Media Center

Pro V profits from Consulting . . . and its own outsourcing. Company has grown steadily since its start in 2003

Michael Hinman
Tampa Bay Business Journal
August 4, 2006

Tampa. Ajit Nair isn’t your typical CEO. But that’s because, as he’d say himself, ProV International isn’t your typical company.

With just a couple thousand square feet of office space overlooking the Tampa side of the Courtney Campbell Causeway, it would be easy to think Nair has a small staff, and with it a small amount of income.

Instead, ProV’s employee base numbers nearly 200 people scattered at different companies throughout the country and even the world. And Nair is proud to say that ProV has turned a profit since the very first day of its existence less than three years ago.

“We started at the end of 2003, but by 2004, we already were a $5 million company,” Nair said. “We had over 10 Fortune 500 companies. In 2005, we were named High Growth Company of the year by IT Florida.”

High Tech Growing Everywhere

Nair started ProV with president and COO Jim Lynch after spending years doing similar IT outsourcing for a company he ran out of California until selling it in early 2003.

The growing high-technology market in the Tampa Bay area attracted him here, and he started ProV shortly after with a handful of employees but plenty of experience. ProV employs what it calls a global work force that bases its operations in development centers both in Tampa and Nair’s home country of India.

Just as he urges his clients when it comes to IT, Nair says some of the key ways he maximizes profits is through outsourcing.

“Outsourcing is an important part of our organization,” he said, adding that through those different companies, he’s able to hire people from around the world.

“Other companies hire in the U.S. and then export them to other parts of the world, but it’s hard to tell if and when they will show up. For us, India has such a high demand from technical talent looking for work, that we have a large base to choose from”

Nair says his profits have increased at least 10 to 15 percent monthly since the company was founded.

That is not entirely uncommon among high-tech corporations, said Liana O’Drobinak, managing director of Jefferson Wells, a professional services firm that focuses on IT risk.

“Generally, any of these kind of newer market sectors do have high growth, especially with younger companies,” said O’Drobinak. “Those types of businesses tend to be less capital intensive than if their clients would outsource to them the infrastructure of their back office. But it is tough to generalize.”

Going Beyond Profit

The walls on ProV’s Rocky Point Drive office are filled with logos of various clients, which Nair prefers not to discuss publicly. While his current clients come from all walks of life in terms of industry, Nair said he now wants to concentrate on more niche markets such as health care.

“A lot of the work we already do offshore is in health care,” Nair said. “Some of those organizations’ biggest costs are in operations. When it comes to streamlining, health care firms need that more than anyone else.”

In helping to cut costs on the operations side of health care, especially in insurance, Nair said he believes it will make insurance more affordable to those who have it and make insurance more readily available to those who need it. “These are just wonderful things that you can do,” he said.

http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2006/08/07/smallb1.html