One of India's fastest growing management consulting firms: Whyte

18 September 2020 Consultancy.in

Whyte, a young consulting firm based in Gurgaon, has been named India’s top emerging startup at the annual Entrepreneur India Awards. The award recognises Whyte’s stellar growth since inception, growing from scratch to a team of some 25 consultants in just 24 months.

This year was the 10th edition of the Entrepreneur India Awards – which recognises “business heroes” that have innovative ideas and take them forward. The theme for this year’s event – held on zoom – was ‘Entrepreneurship in the Digital Era,’ and Whyte came away with the title of Best Emerging Start-up.

Since its establishment in 2018, Whyte has emerged among the fastest growing management consulting firms in India. The firm had signed its first Fortune 500 client within a few months of launching, and had amassed 10 global clients by April 2019. By September the same year the firm registered a fully owned subsidiary in the UK, while revenues surpassed the $1 million mark at the start of this year. In the 2020 financial year, Whyte has so far clocked year-on-year growth of 600%.

Part of the firm’s success can be attributed to the relevance of its services, which fall largely within the business consulting, project management and managed services spheres. Customer experience management, change implementation, governance & reporting, business transformation and robotic process automation all fall within this scope.

Also key to success has been the team, which now comprises some 25 professionals, many of which have previously been C-Suite members. Whyte’s founders – Souman Mukherjee, Tanu Kamra, and Ashtaka Sharma – all bring to the table substantial experience in leadership, organisation and project delivery, among others.

One of India's fastest growing management consulting firms: Whyte

Mukherjee has more than two decades of management consulting experience across sectors. This includes a spell at public services firm Serco, where he grew into the role of General Manager for transitions and business transformations. Before founding Whyte, he was Practice Head for Programmes & Management Consulting at Intelenet Global Services.

Kamra and Sharma are both former colleagues of Mukherjee at Intelenet Global Services, and have a long-standing professional relationship with him as a result. Kamra was a business analyst at Aon Hewitt before joining Intelenet – where she was a Transformational Consultant specialising in customer satisfaction and retention. Sharma was also at Serco for a spell before joining Intelenet and becoming a Managing Consultant. His expertise lies in financial control, project planning, budget estimation and operational consulting.

Also on board with the leadership team are Dibyendu Das – who is acting as a Partner – and Rohit Tuli who is a Managing Consultant. Das is a tech and business transformation expert, and advises Whyte’s clients on operational solutions such as six sigma and other performance models. Tuli also has a background in business transformation, and is familiar with regulatory change implementations.

Leadership and consulting team aside, the firm has more than 20 independent contractors on its roster and access to over 100 digital and management consultants through its channel partners. In the next three years, Whyte wants to grow its own team of professionals to a headcount of over 200, in tandem with growth in the business.

Whyte points out that the management consulting market in India – particularly in the digital-focused space – is dominated by well established large consultancies. As a startup in this competitive landscape, the firm has the opportunity to take on a challenger profile. This, combined with the broad demand for digital services – is expected to drive growth at the firm.

Whyte expects to be growing at a compound annual growth rate of more than 100% over the next three years, taking into account normalisation, client saturation and market maturity.