The 10 Influential Business Leaders to Watch in 2019

2019 | Volume 09 | Issue 8

The 10

Influential

Business Leaders

PASSIONATE BUSINESS LEADER

to Watch in 2019

Industry Outlook

How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Shall Impact Business and Lives in the years to come

Rahul Kumar Jain Founder & MD

Arihant Global Services

Editor’s Pick A Leader: Hiring Transformation

Anil Raikundlia

Founder | MD

ANIL RAIKUNDLIA A Man with the Midas Touch

E Leadership Shaping the Business Growth

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hen it comes to achieving success in business, strategy can be one part of the whole success, and not the only reason for success. There are a lot of things that sum up success in a business; and without a doubt, leaders are one of the primary reasons. A leaders’ role revolves around forming values, visions, and employee’s motivation.

They are the key to shape the company’s culture and repute, within and even beyond the company’s wall.

Leadership play a very essential role in shaping the behavior and attitude of subordinates. Leadership is focused on the role of leader as a motivator with great innovation and amazing creative habits which ultimately lead to business success, and also increase the productivity. Today, not only new-age leaders but many of the seasoned leaders out there are adopting and applying new tactics leadership and increasing the business success ratio.

Thus, there is need of a great skilled professional leader to lead the subordinates in their daily activities to achieve the goal of any organization. Any organization with good leadership strength and ability will further achieve great success not only on the business but also in the personal extent.

Well, in today’s modern age, it is important to get the right leader with great competences to stay afloat in a competitive business environment. Insights Success has come up with the special issue “The 10 Influential Business Leaders to Watch in 2019” to applaud such influential business leaders who exhibit their commitment to responsible growth and progress.

Here, we have tried to focus on leaders who are setting examples and working for the betterment of society.

Some of the below-mentioned personalities have grabbed our attention most to become the influential business leader in this edition. They have shown what it means to think out of the box, to take the risk, to trust in the process and commit to the journey no matter how wild the ride is!

On the Cover of the magazine, we have featured a special story of Anil Raikundlia, MD at Maple Consulting & Services.

Passionate business leader, Anil is aiming to see Maple Consulting & Services become a global brand and hopes to operate

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Leadership is all about pushing yourself beyond the limits, so others can feel motivated and driven

Shruti P. Jambhale

all over the globe in the near future. The company helps start-ups grow, revitalizes family-owned businesses and partners with private companies to re-engage their workforce and MNCs to reorganize business units.

We have enrolled a passionate entrepreneurial figure, who has come up with the most unique solutions, Rahul Kumar Jain, the Founder & MD at Arihant Global as a ‘Passionate Business Leader’. Rahul assures full integrity in every small effort, while his company, Arihant Global Services provides quality and reliable services for mobile advertising and IT solutions.

Apart from this, we have also listed the following personas who are building the unique path. Ashish Kumar Saxena, Founder at AKS Information Technology Services Pvt. Ltd. A tycoon with deep technical knowledge carrying out innovative ideas and providing world-class security through AKS Group which helps clients to enhance their security posture. Ram Sharma, CEO & Founder at Bank-Genie. A big dreamer, Ram is re-imagining banking and presenting tomorrow’s technology in today’s world through Bank-Genie which develops a fin-tech platform that enables banks and financial institutions to transform digitally. Anand Sahay, CEO at Xebia Group. Anand is a technophile business leader leading Xebia Pvt Ltd. which provides innovative solutions and services to help your/an organization become a digital winner.

Along with this, we have an exclusive ‘Interview with Insights Success’. Here, nemophilist Amit Jain, Director at Rising Star Tours & Travels; the Results-oriented Ajay Lulia, Director & CTO at Synergy Technology Services Pvt. Ltd.; and Permanent Learner Ravi Ganesh Venkataraman, Chief Executive Officer at Cloudnine; talk about their overall journey and the influences made by their firm, service offerings, winning honors, current and future perceptions.

This magazine includes leader’s thoughts as well. Pradeep Valsangkar, the driving force behind GCS Consulting Services discusses the topic “How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Shall Impact Business and Lives in the years to come”.

So, flip the pages of our magazine and explore interesting insights into the world of business!

C o n t e n t s

Cover Story

Passionate Business Leader

14 Rahul Kumar Jain Exemplifying Professed Leadership

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CXO STANDPOINT

Anil RAIKUNDLIA

A MAN WITH THE MIDAS TOUCH

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Industry Outlook How Artiď€ cial Intelligence (AI) Shall Impact Business and Lives in the years to come

INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS

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36

30

Ajay Lulia

Amit Jain

Transforming IT World by Fostering Creativity

Catalyzing Best Traveling Experiences

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ARTICLE

Ravi G. Venkataraman Talking about his journey across the healthcare segment

Editor’s Pick A Leader: Hiring Transformation

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Anand Sahay

Ashish Kumar Saxena

Ram Sharma

A Technophile Business Leader

A Technocrat Shaping his Path

Dreamer | Believer | Creator

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Shruti P. Jambhale Contributing Writers Rahul, Devasish & Sneha Art & Design Head Amol Kamble Associate Designer Poonam Mahajan Art & Picture Editor Shweta Ambilwade Co-designer

Savita Pandav

Business Development Manager Megha Mishra Business Development Lead Joan Ranbhise Business Development Executive Rutuja Shendre Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Prashant Chevale SME-SMO Executives Manoj, Ketki Circulation Manager Tanaji sales@insightssuccess.com

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Copyright © 2019 Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd., All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success. Printed and Published by Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. RNI NUMBER: MAHENG/2018/75953

Anil Raikundlia Founder | MD

The 10

Influential

Business Leaders to Watch in 2019

Anil

RAIKUNDLIA

Cover Story

A MAN WITH THE MIDAS TOUCH

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ome start with a vision for a company and others start with a vision for their professional careers. A few manage to merge the two and those individuals are the most successful leaders as their path to professional success is one of authenticity and genuine fulfillment.

“Skills are cheap, passion is priceless.” - Gary Vaynurchuck, American-Belarusian entrepreneur “Passion is core to who I am.” -Anil Raikundlia, Founder at Maple Consulting & Services

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I AM PROUD OF ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS I HAVE MADE SO FAR, ESPECIALLY STARTING AND MANAGING MY OWN COMPANY AND THE SUCCESS WE’VE ACHIEVED

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The one who strongly believes that passion is more than just feeling deeply about a purpose. It’s about vision. It’s about energy, excitement, and enthusiasm. It is passion that helped Anil to inspire others and identify with his vision. “I truly feel that Commitment & Consistency while chasing your passion will always keep you high in energy and full of bliss to enjoy your life.” feels Anil.

Success Saga When Anil was managing a role as Head of Operations and Human Resources in a traditional manufacturing company in 1994, he knew that somehow he wanted to find a path that focused on more efficient planning and execution. And, thus he started experimenting in different ways with varied people to find better, faster,

ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET Factors according to you that Influence Business Relationships?

