The Journey of a Global Leader w/ Niranjan Sridhar

Mark: 00:55

Hello everyone, today I'm joined by Niranjan Sridhar, a global transformation leader with more than 25 years of experience, helping organizations unlock value through technology. He was born in India and he's lived and worked across five continents and nine different countries. Our engine brings a truly global perspective to leadership. He has held CIO and transformation leadership roles at private equity-based businesses and global consumer brands like Lipton, J.D.E. And Carnext. He led nine-figure carve-outs, digital transformation and carve-ins. Most recently, he was the CIO at Lipton and Niranjan guided the company through a historic carve-out from Loom Deliver, standing up a clean digital core from applications to infrastructure all the way from scratch. Today, he's the founder of 3Foundry, a firm dedicated to co-creating experience for a better tomorrow with a focus on transformation, advisory and innovation. - Full disclosure, Niranjan and I have known each other for 10 years. We were close colleagues for five years at JDE, and recently we worked together at Lipton. And what I love about him, he's not just a technology guy, but he's actually a very purpose-led leader. We're going to talk about his journey today, the lessons that he learned from running large transformations, AI, of course, in the future of business, and why he thinks that the journey is more important than the destination.

So, Niranjan, let's dive in. First, before we do anything, give us a little introduction about yourself.

Niranjan: 02:14

Firstly, Mark, thanks for having me on this podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to be with you in a very different setting than what I guess we are used to having a conversation, but I'm sure we're going to enjoy this. In terms of my journey, right?

d into technology way back in: 2003

And then at a point in time, in 2015, I moved to the Netherlands and have been in the Netherlands since then, with JDE before and then Carnext and Lipton. Again, all of that, the common thread is, In each of those companies, JDE, Carnext, and Lipton, I was there at moments which were linked to some kind of a carveout or M&A.

So these were pivotal moments in the organization right and that's been the common thread so somehow I would say my journey has always been about turning inflection points into opportunities and through those opportunities I have learned a lot but I've traveled a lot as well but yeah I've learned a lot as well and it's never been a straight line it's not a ladder it's more like a lattice so it's going Zigzag.

Mark: 04:51

So that's a very interesting story. And still, like you said, there were these, you ended up in these businesses at these pivotal moments and. You use those moments to turn those into successes.

Still, what are the things that you believe that you did or the decisions that you made that put you in those positions and allowed you to make a success from those moments?

Niranjan: 05:12

So... You know, The reasons why, I was there in those moments, right?

So for example, Sometimes it's coincidence, but there's a story behind each of them. For example, if you say, hey, how did I get into JDE?

Honestly. This is now: 2014

So that led to me quitting Accenture one fine evening. And then trying to discover, hey, what's life beyond becoming a partner in Accenture?

ame happened almost around in: 2019

And then I said, well, let's make sure we plug the gaps and then, you know. We see what it takes to become a CIO.

he third piece mark is Around: 2018

Mark: 08:08

Okay, that's quite interesting. So in each of those points, there was an outside person, a mentor or an advisor, or maybe the opposite in the case of the person that told you that you were never going to become a CIO in the Netherlands. A discussion you had that really set you to think and Yeah, make the decisions to move on to the next phase.

Niranjan: 08:27

Yes. So going back to when you said the journey and the destination, so each of these for me are pit stops in my journey. The journey is still on. A CIO is not a destination. It's just a pit stop that somebody said you cannot, you won't be able to stop there. And I managed to stop.

So now I'm on to probably my next pit stop. Right. But yeah, it's a journey. And as long as I'm enjoying the journey, then there'll be numerous of these pit stops that will come on the journey. The journey matters more. If I look at them as a destination, then what do I do once I get there?

Mark: 09:04

That's a very good question. And, Anita, I think you've proven them wrong because you were a CIO at Lipton in the Netherlands. Last couple of years. After that, after you left, you joined several startups as an advisor, but you started Free Foundry, your own company.

