#537 AI, People, and Performance: Sriniketh Chakravarthi on Building Future-Ready Teams

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to an episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me from the US Sriniketh uh, Chakravarthi, who is the CEO of Apexon. You know me by. Now I'm talking to the [00:01:00] audience. I don't like to steal the spots from my guests. I leave it to them to introduce themselves. So Sriniketh, thank you again for being here with me today.

The way I love to do it, as I was explaining to you, I keep it to, to my guests, to introduce themselves. Tell us a bit more about you, your background, your journey, and you know how the story of Apexon started. So the floor is yours. 

Sriniketh: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma. First of all, thank you for having me on the show.

Uh, very exciting. I've had the good fortune of listening to some of your, uh, podcast episodes and, and, uh, very excited to, to add to the initiative that you're undertaking here. Right. My name is, uh, Sriniketh. I've been in a couple of different industries as a background, uh, I started off in the financial services industry as an analyst and then went on to do strategic advisory m and a and and and so forth.

And then finally got into operating roles after a few years of, of, of doing these. Uh, so the way I like to characterize, uh, my experience [00:02:00] is that. I started with the, with the macro, the big picture and strategy and planning and, and, and doing stuff. And then the later part of the career I got very interested into the nuts and bolts of running a business.

So the last decade and a half has been more or less on, on really operational stuff and, you know, how do you, how do you think. How do you get things executed? How do you build teams and, and so forth? And the last three year, three and a half years that I've been a CEO at, uh, Apexon, .

Uh, uh, it, you know, it has been, uh, it has been a culmination, a good culmination of my experience on a, at a strategy level as well as, uh. The, the operating level, right. So, so that's been my background. Uh, I'm very fortunate to have worked with a great set of people along the way, mentors, colleagues and and so forth.

I've also been very fortunate to have been exposed to several industries in terms of how they work and of course in the area of technology, which is always changing and keeping you on your toes. [00:03:00] So, so that's the summary. 

Mehmet: That's great, and thank you again, uh, for being here with me today, Kate. Now, you know, uh, one part of the journey you just, uh, told us about is you work across multiple geographies, multiple industries.

Um, and this is by itself, you know, I believe it's, it's a great source for, for learning. So, uh, from leadership perspective, like what are, like some of the lessons. That continue to guide you today because of this experience? 

Sriniketh: Good question. So look, I think the leadership journey has also evolved, uh, mammoth.

As you can imagine for all of us. As we, as we pick up more experiences, our experiences get distilled and, uh, you start to. Visit what, what it means to be a leader. Uh, right now as I think about running organizations, um, you know, we talk about two or three things that generally people [00:04:00] talk about, uh, culture.

Execution strategy. So to me, I always, you know, center myself around all of this. And then obviously intent, right? And it's, you could argue it's a part of strategy, but, uh, you know, I am calling that out separately. So as I think about this, to me, uh, any organization is, is a function of these three things.

And in my own mind. Maybe early on in the life, I thought strategy was the most important thing because you come out of a business school, you are really talking about strategy and so forth. I think one of the key leadership journeys for me has been how building the right culture is probably the most important thing in running an organization.

Right? So, so to me. Culture sort of trumps everything else. So building the right kind of culture mindset, have bringing in the right people, making them work together. I, I think is, is, is, is an, is is something that I really focus on. The second is [00:05:00] execution. Execution usually gets kind of. Takes the backseat when you talk about, you know, management and, and you know, especially from a theoretical standpoint, but I think it's the most important thing.

It's boring. Uh, it's, uh, but, but it is the stuff that needs to get done. Uh uh, my. One of my favorite management books, I don't read too many management books, but the, the one that I really liked is Ram Charan, the execution, the discipline of Getting Things Done. Um, right. Mm-hmm. And, and, and to me, uh, yes, a lot of what you do, whether you are an athlete, whether you are an artist, whether you are.

Manager is, you gotta do the daily grind and you have to have that habit and do it over and over and, and, and, and, and, and, and you'll get better at it. Right. So, so, so to me, I wouldn't, uh, overemphasize the importance of execution. And then obviously strategy is important. I think it's the most talked about thing, usually [00:06:00] in management circles.

Uh, it is, uh, but it is obviously important. Strategy boils down to. You know, what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. I think that's, that's, uh, that's equally important. And then obviously life is however positive. You may think about everything being limitless and boundless. And the reality is that you have limited resources, be it time, energy, or money.

And then, uh, what is the best way you can take. Marshal these resources and make a set of choices where you have the best chance to succeed in the competitive space. That's the way I think about it. So, so to me, these are. When I think about running an organization, those are the three things that I always, uh, think about.

Uh, obviously been in a people-centric business all along, so for me it is, building companies is a team sport, right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, and, and, uh, building teams is an iterative process. Uh, it doesn't get done the first [00:07:00] day, and you have to keep not only bringing in the right people, but also how do you mold the culture and, and the intent, and how do you get them to work together and, and, and so forth.

I think the mindset of the team, uh, a winning mindset, a lot of times you have very good. Players, but you know, you may not be as a team in the right mindset, so how do you then it's not really the people that's, that's an issue there. Then it's a question of how do you, how do you change the mindset?

Because people are great, but we are not able to, in that vertical circumstance, not able to extract the best. Right. And we've seen that in sports teams, great stars, but the performance is subpar. Right? Absolutely. So I think those are the things and, and, and, and look, um. Um, I, I would say those are my key things and what I value therefore, in people, because it's a people business, is people that are open-minded that wanna learn, that have a strong hunger to win, [00:08:00] um, and make an impact.

Uh, people that are very focused at the same time and not kind of all over the place. And then, um. Uh, we love people. When we hire people with low egos, uh, and who are fun to be with, we always say that, look, can we go out and have a meal with this person, have a drink, whatever it is, right? So you want Yep.

