"Our attrition rate in India has been zero in the past 7 years"

1. Setting up a private limited in India takes time

Nebel has been working for an Indian consultancy for about seven years when he receives an attractive offer from a German company. “They asked me to develop customer relation management systems and other sales and marketing IT solutions for German SMEs. Because of my work experience, one thing was certain for me: I couldn’t do this without a good team of Indian software developers. Even though I was working for an Indian company, I had no idea how to set up a private limited there.” Step one was finding a suitable accountant who could guide him through the process. “I was quite lucky, because I just googled and found my accountant that way. During the first meeting, I made it clear that I wanted to start my private limited completely clean, so no bribes or other bribes to speed up the process. The accountant really appreciated that approach and that was also confirmation for me that I was doing business with a good firm.”

Setting up an entity can take a long time. Nebel’s accountant had to stay on top of things to make sure the process didn’t get delayed too much. “The process took 13 months in total. My accountant had to make quite a few visits to make sure that certain documents weren’t left unsigned on the pile. Fortunately, Indian law has set expiration dates for approving certain documents. If the government agency doesn’t approve before that date, the document is automatically considered approved. That helped us a few times.”

2. Involve your employees’ families

Fortunately, Nebel didn’t have to wait 13 months to get started. “As soon as we registered the private limited and received our PAN number, we were already able to get started.” Nebel immediately hired five software engineers among his former colleagues who wanted to be part of a German-Indian start-up adventure. “We started building a working environment with both German and Indian cultural elements. Our India team now consists of 10 men and 10 women and we manage our people via a so-called competency model, which mainly contains European elements. We look at different skills such as writing software and presenting their ideas, but also at how they incorporate changes on the work floor. Every six months we do an evaluation and look at training opportunities for the competencies we want to strengthen. There is also room for personal goals, which is motivating people.”

A fun team outing is also organized every three to six months. “That is more of an Indian element,” Nebel explains. “There is not such a strict separation between work and private life in India and colleagues see each other as part of the family. That is why we regularly go out for dinner together or do something active such as going to an adventure park.” The families of the Optanium employees are also involved in this. “That is one of my most important tips for international entrepreneurs in India: if you want to keep your attrition rate low, involve the families of your employees in the company. Invite them to company parties and certainly do not turn down an invitation to visit your employees at home. It is an important part of building a relationship of trust.”

3. Draw a hard line, that creates clarity and trust

According to Nebel, that relationship of trust is one of the key reasons why Optanium has achieved such a low attrition rate. “From the very beginning, I started building an open and respectful atmosphere on the work floor. No micromanagement or hierarchical relationships. Everyone in the team is equal. In addition, balance between the number of men and women on the work floor is crucial for us.” Nebel only had to fire someone once, because he did not function well within the company culture that we have created. “This developer worked under a female manager and kept ignoring the assignments she gave him. After we confronted him about it and he said he would do something about his attitude, nothing changed. I simply had to fire him. The team really appreciated the hard line I drew, because it showed that everyone is really equal within the company. There has never been such an incident since then.”

To find staff that fits within this work culture, Optanium relies heavily on its network. “Everyone we have found through referrals has been a perfect fit for our company so far. Although we do not limit ourselves to only inviting people we know to apply.” However, Nebel and his team in India have become a little more cautious with applicants without recommendations. “We have experienced two crazy situations in which the applicant misled us during the first job interviews that we conducted via video call. One applicant had someone speak in the background while he ‘played back’ on camera, another had someone else go through the entire application process and appeared on the scene himself on his first day. We have therefore had to introduce strict identification rules. For example, we now take screenshots during the video calls, which we compare with the person who comes to the personal interview and who appears in the office on the first day. We also do an extensive check of the passport, so that we are sure that we have the right person for us.”

4. Take your time to find your niche

For now, Optanium is still focusing on the German market and not on sales in India. “Our solutions are very individual and currently too high-tech and too expensive for India,” Nebel explains. “We don’t have a lot of general products that every company could buy and implement, we build special systems based on the customer’s wishes. For India, we would first have to find a good niche. For example, we could build a simplified customer relation management system that can easily be applied on a large scale for Indian e-commerce platforms.” The Indian team of Optanium recently saw an opportunity to build a specific Indian product. “We were working on special website visitor identification software for the European market. My team wanted to build a simple version of that for India, but we cannot yet launch such a product on the Indian market on a broad scale. For now, we will continue to focus on the German market, but my team is always on the lookout for interesting opportunities in India.”