The Features Your Enterprise Data Analytics Software Must Have

0:00Hi. And today I've got Aven calling in from Pittsburgh in the USA. Avin, how are you going? Hi and hey, thanks for having me on the podcast. Really good to be here. Yeah, fantastic. So, I've been working with Aven for a bit of time and, we just had a quick 5-second chat beforehand around taking a service and making it really productized, but we'll get into all those great things and tips and tricks later on. But as we do on this podcast, the most important thing is really to find out what really makes an IT founder survive and thrive. And you've been running your organization for 13 years. Is that correct?

0:35Yeah, 13 years now. It's a long time. Long time. So, you've got a lot of stories to tell us. I'm really keen to unpack all that and find out all the good and the bad because as we know running an IT services firm or a software company, it's pretty difficult and there's a lot of challenges doing that. So, we want to be really authentic in the session so people that are listening there can actually hear some of these tips and tricks and what did you do wrong and what you do right. Welcome to IT Mastermind Talks, your access to insights and experiences from thought leaders in the IT services industry and those that support the industry. Our podcast features not only the seasoned professionals charting their start to exit journey, but also the key contributors who help ensure their success. We delve into the diverse challenges encountered within the IT services realm encompassing both professional hurdles and personal obstacles. Join us, be part of our growing community and engage in the conversation hosted by Ian Markram of Loading Growth.

1:36Okay, but before we start, we always go back to the beginning. How were you a kid at high school and and and where were you at at high school? Well, I I u grew up in northern part of India, Kashmir and I was we were a small school. We were one of 10 20 people. It was really interesting experience, really tight group of

1:58And played sports for most part cricket was our like go-to sport for most part and subsequently ended up in an ended up being a reluctant engineer. I didn't want to be an engineer. I was one of those reluctant engineers. It's one of those things that if you're born in India. And you [clears throat] can either be a doctor or an engineer.

2:19That's amazing cuz every every time I speak to a person I had a I was at a round table event about two months ago with a lady who is this the speaker and we I had at the pleasure of having her at the table and she's India and she says you're either a doctor or an engineer and I didn't want to be an engineer so I became a doctor. It is that is exactly that. So it's it's an amazing you know that the talent that you get out of India around IT people is phenomenal. and I just never hear of any doctors. Obviously I'm in IT so I never hear about doctors but I never hear about doctors or engineers. I just hear about IT people. So they all obviously go become a doctor and then end up being IT or engineer and then becoming IT. So yeah. Anyway, so that's great. You love cricket. I love cricket as you know. So there's something that we got in passion. I think American audience don't know anything about cricket. They're all into baseball. So it must get pretty frustrating for you not watching much cricket, live cricket I should say at least in Australia. I get to go and watch the Ashes coming up shortly and that's going to be amazing as well. So I can't wait for that. Okay. So engineering, you started engineering and what was your first, you know, what was your first job straight out of university?

3:29So I started with the Indian office of Oliveti. There was an Italian computer manufacturer Olivi and I was working in their printer division. I was responsible for developing innovations around printing at the time. We were going from dot matrix to laser printers and I was in a another small part of India where we were doing that didn't like it and I just think that I by then had agency to say I'm a reluctant engineer. I don't want to be an engineer anymore. Let's try something else. And that's by then I had moved to sales as my second job. And I found I found myself interestingly in an area where I was doing engineering applications. Engineering document management was a thing at the time. I mean it was very innovative kind of an business

4:19So I really started working at the application end of databases before I started working with the databases. Fantastic. So you were selling the engineering product type from a application level and not really being in in the database level. So you're really understanding the business requirements, the user, what they need and and where the pain points were, which is I think is quite interesting because normally when you start off at our age, you started off at the bottom doing the grunt work and you didn't really understand like half the time you're going like what are we actually doing this for? We don't really know. But you actually started the other way around. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

4:54Exactly. and and that's when I moved to the database side of it and I started working with Oracle had a couple of other databases that I worked with at the time and one of the things that I realized very early on was that these databases are going to be more and more hard there's going to be a lot more data it I'm talking about back in 199596 Oracle was still like one of the early generation products but it was becoming apparent that data was going to be everywhere And progressively I moved like my personal passion moved more towards making data self-s served. and I there was enough innovation happening around the world. I was partnering with lots of companies from the US and Israel at the time selling those products in India and then developing solutions around those products in India. So, Uni data which was a fourth generation database at the time they had their integrated applications and they were out of Massachusetts. There were a couple of database products out of Israel that were coming in and out of London and we were integrating that for government of India. So, I started a small business in India and that's where I got my start.

6:05Okay. Fantastic. Just pause there for a moment because you made a bit of a jump from you know working on application down to the you know reaching out to different technology providers in the UK and the US and then you obviously said hey there's a good great opportunity here to start something myself and actually kick on and create create a little company. So what actually made that leap? Because a lot of people when I, you know, they talk to me is you I want to start an IT company. I want to start this IT services or a software company. What is that leap? And I explain to them is at some stage you know you've got so you got so many opportunities coming at you that you've you've just really got to make the jump and you feel confident enough to do the jump. What made you that jump and what set you up to do that jump? I really think that in my case it was a closer identification with a problem and the problem was that this data elements there are these data assets that the company is creating and we need to make that real the company that I was working for at the time which was Oracle their focus was on building a better database and we were sort of removed from that productbased decision-m we were removed from that problem based decision-m and when when I had the opportunity. I wanted to really get on the problem solution side and that awareness of what that problem looked like from a client's standpoint and that ability that oh I can solve that problem. That was the big shift. And again I didn't have to solve that personally knowing that I can bring the solution to them without having to invest a lot of time and energy in

