At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring to our community some of the finest stories from the entrepreneurship world. As part of this endeavour, we invited a passionate entrepreneur – Raktim Singh for an exclusive interview with us. He is an Entrepreneur, Thought Leader, Coach, Author and Mentor. Let’s learn more about his inspiring journey, his background and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Raktim Singh:
Talk us through your background and your journey so far, please;
My birthplace is Gonda, a city near Lucknow in UP. I have done my B. TECH from IIT-BHU and joined Infosys, FINACLE in 1995. Happy to say that I am ‘one of the few lucky software professionals, who are Software Product Native’. From day 1, I got the opportunity to work in ‘Software Product Development’.
During my 25 years at Infosys FINACLE, I had developed many products in Wealth Management & Corporate Banking domain. I had implemented Agile & DevOps practices in various products of FINACLE. I am a certified SAFe 4.0 (Scaled Agile Framework) Agilist.”
As of now, I am part of the FINACLE Wealth Management & Digital Banking team. I am a digital enthusiast and blogger. My blogs related to Digital transformation have been published on various social media platforms.
I am an avid book reader and have a personal library of more than 600 books. I also mentor IIM graduates in software product principles. I am a part of the International Toastmaster Club and have won many awards there. I am also a member of the India FIN-TECH & Bangalore FIN-TECH group.
Recently, I have written a book ‘Driving Digital Transformation’ and it has got the tag of ‘Amazon Best Seller’.”
What has motivated you to become an author?
As I mentioned earlier, I am an avid book reader & read 2-3 books per month. I also participate in various FIN-TECH & Digital technology-related events.
I was quite curious to understand the “Industry 4.0 & Digital Disruption”. This led me to a deep dive into this topic. Around March 2020, due to COVID, we started working from home and our daily travel time was saved. I utilized this time to do proper research on this topic.”
First, I started writing blogs on LinkedIn, which were quite appreciated and helped me in understanding this subject a lot better.
This led me to the next logical step, which is the book on ‘Digital Transformation’. Also, happy to say that now I have more than 24K followers on LinkedIn.
Can you also share a little bit about your book, please?
In my opinion, we do the business transformation to provide a digital experience to the customer.
The major change has happened in terms of ‘What and How’ of doing business. Our ‘What’ part has remained the same, like, watching movies, reading books, ordering groceries but, the ‘HOW part has changed. Now we watch movies on Netflix, read books on Kindle, order through Amazon.
So now FAAAN (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Netflix) are providing us true digital experience, that is you are able to consume these services (watching a movie) at any time, any place, anywhere. Also, they provide totally personalized experience.
Before you embark on this journey, there are WISE problems; you need to solve.
WISE (W – know your WHY, I – Integration with the ecosystem, S – Silos in the organization, E – Environment & Cultural aspect)
After sorting these WISE problems, we need to apply the ACID formula.
A – Artificial Intelligence
C – Cloud
I – Internet of things
D – Data
This book also explains the concept of ‘Digital Anthropology’, ‘ Power of sub-conscious mind’, ‘Importance of Agile mindset’ & ‘Learning organization.’
First, we see what we like, later we start liking whatever is shown to us. This is happening because our sub-conscious mind is now getting controlled by these FAAAN companies. Many of us know, how computer works but we don’t know, how our own mind works.
To future proof digital transformation, we need to understand our subconscious mind & digital anthropology plays a key role here.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
From my childhood days, I was always very curious to know about the world & various technologies. My elder brother is a doctor now. In my childhood days, I used to bug him by asking a various question like ‘how radio works’, ‘why trucks are so big’
I believe that the curiosity angle is still there. But over the years, I realized that I should also be sharing my knowledge, experience & ideas with others.”
Also, I want to make an impact on the world economy, with my ideas. As part of my job, I got the opportunity to create, software products, which are now running in various banks across the globe.
Now, through my book, articles on my website www.raktimsingh.com, I want to realize my dream of making a difference and leaving back a legacy.
How do you manage yourself and keep on going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I do a lot of introspection of my work/activities of the past few days/weeks, on a regular basis. This has helped me in understanding myself better.
At work, I always try to make sure that I empower the right people for the right work. This way I focus on the work, which falls under my area of strength and I, along with my team, enjoy the work. In my free time, I try to travel, spend time with my family, watch movies and read books.
Please share with us – what has worked well for you so far?
Self-awareness & never say die attitude. We are always in the pursuit of excellence. What may look good today, can become obsolete in future. Once you know, what your areas of strength are and you are ready to work hard, you will succeed.
What advice would you give to the young generation?
First & foremost, you have to know, yourself. There are managers, mentors & your parents, who must have helped you. But remember, each human being is different & finally, it’s you and only you, who knows everything about yourself. Be it your areas of strength, things which you like or hate. Apart from that, you should have curiosity and the ability to learn & unlearn.
Also, remembers, you will not be successful in all your exams, tests, in your entire career. Everyone goes through difficult times. The main thing is to learn from failure and move on.
What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring author?
Start writing today. I hear, many times, people say that they want to write a book. But they keep on waiting for a good idea to come.
I will say, start writing now itself. I started writing, small blogs on LinkedIn, around 1 year back. Also, I had made a habit of writing at least 1 blog on LinkedIn per week (sometimes I wrote 3-4 blogs in a week).
By writing regularly, you cultivate the knack of writing.
Also, as I said, I read a lot and try to do conversations with persons, who have different backgrounds ( Art teacher, Security guard, Mechanical engineers in auto-plant). This helped me in getting cross-pollination of ideas.
So basically, a discipline of writing & reading/discussing various contents with a heterogeneous group.
This will help you in achieving the goal of writing a book.
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.
