Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO) have, over the last ten years, built UMANG into a software services power-house on strong principles of technology and human capital
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
Homegrown IT company, UMANG Software Technologies has achieved numerous milestones in just ten years of its journey! Founded by ‘IT Couple of Goa’ Mangirish Salelkar (CEO) and Uma Talaulikar (COO), the company’s name itself defines its essence. UMANG – an amalgamation of Uma and Mangirish’s names, also means ‘enthusiasm’ in Hindi – a single word that perfectly encapsulates the passion of the founders, the team and UMANG itself.
In this story, we take a look at the inspirational journey of a driven company constantly growing stronger and more diverse with every challenge it encounters, emerging a leader in the IT domain of the state.
The Beginning
UMANG was founded in 2009 when the word ‘startup’ and all associated jargon was yet to make its debut in this part of the country, a time when neither strong infrastructure nor any semblance of an ecosystem existed in the state. “The company was established when the buzzword startup was very uncommon and the challenge was to set up an IT company in Goa,” reminisces Mangirish, “Moreover, there was no support from anyone, even regarding the information about the procedure of setting up a company in the state,” he adds. A time when information technology was booming in rest of the country, but most of the IT talent from Goa, as a norm, migrated to greener pastures. Mangirish, himself had done so.
Qualifying as an IT engineering graduate from Padre Conciencao College of Engineering in 2005 was not good enough to find a job in Goa or elsewhere. Mangirish dedided to enrol for a Microsoft certification in Dot Net (a programming language). He studied software and web application development. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mangirish cracked his 18th interview – at NCR Corporation Mumbai. “In the seven months that I was there, I learnt the banking domain. NCR was the first company to introduce the ATM in India and it was a good break,: he says. But working in Mumbai did not bode well with him and he made a dash homewards.
He took up a job with Data Nova – a company that designed ‘point of sales systems’ for supermarkets in Norway; and learnt that punctuality is part of a rare combination of delivering a product with speed and accuracy (quality) which till date helps him to keep up with time and project management.
In 2007, he gave up this well-paying job and ventured to Bengaluru. Mangirish took up a job with SourceEdge, a service company with United Nations (UN) as one of its clients. “I took the opportunity to travel to Norway on a FAO agriculture project for the UN. My assignments involved projects for foreign companies in different domains that included medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare; I was often called by pharma firms to demonstrate our abilities for their manufacturing systems.”
Two and a half years of solid learning and working with international clients, built Mangirish’s repertoire for things to come.
The Enthusiasm Within
UMANG was launched in September 2009 in Margao and was registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Uma and Mangirish’s grand investment to the venture was one laptop! If being a first-generation IT entrepreneur wasn’t daunting enough, talent acquisition to form the initial team was another major challenge, shares Mangirish.
The company today stands with resolute credibility in the IT domain with scores of awards and accolades, along with being an ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certified IT Company. UMANG has been moving ahead at a calibrated pace, making calculated moves along the way.
Of course, Mangirish brought in a wealth of work experience cutting across different sectors and geography.
Uma, on the other hand, a computer engineer, comes with significant experience in databases in the telecom sector, having worked at IBM and managing a large team of trained engineers.
Just as the Yin and Yang are said to hold the cosmos in balance, these two have held the reins of their company – with perfect distribution of responsibilities between being CEO and COO. Uma handles operations, human resources and finance; while marketing, lead generation, implementation and strategies are Mangirish’s duties.
The litmus test to determine whether a company is truly worth its salt lies in its vision. UMANG was started with a vision of putting Goa on the IT map of the world; and a mission to give back to the motherland by creating job opportunities for Goan talent in Goa itself – and tap the phenomenal pool of skill lost to migration. This came with its share of problems.
Human Capital
As is with almost every industry, building a team of experienced resources with specific skill sets is a monumental task in Goa’s IT sector and that issue was far more severe back in the day, shares Mangirish. Initially, they hired fresh graduate programmers from various engineering colleges affiliated to Goa University – a practice followed to this day. The most important criteria involved in the selection of candidates has primarily been their attitude and enthusiasm, “UMANG means enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is what drives mankind,” reminds Mangirish. “For us Attitude is the primary criteria for selection, ‘technical knowledge’ is secondary as it can be learned if the attitude is in the right place,” he adds. Being the CEO, Mangirish Salelkar has been personally involved in hiring every team member at UMANG, handpicking candidates who make perfect additions to the family, a process that continues unimpeded.
“We are an employee-oriented company, unlike the rest who are mostly owner oriented,” shares Uma, “in UMANG, the growth, the career trajectory and the work-life balance of the employees are always taken as a priority,” she adds. Following this approach has manifested into a great boon for UMANG, as a happier office culture and employee care directly translates to longer commitments and productivity. “Motivating the team from time to time plays a very important role. Conducting brainstorming sessions is important so that an optimised solution is achieved,” comments Orfelinda D’Cunha, project manager at UMANG. “Every team member has their strengths, which when combined, give the best results. Also, having sessions for enhancing an individual’s personality is a great plus. Each team member is committed to give their best and be productive at all times, in short, I can say that teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success which requires individual commitment to achieve the common vision,” Orfelinda adds.