7:39Creating that solution. That was a big shift for me. Okay. Great. So you understanding and this is the thing we always talk about when you're talking to to in our coaching program Loading Growth making sure people really understand a problem that they're trying to solve with with a client and I go back to people all the time cuz someone comes to me and says you know I've got a great idea I've got a great pitch I want to start taking this to market and and I say have you verified it? Yeah. Yeah. Look it's you know we've spoken to four or five people in that industry and guess what it's a problem. And I go well that's fantastic. They r they rush off and they come back you know a week or two later and they go well it's not resonating. or should you say a couple of months later and then I say well it is a problem you've confirmed that now how big of a problem is it for the client and then they go well what do you mean by that and I say to them look at the end of the day the client's got 20 problems they're trying to solve continuously if your problem is a problem and it's in the top 20 that's great but if it's not in the top three the chances of them actually doing anything about it is very very limited so it's got to be a big enough problem for them to actually engage. So you've been learning this obviously for quite a while and so you you're learning about the problem and you worked out the problem and you're going okay I don't have to really technically solve the problem. I'll bring in suppliers all around to actually solve the problem which is unique and and great. So but then you got that overwhelming feel that you can actually do this yourself and you started your business. Is that is that what happened?

8:59Exactly. Exactly. And one of the things obviously being that coming from the business end of it, it also meant that I had to acquire a really critical or a later part that became a critical skill. had to acquire that really quickly which is to build a team that can deliver to a solution. So as soon as I started I had a couple of really good friends who were focused on the systems integration side of the house and I was able to bring them together. So that was really the changing point was can not only can we conceptualize a solution, we can now integrate and then deliver a solution to the client.

9:36So then you thread into leveraging people which is the next thing is really important. So you found the problem, you've got suppliers overseas that could actually supply the software and then you go I've got people that I could leverage to drive this outcome for this client and solve this problem. That's really really good because leveraging is key you know in any services our people are you know our product as we always say and we've got to leverage them correctly to get the right results. So that's that's pretty awesome. So you got to you know you got the problem you got the software and you got the team. What happened next?

10:06So next was an interesting point that you talked about or referenced. What would be what would be a good story if it was not for failure? Yeah. So, so the challenge is identifying a right problem and and truly articulating about the problem the right way, right? Everybody needs a database. You you could say, "Hey, all businesses need a database." But that's not the problem that you're looking to solve. So, what we realized was that while we had good technology solutions, we were solving a problem that kind of later became a test for us. I think you already spoke to it. Is it a problem? Is it a problem big enough for the clients to want to spend the money on for? And what we realized was that it was a problem that the clients were facing but it was not one of those immediate problems or it was not one of those problems that the clients trusted a new company to be able to solve. So we we had to go through that cycle where after having even developed it a couple of times. This is like late 90s in India. We didn't have much financial ecosystem. We realized that we couldn't the amount of capital required to keep that business running could not be produced internally by organic sales

11:19For sure. So that's around the time when we started looking for or when really we got options and choices to look for opportunities in the US. Yeah. Great. Great. So it's it's really important that because you know I know India is firing at the moment. the economy is going gang busters and it's everyone talks about how how amazing it's going and obviously the maturity of that economy is maturing. Okay. So people people in those businesses are maturing and the life cycle and you know you obviously do analytics. I've did analytics as well. also got something else to share in common. And I realized when I started my IT services business back in 2005 that people still weren't really understanding what analytics was and we had to educate them quite a bit in Australia and and we found we could win work in the US every now and then a lot easier than it was in Australia because the market was more mature as such. Business the business community was more m more mature. So they recognize the problems and when we're educated and our education and their problem just aligned a lot easier. So

12:21That's so the maturity is what drove you to the business maturity probably what is what drove you to the US and that's what so when was that roughly oven so quite a while now and at the time I obviously the best way is to find the footing in in the marketplace understand the market and I was working for a couple of companies mainly focused on again the same thing there [clears throat] was a lot of outsourced services happening in the

12:51And around 2003 is when we started what became the first version of our current company. Okay. just before we go there, you your the company's two names. Could you explain a bit about that? Yeah. So I came I started working for because I had a background in Oracle space. So I started working for a company that was at the time focused on Oracle applications financials services around Oracle financials application manufacturing but it was a primarily a services company and then another company that I worked for was mainly a CRM focused company again a services company sort of pre-salesish role in both companies where it was pre-sales of the sales engineer like technical sales kind of a role in both companies. Okay, fantastic. So, you're building up more skills as you're going along. Exactly.

13:42Started a business. You had some really awkward opportunity. The market wasn't good for where you were at. You moved countries. You started different roles. You've learned how to do technical pre-sales by the sounds of things and a bit of sales. Seeing people in action doing things. So, you've learning the whole time what's good and what what's not good as well. And when you start your own business, you have a a background of what in your mind what it should look like. So that's that's a an awesome stage cuz people come to me and say, "Ian, you know, when's the right time to sell a business?" Well, there's really no right time, but if you don't have some of those skills, it's going to be a little bit harder to to actually achieve. You got to hire people, learn with the right skills, expensive, and everything else. So, you've grown those skills out. and then the name of your company, your current company has broken up into two different names. Do you remember what that is? I read on the

14:32Sure. so visero came from back in the day business intelligence used to be like sold as in the enterprises this creates a one vision of truth or one version of truth. So visero became vis for vision and vero is Latin for truth. So visero was the one vision or one version of truth across the enterprises. I love that cuz when I first engaged you a while back, I realized that was it and I never ever asked you and I always had it in the back of my mind to ask you and then I went onto your LinkedIn profile and I was like, "Oh, that's what it stands for." You know, that was right. So that pretty awesome. So let's talk about the business that you're in at the moment. Where where are you located? Obviously in the US, Pittsburgh, but

15:14We are in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is sort of a cross between a Midwest and an East Coast business culture here in the US. Pittsburgh used to be steel capital of the world a few years back. So trust belt a lot of manufacturing happening here. So I kind of gravitated towards that just from a business standpoint. Manufacturing challenges are more tangible, the value is more tangible to demonstrate like you can count things you produce and and you can you can like you have more measure. So as an analytics company it became a natural fit that we be in an area where those problems are immediately visible and magnified.