You want, you spend so much of your work life, um, uh, you know, at, at work that you want to, you want to be with people that. Do you enjoy being with? Yeah, 

Mehmet: absolutely. And you know, like just, I, I don't know, maybe it's coincidence. I was thinking, uh, about, uh, uh, something very similar, uh, couple of days ago and I was telling one of my friends, like, you know, I figured out that actually we spend with colleagues more time sometime with our own families.

Uh, you know, this bond that you just talked about, it's, it's very important. Um. [00:09:00] You know, from what you were mentioning, and of course I did my research also as well, and I can see a passion ate in, in, in what you do. And I figured out that you speak often about technology being a force for good. Right. Um.

And I'm a big believer as well, right? Because, you know, I was, before recording this podcast, I was sitting also with someone and he was asking me, you know, like, why you get so excited about technology? And you know, my answer is because it can change people lives, it can make things better. So, but because you all this journey you had, can you share a moment in your career maybe where you saw this belief really came to life?

Like really technology as force for good. 

Sriniketh: Yep. Uh, I'll give you one example and then I'll follow it up maybe with a couple more, right? Sure. And I, I truly believe that, uh, technology is a force for good. And we work at Apexon with a number of industries, but no way [00:10:00] is it. More telling than it is in the life sciences area.

Right? Because the medical thing is something that we all kind of relate to. So we've, we did this work once with, um, a company that was building ultrasound equipment, right? We do some med tech work, deep engineering work there. And one of the things we helped this, uh, this manufacturer to do was to help doctors.

Actually move from a traditional sort of green screen to a much more iPad kind of enabled, uh, rendering of, you know, uh, the, the output of the ultrasound. So if they're doing an ultrasound of your heart, so it, it gives you a much better, sharper quality of image. It can, you can zoom in, you can go figure out, you know, what is really happening.

And I understand the work that we did resulted in. The ability of the doctors to actually prevent a lot of heart attacks and medical situations. Right. [00:11:00] So when I look at it, it sounds pretty simple that you just changed, you know, how this was being presented to doctors in a, you know, much sharper way. But the, as I think about, what was the potential impact of that in terms of the number of lives that the doctor saved, simply because.

They were getting to read something much better than they could and they could look at it from different dimensions. I think to me, has stayed with me as a very, very powerful reminder of how the work that our teams do can actually go and change somebody's life. So if you do a better job. So I keep reminding ourselves and our teams that, look, we need to do a.

Superlative job because somebody's life may be on the line. Right? Right. Um, and, and so, so, so to me, that's one example. But there've been many. I, I think the, uh, Apexon Wa was one of the pioneers in, in, during the COVID time to, to bring out the, uh, what is now. Pretty commonplace in terms of virtual, uh, you [00:12:00] know, doctor visits.

Mm-hmm. That technology didn't exist, but they did that for a lot of leading healthcare providers in, in the, in, in the us. So, to me, if I, if I think about that as well. Look at the number of, you know, people that we may have, uh, helped in, in, in that process because people just couldn't get out of their homes.

Right. Right. So I think those are two examples, but there are many examples. We do a lot in financial services, um, where we help. Prevent fraud, which again, in turn, if you look at it, then the right people get the money at the right price and so forth. So there's a, there's a number of examples I can go on.

One of the things that we try and do in Apexon is if you look at our, our, our actually vision statement is, how can we improve human life through digital transformation? So one of the things that we urge our teams and ourselves to think about is, okay, we wrote this great piece of code, or we did this great technology, but how is it changing anybody's life?

Right? And if you. Think about it from that perspective, then it becomes a very [00:13:00] powerful motivator for you to do your day-to-day job. Right. 

Mehmet: So it's uh, absolutely. 

Sriniketh: Yeah. 

Mehmet: Absolutely. Yeah. And, uh, you know, on, on just the financial services, like it's also good because, you know, when. You make sure, for example, a, through the technology, of course, that a payment is, uh, getting received by the right people.

Sure. Instead, right. So, so maybe that person you're sending money to really, they need the money. Right. So, and exactly. If, if a bad actor in the middle they take the money, they might be in trouble. So I, I can, you know, I can go and seem like you can, because, you know, we can go on and on with, with these examples.

Um, but, but yeah, absolutely. Now. One, one thing, which, you know, I am always curious about, uh, scaling, right? And I know like the story of how you scaled from, you know, like, uh, it was like very small team to a global power house. [00:14:00] It's not easy. You mentioned something at the beginning about having this, you know, culture and mentality.

How do you preserve as you get the, the, the, the entrepreneurial spirit? Because, you know, and this is a topic I tried always to find answers. Of course. You know, there are opinions on that because what I see is. You need a skin in the game to preserve the entrepreneurial spirit because we know, you and me, we know, like what kills some companies later is when they scale so big that they lose this and become what I call them dinosaurs.

Right? Yeah. Uh, and they lose this. So how, what, what is your philosophy of preserving this with a large team? 

Sriniketh: Okay. And so, very interesting question. I'll try and answer it from a couple of different dimensions. Sure. I've worked with large companies and you know, cognizant was one that I worked for many, many years [00:15:00] and, and, and, and I was.

Very fortunate to have been part of startup teams, right? We started the back office business, we started multiple businesses and I was part of those startup teams. Uh, sometimes you can preserve the overall organization can be very, very entrepreneurial for a very long time. And in this case, uh, this company was right.

