Even though many people associate entrepreneurship to having “in my blood” sort of relation; it is still, a strong will and an opportunity provided, that will instigate the potential in any person to be an entrepreneur. To Amit Saxena, President & CEO of Sarus, Inc., something similar happened as well. For Amit, entrepreneurship just happened, he did not dream or plan for it, he saw an opportunity, thought it was worth taking a chance and just went with it. One thing led to another, and he came up with Sarus, Inc. in 2006.
Starting a business is a long thought out plan, and the biggest challenge for an entrepreneur is to bring his ideas to fruition; bringing it to a logical conclusion. When you start a company or any enterprise, you are not alone, there are a lot of people who come on board and put their faith in you because they share your vision, your dream, and your idea. An obligation Amit very courteously follows, as he says, “It is my topmost responsibility and priority to create opportunities for all the stakeholders, the employees, the investors, customers and more.”
Parental Influence
For any entrepreneur a set of personality traits is needed to run a business successfully. These are inculcated in a person by someone or something that has most influenced their lives. For most people this influence comes from a prominent person or an event that occurred, leaving a lasting impression on their lives, but for Amit, his parents influenced him the most. Being remarkable people they are, Amit’s parent’s taught him humility, respect and patience; few desirable qualities needed not just to run any business but also to be a successful person in any field of work.
Experience Leading to become a Serial Entrepreneur
In the past, Amit has worked as an employee with energy companies and financial firms, holding commanding roles and running the firm as if his own. This prepared Amit to later run his own company with confidence and experience.
Currently, Amit is associated with two companies.
Sarus, Inc. is an IT services provider founded by Amit, which provides services across the entire Information Technology spectrum. The company provides a broad portfolio of business and technology solutions to help their clients improve their business performance. Sarus, Inc. is focused on indirect tax automation. They automate the determination and calculation of transaction taxes, sales/use tax in the US and VAT in rest of the world.
Sarus also provides modified business intelligence to the industry, with particular expertise in integrating tax software like Sabrix, Vertex and Taxware to ERP systems like Oracle Apps, SAP and Legacy Systems.
Sarus, Inc. has carved a niche for itself in the tax automation space, while currently working with many Fortune 100 and 500 clients, and adding new ones very aggressively.
Amit’s next venture is a compliance solutions company that provides advanced technology-enabled governance, compliance and risk (GRC) solutions. Co-founded by Amit in 2013, surveilLens™ is about to revolutionize the forensic auditing, anti-corruption, anti-bribery and anti-fraud space. What this company has, is a cutting edge technology which reduces compliance, monitoring costs and effort very significantly.
Recognize and Invest in the Right People
Amit had always believed that you can make anyone do anything as long as you motivate, reward and train them adequately. Rejecting the notion, he now thinks it is necessary to identify and invest in the right people to create a good team which can make you successful. This belief is the reason that Amit attributes himself very little to his own success, but rather more to the people around him and the circumstances leading to this day. According to Amit, having the right people around and being at the right place at the right time will ultimately take you to your goals.
What it is like to Starting up?
It is all about the opportunity and the conviction. Amit saw an opportunity and was convinced that he could build something out of it, and then he stuck to it. Amit had all the right people on his side, family, prospective clients, and some exceptionally talented people, sharing his vision, to start working with him in the venture.
Giving some advice to budding startups, Amit emphasizes on conserving money. He adds that, you should be people centric, people focused and people friendly. Ultimately, it is your employees, customers and clients who will decide whether you succeed or fail.
Insights into being an Entrepreneur
There are few very obvious traits that can be correlated to an entrepreneur. But according to Amit, “You need to be a risk taker, be able to take on more responsibility than might seem possible at any given point of time. You need to be an optimist, rather an eternal optimist, and most importantly have a dream, have a vision of yourself, what you want to do, where you want to be in life.”
Mentioning the importance of a person’s diverse roles in life, Amit adds, “You cannot learn entrepreneurship with the intent to learn it; you may be molded slowly, unknowingly towards it during the various roles you perform during your professional working career and suddenly you are ready, provided you have the personality traits.”