15:54Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. And what type of work are you doing at the moment? What's your what's your services at the moment? So we we've kind of had an extension of the services. Think about our work as this journey of data in an enterprise. So we started out with data integration where I would call myself like we're the plumbers for data. The idea was companies have multiple tools, multiple ways of collecting information about their business and what is important for them is to be able to see this all together. So we became the integrators of the data. The next part of the next evolution or an extension of that business then became now that we're integrating this data where do we store it? How do we store it? And then as in another extension, how do we use this data? So we became this integration storage and usage company. Up until about seven or eight years back, the final use case was analytics which was core to our heart which is making data tell its story. So, so we were focused on that now that we have this complete visibility of the data, how do we arrange it in a way that a lay person can look at it and get a story behind the data. Over the last seven or eight years, that use case now has extended to not only do I now know what the story is, I want to be able to act on that story, which is where the AI and this agentic AI kind of fits in that continuum of that data journey. So, so right now our business if I had to say

17:28It is that analytics and agentic part of the data utilization 100% because you know people still don't realize at to this day and obviously we do because we back in my background as well is if you have don't have the right quality of data and the right sets of data you can't run AI at the end of and and and there's I think one of the big reasons why AI projects around the globe are failing is because you've got to really understand what the data is and people really don't understand data until they spend the time and effort and you have to have an SM or a subject matter expert to really know what that data set is and who owns that data and and and who owns the you know the other set of data that all makes one record. They could have three owners who own one record of data and people just don't understand that. What what do you mean Ian? There could be three owners that own that one record and when you break it up and you show them that they go, "Wow, who owns that piece of data and who's going to maintain it? Who's going to clean it and who's going to look after that data?" And there's a cost associated to that. So people just don't really get that

18:28Yeah level of. So pretty interesting to see how this wave with AI goes over the next couple of years and people don't understand it because data governance solutions I was a big advocate for it back in you know you know 2007208 data governance solutions and no one except for big big large enterprise would want to pay for data governance and that comes to the core of everything analytics reporting AI you know what I mean and but people just do not see the value in investing in in in that but maybe now they will with AI they don't invest in that they might end up doing some data governance anyway so that's just my passion to see if that that's that part of the puzzle gets solved by

19:12Interesting you know it's interesting that when I talk to clients everyone is obviously in AI at the moment everyone's got a bit of AI theme in their services or their software and pushing that as hard as possible because you know there's a lot of hype around that and and do you what's the what's the consensus where you are in ps and and in the US around what clients are expecting from you now around AI versus what you can deliver. Is there a disconnect with that?

19:37I think I think chat GPT which is probably the most commonly known and most visible form of AI this question answer engagement. I I think people recognize that as an interesting use case, but but enterprises to your point, enterprises have to realize that and more more and more of them do it every day is that that data element, especially when you talk about AI truly being able to execute processes autonomously and being able to do more of those processes continuously, the data has to be accurate. It's not not longer enough for the data to be almost right. You have to have a higher degree of trust than than you have ever had in past in order for those processes to execute and in order for those workflows to kick in and be able to drive the benefit that an organization is looking to do. I think people expect all AI to be this question answer. they they expect to be able to type in or speak to this all- knowing machine and that gives them the answers miraculously. I think I think the bigger value and the bigger challenge is going to be in finding those organization use cases and sometimes making those hard choices about do I put a person here or can I replace that with an AI agent to be able to execute workflows. communities have to make those decisions together. There

21:10Has to be a broader consensus and an agreement on on what to do with now available resources, available human capital and where to focus that. But but that's what we see happening here in the US, definitely here in Pittsburgh. Sure. Fantastic. That's great insight there. All right. So, now we know what you you are are rolling out and and working with. Do you have any certain technologies that you favor at the moment or or are you just open to any technology vendor out there that you support with your services?

21:41So we work a lot with some open-source toolkits. For example, N8, Crew AI, there's KO.AI out of India that we work with a lot. Our focus right now is in helping companies create these standalone AI in a box kind of a solutions. So being that security is still an unknown and obviously a lot of cyber attacks are happening and they will continue to happen there there's a greater emphasis on standing up workflows that can be executed with a limited range of data and at a limited expanse. If if you are talking about specialized use cases like we are with the clients, we understand that the data set is contained. For example, it's not this unlimited data set that for example an open AI needs to analyze for its LLM. You're working within a limited data set. So we can get away with localized onrem on cloudrem or private cloud language models and that's what we are developing and delivering for our clients right now.

22:47Sure. So you got you're downloading the LMM models onto your environment and and then they stay in contained and they're not going back out to the world which I think is a great very very good move there of and I think that's the way a lot of companies want to have they just don't want to be open you know because really if you think about this most companies their IP and their methodology and how they do things is really their differentiator. It's

23:11So I think when people don't really realize oh it's a product we we we build this great product. Yeah. That's good, but it's all that stuff to get that building a product is a really important thing. And if you get that information out into the world, you know, what advantage do we have? You know what I mean? So, I think that whole user case of keep keep the use case of keeping that data on a hosted solution out from the the worldwide web, I think, is the way to go. So, that's awesome. All right, let's move on to sort of like the business growth at the moment, where you're at at the moment with your team and and and let's talk about the business itself. How big are you roughly at the moment just

23:48So in the US we are about 80 people. I think it fluctuates between 75 and 80 given in on from quarter to quarter but broadly it's about 80 people on an average and most of the folks are based out here in the US for us even though we have a small development center out of India which we started many years back and we kind of continue to use that we partner with some academic institutions over in India to help refine our thinking about research that's coming out in this area as well.

