Bangalore, 30 July 2014: HiFives, a cloud -based employee rewards management platform (www.hifives.in) provider has announced a Rs 3 crore capital raise plan. This will help HiFives increase focus on international markets, particularly the Small and Medium Business (SMB) segment while strengthening its presence in India, to emerge as a USD 100 million company and among the top 5 global employee rewards and recognition players in 5-6 years. HiFives is also looking at enhancing its cloud-based platform with features such as Self-service, Standard APIs with corporate HR systems, Increased configurability, and advanced analytics while also building mobile applications. DealsNow Consumer Solutions Pvt Ltd, the company that has set up the HiFives Platform, is being advised by George Abraham of Westwood Capital for its capital raise strategy.
Rewards and recognition’ is increasingly becoming integral to employee engagement. Forbes’ Research Report in June 2013 estimates a $ 46 Billion market for employee recognition globally while IDC’s white paper published in July 2012 predicts that the North America Recognition market will grow from $22 Billion in 2011 to $32 Billion in 2016. Traditional reward systems fall short of expectations of a young and diverse workforce acclimatized to online shopping, social media and mobile applications. These traditional systems incur high administrative overheads due to a geographically-dispersed and often, mobile workforce. A scalable, flexible, affordable and easy-to-manage rewards system in line with employee aspirations is thus imperative.
“The demographic profile of the current workforce demands maximum freedom of choice, minimum hassles, social recognition and instant gratification in reward practices at the workplace. The HiFives program empowers line managers to reward employees on the fly, department heads to approve nominations if need be and employees to select reward items based on their personal preferences and cultural nuances. These products are then delivered to recipients anywhere across the globe by local partners,” says Sagar Chaudhuri, CEO & Co-Founder, HiFives.
HiFives’ collaborative cloud-based service model helps global corporations transform employee reward programs and drive employee engagement and performance. The platform minimizes the administrative overheads of organisations in running such programs while enhancing employee experience. An organization can subscribe to HiFives, a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform on the cloud, in its entirety or in parts. The platform has configurable features and workflows such as budgetary controls, nominations, approvals, communication, redemption and reporting and incorporates industry best practices such as social recognition, 360o rewards and interactive leader boards. Besides being scalable by geography and headcount, the platform has a flexible and a ROI-driven commercial model.
About HiFives
HiFives was founded by Sagar Chaudhuri and Jagadish Velagapudi who met while working at Infosys, Bangalore. Their brainchild, HiFives, was born at a time when the rewards and recognition space in the corporate sector was fairly disorganized and dominated by company-branded merchandise, trophies and cash awards. After 15 years of working in companies such as Genpact, Infosys and ICICI, Sagar, an IIT Kharagpur and IIM Lucknow alumnus decided to create this technology enabled platform for organizations in collaboration with Jagadish who brings nearly 18 years of industry experience. Today, the HiFives platform services employees in India, the Philippines and Ireland. The company plans to expand its client portfolio by targeting the SMB segment across North America, Europe and Asia.
