sites and offline search firms, there was absolutely no
solution catering to connecting the demand and supply of short-term project-based and
flexible skills.

There are two core beliefs underlying the premise of Flexing It: one, there is a large and
growing number of professionals who want to adopt a more creative route to crafting
their careers and portfolio of work; and two, that organizations are realising that a formal
employment contract does not guarantee commitment and delivery. This realization, coupled
with the fact that there are no platforms in India that currently help meet this important
and growing need for professionals and companies, prompted us to take the plunge.

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Flexing It caters to people with experience, who care deeply about their professional life
and being valued fairly, but want to be creative in achieving these goals. We provide them
the ability to craft a great portfolio of work at the pace they want, and reduce the risk of
working independently by providing access to a large number of quality assignments that
we source and bring to the platform.

For organizations, Flexing It is a great way to obtain skilled resources for the duration and
intensity they need. Our platform provides access to a large pool of qualified professionals
with depth in their functions and industries of focus. You can structure assignments and
bring on skills at a pace your organization needs, while still retaining a flexible cost structure.

Our vision at Flexing It is to create a transparent, efficient and effective way for the demand
and supply of short-term, flexible professional skills to connect. We want to nurture and
support a new model of employment, one that is better suited to the flexibility that many
professionals and organizations will require in the coming years and decades.

4. What were the specific influencers, motivators for you to have chosen this line of
business?

Our blog: http://www.flexingit.com/blog/the-seed-2/, will help to throw some light on the

answer to the question.

II. Flexing It

5. What is the difference between flexi-working and flexible working? What implications
do you think they have for India Inc.s HR?

Flexi working usually refers to either part-time or work-from-home arrangements that

companies offer their employees in order to retain talent.
Flexible working is a much broader concept that looks at ways in which work and
impact of that work can be delivered in newer, productive ways. Flexible working
encompasses project-based work, consulting assignments, advisory roles, part-time
functional leadership roles (part-time CFOs, HR Heads), as well as part-time and work
from home arrangements.
There are several implications firstly, flexible working allows companies to manage
manpower requirements for base load and peak load separately, by allowing them
to hire professionals for short term when certain requirements peak. Secondly,
flexible working allows them to access high quality talent and expertise for a short
burst and a specific purpose, at a fraction of the cost of having to hire them

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full-time. Thirdly, this requires HR to start thinking about how they can engage a
dispersed workforce that is brought on board in multiple different ways, not all of
whom may work from the office!
6. What were the initial thoughts that have gone into Flexing Its business dashboard?

Some of the underlying characteristics that make our business model unique are:
Firstly, our focus is on creating a curated platform each profile is required to fill out a
detailed skill architecture, in addition to submitting their resume, after which vetting of
every profile vis--vis publicly available information is done and only then approved.

I took multiple approaches to get inputs on

and to validate the idea.

Secondly, we have a focused, instead of broad-based, outreach for each role to ensure
companies get relevant applications.

Thirdly, we have recently launched our own proprietary matching algorithm, FlexScore
that identifies the degree of match for an assignment based on parameters such as
sub-skills specified, similar positions held, experience, industry and location. This intelligent
heuristic helps organizations view the most relevant profiles (or projects in the case of
professional users) first, making short listing and connecting much more efficient.

You can read our blog cited here to get more details on the algorithm: http://
www.flexingit.com/blog/introducing-flexscoretm-get-that-perfect-fit-for-any-role-or-
skillset-45/

7. Did you toss up your initial business model with the relevant stakeholders (potential
employers/companies/clients and potential employees/clients)? If yes, what has been
the initial response? If no, do you think it would have been appropriate to do so?

Yes, I took multiple approaches to get inputs on and to validate the idea:

First, I discussed the idea with friends, family and colleagues when the plan was still at a
conceptual stage to get critical feedback and questions on the core concept. I then wrote
the concept underlying Flexing It and the first version of the business plan.

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Second, once I had the basic plan penned down I had discussions with select mentors and
advisors to get their suggestions and thoughts on the need as well as what it would take to
deliver well.

Third, we spoke to potential users, both companies and professionals to understand their
needs, what they would like to see on such a platform, etc. We also conducted a formal
survey to get additional inputs so that we could further validate.

Overall the discussions validated that there was an immense need for a platform that
provides an organized way for the demand and supply of short-term, flexible skills to connect
transparently and easily this was a white space in India then. Hence, I had enough
confidence that there was sufficient demand for what we were going to offer and our
current success has reinforced that belief.

8. What were the initial challenges (people, processes/operations, funding, revenues,

etc.) that you faced in making Flexing It take-off? How have these challenges been
fared over the last 2 years?

When I started out, it was all about getting the foundations in place I was doing everything
myself ranging from figuring out how to register a company, to developing the business
model, to reaching out to companies and testing the idea. Many challenges are involved in
starting a company how to create a team that believes in the idea and can commit to

One of the practices we follow to work

effectively as a team is to have a dashboard of
metrics that we track and use to define
priorities for each team member.

building a company, how to manage operations when you dont have the traditional
infrastructure of a big organization, etc. I largely adopted a structured approach to deal
with the challenges and also realized that it is important to stay persistent, committed and
patient if you are building something for the long term.

