Rakesh Rathi was honoured with a prestigious and decorated award by Hon'ble Pranab Mukherjee (13th President of India) for driving global corporate and business innovation with C-level executives
The prestigious award to Rakesh from Hon’ble Pranab Mukherjee (13th President of India) was presented in a glittering ceremony in Delhi, India in presence of esteemed guests and award winners. Being networked with various business corporates and its leadership globally, it was quite exciting to interact with Rakesh Rathi and know his views with respect to the global economy roadmap from a corporate, industry and technology point of view.
Based in Switzerland, Rakesh has rock-solid academic background – Engineering (Mumbai, India) and MBA (IMD, Switzerland), global professional experience (Europe, US, APAC) of over 25 years across multiple industries and verticals in senior roles. He has been instrumental in successfully implementing cutting-edge technology impacting business KPI (key performance indicators) with leadership of large global firms and well appreciated by his clients for both his technology and industry experience.
On his experience dealing with international C-level executives, Rakesh responded “Leadership Matters and this is universal…," he replied “Over time I have seen a huge shift in my interaction with global leaders. They are interested in mapping the business KPI with technology, digital transformation, innovation, automation, diversity & inclusion (D&I), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), sustainability and these topics have become key to drive efficiency and productivity, beyond only looking at revenues and profitability…, while Nestle is a leader in FMCG globally their leadership aims for environmental sustainability with 100% recyclable packaging by 2025; UBS is a leading global bank and although in financial services the organisation honours engineers with a Distinguished Engineers (DE) award, Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies yet has the Digital Transformation and D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) as a leadership priority and so on. Role of a CIO (Chief Information Officer) and IT has now evolved from earlier being a cost centre to now being looked upon as a profit centre (revenue driver) impacting all business metrics and hence has a much higher visibility at a board level which is quite positive since every company now is a technology company irrespective of the vertical & industry they belong to. People, Process and Technology are the key drivers for any transformation (Business and/or IT) and the role of leadership is to blend them together.”
Talking about his view related to technology sector in India, he said,“If we look at the positives — the Indian IT and ITeS sector grew to US$ 181 billion in 2018-19, ranks among the top sources of Foreign Direct Investments and has played an instrumental role in building strong bilateral ties with global economies. Tier-1 IT firms such as TCS, Cognizant, Wipro, Infosys, HCL…. Are well appreciated by leaders of global organizations for their innovation. However, with frequent digital and disruptive changes (Digital Transformation, IoT, Robotics, AI/ML, Cyber Security, Quantum Computing, Wi-fi, 5G etc); tech companies have to constantly evolve their offering to align to these changes in IT landscape. India should be looked as an innovation hub (which we are) and not only as a low-cost offshoring destination. We have to grow both in Services and Products, currently we are more into Services. One of the key contributor to the unprecedented demand of the global digital revolution is our young Indians - 62% of India's 1.3 billion people are under the age of 35, and we have over 500 million+ internet-connected and smartphone users, however I see the skill-gap and also the disparity in technology adaptability between urban and rural populations. From a digital transformation perspective, I strongly believe that SMAC (Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud) with a strong foundation of innovative IT Infrastructure (Networks, Data Centres) and IoT (Internet of Things) will continue to dominate tech globally and will be instrumental in the sharp upsurge of the IT sector. Therefore, for India re-skilling in these domains (tech + industry) can address the skill-gap significantly.”
To his take on can India be in the level as Silicon Valley he said, “Silicon Valley and also Europe, have high interest from Institutional Investors and Venture Capitalists since they target global consumers with innovative products, take calculated risks and therefore have higher visibility. If India can create a similar atmosphere for promoting entrepreneurship we too can spur new global innovative companies. Having said that we do have more than 15+ unicorns in India in the likes of Flipkart, Paytm, OYO etc also pioneering companies such as Biocon and India should continue to promote such start-ups and expand them globally. Due to cutting-edge developments in network, telecom and data centres by leading global companies such as Cisco, Verizon and others, 3G (third generation wireless) lead to evolution of faster internet & smartphones and that revolutionized every industry; similarly further penetration of Wi-Fi6/4G/5G both in urban and rural areas is an absolute necessity for business to grow. While, I do appreciate ‘Start-up-India’ campaign by the Indian government, however only the analysis of the metrics will reflect if we have had the expected impact".
What really intrigues were his statement where Rakesh says, India could offer opportunities and platform to Indian diaspora abroad to encourage them and bring in their international experience, this itself could be a huge accelerator to growth. Indian born intellectuals have risen the ranks of corporate and are now leading CEO’s of global firms like Sunder Pichai (Alphabet, Google), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Ajay Banga (Mastercard), Vas Narasimhan (Novartis) among others; they all are inspirational & we should have similar leaders’ mentor local industries to be on top of the global economy chart.