Koenig Solutions

Koenig is today a successful IT training company serving a global clientele.

THE STORY OF KOENIG SOLUTIONSKoenig is today a successful IT training company serving a global clientele. Apart from being a pioneer in offshore training Koenig has the largest number of IT trainers in the world. Koenig was not always so successful. In November 1993, Koenig was born as an unremarkable training center located in a congested part of Delhi – Patel Nagar. The Indian IT training industry was highly competitive and Koenig struggled to survive. Koenig had its moments of glory but they were short lived and far in between. “It was a challenge to pay the monthly salary bill and we could only survive because of financial support from my father’s company Essen Deinki “– Rohit Aggarwal (Founder & CEO) In short, Koenig was a loss making enterprise. Then came the dotcom boom followed by the bust in 2000-2001 which took down with it many an IT company. Koenig would also have met the same fate but for rapid “downsizing” and an “idea”. “When we were aggressively downsizing I could not ignore the fact that in almost every class we had 1-2 students from Europe. We thought that if we give a training package including hotel, it will be more convenient for the student coming from Europe. We did our calculations and it seemed a win-win for Koenig and European customers.” - Rohit Aggarwal. Andy Sau, an IT professional from UK was Koenig’s first customer for the MCSE package. Andy was happy with the training and agreed to be our referral. This gave us encouragement. We started receiving students regularly and business grew exponentially. Koenig kept on improving infrastructure and services. Based upon customer feedback, we established Koenig centers in picturesque locations such as Shimla, Goa and Dehradun. Competitors took note of us and many establishments tried to emulate us not only in India but also in China, Thailand, Philippines and East Europe. They met with varying degrees of success but Koenig maintained its # 1 position. Initially we thought that if we can get 10 students every month it will be a great achievement. This target was achieved in 2004. Soon the true potential of Offshore Training dawned on us. We set a target of 100 students per month which we achieved in 2009. We now believe that the IT education business is boundary-less. We realised that the core of our business was great trainers. We focused on our HR practices and created a pool of 250+ world-class trainers which is the largest in the world. We have been winning the Best Place to Work in Training and Education Industry since 2010. Then we broadened our focus. Not just classroom training, we also started offering Live Online training and Fly-Me-A-Trainer options. Business kept growing till 2015 and then we again had a near-death experience. The oil crisis hit us badly because of our dependence on oil supported countries. “My father was no more for guidance and financial support. I looked heaven-wards and got inspiration to not feel unsupported, not lose hope and to go back to the basics.” – Rohit Aggarwal Over the boom years we had lost sight of the importance of cost control. This over-sight was a time bomb which was now exploding. We looked at every cost minutely and relentlessly aligned them with business results. We were breathing again by end of 2016. Most busineses thrive because of serendpity. While focussing on cost control, we stumbled upon another and more potent gem – automation. We started automating all our processes initally with the goal to save costs. But once costs had been reigned in we realize that we had hit upon another jack-pot. Automation is now breathing spritual energy in our operations and its impact canot be overstated.