Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Service, Struggle, Success: A DEX Leadership Story 🌱 (w/ Midge Renganathan)

Transcript

Service, Struggle, Success: A DEX Leadership Story 🌱 (w/ Midge Renganathan) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome It change Makers to the Deck show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Hello, change Makers, Greetings from an absolutely boiling hot day
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: here in London. Hot of them Barbados. The newspapers are
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: telling us now it might be a you know, it
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: might be a winter time in Barbados. I couldn't tell you,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: but it is certainly hot and we're not well suited
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: for it. And wonderfully enough, we have a guest himself
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: based in London for Tim and I are to welcome.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: He's mid Ranganathan, head of IT Service delivery for our
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: PC Mitch. We've been trying to organize this for a
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: few weeks. Now is great to finally welcome you.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: To the show. Thank you so much.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: How are you doing to How are you coping with
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the heat over there?
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: You know it is quite boiling actually, and I've acterally
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: got to be inside my office as well, so I'm
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: trying to keep an eye on that and make sure
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: doesn't attack me at the same time. But other than that,
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: all it's.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Good, excellent, excellent, and is there the courage you're having
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: his camera on, which is something I'm not intentionally tempted by.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: But Ja, we've.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: We've we've already had a good long conversation and I
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: absolutely loved hearing about your story. Was just just so
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: keen to get you on the show. And I mean,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: maybe just just introduce yourself first of all, in your
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: current role, current current specialism and how he became connected.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah sure, Yeah, Mitch Ranganadan, so head of service delivery
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: for RPC, you know, focusing a lot more on the
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: customer experience. So I look after the front end support teams,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: that's your operational teams. And that's pretty much been my background.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: So I've been in the league industry for about twenty
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: five years now. I've been been a few big law
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: firms where I learned my experiences and moved to our
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: PC about five years ago. Uh, and became a Next
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Think partner around the about two years ago. So we
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: we basically bought into Next Think and on a journey
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: to improve our current customer experience. So that's the that's
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: kind of the.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Background, certainly, and we'll pick up on this chapter of
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the journey in a bit midch but before we do,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: you've got a real journey. You've been on a real
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: journey yourself. I would say, your life story is something
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: of a journey and your career story, and it's you know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's somewhat unique and I really loved listening
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: to it last time we met. So I think begin
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: for the listeners by telling us something about your opbringings
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: and where that journey began.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure, it's taking me taking me back now. So
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: born in Sri Lanka, a place called Rottenapurah. So it's
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: it's basically like a tea states. So my memory is
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: of childhood memories of going to school is walking down
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: the tea estates and going to school and then climbing
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: up the mountains to get back home. So my my,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: my parents were you know, pretty much a simple family.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Not not much on the on the on the money
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: side of things, but certainly from the love side of things.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: You know, it was quite quite big.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: You know, my my around the age of five, my
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: dad migrated over to England. So my mom pretty much
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: brought up my brother and I and we had some
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: challenges there due to the Civil War so and due
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: to Sho War. We moved all to England when I
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: was about ten. So prior to that, my my lifestyle
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: was in in Sri Lanka, where we had, you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: a few challenges, you know, particularly particular example is I
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: remember one time when my mom had to wake my
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: brother and I up to and take us to a
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: place for safety, which was a next door next door
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: to us, just to make sure that we were not
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: being attacked. So these are you know, these are these
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: are some of the stories that that basically our roomber
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: growing up and when you know, when when when I
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: got to about ten, you know, my my parents were
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: worried about my brother and I safety and decided to
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: migrate over over to England. So we moved moved here, Yeah,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: pretty much from scratch and yeah, and that's where my
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: my journey began.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Greatable and what was that? What was that transition?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Like transition wise? A lot to tell you actually, Okay,
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: So so when we when we when we moved over,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: so we lived with with a family member for a while.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: So I started to I started to attend middle school.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: It was quite quite a not not not a great memory,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: to be honest with you, because in the starting mid
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: of school, you're new to the country, can't speak a
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: word of English, no friends, So it took it took
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: a while to to fit in, I mean our umber.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: The times when when I would be dreading the play
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: times because you know, I just have to sit by
