News by Raam Shanker

Equitus CEO responds to JOSCAR accreditation milestone

Achieving JOSCAR accreditation is no mean feat. For Equitus Founder and CEO Raam Shankar the milestone is another significant moment in the company’s six-year history. Raam reveals why entry in the register of suppliers to the aerospace, defence and security sectors is critical to the company’s future ambitions.  How difficult is it for a company to gain JOSCAR accreditation?You’re only able to become accredited if you’re first of all invited to apply. To be invited means being on the radar of defence companies. Once you get invited it is about showing all the documentation, paperwork, your capabilities, your past experience, everything really. If you have all this in place it is a fairly straight forward process. The point is, when companies are working in highly regulated sectors like defence and aerospace you should be organised because you have to be. What does this mean for Equitus? It tells defence buyers, such as the Ministry of Defence, that Equitus is worth doing business with as being JOSCAR accredited means our technical competencies are very much in order. Any buyers in aerospace, defence and security can be sure that we have relevant policies, procedures and all documentation in place. It’s important to remember that this isn’t just about capability. It is about the longevity of a company. To become JOSCAR accredited you have to prove your finances are in order in-line with your long-term plans. What work has Equitus done to date in the aerospace, defence and security sectors?

We’ve predominantly done a lot of work in the space sector as part of the European Space Agency supply chain. And that includes working in collaboration with Airbus Defence and Space, where we’ve done a lot of design development work on the European Space Agency’s Sentinel Satellite Programme. We’ve done a lot of mechanical design, design validation, design for manufacture work and so forth on ground support equipment, which is all the equipment necessary to test the systems before they go up into space.

How does Equitus go about solving issues that a buyer has?

We certainly don’t use a formula based approach because not every problem is the same or requires the same kind of solution. Equitus is a specialist that specifically caters for and commits to solving unique challenges and problems. We get to the root of the problem and understand what the real problem is, which can be something different to what a customer is telling us. This helps us build solutions from the bottom up that addresses the actual problem, before eventually solving it. We believe we are one of the best when it comes to getting to the heart of the problem, which is showcased in the many successful projects we have managed over the past six years. Yes, it does mean there can be awkward customer conversations early on, but once through that zone of discomfort it becomes smoother as the problem progresses toward becoming solved.