Polestar Solutions: Empowering Business Transformation with Visionary Technocrats and Data-Driven Excellence 

Help us explore your company. Tell us in brief.  

Chetan: Today, the backbone for real business transformation lies with data and analytics. However, back in 2012, things weren’t the same. While companies were vying for unique differentiation in a digital-first world, they lacked the know-how when it came to the implementation of analytics strategies. And even in those organizations that had some kind of analytics function in place, the reins were mostly limited to the top management, with no decision support available to the people who were taking actions. 

Ajay: We started working out of a humble family storage room, where we had a small setup with a dream and vision. Today, data analytics has come of age; we too, have completed ten years of existence, launched across new geographies, and recently rebranded our identity.   

Amit: It has been a remarkable journey thus far, and it has taken us weeks-on-weeks of hard work, laser-like focus. From analytics consulting to providing actionable insights, performance management, and industry or domain solutions, we help companies unlock the true value of their data.  

What unique solutions or services does your company offer at par with the present industry standards?  

Chetan: What differentiates us is our focus on innovation, industry-specific analytics assets and frameworks, analytics-strategy engagement, an obsession with client-centricity, and a consulting approach so that we can provide solutions for all our clients. We develop tailored solutions powered by technology for businesses across data analytics, business intelligence, data management, and enterprise planning. Some of our unique solutions are 

Analytics consulting: We help organizations unlock the true value of their data by leveraging insights generated from historical and real-time analytics, enabling them to make decisions and create new value-added functionalities. Our consulting approach delivers customized solutions for businesses, uncovering hidden opportunities and solving their toughest challenges.   

Data engineering & management: We provide cutting-edge data management services and data engineering solutions by considering an organization’s data and technology stack, such as data architecture, digital maturity, and hosting environment. Better data management solutions provide better business insights, data protection, and compliance.   

Actionable insights: We provide enterprises with a host of solutions that help them transform their entire value chain with actionable insights that truly help them in their digital transformation journey. 

Performance management: Enterprise planning helps our clients gain an understanding of the past and define strategies to plan for a data-driven future. By combining robust financial budgeting and forecasting with sales and supply chain management, they are presented with a collaborative modeling of data.   

Industry/ domain solutions: Our industry subject matter experts bring a strong understanding of business processes and implement them across sales forecasting, market-basket analysis, customer segmentation, fraud detection, price variability analysis, churn analysis, etc. 

Please tell us about the founding team. 

Chetan: I dedicate my expertise to identifying strategic growth areas and fostering alliances that enhance our data analytics and enterprise performance management offerings. I firmly believe that building motivated teams and cultivating a culture of excellence are the keys to delivering exceptional results for our clients. 

Amit: As Co-Founder and Managing Director, I spearhead our business operations and strategic initiatives. I oversee that the development of our industries and domain solutions is aligned with our growth trajectory and a high-performing team. 

Ajay: I hold the reins of our financial operations & management and strongly believe in establishing a solid business foundation. The top priority is to ensure that our financial landscape remains robust and aligned with our growth aspirations.  

How are industry needs evolving your approach? 

Amit: I think over the years we have heard a lot about analytics from various experts commenting on aspects like data being the new oil, data democratization, data-driven decisions, self-service and adoption, etc. However, when I engage with businesses, I still find that massive challenges persist—on the ground, there are stark examples of data analytics not yielding the results that organizations were expecting. 

The consumption of analytics (by personas such as C-suite or mid-level managers) is a separate exercise from when day-to-day business actions are taken. A lot of times, these actions are not backed up by data. The gap that exists in the industry is to identify how we can merge it. For instance, how can we help a category manager who is raising a PO for a material to a vendor, find assistance via actionable insights on the same screen, such as vendor ratings or expected delivery probability on the delivery date mentioned, vendor risk assessment, alternate options, and so on? The same scenarios play out across sales, HR, and the supply chain. 

With this approach, at Polestar Solutions, we are not changing habits; rather, we are enriching personas with persona specific solutions and insights that will empower them to make informed decisions. 

What tool/technique does your company leverage to satisfy customers’ needs?  

Amit: Everything we do is built on building robust technology foundations and cultures for our customers. We believe in adopting cutting-edge technologies such as AI-ML, Generative AI, data ingestion platforms, and the cloud to craft differentiating solutions for our clients. Our in-house innovation lab, which is an analytics-focused research lab, ensures our clients find the right partner of choice in us who can introduce a culture of innovation to them. It also ensures that we are ahead of the curve, helps improve margins, and completes sales cycles by enabling us to work with bigger clients. We also co-pilot with select clients, work on cutting-edge technologies, and jointly invest in them. 

