Fire your personal assistant and seek Big Help

July 5, 2010

Khyati Dharamsi.

MUMBAI

That's what you will do, once you hear the price dynamics at which you can get a personal assistant Thanks to Suresh Paryani, former leasing officer with a leading land bank listed entity, who has launched a personal assistant (PA) service provider, Big Help.

The firm can provide you an executive assistant (EA) at just Rs 5,000 per month. One year into the service and the company is catering to 15 people including chief executive officers, housewives, entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals.

Parayani surveyed 100-odd people before starting the venture. "All the managing directors, chief executive officer, vice presidents or directors have a PA. But not all. I saw a niche out there. The closet you can compare us to is a concierge service, but there you don't have a dedicated person. We cut down the cost substantially."

He says that considering you have to spend on the salary of a PA, who can speak fluent English, the computer costs, pay a consultant to hire her, then you have a peon, the printer and telephone bills to be taken care of, Big Help offers everything in just Rs 5,000 and a lifetime registration of Rs 1,000.

"You don't have the time for yourself. You are busy. We help each complete on person's time consuming work and even follow up on work. The clients enjoy it."

The firm's EAs have, over the past year, helped a vice president of a company shift his entire residence along with transferring official documents to the new address when he was abroad, sourced the sole copy of a book, converted analogue cassette collection of music to a digital one, car repairs, followed up on lost luggage at the London airport etc.

"We have registered clients for various mileage programmes. There are interests that people cannot pursue as they don't have the time to look around, but we have helped them do it," says one of the EAs at Big Help.

Don't worry you won't be restricted in terms of the number of tasks that you can get completed in the amount you pay for. "You can call up numerous times and a dedicated person will cater to any number of task you need to be done," says an executive assistant working with Paryani.

But asked about how he manages to offer the service at as low as Rs 5,000 per month and no restriction on the number of tasks, he says, "It is overwhelming for clients, as it is not restricted.We have three EAs and one person handling five clients. So we earn Rs 25,000 form one person. The margins are low, around 10%. It is a volume business.'

"We charge Rs 100 per visit by our feet on ground, when the client requires something to be picked up from the office or anything to be delivered. But we had started with Rs 4,000 earlier and increased it to Rs 5,000 this December. Most of the clients remained with us after the price increase."

Paryani has put in his own cash of Rs 15 lakh into the venture and is looking for funding to scale up the business, "We want to offer the service in multiple cities in Asia - sort of a league, wherein if you are a member of Big Help and travel elsewhere, you will get assistant free of cost in other cities. Say if you travel agent goofs up or you need a doctor or an ambulance when you are in a city that you don't know."

Paryani has been keeping a close watch over the costs and has been operating out of a nest carved out in a Bandra mall, making optimum use of space instead of a "plush office"/ During the one year operations he has managed to have a business worth Rs 3 lakh. "We would break even next year," he says.

The future path is paved out too. "We will have tie-ups with key service providers. We are talking to the airport authority to offer lounge facility to out preferential customers." They also have a tie-up with Florista that offers 50% off for Big Help customers.

But the EA at Big Help says that doesn't mean Florista will be preferred over others. "We will get best deal for the client, because that is what we are here for. The clients usually would not have the time to look for options in the market. But we do that for them and that results in savings for them."