It all started in 2015, when Sheetal and Sudeip commissioned a market research agency to assess the potential of ‘language support services’ in the Asia Pacific Region. The research findings were an eye-opener, as the market was fragmented entirely with very few organised players in this region. They connected with many enterprise customers to understand their pain points and evaluate the scope of an organised play for a full-service language solution provider.
Many conversations later, White Globe was born in the summer of 2016. The team finalised and set up the first office in August 2016 and recruited a few team members in sales, project management and delivery. The first customer, an MNC in Pune, was signed up within a month’s operation. At the end of the first financial year (4 months operation), the start-up had signed up more than 25 customers and delivered more than 1 million translated words.
The year 2017 was foundational, wherein the White Globe team came into their reckoning and got featured amongst the ‘Top 10 LSP’s’ in the region. They had offices at all major metros like Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Hyderabad. At the end of the financial year, they were servicing more than 150 customers and had delivered more than 100 million translated words.
The company launched the first version of its technology platform – ‘Lang Tech’ – based on AI and ML in 2017. Starting with 2018, the team got their first owned office in Pune. Soon, they were featured as one of the Most Admired LSPs in 2018 and served more than 400 customers. Amongst them was an MNC Automotive giant for whom we translated 60 million words in 6 months!
In 2019, White Globe was featured as the ‘Company of the Year’ and ended the financial year in March 2020, serving more than 600 customers and had already delivered over 650 million translated words. In addition, the company won several accolades like ‘CEO of the Year’ and others.
The pandemic hit all of us starting March 2020. The White Globe team did not waste any time to reinvent themselves and start working from their respective homes quickly. Its operating model of having its very own technology platform as an anchor for all its language experts spread across 600+ cities came in handy. Since most of the work used to happen remotely, the company quickly adjusted to the new normal and continued to deliver its projects at scale and speed.
White Globe continued its impactful journey, and for that, the company thanks its stakeholders. The company was awarded the ‘Best in Translation and Localisation-India’ by a UK agency in 2020 and featured in Slator’s List of Global Language Service Providers. Award for Most Influential Business Leaders and Influential Women Business Leaders followed in 2020.
Today, White Globe serves more than 1500 enterprise customers across 40 industry verticals in more than 350 languages. The company is slowly inching towards crossing the mark of 1 billion words translated. Its technology platform prides itself of a network of handpicked and an especially curated team of more than 75,000 language experts, 5,000+ content writers and 3,000+ voice-over artists located in 600+ cities across the globe.
Meet the Dream Team
Sheetal Ramkumar, Founder & CEO, has more than 20 years of experience in customer service, employee engagement, learning and development in giant corporations. She leads the sales, customer service, process, and quality initiatives for White Globe. She leads interactions with large customers, and under her leadership, the company has implemented six-sigma, and several quality initiatives focused on customer service and customer delight. She is an alum of MICA and SIBM and is a communication specialist.
Sudeip Kummar, Founder, has more than 25 years of experience, including a decade-long experience leading a couple of BFSI/Payments and a Tata Group company as CEO. He led these companies from the start-up stage to the growth stage, clocking revenues over INR 500 Crores and attaining profitability within three years of operation. He is leading the technology, automation, new product, and marketing initiatives for White Globe. He is an alum of ISB, Hyderabad and is a CFA (USA).
Vidya Ramadasan, Director has around 20 years experience in the corporate sector in the area of Sales, Business Operations and Customer Service. She has completed her BE Electronics and Communication Engineering and is an MBA from Carmel College, Bangalore.
Divya Chauhan, Vice President, Enterprise Sales, has more than 15 years of Enterprise Sales experience and manages Enterprise Customers for White Globe.
Vidula Dalvi, Vice President Sales, has over 20 years of experience across industries with reputed Indian and MNC brands and manages Enterprise Customers at White Globe. She is an MBAS and an alum of Sydenham’s Institute of Management studies.
Umesh Bobe, Vice President, Enterprise Sales, has more than 25 years of Enterprise Sales experience and manages enterprise customers for White Globe.
Santosh Bhavsar, Vice President, Enterprise Sales, has more than 20 years of Enterprise Sales experience and manages enterprise customers for White Globe. He is an MBA and an alum of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai
Bapan Bera, Vice President, Enterprise Sales, has more than 10 years of Enterprise Sales experience and manages enterprise customers for White Globe. He is an MBA and an alum of ITM, Mumbai
Ramakrishnan J, Vice President, has more than 15 years in service delivery in the language services industry and is head of Service Delivery.
Nilesh Chavan, Vice President, has more than ten years of experience in service delivery and manages delivery for strategic customers.
Gaurav Pandey, Vice President, has more than ten years of experience in pre-sales and product management and is head of pre-sales and product management.
Avik Majumdar, Vice President, has more than 15 years of experience in partner management and talent acquisition and is head of partner management and Lang Tal and Lang Train initiatives.
