At BrilliantRead Media, our aim is to bring to our community some of the finest stories from the leadership world. As part of this endeavour, we invited a passionate business leader – Neeraj Bhople for an exclusive interview with us. Neeraj is a seasoned Business Leader, Award Winnng Author, Strategist, Public Speaker, Digital Transformation Expert, Painter and currently the CTO at Seniority Pvt. Ltd. He is the winner of multiple national and global industry awards in enterprise architecture and digital transformation. Let’s learn more about his exciting journey, his background and his advice for our growing community:
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Neeraj:
We are aware of your contributions to the startup as well as the Telecom ecosystem – which has been recognized by the industry through the various awards that you have been given; talk us through your journey as a leader, please;
I did my Engineering in Electronics from VNIT Nagpur and worked with Infosys & TechMahindra for various Telcos across the globe in various capacities – mainly as an enterprise architect.
I spent 9 years after that working on the Tata Communications enterprise architecture before joining Seniority Pvt Ltd as the CTO.”
Seniority is an eCommerce organization that deals with products specifically curated for Senior citizens. In addition, we have recently started an online club for senior citizens to tackle the problem of loneliness (www.evergreenclub.in)
The best part about joining Seniority was that I was able to use all my experience from the Telecom industry into the eCommerce industry and in turn learn a lot from this new domain. I lead an excellent team of product designers, UX designers and Tech leads and developers here.
Please share with us a unique challenge you faced in your early career?
While working for Infosys, I had a chance to go to China to talk to many of the Chinese Telecom companies to find out of ways of working together. This was back in 2002-2003 when the English language was not very common in China.
That meant, I had to learn a bit of Chinese and prepare my presentations in a more pictorial manner and help the interlocutor with the right explanations for the questions that were being put to us.”
Time there was tough because of language issues. But those few months in China were an amazing learning experience for me.
Working across the globe gives an insight into different work cultures, different priorities, a different pace of work. Every organization, every location has its challenges and also helps you grow as a professional and as a person.
You’ve written a book on Digital Transformation. What it is about and why did you feel like writing it?
My book – “How to kill your b/oss and get away with it” is about how to digitally transform an organization successfully. All over the world, many organizations are trying to transform the way they work or the entire business domain itself. But almost 70% of them fail to achieve what they aimed for. This book tells ways to be successful at it.
I have been in the IT field and working on transformations of some kind for over 21 years now. While I used to take a lot of knowledge sharing sessions with my colleagues, I decided it was time for me to consolidate my experience and views about digital transformations into a book. I read a lot about various transformations around the world and combined that information with my knowledge and experience to pen down the book.
Since then, I have had quite a few sessions on various aspects of Transformation in various virtual conferences and have received a lot of good feedback about it. It will help with the second edition of the book, whenever that comes about 😊
What do you see as the future of technology professionals especially after COVID?
COVID has disrupted the way we work. There have been widespread job losses in various sectors for obvious reasons. However, the thing to remember is that as a human race, as a society, we always bounce back. In India, we already see things getting back to almost normal.
So the same businesses which had to shut down or lay people off will start rehiring soon enough – especially with the economy slowly limping back to normalcy. For Tech professionals, the work never ends. Covid or no Covid, technology has made things easier and faster and also brought new avenues and types of businesses. Tech professionals don’t have to worry about the future. I am very positive about it.
With so much going on, how do you start the day to keep your passion alive?
I love to learn. Learning keeps me excited about getting up and starting my day. And it never ends. At work, every day there is something or the other to learn. Technology keeps changing and getting complex by the day. I read about it, write about it and discuss about it with like-minded people.
In addition, I love to cook and paint. So I keep learning new aspects of that as well. It keeps me happy and motivated throughout the day. Even during the lockdown, when all of us had to start WFH, that is what kept me going.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
I don’t consider success as just a destination. It’s the entire journey. In any organization, success has to be about three pillars – people, processes and technology.”
Only when we are able to do the right thing consistently to strengthen all three pillars of the organization, can we call ourselves successful.
It’s not an easy task and there are likely to be a lot of failures on the way. But those failures also become part of the bigger success story. Accepting and learning from them and taking the step in the right direction again, is what success is about.
We know that you are continuously engaged in helping others achieve their goals. Why do you do that?
The more you share the more you learn. That’s what I strongly believe. Every individual gets exposed to different experiences in life. What I experienced and learnt in my professional or for that matter personal life over the years, has made me what I am today.
Sharing it with others just helps them get a different perspective. And in that process, I get different perspectives myself. It’s an immensely enriching experience every time I have any knowledge sharing session with others from the industry or with students. Sharing of knowledge helps us grow as a group, as a society.
Lockdown made things difficult for everyone and that including increases in cases like depression, anxiety, etc. Realizing this, we started mental wellness sessions in our organization and specifically in my group where my entire team would come together to discuss these issues help each other overcome it. This had nothing to do with work. But one of the duties of a leader is to ensure the well being of the team. This was just one way to do it.”
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career especially in the Technology domain?
Students and young professional should always remember that the technology landscape is ever-changing. Focusing and sticking to one technology may bear fruit in the short term but doesn’t help in the long run. To be successful, the focus should be on the logic, the idea behind any technology and how it can be used.
The domain in which you are working should be another focus area – unless you understand the domain, you won’t be able to effectively identify or use the right technology for that domain. “How” is easy. Learn to ask “why” in everything that you do. That’s what will increase your knowledge and make your understanding and decisions better.
Last but not least, are you working on any new book?
I will start working on the second edition of the Digital Transformation book – based on the feedback I have received from the readers. I have also started work on another book on Stoicism. I hope to finish both of them this year.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