24:24Very clever. Very clever. So yeah, that's that's a great idea because it gives you so much more clout when you have, you know, someone written a paper or giving you some ideas around certain concepts or algorithms or whatever you're trying to pitch you and deliver. So that's really really clever cuz to keep those people in house is just too difficult. You know what I mean? At that cost.

24:47To keep those keep them That's a really good idea. I've got another client that is on a couple of advisory boards at a couple of universities and does the same thing. He taps into that sort of you know Neville next level thinking where where a lot of other consultancy firms are just too busy at doing that. So just trying to you know win work and deliver. Really clever idea that that's really good. So that's awesome. You got a decent sized team that's

25:12And it's a lot of people bring a lot of problems as you know. So let's talk about some problems. a team culture. Do you have a focus on on what you want the company to be really from a culture perspective? I think I honestly think that that in a consulting company that's that's a challenge that we we have. We have fairly well doumented and established practices about how we would deliver our services. Yeah.

25:37So, so that part is not that part we expect less variability or if there is a variance it's easier to spot because it's it's a simple where did we deviate from whatever our established practices were. The challenge as an organization that we continue to deal with is this blending the human element the growth element of individuals with the client goals with with the goals of the client. So in an organization like ours which is very project and project successoriented we don't want to leave our consultants behind or or get left behind by our consultants what that means is our consultants and our clients are both working on the cutting edge of technology. So so what's very important for us is to recognize where that ship is going to where where that ball is going to and then position ourselves for that. to borrow a cricketing metaphor or a baseball metaphor is to know where the ball is going to be so that the fielder can be there. So so that that's where

26:37That's where we often struggle with it to admit it truth. Look look it's it's it is a thing. It it's a constant journey for us to be able to collect and on a monthly, weekly, quarterly basis collect all those diverse viewpoints to be able to analyze it, create something meaningful from a way of direction and adjustment from it and then to present it to the team and get everybody to come along with us on that journey. So, so that's an area that we we work very hard to accomplish that. I don't think we are there yet, but it's one of those things that we work continuously on.

27:17Yeah, it's very hard. I mean, you know, and and it's it is it is always changing, you know. Exactly. It's the economic impact with clients puts you under stress if if there's less work or if you know or if there's too much work, you know, puts stress on the staff should try and deliver that work. because there's competing you know there's always this competing you know of what's you know resources out there and and project winning and and how you going to deliver it and and consulting world is a stressful world so

27:48Hence I always ask this question around team culture because it's so hard to actually get it it'll never ever change and it'll be one of the focuses as long as you guys are thinking about that all the time when you do your QBRS or your quarterly business reviews or your yearly strategies how do we actually tap into that that extra energy that we have in our company and and that that culture the other thing with innovation what do you guys I mean it sounds like you are you know you got tapped into those universities in in in India to get extra thinking and then that's part of the innovation piece how do you think about innovation as in a company do you have a little team or three or four go-to guys or your innovators how do you actually look at that of

28:29So so two things I mean as you can imagine the innovation in our kind of a business comes a lot from knowing and being very close to the client problems. So, so it's very important for us that people who are delivering the solutions and who are sort of creating these solutions or many solutions on a daily basis, we kind of collect that and create a centralized knowledge base that we can dig into and create some innovations around it. methodologies that we have adopted is we created a in our compensation program. We created a program called Delta Dollars. And what that meant was people are actually getting rewarded for sharing either the problems or the solutions or both like whatever they come up with and then a group of people will continually work towards solving for those problems or will create a more systematic solutions approach and individuals who contribute to this. It's an important element of our work of our field consultants work that a part of the compensation is tied to it and and they get rewarded for being able to contribute and that's why the name Delta dollars for it because they do contribute to it and then we take these problems or we take these solutions and either internally or along with our academic partners we create productized solutions to make it work for them.

29:50Brilliant. Brilliant. So you're working with clients, they come up with some you know difficult requirements or some use cases cases that are very difficult to achieve and you with innovation you're solving those problems. You look at those problems and you take those problems back that logic back to the to the mother ship back to your office and you sit there with a team going you know what that's a really good that's a really good problem we solved there with that innovation with that new technology or that process we should

30:19Strengthen that we should actually put some governance around that we should take it as an offer wrap that offering up and then we should take that to market very very clever and and then and you wrap it all around with you know the delta the the delta dollars which I I really like that. It's a really really smart move there of because you know people try and do two things. They try and build innovation or products or services you know by themselves and then they take them to the client and that's quite difficult because you never know what they re the client really wants

30:49Until you act actually there or you you work with clients and then you take that knowledge and that that thought process and you bring that and you and you build that solution. So that's really really clever. The same thing I always say to make sure you get two three customers that may be cost or break even. Build the solution on site with them. Make sure the IP is your IP and then once you built it three times, you only then really work out how to actually technically build it. But also number two, is it actually solving a big enough problem and and that in action then go and build your own stack and own solution because otherwise you build something you don't really know if the fits right and you spend a lot of money and burn a lot of effort around that. So brilliant idea around the delta dollars. Congratulations on that. Now teams bring conflict because there's a lot of people. Do you have any processes or any tips or tricks around how to solve conflict within team members? So a few years back the source of conflict and we we had a few instances around this and largely I think it comes from lack of clarity of the roles or significant enough overlap and not not enough empowerment or not not enough clarity. A few years back, we adopted executive operating system or EOS as our business operating model. I don't know if you're familiar with it.