Nidhi Purohit, Vice President, has more than ten years of experience in film production, multimedia and is head of the multi-media division under the brand name ‘Alpha Hat Global’.
Venkatesh, Financial Controller, has more than ten years of experience in accounting and finance and is the Financial Controller at White Globe.
Distinguished Offerings
White Globe provides translation, interpretation, and localisation services to enterprise customers across various domains. It has assisted many corporates in translating their technical, patent, legal and business documents. In addition, the company provides interpretation services including simultaneous, consecutive, over-the-phone, video-remote, and call centre, etc.
The company has assisted many enterprise customers and e-learning companies in localising their content. It has also localised websites of many leading corporates in multiple languages. In addition, it has an API that enables seamless connection with any learning management system (LMS) or content management system (CMS).
“We are a leading multilingual multimedia service provider, having delivered corporate video’s, corporate policy videos and animated content in multiple languages,” announced the proud CEO – Sheetal Ramkumar.
Till date, the company has handled many sub-titling assignments, dubbing/voice-over, etc. It offers pre-production, production, and post-production services for digital, audio, and video content in more than 150 languages. (Its pool of voice-over artists is located across the Globe. The company can deliver multilingual voice-over projects with the help of its many tie-ups with leading studios across multiple locations to offer customised services.)
Vision
White Globe’s vision is to be amongst the top three global language services providers offering the highest quality translation, interpretation and localisation services to its customers and partner them in localising and globalising their business.
Mission
White Globe’s mission is to provide the highest quality translation, interpretation, and localisation services to its customers such that they receive superior value by removing all language and cultural barriers and grow globally, while its employees and business partners will be proud and share their success.
Enduring Hardships and Rising Above
There are many challenges one faces in the initial years as you set up the business. Getting talent and nurturing them is tough. Being bootstrapped puts a spanner in the wheels whenever a few large customers delay payment. In the beginning, many times, the assignment came to us when an established player in Europe or the America refused to deliver within the timeline and the budget. “Challenges were thrown at us, like a carrot and we were told – ‘Prove Yourself,’ and so we did,” noted the Founder,- Sudeip Kummar.
Standing Apart
“We firmly believe that implementing various technological initiatives will become one of the key differentiators for us,” noted the Founder – Sudeip Kummar. “We continuously scan the market and the industry to understand the latest technological trends and evaluate use cases to consider its implementation. In addition, we have a panel of Tech Savvy Advisors who continuously advise on the latest technological trends and possible adoption by us,” he added.
White Globe firmly believes that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will play a crucial role in the language service provider industry in the future. The company has already embarked on the journey of leveraging the power of AI and ML across all its service portfolio and its Translation Management System, Translation Memory and Analytics Platform. The platform is one of its kind, with seamless integration of workflows, CAT Tools, and Customer Interfaces.
“With an accent on continuously improving the user and customer experience, we review all our workflows and automation periodically,” added Sudeip Kummar.
The Fabulous Work-culture
White Globe has an extremely vibrant and lively culture. It is made up of some crazy mavericks who get bored without being challenged. The company fosters collaboration and continuous learning amongst its team members. Being a quintuple ISO Certified organisation, its processes are very well documented. Any recruit spends two weeks going through the processes and formal induction to onboard her/him in the company.
Celebrating festivals is a way of life at White Globe. There is some festive occasion in some part of the world every alternate day amongst the cross-cultural network of language experts located across 600+ cities.
The company is highly performance-driven and has several examples within the company of growth in careers. The practice of ‘rewards and recognition’ has benefitted the organisation in nurturing talent and building the future leadership pipeline to cater to the expected growth.
“We have an excellent Management Trainee Program, and each year we recruit about 10 Management Trainees from Engineering and Business Schools. The cohorts from the last two years are already responsible Managers, and we have had no attrition amongst these young professionals,” added Vidya Ramadasan.
The Future Awaits!
Where growth can be the only motto to stay in the race, White Globe has already begun its international expansion in about ten countries with representative offices across Europe, the Americas, Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It already has a studio set-up for post-production services for multilingual content in Mumbai and Pune and would expand in the southern part of the country. The company is expanding its portfolio rapidly, and many new services like multilingual technical writing, SEO-ready content creation in multiple languages, language support for conversational AI have already been launched.
Word to the Wise
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome! This was an illustrious company’s most significant learning during the struggling days: there are ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, don’t wait to answer every question you may have; you will figure out a lot of things as you move along in this entrepreneurial journey. Every time there is a crisis, take a deep breath and say, “we will overcome this, let’s do the most logical thing first!”
White Globe wants to say this to all aspiring entrepreneurs: “If you’re going to do something, do it! You may fail with an open mind, but you will learn and there is no fixed formula to make this work and there is no perfect setting to start something. Your customers will throw challenges at you, be ready to take a risk and give it your best shot; you will either come out as a winner or become wiser!” added Sheetal Ramkumar
