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Our History


We started the Firm in 1994, with an initial cash investment of Indian INR 50,000 (USD 1,000), and a desire to provide high quality management consulting services at an affordable price.


India had just liberalised and opened up the economy. A vast number of medium sized businesses were suddenly facing severe competitive pressures. There were opportunities for some, though for many, it was a fight for survival.


The last 17 years have been more than exciting and has seen the Firm steadily growing, while India as a global nation was awakening.


The Early Years (1994 - 2000)

The Firm was incorporated in April 1994. The first project, however, commenced 3 months later on July 4th. Every year, on this day, the Firm celebrates its anniversary.

Our clients during the early years were medium sized enterprises grappling with issues of change and improvement. The early years witnessed a number of "operations improvement" projects as clients were on a cost reduction drive to be better positioned to deal with the competitive pressure resulting from liberalization.

Clients, having completed operations improvement initiatives, were closely evaluating their future strategic direction and actively began to seek the Firm's services in this area.

Our clientele expanded between 1997 and 2000. Clients were no longer just medium sized companies. A number of large clients began to engage UC.

The Firm also began to build its international experience. We were engaged on assignments overseas in North America, The Middle East, Africa and the Far East.


Post 2000

In the last decade, the world had changed beyond recognition. The dot.com crash and terrorist attacks hogged the headlines as the world was gripped in a recession.

The years were hard for many professional services firms including investment banking, management consulting, accounting and advertising to name a few. Many organizations were unwilling to incur large spends until they were convinced of value provided.

As a result of our focus on value for money consulting, the Firm was able to continue its march during these tough times. Clients who had worked closely with us in the past began to value the Firm's proposition even more and engaged the Firm to define growth strategies.

As India is now poised on the cusp of the global stage, our Firm is well positioned to help our Clients achieve their objectives.


Client Testimonial


  • “Our relationship with Universal Consulting has deepened significantly in the last 12 months. The team brings to bear a unique combination of industry knowledge, insightful thinking, ability to go deep on an industry, and capability to deliver actionable recommendations. For this I commend UC.”


    Rustom J Desai,
    President,
    Corning International India, New Delhi


  • “It has been an immense pleasure working with your extremely professional team; they are the best I have ever seen in my professional life time, believe me I have seen other top strategy consulting firms…but these guys are through, simple and excellent (and no they have not paid me to say so). I will always recommend your good company to anyone who asks me so.”


    Nichola Silveira,
    Senior Manager
    Operations Accounts,
    Jebel Ali Terminals


  • "We have extensively used Universal Consulting in many strategic assignments and always found their input and their recommendations to be of very high order both in terms of quality as well as in terms of pragmatism."


    Ashok Barat,
    Forbes & Company Limited,
    Mumbai


  • “Bunge started with a project for an Entry strategy and action plan into a new business segment in India. The work done by Universal Consulting was exhaustive, detailed and most importantly provided insight into where and how to invest as also the required scale to be cost competitive. The team worked as an extended arm of Bunge with a quick response time, 24 x7 and an attitude of   “Whatever it takes”.   As Bunge, we were delighted with the performance of Universal Consulting and have worked with them for three other projects since. They continue to deliver high quality with commitment and are cost effective.”


    Adhiraj Sarin,
    Managing Director,
    Bunge India Private Limited,
    Mumbai


  • “The dedication, devotion, sincerity and diligence displayed by the Universal Consulting team have brought in a spirit of enthusiasm and challenge among the staff.”


    Satish Adurkar,
    Former General Manager,
    Staefa Control System (Siemens),
    Dubai


  • “We engaged Universal Consulting for a market landscape and assessment initiative as well as development of an implementation plan.  Our expectations of the deliverables were quite high having worked previously with numerous strategy consulting firms.  UC more than surpassed our expectations as they provided detailed insights on facets of the market(s) that we had neglected to appreciate.

    The firm’s strength resides in their ability to interpret our ideas; develop a thorough project scope; and synthesize complex primary and secondary data.  As future projects arise, we will consider working with Universal as our strategy partner.”


    Sameer Rohatgi,
    Senior Director, Business Development,
    Helixis, Inc,
    USA


  • “The report covered all the areas, defined scope, and brings out clear recommendations for growth as well as areas where our Company should not venture into, given its core strengths. Kindly convey our appreciation to the members of the team who worked on the report with diligence.”


    SC Khanna,
    Former CEO,
    Sterlite Industries Ltd (Power Division),
    Mumbai


  • “Universal Consulting demonstrated very strong analytical work and had solid backup for data presented and techniques used. They had a good understanding of the bottlenecks in our organization and how to manage them. The team made good presentations and had a convincing style.”


    Praneet Singh,
    Former - Director (Formulations)
    Nicholas Piramal India Ltd,
    Mumbai


  • “Wolverine World Wide engaged Universal Consulting to assist in developing a growth strategy for India for seven WWW footwear brands.  The 5-module approach that UC used to conduct this engagement provided us with excellent customer, competitor, potential partner and retail assessments in a very understandable format.  Information provided was based on both ‘desk research’ and ‘in the field research’. UC performance exceeded our expectations."


    Sean Carney,
    VP International,
    Wolverine Footwear Group,
    USA


  • "Universal's approach to strategic consulting is grounded in reality; they do not talk down to you from a different domain. Their desire to continually engage you as a client helps in making their advice more implementable."


    Carlton Pereira,
    Former Director,
    Ambit Corporate Finance,
    Mumbai