Factors that can help nurture your business relationships are: • • • •

Genuine appreciation and concern for peers Time allotted for trust and relationship building High Emotional Intelligence Active Listening

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THE MOTTO HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO KEEP AND KEEP TRYING TILL I TASTE SUCCESS IN WHATEVER I ENDEAVOR TO DO

Many CEOs feel that adopting AI is the need of the hour. There’s this fear factor that if one is not on the AI bandwagon, then that company is going to lose out to competitors that are going to be eating the market, because they’re using technologies to make decisions faster and better than you.

“I believe machine learning, data science, and statistics are great for finding patterns in data.” states Anil.

Further, he added “But the most important thing is making decisions that leverage the patterns found in data. This requires a completely different set of skills: discrete mathematics, operations research, and optimization. These skills, I find are massively underrepresented in the industry.”

As with most industries, margins get tighter over time, so every company constantly needs to be able to provide

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rapidly based on the adoption of powerful and disruptive technologies.

Years ago, it was Internet searches and job boards. After that came the enterprise technologies and accompanying service-level requirements. The newest phase of this technological revolution involves social media, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other algorithms that further dis-intermediate the role of traditional talent acquisition.

more for less and handle larger business volumes, all while making few mistakes.

That’s taken a lot of players out of the game, leading to some consolidation in this industry.

employee must understand and apply that sense of purpose to every operational detail.

You also have to be flexible about how global teams work. There are differences in how global markets operate. Thus you need to adapt to global markets and communicate your requirements correctly.”

Future Roadway

The market is slowly moving towards a third party consulting model with a marked dependence on technology. The objective will remain same for many more coming years - to help organizations make better people decisions, methodically increase the risk-taking capability of leaders and ensure that leadership teams have diverse strengths essential for sharpening the competitive edge.

The company is developing its own customized line of tech products to help its clients move forward. Also, it is aiming to go global in the near future and is already making inroads in South–east Asian markets.

Anil’s Success Mantra “Self-awareness and authenticity is key to career success. Don’t try to be something you can’t be don’t try to be me. Be you.

The hallmark of a good leader is to exercise strategic clarity. As the driver of your business, it is important to get everyone on board with where we see the organization going. Every

QUICK FACTS • One word that describes you and why: Determination as I never give up till I succeed in all my endeavors.

• Current Book you are reading and why: Steve Jobs: Life, lessons and rules for success for his sheer tenacity and enthusiasm for his life and products. An inspirational read.

• A Movie you watch again and again and why: The Rocky series or Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander for their never say die attitude.

• One Social Media Platform you use the most and why: A private person, I don’t ‘check in’ on social media but LinkedIn is a good platform for work and networking.

RAHUL KUMAR

JAIN

Exemplifying Professed Leadership

M

Rahul Kumar Jain Passionate Business Leader

obile communications are vastly spreading in India as well as in the whole world.

The various messaging tool, surveys and daily routines of one’s life clearly show that mobility (a component of digital marketing) has become an inevitable need of the world in the fastmoving life. The main thing which helps the business grow is customer connectivity and satisfaction without disturbing their personal lives.

Mobility is exactly doing the same, it is connecting the businesses and customers swiftly and smoothly. Hence the scenario is a very bright and rapidly growing future for the mobility industry; Part of Digital communication or life.

Websites and mobile apps are the digital forefronts of a business, which would rather be at the ďŹ ngertips of customers when they need it. Digital marketing and mobility within businesses are about empowering your brand providing measurable and tangible results that help you stand out in today’s marketplace. To achieve this goal there are some unique Digital marketing service providers as required and just-in-time when one needs it.

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September 2019

एक कदम हम बढाये,

ु न साथ इसे मंिजल बनाये !

Knowing the Man Who Made It Happen

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Think

Digitally Globally

September 2019

“

Act

Entrepreneurship has no age limit and providing the best customer services has no bar. He believes, simple and plain truth can lead anyone to the top. Meet Rahul Kumar Jain having an undying learning attitude and innate innovation which has made him an impregnable competitor in numerous business segments.

Rahul, the Founder, carries more than 10 years of experience in Sales & Marketing. He has dealt with many business identities such as Telecom, VAS, FMCG, Marble industry. He skilled in B2B companies in India. Initiating his career at the age of 11, Rahul believes, there is no age for work and innovations. He takes pride to be awarded as “Entrepreneur of the year”, “The BIZZ award”, “Winner of Best MSME Awards” and many more accolades. His areas of interest include Business Association, Entrepreneurship, and consistent learning. His expertise also includes a huge experience in Sales, Marketing and relationship building.

Rahul, rowing through imprecise vision, facing several ups and downs, ultimately found the way towards a glorious life. He is amongst the millions who struggled, failed and surged towards victory, happiness, and pleasure. Self-motivation and exemplary confidence have led his business to the current state. He is accompanied by his better half Sunita Jain. Her seamless contribution, strong, never-ending support have made Rahul set up Arihant Global Service India Private Limited (India’s fastest solutions Provider Company in Mobility Domain and outsourcing module)

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The solutions are awesomely designed to make them useful for retaining user contentedness. Their products produce the best ROI for the SME’s and SMB’s with easy availability.

The services are exclusively made available on the cloud to utilize as per user convenience and affordability. Arihant Global’s In-house Sales and Marketing teams have multiple years of experience in selling SMS broadcast services, voice, missed call or other mobility solutions all over the country through its partnered business module. Thus the company continues to lead businesses on all fronts with customer-centric strategies.

Advising the Juvenile Enterprisers Rahul believes that every entrepreneur should have a clear goal and then step for a business start-up. He thinks, building a team of self-motivated players and caring for them is imperative for a business to develop progressively.

According to him being ready for the worst results and compromises at certain stages will take a person at the best level. Never losing hope in any situation and assuring full integrity in every small effort is the key Mantra for any achievement.

The company and its Unique services/products Going back to history, the struggle to earn bread and butter started by selling Papad’s door-to-door facing rigorous challenges but gradually improving the ability and ultimately becoming an award-winning organization.

Arihant Global Services India Private Limited (called as Arihant Global) is structured and designed to give its customers a first-class experience, no matter what the company or deal size is. It is purely into the outsourcing module, which means the company is doing business exclusively for the wellness of others, just adding their skills to bridge the gap between customer and company.

The firm places its customer experience management at the core of the business strategy. It majorly focuses on mobility and digital marketing segments. The domain has expertise in online business promotion, Text SMS, mobile survey, lead generation tool, client engagement, contractual callings, and next-level business promotion and mobile advertising solutions. The company deals in online solutions and services which connected to each size of businesses as of now. Company takes pride to call itself as an online Business consultant.

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Businesses in India are making better progress and things are going digital rapidly. However, now businesses are taking a proactive approach to training their workforce for the future and have clearly defined decision-making process of all executives and interactions. Planned strategy, employee coordination, transparency will lead to work strength and customer feedback/ survey will bring external benefits.

