Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business consulting but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Mahesh Natarajan, Co-Founder of Ingress Global Consulting, LLP., located in New York, NY, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I run a new-age management consulting firm – Ingress Global Consulting (IGC LLP). We are headquartered in India, with a presence in multiple cities and clients across the globe. Our goal is to solve our society's and its constituents' challenges by inspiring change and innovation.

Our customers vary from Federal & State Government agencies and Corporates to SMEs and Startups across growth segments aligned to our multi-line of business, such as:

  • Economic Development Advisory (EDA)- Investment & Trade Promotion, Corporate cross-border expansions, and Go-to-market strategy execution.
  • Technology Consulting- Digital transformation, Intelligent enterprises, comprehensive cloud strategies.
  • Startup Advisory- Acceleration, cross-border innovation, mentorship & fundraising.
  • Government & Transaction Advisory (G&TA) – Policy advocacy, Government process transformation, Capacity building.
  • Business Transformation Strategy (BXT) - Talent, Process, Sales, Operations, Sustainability & ESG.

For instance, as part of EDA, we have been effectively able to craft investment and trade promotion strategies and solutions to Government agencies across India, USA, Canada, Europe & SE Asia and realize value through inward foreign direct investment/trade attraction in their geographies.

We leverage our intelligent cross-border suite- FDI 360, for devising data-driven insights for the Economic Development Boards or Investment/Trade promotion agencies for their better decision-making capabilities. It’s powered by a robust analytical engine enabling corporates to make informed decisions about their selection of regions & sites, country-wise benchmarking, and comprehensive market research to gauge their strategies and priorities meritoriously for their global expansion needs.

Through our BXT practice, we focus on reimagining more straightforward solutions to solve real-world problems where we partner with our clients to gauge the root cause of their critical challenges and ascertain its KPIs, and then deliver the gap assessments, tools, and frameworks necessary to address those gaps and maintain strategic alignment, ensuring the desired goal is achieved.

We have also been extensively working and helping an extensive network of thriving startups from India, South Korea, and Germany, helping turn their ideas into successful business models and running cross-border startup exchange programs for these startups across different growth drivers.

Tell us about yourself

Before starting up my own business, I worked with a government department in India for a couple of years, followed by my enriching stints in the private sector with an IT major and a Big 4 consulting firm, respectively. My focus as a founder of a management consulting firm is always on being able to deliver tangible outcomes to our clients or end consumers while navigating through the execution of our target strategy.

My genuine passion lies in knowing any challenge/problem at hand at its best with all the specific and practical details before spotlighting a solution. This has helped me to drive the imperative of reimagining the simple, distinct & possible solutions involving people, process, technology, and innovation across IGC in a striking way.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I think one of my most significant accomplishments as a business owner so far is building IGC as a “Go-to-Firm” for several international Government agencies, corporates, Industry Leaders, and Startups.

This has been broadly possible because of the right mix of our young and passionate workforce and all the partners who believed in a shared vision and came aboard with their expertise and competencies. I feel satisfied to have achieved this milestone in over two years, and now we are all set to take the elevator straight from here to the next there.

I am also contented to be nominated as the Global Expert Panel for NIPA, the National IT promotion agency under the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of South Korea. This program aims to assist South Korean startups operating in deep tech, extended reality, medical non-invasive techniques, green technology, etc., to scale up globally.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

I believe that you can’t do everything and cannot be everywhere after a particular time in your journey when you want to grow your company progressively and be a successful business owner. But when your business is your passion, you tend to ignore boundaries and end up doing a lot of many things, in turn reducing the amount of effort and time to be dedicated or concentrated on more significant priorities and necessities of your company, like tackling market uncertainty, growing competition, critical business decisions, growth strategies, etc.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Focus more on being present than perfect. You may be going through a series of strenuous difficulties and failures on a day-to-day basis within your business from day 1, which may even start appearing to be held in an awful state than anything or anywhere else after a few months or years of operation. If you stay strong, vigilant, and diligent during this process, you slowly start learning and realizing the better ways that work for you and those that won’t work, paving the way for an upward variance of success in your journey.
  2. Know your market universe well- You need to stay laser-focused on your market developments to deliver like a change catalyst and derive value to your customers early, efficiently, and effectively.
  3. Stay strong with your feet on the ground and head in the sky - Be Humble and realistic while you plan and hold your incredible vision. Last but not least, keep the degree of your determination & efforts always more significant than the urge to quit due to whatever scenarios you are going through.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website:
https://ingressgc.com/
https://intellikart.in/
https://www.skscleantech.in/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maheshnatarajan2017/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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