So what is that? Now after Lipton and starting your own business, what are your future plans?

Niranjan: 09:25

It's a... It's a very interesting question, but it's a tough question.

So, For me, I've always believed that What I want to do is to co-create experiences for better tomorrow. Right. It's not about implementing a technology or improving a process, but it is to co-create because I can't do it alone. It's always with somebody. And it always needs to make that one degree shift where it's tomorrow is better than today. And the day after will be better than tomorrow, right?

So that's always been the ethos behind my thinking. Now, After I left Lufthansa and I felt okay, why don't I do what I really like, which is to focus on impact versus the title, to be able to work. With people where I enjoy the chemistry of working and, you know, make a real difference, right? And all of those things led me to say, okay, Why don't I start 3Foundry and 3Foundry... Then it's all about co-creating experiences for better tomorrow, but it is at the intersection of structure and spark, as you call it, right? And why I say that you can call it the yin and yang, you can call it the, you know, the bimodal things, and people can give it whatever name they want, but it's for me the intersection of structure and spark. And the word, the three behind it is you can call it people process technology, but you can Today I have three girls in my life, my wife and two daughters.

So it can be multiple things, right? It's... And it's all about forging something because a forge, it's about, you know, how do you bring these different ideas? If I'm going to co-create something with Mark, how do I co-create and forge something new? That creates a better tomorrow.

So that was a concept behind which 3Foundry has been set up. And the focus, of course, of 3Foundry, like you mentioned in your introduction, is transformation, advisory and innovation. And transformation is a double click would be how can 3Foundry help with interim transformation? CIO and transformation roles.

Right? When I say advisory, it is okay, how can 3Foundry assist enterprises, but consulting companies and boards in various technology led transformations, right? And advisory in those angles. And three is when I say innovation, it's not about how can three foundry innovate, but how can three foundry work in collaborating the startups with the enterprises. Because what I see is, you know, there are amazing startups doing great things in their garage.

And then there are enterprises who are actually struggling with the same problems, but they don't know. Who these startups are. They, you know, there are forums, but by the time they go through the bureaucratic process of these forums, yeah, they don't know how to get to these startups. But if I can help in bringing these startups to life, or even connecting some of them to enterprises, then, well, you know, innovation, finally, it's, you know, it becomes a reality, right? It's not just then an idea.

So that's the idea of three foundries. It started in May, but my last few months, till say last week, I've been extremely busy changing diapers and feeding my twin daughters who were born on the 10th of July.

So that's what's been keeping me busy at this moment. But you asked me what's next, right?

So what am I going to do with this? Well, the immediate focus, Mark, is to establish a... A revenue base across These three pillars and once that revenue base is established in the say in the coming quarter next two quarters and then the focus would be to start to grow it, but with an ecosystem and community approach. On How can I build an ecosystem of people and players or a community of people and players who can collaborate and who can co-create?

So that the same better tomorrow that I'm envisaging.

Mark: 13:45

So cool. Well, first, congratulations. And we've spoken already. But congratulations on the two beautiful girls. And I'm really going to look forward to see what you're going to do with the three foundry. I would like to talk a bit about the past as well, because I think this is where people can really learn from you. You've been through all these really large carve-out programs and carve-in programs and at Lipton, I think that's not the biggest one you've been in, because that's the one that we probably had a JDE, but it's an incredible program where you build a new entire IT environment from scratch and it was 15 months. And you were the technology program director. It was on time and on budget.

So how did you make that happen? What were some of the toughest things that you came across and Yeah, and what decisions did you have to make?

Niranjan: 14:30

I think... I mean, I'll again break this down to three things that made Lipton a success, right? One is getting the right team in place.

So when I joined Lipton on the program, and in the Almost in the very first week, it was very clear that there were certain gaps. And, you know, when you do any of these kind of Transformation. Programs or journeys. You need to have the right people. 80% of it is about people, 20% is technology. To make it successful. And one of the early things I had to do was to be very provocative with the rest of my program leadership and to reason why I felt we did not have the right team. And the right team is two components. One is people and two is mindset.