September 2019

The 10

Influential

Business Leaders to Watch in 2019

ANAND SAHAY A Technophile Business Leader

T

he world of business is changing rapidly as ever.

Today’s global and competitive business environment asks for constant innovation, and innovative technologies are reshaping the world.

One has to be on the learning curve and need to keep continuously move up the levels. All the smart and genius persons have to leverage intellectual capital for growth, creative destruction, and keep on innovating.

One such passionate business leader, Anand Sahay is currently leading a niche technology company Xebia. with authority in Agile & Lean startup methodologies and strong expertise in cutting edge concepts such as DevOps, Big Data, and Data Science.

Meet the Techie Anand has completed an MBA from Duke University -The Fuqua School of Business and did Electrical, Electronics and Communication Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology. A senior IT leader, Anand, carries more than two decades of experience in building and leading global high-performance teams for driving sustained business growth and creating shareholder value. He has

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been a software programmer, client engagement manager, business development professional, head global IT operations, and currently holding the position of CEO at Xebia.

Having worked with prestigious companies like Interglobe, HCL, Polaris, and Samsung, he has always loved technology and its applications to create value for customers as well as stakeholders. Now, for Xebia India, Anand is responsible for its P&L and manages the technical, commercial and operational aspects of its business.

Key Performance Indicator When one thinks about the world’s most innovative companies, then names like Tesla, Emirates, DHL, GE, Hyundai, Barclays, Xerox, Delta are obvious to get reflected in mind. But, as a blockbuster movie is possible only after the collaborative efforts of the entire team or crew, the success of these inspiring businesses is impossible without their technology partners, and Xebia is one of their inseparable partners.

The Dutch-born technology firm is globally serving to companies in diverse industries from its offices in the

Netherlands (HQ), US, France, UAE, and India, since 2001. Xebia’s tech solutions related to new and emerging technologies are providing impetus to the world’s leading airlines, banks, strategy consulting firms, government organizations, retailers, media firms, and many more.

Always one step ahead of the businesses need, Xebia explores and creates new frontiers for its valued clients with the latest technologies and customized solutions. As a mainstream frontrunner, backed by an international team of more than 1000 passionate technologists and pioneering craftsmen, Xebia provides the cuttingedge tools, training and consulting services that help businesses work better, smarter, and faster.

Agile transformations; DevOps and continuous delivery; big data and data science; cloud infrastructures; agile software development; quality and test automation; and agile software security are Xebia’s signature offerings in the global market. In reward to benefiting industries with cutting-edge technologies and innovations, Xebia is regularly nominated by Gartner and Forrester for excellence in new technologies. Besides, the organization

September 2019

“

It’s my Responsibility to Accelerate Your Business!

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Anand Sahay CEO

is rewarded by Deloitte, PwC, and other agencies of repute for creating new frontiers in IT training services.

Xebia Group’s turnover was USD 100 Million, and it is expected to rise by 50 to 55 percent in the year 2019-20.

The Crew of Xebia

Anand has a strong ability on the market repositioning of service offerings and adept in keeping the right balance between cost, risk, and growth.

He quickly builds a high-performance culture and takes bold steps to put companies in the path of recovery and growth.

Under the indomitable leadership of Anand Sahay, CEO at Xebia, Xebia Group of companies is thriving on three distinct principles: Authority, Focus, and Values.

A strong leader, Anand, who has led turnarounds for companies by handling failures head-on and implementing heavy change management to turn companies into a global enterprise with strong financial. In the last fiscal year,

September 2019

The Upcoming Future As a business leader of a global corporation, Anand is planning to implement innovation under difficult

circumstances, manage crisis communication, changing management, market repositioning, managing and restructuring, building and managing culture and its conflicts.

By using his astute understanding of the market and the structural weaknesses/ fault lines in the company to lay down the right foundation for companies to deliver the value it aspires to and create shareholder value.

With his acumen for identifying new upcoming technologies, Anand is creating unique service offerings and continues to do so; to create innovative service lines, products, and potential market.

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AJAY LULIA Transforming IT World by Fostering Creativity

n an exclusive interview with Insights Success magazine, Ajay Lulia, the Director & CTO at Synergy Technology Services Pvt. Ltd. talks about his overall journey and the current industry scenario.

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my company in terms of resources and technology.

IS: Kindly brief us about you and your journey since the beginning of your career.

With 22+ years of experience in the information technology industry, Ajay thrives in challenging, fast-paced IT organizations delivering advanced technological systems, solutions, architectures, and applications.

We always used to follow technology and work on new technologies as and when needed, this was limiting our group and we used to miss being leaders into new areas. We at STS then created a research and development department called Synergy Accelerate (https://www.sts.in/synergy-accelerate) here we have formed a team that works in new technologies and then inculcates the same into the teams across offices.

Ajay Lulia dropout from a collage did his diploma and post that discovered interest into computers and started coding in Foxpro while doing computer education. His journey start from there where he worked on various technologies in various companies across India and overseas while mastering into web technologies. He co-founded STS in 2006 post working for 10 years in IT industry and is currently working as Director & CTO. IS: How do you describe yourself in one-word or one-sentence?

Results-oriented.

IS: What is your source of motivation?

My source of motivation is growth of

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IS: Kindly tell us about the challenges you faced to withstand the complexities of the industry.

IS: Kindly describe in detail about your company and its unique services/products.

STS was established in year 2006 with a moto to provide better solutions to industry by following best industry practices and creating open culture for all the members of company. I brought all the ideas which I saw missing while working for various companies in India and overseas and I believe that has paid us well.

IS: Brief us about the current industry scenario from your perspective.

IT industry in India always had

tremendous future since we have been and are creating top IT professionals since many years. When it comes to current industry scenario then I believe in Disruptive Innovation is the key and this can be easily defined by Enabling Technology using Innovative business model to create coherent value proposition.

IS: State us your major achievements and your company’s achievements under your leadership.

We started with team size of 6 people in services and we currently stand at 175 resources. One things that was missing was to train them into new technologies and I had two options, either get some training company and train my workforce or create small team do research and then deliver the same to teams. I created small team and names it Synergy Accelerate (https://www.sts.in/synergyaccelerate). Synergy Accelerate team used to research various things like Mobile development, Big Data, Alexa etc. Currently team is working on Machine Learning and RPA. IS: State your passions, aims, and goals.

My passion is to work on new technologies and be leader in cutting edge technologies, my aim is the have team of 1000 in next two years and my goal is envision ourselves as leaders in providing IT services and solutions, by

September 2019

Interview with Insights Success

delivering high quality services and ensuring client satisfaction.

IS: How do you see yourself and your company in the near future? Tell us about your future goals.

We being IT services company we are always evaluated either by the size of company or verticals we work on. We have plans to grow exponentially into multi cities. We are exploring option to open office tier II cities as to get fresh talent and also keeping cost low by passing the benefits back to our clients.

