UC (Universal Consulting India Pvt Ltd) is a 26-year old Indian strategy consulting firm based in Mumbai, with a team of around 50 people. Now in our third decade, UC has worked with 350 multinational and Indian companies and completed 995 cases for them. UC focuses on strategy creation and strategy execution in Life Sciences, MedTech, Agribusiness & Food, Industrials and Financial Services Consulting. More than 75% of UC’s work originates from existing clients and their referrals.

UC has a broad and deep understanding of India and its complex business environment. Founded in 1994 at the dawn of India’s economic liberalisation, UC has been witness to India’s transformative journey from a mere $330 billion economy in 1994, to a major ~$2.5 trillion global economy in 2018.

Value Proposition

As a home-grown, Indian strategy consulting firm, we are differentiated from the global strategy consulting firms present in India on the following value propositions

  • UC has a stronger focus on implementation, developed and evolved over more than two decades
  • UC has an intense collaborative teamwork, with Client personnel and UC team members seamlessly interacting and ultimately converging on strategy recommendations
  • UC delivers grounded, practical recommendations based on a deeper understanding of Indian market-place realities, with knowledge that what works in other developed or even emerging markets, may not work in India
  • UC provides greater granularity and detail orientation of market knowledge to inform our strategy recommendations, through in-depth discussions with key participants in the client’s value chain
  • UC ensures every client deliverable is truly customised with structured implementation; not based on a standard set of recommendations
  • UC provides significantly superior value focus for the fees we charge

Leadership Team

A diverse group of professionals that have been together for almost two decades,
comprises the Leadership Team at UC

Jay P Desai

Founder & Managing Director

Shankar Rajesh

Senior Director

Abhijit Gajendragadkar

Senior Director

S. Venkatesh

Senior Director

Kaustubh Nagarkar

Director

What Our Clients Say

Universal Consulting teams are a breed of talented and highly driven individuals, totally switched on to the contours of the life science industry, it’s challenges and opportunities. The Pharma industry depends a lot on their analysis and professional advice and ability to distil from reams of data and numbers – sensible business conclusions; very often also used for advocacy with the government. Novartis too has benefited from the advice provided by UC to decipher solutions to complex problems.

Ranjit Shahani, Country President - Novartis

Extremely professional and qualified team, possessing a mix of domain expertise and research acumen. UC always brings a fresh perspective to the table and understands the client’s business issues in depth, before proposing a methodology. I would highly recommend them for complex strategic consulting assignments.

Pawan Arora, Business Manager Spine - Medtronic

I could easily interact and work with a team of spirited, talented, motivated and committed professionals. The process resulted in rich and decisive documents for the use of management.

Finally a great thing is that the collaboration has resulted in a friendly and warm relationship; more than I could have ever expected.

Claude Bertrand, Chief Executive Officer, Bongrain

Our relationship with Universal Consulting has deepened significantly… The team brings to bear a unique combination of industry knowledge, insightful thinking, ability to go deep on an industry, and capability to deliver actionable recommendations. For this I commend UC.

Rustom J Desai, President, Corning

UC (Universal Consulting India Pvt Ltd) worked with IDBI Bank to devise a strategy for its SME business. The entire approach was diligent, grounded and sensible. UC team worked alongside the bank to design a workable strategy for the bank rather than just being aspirational.

Prashant Joshi, Former IDBI Bank - Head-Retail Assets & Chief of Staff

Events

UC’s 25th Anniversary (2019) with Ustad Shujaat Khan

In 2019, UC turned 25, with a celebratory event at the Trident BKC, Mumbai.

We hope you enjoy the vignettes of Ustad Shujaat Khan’s captivating Sitar performance that evening. We thank our Clients, Business Associates, Advisory Board, Alumni, Employees, Families and Friends, for encouraging UC over 25 years so that we could experience this moment a quarter of a century after our birth in 1994.

Celebrations at UC

In India, our multicultural environment defines us. At UC, we take every opportunity to celebrate our festivals with great fun and enthusiasm. Welcoming our employees or celebrating our achievements, we come together from various client locations to host the occasion.

UC’s Annual Cricket Game

For the past two decades, UC has frequently been holding a CEO Cricket game at the Police Gymkhana in Mumbai. We invite our clients, business associates and their families to participate in a game of cricket played under flood-lights.

The event has become widely popular and well attended. We have also been honoured with the presence of Sir Garfield Sobers (Former West Indies Cricketer) and Harsha Bhogle (Indian Cricket Commentator).