32:02I know very I know it very well. Got some books on the the back shelf. I've been through every methodology out there. Vernh harnesses, tons of them. Anyway, carry on. So, so we have it has it has obviously various benefits of getting the team on on board and making sure that everybody is aligned. For us, the biggest value, we had a consultant come in and talk to us about it. And it it was really a more structured method of meeting and being able to align our operations. And what that meant was there were very clearly defined roles and responsibilities, which I'm sure most companies do, but there were very clearly allocated failure points to it. So it's one of those things that we talk about in our company that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan child. In our world, we kind of allocated the failure responsibilities and success responsibilities to individuals. And honestly, I think I think culturally being that we are not a very large company, being that everybody knows everybody like one-on-one basis for us, it also meant being a little bit more acceptable of the failures. Making failures not, hey, oh my god, somebody's going to lose a job. I mean, we're not that big. So, so making it okay for people to admit to failures was a big thing for us in terms of resolving the conflict like people we don't we don't

33:35Seek out failures but when it does happen and inevitably every now and then it will happen we have made that environment where people will not be afraid to admit it and take responsibility for it and I think that that has been a big thing for us to eliminate conflict reduce conflict as a team. really good point. I mean, you know, it's it's when you have two individuals or in in a process and there's something that's a gap in between that process or those people that's well, it's a 50/50 call. Is that your is that your activity that needs to finish that or is it my activity, you know, in that workload or I'm too busy now today or the next three days? So, I don't know if it's really my role to do that piece. I won't do it. But before I was doing it, that gray area then causes causes conflict because something will fall through the gaps and then basically who's who's picking that up and then when you're all running hard in a business you you know you see something falling down you go a damn got to pick that up and got to spend time and you know whose problem is it. So I think you know really good good point to take away there from Avent is you know the roles responsibilities crystal clear and they never are you know there's always gaps in those roles and responsibilities so be flexible to help each other pick those up as a team and bring them forward together and and solve them as a team. So that that definitely helps with the conflict.

34:58And I think it's really really good. So that's really really nice. We talked about the services. Where do you think the opportunity is for a a consultancy firm like yours going forward over the next two to three years? I mean, do you think it's more productized services or or standalone AI solutions you got to build out for clients or I think I mean broad areas aside obviously AI agents there's a lot of opportunity I think there's a lot of opportunity in cyber security but that that aside like taking those broad areas aside I think consulting companies have to realize to your point earlier and when you were consulting with us you were very forceful in kind of making sure that we understand it is consulting companies survive because of problems micro problems that they solve right large consulting companies such as an IBM such as a deoid that micro problem can be the entire spectrum of a solution because they have the bandwidth but smaller consulting companies survive and thrive by identifying those micro problems gaps between the solutions that they can make their revenue on. Our company is doing the same thing and I think inevitably regardless of what that solution what companies are using there will be those areas that will not be covered by a traditional solution and that's where consulting companies have to become truememes have to become true advisors to be able to tell the clients and create those solutions that can that can address those micro problems and I think I think that's where the biggest value

36:30Is for us it's like For example, for us, it's areas like in that supply chain continuum where the clients are using variable demand softwares, whether the clients are using SAP. It's like this transportation element is not getting taken care of. this this compensation or management of the fleet that the organization has that's not getting addressed in the traditional solutions and creating those workflows creating those boxed up solutions that can integrate I think is a big opening for all companies for us the big value is in creating integration points from traditional softwares like small medium size of course everybody has connectors into an oracle into an SAP, but there's also a lot of smaller ERP or accounting applications, Sage, Mass Solutions, Microsoft Dynamic Solutions that are not as widespread and as such do not have that many connectors for the clients. That's where we see a lot of value. We see a lot of value in becoming development partners with QuickBooks here in the US and and enhancing the solutions for our clients.

37:47And again, consultants are problem solvers. We we I don't know I'm sure there are consulting companies that are adequately funded and that have got the adequate resources to want to become another IBM to want to become another deoid. And there might be a few that will be able to accomplish that. For smaller consulting companies like ours, 150 people in size, we have to focus on a problem at a time. And that's where I think the big opportunity is is to be able to get closer to the problem and get even more granular with the problem that we solve and become an expert in that area.

38:22Very good. Dave, the point that you brought up and I always say to to people, you got to be closer to the problem to solve it. And recently I was I flew overseas from Sydney to Manila to work with one of my clients who's got a a team there that supports his offshore team that supports his local team here in in Australia. And I was there for the Saturday to run these workshops and then on the Sunday I got last minute I got invited to a big tech event in Manila and I met the ICT director for the whole of Philippines and and suddenly I was on stage presenting in front of like 4,000 people. But anyway, long story cut it short I ended up having a discussion with three big BPOS. Now for those people listening on the conversation the way I describe a business processing outsourcing company is very different from a IT services company like a Indian generally they have BPOS as well but they are generally outsourcing technology partners they're very very different different skill sets a BPOS are doing administrative tasks call centers there's a whole lot of things that they do around that state and obviously they got tech as well but you know that's where the industry is and basically I was having a discussion over lunch and then I got into a bit of a workshop to help three big BPOS's out and one of the thing that dawned on me of which I'm always on this side of the fence even though I have a team in Philippines myself and I even had a team in India back in my my consulting days is they aren't closer to the problem they aren't close enough to the problem