So sometimes you have the wrong people and then you need to change. Sometimes you actually have the right people, but the wrong mindset.

And then you need to correct the mindset. And these were two things that we had to do very quickly and very early in S1S1. And that was very important. Why? Because otherwise, when I joined the private equity, somebody from the private equity had given me the analogy in their engine. You're going to come in, we are three months behind schedule and the train has not left the station, but we need to reach on time and we need to reach on budget.

So the only way to do that is to start with getting your team right very quickly. And that immediately helps you with the right decisions and all the right momentum that you need after that.

? SKUs or products to: 2500

You know about it.

So getting up every day in the morning and still focusing on the program and doing things was really difficult, right? But the support I have from my wife, the support I have from my close friends, That was instrumental in me remaining sane, being able to take the right decisions.

And then, you know, the program is successful. So I will call it out to these three things. Get your people right, keep things simple, and don't forget your family and friends.

And then every program can be made successful.

Mark: 19:12

Okay. I had to smile because you talk about Keeping it simple and this is a hundred million plus program, right? This is I see I've seen project managers smile at projects of 50k or 2 million or 5 million and you talk about keeping it simple in a hundred million and I think.

Niranjan: 19:27

Well, a hundred is more than a hundred million.

Mark: 19:31

It was a lot more than that, but 100 million plus programs. And I think that that's a good lesson that I think a lot of people can learn from you or the Odris experience. The other one that I do want to dig a little deeper on is you said the right people. Makes such a big difference. Yes. What is that?

I mean, of course, mindset is a big part of that. But what does it mean for a program of this size like this to have the right people on your team? What makes the right person.

Niranjan: 19:58

Yes, okay, skill is important. I agree. Capability is important. Have they done these things before? Important. But many times what's more important than all of that, almost every time, is do you trust the person? Right. If you don't trust, then even your best consultant, security consultant is going to leave a gaping hole in your architecture and you're going to be hit by a... Kind of a cyber issue, right?

So the number one piece for me is Trust and this is trust which is blind crust, right? You just have to trust because you are getting into these programs where you cannot say, let me. Check for a week if I trust the person or not, because in that one week, the person could have taken some decisions that you're going to repent for the rest of the program.

So Getting that trust right early is very important. If you have people around you whom you trust, then these are people who will tell you what's right. They'll tell you what's wrong. But more and they are people who will do things not because they have done it in the past, but it's because it needs to be done. Right.

And then you are in the right company. Of the right people to make it happen. The second is there should be people who We will not just tell you the time, but we'll fix the clock. Because you will have lots of people and this consulting and advisory work. There are numerous people who will give you amazing PowerPoints and will tell you what the time is. But you know that as well. You can see the clock. You need people to fix the clock for you without you asking them to fix the clock. And that's the second type of people you need on the programs to make it successful. And the third mark is you need people who have a what I call as a tinge of Best of luck.

Right? It's a strong word, but you don't want only people around you who will tell you everything's going right. You want to have some people around you who are going to tell you, well, something is going wrong. And those kind of people are very important. They're generally not liked by others, but they are so important if I look at it from a leadership perspective, because they help you to support others.

You know to find or pick those blind spots to make sure you address them and to be able to look at things across multiple perspectives. So you want to make sure you always have those few people who are able to be a bit more say critical about everything that's happening.

Mark: 22:43

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And I think we've shared war stories about the people that know how to tell time and only... Bring PowerPoints, right?

So I fully understand what you mean with that, getting the right people with the right mindset that are going to get their hands dirty and actually fix the problem. Yeah.

Yeah Maybe even do it without telling you, just fix it and get things done. Yeah. Makes sense.