Uh, many times when your large corporate is no longer as entrepreneurial, you would like to be, uh, I almost like to use the. Analogy of you need to create your own ecosystem of. Uh, you can create your own ecosystem where you are, uh, you are, you are very entrepreneurial, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, so yes, there might be a large corporate, you can, you can leverage the brand and so forth, but there are mechanisms by which, and companies have done this, you create your own ecosystem that is far more entrepreneurial than the rest of the company, right?

And, uh, so, so I think that has worked in some cases, we've, we've done that, right? Uh, in the current. [00:16:00] In, in the current, uh, company, uh, this has actually been built by entrepreneurs over many years. So, so Apexon is actually, uh, you know, it's five companies coming together. Each of them was entrepreneurial, they've been in the business.

Mm-hmm. They went to market with slightly different propositions all in the technology area, and we had to all piece it together, uh, in, and all of them were required in a space of about 18 months. So, uh, when. I came in the, my goal was to actually put it all together. Right? But then the interesting question is that each of them had their own sort of paths and their true north, they were set up by visionary entrepreneurs, and they did a fantastic job in terms of scaling those.

But now in the new scheme of things, what is the. New true North. Right? Why should, what is the, what, what resets their motivation? Again, to your point, right? Because you've also become a bigger company and, and, and what do you do? So I, I think for us it was, uh, to define what, what we [00:17:00] would do and what we would be and what is the reason for our existence and why we would, why it would be exciting.

So for us, it's been. Hey, we look at ourselves as deep technologists in a couple of technology areas. Technology is very, is a large, vast launch landscape. But we've chosen digital engineering, which is in and around apps and developer platforms and cloud. That's one area build. How do you build and test them?

And second is in around data and data analytics, the power of data. How do you build data products? How do you consume data through AI and, and machine learning? And then. There's a wrapper of how do you deliver great experiences to human-centric design? Those are the three things that we focus on. How do you build great digital experience to a combination of engineering data and a human-centric experience, right?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And for us, pulling that together as a vision and saying that, look, each of you has has, is, so one was a data company, for example, that looked at [00:18:00] itself as a great data company and we can do data modernization, but pulling it all together too. To provide one collective sort of true North, I think is, is one thing.

The second is preserve the DNA of being a really small company. So one of the things, although we are 5,000 plus people, I, I like to see ourselves as a very small company and, and the way we are structured, uh, very few layers. We culturally, we make sure that everybody has access to everybody else. So, you know, uh, uh.

We go beyond layer. So to me there is an organization structure, but you don't need to necessarily follow the organization structure if you need to get a job done. I think those are conscious things that, that, that you need to build from a culture standpoint. Um. And we like to think of ourselves and, and we are a very, uh, in the way we approach things, we question traditional ways of doing things.

Uh, we want to disrupt, uh, we want to go in with a very different [00:19:00] propositions. I think those are all the fuels that, that keep you excited as an organization to say you're entrepreneurial, you want to do something else, right? Um, so, so I think. I, I think that's fine. At some point. I think it's, it's inevitable, as you said, that companies become very, very large then as a manager.

Uh, and I've seen that at some point of time in my career as well, that you are managing more for. Complexity because you're trying to keep this whole complex machine going. Right. It, it's not an easy thing. Um, I know it's, but it, it's a very different challenge from going and building things. Right. Right.

So Absolutely. Two different ones. Yeah, 

Mehmet: absolutely. Uh, also, like one of the things I know you are planning, uh. Double down, uh, you know, your headcounts in India in the next two years. Uh, there must be a reason for this, uh, [00:20:00] aggressive growth plan. And again, um, you know. I would like to, to to hear from you.

How do you ensure, of course, we discussed, you know, the entrepreneurial spirit and, and, uh, and the, the culture, but also like keeping the talent and attracting the talent on a massive scale. Uh, so tell me a little bit more about these, these plans for the growth. 

Sriniketh: Okay, so what is driving our growth now is, is, is really in and around what people are doing in the, in the world of Agent TKI and, and ai.

That's a big driver, uh, as well as engineering transformations that people have, have kept in the, you know, in the last three years, uh, many enterprises have, have actually. Not invested as, as much as they would for a whole variety of macroeconomic reasons and and so forth. We are starting to see that coming back and that in combination with, you know, how do you embrace this new set of [00:21:00] technologies around AI and Agent T care and infuse that into organization.

That's a big driver for our growth, right? So we think that will, that will, that will fuel growth in terms of, uh, attracting the right talent. I think we will hire. We, we like to hire a few kinds of people. I think we expect to hire, and this might sound a bit, uh, uh. Against the grain in terms of what you see happening in the world where, uh, a lot of the young people are not, not necessarily getting as many opportunities, at least here in, in, in the, in the us um, young graduates and so forth.

But, uh, we have had a very good experience of, of. Bringing on young people, training them, and then getting them to embrace these new technologies. So we think, uh, in our delivery locations, be it the us, Mexico and UK and India, we will hire a lot more young people. Um. We'll get them to really learn these new technologies [00:22:00] and start to do that.

So, so I think that's one second, we are also hoping to attract a, there is going, there is a talent transformation that is at play in the services industry because a lot of the traditional work that is being done, uh, is being now gonna be done by the machine. Right? Right, right. So that's, that's a reality.

So there is going to be a. You know, a restructuring or a dislocation, whatever you want to choose to call it in over the next few years in terms of the technology talent itself, and we want to be. We want to take advantage of that, right? So on the one hand, we are, uh, re-skilling all our employees, uh, and making sure that everybody becomes an agent tech first, kind of an engineer that are able to, uh, that are able to take advantage of these new technologies.

But at the same time, I think there's a lot. Of good talent out there that is pivoting, that has pivoted, that want to get back to the technology route roots, uh, especially with [00:23:00] these, with the advent of these new technologies and we want to tap into that, right? Um, mm-hmm. I think the draw for people that, that come to us is we.

