Compliments on 20^th Foundation Day!

All through the past year we contemplated to mark this day with elaborate festivity. Special mementos had been kept in readiness for the occasion – months in advance. The Almighty had different plans, and we mere mortals can only bow down in humility. At the same time however, looking back at our journey of the past 2 decades, there are several reasons for us to hold our head high this foundation day. Reasons that form the foundation of who we are, and the purpose of our being – our raison d’être.

Our ‘Trust’ quotient earned is the foremost reason for us to hold our head high. The mutual trust amongst the Alletec members, the trust our customers & partners repose in us, and the trust our vendors have in us. This trust is for fairness, dependability, integrity, empathy and acumen that we constantly strive to strengthen. This trust comes from the transparency in business operations we strive to maintain, from the relentless focus on customer success, and from the ongoing opportunities and ‘learning’ investments made in our teams.

Our ‘Transformation’ quotient is the other reason for us to hold our head high. We have transformed our offerings and business model to go firmly ‘cloud’ and ‘SaaS’ – aligning with what’s good for our customers. Our successfully transforming to WFH operations overnight was a result of years of focus on building reliant systems and processes. A set of currently ongoing initiatives, focused on both internal and customer experiences, are going to bring another wave of digital transformation over the next 6 months.

Our constantly strengthening ‘Innovation’ quotient is the third reason for us to hold our head high. From a pure services and license margin dependent operation some years ago, we have been rapidly productizing our services and building IP – horizontal and industry specific – across product lines. This helps us carve out a niche in the market, enhance customer success, and has also very recently helped us get selected as Microsoft ISV Development Center. These assets and specializations bring resilience and robustness.

This pandemic might have rendered short term business plans meaningless, but Alletec stays on course to it’s goal of being the best known Microsoft Business Applications partner from India, helping mid and upper mid-sized businesses across geographies, succeed with digital transformation.

The COVID and post-COVID era come with a new set of opportunities and challenges. WFH becoming a global norm means our customers – both domestic and international – become more open to offsite engagements. It also means – international customers expecting at least similar, if not better, experience with us as they have from a local partner. This calls for rigorous adherence and constant improvements to project management processes, and communication structures. Adoption of technology will play a vital role in success. The currently ongoing transformation to adopt Agile Scrum by a couple of groups needs to become an org-wide practice. Adoption of Microsoft Teams for project management, information sharing & communication, plus the adoption of DevOps will soon become non-negotiable.

Post-COVID era is going to see customers becoming ‘frugal’. They will invest in what’s needed, but require every dollar invested to yield more. The opportunities for digital transformation projects are going to increase globally, but these projects would have to be executed with significantly higher speed and efficiency. The reusable intellectual assets we are investing in building – are going to help us achieve this. These help us get ahead of competition during pre-sales and reduce time & effort during project execution.

Succeeding in the post-COVID era also means enhanced focus on building high-performance teams. To succeed, this fully distributed model of WFH requires reliability, and goal achievement orientation, from every individual. If this requires you to put yourselves, or your teams through some mentoring and training, now is the time. But now is also the time to actively call-out and push-back mediocrity.

Most of us have started craving for ‘work life balance’ – looking to get back to the hustle & bustle of office environment. Unfortunately – this doesn’t seem like happening in a hurry. What we need to do however is – ensure that our learnings from the current phase are cemented in our DNA. Now is the time to learn things that we have long believed to be important but continued to ignore. Don’t let this crisis be wasted.

The thing to feel blessed for the most today is – all of us, and our immediate family, are safe & healthy – despite a couple of scares during this period. To see success & growth in future – we need to stay safe & healthy today. This must remain our topmost priority in the present times. As I try to summarize my thoughts today, I’m reminded of the opening lines from Charles Dickens 1859 novel – A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …”

It’s for us – individually and collectively – to make our choices.

Once again – my compliments and best wishes to you and your families on this 20^th Foundation Day. We all look forward to meeting and celebrating in person soon.

Cheers!