IS: What would you advise to the budding entrepreneurs?

I believe one thing hard work pays off and if you complement with a lean startup than one will grow easily without looking for external source of funds.

Entrepreneurial Mindset Factors according to you that Influence Business Relationships.

“Capability to deliver things and Level of communication like being open, honest and regular communication with relationships will definitely influence businesses.”

Fast Facts • One word that describes you and why: Passion, this helps me feel a deep sense of being led in a worthy direction towards my goal.

• Current Book you are reading and why: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman, I believe EQ is required for any work is as much IQ is required.

• A Movie you watch again and again and why: Lakshya, depicts everyones life before objective for life is realized.

• One Social Media Platform you use the most and why: Twitter, best way to communicate by limiting the text.

• You are proud of: my work and my team

September 2019

Ajay Lulia Director & CTO

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September 2019

Editor’s Pick

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ou might be seeing varying definitions of leadership for the past century and still everchanging. Initially, leadership meant to control and power, but today, a leadership that develops shared goals and effectiveness which influences people to achieve a common goal became more prominent. Now it meant to accomplish the goals together. Leadership is at par when groups aim to achieve certain goals both independently as well as in a group. Leadership is not an

September 2019

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act alone, but a process that transforms leaders and people into a team that mutually works in favor of the whole lot to reach motivational and moral goals. Working through a pain point can turn things around and leaders excel in it.

A Personage Motivating the Team People have the full potential to learn things but might get spasmodic when someone is instructing. They, however, need consolation and encouragement with something to look forward to for them to show it in better performance.

It's hard to change old habits, but the faster a leader adapts to a new model of humankind and nabs it, the faster they learn to emphasize additional performance percentage.

A leader is capable of explaining the importance of a task.

Communication is the key to motivation for employees that inspires them to be more productive and make them understand how it fits into the bigger picture. Leaders try not to blame employees but still make them aware of their responsibility and accountability for what they do. This makes the employees more engaged and optimal in their productivity with negligible errors. Furthermore, their tasks and success may become a motivation factor, which can build their self-esteem and confidence in their work.

Democratic leadership also termed as participative, is one of the styles of leading where the leader includes employees in decision making even if someone else has the final say.

Due to this employees feel appreciated and also understand that if it is a big organization, decisions cannot be made considering a single person’s opinion.

Putting It All Together A leader is born with certain qualities that fits them in the role. Leaders adorn themselves with committed and focused practice which makes them an eminent leader. An emergent leader interacts well with the others gains authority through the others in the organization who has more acceptance, support, and trust from the employees. Leaders act more dominantly, intelligently and confidently while executing their responsibilities. Leaders that are especially based on interactions with people make themselves much prepared in communication skills which calls attention to their acumen.

They highly focus on customer satisfaction since a happy customer will come back and praise the company. Who

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wants their company at the top, always keep the employeefirst approach.

As a result, the employee may be engaged to do well with both internal and external customers. A good leader knows how to delegate tasks right, based on not only skills and experience but also in a way that gives employees space to grow, learn and challenge themselves who may show the ability to outrank certification with innovation.

Successful leaders always remain confident and mentally balanced which helps them to have an optimistic view that allows them to overcome anger and negative emotions faster. They identify their limits and it’s also their metaemotion which helps them acknowledging how they feel and deal with it accordingly. A leader has a positive external force hence self-control and empathy with a strategic leadership become some of their core skills.

Abstaining Overconfidence and Challenging Risks The ethos of a company are set from the top, so senior figures should set the tone for risk management culture.

You cannot control people through policies, procedure and policing but leaders do it through a strong risk management culture and absolute integrity in all.

Leaders prioritize the foundational level of capability in the most important areas, be aware of development gaps and ensure the measures in place to compensate for the risks.

They try to keep the process simple because working on multiple development goals while attending a demanding job may lead to a quick loss of focus, motivation and also lead to financial loss. Experience and relationships are the primary way leaders inculcate to avoid risks.

They try to enlist the support of human resources, managers, mentors or coaches. Appointing an accountability partner whom they trust and the one who checks in and challenges them on their progress or provides with ongoing, uncensored feedback becomes an imperative decision. By taking these steps in risk leadership development leaders to enhance their profile within both company and risk professionals as a whole.

So Are you missing the opportunity in Risk? But the leaders aren’t, following the above secrets.

September 2019

The 10

Influential

Business Leaders to Watch in 2019

Ashish Kumar Saxena A Technocrat Shaping his Path

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he science of today is the technology of tomorrow. There have been a number of techies in the world, that have created a change in this world. Every now and then we see new start-ups and fresh ideas in this innovative businesses era.

One such veteran Ashish Kumar Saxena has come with his entrepreneurial spirit and formed AKS Group of companies. He is tycoon with a deep technical knowledge carrying out innovative ideas and a managerial ability.

Know Him Better An alumnus of IIT Delhi (M.Tech), Ashish did his B.Sc (Engineering) in Electrical from HBTI, Kanpur. He started his career as an Instrument Engineer in Tata Chemicals Ltd. in 1976 and thereafter joined Indian Air Force (IAF) as an Aeronautical Engineer (Electronics) in 1977.

Continued in IAF for more than twoand-half decades and took premature retirement in 2003.

During his service, he was awarded ‘Vishisht Seva Medal’ by the President of India for his distinguished service.

In IAF, he held the appointment of

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Chief Engineering Offices as Wing Commander and during his last tenure he was looking after Information & Electronic Warfare (IEW) Trained in US, France and Sweden on IEW. Later, worked as Vice President (Technology) in Network Security Solutions and managed the creation of Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In).

Govt of India, STQC (International Common Criteria Test Lab). First time in India, such a complex DDoS mitigation solution has been developed successfully which is Artificial Intelligence based and EAL2+ certified. It is only one-of-its-kind in the world, which provides Integrated DDoS mitigation and WAF in a single machine.

In the year 2006, he founded AKS IT Services Pvt Ltd. After a few years, in the year 2012, he founded AKS Institute of Cyber Technology. And, then in the year 2015 cofounded HaltDos.com Pvt Ltd. along with his son, Anshul Saxena.

Overcoming Challenges

Exclusive Solutions AKS Group deals in Cyber Security.

AKS IT Services provides auditing (Network & Applications), consulting, compliance and computer Forensics services. AKS Institute provides Cyber Security Training and HaltDos, product Development Company, develops Cyber Security Products. We have developed a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack mitigation solution, Web Application Firewall (WAF). These products are certified by

There are numerous challenges in doing business in India. Here are few them shared by Ashish.

• First, Slavery mindset of our people that Foreign products are better than Indian Products and foreigner can provide better services.

• Secondly, delay in payments.

• Thirdly, corruption. GST has helped a lot in simplifying taxation system.

Samadhan yojna has also improved the payment system.

