Saarathee, a startup that aims to promote inclusion of persons with disabilities within the corporate workforce, with a vision to deliver both business and social impact. By creating a seamless connection between persons with disabilities, corporates, and inclusion enablers, Saarathee aims to address the gaps in learning, collaboration, and deployment to enable sustainable change. Saarathee's approach to inclusion and accessibility not only aligns with ethical imperatives but also has the potential to benefit corporates through a diverse and innovative workforce. Overall, Saarathee is a promising startup that is driving both social impact and business growth. Ms. Richa Bansal, founder of Saarathee shares her inspiration behind starting such a startup and gives much more insight about Saarathee.

1) What is Saarathee? What is the thought behind starting a company like this?

Saarathee is a 5 year old organisation in the business of transforming disability inclusion for corporate India. Saarathee was started as a BPO which hired only persons with disabilities to establish a business case for disability inclusion. Over the years there are multiple best practices, success stories and case studies generated at Saarathee which has helped us create a larger vision for disability inclusion through Saarathee.

2) After being in the industry of media and advertising, followed by a long stint in brand communication, marketing and sales in India’s then burgeoning telecom sector, what inspired you to switch to entrepreneurship?

I chanced upon entrepreneurship; it was never the plan!

While I was with Vodafone, I was fortunate enough to initiate myself in social impact projects around women empowerment, disability inclusion and other CSR areas. Apart from being a well-rounded professional in Sales and Marketing, this gave me a deeper understanding of the real-world problems. I quit Vodafone in 2014 and that put a stop to my corporate journey forever. I joined Child Rights and You as their head of Fund Raising in the north region. For me that was a stepping stone to where I have arrived so far. CRY gave me a holistic understanding of life beyond the corporate cubicles. I understood the grass root challenges and how with limited resources, mammoth problems could be resolved by putting mind to matter.

However things changed when I was blessed with a daughter in 2015 and I went on a sabbatical (after enjoying work from home for nearly 6 months). I wanted to get back to work after a break of one and a half years, but nothing appealed to me. Corporate life seemed very distant and meaningless, and the social sector for me was worthy but not action driven enough. I then decided to create a path of my own. Saarathee was an outcome of my urge to build a business run with a bi-product of social impact. The only thing I knew was Sales and my heart somehow was always with Persons with Disabilities….I just happened to create a business proposition out of it.

3) How has been the journey of an entrepreneur and what are the challenges faced by you?

Life as an entrepreneur has been a roller coaster ride. It has been exciting as well as nerve wrecking. When you are working for an organisation, you are responsible for defined KPIs for your role…however when you are an entrepreneur you are responsible for a lot more. Every decision is on you, no one around to blame and look at when you want to save your back. As an employee we feel secure and protected; but as an entrepreneur one is always exposed and on their own. I also feel that as an entrepreneur one becomes tough. Because one’s risk-taking ability increases and one becomes a fast learner – as one doesn’t have too much of an error margin.

Some of the critical challenges I faced initially were – to find takers for my proposition. Most organisations I would approach for business thought I was running an NGO and they would conveniently divert me to their CSR teams….It took me a lot of time to position ourselves as a for profit organisation.

4) What is the vision and mission of Saarathee?

Our vision is to transform persons with disabilities into professionals with disabilities by converging Edtech, Change Management and Hiring such that corporates can truly unleash the potential of PwDs. We are on a mission to bridge the gap of inclusion between corporates and PwDs by building an intent and action across corporates and PwDs such that equitable opportunities for PwDs are created.

5) What has been your biggest achievement as of now and what are your expansion plans for the future?

Our biggest achievement has been, to sustain and grow a business where 95%+ of our employees are persons with disabilities (70%+ are Vision Impaired) and provide them growth.

We have been able to create successful case studies which are now easily replicable with corporates who want to tread a similar path.

We would like to impact the lives of more than 1 Lac Persons with Disabilities by providing them direct and indirect hiring and learning opportunities over the course of the next 5 years. We would equally like to initiate at least 5000 corporates towards building a PwD inclusive workplace through hiring and other related initiatives in the next 5 years.

6) How is Saarathee different from other such companies in the business

One of the biggest differentiators is that we Walk the Talk, the last 5 years we have spent in building our own case study…we preach what we know. Also we believe that as a corporation we know the challenges we faced when hiring PwDs, and therefore we are focusing on resolving those issues primarily. While on one hand we are bridging the gap between corporates and PwDs by connecting the right candidates with specific jobs; we are also focusing on upskilling, mentoring and grooming of PwDs on one hand and hand holding corporates by offering customised packages to support them.

7) What is the revenue model for Saarathee?

All our services are charged as per scope and some are standardised. We offer services like:

• Incubation & BPO – for which we charge by the seat
• Recruitment Services – we charge as per scope of work, which varies from just job posting with us, to on boarding support to shortlisting candidates and even driving basic awareness programs with employees to sensitize them.
• Training & Recruitment – we even offer customised trained batches for corporates and charge them accordingly.
• Employee Engagement & Workshops – we offer workshops for different level of managers to induct them in managing their PwD employees and reportees better
• Consulting Services – we offer customised consulting services to help corporates navigate their journeys

8) What is the training process like at Saarathee?

We have built an online training program which allows us to train people in an online hybrid mode. We have brought independent content creators who help us offering soft skills and employability training while we have partnered with training companies to offer specific training in general functional skills.

We also offer on the job training to people so as to build their confidence and capability before they find themselves ready to find a job in another corporation.

Disclaimer:

The above is a sponsored post, the views expressed are those of the sponsor/author and do not represent the stand and views of Outlook Editorial.