Our core, we are a very hands-on technology company. We want people, as you know, you mentioned that as companies become large, they manage complexity. There are a lot of technology people that have become managers and that, that have lost their technology roots. Uh, many of them want to. Come back. So I, I think for us, we, in the middle, middle level management, we go and target some of these people that were very deep technologies at one point of time, but have, are no longer, uh, so, but want to come back to the roots, right?

And want to solve problems for enterprises. I think we, we, and so, so we are a big draw for them and we've seen. Um, you know, I was in our centers in India and there were a couple of people that said, uh, they worked with some really well-known companies and they said, look, it's been very [00:24:00] exciting being here because the range of technologies and experimentations that we've been able to do here has far outweighed what they've done in the last few years in their company.

So that's what I'd like to hear from, from people. They should come in. Mm-hmm. Because I think we give them a chance to go build new stuff and I'm, I'm really amazed a lot of the new, the young people are the ones that are creating IP for us and some of which we are, we are in the process of even patenting and so forth.

And these are young people. They're learning these technologies. Amazing. They need, they need guidance from, you do need some senior leaders that will show them the way. Uh, so if you can get that combination right, then I think you can create a lot of upside. 

Mehmet: Great. I gotta ask you very shortly about the technology and AI and what you're seeing, but before this, um, and to conclude, you know, our discussion about, uh, culture and, uh, people first of course.

Um, so we have. [00:25:00] Investors backing up the company like, uh, Goldman Sachs and Ever Stone, right? 

Sriniketh: Yeah. 

Mehmet: I've, I've been working myself with companies backed by investors, so I know the answer, but of course be, and you know, you were asking me before we start the recording about the audience, so, you know, sometimes I have.

The founders that they have to understand, you know, right. That they might go to investors and, and how to deal with investors. But what I'm interested in is how to balance, you know, this, uh, expectations between what the shareholders want with what my people who I care about also want me to do for them.

And this is, I think it's important topics because. It's not only for the founders, it's like I, I, I tell, I start you. I, I, I understood this very late in my career and I tell people who even they are applying for normal jobs. You need to understand that sometimes you [00:26:00] might not like things in the company because you need to understand that also your manager has a manager, and then it goes back to the CEO and the CEO and the board.

They have some duties also towards their investors and their board members also as well. Now, from your point of view. From your experience, what's the best way to balance shareholder expectations with people First culture. 

Sriniketh: Yeah, I think, look, um, I, I, and I know especially in the context of private equity, I, I think it's a very natural question that people say that, look, uh, when they look at private equity owners, then, you know, you're really talking about capital, capital and written on investment.

Whereas, you know, there's people, it's a people centric business. I think to the outside, I would say that. Uh, in at least this instance with Goldman Sachs and Ever Stone, uh, we've been very clear in terms of the alignment of objectives, right? So it is not, you know, return on capital versus people, right? It is written on capital along with people, right?

So, so, [00:27:00] so I think, first of all, I've been very fortunate to have a set of investors that have, where there is alignment between how they think and how the management. Also thinks about this, right? Yeah. Um, so, so I think that is to me, the most important ones, right? So, so you need to really, uh, as you know, uh, see that there is an alignment in terms of the styles and how you think about it.

Uh, this is a people business. I think our investors know that at the end of the day, uh, while you have to be very disciplined in the way you build this, and you cannot have slack. It is also a people business. So any decisions need to be taken in the context of how do you build long-term people value, which in turn will translate to company value.

So that equation is well understood by both sides, right? So, uh, I would almost argue in some sense, as long as we have demonstrated that we've been disciplined and we are taking actions in the right way, the ability of a private company to [00:28:00] actually. Invest or over invest, if you will, in a few quarters, because they don't need to go to the street and tell them that this is what I will do.

They don't need to play this earnings forecast game, so to mm-hmm. So to speak. Right. And, and, and honestly, that's a big load off. Uh, anybody that's managing a company, because you, we haven't gone and committed to the wide world that we will hit a certain EPS and we do 1 cent better than that. That's a mm-hmm.

That's a whole different game. So, so that we, fortunately as a private company, you do not need to do that. It allows you to take a longer term view and, and actually invest for the future as long as. It is discipline. I, I think private equity tends to be far more rigorous and disciplined in terms of, you know, investments and these are smaller companies, so it's easy to see where, you know.

You have to go and cut slack. Uh, and, uh, it might not happen in larger companies because sometimes [00:29:00] these, these can hide for a longer time, and here it cannot hide. So I think as long as there is, and within the management team and our teams, it's very well understood. Uh, we love the, I like the. Analogy of at least with the management team of, of sports teams.

Um, and, and I think we keep telling ourselves that, look, we all follow our favorite sports teams. We don't want people that are not contributing to hang around. Right? Right. 'cause we don't think so. I think that's the way, and it's not, sometimes it's not that these are. Wrong people or they don't have the skills.

It's just the context. It's how you are, how are you forming the team? Do you want three forwards and four defenders versus the other way around? Right. And sometimes, you know, you, you have to just reconfigure the team because you, your intent is a little different. Uh, and, and so I, I believe that even with people we've had to make difficult people decisions.

Not that we've not had to, but if it is done with empathy, with respect, as long as there are no. Hidden agendas, but the agenda is very clear that we are [00:30:00] doing it for the love of the game and, and for, for, for us to succeed. I think it, it lands much better. It's always hard. I'm not saying, but it lands much better.

So if you look at it, we've invested a lot on, in many of the people areas, uh, one key areas learning and development. And, uh, as we brought these companies together, they all had their own learning and development programs, but there wasn't a coherent program. So, so we've invested a lot of money in learning and development and we've given ourselves objectives.