Even though he is a self-motivated person, he derives motivation from his son, Akash Saxena. He said, “My son Akash has inspired me to become an entrepreneur and trying to fulfill my commitments towards Akash who is no more with us.”

September 2019

“

Innovation is my Passion

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Ashish Kumar Saxena Founder

Key Achievements

Current Industry Scenario

Successfully carried out 8400+ Application security audit, AKS Group is now carrying out SCADA systems audits in Power Sector. Also, it has indigenously developed AKS Forensics workstation, DDoS mitigation solution, Web Application Firewall under Make in India.

Cyber Security is the need of the hour by all countries. Indigenous cybersecurity products are a must for critical information infrastructure.

Cybersecurity industry will continue to grow even in faster pace times to come. “We are in Cyber Security domain which is growing at a faster pace.” –Asish added further.

AKS Group has received various awards like Express IT innovation Award 2015, DSCI Innovation Award 2016, IIT Delhi Innovation award 2017, SIDBI, Economic Times most Innovative MSE award 2018, 50 Innovative leader award 2018, etc.

September 2019

Future Lifestyle The foundations of the company are strong and it is keeping them abreast with the latest technology, which will

continue to grow with a much faster pace. Also, now preparing to launch Cloud-based WAF, CDN, DNS & DDOS in the next month named as EDGEO. “We are planning to spread our business globally.” –stated Aashish.

A Million Dollar Advice “Hard work and passion are must for success.

Downfall does occur and that’s the part of life, what matters is perseverance.

Lage Raho success will be yours!”

–said Ashish.

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Interview with Insights Success

Amit Jain CATALYZING BEST TRAVELING EXPERIENCES

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n an exclusive discussion with Insights Success Magazine, Amit Jain, Director at Rising Star Tours & Travels talks about his company and gives his insight on the current industry trends.

IS: Kindly brief us about you and your journey since the beginning of your career.

I completed diploma in travel trade in 1990 and eight years later, I started Rising Star Tours & Travels. Being an avid traveler filled with perpetual fernweh, I identified the existing gaps in the tour and travel industry in India and the challenges that travelers face on a regular basis. This acknowledgment led to the foundation of Rising Star Tours and Travels—a one-stop destination for all the traveling needs. Rising Star Tour & Travels is aimed to make travelling easier and simpler that almost every individual in the society can travel across the world and enjoy the boundless beauty of the nature. I

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started this entrepreneurial journey alone, but was supported by family.

With sheer dedication and relentless efforts in making this startup a success, I established a wide network of tour operators first in India and later, in the overseas market. Meanwhile, company achieved affiliations from the reputed organizations in the tour & travel industry such as TAAI, TAFI, IATA, ADITOI, and OTOAI. and approved

by Ministry Of Tourism, & Government of India.

Delivering the best of services at the prices that customer is ready-to-pay is always the focus of Rising Star Tour & Travels. The company never compromised on services part and this reflects in its growth over the years.

Rising Star Tour & Travels won the Best Outbound Tour Operator Award in 2016 and Golden Star Award in 2018.

IS: How do you describe yourself in one-word or one-sentence?

Amit Jain is a catalyst for change and a strategist for success.

IS: What is your source of motivation?

Nature and its beautiful landscapes.

IS: Kindly tell us about the challenges you faced to withstand the complexities of the industry.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was the money-centric mindset of customers. The primary focus of the customers was money, and then the travel experience. We, however, were clear from the start that we have to deliver the best of services and travel experience, even at the lowest budget that the customer asks for. Since inception, we neither compromised on services part nor on customer satisfaction. And, this reflects the rapid growth of our company over the years.

IS: Kindly describe in detail about your company and its unique services/products.

It’s our customer-centric approach that sets us apart from the rest. As we are committed to providing an unparalleled level of customer service

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KNOW HIM BETTER • One word that describes you: Passionate because it keeps me on my toes to do something and achieve something • Current Book you are reading: Secrets Of Millionare Mind - wanted to change my blueprint of money management • A Movie you watch again and again: Chak De India - it proves nothing is impossible • One Social Media Platform you use the most: Whats aap - most handy most assesed most accepted • You are proud of: My Family

and value, we have a dedicated team that remains available 24*7 to assist the customers and address their queries at the earliest. The proactive communication, short turnaround time, affordable and customized tour packages, and an extensive professional network are our USPs. To deliver impeccable travel experience and service par excellence is our commitment. And therefore, strategic quality control processes are in place to ensure that no aspect of the travel is left to chance.

IS: Brief us about the current industry scenario from your perspective.

Technologies have taken almost every industry by storm, fuelling its growth and digitizing its operations.

Banking and finance and Automotive are always the early adopters of the latest technological advancements, and now, the tour and travel industry is also making way to join the club. With Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality, the travel companies can deliver a worldclass experience to the customers and tap on the unreachable but potential customers. Intelligent chatbots that handle uncountable bulk customer queries in

September 2019

Amit Jain Director Rising Star Tours & Travels

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ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET “Factors according to you that Influence Business Relationships:” • Communication: A stabilized and thoughtful way of sharing meaningful and timely information between you, employees and the customer, both formally and informally.

• Friendliness: Approachability; easy to reach and share feeling a customer builds with you.

• Value System: Ethical and moral policies that you imbibe in the organization.

a human-like way, VR Hardware or 360-Degree video creation using VR to entertain travelers or guide them on cruise interior, and real-time tracking of the luggage are some of the examples how technology is being used in the sector.

Clearly, the future of travel industry looks promising enough from technology’s point of view where automation and agility will invade the traditional landscape.

IS: State us your major achievements and your company’s achievements under your leadership.

We are honored to receive Golden Star Award of ‘The Leading Tours & Travel Agency of the Year’ (Delhi). The credit goes our team, their endless dedication, unbeatable love and strong support that kept us motivated and work hard to achieve this award.

Apart from offering various bespoke travel packages for domestic and international destinations, we organize frequent trips for visually impaired (VI) people to various tourist destinations in India and we are the first one to offer this unique itinerary. Since the first trip, we have received many queries for such trips; people all over the country want us to continue conducting such tours. We took a pledge to change the life of at least 1000 VI people a year through travel. If all things fall into place, we will create a platform for people with disabilities to travel to even the farthest corner of the world with ease. It’s the vision of RSTT to create a platform where one disabled community becomes the support system of another community of differently disabled. Till date, we have organized 4 successful domestic trips for visually impaired people and of late we have organized the first foreign tour. 25 VI persons and volunteers of Rising Star Khilte Chehre have enjoyed the 5-day tour to Bangkok, Thailand.

IS: State your passions, aims, and goals.

Exploring nature’s beauty all over the world is not only my passion but the aim of my life. And, as far as our future goals are concerned, we are determined to achieve a turnover of INR 100 crores in the next two years. As Indian tour & travel industry is still fragmented and relatively small, opening a franchise model to become a helping hand to small travel agencies is also one of our top priorities.