Sharing her experience at UMANG, Poonam Narvekar, director of technical services says, “I started as a software trainee and today I am the technical director. It is said that, if you believe in yourself you can achieve what you have to. Giving 100 percent was what I had to offer. I strongly believe in job satisfaction, which in turn increases work productivity. My second home is full of positive and supportive team members. My journey with UMANG continues,” she adds.
Customer Focus
Another cardinal principle on which UMANG functions is customer satisfaction. In 2016, UMANG was honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference for their outstanding track record in the same. “The basic and most important expectation of any customer is on-time and quality delivery which has value for money,” says Mangirish. Illustrating his point further, addressing the unique needs of every individual customer, he adds, “If one customer expects quality software development, timely deliveries, maintenance and support upon delivery, another customer may expect us to either manage or maintain their entire project or may simply hire resources in an augmented fashion. Some customers even look for suggestions on how their applications can be optimized and made user-friendly. Each customer is different!” In the words of Aditya Shirodkar, technical lead at UMANG, “We focus on core competencies, customer satisfaction, quality services along with personal development of each and everyone connected to us. This has helped us grow at a much faster pace and perform outstandingly over the decade – staying in sync with technology and regularly updated with the changing world. We have been successful not only in terms of business but also in terms of meeting our goals.”
Being ardent followers of these tenets, and following it over the years has enabled the company to grow from its humble beginnings of a single laptop to a multimillion-dollar company as it stands today. With pride, Mangirish says that right from the beginning, the company has only raised funds using bootstrapping and the profit that was generated by the company was ploughed back in the company under the umbrella of their ‘calculated moves and strategy’. Till date, they remain a company without any sort of funding or investment and hence are completely free from debt or obligations of equity.
Brand Attributes
Over the years, UMANG has created an illustrious track record with an impeccable quality of their products and services. The key focus of UMANG is to position itself in the industry as an ‘application re-engineering company’ with the expertise to manage legacy applications, migrate the software, update to the latest platforms, add mobility solutions to existing applications and more. “We can all agree that by now 60-65% of the world is already automated. Imagine the number of software, websites, web applications and mobile apps which exists in this world and at what scale they would increase soon,” explains Mangirish.
Presently, UMANG works with Delphi as it’s a key technology, besides Java, PHP, .Net, Android and iOS. In terms of their services, they have already hit the global mark and presently cater to customers across the globe. A major chunk of the client base is made up of customers who have their existing legacy applications built in Delphi and due to the reputation the company has built for itself, they prefer partnering with UMANG for their enhancements, maintenance and migration from older versions to newer ones.
It all started with a surging exponential growth hit by UMANG after their biggest assignment when they were approached by Marine Research Institute, Norway to maintain their research software, funded by the United Nations FAO Department. The importance of this application was that it was a research project used to keep a check on the extinction of fish species in various coastal belts of Africa, Europe and Asia. The project demanded that their programmers had to be on the research vessel/ ship for deployments and maintenance from time to time. “It was the most exciting project we handled, as it also involved discussions with top-level scientists from the United Nations which is a great honour by itself,” shares Mangirish.
Community Living
The duo also never shied away from doing their bit for the industry. Mangirish was instrumental in establishing Goa Technology Association. After doing time in the business, Mangirish understood that the number of IT companies in the state were very little and weren’t in a growth-oriented ecosystem, as all the IT companies at that time worked as isolated islands. There were very few tech entrepreneurs who knew each other. Salelkar made many attempts to build synergy among the IT professionals of Goa through various initiatives like cricket tournaments, small beer meets workshops, through which the contacts finally developed and a semblance of an ecosystem started taking shape. Finally, in 2017, Goa Technology Association (GTA) was formed where he was unanimously elected as the founder president and was re-elected in 2019 for a second term too owing to his performance. Mangirishi’s vision for GTA is very clear – “The aim is to establish Goa as a standard destination on the IT world map, and work towards bridging all the gaps the IT industry had with the government, academia and other business associations and help build a powerful local ecosystem,” he says.
Accolades Galore
The illustrious work put in by the team of UMANG hasn’t gone unnoticed in any way. Throughout the way, they have achieved many milestones and have been feted with various accolades, honours and awards at the state as well as national levels. In 2013, UMANG received the prestigious ‘Award for Industrial Development’ by All India Achievers Foundation at a National Conference in New Delhi. In 2016, they were honoured as the ‘Customer-Centric Company of the Year’ at ICT 4SD Global Conference. In 2014, UMANG was also featured among the ‘Top 5 Startups’ by Business Goa magazine. It was also featured as the ‘Company of the Month’ by SiliconIndia (one of India’s leading IT business magazine). In 2017, UMANG bagged Business Goa’s ‘IT Company of the Year’ Award. UMANG also became the first company from Goa to be a part of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
Having come this far from the starting line, the momentum of UMANG is only going to ramp up. “After 10 eventful years of business, it’s time for leap-frogging,” says Mangirish. “Technology is changing at a very fast pace and we intend to venture into trending technologies like blockchain, enterprise mobility, data warehousing and more,” he adds.
Looking at the zeal with which the founding duo and team UMANG are zooming ahead, only the line repeatedly used by Mangirish comes to mind – “UMANG means enthusiasm and enthusiasm is what drives mankind!”
