We are happy to share that CoCubes has joined the Aon family today. After spending nine years on building a successful assessment business, we felt it was time to find an organization that would help propel our growth further and faster.

We wanted to write this blog for two reasons. The first was to thank everyone – our team members, clients, suppliers, families. You supported us when we were down, cheered us when we rallied, believed in us during tough times. The second is to share with you why we took this decision of becoming one with Aon and what does it mean for each one of you.

This is not a deal which happened in 30 days, it took more like 730 days. 100 meetings, 200 coffees, 300 beers and a few 1000 emails is what made this possible. All of that along with a commitment from both sides to make this deal a success. To some of us who were privy to the deal – it feels like we have been working together for some time already!

Aon Hewitt is the largest HR services company in the world - with revenue of $4.3 billion annually, serving over 70% of Fortune 500 companies. It continues to win globally with presence in 164 countries. Coming to assessments, Aon Hewitt administers over 20 million online assessments each year.

Aon Hewitt was actively looking for a partner to build a comprehensive solution in hiring assessments. Employability and job readiness is seen as the #1 challenge by their clients not just in India but in several markets across Asia Pacific. At the entry level, this problem is even more acute due to the dispersed nature of the market.

This resonated with us. Aon Hewitt’s focus on assessments as a priority area, complementary product strengths and global reach fit our needs perfectly. In addition, with Aon Hewitt we can keep the CoCubes brand alive, well beyond each one of us. So we started the conversation and landed on today!

Which brings us to sharing why we believe this is a positive outcome for everyone involved.

Our goal always has been to have ‘happy customers’. As the inscribed saying in our office says:

Happy Customers = ‘good product’ + ‘personalized delivery’ + ‘frequent analytics’

CoCubes business has 3 pillars – corporate, colleges (students) and vocational assessments.

• Assessment+: Working as one team, Aon Hewitt and CoCubes will be able to serve India Inc. with assessments across the employee lifecycle: hiring, assessment and development
• PRE-ASSESS: With a combined base of over 1500 corporate clients in India, we will be able to drive higher market penetration of PRE ASSESS, hence providing more opportunities for every student
• Vocational Assessments: Aon Hewitt’s 30 years of experience in assessments sharpens our assessment creation engine to drive continuous improvement in RoI

Both of us have been very particular about fostering a spirit that would make a person want to come to office and building a culture that thrives on openness. For those of you who have worked at CoCubes you know the importance we place on the culture session and certificate.

Our commitment to our employees, their growth and careers is visible in the fact that our leadership has an average tenure of over five years in a nine-year-old company. In Aon Hewitt we found the perfect partner to take this forward. Like us, Aon Hewitt believes in building from within, not just providing jobs but meaningful careers.

Aon Hewitt’s global presence will help us provide every employee with access to more career opportunities. We will be better positioned to invest in the learning and development of each individual as we continue on our journey. Yet, we will ensure that work is always fun.

Clubbing both Vibhore and myself with the team - from a very personal standpoint this reduces our risk in life. We can pat our backs for choosing the path of entrepreneurship.

CoCubes is backed by Ojas Venture Partners who were the only institutional investors in the company. It’s a matter of immense pride to see today that all angel investor and Ojas, who believed in us and invested in our idea are seeing a return on their faith. From our first angel investors to the venture capitalists that backed us and all our ESOP holders, everyone has made money from this deal.

As industry has matured, needs of hiring landscape have evolved and requirements of corporates are changing. There is a growing need for an integrated solution that helps in both sourcing and filtration of candidates. Data is only useful when it can enable final outcomes. Together, Aon Hewitt and CoCubes will provide corporates with a large pool of assessed candidates, connect students to corporates and help increase student employability. We are uniquely positioned to measure employee skill and competency across the employee lifecycle.

The coming together of Aon Hewitt and CoCubes is significant. We want to share three distinct outcomes of our coming together.

• 1 Stop: With expertise in technical, vocational, leadership, cognitive and behavioral assessments we provide a seamless solution. This unique offering will propel us towards market leadership.z
• 1 Mission: We come together with the shared vision of solving the employability challenge that faces our clients; colleges, corporates, SSCs and students.
• 1 Up: Together we are best positioned to disrupt the entry level hiring landscape through innovation, remote proctoring, seamless sourcing and filtration and much more.

We are happy to have built a company which has satisfied customers and nurtured proud team members. This has only been possible with the support from people around us. From our parents who supported us throughout unflinchingly, our wives (and ex-girlfriends) who bore the brunt of the lack of time that we gave them, friends who helped us out with introductions, to our customers who have continued to give us business and most importantly the folks who work at CoCubes chipping away at the problem day after day. These are the guys who make us want to get up and go to work every day.

So what is going on in our minds right now? Well, we are happy, we are glad that this is happening. We are looking forward to work with the Aon Hewitt team. We are sure there will be changes and challenges. After all when companies and cultures meet, this is bound to happen. We are looking forward to working through them.

9 years is 12%-15% of one’s life. We are happy to have built a company which has happy customers and happy team members. Some of the things that we have always heard about CoCubes are that there is no politics, one can speak their mind, ability is valued and promises are kept.

To promises kept and the road ahead.

Cheers,
Harpreet and Vibhore

P.S.: Read more about Aon Hewitt’s acquisition of CoCubes in the press release here.