Ikya, an integrated HR solutions company, has made its second acquisition within a couple of months. This time, it has acquired a recruiting firm, New Delhi-based Coachieve Solutions in a stock-cum-performace-oriented cash deal. With this, Ikya has entered another vertical - Recruitment Process Outsourcing vertical, after having entered facilities management recently with the acquisition of Avon, a facilities management firm. Coachieve has its operations in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.
“It is a tactical acquisition. We brought them in for the management team,” said Ajit Isaac, CEO, Ikya Human Capital Solutions, a staffing solutions firm. “It will add management depth,” added Isaac. Ikya has two major stakeholders with private equity fund India Equity Partners (IEP) and Ajit Isaac. Isaac during 2004 sold PeopleOne to Adecco.
Before starting operations for Coachieve, an 18-month-old VC-funded search firm, Achal Khanna was the country general manager and managing director for Kelly Services India, a Fortune 500 global staffing solutions company.
Ikya aims to have 50 per cent of its net service revenues from recruitments in the near future. The acquisition will help Ikya widen its service area, to spread its geographical spread and increase revenues. With this Ikya will have a foot in the recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) segment.
RPO is among the fast growing segment of recruitment today. This has been a result of many firms as part of their cost-cutting measures outsourcing their recruitment and the whole gamut of activities that go into recruitment. Right from managing short listing to even onboarding, which is the post-resignation transition, and verification of the credentials of candidates, many companies are today outsourcing the process to. Ikya sees it as a major line of business in the future. The RPO segment is estimated to be roughly about $5 million in the country today.
