Being lucky requires a lot of hard work.

We very often hear business people refer to the “pain point” and that business opportunities revolve around that pain point. In 1997, the Y2K problem (or the Year 2000 problem) was fast approaching its deadline. For those too young to remember, the Y2K problem was a problem in the computer world resulting from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits. Thousand of computer programmers were needed to solve the situation by changing the computer codes to accommodate 4 digits instead of 2 digits.

Identifying pain need not be a flash of brilliance. It was obvious that the I.T. industry would need IT staffing support to address the problem. Since the Y2K was a temporary but urgent situation, the need for IT Staff Augmentation became essential for the IT companies addressing the problem… this gave birth to the Sysgen IT Staff Augmentation business.

What started in 1997 continues to be a profitable business for Sysgen. What started with me alone being the business developer, account manager, and the recruiter has grown to 2 people doing business development, 5 people doing account management and 12 people doing recruiting. Sysgen’s a annual revenues from IT Staff Augmentation is in the neighborhood of Php 80M (USD 1.8M). Currently we have almost 200 IT Professionals deployed to different projects.

Thomas Edison once said that “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Being able to identify opportunities is the true mark of an entrepreneur. Making the best out of the opportunity is what makes you lucky… being lucky requires a lot of hard work.