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: myself because I've got no when hours that would want
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: to come and play with me. And often people will
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: take the take make fun out of me because you
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: know I can't speak English, and you know there were
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: kids as well, so in the world the how they
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: know better. Then we moved into accouncil, a council accommodation,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: which is quite a rough area to be honest. Uh
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: this was just just a double bedroom where they had
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: a double bed and had a bunk bed. So me
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: and my brother were on the bunk bed and my
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: parents in the double bed, and you know, used to
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: look out the window thinking, my god, what kind of
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: life is this, you know, trapped in a trapped in
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: a room. Then we were Then I started high school.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Things got to be a little bit better a high
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: school because I managed to make some friends. Then we
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: moved to another counter accommodation which was like a masonut flat.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: We had a bit more space. Both a very rough
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: area so you know pretty much would get marked and
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: attacked on a regular basis, and you know, it was
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: it was just a norm. You know, it just became
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: the norm to me. You know, one one particular example,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: went for a bike ride into into the park and
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: you know, it was attacked by this group of group
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: of boys and you know, attacked me quite badly. But
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I couldn't even open my mouth or speak. And my
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: biggest fear was not about how I get away from them.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: It's more about making sure my parents don't find out,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: because I don't want them to know and worry about us,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: because they were trying to make ends meet, and you know,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: they were working full time just to make sure me
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: and my brother had had a decent life. Yeah, so
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: it was quite a rough journey to start with. But
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: you know, as for as for you know, everything else,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: it got better as time went on. You know, we
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: went into high school, you know, managed to manage to
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: make some friends, you know, and then get get my
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: get get the roadmap going, and you know, and and
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: and and so and so on.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: It must have been an incredibly intimidating experience. And what
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: were what were your parents doing for a living they
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: first came here.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: So my my my family is actually an educational background,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: to be honest with you, So it's very academic. So
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: most of my families are like you know, doctors, accountants
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: and and and engineers. And unfortunately my father was My
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: father was an accountant in Sri Lanka and he found
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: it quite difficult to practice when he came over here.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: And my and my mom and dad, you know, basically
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: done the bare minimum. My mom. My mom was working
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: at a factory to you know, to make much much
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: as possible to support us, and my dad would do
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: the the odd account to the jobs and equally working
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: at different different places to make sure that financially we
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: are being looked after.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: So major welcome to the show. You know, we both
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: or all three of us have been at our careers
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: for quite some time now, some of us longer than others,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: right tom so relative tim. So what I find myself doing,
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: especially in parts of my career like I've just experienced
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: this year, traveling, getting to areas of the world that
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: I've never been to, working with small nimble teams just
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: starting to build out their operation, working with prospects that
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: are just starting on a journey. All those things give
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: me the passion and the energy that I need to continue.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: But I also look back at the early parts of
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: my career, what was it that drove me back then
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: when I was first starting out. So in those early
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: parts of your career, what were the parts that really
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: where you really found that most most passionate energy to
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: to kind of continue down the path.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: So I think efficiency drives me definitely, uh and customer
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: service and customer service side of things and service extens
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: definitely drives me too. You know, starting off, I had
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: many you know, the couple of options, right, you know, Initially,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: you know, I was quite technic technical, you know, I
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: explored that avenue as well to say, be someone great
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: at servers or networks or configuration, you know, something on
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: that that end. But automatically, you know, I was more
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: drawn into them. My passion was drawn into the customer
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: plant facing side of things because I had a special
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: way to speak to people.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: I had.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: I was more I was able to, uh speak to
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: introverts and extroverts. I could, I could differentiate the way
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: I speak to people. And you know, overall, I think
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the passion for me around that and and and it's
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: still lists you know, throughout my roles. I mean, you know,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: I've been I've been the law as I said, Jomy.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I've been I've been through about three or four firms now,