We are retaining people. Employee engagement is the other big area that you'll see that we've, we've actually invested in. So we've brought in, uh, a lot of good. Management professionals to help us with, with, with, with all of this. So if you see our people's scores, I mean, if you look at Glass Door and so forth, I think we've done pretty well actually from the time we were private equity invested to now our scores have actually gone up despite the fact that it's not that it.

It's, everything's been hunky dody. [00:31:00] We've, we've, it, we've, we've had our bumps along the way. So, so I do think there is a way for us to balance this out, but it needs alignment between how you're thinking about creation of value, where do people play that role, and, and are you being disciplined about how you're managing, uh, you know, uh, people performances and so forth.

Mehmet: I liked your analogy with, uh. Uh, team sports, whatever that sport is, right? So, uh, you know, and everyone understanding that they need to be contributing in different shapes and different perspectives. I, I, I, I think this is, you know, an important takeaway, at least for me. I, I, I, I, I need to highlight it, uh, now.

Let's dive a little bit into the tech, and of course, you know, there is no discussion nowadays without, uh, mentioning artificial intelligence, AI and ai, gen ai. Um, and I know like as company, you invested heavily in [00:32:00] this domain, including partnerships with IIT Madras and Imperial College of London. Yeah. Um, how do you see, you know, ative AI reshaping the service industry?

I'm not sure if I should say three years, four years, five years. But I mean, of course you're seeing some, some directions where the market is heading. 

Sriniketh: Yep. No, absolutely. Look, this is, I mean, the services industry has seen many changes, but this one. Uh, promises to be far more dramatic than anything else that we've seen in the last two decades.

Right. Um, because, and the way I look at it is it's a, you know, on the one hand it's, it's throwing up a lot of new opportunities because enterprises will actually need to rewire their enterprises. And then the way I think about it is, for so long, we've mostly had. Code, which is largely [00:33:00] deterministic, right?

You write a logic and then it tells you what to do, right? Uh, workflows and logic and and so forth. I think increasingly with the advent of ai, you're gonna have non-deterministic systems, right? I mean, there are, it's not that, you know, when, when the been there in the past, right? When you. Take Netflix and it, it tells you this is what you may like.

That's still a non-deterministic system. So it's not that. So they have been, but it is going to get infused far more than, than it has been before. Every little process is gonna have that, right? Yeah. So I think that's going to be kind of, uh, a challenge for enterprises to see how they do. Right? Yeah. Uh, I also think that with.

Uh, coding becoming very easy with the machine doing the coding. There's going to be a proliferation of apps. We've already started to see that in our own organization, that, uh, line, uh, many of our functions, like our HR are building their own apps and so forth. So, as a CIO mm-hmm. How do you manage this estate of, of these [00:34:00] apps, uh, that are being built by, by, and it's, and the code is as good as, as somebody from your CIO.

Uh, a team would've built, right? And how do you, how do you manage that? So this is a set of very interesting opportunities that are going to emerge, right? At the same time, services will need to contend with the fact that a lot of the old services are going to be, uh. It will, will, will go away, will simply go away or will, will be redone in a significant way.

And we are starting to see that be it development, be it the whole design cycle, right up to engineering, that testing of of, of, of, or even in terms of some of the data work that we do in terms. Doing data quality, wrangling data, keeping it ready for consumption for AI and ml. There's a lot more automation that that is coming in.

And this is not incremental automation. This has the power to actually give you very dramatic gains, [00:35:00] right? 40, 50, 60%, even in, in some parts, right? Uh, not the right, not the whole chain. So I think that is going to be a, a headwind that the services industry will need to contend with. Um, uh, so. Then obviously, you know.

The machine is writing a lot of code, right? So I think it is hitting at the heart of what a lot of the services companies are are doing. So, so I think that's something that they will need to contend with. So companies will need to reimagine, uh, what is the value add that they are providing and they'll have to be much more integrators of, you know, different systems need to understand systems engineering much better.

There's a whole host of. Things that I think successful services companies will need to, and obviously they will need to understand the domains in which they're operating and, and direct these technologies or a set of technologies right. To, to go and, uh, and solve that business problem. So I, I feel it's a very, very interesting time for the [00:36:00] industry.

Mm-hmm. There will be winners and, and losers here. Uh, companies that are able to pivot quickly and embrace the new way of doing services versus there will be a lot, uh, especially the large ones, are sitting on huge amounts of real estate, of, of services work, which has been sticky for many years, but now there's a very new way and dramatically newer way of doing this, which can potentially reduce the.

The value of that, uh, significantly. So how do they navigate that while investing in the future is, is gonna be one of the challenges for the larger ones? Um, I feel very good that we are a small company, that we don't have too much of legacy. We can, we are the disruptor and we can, we can actually do many of these new things, embrace these new technologies, and infuse these new technologies.

Right? So, so I, I think that is what it is. We are, uh, zeroing in on. Agentic especially, uh, [00:37:00] seems to offer a lot of promise. Uh, gene AI was good in terms of creating content, summarizing and so forth. And we, uh, but with agent take, you have the ability to go and take an action. Um, the agentic paradigm with, uh, you know, things like MCP and so forth.

Also, fundamentally. Questions a lot of architectural concepts in terms of how we have built the, whether it is the service oriented soap architectures and, and so forth. Because, uh, the, the fact that that, that you can actually understand language and therefore, today you can give instructions where it can be fairly loose, but you can let the machine do a lot of, it opens up a whole host of new possibilities.

Right? But there are also new disciplines around, uh, dev. You know, uh, ML ops as an example, or even mm-hmm. You know, context engineering, right? Or, you know, there there's a whole host of new disciplines that are coming up or, [00:38:00] or, or aspects of engineering that one needs to think through. So the whole idea is that.