As time progressed, I built a team around me to help manage day-to-day operations and
marketing and I am gradually shifting my focus towards more strategic issues. One of the
practices we follow to work effectively as a team is to have a dashboard of metrics that we
track and use to define priorities for each team member. We also do regular team discussions
on operational as well as more strategic issues so that we are aligned on critical
priorities in the short and more medium term.

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With regards to funding, Flexing It has been self-funded from the beginning and continues
to stay that way. I take on limited consulting assignments and use those earnings to fund
the core operations of the venture. While there has been some early interest from potential
investors, we are keen to reach to a certain scale and be extremely sure of what the
external funds will support us in, before we trudge on this path.

Over the past year, the platform has been free to access for our users to test the quality of
the bench, and for us to use their feedback to strengthen the matching process. We have
now started monetizing and charging companies and revenues have started coming in.

9. What is Flexing Its business/operating/revenue model? Was it tweaked in the last 2

years or did it stay the same way as envisaged? If tweaked, what were the compelling
factors?

For the first year, the platform was free to access for our users to test the quality of the
bench, and for us to use their feedback to strengthen the matching process. Based on the
experience and understanding gained, we are initiating two packages for organizations
posting assignments with us: MyFlex and SuperFlex. MyFlex is the basic model, where the
companies post the assignment and screen profiles free of charge, and pay only while
contacting any candidate. Organizations that opt for SuperFlex get active support from an
Account Manager to create/post assignments, screen profiles, custom search, help source
expertise on urgent basis and also maintain confidentiality if needed.

10. Can you share with us (with approximate figures) the business growth of Flexing It
over the last 2 years?

We have grown to 5,400+ professionals registered, 600 organizations registered and more
than 600 assignments posted in last 2 years. We have seen a 200%+ growth in users on a
year-on-year basis.

11. After running Flexing It for two successful yet challenging years, what do you think
would be the critical success factors for it to gain the desired traction?

Critical success factors for us are:

Building greater awareness regarding our platform and brand and scaling up our
marketing efforts
Continue to refine our product features and offerings, for both the professionals and
organizations that use our platform

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III. Responses

12. What kind of companies/industries have been opting/showing inclinations for having
a flexible workforce?

The interest in and usage of our platform is across types of companies and also industries.
Over half of the organizations registered with us are Startups and SMEs, followed by
MNCs/large companies, professional services firms and PE/VCs/investors.

These organizations are from different industries 17% are Consulting firms, 15% are
development/not for profit, 15% from IT and Telecom, 13% from Education, 8% from
Healthcare, 7% Retail, 6% FMCG, 6% Banking Services & Financial Institutions. Other sectors
include Advertising and Media, E-Commerce, Energy Companies.

Some example roles on our platform:

A leading FMCG player needs consultants to support new product launch and
channel assessment
A global management consulting firm looking for senior consultants to grow a new
franchise
Remote Part-time CFO for a Consulting firm
A leading investor looking for support to research and define the strategy for
micro-finance investments in India
A new Agri-services startup needs a senior Marketing Consultant
The below given blogs have examples of how startups are leveraging us as well:

http://www.flexingit.com/blog/from-the-mouths-of-startups-making-freelancing-
work-40/
http://www.flexingit.com/blog/startup-start-out-how-startups-can-benefit-from-
freelancing-36/
13. How have been the responses of employees and employers to the concept of flexible
working? How have they taken to it?

We think that the perception of flexible working is truly changing. Startups are a very
important user base for us and it has been a useful resource for them to hire expertise on
a need basis. The huge growth in startups and new entrepreneurial ventures is leading to
a segment of companies that are looking for qualified professionals while also managing
within constrained resources. The current economic climate of slowing growth and

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uncertainty is increasing the openness to non-traditional models of employment. Another

trend we see from the companies viewpoint is the growing realization that skills and
mind-set matter more than contractual arrangements whereas on the professionals part,
we see a rise in the number of people choosing to work flexibly while building a portfolio
of careers.

You may also refer to our blog cited here:

http://www.flexingit.com/blog/the-rise-and-rise-of-independent-workers-in-india-
33/

The biggest challenge has been getting

employers to think about work differently i.e.,
as deliverables vs activities, which is critical
in a flexible working model.

14. What according to you have been the three major challenges in convincing
employees/employers on the need for opting for a flexible working format?

I think the biggest challenge has been getting employers to think about work differently
i.e., as deliverables vs activities, which is critical in a flexible working model. Another
challenge is how do you ensure appropriate compensation for senior professionals for
short-term assignments unlike in the developed world, the concept of hourly billing rates
or paying for expertise is relatively new in India, and publicly available data on expected
compensation is limited. A third challenge is for individuals to take charge of crafting their
own portfolio of work, and letting go of dependence on the employer, to do their career
planning for them.