Yeah. And this program, it was delivered on time and on budget, as we said before. After that, you stayed at Lipton and you actually become the CIO, which is a huge transformation, right? You go from running a large program and then suddenly you're in an operational position, still stabilizing, but you're the CIO. How did that role change and how did you manage that? Transition.

Niranjan: 23:26

Yeah, I think it almost felt like two sides of the same coin. I mean as the program director, I was building the house.

And then as a CIO, I was, I moved into that house with all the disruption around it. I had to keep things stable, fix the electricity and the water and the internet. And make sure that the house is livable for everybody who comes in, and then they can thrive thereafter.

So, yes, it was two sides of the same coin, but then it made it very easy in terms of prioritization, because once I took over the role as a CIO, The priority was very clear. First, stabilize.

Right? It's almost again, Going back to the principles of keeping it simple, you want to crawl, walk and run. All right.

So you will be tempted to run, but first stabilize. And as you stabilize, start building everything else that you need in order to be able to walk and run. Again, what probably helped me a lot, Mark, was the clarity that private equity had in this space.

So when I did take over the role, they were very clear on what they wanted. To see at the end of one here. Right and then whether in some cases i would say people link it back to an investment theses in some cases it is whatever else but if you have the clarity on you know what it would look like at the end of one year. Working towards it is not It's difficult, but it is not impossible. And the other piece that I would share there, Mark, is keep it very fact-based and link it to certain KPIs, right? Because in program, a set of KPIs, when you're a CIO for, After that, the classic three KPIs that if somebody would Google up, you would see is value, cost, and risk. I generally add two more KPIs to it. One is your People Engagement Score. And two is your business user satisfaction, right? Or business KPI. If you keep these five KPIs and then you start to see how you're progressing, then I think you address to what a CFO is wanting to see, you address what the CEO wants to see, you address what the CHRO wants to see, and you can address what the private equity or the shareholders of a company would like to see.

Mark: 25:51

I think that makes sense. So it makes it sound so simple. Being a CIO is just having a clear goal in mind, a goal at the end of the year and having just five KPIs, five key KPIs to measure against and.

Niranjan: 26:02

Even if people can't give you that goal, you need to create it for yourself. Don't wait for somebody to give it to you.

Mark: 26:12

Okay, I fully agree there. There's one thing I do want to get into a bit more about Lipton, and then we're going to move on to AI.

years since: 2003

Niranjan: 26:50

.. I think Well, The point of departure is very important to understand, right, to be able to appreciate the point of arrival. When it was carving out from Unilever was moving from five different ERP systems, all SAP systems, but five different SAP systems, highly customized.

So I would almost be tempted to add the word Z before S to say it's a Z SAP. Five different business processes, operating models, everything different.

So no matter whether the listeners for this podcast know SAP or not, but they just need to imagine the five different. Large businesses, totally adding up to around 2 billion, completely different. Technology, completely different process, completely different business operating model.

And then all these five were moving into a new company, which is going to be Lipton Tees and Infusions. With the new operating model, with a standardized and simplified process across the board, with a new technology ground up, which would be a single say a single ERP. Across all the markets. And these are 32 odd markets, right? And not just for finance, but for all the processes, whether it's a Demand planning whether it's your order to cash whether it is a source to pay whether it's a report to report It's everything a lot of SAP S/4HANA programs are first focus only on finance and then they start to build this was everything and it was in parallel to establishing a new Cloud infrastructure, a new network infrastructure, a new end user computing space, a new cybersecurity landscape. All of that.

So that's the thing. I think that is where all the complexity or that people look at an LSC on a program.

Well, this is where all the red flags was for them. Wow, this is really complex. Now, Yes, we managed to do that in 15 months. We managed to do that on a timeline and a budget from the program perspective. The key elements I kind of already touched upon what made things successful, but I think a lot of credit, I would say, goes on to the business simplification that was being driven both by the private equity and by the C-suite. Whether it was number of products, number of grading terms, all of that. Two is your ability to think out of the box.

