Haraprasad Panda, President, Kapston recently joined us for an insightful conversation as part of NewsX India A-List. Before diving deeper into his company Saeloun, Vipul introduced himself by saying, “I lead the Kapston team as President for the division. I have a background of 2 decades of experience in corporate services, manpower utilization, and facility management.”
Talking about the vision of the company, Haraprasad said, “Kapston is a complete manpower solution provider. We aim to be the best service provider in staffing solution, integrated facility management and security services with a focused approach towards customer satisfaction and we want to be a strategic partner to our clients. In numeric terms, we wanted to be counted among top five job providers in India.”
Sharing his views on the change that has incurred over the years in the Staffing industry, Haraprasad expressed, ”Staffing industry has witnessed a sea change in its functioning. The growth and transformation is phenomenal. In the past few decades, it has emerged to a 6 Bn dollar industry. Digitisation has also played a major role. If we look at several digital platforms like Upwork, this digitisation has helped the job seekers and the end users as well. This shift has been challenging many traditional staffing companies, either they have to adapt the new way or they have to close their shops.
Talking further on technological advances in the sector, he said, ”Technology has come to the rescue during the pandemic times. It has given the opportunity to the people to work from home. There are about 30% of the workforce in the developed market who are working independently. The new big economic, which has impacted the talent as well as the modernisation, is encouraging the temporary staffing. Today, AI has automated almost 75% of the recruitment process in IT staffing. ”
When asked about the services that Kapston provides to its customers, Haraprasad revealed, “We at Kapston are into 13 years of our operation. We provide end-to-end manpower solution, be it general staffing, IT staffing or security services. We also offer wide range of services including end-to-end HR solution.” Haraprasad went on to say that Kapston doesn’t compare itself to any other company and said, ”What differentiates us from other is flexibility. Our customer centric approach also stands us apart.”
Further delving into the kind of demand change seen in employing staffers, he said, “The change witnessed in the last two years has been drastic and unforeseen. People have started accepting contactless digital payments from the fear of infection. People started doing everything online, be it work, education, shopping, etc. This is majorly impacted businesses and these businesses have started reaching the customer where they are. We started adapting the new normal and helped our clients in new ways.”
Haraprasad then talked about the training process of their employees and said, “Individual training has been given continuously to our employees in our training centres. There were thousands of unskilled professionals who got trained at our centres.”
Revealing his future plans with the company, he said, “Last financial year, we closed 200 crore turnover. The spectrum of services is not going to change but the horizon is going to change. Our aim to expand further across India and even go beyond the boundaries by 2022. We have 38% gender diversity and we are focused on increasing the same in our workplace.”
At the end, Haraprasad advised young entrepreneurs to be like water. “Adjust yourself in every situation and any shape. Just find your own way to flow,” he said.