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: and throughout that, I think my always key is how
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: do I make something better? Uh? And that led me
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: to have more and more opportunities.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, they're along our careers. There are those
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: key milestones that helped kind of shape your focus, build
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: your skill set. What in your mind were some of
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: those key milestones that helped you shape your focus.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Getting my foot through to a global make circle law firm,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: that was my career break. In fact, you know that
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: basically I went there as a as a technician, soon
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: became a manager, uh and then you know, and then
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: progress there from from manage to being a global service
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: delivery lead looking after operational teams. So that was my
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: you know, that was where I learned. You know, I
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: learned about how to handle scenarios, how to manage managers,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: you know, how to how to make sure something delivered
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: on time, you know, working under pressure and being a
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: law firm. You know, lawyers, one thing's done yesterday, right,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: So you had to basically adopt and and become you know,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: become a person who can be resilient and then you know,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: from there, I I think I've done about eleven is
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: at that At that firm, it was a great firm,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: and I got a call from an agent to work
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: for interested in hiring me for another all you know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: the final that the best thing I say to people is,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: you know, you actually don't know how much you know
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: until you are challenged. So when I went into this
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: new new firm, it was a you know, it was
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: basically a global operations role. I was looking after you know, EMEA, Mina,
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Americas and Asia. So it was you know, it needed
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: my time, had to be flexible on time, so which
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: meant I had to be available in the evenings as well.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: And this role was managing senior managers. So you know,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: this was again something new to me because I had
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: to adopt and learn quite quickly. So I went in
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: there to apply the practices that I've learned, the processes
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: I learned, you know, getting to a really really good start.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: And then the firm came under new management, which meant
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: that the IT organization was being restructured, which meant that
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: quite a few leaders were made redundant. And I was
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: one of the lucky ones who was who was invited
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: to be on the board to do the restructure, so
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: which again was a great opportunity for me because I'm
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: sitting on the board with the CEO at that time.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I learned how to restructure department. You know what, you
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: know what functions are needed, you know what functions are
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: not needed. You know some bad bits as well. We
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: had to you know, let go of people which wasn't
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: which was the which was the you know, quite the hard, hard,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: hard things to do, and equally, you know, creating new
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: new sections and hiring new hires, et cetera. So that
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: overall was a was a great kind of experience. I
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: think that was probably my second, well one of my
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: biggest marstones as well, because if I hadn't, if I
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: hadn't taken the step, I would have never landed the role.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: And if I had never if I hadn't learned the role,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I would have never had the experience on understanding how
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: the firm works better, et cetera. Because that actually expanded
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: my knowledge and you know, it helped me has helped
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: me quite quite a lot throughout my career. And then
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: from there as time went on, after a few months,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the role I was doing was being moved to the Americas,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: which means my my role became redundant. So that was
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: a fearful, you know, fearful scenario. You know, you do
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: that what if don't you like what if I had
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: stared in my old job? What if I had done that?
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: If I'd done this right? Because you want to make
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: sure you're secure. Yeah, So then I left when I
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: left this firm, so I was pretty much trying to think,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: what do I do? You know, at this time, I
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: had a lot of experience. You know, I always had
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: a thing for trying something out myself. You know, I
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: always thought, you know, what if I become a consultant,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: you know, I stop, I set up my own firm,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: which I did. I set up my or firm and thought,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: let me give it a go. Worked in a few
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: places just going in for like, you know, two three
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: week contracts just to just to consult and give ideas
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: on how people can improve their current processing and how
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: they can be more efficient. You know, my my focus
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: is more on you know, efficiency, right, you know, it's
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: not about headcount. You know, you can basically, you know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: get this equal or more with current headcount if you
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: make you make sure you're pro it's is sufficient. So
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: I came. I'd done that for a while, and then
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: the current firm that I'm at the moment, RPC, you know, became,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: you know, came came to light and they were entering
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: for for a contractor you know, something similar to to
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: run the series, do some other things, just to just
