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Interview with the iOmniscient CEO, Dr. Rustom Kanga:

Hiring Nice People at iOmniscient (August 24th 2011) - extract from iOmniNews

iOmniNews: Dr. Kanga, you have emphasized that you put significant effort in hiring the right people. What do you look for in particular?

Kanga: We look for a few special characteristics such as niceness and a dedication to customer satisfaction.

iOmniNews: Why niceness? In the cut-throat world of business don’t you need go-getters with a little aggression?

Kanga: On the contrary we goal our team on keeping our customers happy and we have found the best people for this task are people who have pleasant personalities who are not overly aggressive. Being a nice person is important. Our growth stems from the fact that our customers love us and because our partners develop a close and supporting bond with the team. I believe that customers like to do business with people that they like. Our people are chartered to never let the customer down. If there is a problem caused by us they will work on it till it is resolved and they will do this spontaneously without being told.

iOmniNews: You appear to employ a large number of very young people.

Kanga: Our top management has years and years of experience of course. However when bringing in new people we find that it is easier to mould fresh graduates into our way of thinking than someone who comes with years of bad habits.

iOmniNews: Where do you find these young graduates?

Kanga: We run a 6 month international internship program for students in their penultimate year at university. Some fresh graduates also join the program as they want the experience that comes from working in several different departments.

iOmniNews: So do you employ all these interns?

Kanga: Usually about 40 to 50 percent of the interns finally end up with jobs within the company. The rest still leave with very valuable experiences.

iOmniNews: Does one have to be an Australian to participate in the internship program?

Kanga: No. We run the program at our facilities in Toronto and Sydney. The participants come from all over. Right now we have interns from Korea, China, Germany, Croatia, Iran and India. We have made arrangements with the Australian government to obtain special visas for interns from various countries to participate in the program.

iOmniNews: So you only have happy employees?

Kanga: Unfortunately that is not always the case. We have evolved a very special culture focused on being nice to our partners and customers. We use these criteria for selection and those who fulfill this promise tend to be with us for a very long time. But of course there are those who do not fit in with our philosophy for whatever reason and usually they do not stay very long with us.

iOmniNews: You talk about niceness but both your partner Ivy and you have a reputation for being very strict.

Kanga: We are strict about certain things. We insist that every person must meet his commitments to their colleagues, customers and suppliers. We are fanatical about quality. We cannot tolerate people who do slip shod work. We expect our people to be innovative. We expect them to operate without bringing their egos into every situation. On such things we are very strict.

iOmniNews: What type of skills do you employ?

Kanga: Our people are either engineers who work in development, quality assurance and in presales and post-sales support or they are in sales and marketing. That is it. In the whole company worldwide we only have two people focused on accounts, administration and other overhead functions. Overheads ultimately add to the cost of the product and increase bureaucracy.

iOmniNews: So using the old cliché, are your staff your most valuable assets?

Kanga: I don’t view them as assets. I view them as family. This is why we have never retrenched people even during the worst financial crises – you do not throw your kids out on the street when times get tough. And I think our employees return that trust and loyalty. And this good natured attitude is finally reflected in how our customers are treated and having customers who love us is the secret of our success.

About iOmniscient
iOmniscient is one of the international leaders in Video Analytics and unlike other video analytics suppliers it has the internationally patented ability to perform complex detections in crowded scenes which makes it useful for public areas such as airports, railways, roads and public buildings. In addition to its comprehensive suite of Detection Systems it also has the most comprehension Identification systems for both vehicles (using license plate recognition) and people (using Facial Recognition). All iOmniscient systems have a unique in-built Nuisance Alarm Minimization System (NAMS) to help eliminate false alarms – a major differentiator against its competitors. Please visit www.iomniscient.com for further company and product information.