39:49And and I really realized holy you know I couldn't not believe it but the penny dropped and they were I was asking a whole lot of a series of questions and they couldn't really answer the questions properly okay and and [clears throat] they just went to me and I just said to them, you're not close enough to the problem. You've got to get on a plane. You've got to go to your clients in the US and you've got to sit there and you've got to actually start to be integrated into them way of thinking and also understand what problems you're really solving and are they big enough and

40:21At the time they are just too far removed from that and then they have this client oh we can do this with AI now or we can do this with this or whatever it is and basically automation and then and then just dropping resources when they feel like it. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, how these companies overseas that don't have a a strong partnership or people localized when AI comes along and automation because automation's, you know, I think automation's been going for a while as we know, but it's going to be enhanced much more with AI and that's going to supercharge the change that we're going to go through over the next two to three years. So it'll be interesting to see how the BO type companies in Philippines handle it. Do you have any insight that from Indian outsourcing like TCS's whipros the big guys obviously they've got teams in obviously in the US but how are the Indian offshore companies dealing with that that don't have a big prevalence onshore are they backing at the moment

41:19I I think I think they will have some challenges I think the good thing that has happened is because Indian IT industry is broadly matured it has been in the business for a long time there's there's a lot of shared learning ing that has happened by the way of cross-pollination of this knowledge across that industry spectrum. Bigger companies have spawned smaller companies and they have crosspollinated a bunch of industries. So, so the resources is not a [clears throat] problem. What is problem is that smaller companies for a while have also relied a lot on not having a US presence but just like relying on marketing, relying on this remotebased development support. Right and and many companies have done well when that was technology work being done over in India. The challenge that they will have is to your point if they do not simple things if they do not understand the impact of why is the November end to December a big shopping time here in the US e-commerce what does it mean for there to be a weather change in the US and what does it mean that it's it's 1:00 in East Coast and it's like 10:00 a.m. in the west coast. So even those small things which you would know but you would not really know. I mean you might academically know there's a three-hour difference in between east and west coast but what does it mean from a business standpoint and what challenges

42:52Does it cause? like even those smaller things and not being aware of those causes a big change in the business and I think I think that's where we I think that a lot of businesses for example in India are allocating resources or are creating these new partnerships where it's more of a where it's not a supplier vendor relationship where it's becoming a true partnership like how do we make sure that this knowledge is truly shared but not just knowledge shared knowledge understood and assimilated in the same way between these two partners as opposed to do you have any software development project I can do this for a fraction of a cost in India I don't think that's valuable anymore to either of the two parties with AI based coding and all of those other tools in early stages as it is right now companies are realizing that the bigger value is in everybody becoming closer to the client and solving the problem one client at a time Yeah, good point.

43:54Mass customization kind of a solution is what we're driving towards. Very interesting. And not not not that we get into any politics, but what's what's happened with the visa situation now with the tech companies? Has that impacted bringing people on shore to the US now with HB1 or visas and all that stuff? Is that happening or I I mean the short answer is yes. And and I think and I think bo both both sides of the story are partially true. I mean like with everything else both sides are half right about this. I I think I think I think the the visa visa situation has meant that there is fewer of those people available. but but the problem has never really been the problem has been that the technology people have not been available. The bigger problem is that US is a very spread out kind of a country, right? It's not like it's not like some other countries where you can you could say people should be able to change jobs, people should be able to move from one place to another. Like I said, east coast to west coast, north to south, it's a very different culture. The challenge has been to have this workforce that is mobile that's able to move from north to south that's able to move from west to east east to west and that's the gap that having an immigrant workforce or having an international

45:26Workforce was able to fulfill because to a person coming from India China Philippines or elsewhere in the world once they make the move from that country wherever they were from much like me for example when I moved from India The gap that I fill is not only not having the technical resource available. The gap that I fill is being able to go to a project in New York and LA in the period of 6 months. And that's that's what will be impacted. Hopefully what we will see is that the the there will be a rationalization of workforce. There will be a rationalization of how the work is getting done. And I think also American businesses were in a way spoiled by having this mobile workforce available with them. It made us lazy in a way that were not allocating as much time to training resources. We were not allocating as much time to developing technical talent. And I think it'll force managers like myself and like some of my other managers in other client organizations to say hey we cannot take this workforce availability for granted and we will have to have a strategy for developing our own technically skilled workforce like we would for some of our other functions and I think in the end I think it'll make US businesses definitely much stronger and I think it'll make some of our international partners much stronger. as well.

46:59Yeah, very interesting. You see, you know, cuz I'm not in it. I've never actually had that spin on that and that is a that's really interesting. look, that's that's amazing. You know, this is the the question is when I started consulting, gosh, when was that long time ago back in 98 or something? Yeah, 989. I was at Deote in the UK and I would be working with my colleagues in the US. and they would only find out on a Sunday afternoon like at 4 or 5:00. You know, you got to be on this site tomorrow, get on a plane, the plane's been booked and you're flying at, you know, 6:00 in the morning.

47:35To go to from one place the side of the country to the other side of the country and they just, you know, normally they would know of the longer term projects like a SAP project or something like that we were doing, but sometimes they were quite short, you know. So, like I would speak to the guy on a Thursday afternoon or Friday and he go and I'm not sure exactly where I'm going to be tomorrow like it's a Monday. What are you talking about? Because in London where I was based, you could always get around where you know 3/4 of work was happening was always London. So you didn't have to get on planes and every now and then we did I did go to Europe to fly for work.