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: to go in for a month, which I did, went in,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: you know, barely enjoyed it. It's a great firm, great culture.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: And then it was lockdown. So lockdown was another another
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: challenge for me. So just prior to Lockdown, I was
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: offered a perm role which i've which I took and
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: I've been there since. You know, I liked I like
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: to say I'm a leader because I'm not somebody who
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: just instructs, you know. I like to lead from the front,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: you know, and if something goes wrong, I wouldn't take
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: the blame for my team, you know, I'm I'm you know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I don't necessarily sit back, you know, if if something's wrong,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I like to roll my sleeves up and lead with
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: the foot with the team. So that's kind of kind
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: of the leadership I learned from from from her. So
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: that's that's been my biggest mentorship. Someone I still speak
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: to actually once I need help to reach out to.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: And equally, there's people I've seen where leaders, other leaders
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: I've seen are in great power and put to myself,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: I'm never going to be like that person because that person,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: the way they leaders is not the way you know
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: you want to lead, you know, like being obnoxious or
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: you know, not giving someone the credit or taking the
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: credit for someone else's work except right now. So so
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: that I think mentorship is a big, big, big thing.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, when I'm lucky enough to now mentor other people,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: you know, and and when I do mentor them, you know,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: I talk from my own experiences and try and drilling
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: around the management side. You know, yes, you have to
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: be firm, you have to be effective, and you have
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: to be honest, and you have to be transparent when
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: you give your feedbacks. But equally, you know, you need
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: to understand how to treat people and you know, understand
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: scenarios and and really grow somebody you know in the
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: in that low.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So along the way, and we mentioned it a
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: couple of times, is that the luck plays a big
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: part in what we do. I was lucky enough to
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: find not only the new concept of digital employee experience,
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: but next thick as well. It definitely shaped the latter
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: part of my career. When did your interest in the
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: specific that that concept of digital employee experience begin to
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: take shape? And how has that guided your career path?
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, I mean being being in customer service. So
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: I've always had a service head, as I was saying
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: earlier on and combining that with technology was something that
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: you know, it was something that was quite fascinating for me,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: you know, starting off, you know, if you if you
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: look at the BlackBerry times, you know when when we
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: used to roll out the Blackberries, uh and and ensuring
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: that it's being configured correctly, making sure the emails are
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: landing correctly, you know, and you know, small problems that
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: come out, you know, I want to make sure that
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: they're dressed quite quickly because the focus is to make
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: sure that the experience of the user gets with that
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: BlackBerry is seamless. So you know, that's that's the that's
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: from a young age. So applying that across to my
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: whole career. So my focus is purely on the end experience, right.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: You know, what I think about is you know, you know,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: if you look at a typical person. You know, they
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: they wake up, they look at their phone, they check
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: their emails, they'll do what they need to do, go
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: downstairs or go upstairs, whatever. They log into their laptop.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: They especially now with with the work, with their homeworking.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of interaction between technology and an individual
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: and making sure that's smooth as possible. You know, I
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: remember working when I was working in my first law
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: law firm, we were rolling out Windows seven desktops, right
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: and you know me and you know, we had a
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: didn't we didn't have someone training the users, right again,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: you know, these are things, These are things that basically
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: our question to say, why do we not have somebody training?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Because I think that enhances the experience that the person gets.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: So it's it's it's combining all that together, I mean
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: to be honest. Even now, you know, we're in a
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: we're in a really state of the art technology place,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: but there are still things that can be done to
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: make it better. Like you know, I often look look
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: at the you know, the proactive side of things. You know,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: how can you proactively fix fix things before someone notices it,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: you know, and how can we proactively help somebody before
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: they come to us, you know, it's it's that kind
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: of mentality. Yeah, So I think overall it's in the
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: service head. I guess having the service head has helped
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: me and still helping me to shape shape this in
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: the future.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Fantastic manage and looking now ahead to the future a
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: bit more concretely, First of all, what about new technology?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Which ones are you investing the most time and resources
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: in presently?