IS: How do you see yourself and your company in the near future?

For the next couple of years, Rising Star Tours & Travels will aim to go digital and start a franchise model. As responsible corporate citizen, the plan is to strengthen the digital presence of the firm and introduce a franchise model in order to uplift the small travel agencies. Moreover, it’s the principal objective of Rising Star Tours & Travels to make the brand a common household name.

IS: What would you advise to the budding entrepreneurs?

My advice to the budding entrepreneurs would be that this is the one industry which have a huge scope of growth with minimum investment as compared to other industries and till 2025 it will grow 3 times which is it now contributing 10% of the world total gdp.

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September 2019

The 10

Influential

Business Leaders to Watch in 2019

Ram Sharma Dreamer | Believer | Creator “Don’ t waste time in thinking... Just take the leap.”

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big dreamer, Ram Sharma is the Founder & CEO at BankGenie, re-imagining banking and presenting tomorrow’s technology in today’s world. An innovative and creative entrepreneur by nature, Ram has worked in both the banking and technology environments. With over two decades of experience he is bringing together a thorough understanding of banking procedures and processes, software design and implementation, a pioneering spirit and a never-say-die attitude in all his endeavors.

The Beginning Ram Sharma began his career as a banker in the year 1993 with an Indian private bank then moved on to a banking technology company ‘Temenos’. Bitten by the entrepreneurship bug,-he started his own banking consulting company from Mysore, India. He then called the banking consulting company to a NASDAQ listed company, started his second startup sold that too, to a Swiss based company.

After a few years of non compete with the previous buyer, he started off again and this time he was very clear that he wanted to start a banking product company to help the unbanked people of the world. So, he with his key members, came up with the idea of

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branchless banking where banks can establish branches in the remotest corner of any country to serve the unbanked. That’s how BANK-GENIE was born!

The Flagship Product Bank-Genie’s flagship product is a mobile native software running on a tablet, POS device or smartphone.This enables banks and financial institutions to create virtual, integrated, secured and seamless retail branches freeing ‘the teller’ from brick and mortar branch. The state-of-the-art solution enables banks to set up branches where customers can access complete set of banking services at a fraction of the cost of a full traditional branch.“What we have done with Bank-Genie is to take out all the dependencies and connectivity of a bank teller to branch facilities.” -said Ram. Further, he added, “We have modeled the company on large industry leaders like Temenos and large value companies like Apple.”

Overcoming Challenges Selling to Banks is a difficult proposition as banks tend to buy software from established and proven vendors. It was initially difficult for the team to break this wall and earn the trust of the banks. Once, it had successfully implemented at UniBank, Ghana it was smooth sailing as banks had started to see value in company’s

offering. Further Ram said, “Today, one of the key challenges faced by banks and financial institutions is their inability to set up multiple branches or access points due to capital and operational constraints.”

Major Achievements Secured Series A funding from SBI (Softbank investments) and FMO (Dutch development Bank) Reached 7th position globally on the IBS SALES LEAGUE table in terms of sales.

Expanded the product portfolio from one product to a suite of 7 products.

Ranked as one of the TOP 50 products in digital banking products.

Received the Red herring award for one of the TOP 100 companies in Asia.

Ranked as one of the 50 global leaders in digital transformation by BIG AWARDS Industry Outlook: Banking Sector The growing influence of fin-techs and non-banks seems an accepted fact now.

Investment in online lending platforms by both startups and incumbents is still significant. While it is unclear how many fin-techs will become successful, this seems a sign of maturity in the industry as fin-techs become part of the mainstream banking system. In Europe, PSD2 (Revised Payment

September 2019

“

Bank-Genie always believed in the goal of creating a banking technology product that can help Banks create virtual branches anywhere

“

Ram Sharma

CEO & Founder

Service Directive) and the open banking standard are having the intended effects—spurring innovation and creating a more level playing field.

But incumbents have not been caught flat-footed—they have responded well to the challenge.

Encouragingly, open banking is catching on in other parts of the world, despite the lack of a regulatory mandate. And, in the United States, banks are expected to test the waters in 2019. But, across the globe, the retail banking industry is fast embracing a mobile-centric customer experience.

Investments in mobile technologies have increased meaningfully with Asia Pacific leading the world in the rapid adoption of digital banking due to

September 2019

consumers’ constantly evolving demands.

Meanwhile, consumers’ experiences in other industries are upping the ante for most banks. Deloitte’s recent global digital banking survey across 17 countries showed that banking consumers have a stronger emotional connection to technology brands like Apple, Amazon, and Google than to their banks. Some of these companies’ ability to blend experiences from the physical and digital worlds is considered a good model for banks. In response, banks are deploying a mix of strategies to stay ahead in the game, including higher technology spending on channel improvement—branches, ATMs, call centers, and digital

banking. JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) has adopted “mobile first, digital everything,” while Santander has four investments in the online lending space alone.

Driving Forward Banking solutions company BankGenie with corporate headquarters in Singapore has announced it will establish its presence in Manila to service a growing clientele that includes Universal Banks, Saving and Lending Banks, Rural Banks and Multi-Finance Institutions across the globe. Also, the company aims to accomplish the number one position on IBS Sales League and achieve their goal of transacting one billion transactions on their Genie Platform on a daily basis.

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THE BELOW EXCERPT IS ANEXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH

RAVI G. VENKATARAMAN CEO at CLOUDNINE GROUP of HOSPITALS talking about his journey across the healthcare segment till date IS: Kindly brief us about you and your journey since the beginning of your career.

RV: Prior to joining the healthcare industry, I had the privilege of been associated with multiple industries and had the opportunity to traverse through the entire value chain of functions – right from manufacturing, supply chain, distribution, sales and marketing, strategy and M&A and have been running P&Ls for over the last decade. My first job was as a young engineer working in Godrej & Boyce on a project for ISRO for manufacturing components for the PSLV – so truly Rocket science! Post my MBA I was associated with Titan Industries as a part of the team that set up the Jewellery manufacturing set up which now is famous as Tanishq. I joined Coca-Cola when they commenced bottling operations in India and held various roles with them – right from buying through sales and distribution to running bottling operations. Subsequently I had a stint with Airtel wherein I led their DTH business in the South India. Prior to joining Cloudnine Group of Hospitals as the CEO, I was with Metro cash & Carry wherein I held multiple roles in India and Asia in the areas of Strategy, M&A and Commercial operations and Merchandising. I have always been attracted to new and unchartered zones and even in established organisations have chosen jobs that are more entrepreneurial and like start-ups.

Ravi Ganesh Venkataraman Chief Executive Ofcer

Cloudnine Group of Hospitals

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IS: How do you describe yourself in one-word or onesentence?

RV: I see myself as a “permanent learner” at every stage IS: What is your source of motivation?

