That working life will come with more than a fair dose of stress is conventional wisdom. It is almost impossible to think of a job in an environment that is stress-free. Umesh Mangroliya from Ahmedabad observed this and realised that he could contribute to creating a change, by creating environments that yield both profit and stress-free lives for employees.

Apex Business Solutions, founded in 2016 of which Umesh is a Managing Partner, though still in its nascent stage professes the ambitious goal of being a business improvement consultancy - creating innovative business and operational performance solutions. Sustainable and profitable outcomes for their clients while reducing stress for employees is an achievable goal with their implementation framework.

In conversation with GlobalLinker (GL) Umesh Mangroliya (UM) shares the story of his firm and his future plans.

GL: Tell us about your business.

UM: Apex Business Solutions is a business improvement consulting and training firm, specialising in innovative business and operational performance improvement solutions. We are a pioneer consulting company in India that provides business analysis, operational excellence, sociocracy and mediation services to deliver  stress-free, profitable & sustainable solutions to meet the challenges inherent in our clients’ business activities. We work with top and middle-level executives to help them make better decisions and convert those decisions into actions and deliver sustainable success for the company.

In my early days of working in small businesses, I encountered a hidden, unseen belief that stress is unavoidable in the mix of running a business enterprise. The result of that unquestioned belief was that all approaches and solutions were focused on either dealing with stress, or reducing it. I saw no one thinking about creating a system where stress was not a byproduct. And just because of this each and everyone in the organisation was living in that stress. I started looking for a consulting firm who can help an organisation be stress-free, profitable and sustainable at the same time. But unfortunately, no one was talking about this. Every consulting firm I came across were blaming ‘people’ for stressful situation. In short, they were blaming people for everything they can’t do. And for me, that was a trigger point. Deep inside, I believe that people are not the problem in the workplace. One's approach could be the problem. This then became my vision, and the purpose behind starting my own consulting firm, Apex Business Solutions.

GL: What are the challenges you have faced in establishing your business?

UM: While establishing the business, the major challenge for us was to find the right clients. As our consulting approach is completely different, many entrepreneurs were not able to grasp what we were talking about. To add to that, I am 25 years old. In consulting, people usually think about white hair when they hear the term ‘consultant’. To get acceptance in the market was quite difficult. 

GL: Do you believe that the ‘ease of doing business’ in India has improved?

UM: Not exactly. The market is becoming more competitive. Moreover, the government is introducing complex policies day by day. In other words, all these challenges are making it hard for MSMEs to survive and grow. There is no ease in doing business, in fact it has become harder than before.

GL: What is the USP of your business?

UM: We have designed our own approach for doing a need analysis of any business. We are inspired from nature. And we think of organisations as a living organism. We help organisations to transform innovatively. Our approach creates synergy in the client's organisation. To summarise, our implementation methodology is our USP.

GL: What are some of the milestones of your business?

UM: We have planned to create awareness about our services in India by the end of this year. The second milestone is to start doing short-term courses in business and engineering colleges. This is to ensure that students have industrial and people oriented mindset when they come into services. 

GL: What role do you feel GlobalLinker plays in connecting and assisting SMEs?

UM: GlobalLinker is a great initiative to bring together various SMEs and share their needs and aspirations with other like-minded corporates and professionals. I really appreciate the idea of writing articles on entrepreneurs. This initiative is motivating other entrepreneurs and giving them an opportunity to learn from one another.

GL: What is your big business dream?

UM: My big business dream is to create stress-free organisations that make profit. It may take time, but I’m very sure that people will start believing that it is possible to do business without stress.

GL: What is your message to aspiring entrepreneurs?

UM: My message to aspiring entrepreneurs is: gravity will try to keep you down but never give up on your dreams!

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