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By Ruth Le Pla
Trust is the bedrock of Michael Hamid’s business with India.
“My main driver for being in India is having someone on the ground who I can really trust,” he says.
“You need to be able to talk very openly with someone who is based there.”
Hamid first met his Indian business contact when he was working for the Gallagher Group.
The encounter would revolutionise his life.
Hamid is now managing director of his own company, Goofyfoot.
It’s a small start-up Kiwi company specialising in image preparation and IT consulting.
The image part of it, in particular, draws heavily on Hamid’s ability to merge market strengths in India with market needs in New Zealand.
The team of specialist clearcutters are based in Bangalore, India, turning round projects within a couple of days for clients in New Zealand.
Goofyfoot specialises in clearcutting the background from images.
Among other uses, the process is used for product displays on websites and brochures and for graphic design.
Clients include Pumpkin Patch, and Hamid is currently talking with a raft of advertising agencies and other companies with regular need for his clearcutting services.
It’s detailed and labour-intensive work, heavily reliant on good access to electronic transfer of clients’ files.
At the moment, says Hamid, the company employs just a few people in Bangalore.
He plans to take on more as the business grows.
He acknowledges that one of the attractions of working with India is the relative cheapness of the labour force there.
But he adds that the workers are highly skilled and their ability to speak English is an additional bonus.
“I can ring the guys there directly and talk with them about the work. They are very professional.
“The trickiest thing,” he says, “is that they quite often don’t tell you if they can’t do something.
“They don’t like saying ‘no’.
“The trick is to question them several times.
“It can be embarrassing if you have promised something to a client and it doesn’t arrive."
This article originally appeared as part of ‘Encountering the unexpected in India’, by Ruth Le Pla, in Bright magazine on February / March 2009. Issue 32.
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