Gujarat Government signs MOU with Entigrity, Commits upto INR 150 Crore Investment
Entigrity is a global leader in outsourcing for accounting firms across North America and the United Kingdom. On 20th June, 2022, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Gujarat under its IT/ITES policy 2022-27.
As part of the Government's IT/ITeS policy 2022-27, under this MOU, the company intends to generate an upwards of 3,000 employment opportunities across Gujarat and invest upto INR 150 crores in the coming 3 to 5 years. The MoU was signed in the presence of the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Gujarat, Bhupendrabhai Patel. Vijay Nehra, Secretary of the State Department of Science and Technology along with Entigrity CEO, Shalin Parikh and COO, Valay Parikh attended the signing ceremony.
Through this MoU, Entigrity joins the State Government in bolstering its efforts to assist the Information Technology sector, empower youth through ICT skills, and position Gujarat as a preferred location for global knowledge workforce and industry.
Shalin Parikh, Founder and CEO of Entigrity said, "Government of Gujarat's IT and ITES policy initiative, under the leadership of Bhupendrabhai Patel, will really boost investment & enable the whole ecosystem to grow. Gujarat will immensely benefit from these policies and we are happy that we have been selected among the Top 3 companies to sign an MOU to strengthen the government's efforts. These policies will really help companies like ours in building infrastructure, hiring right talent and being more globally competitive. Our aim is to go to tier 2 cities of Gujarat and set up our offices there and generate progressive employment opportunities for the youth of these cities."
Started in December 2015 with 4 team members in a short span of 6 years, Entigrity has grown to more than 1250 employees, with offices in 6 different cities of India. Entigrity also has offices in Houston, TX and Toronto, ON. With its main office in Ahmedabad, in the coming years, the company plans to expand its presence to cities such as Rajkot, Baroda and Surat. Entigrity hired almost 700 people during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and grew by more than 100% in the last two years.
Shalin further says, "We have completely bootstrapped our business from scratch to scale and have never raised any funding from Investors or VC's, and we would love to remain that way. We have had several investment offers over the years, however, our focus has been to grow profitably while prioritizing employee welfare and client satisfaction. Our core strength is our team."
Entigrity focuses on 3Es for every Entigritian i.e. Enhance, Empower and Elevate.
#enhance - continuous upskilling amongst its employees by providing quality training and development all the while upholding its core values
#empower - providing the right platform and environment for growth and development of each team member.
#elevate - all the Sr. Management positions at Entigrity are being held by employees who have grown and elevated in their career at Entigrity. Entigrity believes in elevating their homegrown talent to all senior and leadership position as they have given the sweat and blood in building the foundation.
In a short journey of less than 75 months, Entigrity has hired 800+ CA dropouts and have thereby provided them with progressive career opportunities. They intend to continue their endeavor and provide opportunities to those dropouts and individuals who have unfortunately failed in their CA exams. Providing such opportunities would result in gainful employment creation, because these candidates, who failed in their CA careers often don't get the kind of opportunity that they truly deserve. In most cases, if one is not able to clear the CA exams, the opportunities and growth in the job market for such a student would be significantly lower compared to one who has become a chartered accountant. The knowledge and skills gained by them during their articleship and while preparing for their exams is what is far more valuable in the eyes of the company rather than just a title or degree. As far as statistics are concerned, there are more than 5 Lakh semi-qualified/dropped out CA aspirants in the market struggling for a gainful opportunity. In this video, Shalin Parikh has shared the story of his friend Arun and how he struggled pursuing his career of Chartered Accountancy. (Here is a link)
Not only that, but Entigrity also provides sponsorship to all its staff members if they wish to pursue CPA (Certified Public Accounting) or EA (Enrolled Agent) program while working with the company.
Elaborating on the same, Shalin says, "We want to reach out to this pool of talent who have dropped out of CA exams because of various reasons, financial, social or otherwise, so that we can break the stigma around these dropped out CA aspirants and provide more advantageous and progressive working opportunities. I believe they deserve better job opportunities and financial growth considering the amount of hard work they have done in preparing for their CA exams and the knowledge they have gained by working in a CA firm for 2 to 3 years. We at Entigrity, respect hardwork and knowledge over any title or degree."
Speaking about their plans to scale the business, Valay Parikh, COO and Co-founder said, "We plan to hire more than 3,000 professionals in the state of Gujarat in the next 3 to 5 years across multiple cities. Apart from expanding our operation in Ahmedabad, we will be opening up our offices in Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, thereby generating direct employment of 3,000+ professionals in the state of Gujarat. With this increased hiring, we would continuously increase our investment in expanding our Infrastructure, building state-of-the-art research and development centers, continuously upgrade our learning and development infrastructure, expand our investment in technology and cybersecurity capacities, especially in the area of Automation, Robotics and Edtech, to cater our clients. We plan to invest between 100 and 150 crores in the state of Gujarat in the next 3 to 5 years. Our focus would be to provide economic and job opportunities to the youth of Tier 2 cities of Gujarat so they don't have to migrate to Pune, Bangalore or Hyderabad and they get the same opportunities in their hometown."
The company has also taken great efforts to give back to the community and support the less fortunate. They started with an Initiative in March 2022 called the "1 Child Education Support for 1 Employee" wherein they support the complete education of 1 underprivileged child for every employee they recruit. With a target to support more than a thousand children before the end of 2022 and a double of that by the end of 2023, this MoU will go a long way in aiding Entigrity's goal.