Today’s thinkers have the ability to change the world. Their thoughtful actions, ability to notice a problem and understand pain, and passion to find enhanced solutions have always impacted businesses and thousands of lives in turn.
Vikas Sharma, Vice President& CEO of HCIN Networks is a thoughtful leader of today, who during his 16 years of career span in the IT and Telecom industry noticed the lack of quality network services. Employees, as well as companies, faced that, and it became the hurdles in employee productivity and in business growth. After understanding the problem Vikas, with his rich experience in the IT industry and zest to provide robust solutions, entered the network service providers’ sector.
Establishing HCIN Networks
HCIN Networks was incepted on the grounds of providing robust internet services to the corporate sector that lacked reliable services. “In last 3-4 years of my career in Telecom field, I noticed, there is huge demand for reliable and stable managed internet leased line services. The demand and supply gap seemed to grow further with only a few telecom giants providing reliable, stable and on time Enterprise bases Managed internet services,” Vikas explained.
Although the demand was huge, company faced several challenges to place a strong foot in the market in its early days. One of the biggest challenges Vikas recalled was getting the license to start providing internet services to the corporate sector.
The second challenge Vikas explained was the global pandemic that has impacted the global economy since its announcement by WHO in March 2020. When HCIN Networks started its operations in August 2019, just after six months the company had to pass the hurdles of series of lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Due to COVID-19 many businesses and establishments had to shut down while others had to opt for remote working to ensure social distancing initially due to which the company lost 30-40% of its customers. This was a huge setback for the company at the start,” Vikas shared.
However, his ambition to pass these hurdles and strongly establishes the company’s roots in the market helped Vikas find a solution to move forward. Shortly after the lockdown was imposed in India in March 2020, the company acquired La Pointe Telecom Solutions and continued its operations under HCIN Networks.
Overcoming the pandemic of challenges
Acquiring the company and finally establishing HCIN Networks was only the first hurdle that the team overcame together. What came next was the biggest challenge any business face at the start – to acquire customers’ trust.
“We were new in the market and we started providing internet services to businesses and enterprises. Establishing a brand by gaining trust in this sector was a huge challenge for us,” Vikas said.
However, HCIN Networks and its team passed the next hurdle with reliable and affordable managed internet leased line connections as well as cordial customer services to its enterprise customers. This helped the company gain its first few clients further expanding its strong roots to other sectors including IT, education, and manufacturing, and E-commerce.
Ambitious and visionary Leader
“In the last 3-4 years of career in Telecom when I was a Vice President of an ISP, I noticed multiple companies’ struggle to find reliable and stable internet leased line services,” Vikas said, “This mostly happened due to lack of niche experience and lack of smooth processes as well as delayed installation and implementation of services.”
Vikas observed the pain points and gained the necessary knowledge which later helped him in establishing HCIN Networks. Being the visionary leader, Vikas further led his team to expand the business by providing IT services along with enterprise internet connections. The company became the channel partner to various IT giants such as NTT Data to provide data centre solutions and VMWare to provide virtual solutions. The company has also been providing other IT system integration solutions to its customers.
This intelligent move of the CEO helped established the company as a preferred IT partner to various enterprises which further helped accelerate the company’s growth within a short time since its inception.
Making a mark in the market
HCIN Networks has expanded its range to provide comprehensive services to its customers. The company provides licensed services as an internet service provider in PAN India as well as an infrastructure provider to other telecom and internet giants such as Airtel and TATA.
The company also provides comprehensive IT support and system integration solutions and SD-WAN (software-defined Wide Area Network) solutions as a value addition to the company’s licensed solutions. “Through our SD-WAN solutions the companies can define internet service protocols as well as control and manage all the company locations across the globe,” explains Vikas.
The company with its SD-WAN solutions has connected 150+ locations for some of our key customers, which are among the pristine projects that have helped HCIN Networks make its mark in the industry.
Now after setting a strong foot in the enterprise space the company aims to stabilise its position for next 2-3 years so that Hicom should become synonym to reliability and quality for any company seeking IT infrastructure or managed leased line services. The company aims to venture into the retail sector during its second phase of operations which will start in October 2025. By early 2025 the company is planning to set up infrastructure to provide internet broadband services to households.
An entrepreneurial advice
“During my time in the business field as senior management personnel, what I have observed is that you should have self-confidence and belief required to take any kind of risk. If you don’t trust yourself no one will,” advises Vikas to the budding entrepreneurs. His advice comes from his decade of experience in the business world.
He further says, “You should also understand your weaknesses while keeping in mind your strengths. Observe the opportunities available and gather knowledge and expertise required to mitigate the threats and walk the path towards your goals.”
Vikas also shares his views on building the team and getting the final steps, right before you start something of your own. “Complete the SWOT analysis of what you want to achieve, what you already have, and what kind of team you want to build and customers you want to serve,” says Vikas, “Don’t just aim to be a service provider, aim to become a preferred partner to your customer.”
