From a base team of 6 to 1000+ bees in a data hive
A humbling experience for everyone at Tredence. The journey started back in 2013 with just six brave hearts in a three-bedroom apartment in Bangalore with a vision to build a break-away analytics company.
LIFE at Tredence
Exceptional people doing
extraordinary things
Fast-forward to day
We have a footprint that spans across 6 countries and 10 offices worldwide full of life and purposeful innovation. We take immense pride in attracting some of the best talents in the data analytics industry – the most brilliant set of minds on the planet, in our honest opinion.
The growth of a company in terms of revenue is imminent when the solutions resonate with clients. But it is the culture that makes the difference in attracting and retaining the right talent. Fortunately, Tredence had taken an employee-first approach right from when we were a small team, and the camaraderie from the team pushed the management to go that extra mile.
Shub Bhowmick, Shashank Dubey & Sumit Mehra co-founded Tredence in 2013 with the vision to put meaningful analytics into the hands of every decision-maker through simple solutions that enable the last mile adoption of insights.
During a casual interaction, one of the founders recalled a particular instance that became a precursor to the culture that was about to grow within Tredence. He said, “During the initial start-up phase, we had to delay the salaries of employees due to certain reasons, but eventually we’d paid them off with an additional 5% as compensation for the delay. After which, one of our employees walked up to us and said that if we’d considered them as a family, we’d have not paid the additional amount; that’s the kind of bond we share here at Tredence.”
So how did we grow from 6 to 1000+ people in just 8 years? It’s a story that was weaved by many who consider Tredence to be their own. Persistent in doing the right thing where everyone is a mini entrepreneur in their own way.
We spoke to a few of our colleagues across different timelines to get a perspective – what we learned was truly astounding. We are calling it, The Bee’s Knees effect – setting and maintaining a high standard in all our endeavors.
During a casual interaction, one of the founders recalled a particular instance that became a precursor to the culture that was about to grow within Tredence. He said, “During the initial start-up phase, we had to delay the salaries of employees due to certain reasons, but eventually we’d paid them off with an additional 5% as compensation for the delay. After which, one of our employees walked up to us and said that if we’d considered them as a family, we’d have not paid the additional amount; that’s the kind of bond we share here at Tredence.”
So how did we grow from 6 to 1000+ people in just 8 years? It’s a story that was weaved by many who consider Tredence to be their own. Persistent in doing the right thing where everyone is a mini entrepreneur in their own way.
We spoke to a few of our colleagues across different timelines to get a perspective – what we learned was truly astounding. We are calling it, The Bee’s Knees effect – setting and maintaining a high standard in all our endeavors.
Our culture starts with you
Setting a very high-quality standard
Mallikarjuna Reddy
Senior Director - Customer Success
Vision they say is contagious when you have the right people with the drive to take risks and share the rewards.
Tredence was no different, recalls Mallikarjuna Reddy (Senior Director - Customer Success), the'007' (his employee number) of Tredence who had joined the company in 2014. Before Tredence, he was working with an analytics company that was already in the growth phase, hustling hard to build a reputation for himself. But, deep down, he was raring to build something from scratch and be a part of an entrepreneurial journey – after all, he says, he was young , and it was the time to take the risk.
So, how did Tredence happen for Malli? Not that he was actively looking for a change! He fondly recollects having a casual chat with Shashank (one of the founders), who was also his colleague in the previous company. The one thing that stood out during the conversation was the vision Shashank explained in terms of solutions they envisioned for their clients - the 'Last-mile Adoption'of analytics. This conversation drew Malli to consider the opportunity and his connection with the Vision of Tredence.
He says the rest is history. From the initial roller-coaster year of hiring good and bad resources, learning from and making mistakes, to solving client problems and delivering what we had promised. We have come a long way from being a 'Service Provider' to a 'Thought Leader' – he signs off.
Dominic Fernando
Senior Manager – Analytics Delivery
"A leader can take a company to the pinnacle of its success or drive it to complete oblivion. Can a company survive without proper Leadership?"
Dominic Fernando (Senior Manager – Analytics Delivery) recalls having an offer from 'Google' (back in 2014) – a lucrative one- and a chance to work with one of the best companies in the world. An electronics and communication engineer by education - problem-solving has always been his first love.