So, for example, when you say data, how do you make sure you cleanse your data and you do exactly what is right, what you need for the future, but you don't bring all the, you say, the garbage of the past, right? Because then you're going to have that burden going on. I use, Mark, kind of a small framework. It's called Speedio. It's a different post of mine on LinkedIn, if you or the listeners want to see. But Speedio stands for software. Process. Extensions or enhancements that you do. Your data, your integrations and your operations. And if one kind of keeps looking at these, you keep your software as simple, as clean as possible.

Well, then you already have a good take. If you can keep your process standard as simple and in the future world, look at it with an AI lens, then again, it's clean. Right. Data, don't forget that, right? And enhancements is, you know, don't customize it because you're going to carry a lot of burden. But it's going to add a lot of cost as well. Right both in the program and if not in the program then after the program Any integrations is how do you talk across different processes, systems, you need to address that. Right at the beginning. And don't forget your operations because you can do a program and then all those consultants will walk away from the building but then somebody needs to run the show while i was made to eat the pudding that i cooked by becoming the cio after becoming the after being the director of the program so i do understand the pain of my own decisions but yeah i would say focus on those operations as well but that's how i think that program becomes successful.

Mark: 31:19

Nice. And I really appreciate you talking about this. I think we see a lot of stories about small projects and startups in the news. And I think these are the stories about these really large transformations that aren't told often enough.

So thank you for that. Want to move on to AI a little bit? AI.

Niranjan: 31:36

Everybody loves AI.

Mark: 31:38

Of course. So we have to talk about that and really want to get your perspective. You already said that you have taken a course at INSEAD. You've taken a course at MIT Sloan. And several on AI. On the other hand, we see a lot of businesses, a lot of leaders that are struggling how they should approach AI today.

So how do you think they should go about that? Should they look at the executive programs like you've done? Should they be doing hands-on learning themselves? Should they just seek outside expertise and rely on consultants? What do you think senior leaders, CIOs, maybe even CEOs or boards should go to their learning for.

Niranjan: 32:14

AI? First of all, learning is something which is very personal, right? Learns in a different manner.

So I don't think there is one silver bullet on how do you train yourself on AI. I think what worked for me is what I can share, which is, you know, You leveraging the INSEADs and the MITs to get my conceptual thinking right, to building that, let's say, the board level boardroom picture, the high level hypothesis to get that right. That's how I leveraged in SEAD and MIT. 2. I had to then do some hands-on work on it, right?

So I do play around with the perplexities and the chat GPTs of the world, for example, but I had to play around. To the extent I could. To make sure i am able to understand and embed whatever i have learned conceptually and make sure Okay, it sticks, right? Otherwise, it's a nice PowerPoint that I would forget before the next session.

So that's how the hands-on exploration for me helped. The third is I would of course rely on outside expertise. Again, not because I'm starting my own consulting company and it's important, no, but I think outside expertise you know the outside and future back thinking is very it's very powerful if you're able to tap into let's say your partner ecosystem, because without breaking certain confidentiality norms. Everybody is willing to share because everybody is struggling. Right. I'm part of a startup called Gale out of UK, Mark, and they organize these special interest group sessions for people from the industry without any consultants and sales switches to come and just share about their own AI journeys and talk about it and learn from each other. And it's amazing how.

You know, leading CPG and healthcare companies, the struggles they're all going through, but they're all willing to share and learn in a very safe environment. And that's another manner in which leaders can, by making themselves a bit vulnerable, can learn a bit more about a What is AI? And step away from all the flash about AI and really get to a bit more of the reality of it.

Mark: 34:37

Okay, makes sense. And you already talked about the Global AI Leaders Network. You're an advisor for them. You're an advisor for Multistrats, which is an AI startup.

So you're advising two different startups in the AI space? Yeah. You've seen a lot of really big businesses on the inside as well over the past years. Where do you think that AI is really going to make the biggest difference in businesses over the next couple of years.