Furthermore, our tools and techniques are focused on solutions, and our frameworks and accelerators offer industry-, function-, and persona-specific solutions and rapid deployment kits. We use design thinking and a human-centered approach to developing solutions to their targeted problems, as well as storytelling-with-data as an approach to engaging our clients in data discovery workshops. Our agile methodologies ensure we adapt to changing requirements, and a continuous feedback cycle helps us improve as we go along. 

What strategies/techniques do you follow to surpass the company/industry disciplines?  

Chetan: From day one, we have focused on being process driven and believe that by moving away from manual processes, nothing gets lost in translation or time-consuming processes. This way, accountability is also established. It’s the ultimate approach for us. 

We are extremely customer-focused, and when we solve business problems, we ask ourselves how we can do it better. We work on function specific accelerators, frameworks, and solutions, as well as research and build assets. For us, a prototype solution is not acceptable; we are driven to create something that can be productized and used in the real world. Therein lies our advantage: most companies develop in isolation and use dummy data to create solutions on top of that. 

Another big differentiator for us is employee-centricity—building a culture driven by accountability, ownership, and innovation is paramount. We believe in enabling career growth, and our rewards & recognition system as well as a competitive compensation structure ensure our employees are recognized and rewarded for their performance. 

What are the major challenges you confronted at the starting phase? How did you overcome them?  

Amit: Initially, our challenges were related to finding a foothold, building a team, and building a client portfolio. Since we have been razor-focused since the beginning, we were able to filter out the challenges that we wanted to address. We defined our core values at the start, along with a certain code of conduct, which became our pillars in addressing any challenges that may arise in the future. That helped us drive sustainable and value-based growth. 

We have learned that we will always encounter challenges, no matter what size we are; only the nature of challenges will change, and we also understand that challenges are important to growth, as they compel us to rethink, redesign, and further optimize the organization. Hence, we have always looked at challenges as an opportunity to become better. With this approach, we’ve built a world-class team, continuously improved client servicing, brought in immense innovation, defined the right processes across all fronts, developed functional and industry expertise, and built trust-based relationships with clients, employees, and partners. 

What was the turning point for Polestar Solutions?  

Chetan: As a fast-moving company, there are various points of inflection where your growth becomes sharper, and this keeps occurring across phases in your journey. There has not been one single turning point, rather, for growth to occur, we have had to pivot at periodic intervals and have been successful at identifying these pivot points over time. For us, it has been spread out across time, such as through our geographical expansions, including our expansion in the US; fund raising, new partnerships, new technologies, etc. have all contributed to our growth as an organization. 

Tell us about your business model.   

Ajay: Our service offerings comprise a mixed bag, right from solution selling, bringing in accelerators, and outcome-based models. What is important, though, is client-centricity and innovation, which are our core values as we strive to drive value for not just our customers but also our employees. We operate in multiple geographies, leveraging talent availability, including hybrid teams, to rally the best talent to support our customers in their digital transformation journey. 

What is your mantra to stay abreast of the competition in today’s market?  

Ajay: In our quest to deliver exceptional customer experiences, we have devised a strategic roadmap centered around three vital pillars: accurate branding, relentless innovation, and assembling an extraordinary team. These elements form the bedrock of our growth, remaining steadfast as we expand our horizons. As we stride forward, we embody resilience, agility, and an unwavering commitment to provide cutting-edge solutions that propel our clients to the forefront of their industries. Together, this allows us to embrace the digital revolution and shape a future where innovation knows no bounds.  

What would you like to share with our budding entrepreneurs?  

Ajay: Entrepreneurship is tough; no two days are the same, so find what drives you and keep at it like it’s day 1. Exciting things will unfold with such an approach. 

Amit: You’re nothing without an incredible team; build a ship with hard working folks, who are as committed to the vision as you are. Hire individuals smarter than you, who can bring something valuable on board. Lastly, trust the co-founding and leadership team that you have; they’ll be the ones to sail you through rough waters.  

Chetan: I am reminded of a quote by Malcom X: “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” There will be ups and downs in your entrepreneurial journey as well as changes, but what will remain are your core values. For us, customer and employee centricity have always remained our core values. 

Where do you see the future of your company? Share with us your future plans and endeavors.  

 Chetan: We plan to go deeper into the industries in which we already work, such as CPG and retail, manufacturing, pharma, etc., and increase our share of business. We will also continue to build our teams across geographies and markets to build a more solid ship. We currently serve in 14 geographies and have a strong presence in the US, and we will continue to focus on strengthening our physical presence in the markets we exist in. Valuations exist, but we are focused on changing the market dynamic and increasing our market share over the next three years.