Prasad Rajappan Managing director, Cnergyis

From production engineer to founder of a company, it has been a long journey for Prasad Rajappan, managing director of Cnergyis, a leading player in human resources, payroll and compliance solutions. What’s incredible about his story is that he still lacks HR domain knowledge. For instance, he does not understand the difference between exemption and rebate. But, then, he doesn’t need to.

Rajappan is a first-generation entrepreneur. No one in his family had ever tried his hand at business. But he learnt valuable lessons in life from his family, which enabled him to script his success story. His father taught him to shoulder responsibility. “My mother has been like Annapoorna (whose kitchen was open to anyone at any time). She taught us to help the less privileged and derive happiness from it.”

Rajappan did his schooling from Vivek Vidyalaya in Goregaon, Mumbai, and engineering from the College of Engineering, Sakharale in Sangli district, Maharashtra. He did MBA from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Why did he opt for an MBA? “Once you start working, none of your engineering skills come to use. What you do need is managerial skill,” says Rajappan.

A strange turn of events brought him into the territory of HR software. He was working in a large organisation and, as a law abiding citizen, was filing tax returns regularly through a chartered accountant friend. One day he received a notice from the income tax department and panicked.

“Terrified, I rushed to my friend for advice. Unperturbed, he gave me a form and asked me to sign it. He refused to explain the situation to me and said he would take care of everything.”

This incident acted as an eye-opener for Rajappan. He realised that he might have been overreacting but the fact remained that a literate person like him was also ignorant and dependent on a third party. “This was what motivated me to start a venture that would educate citizens on tax obligations and opportunities.”

This gave birth to www.File MyReturns.com. His vision was to teach citizens about their tax obligations in a simple manner and help them take informed decisions. From tax returns, he gradually diversified to payroll, HR and compliance. Today Cnergyis is one of the pioneers in end-to-end HR, payroll, income tax and a compliance software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider in the country.

Rajappan was working at Reliance in the SAP department when he decided to start FileMyReturns. Leaving a well-cushioned job for an uncertain future must have been a tough decision for him as well as his family. “Without the support of my father and my wife I would not be where I am today,” he says.

“Initially I got hold of two-three friends and started an office from the small drawing room at my house.” From there, after a few months, the “office” moved to a small chawl in the neighbourhood and gradually to a larger office in Mumbai in a year’s time. “We have now grown to three offices in Mumbai, one each in Bangalore, Delhi and Pune as well as representative offices in Chennai and Hyderabad.”

Rajappan believes that one should first listen to one’s heart rather than the head. “I value attitude more than skills and believe that one can win hearts with a smile.” He looks up to Swami Vivekananda for his contribution to society, Dhirubhai Ambani for thinking big, thinking ahead and achieving the impossible, and the Tata Group for their ethics.

He feels there is huge potential for growth in this industry. “The outsourcing industry will continue to boom,” he says. “The HR outsourcing market is just beginning to expand. This means that more than 90 per cent of the potential is yet to be explored.”

Rajappan believes that perseverance, aspirations and creating value for all stakeholders and society at large are the key ingredients of his success. “The focus of our business is to create value for our customers by defining and implementing good HR governance processes as well as practices.”

It’s generally believed that one should have an active social life beyond work in order to savour life. But this man believes otherwise. “I work more to unwind and destress. My belief is that whatever you enjoy doing helps you destress.” Otherwise, he takes his wife and two kids for a drive-in show.

“Impatience is both my strength and my weakness,” says Rajappan. It is this which makes him settle for nothing other than the best. The best, according to him, is yet to come. For Rajappan, this is just the beginning. He has a long, long way to go.

Based on a conversation with Devlina Ganguly in Calcutta