Niranjan: 35:03

Honestly, if I had the answer to that question, Mark, then I should be making an offer to buy Google Chrome, Perplexity and ChatGPT at this moment. Right. Forget my own valuation, but looking at how everybody else is making offers, I should be buying them. But I don't have a direct answer to that. But I would suggest something.

I mean, there is, of course, a lot of talk about, hey, where do you see things going? You know, where is a big ROI going to happen and so on, right?

Well, for instance, I do see, A lot of them. Lot of positive use cases. In the space of marketing in AI, like for content creation or personalization, right? Or in supply chain, there is a lot of good use cases. And these are use cases that are hitting the ground now, they're slowly proving themselves. The key is what we as leaders should do. Be careful of is hey not make ai kind of the roi game right to say okay you know traditionally all these technology investments come in and then people ask what is the return of investment is it two years three years I think AI is not something like that. There's this person called Sol Rashidi who writes a lot of things about AI and then she has this very nice analogy where she says, think of AI like running a winery. You have to invest before you see the harvest, right? And I love that. And I think that is key in this AI space, right? One needs to be patient and not just expect everything will have a return, immediate return of two to three years, just because that's what the analysts are saying. I would encourage leaders to look at AI with three different lenses. One is look at what's your cultural ROI. When I say cultural ROI, I would say, okay, is AI helping me and my organization to drive new ways of working? Am I able to take my decisions better? How's my talent engagement going?

Right? Because that's something that you should be able to measure and that will help you play in the long term. The second I would say is look at it with a relevance ROI.

So if I'm using AI today in my business, is it still keeping me modern and competent? In whatever business environment I am. And that's quite easy to see because if you notice all your competition is already using AI for customer service and you still have a large call center sitting somewhere, well, then you know that you are losing your competitive advantage. Three is then your financial ROI, because you have to finance it. You have to obviously look at it. But that is, I would say, today is a lagging indicator. Right. Because that's where it will be measurable. And it could become a leading indicator, but not today. That's probably once the foundations are in place and in a few years from now. But then you still look at a financial ROI just to make sure you know where the money is going and what's actually happening around it. But don't link it to, I would say, the immediate dollars and cents.

Mark: 38:24

It's a long-term game to.

Niranjan: 38:27

Play. There's a beautiful word that I've been listening to. Quite a few people have been using this. It's quite correct. It says AI fluency. And I think that's what boardrooms need to now develop. And they need to spread that across their organization.

So don't make AI the job of your IT function. You will fail. Educate everybody in the organization around AI, and make everybody fluent on AI because that's when you will accelerate your growth. But that means money spent immediately without an immediate return. But that's okay, according to me. That you have to do it. It's like training people on computers many years ago that had to happen. People said his computers are hype or not.

And then where we are today, I think AI is something similar. We just have to train people.

Mark: 39:17

Okay. That makes sense.

So, and then still all these, let's go back to the large businesses. They're all running these. Large multi-year programs where they're implementing a new software tool or they're signing outsourcing contracts for five years and technology is moving so fast i mean if you signed an outsourcing contract three years ago AI wasn't there. ChatGPT 3.5 wasn't even out. How do you think businesses should think about these multi-year programs, these larger programs? And of course, carve-ins, carve-outs are going to happen. But should you invest into a two-year program around a CRM? Should you sign a five-year outsourcing deal with a third party? How should businesses think about all these multi-year, longer-term programs when technology is just going so incredibly fast right now?

Niranjan: 40:06

- You're spot on, Marcus, spot on, right? Because the world's too fast for these five-year roadmaps. According to me, that's obsolete.

Somebody asked me for a five-year roadmap, Okay, I mean come on, right? Even after five months, the world has already changed.

So I think we need to really shift gears and start to think in potentially 90 day horizons. And but with an evergreen transformation, right?

So transformation is not a program. It's a it's according to me like an operating model it's a journey it will keep on going but look at it with 90 day horizons.