48:05So that was sort of our like equivalent to the US is you know you get on a plane you fly to I used to go to doselled off quite a bit for Bay Pharmaceuticals project and you go back and forth. really interesting to hear that that migrant workforce which is so true is no longer going to be that flexible as such going forward and you have to invest in people localized people I think it's really really

48:28Going to be interesting and it'll be interesting to see if the when the new administration takes over whenever that is in three and a half years time whatever if that changes or that comes back or will people be happy with the current status around those visas. Do you think do you think that the the this the slack that's going to be there might be some slack that's that sort of happens on in in in in the Indian big tech teams do you think they will actually drop prices as well to sustain their models sustain the people because getting rid of people as you know if they don't need them is really expensive do they actually try and you know is it a race to bottom you think that will happen with pricing or do you think they would invest I'm talking about the big you know like the TCS's Whippros and emphasis and all those big guys. What do you think the challenge is around that?

49:16See, I I I think I think because a lot of these companies are public companies, I don't think they can the market will not reward them dropping prices. The profitability measures are sort of at this point a holy cow so to speak in that context. And and I think I think the prices that over the years companies like VRO, Infosys, TCS they have been dropping the prices to what the market can support and can sustain. Their cost structures also have grown significantly for them to want to drive the cost down anymore. So truly the best way for them is to look for non-salary costs that can be reduced and what that would come in by the way of is more leverage. I think I think that's one area where companies larger companies will want to be able to allocate like more junior level people to senior level people ratio that might change and and that will impact the quality of the finished product as well.

50:20And companies of that scale have been relying on clients sort of have been able to deliver each individual at a higher level. So that leverage will change the quality of people that will be available and that's where they can drive the costs down. There's also non- salary costs that these companies have adopted that will come down. Some of the layoffs have already been announced in India and other places. I think the collective demand increase overall in the US will mean that the work the volume of the work will not suffer. There will be a natural iteration. The rate of iteration might increase but it will be a natural iteration just because of the business not being viable anymore. We've seen this happen in past and like as the profitability suffers a lot of non-s serious players or non- long-term players will find it more effective to get out of business than to stay in the business and drive the cost

51:21Yeah, that's a very interesting now vibe that's so you know it's it's quite interesting because I have an ongoing joke with a couple of developers and and and you know how fast this is growing and I saw even Google studio AI studio whatever they call it came out like a week ago and and I went and watched a couple of YouTube videos on that and I was like wow it's pretty interesting. Now, those are like very small mock-ups of products that actually you take to market quite quite easily. lot you know and and they're small applications not nothing that you and I really talk about taking things to large enterprise or enterprise. It's not really enterprise grade yet but I'm sure it will get there at some stage.

52:05And the big tech companies are pushing that because it's an opportunity to lock them into their vibe coding ecosystem if you want to call it that way. What's your what's your thoughts on that? And are your team using clawed code and things like that to help speed up projects? At the moment, everybody is using some level of AI assisted code. Right now, it hasn't had an impact of reducing the number of

52:29On our team and I think largely that's because of the nature of the work that we do. I I see some of the applications that we see clients that are or companies that are using let's say web applications developing the user interfaces of the applications some of that I'm actually impressed with how rapidly that vibe coding domain has has progressed it will take a little while to get to the enterprise grade but it's it's also impressive about how rapidly that has progressed what that would mean is that the nature of the individual nature of the developers engaging in w coding that will change. We will have to be more of code inspectors, validators, value creators in the code rather than these syntax gurus. So that's where I think the developers will need to improve. I think I think the quality of logic will will improve and will get enhanced. But like with everything else like faster better machines have meant that developers didn't have to worry about constraints at some point right people stop stopped worrying about oh my memory utilization is high oh just throw more memory at it right I think with w coding we'll see some of that happening where the developers will if anything have to become better developers will have to add value to the code the logic will have to be more effectively thought

53:54And and I think I think overall it'll become an integrated part of the development life cycle as it should. I think the testing is more or less getting delegated to automated or agent-based testing anyway. I think it would just be that backwards integration of that workflow 100%. It's it is really interesting. I know some some SAS founders have built products or rebuilt products on on repeat lit and and lovable and things like that and and and it's quite amazing what they are doing with that. and and the way I look at it when I'm working with clients, I coaches, you know, you got to have, you know, you might have a Vibe coding person, but you need a Vibe engineer,

54:33Basically, someone to go through, make sure the structures right, make sure everything's working correctly. And then you got the security layer, a whole lot of things that obviously you got to still really put a lot of effort around because you're not building the software and you don't exactly know where the issue is and you know, at a certain point because you didn't build it yourself. So, so there will be some new workflows and and I think as you said the change of that workflow process will be interesting to see how that maps out

54:58As as you build those products out. But I believe and I saw a report actually two days ago from the US saying that people around sort of AI solutions actually aren't really getting reduced besides the tech companies. I'm talking about end user clients is because they're finding more roles or better roles for people to do once AI has been you know deployed. Now, I don't know if that's going to be long-term the way that the world goes. If you get if you can make someone 20% more efficient, does that mean that person can do something else in that organization? And and that's that's going to be the the thing interesting that's really going to be interesting. And I'm talking about an end user side. And the challenge with consultancy firms is they are always on the edge of learning new tech, new innovation and everything else that they will continuously learn and adapt quicker than a end user site because the end user client as you know they hard to change and they're like a ship and they once they get going in one directions it's takes a year or two to change them over. So I don't know if that change will happen much but I think the consultancy teams will be able to deliver better products I think over the next year or two for for those problems quicker and faster and easier and less stress on consultants and just get more more and more work coming through

56:11Remember we talked about early on that 20 ideas and the company only can do three. Well maybe now those three can done be done quicker and faster and then you got the 17 left over to do more. Exactly. So I think I think you can solve more problems quicker and faster with clients in the future and that will actually just speed up more projects being delivered for clients. Doesn't mean the work load's going to go down

56:34And hopefully in the US we will have the work life balance that you guys in Australia have already. I don't think I don't think it's ever going to be possible. Many years ago when I was in the UK and decided to come to Australia and one of my colleagues at the time was a global company I worked for. He said, "You should come to the US because I've been there a few times for work." And I go, "No, no, no, no. It's just too hard. I don't know if I can survive, you know, long term." But, you know, I think maybe that is maybe, you know, with co it it changed the work

57:04People weren't on planes all day long. It changed the thinking about work. It The work centricity that was almost like a virtue in the US workplace. I I think it made people think about that differently. It didn't make them work less, but I think at least it forced them to look at it and examine and be more mindful of the rightful place of work and the rest of the life as opposed to this almost chasing this gladiator approach to work.