Uh, we want to focus on all of these new areas in terms of how do you engineer these, right? Because the technology exists, but how do you scale it? For example, uh, you know, we were talking to a regulated, uh, one of the regulated industries financial services, and think the point was, they were telling was not really about building these, but how do you make sure that you govern this the right way?

Right. It's not, they can go and build many of these agents, but how do you make sure that as you have these hundreds of agents potentially, that are looking at their own internal systems, looking at SaaS products, how do you make sure that there's no data leakage? How. How do we make sure that the governance is there, that they don't do anything that is detrimental to the organization.

I think those are some of the engineering challenges that the services companies, uh, will need to, and, and look, services companies are in a good place because they can be the orchestrators [00:39:00] across the stack. Right. So, absolutely. Uh, we, we have a. If you go to our website, we have a notion of what we call is intelligent enterprise, which is there are different stacks from the infrastructure to data, to intelligence, to, uh, you know, uh, to to, to the engineering aspects, the application engineering and the, and the.

End experience. And the idea is you have great product companies that are, that are serving each of these layers in the stack, but uh, you still need an orchestrator that is able to orchestrate all of this. So if you can pivot yourself to being an orchestrator, I think there is value that you can provide.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Now, one thing which, uh, talking about, uh, agent AI and agents. So the first thing, and of course I'm gonna put the link later in, in the show notes. So if people go to your website today, we, we are gonna see agent tries, right? And. You know, uh, reading and understanding. So this is a way that you [00:40:00] differentiate yourself also.

Yeah, because a lot of organization today, syn get what they try, and this is daily conversation with people. Uh, although like I, I'm not doing AI consultancies so for people they don't come to me. But of course, like we discuss this in, in private chats, you know, whether we are sitting in a coffee shop or, or maybe during events like the one that happened, uh, in October during Tex and here in Dubai.

So. Organization, they, they, they, they struggle, right? Um, and they try to, to find a way. So how did you differentiate, uh, with getting agent rise to make sure that it's something that have the value, it can help organization adopt AI enterprise adoption to your, to your, to your point and at scale. So tell me a little more about Agent Thrive like in a nutshell.

Sriniketh: Yeah. So we are very excited about Agent Thrive. We brought it, we brought this to the market a couple of months ago. Um, and, and we believe [00:41:00] that, um, that it is very differentiating. There are lots of platforms out there, uh, and, and we continue to build that. But here are a couple of things, right, that we think are different.

First of all, agent Rise looks to. Address the problem of building the right foundations and then scaling. Uh, a lot of the conversations with clients begin with, uh, in organizations, okay, can we build this agent and we want to try this and so forth, right? The reality is you can go and build a few agents, but do you have the right foundations that will allow you to then scale this?

So I think a lot of the thought has gone into. The right kind of foundational aspects, be it, uh, trust, security, validation of these, you know, of these agents. Do you have the right engineering foundations? Do you have the right data foundations, right? Do you have a libraries from which you can, you can reuse and so forth, right?

So, so I think that has been the thinking in building agent, right? I'll tell you four things that I think truly differentiate us. Uh, from an agent right? Standpoint, first of all, it's very modular [00:42:00] and, and, and comprehensive at the same time, right? So, so these are not, it's not an all in platform. Take it or leave it.

It's, it's modules, uh, and a lot of it is actually tapping into external ecosystems. We've not said we'll build everything right. But how can we solve for trust and safety as an example, right? And we have a set of partners that we work with. Some of them are Silicon Valley firms, but we have engineered what it takes to build trust and security or, or validation model, model validation, as as, as an example, right?

Second is it leverages a lot of existing investments that, uh, companies have made, but Right, we're not asking them. To make any new investments that are not really required. So you are leveraging off. So it's great from an ROI standpoint that we are not asking them to rip what, what is there, but adding to that.

Right. Yeah. The third is, uh, we've been very thoughtful about, as you think about the different modules, I think we have a point of view that we have in terms of this technology is changing very fast. It's changing every. Three months, six [00:43:00] months, and so forth, right? If you look at the cost of processing, a token has dramatically reduced, right?

The context windows have increased dramatically, like a hundred times or a thousand times in the last. So how do you engineer the right stuff so that you take advantage of all of these things that are happening? Because what you engineer today needs to hold out for at least one year. So absolutely, because otherwise you are continuously, you know, tinkering along.

So we've been very thoughtful about. Thinking about what aspects of this will stay for some time to come, which you don't need to tinker with, versus which are the modules that you need to continuously innovate because the what is driving that innovation is changing at a pace that you have, you are forced to.

Right. So, so we've been thoughtful about, about that. I, I, I think those are. Some of the key differentiating factors. And then finally, I, I would say, uh, while it is an ip, we've put in a lot of thought the way we work is that we don't, we don't. [00:44:00] There are no lock-ins here. So we usually take on a program, we can give away parts of that code.

Of course, we get to keep the code, code and for it and, and, and, and do what it is. These are all accelerators for the most part, right? There are no lock-ins and licenses and and so forth. So I think these, these four things right, can make it very differentiated, uh, for us in terms of the platforms that are out there.

Mehmet: Yeah. Uh, I like this approach because, you know, and I'm gonna tell you this, this is my gut feeling. It's not like based on numbers, but, uh, people gonna come to you as a, uh, as a service company, right? Because you have the expertise. You, you've been doing this with, with Apexon, and you know, I'm, I'm sure yourself, all the team, you've been doing this for a long time.

So there's no one better than. You understanding also how they should do it in the, in, in, in a better way, I would say, because you know what I discovered also, like, and there's a, there is a sub memes [00:45:00] on the internet showing, you know, uh, CEOs like, uh, what do you want? You want ai, when do you want it? Today how you want to do it.