RV: I get my highs by trying out new things and exploring unchartered territory. I believe that the human mind is

September 2019

Interview with Insights Success capable of way much more than what we give it credit. Hence learning new skills is something that’s my biggest motivator.

IS: Kindly tell us about the challenges you faced to withstand the complexities of the industry?

RV: Most of the roles that I have performed required me to learn skills which I had never expected to learn.

The biggest challenge is to be able to learn from everyone and everything around you while at the same time leading your teams and the business successfully.

IS: Kindly describe in detail about your company and its unique services/products.

RV: Cloudnine Group of Hospitals began its journey in 2007, and now stands as one of India’s most advanced, technologically equipped maternal, childcare and fertility care group of hospitals in India. Technology is at the core of this organization that has revolutionised childbirth in India’s urban centres, and hopes to drive this change in rural India as well. The founding group of promoters with their experience and global awareness, coupled with research through customers, providers, payor networks found a gap in service as against the demand available for maternal and childcare services in India. Our entire ethos is based on our Chairman, Dr Kishore Kumar’s Philosophy that “Pregnancy is a wellness and not an illness”, till we started our services. It was found through our research that choice for couples were either nursing homes or corporate hospitals both of which had their own merits and demerits and our objective was to provide personalised experiences with the highest technical expertise and the best of clinical talent, all along

September 2019

cherishing the journey of pregnancy within an infrastructure catered to “Celebration, Comprehensive Care and Clinical Excellence”. After the milestone of marriage, childbirth is one of the most cherished moments in one’s life and our services in handholding the couple through this life stage and being their trusted companion for everything that they need during this time have been a core offering.

The entire thought at Cloudnine is that maternity and birthing are perhaps the most precious moments in a mother’s life. That is something we would like to celebrate and we do that with all the the vigour and enthusiasm. This has been the core purpose of our journey over the last 12 years, and has kind of propelled us to the heights that we have reached today, where we give every customer a pure Cloudnine experience.

IS: Brief us about the current industry scenario from your perspective.

RV: The space that we operate in is an interesting one with the macro on account of rapid urbanization and increase in women in the workforce being important drivers for growth.

There is a clear emergence of the woman as the central decision maker in matters related to pregnancy and childbirth – as opposed to the past when there would be others taking critical decisions on behalf of the woman. This in turn has fueled the demand for a superior and fulfilling experience through the pregnancy journey while of course expecting clinical excellence. Today, Cloudnine Group of Hospitals is the market leader in this space and has led the transformation in the industry, by making the experience of childbirth a

joyous and memorable one. Besides providing top class clinical care and superior facilities Cloudnine has also ushered in a host of novel concepts such as Lamaze & Yoga classes, Baby showers, involvement of the father and other family members in the journey.

Obviously the success of Cloudnine has spurred up several competitors to enter this market. But being the pioneer Cloudnine is committed to leading the field with its relentless focus on the Customer and excellence in operations.

As in any growing company especially in a sector like maternal and child healthcare where there is a stiff competition, the key challenges have been to ensure we put in enough means and mechanisms to ensure we stay on top of our customer promise and maintain our clinical quality excellence. We invest a lot of time and resources in training and motivating our teams to perform at their best levels. A key focus area for us has been to keep the company culture evolving and engrained whilst allowing for regional independence in creating new balanced environments. We have been able to attract top clinicians across the cities we operate in and we continuously learn from their experience and value addition to enrich our growing story.

IS: State us your major achievements and your company’s achievements under your leadership RV: As the first mover and pioneer in this sector, our ability to innovate has constantly helped us succeed.

Innovation across customer experience, clinician engagement, staff training, technology intervention through both medical and digital means to further enhance outcomes have always helped us set a high benchmark of excellence.

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One of our key distinction has also been the fact that we are extremely transparent in our service offering and that has helped us cut through the otherwise hard to traverse industry mechanics on pricing. We have provided over 70000 mothers a truly Cloudnine experience as they gave birth their bundle of joy! There is frankly no greater accomplishment than seeing the smiles on faces and joy in the eyes of these families.

IS: How do you see yourself and your company in the near future?

Tell us about your future goals.

RV: This is an important question. We are looking at all our customers getting a pure Cloudnine experience here. And when we say Cloudnine, it basically means Uberization of Healthcare. And this is what we actually look at – that there is easy choice. It’s all available at the click of a button. Information is present, there is data access, one can make payments, write reviews and take feedback from us.

We are looking at all our customers coming together as a large ecosystem.

We are bringing in a set of partners who will support this ecosystem with their products. So the mother and child, which is the core of this ecosystem, is supported by not only Cloudnine but all of Cloudnine cohorts in having a great journey, superb celebration for this absolute grand moment in their life, which is the birth of their baby.

The world around us is now digital and our customers expect the same from us. We have therefore intensified our digital efforts – both for our customers as well as our doctors. We created a very friendly app for customers which enables them to do most of the transactions with us digitally – eg. doctor selection, appointment booking, payments. Similarly, we have enabled our doctors with digital technology

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wherein using a digital pen their prescriptions are fully digitised and stored and shared seamlessly with the customer. We see ourselves as pioneers in using digital technology in healthcare and one can expect many innovations in this space from us in the years to come.

The entire medical industry has been largely a doctor driven industry. It’s where digital transformation has been limited or slow, and is also one place that perhaps requires the maximum amount of digitalization because the fundamental need for the customer to have all access to information, data and to know that she’s been treated in the right way and she has access to past records – are core to this particular business. But unfortunately this has not been something which has been driven as hard in the medical industry as it should have been. What we are trying to do in Cloudnine is to actually start the journey right from day one completely digitally. So for example, when a customer walks into a Cloudnine hospital, she’s given a tab and enters all her registration data through the tab. There is no paper. All critical information, which is in the past was captured on a piece of paper, could lead to errors, the same errors gets captured as a data entry – this is completely eliminated. The power shifting from the hospital or provider to customer is the big shift. And this shift can only happen when we use digital means. This is a big transformation happening in healthcare. It may not come across as big but when you actually start seeing the impact of this, it shifts so many things. For example, more than 40 percent of our appointments today are being made through the app. The customer is actually not calling up new hospital or a call center but clicks on the app, chooses her doctor and makes

her appointment. That’s a very, very, very big shift. We would like to see this virtually become 100 percent in the near term.

We will continue to strive to reach new heights in delivering on our objective of Healthy Mothers and Happy Babies.

We have recently accelerated our initiatives at helping mothers who are unable to conceive through Fertility programs and centres. We are setting up best in class fertility centres across the country with the highest standards in clinical and ethical practices.

IS: What would you advise to the budding entrepreneurs?

RV: My advice would be as follows: • In your early years be a sponge – soak up everything that you can learn from especially your customers • Have a clear business model with the customer at the core and follow the philosophy “customer is the King” for your success.

• The goal of every business is to be profitable so have a clear path to profitability IS: What are the factors according to you that influence Business Relationships.