57:37Sure. And and I think it sort of starts with sales because the guy goes and I want to solve this problem. How long how much cost? Just jam it and and he gets the delivery team to come and just solve it. You know what I Exactly. And the delivery team arrived day one on the project and oh did we actually sign up for this? Like this is like hard to deliver. It's like we're going to have to be working 60our weeks to deliver this project. So I think that also got to change. It all starts with clients as I always say and if salespeople can sort of sell in the project closer align with the delivery team then basically that also takes a pressure off them. But I think that whole reset of why we on this planet, why are we here as human beings has definitely happened with co I'm going to be interesting now with AI is that going to help that even more so and get away from that gladiator approach as you said I think it's hell of important. Last question. If someone was going to start an IT services business or a software business, doesn't matter what it would be with your hell of a lot of experience that you've had through the good things and the bad things have happened and and the where you are now on top of the world. What would you what would you pass on to those people if they were trying to start a business today? Any any sort of any key one or two things that you would say, hey, you got to do this, you got to do that. What what's your thoughts on that? I would almost say what you said to me when we started talking about this Ian focus on the problem. I think I think far too often we focus on our skill set and we say oh I can do this I can do that I can make more money I can

59:10Be a network engineer I think I think redefine it in terms of what are the problems that I'm looking to solve and solve identify clearly if it's a soloreneur or a small business looking to start I think I think it's vital to to look for and examine those problems deeply and and continuously be grounded in the area of solving problems. I would also encourage people to not skimp on marketing. I think I think that's marketing and I'm guilty of this as much as the next person is marketing is like if we do well we will make we spend a lot more on sales than we do on marketing because it's more visible like you can say I can see a salesperson sitting there making 40 phone calls and this is productive use of my dollars. I think you can get much further by more effective marketing. So I would say getting closer to the problem, defining that problem and and continuously redefining that problem all the time.

1:00:14That would be my item number one. Focus on the product would be that defining the problem. And secondary is take advantage of marketing. This is and I I can tell you marketing is the least expensive sales resource that you can get. Does that make sense? And I think I think that's that's where companies are guilt because people often think in terms of hey this LinkedIn post it's going to cost me $500 to write it and then it's going to be a problem. And the key thing to keep in mind is if you get one lead every 10 posts that is less than half the saleserson that you are having right so I I think marketing is the least expensive sales resource just because it's not visible just because you cannot see it work people gravitate more towards the sales as opposed to marketing. Look, I it's it's interesting you say that because I I had a a client we spoke to a while back for the Philippines team and PJ spoke to them and they didn't want to go ahead with the with the with the marketing and when we boiled it down I caught up with the guys and I said what's the story with the marketing? I thought you were really keen on and then we went through that they just didn't want to take responsibility on what actually are they solving with the client. So the ICP the or I call it the perfect future client.

1:01:34What does it really look like? What is the problem they're solving? And they just want to be too they they want to they feel like they want to be more And they don't know what they're really solving properly. So therefore they can't market to it if that makes sense. So the the challenge wasn't around the marketing and the funds to spend on it is they just didn't know what they were selling really. They weren't crystal clear on that piece up front. So the only thing I could say to people out there is is basically solve the problem. If you can solve the problem, make sure that you can get in your mind what the message has got to be to those people that you want to sell to in the future. And once you got the clarity, then you got to test it. AB test it. And then you got to market it.

1:02:15I agree. And there's only like a mental satisfaction that comes from saying everybody is my customer, right? I mean the the message that I think I'm almost using that exact words that you said to me when everybody is your customer nobody is your customer. That's right. That's right. You don't own the So in in the old days when I go big software companies that's our customer.

1:02:40You physically do not own that customer. You software there but that is not your customer. It's not only if they're paying you that month are they your You know I mean let's get reality. Let's have a reality check here. You know, all these big software vendors, oh, that's our customer. You can't go there. No, I can go there. I might be a partner of yours, but it means nothing. You know, it's crazy how people, you know, actually think they own something when they don't really own something and they've got to got to actually make sure that, you know, got a system. One last thing I didn't ask you is, and I I should have actually in in my notes had it there. How much of it of your percentage of your revenue is services pure project services versus sort of like a managed services or a retainer or recurring income of some sorts?

1:03:26I think right now so the way we define our project services and manage services is if we have the full responsibility of a solution versus if the client has a full response. So if you're talking about like a client model, it's done for you versus do it yourself model. I think do it yourself which is sort of us providing the resources and the clients the work that would be about 20 25% of our work between 20 and 25%. And the remaining is mostly managed services that we are delivering.

1:03:59Thanks very much for having on it mastermind talks. I really appreciate awesome session with you and I can't wait to catch up with you later on. Cheers. Thank Thank you so much for having me again. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on IT Mastermind Talks. Don't miss out on our next episode. Hit the follow button and stay updated. Want to be our next podcast guest? Contact us and share your expertise with our audience. Visit www.itmastermindalks.com for more information.