They don't have, they have no idea. So I think this is, you know, the importance of, of, of expertise, uh, of, of someone like you, your team, to get people into this. And this is brings, you know, the other question that I want to ask you now, because we talk about ai, we're talking about automation and engine AI is, is the mix of, of AI and, uh, uh, and automation.

Uh, of course you mentioned cps now. How do you see the balance between all these technologies and human expertise, and how do you see both coexisting delivering client value? 

Sriniketh: Yeah, no, I think, look, uh, great question is this question that I think gets asked around a lot because every time we go through, uh, one of these.

Big technology shifts. I think there is [00:46:00] a equal measure of, I would say, apprehension in terms of where does this leave the humans, uh, versus the benefits of these technologies in terms of what it can do to humanity. Right? So, so, so I think we are in the middle of one of those. Uh, discussions Right. With, with, with ai because it, it seems to have that power of doing everything that we've known that hey, we can do.

Right. And, and the reality is, it is at the same time. Look, you know, I, I think the progress has been made not merely by. Heavy machinery when the industrial revolution took place. Right? Or by intelligence, but by a whole host of human characteristics. Be it entrepreneurship, be it grit, be it, you know, empathy, right?

Be it intent. Uh, by the way, none of these four are today visible in AI as an example. Right? True. I mean, as I'm just talking of, uh, you know, uh, uh, so, so I, I [00:47:00] do think, uh, you know, there will be a period of. Uh, readjustment because, uh, we had for maybe a couple of decades there was, there were a lot of jobs in terms of, you know, people that could just write code because the machine didn't understand the human language.

And now a lot of that is gonna go away. Right. So, so there's gonna be an adjustment. Right, right. Because it's, it's, it's like what happened in the industrial revolution that a lot of the human physical power, uh. Meant nothing because the machines could be far more powerful physically, right. Uh, compared to you.

But then we found, uh, other things to do, right? So, so I do think it unleashes creativity. Uh, so for example, if you look at AI itself, if I look at some of the scientific. Um, you know, breakthroughs, for example, the, I think we've made great advances in understanding how proteins fold in a human body, as an example, right?

Or if you look at the number of, [00:48:00] you know, I was reading about how, you know, data has predicted hundreds and thousands of crystallized structures that can actually give rise to new materials, right? So if I look at each of those. All of these can actually lead to a whole. Just imagine if we are able to produce, uh.

10,000 new materials in the next 20 years, or 30 years as as, because AI pointed out the fact that it can actually be synthesized and which humans didn't know. Or for example, that, you know, on the, on the healthcare side, there is far more research that happens in terms of longevity, immunity, drugs, et cetera.

Right? So, so I do think there'll be a shift, but there is definitely, I feel that. It's, they, they will coexist I think for in, in, in some ways I'd argue that. You have to be more human today to succeed rather than try and compete against the machine. So look at the areas where the machine can actually help you to accelerate and then figure out what the machine cannot do.[00:49:00] 

And can you be more human than you were? If, if there's something like that, and then you will succeed. 

Mehmet: I love this. It's, it's, it's exactly what I'm been telling people, you know, since even, you know, before, uh, we started to see the acceleration of ai because, you know, all these questions were like. Kind of coming out, uh, from people, but, you know, uh, things accelerated, especially in the past one year and a half I would say.

I, I, I, I love this approach. You know, be we, we, are we back to roots, I would say back to roots of being humans and interact more and, uh, um, show empathy. Um, yeah. You know, towards each other. Absolutely. I still have two questions for you to get before we, we Sure. Sure. We, we, you know, uh, and this great discussion, uh, and they are very short ones.

So what excites you today about all these changes, uh, from digital AI transformation? I don't know what they are calling it nowadays. And what are you expecting to see as major shifts and trends in the near future? I'm not asking you about [00:50:00] 10 years from now because I think no one can predict. 

Sriniketh: Look, uh, I mean, to me, I, I think what is exciting, um, I, I feel where we sit, especially the, as a services companies intersection of, uh, great technologies and people, I think there are two important, exciting transformations that are run away is how can we go and transform.

Our clients and the enterprises because as I said, the new technologies, uh, can help us in, I think what I call us three different areas. One is reimagine workflows with agent tech. I mean, how things have been done. Uh, a lot of what happens in an enterprise can be reimagined second. What I call is refresh.

You can refresh and modernize. There's a whole host of, there's a whole lot of legacy technology that is sitting out there. There's tech debt that you keep hearing and now with the advent of these new technologies, the cost of remedying those, right? Finally there is, there is. [00:51:00] There is talk that, hey, maybe we'll be able to get rid of our tech debt because the cost at which we can do and the pace at which we can do can be radically different.

So I think participating in that process of refresh and modernizing the legacy debt is another big opportunity. And I, I think the third is really reinventing how old things are done. Whether I said how you test applications, how you build applications, how do you monitor infrastructure, even cybersecurity.

I think everything is being questioned today with the new set of tools powered by AI to say, mm-hmm we can do this very, very differently. Right. So, and I feel very excited because we are sitting on. We are, we're not sitting on legacy ways of doing this. So we can be the challenger and we can reinvent how the old work is being done and, and, and actually show that it can be done in a new way.

So those are the three things from, um. From a client standpoint and the industry standpoint, this cuts across industry. So that's very exciting. The [00:52:00] other dimension to this, it's a people business. So while we do that and we talked about people, I think there is a big people transformation that we have to undertake.

Right? And, and, and these are not easy. Change management of people is probably, I would argue, is much more difficult than actually building the new technology, right? Uh, change. Change is hard. People have been used to working in, in, in certain ways. So what is, so I think the challenge for our management team is, uh, it is a very exciting right?