Dominic remembers receiving a call from one of the co-founders who had set up a tête-à-tête in a coffee shop at 7 PM on a Friday. With nothing to lose (Hey, he already had a tempting offer in hand!), he went ahead with the discussion, thinking it will be over in 30 minutes and that he can join his friends for an evening drink.
The conversation went on late into the evening, well past the coffee shop’s closing time. At the end of their chat, he received a questionnaire (which is when he realized the casual chat was to make him comfortable before the interview) and was asked to fill it out the same night and send it back. After clearing the subsequent two rounds he opted for Tredence instead of Google, and thus became the 16 th employee @Tredence.
But wait! Aren't we talking about Leadership in this segment? Dominic, when asked, gave a zen-like response. He says an organization, in his opinion, is not just that few people on the top, narrow part of the pyramid – it is about the collective ownership taken by everyone within to catapult the organization to the next phase.
Tredence operated as a differentiator in that sense - he says. Everyone was an entrepreneur with a similar line of thought, driven by the same resilience and dogged determination. People took ownership of not just their projects but pretty much everything that was needed to build an organization from scratch. The primary goal was and is to deliver our work with the utmost perfection as there was no room for error – at the time, we could not afford to lose a single client.
Dominic wraps this talk with a simple sentence "Tredence provides that opportunity for everyone to be a leader in their sense, be it analytics, support functions, or anything you wish to do within the organization - everyone is a mini-CEO here"!
Bhavya Kohli
Manager - Analytics
"Learning never exhausts our mind, and the Development happens organically due to a continuous learning process."
Bhavya Kohli (Manager - Analytics) joined Tredence (in 2016) when the company strength was around 100 employees. She says everyone knew each other, and the senior management was super approachable (even now they are – she said excitedly!).
Bhavya was in Bangalore and fondly recollected the approach from the management in terms of Learning and Development (L&D). The L&D seed was sown organically at Tredence by giving the freedom to experiment and learn while working on different projects. She says managers were highly approachable and were willing to teach at every step.
Bhavya was determined to learn and develop her career, so she had enrolled for an MBA with ISB and even received her admissions. However, she decided to defer entry by a year in order to work on some exciting projects at Tredence that immensely added to her skillset. Five years on, she did not take up ISB; instead, she moved to the US to a more client-facing role and continues to enjoy her exposure to learn and grow.
Simi Kalsi
Manager - TALL
Simi Kalsi (Manager – TALL*), on the other hand, was the first person recruited (in 2018) to formalize the Learning and Development program. With an employee strength of around 150-175 people, Tredence was specific about equipping everybody with the right skillset and addressing professional growth needs – she recollects.
The need to start the learning and development initiatives was a growing ask from Tredencians to understand the analytics industry better, improve their skills, and service clients. Simi was initially involved in recruitment and a few ad-hoc projects within. But soon, she got a free hand to experiment with the various L&D initiatives for the entire company. She says this freedom of trial and error helped her construct programs that allowed our analysts to be abreast of the latest technologies.
Today, apart from the technical L&D program, Tredence has introduced the Harvard ManageMentor and the Everest program (like an MBA) for Assistant Managers and Managers to help them grow professionally. Apart from these, there are a plethora of courses available on the L&D platform; the 'You Learn We Pay' option is beneficial for someone looking to enhance their knowledge.
Simi smiles and says everyone is approachable in this organization, which helped her, and the team devise the right program resonating with the personal ethos of individuals.
*TALL – Tredence Academy for Learning and Leadership
Shashikiran PB
Vice President – Supply Chain
"Transformation is the key for both an individual and a company to grow - a continuous and ever- evolving process."
Such was the case for Shashikiran PB (Vice President – Supply Chain), who joined Tredence in 2016 when the organization had about 85 Tredencians.
After working with i-flex, Miebach Consulting, Amazon, and Chai Point and a brief stint as a freelance consultant, he became aware of Tredence through Linkedin connects, who referred him to Malli and Shashank. He smiles, and quips that his interview process was a little odd, but very interesting. What intrigued him the most, was the final assessment round; he was involved in a brainstorming exercise on a live engagement that
went on for about 4 hours over two days - "I knew then and there that it would be an action-packed life from day one and I loved the prospect of it."
