Most of us know the Indian Railways and Indian defence forces as the largest employer in the country. When it comes to the largest private-sector employer, the name of India’s mighty IT sector companies like TCS and Infosys, which hire the engineering grads from the colleges across the country, comes to mind.
However, as per official data, a lesser-known company, Quess Corp, is the largest private-sector employer in the country, ahead of IT giant TCS. TCS employs 3.56 lakh people in India while Quess Corp employs 3.85 lakh people. However, overall TCS employs 90,000 people overseas, and by that account, it is still the largest private-sector employer.
So, a lot of questions pop in our mind about Quess Corp, like- in which sector it employs people; where the company is based; who are the founders, soon and so forth.
Quess Corp. is a Bengaluru based company which employs people ranging from e-commerce delivery to facilities management at commercial buildings, to Smartphones after-sales services stores.
Companies like Samsung, Amazon outsource many jobs to Quess Corp. in order to focus on core areas. This is profitable for these companies as permanent employees are not required for many jobs and these jobs and services are an unnecessary burden for the companies. This is where the companies like Quess Corp and Teamlease steps in.
Quess provides outsourced services to companies like Reliance, Vodafone, Samsung, Amazon, Bajaj Finance, as per a report by ICRA. The company also employs 5,000 people in Singapore.
The company went for IPO in 2016 and was supported by Canada based Indian origin investor Prem Watsa, who runs Fairfax. Since then, with the availability of fresh capital, the company has grown at a rate of 38 per cent year. “This area is exploding and these grey-collar jobs now have salaries which compare with entry-level compensation in IT/ITes companies,” says Anand Lunia, a venture capitalist, who has invested in companies like Quess.
The companies like Quess employ people full time and even give provident funds, like any person employed in the formal sector. The salaries given by Quess ranges from 12,000 rupees to 40,000 rupees for grey collar jobs, which is more than the IT companies give to entry-level employees.
“Companies are focusing on their core activities, while outsourcing activities that can be done by a specialised company; Quess Corp fits in there. Companies are wary of employing full-time when they can find gigs to fill in the jobs,” said Mahesh Vyas, MD & CEO at CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy).
In the last few years, when the unemployment level set a record high, the people employed at the Quess are enjoying a stable job and social security benefits.
In the last few years, the Modi government has pushed for the formalization of economy and workforce, through steps like GST, demonetization and extension of social security benefits. Manish Sabharwal, Chairman and co-founder of Teamlease Services, has been deployed at National Skill Mission and Central Advisory Board of Education and serves on various state and central government committees on education, employment and employability, to head the formalization process of the economy and increase the employability of students.
Quess was started by Ajit Isaac (Chairman & MD) in September 2007 and went for IPO in 2016. Under the leadership, Subrata Kumar Nag- Group CEO, Quess Corp, who lead the IPO, Quess Corp became one of the highest subscribed company in the decade. The companies like Quess Corp will grow exponentially in the upcoming decade as the companies are outsourcing the trivial tasks to focus on core activities.