But can we take as many people that we have in the team onto. The exciting ride. Right? Right. Uh, it's, it's, you know, so we want, we don't want anyone to be left behind. Right. But we want them to get transformed and be a part of the new reinvent that that is, that, that, that is happening. So there's a big people transformation that is underway for us to, we want to make sure that we give our own people, uh, and the [00:53:00] market the possibility to go and, uh, and, and, and, uh.

And, and rediscover themselves. Right? So, so those are the two big things. Uh, mamma quite frankly, if we can get both of those right, and I think the next few years will be pretty exciting. Uh, so that's the way I, I would boil it down to 

Mehmet: hun. Hundred percent. My final question to you, uh, for today, um, because you talked about not leaving, not doing it in the legacy way, thinking about the future.

So if, if. If someone today is listening to us, maybe they are leaders, maybe they are entrepreneurs or to be entrepreneurs, uh, final advice you would give them to build impactful future ready companies and teams. 

Sriniketh: Yeah. Look, uh, I, I, I think it's, it's a very exciting, and also it could be a scary time just given the how many technologies are happening.

So, as you start to build your business, you know, uh, or, or build your [00:54:00] career, what do you, what do you kind of do? Right? Uh, so I, I would say. Uh, focus on, on the basics in terms of don't get carried away by the technology. Figure out, you know, what problem is it finally trying to solve? What is the cost of solving the problem?

What is the value equation that you have for your client? Correct. And, and right. I think that is very, very important. Right? Uh, as long as, because a lot of there is. With the new technologies, people are coming up with new mousetraps, and now the question is really, do these mousetraps sell? And why do you need this Mousetrap is, is a question that, uh, people need to continuously ask themselves, uh, to say what is, what is your value equation and how is that value equation going to change with the progress of technology?

Right? Uh, that, that would be one sort of advice. I also think that. Especially for smaller companies and we do a lot of work with smaller startups in Silicon Valley. I think they're great at building new, new stuff and new [00:55:00] technologies, but they're not necessarily as great dealing with all the mess that, uh, that confronts them when they try to bring their technology into a large enterprise.

We've seen that time and again, right? So I think for them. Working with a partner that knows how to get good technologies into a large enterprise is important because they can get very frustrated and almost like, Hey, I've built great technology, but nobody really gets it right. Is, is, is a refrain. So being very thoughtful about what parts of the value chain.

As a smaller company, do we want to really focus on versus how do we want to leverage the larger ecosystem to do some of this? Like for example, do I really want to go and implement this product and deal with a mess or do I just build great technology and put a lot of energies in? Finding the right kind of partners who will actually do the professional services for me is, is is an example, right?

Yeah. Uh, so looking at your value chain and actually thinking. What is really the [00:56:00] most, uh, other than the, the, the value equation to the client. You also have to look at your value chain and see what parts of the value chain are, am I creating most value and do I need to do this alone, or do I need to do this with somebody else, or do I just need to let go of that value chain?

The third dimension is obviously people, I come back to people because that's the most important part of the equation. Absolutely. How do you make sure that your people, and, and from a. From, you know, what happens to your programmers, right? Do they become more, uh, you know, systems engineers? So how do you help them to make that pivot?

How do you make your people much more business and domain centric? And how do you, we talked about the human qualities of becoming more human. What are you doing as an organization so that you know the aspects that humans are very good at, excel at problem solving, great empathy, entrepreneurship. How do you get the best from your organization so that you can.

You can, you can, you can take advantage of it. So to me, it's those three things, your value equation with your client or your markets, [00:57:00] your own value chain, and where you are adding, tapping into the ecosystem and, and, and your people, right? Yeah. 

Mehmet: It's, uh, you know, a very useful formula, I would call it, uh, circuit and, uh, uh.

You know, especially for the value chain you, you mentioned, if you allow me to, to, to, to free rephrase it a little bit. Uh, I always tell people, see what's moving the needles today, right? Yeah. So what, what's working for you? Like, you know, double down on that. Get rid of what's slowing you down. Um, and maybe, uh, to your point, maybe you need to go and partner with someone because you need to focus on what matters more.

So this is really, you know, rare, I would call it wisdom from you today. Um, final, final thing where people can get in touch, of course they're gonna put the website. Is there any way to, to get in touch with you or anyone of the team if they're interested to know, to learn more? 

Sriniketh: LinkedIn and [00:58:00] then go to our website and just shoot me a message.

And I think that's the best way to get in touch with me. Go to our website if you have any questions, you know, ask there. I'm very happy to respond. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Um, thank you very much. Of course. I will make sure that, you know, uh. Every single, uh, link is, is available in the show notes. So if you are listening on your favorite podcasting app today, so you'll find the links, uh, in the show notes.

I can't thank you enough. I, I know how much busy it can be for a CEO like yourself. Like, uh, you're running, uh, a, a, a great organization. You have. Fantastic team. Uh, and you made this also for me in your early morning, which I know usually it's a time where you would be organizing your day following up or was pending from maybe previous days.

So thank you for making the time for me and this is how I end my episodes. This is for the audience. If you just discovered this podcast, thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, [00:59:00] so please give me a favor. Subscribe shares with your friends and colleagues. And if you're one of the people who keeps coming, thank you for your support.

Thank you for keeping the podcast ranking in the top 200 chart across mult multiple countries. I keep jumping from one to another. So, um, today, you know, at the time of recording of this episode, I found out we entered Lebanon, for example, the other day. Were, uh, doing well in India. Previous week we were doing very well in Bermuda, and you know, every week we, we are in a country, so this cannot happen without your support.

And as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon. Thank you. Bye-bye. 

Sriniketh: Thank you Meed, enjoyed the discussion and good luck to you. Thank you. Thank you.