Between 2016 and 2018, while working on multiple projects and client accounts, he realized that the clients were brutally honest in conveying to us during our sales pitches that we weren't necessarily "selling" too well. However, they saw a unique value addition from Tredence: its impressive and smart talent pool who understood the pain points as if it was their own, and most importantly, not being salesey, but delivery focused.
An interesting anecdote he recollects is a client telling him once, "The quality of your work is worth more than three times the amount you have billed us - That made my day. The joy of being given this compliment for work was all-gratifying, and the actual prospect of billing three times more never occurred to us."
Transformation is the key to growth; he says he was going strong workwise and was getting the recognition he deserved. However, he was itching to start a supply chain practice (his first love!) within Tredence. A first for any analytics services firm in the industry. When he approached the founders with the idea, it was welcomed with open arms, and the team was started from ground zero. Brick by brick it was built, one person at a time and one project at a time.
Today, more than 100 Tredencians work on Analytics and Consulting engagements connected with the Supply Chain and Manufacturing practice. This growth has been possible primarily due to the rigor and attention to detail that Tredence brings to its work. The growth has been almost entirely organic, with clients taking the lead in engaging us for more work or referring us to their network of contacts.
"This story has just started. We are now entering the second phase of this journey which is even more exciting and will be at a much bigger scale" he says, with nervous enthusiasm.
Jon Barron
Senior Manager – HRBP
"Tredence has been entrepreneurial right from the time it was started and continues to uphold that ethos. Transparency becomes a critical element to empower resources."
Jon Barron (Senior Manager – HRBP, North America) joined Tredence in 2018. He was working in executive search and was referred to Shub, who at the time was looking for a recruiting consultant to help fill open positions across the US. The leadership team recognized the need to have someone internally who could help establish the culture and identity of the Chicago office and brought Jon on as a full-time employee.
Jon Barron (Senior Manager – HRBP, North America) joined Tredence in 2018. He was working in executive search and was referred to Shub, who at the time was looking for a recruiting consultant to help fill open positions across the US. The leadership team recognized the need to have someone internally who could help establish the culture and identity of the Chicago office and brought Jon on as a full-time employee.
Jon says he did not feel he was part of a hierarchical company as he was given the freedom to decide and own the outcomes. The honesty and transparency from the Leadership were unparalleled, which motivated him to work on initiatives as if it were his own company.
The trust set in early at Tredence, and Jon mentioned that any scaling-up company requires its people to don multiple hats. He was thrown into numerous challenges without an iota of doubt, given the opportunity to interact with and engage all the employees across the US, traveled to recruit great people, and provided the platform to utilize his strengths.
During the last three years, he has seen the company grow to a sizable number from approximately 34 to over 120 today. He attributes this to transparent management and the autonomy given to every employee in the company.
Thu Nguyen
Senior Associate
"Learning from peers is one of the best ways to develop mastery over any subject."
People and culture have been the focal point for Tredence since its inception. The challenging aspect for any company on a growth trajectory is to preserve a fantastic group of peers. Thu Nguyen (Senior Associate), Jiangtao Xie (Senior Associate), and Elliot Huebler (Associate) share exciting aspects of their journey within Tredence, the peer group, and the culture in general.
Their journey started almost around the same time in 2019. Thu Nguyen, a native of Vietnam, was doing her Master's in Business Analytics from the Oklahoma state university. Towards the end of her course, she was interning with a healthcare major and could have joined them post-course completion.
Jiangtao Xie
Senior Associate
However, her quest to work on a different project led her to appear for a campus interview with Tredence. The interview process was fun and kind of a brain teaser, unlike the other one she had attended—that is how her journey started at Tredence.
The openness between the peer groups was astounding, in Thu's opinion. Jiangtao Xie (Fondly known as JT – coined by her client) had a similar experience and found that the peer group was not just supportive but also highly knowledgeable. JT is from China and was finishing her MS in Business Analytics from Purdue University. Her drive to join Tredence was due to multiple factors – one being the warmth showcased by her peers during and after the interview which encouraged her to take the plunge. JT sums up (with a big smile) by saying Tredence knows how to be a good company, one of its biggest differentiators.
Elliot Huebler
Senior Associate
Elliot Huebler, on the other hand, has an exciting story. He did not start out to be a data scientist; he studied physics and astronomy and thought he would be an astronomer one day. Elliot chanced upon analytics and enrolled himself with another training company to learn the various nuances of the field. He got hired by a third party and had to finish a stringent training process to get into Tredence. Elliot eventually got into the payroll of Tredence and is now part of the Data Engineering practice. He feels his journey since 2019 has been exciting primarily because of the culture within Tredence. It is fun, collaborative, and the peers are hungry to explore new avenues.