RV: All Business relationships are based on value propositions. A customer pays you for the value that you provide. Similarly you pay your suppliers for the value that they provide. Even your investors invest in you because of your capability to create value for them. The stronger your value proposition the higher your share of the customer’s wallet and hence higher the competitive advantage for your vs other competitors.

September 2019

How Arti cial Intelligence (AI) Shall Impact Business and Lives in the years to come

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n the year 1986, when I was pursuing my master’s degree from IIT Mumbai, we had a full course in AI. It had a very interesting computer game called “Predict the Animal”. The game allowed you to think of an animal and after asking you some questions, to which you only had to reply in ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, the machine accurately predicted the animal you had thought of. The game started by asking a simple question like, is it herbivorous or carnivorous? So, if say, you had thought of a ‘cow’, and replied herbivorous, the game may respond that it is a goat.

Because at that stage of the game the only animal listed as herbivore in its animal database was a goat. When the game realized that it has made a wrong prediction, it would give up and ask you, what question could it ask to distinguish between a cow and a goat? You will probably say, “Is it huge and bulky”? to which the answer for goat will be ‘No’ and for cow will ‘Yes’. The game shall start all over again and the computer, while playing the game shall also learn to distinguish between different animals and ask right questions for the purpose. After playing the game for a few rounds, the computer always predicted the right animal after asking a few questions. The earliest versions of Artificial Intelligence algorithms were taking shape at that time.

Since then AI has come a long way over the last 33 years.

Today Artificial Intelligence is making its presence felt across all domains of businesses. Whether it is Retail or health or education or finance sectors, AI based applications are making a ubiquitous presence across all sectors. So, what is AI? How does it differ from Human Intelligence? Earliest computer programs were linear in

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About the Author Wg. Cdr. Pradeep Valsangkar is a postgraduate Engineer from the IAF. He completed his M.tech in Computer Science from IIT Powai and MBA from FMS Delhi. He is also a graduate of Defence Services Staff College of India. After leaving service he has worked in various capacities across different ITservices companies.

He has been working as a senior consultant of the world bank for last 15 years, a visiting faculty at Institute of Management technology and runs his consulting firm Global Consulting Solutions.

September 2019

Industry Outlook

Wg. Cdr. Pradeep Valsangkar

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ature and had a fixed logical flow. The computer executed this algorithm on the available data and produced the same result every time it executed the program. However, humans realized that the natural intelligence did not behave in such a static manner always.

It applied the contextual information to processing of the data and came out with different results depending upon the context in which it operated. Thus, for example, a given number was big or small in context with which it was referred to. Thus 35 degrees Celsius was high for humans to bear but low for water to boil. This ability of the humans to learn from their environment and adapt to the changing conditions needed to be replicated in the computers. This meant writing computer algorithms that adapted and changed every time it encountered contextual data. More data it crunched, more the algorithm learnt and more it adapted itself to the changing conditions. These adaptive computing algorithms lead to many different sub fields with in Artificial Intelligence. These fields included Natural Language Understanding, Machine Learning, Robotics, Deep Learning &, Neural Networks.

September 2019

Today AI based applications are driving several sectors of the economy. Industrial Robots have automated the production of several industries. Auto Manufacturing is one major example. Robotics based production is much faster and is also more accurate leading to much lesser wastage in terms of material and faulty manufacturing. Retail sector is now able to accurately predict the buying behaviour of its customers on the basis of the deep learning algorithms crunching the customer data on a real time basis. This enables the retail stores to adjust their inventory just in time to satiate the customer demand.

A prominent home application of AI is Voice activated intelligent bots like Alexa. These devices are making it much easier to operate general home appliances and demand music and entertainment and news on demand through voice actuated AI applications run on a small device plugged in to a home socket.

Machine learning algorithms are helping major social media giants like Facebook to fine tune their

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advertisements to specific log ins on the basis of their browsing history. Data pertaining to billions of searches on Google is helping to provide the browsing history and buying behaviour of people and helping the retails industry to finetune its products and Advertisement spend.

AI is also finding major use in the field of medicine. IBMs ‘Watson’ is an early example of an online doctor capable of diagnosing a given disease on the basis of the symptoms and providing medication for the same. The field of surgery is replete with many surgical instruments with AI and robotics capability helping human surgeons undertake complicated surgeries. Recently an operation done in Indiana Police in USA, a surgeon using a Google Glass was automatically supplied with imaging and diagnostic data pertaining to the organ S/he was operating on seamlessly. This meant that the surgeon did not need to take his/her eyes off the organ to refer to the imaging or diagnostic data while performing the surgery.

Driverless cars are fast becoming a reality. The driverless car developed by Google has already clocked a million mile. The city of Singapore has already launched the first driverless Taxi service in the city. It is expected that in a decade or so, driving as a profession shall vanish and most of the cars on the streets will be driverless cars.

The speed at which Artificial Intelligence based applications are proliferating across all domains of the economy, it is very difficult to predict its complete impact over the coming decade. Almost all sectors of the economy shall be impacted by AI based applications and devices.

Driverless cars shall certainly become a reality. That shall mean many less cars on the road and nearly zero accident rates. (Since automated driverless cars shall always avoid collision using AI and proximity devices.)

The communication as we know shall undergo a complete change. Holograms (Virtual and Mixed reality devices) shall change the communication experience across the entire spectrum. Someone sitting in India shall be able to deliver a lecture in the USA as if the person was present

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there. Online real time translation shall also mean that the lecture given in one language will be translated online and delivered in any other language of choice using Natural Language algorithms.

Enormous proliferation of IOT (Internet of Things) devices across all sectors of an economy shall mean that these devices shall generate voluminous data. Such data (in Tera and Peta Bytes) will only be possible to be crunched and made sense of using AI and machine learning techniques.

Thus, IoT controlled Devices driven by AI based applications, continuously fine tuning their actions on the basis of analysing big data produced by IOT devices shall govern our life in the year 2030. We will not drive to office, we will interact with virtual people using holograms rather than real people, machines shall do most of the mundane routine work, social media is likely to impact the way people shall interact with each other and socializing as we understand today may undergo a complete change.

Will such an influx of AI in our lives impact the jobs. Will it mean that a number of jobs in the economy shall be lost to smart Robots, who shall do the same job better, at a lesser cost and more accurately? The verdict on job losses is mixed. If we go by the history of automation, we find that automation has always created more jobs rather than taken away jobs. Advent of computers and automation has always helped expand the economic activities faster and has helped grow the economies across the globe. However, there is a possibility that the types of jobs may undergo a change. People may have to re-skill themselves in to using newer technologies and some professions may be lost for good. Blue collar jobs are likely to give way to white collar jobs. People at the bottom of the pyramid may find it very difficult to find jobs because of robots and IoTbased devices undertaking all mundane repetitive jobs done by humans. This may turn out to be a blessing in disguise and the quality of human effort will undergo a change for the better.

September 2019