So if that's how transformations will need to be thought of, right? So really turn it around. And when you talk about these traditional IT contracts of support and all of that, I think, yeah, it cannot be five-year contracts, according to me, right? The world would have changed drastically.

So again, one needs to be able to look at it with maybe a three year contract. But with a very clear exit process with very clear reasons for, you know, are very clear marks on, okay, how are they going to implement AI? How are they going to relentlessly automate and innovate? And it was there, but you know, this was all hidden under so many clauses and sub clauses. In reality, both of us have seen from both sides of the table, let's say, right? All of these automations never happened. Maybe the benefits were given to the clients, but in reality, there were just more people, more junior people working on the background.

Somewhere. So it is going to change. The way contracting is being done will change. Has to change. But importantly, the way people look at programs, transformation programs. And look at thereafter the support for it. But keep it modular because who knows, and probably in three years time, you need to get rid of something and do something else. But some investments will not change, right? You're not going to get rid of a massive Microsoft SAP infrastructure, right?

So that's why I call it evergreen transformation, but you need to be able to build it in such a way, like a Lego block that you're constantly able to, improvise on top of it.

Mark: 42:29

Because even those large scale providers are Continuously coming out with AI updates and changes and new ideas and even Microsoft and SAP are not right now where they were three years ago or five years ago, the world has really changed?

Niranjan: 42:44

Well, I think everybody, it's a bit of a fad, right? To say, okay, AI, everybody's using the word AI. It's too loosely being used today.

So it's a bit of a caution that I would just throw in the air. The people. Whenever you're talking to product companies or consulting providers who say it's AI, ask them, what do you really mean by AI? Probably they're just talking about some algorithms, net-net, which have existed For many years now.

Mark: 43:12

Possibly true. Possibly true. Okay, I would love to, as the last section of this, talk a bit more about your leadership.

I mean, you've grown from starting as a consultant well over 20 years ago to a CIO leading large transformation programs. I think along the way, you said in our pre-discussion, you don't just believe in talk about success about setbacks.

So what is a good example of one of the setbacks that you can and want to talk about that didn't really go as planned? And what have you learned from that?

Niranjan: 43:46

I mean, there are numerous setbacks. I think they probably have more setbacks than successes in my life. And if you don't have a setback, you don't have a success. But Each setback, I've learned something different. I think Something that I always will remember

You know? Many years ago, we were doing this massive program. Around SAP in a CPG company in Indonesia. Massive problem. Everybody was moving into SAP and this was many years ago. And as consultants, I was one of the consultants on the program. We wrapped up the program on time, I think potentially within budget. The company was on SAP and then we left. And we thought it was a great success. We had a nice celebration as well.

And then we moved on to the next one. But we realized that most people were not using it. We realized that much later. That there is still lots of Excel sheets and you know that were actually happening and then something like an SAP ERP was just becoming a data entry product where people are just keying in the things but everything else all the calculations everything was happening outside of SAP. And we're thinking, why?

I mean, did we configure it correctly? Yes. Did we test it? Yes.

So why is it not working? And it is not working because we did not focus on change management. It was not working because we took change management as a work screen. And I still see that happening in so many programs. Which saddens me. But. That is... Change management, when it becomes a work stream, we just try to train people. When we say, okay, have you grown through it? Have you looked at the PowerPoint as consultants?

Well, we've done it. We have a score of three out of five. Okay, let's go. Let's move on. Go live. Boom.

And then all the consultants are gone and the poor users are looking at it to say, okay, what did I really learn now? But how am I going to do this scenario? There is nobody to ask. Now you need to pay more in order to get it fixed.

So net, you start to go back to your old habits of Excel sheets or whatever. And that's a setback I've seen so many years ago when I first, it hit me hard on that specific implementation in Indonesia. We managed to turn it around. But I've seen that happen so many times after that.

