Abhinav Immigration has set a five-fold revenue target of Rs 125-150 crore in the next five years.
As per company's chairman Ajay Sharma, this company has been in the business since last 27 years and henceforth, the company will keep focusing more vigorously on company's existing strengths and new corporate business to achieve the target.
With major focus is on individual and family immigration and visa solutions, the management has also decided to give further impetus on study abroad division. Notably, the company has also started providing Eligible Professionals and Tradespersons with global recruitment solutions. It will also provide enhanced solutions for aspirants wanting to immigrate under business, residency-by-investment, and citizenship -by- investment categories. In the last category, the company already enjoys a niche.
Founder and President of Abhinav Immigration, Ajay Sharma further said that the staff strength is also planned to be increased to around 1000. Besides, Abhinav Immigration intends to go for an IPO once that target has been achieved. The company is focused on digitization and formulating an advanced technology -based solution for its marketing, sales, and client servicing. Recounting his early days, Sharma said that there was a time when the word "Immigration" or "Permanent Residence Visa" was considered to be confused with an "overseas job". Since 1994, Educating people about the difference between the two has been the biggest challenge and also the achievement.
Sharing the changing dynamics of immigrating out of India over the last 27 years, he outlined that initially, the essential purpose was to make money or "earn dollars," as they say and in the beginning of the new century, it became "law and Order," followed by "better study for children. Another decade forward, it turned into "overall quality of life, followed by "high pollution in India" and finally, post-covid, "value of life. He said that the new century has brought in more changes as more Indians started going to study abroad than ever before as well as businessmen and high net worth individuals started relocating to expand or shift their business to developed countries.
Observing that the middle east was a major attraction because of easy accessibility, short travel, and easy visa regime, Sharma pointed out that what worked against the middle east was its reluctance to offer permanent residency, irrespective of the duration of stay and investment. No one wants continued uncertainty of living on extended temporary resident status and that is why they started looking at investment visa options provided by European and North American Universities.
With a light note, Sharma also shared his experiences of how the marketing of the immigration consulting and study abroad industry has changed over the years. "From doing major publicity campaigns in newspapers, doing seminars, printing, mailing, and distributing expensive brochures, participating in trade and professional exhibitions, and shifting to the internet and fast-changing digital market space, I have seen, experienced, and worked around with all these," he added.
He opines that competing with the young and upcoming generation of young entrepreneurs already familiar with the internet phenomenon has been a significant challenge.
Sharing some interesting observations over the years, he said the most straightforward visas become challenging to get and vice versa!! But whenever a step to immigrate is taken with elders' blessings and their knowledge, the results are mostly positive. In his opinion, this cannot be a coincidence and is in sync with Indian culture. On the funny side, he laughed at the plethora of websites of immigration and visa consulting company's - all self-proclaiming to be number one in India and some instances even in Asia or the world!
Sharma looked happy with being counted as being amongst the pioneers in the industry in India. Looking back with satisfaction, he observed that besides him, there are just a couple of other regionally-based Immigration agencies still operational since 1994.
Amongst Key milestones and significant events that were game-changers for the immigration industry, he recounted IT meltdown in the late '90s, 9/11, the recession of 2008, and multiple instances of unexpected and overnight immigration regulatory policy changes by governments like the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. "Such events have changed and impacted all, be it professionals, businessmen, or students," he said, adding that among his biggest regrets is that the immigration, visa, and study abroad consulting industry is still not regulated in India, despite its size. This is unlike all the critical destinations like the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
In addition, he pointed out that India's status of being one the largest Start-up ecosystems in the world is also helping a lot. Countries like Canada, UK, Finland, Ireland - all have Immigration programs tailored explicitly for start-ups. Canada's program is unique because it permits groups of up to five members to file as part of one single application. Citizenship-by-investment programs are also making inroads into applicant's consciousness.
Sharma noted that while in all these countries, its functioning is tightly controlled, there is a total vacuum in India. Taking Canada's case, he said that there is a strict regulatory regime wherein even the Indian companies involved in the immigration consulting business are bound to present by one of the ICCRC (regulatory bodies appointed by the government of Canada) and work as their agents. But the mechanism is twisted by even the topmost companies in various ways. He said that the client agreements are signed directly with the company stating that they are not offering immigration consulting services.
In other instances, the websites carry the details of ICCRC agents who represent them, no such representation is being provided in reality to every client. In that context, compliant immigration consultants like Abhinav suffer on account of high operational costs. In his opinion, the internet has shrunk the world and the globe has become one single village. "Mobility will continue to increase, and with it, the need for the regulated environment for immigration, study abroad, and the visa consulting industry," Sharma concluded. If you wish to be a part of Immigration boom, sign for our free counselling and understand all the possibilities.