All three had one thing in unison to say: the peer group and the culture of helping one another positions Tredence as a path breaker when compared to other companies. They felt, though the company is growing in size, the operational methodology is of a small company, the hierarchy is very flat, and everyone is very approachable.
Changa Reddy
Senior Director - Data Engineering
"The Wright brothers gave us all wings - had they not collaborated, the dream to fly would have been pushed by many years."
On this topic, we spoke with Changa Reddy (Senior Director - Data Engineering), who joined Tredence in 2019 and had come from a strong technology consulting background. Changa's interest was more towards building capabilities in emerging areas to solve complex business problems with the highest impact on the top and bottom line. He considered growing capabilities as his meter for success.
Changa had spent a good number of years in Technology Consulting and was not particularly looking to shift jobs before joining Tredence.
The exciting part was not the reason for the offer – to increase the footprint of the Data Engineering business – rather his conversations with different people in the Tredence leadership team. One that resonated well for Changa was the kind of energy that was visible across the board.
He said that the last 18 months had been difficult to sustain any business, leaving alone growing it. As a practice, Technology practice within Tredence has achieved significant growth, from a 55 to 60 member team to a robust 200+ member team, and this was possible only due to the organization's collaborative culture, entrepreneurial spirit, and continued focus on pursuing excellence in everything we do.
Changa finds people at Tredence highly competent, the best in the industry, and committed to a common goal of taking Tredence to the next level by focusing on clients. He sign-offs saying the opportunity to grow a business and own it like your own is the most convincing aspect at Tredence that makes you come to work every day.
Bhaskar Seetharaman
Senior Director - Supply Chain
"At Tredence, we believe how people work or want to work is unique and personal to them."
Something that we hold close to our hearts is flexibility. We believe that time and space, when given to someone, directly impact their quality of work. On this topic, Bhaskar Seetharaman – (Senior Director - Supply Chain) shared a few anecdotes. He had joined the organization in 2019 while the supply chain practice was expanding, as it was a new vertical within Tredence.
As per the initial plans, Bhaskar was supposed to move to the USA due to a strategic fitment. His relocation meant Tredence would have someone on the ground managing the supply chain practice, meeting clients, and solving their problems.
But Bhaskar's wife happened to get a job at a UK-based pharmaceutical company which put him in a dilemma.
Bhaskar decided to approach the senior management to consider moving him to the UK instead of the US, which he thought would be seen as a pushback. But to his surprise, the management was open to the idea and willing to consider his move to the UK, provided the market was scoped a little to understand the actual business potential.
However, the focus was to accommodate Bhaskar's request and check if the European market had the potential – two arrows in one shot. Bhaskar ended up doing a few meetings in the next month or so, operating from India. The result of those meetings was beyond convincing for Tredence to accommodate his request.
Bhaskar summarizes that 'Focus on Reality' and an 'Employee-Centric' approach led to Tredence expanding its services to the European region. Had they not been flexible, I would have gone ahead with the US opportunity, probably disgruntled, which was not the case, thankfully – he signs off.
Tredence has been at the cusp of many things since its journey as a start-up began way back in 2013. One thing had led to another, and amazing stories blossomed along the way.
These are just a few of the many anecdotes on the overall culture of our organization. There are many more that hold the fort at Tredence. In a journey to reach 1000, the learning has been immense, and we are sure the next 1000 will come quickly. We anticipate upholding the same values and amplifying them as we progress towards growth.
The first 1000+ is dedicated to all your hard work. Onto the next 1000! Let’s continue building great things.
Thank you
Tredence Inc.
Tredence has been at the cusp of many things since its journey as a start-up began way back in 2013. One thing had led to another, and amazing stories blossomed along the way.
These are just a few of the many anecdotes on the overall culture of our organization. There are many more that hold the fort at Tredence. In a journey to reach 1000, the learning has been immense, and we are sure the next 1000 will come quickly. We anticipate upholding the same values and amplifying them as we progress towards growth.
The first 1000+ is dedicated to all your hard work. Onto the next 1000! Let’s continue building great things.
Thank you
Tredence Inc.
