It is more accurate to say that Quest evolved rather than to say that I founded it. It operates with a single minded focus of being driven by customers. The core purpose at Quest is to never say no to customer and make it happen. Here is the story of Quest's evolution.

After getting a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Madras University, I joined Voltas Ltd., a Tata company, as an engineer. Early on in my stint here, I discovered a way by which I could complete a task in 2 days that took my colleague a whole month, every month. I figured this out using energy principles. This encouraged me to explore further into this idea, to get things done with very little resources and time, using principles found in nature. I called it effectiveness as different from efficiency. And I realized that what we do is infinitely more critical than how we do whatever we do. The repeated application of these concepts over the next 45 years made it evolve and become a whole – this is what we practice and preach today.

After Voltas, I joined IBM and applied these principles in my work in the next 8 years. Apart from receiving a double promotion, my performance was consistently rated amongst the best for 8 years in a row! This is when I knew that the application of energy principles works even in large global companies. When IBM shut down its operations in India over a government regulation, I moved on to another company. Here, for the first time in my life, I encountered a situation where the company operated to benefit the chairman more than its customers. Realizing that this approach was not sustainable, I decided to explore other opportunities.

At that time the Baroda Productivity Council (BPC) approached me to take over as its executive director. In the 9 years I was at the helm, I took the organization ahead of all the other 47 local and metropolitan councils in the country. BPC grew 7 times in 9 years, the National Productivity Council started sending other councils to visit and learn from Baroda, which was regarded as a model council. By this time I had realized that organizations are like any biological system and respond to natural laws in much the same way that any living system responds. Ironically, there came a point in BPC when the elected office-bearers wanted to reward themselves against the interest of the council, and I quit. This was the second time I found myself in this situation and I decided to formally start Quest Systems (which had existed as an idea for over 10 years) to help other organizations get effective.

Throughout my career spanning over 45 years, I have seen that the principles of effectiveness are applicable to any field of human endeavor. I also realized that implementation of these principles became much easier and error-free if the solutions are built into computers. This is what Quest specializes in, we offer unique systems for better effectiveness. Our solutions have effectiveness algorithms built into each one of them, and are applicable across any industry or function.

The best way to spread this thought is through books, and I have published my first book 'Success through Opposites' and hope to complete the remaining two books by 2015.

Core Purpose and Values at Quest Systems

• We never say no to our customers and we make it happen, unless what one customer wants hurts other customers.
• Quest is driven by its customers. We spend maximum effort in upholding our existing customer relationships.
• We go above and beyond to deliver the expected value to customers. And we believe in no surprise charges to the customer at any point.
• Any complaint from the customer is treated as genuine, and Quest will not judge or evaluate any complaint from a customer nor will it defend itself.
• Nothing is of higher priority than servicing our customers and solving their problems, by identifying the root cause through
  our proprietary root cause location method and eliminating it once and for all to prevent the complaint from recurring.
• New product development is based on felt customer needs with complete customer involvement.
• We are genuine and authentic in whatever we do and whomever we deal with it - customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders and others.
• We do not sell products to customers who do not need it and who will not benefit by them.
• We conduct training and cultural change at organizations only if we have commitment to improve from the leadership team, and only if we are part of the implementation itself.
• We believe that effective and permanent implementation can be done through systems and hence we have developed automated products in house for better effectiveness.