So if there's a setback that I've learned, I think what I learned is do not underestimate the impact of change management. And do your utmost to really give it the right value it deserves in programs, right? I'm doing a kind of a survey about key reasons for success of enterprise transformation programs, and you won't believe it, Mark, but change management is literally in the top three. Right. It's used in different words and facets, but it's almost there on the top three.

So that's I would say was my biggest one of my biggest setbacks then Indonesia, which many years ago, which I still remember very fresh. But unfortunately, I've seen that repeat many times.

So in my new Alatar M3 Foundry, I would, I think it's a commitment to myself that I will make to say, okay, how can I really you know, be an ambassador for change management. In its true sense, in programs, so that you know, we can at least move the needle one degree.

Mark: 47:31

Yeah, no, and I've seen that in way too many programs, especially in technology. People think they implement technology and it's going to work and they forget that there's actually people somewhere that need to go and use it and understand it and work with it and make this part of their daily lives.

Niranjan: 47:45

And Mark, it's so true when they say technology doesn't fail because of code, right? It fails because of people.

Mark: 47:53

Yeah. No, so true. Okay, moving on. And this is about your leadership. You've worked in so many different countries all over the world. You've worked in CPG companies, in consulting, in PE-backed enterprises. Which of those did you...

Like the most and which did you find the most challenging and why is that?

Niranjan: 48:17

I liked all of them. I think I liked all of them. I think I've been, fortunate to have had the experience of working with leading consulting companies and consumer goods companies and in a private equity environment.

So I think it's very difficult for me to say which I would like more. However, what I find the most challenging is private equity.

I mean, out and out. It's most challenging and in the sense probably gets the most of my adrenaline going. It's because of the intensity and the intentionality behind having an impact. Right. It's like the clock is always ticking when you are with the private equity and it's ticking faster than you think it's ticking.

So the impact that you think you need to have in one week's time is probably already today. That you need to create.

So. Yeah, it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. But at the same time it can be quite rewarding.

Mark: 49:22

Pressure is always on. Pressure Pressure is always on.

Niranjan: 49:23

Is always on. Private equity.

Mark: 49:27

Okay, so then to wrap up, there's one question. We have a lot of people listening to the show. A lot of them are maybe CTOs and startups or working in smaller companies. They haven't yet reached the CIO status or the large scale-up status that you've reached. What is a single piece of advice that you would give to them?

Niranjan: 49:46

Be honest to yourself, right? Be authentic. Be who you are. Don't try to be somebody else. Again, it goes back to my views of keeping things simple. Don't chase the dream of becoming a CIO. You might be very disappointed at the end. Look at it always as a pit stop. Your journey needs to be more important than your destination.

So if you are thinking CIO or CTO is your destination, I'm sorry, I'm going to disappoint them. By saying you will be you'll be disheartened when you get there so make sure that's just a pit stop But to get there, yes, you need to do what you need to do. But keep it simple. Keep it authentic. Be very clear what your values are. Be very clear what your leadership style is. Understand where the gaps are. Fix it. So be honest about yourself. Time. And I think be willing to learn. In the process. Be very open to feedback. Be very, take help. Get help if you need to get help. It's not easy. The journey is not easy. It gets only tougher and tougher, so get help. Everybody gets help. There's nothing bad about it.

Mark: 51:10

So, honestly to yourself, enjoy the journey. And seek help, find outside help. When you need it. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you so much for this discussion. It was really valuable. If people want to find you or learn more about you, where can they go? Where can they find more about you.

Niranjan: 51:28

Online? LinkedIn, just dropped me a message. I think that's the easiest way to get in touch with me. Just drop me a message on LinkedIn and then we take it from there.

Mark: 51:40

Okay? Thank you very much. It was really cool having you on. Thanks, Niranjan.

Niranjan: 51:43

Thank you, Mark. Lovely having this conversation with you. And good luck with your other podcasts on the CTO Compass.

Mark: 51:51

Thank you.

Niranjan: 51:52

Take care, Mark.