You may also refer to our blog cited here:

http://www.flexingit.com/blog/not-everyone-will-go-the-yahoo-and-hp-way-25/
15. Have you noticed any priorities or apprehensions for flexible working based on the
following:
a. Gender b. Geography c. Pedigree
d. Age e. Income Level

Contrary to popular belief, flexible working is almost equally sought after by both men and
women almost 60% of our registered user base is men. Geographically, professionals in
metros are typically more open to flexible working given better availability of options in

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terms of opportunities though we have started to see an increase in professionals from

tier 2/3 towns as well. Flexible working is more preferred by senior professionals as compared
to entry level employees senior professionals (>10 years experience) make up more
than 50% of our professional base.

We have done some research on the various segments of freelancers in India, the findings
are captured in the following:

http://www.flexingit.com/blog/decoding-indias-freelancers-growth-optimism-but-
the-need-for-much-greater-organisation-17/
http://www.flexingit.com/blog/new-segments-of-freelancers-emerging-20/
http://www.flexingit.com/blog/qualified-experienced-keenyet-underutilized-
getting-moms-back-into-the-workplace-39/

IV. The Future of Work

16. What would be the impact of flexible working on HR mandate? Would there be any
legal disadvantage for flexible workforce and thus licensing the companies to abet
any wrongdoing?

The implications are:

The need for HR to be more deliverables oriented when they think about work and
assignments
Need for HR to clearly define the benefits due to a contractor or consultant or
part-time resource vs a regular employee so that there is no confusion.

Flexible working is more preferred by senior

professionals as compared to entry level
employees.

17. Would flexible work format not endanger the employee loyalty and employee
engagement?

Employee engagement is increasingly being seen as more to do with the attitude of

companies and professionals, vs whether one is full- or part-time, a regular employee or a
consultant.

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18. Quite a few people point out that flexible working might foster unethical practices
amongst employees opting for flexible work format. Do you agree? If yes, what
precautions should be taken? If no, what can be the relevant counter arguments?

No, not at all. In fact, we believe flexible working helps professionals to have a work-life
balance and acknowledge ethical behavior. In fact, a survey conducted by Deloitte & Touch
says that A good work-life balance and high levels of job satisfaction promote ethical
behavior among employees.1

Also, we typically advise companies to sign a formal contract with the individuals they are
hiring for any flexible working projects, so that all norms and confidentiality requirements
can be adhered to.

We also see that in a country like India, a lot of professionals are equally concerned about
getting paid, so concerns about professionalism are not one-sided but certainly not the
norm, from what we can see.

19. What do you think are the encouraging trends and disturbing trends for flexible
working format in India?

Our view is that we are in the midst of a major change in how work will be delivered in the
future. In India, while we can argue that the pace of change remains to be seen, the trend
is definitive and we are likely to see several new ideas and models emerge to cater to this
need.

First, while freelancers in the past were usually temporary, contingent staff managed by
staffing firms, we are now seeing the emergence of truly independent consultants and
professionals building their own brand and work portfolio. Second, we are seeing the
emergence of the mainstream freelancer, i.e., the independent Strategy Consultant,
Outsourced Marketing Lead, part-time Finance and HR Head, looking to build a high quality
portfolio of work based on his/her expertise.

In fact, in a survey Flexing It undertook to understand Indias freelancers, we found that

almost 70% were drawn from core management functions vs technical and creative fields
which have traditionally been a sweet-spot for freelancers.

Third, a core driver to opt for freelancers in the past was to offshore work to skilled
professionals but with a primary emphasis on cost. While cost of course will always be

1
Ellen Wulfhorst, Work-life Balance Boosts Workplace Ethics: Survey, http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/16/us-
work-idUSN1631548120070416, April 16th 2007, (accessed date: October 19th 2014)

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important, we are now seeing demand emerge for a lot more local skills on an on-demand
basis with a greater focus on quality.

The below cited two blogs have relevant information on trends we see globally and in
India:

http://www.flexingit.com/blog/the-big-four-trends-that-are-transforming-the-
freelance-world-44/
http://www.flexingit.com/blog/the-evolving-workplace-trends-that-will-solidify-in-
2014-29/
20. With practices such as flexible working gaining importance, we are witnessing the
prevalence of virtual offices and distributed offices. According to you, what is the
future of workspace?

As flexible working picks up pace, the workspace will also evolve in parallel though it
remains to be seen how quickly the changes will happen. We can see the future workspace
having many more people working remotely/from home, as well as many more co-working
spaces with shared infrastructure. If yesterdays workplaces were primarily built around
the ideas of efficient space planning, practicality and longevity, and in some cases, also to
reflect the companys culture, tomorrows will be planned for and around people. Businesses
are realizing the powerful role that thoughtful design can play in enhancing employee
performance. Design specialists now take into account everything from temperature, indoor
air quality, access to nature and daylight, color of office furniture and crowding in order to
create contemporary offices. Furthermore, workplaces will increasingly be built to support
interaction, collaborative working, creativity, innovation, flexibility and mentorship, because
that is the new way organizations are operating. Sophisticated branches such as Human
factors, an area of workplace psychology that focuses on ergonomics, safety, product
design, human capability, reduction of human error and human-computer interaction, are
gradually gaining relevance in the newly being built workplaces.

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