The Emerging 100: BLS International’s local playbook, global outlook

IN THE EARLY 2000S, Delhi-based Diwakar Aggarwal, who was in the manufacturing business, was trying for a visa to a European country. Like any visa seeker, he faced long queues and harrowing processing at the embassy. The moment of crisis is when the businessman in Diwakar Aggarwal identified an opportunity: visa processing and consulting, a segment that lacked a playbook in India.

Thus, in 2005, BLS International Services Ltd was born. But the company didn’t plunge headfirst into visa and consular services. Instead, it tested the waters by offering services such as applicants’ background verification and crowd management at embassies. Among the first clients were the embassies of Greece and Portugal in Delhi, says Shikhar Aggarwal, joint managing director at BLS International, as he recalls his father’s early days in the business. “Although the volume was not that big, he ran these operations on the embassy premises, with some people.” But the numbers were not big enough to be profitable.