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: So if you're in terms of what we're doing now
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: tom So, we're looking at new laptops. You know, obviously
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Windows ten is coming to not gonna be supported from October,
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: so we're rolling up Indose eleven together with some new laptops.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: So that's where that's quite a big project that's going
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: on at the moment. Within within r PC, we're looking
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: at a secure repn solution, you know, enhancing the way
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: people work, making more secure, especially with you know, with
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: digital experiences and you know, and and the way things
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: are going, you know, in terms of the future, it's
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: important to make sure that we have a secure way
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: of working. So that's something that we're looking at. We're
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: looking at AI a lot of the other firms out there,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: you know, we're looking to in this two, we're looking
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: to building an internal system as a as a pilot,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: see to see how that goes. And this is like
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: these are the main kind of things at the moment,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: within within within, within us.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Yet and this my, this, my this question I touch
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: upon some of those min better. What are the challenges
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: that keep you most engaged and passionate about your work,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: both right now and presumably in the years to come.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Sure, I mean the big service delivery is a is
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: a it's a it's a it's a game that you
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: can you can plan, but cannot plan, if that makes sense,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: because you know, I can I plan my strategies, you know,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: weekly to monthly, two half month and a half yearly.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: But if something happens where and operational issues raised, then
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: obviously we drop everything and we need to make sure
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: it's been focusing on that and we're resuming services as
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: quick as possible. So yeah, I mean, in terms of
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: a passion, I mean, I'm highly motivated in terms of
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: what I do. I mean, I actually love what I do.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: So for me, the passions are to feel quite easy.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: And also the teams I have, you know, they're great,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: great teams. You know, individually, my team. I want to
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: make sure they're doing quite well, So trying to you know,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: making sure they're getting the right support, making sure that
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: we have the right budget to achieve the projects that
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: we want to achieve, making sure that we are we
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: are promising or we're differing what we're promising, and you know,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: just improving. You know, it's continues to improvement, isn't it like,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: you know, small things you can do to make things better,
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: you know, focusing a lot a lot around that, being
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: strategic as much as possible, like equally understanding that operations
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: have to be something that we be focused on more so. Yeah,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: so keeps me, keeps keeps us busy, and challenge as well.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. We cover quite a bit of
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: grammar image but penultomenate question for you with I mean,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: how would you characterize the evolution of the IT career
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: during the span of your own career and where do
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: you see it as heading next for the wider industry?
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: Well, okay, that's yeah, so it is growing as an industry.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's is the future. The future is
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: going to be a lot more advanced. I mean, if
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: you do a comparison from ten years before to now again,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: you know that's it's a vast, vast difference. So I
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: think the job market is in the in the coming
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: years is going to be more looking at things like AI, cybersecurities.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: You know, there's be a lot more involvement around the
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: machine learning side of things, you know, the AI s
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: out of things and makes lear anything. I think that's
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: going to that's going to be an industry that's going
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: to be ever growing specialist skill people. I need where
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: people are needed to make sure it's being shaped the
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: correct way. I think there's a big, massive growth there
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: and a great opportunity for people to learn there too.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: And if you look at cyber I mean, cyber is
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: another one because you know, the the cyber crimes are
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: a lot more sophisticated now, so we need more cyber
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: analysts and you know, people in that area to make
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: sure that the firms are protected. So I think a
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: lot more skill sets are going to be developing in there,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: and it's going be a lot more focuses around that
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: side of things. Data science is another one. I mean,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: if you look at if you look at data, pretty
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: much all firms are focusing a lot more on data now.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Because if you understand data, then you can shape the
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: organization's future and really have things in place to god
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: or to make things better. So a lot more data
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: analysts are being you know, I think that's going to
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: be a lot more focused on that side of things. Software,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: you know, DEV, software development and engineering. That's going to
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: be something that is going to grow. Robotics is another
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: one I think. You know, I see so many programs
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: around how robots are pretty much doing a lot of
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: the human tasks that are being done. You know, like
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: automation is going to be a big part of things.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: You know, the repeated tasks are going to be automated,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: but equally, you know, they still needs human interaction for
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: certain things like checking, et cetera. And if you take
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: you if you take a law film for example, document reviews, right,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't matter, you know, you can have
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of technology applied to that too. So I think, yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of a lots being done in that area.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: And I think overall, the IT stector's looking quite promising
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: and demanding, to be honest with you, especially for the
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: new people coming coming in, I think they'll be much
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: better at one's position.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Agredible and what about what about image, whatever remaining ambitions
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: you have to achieve an his career.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I've still got big dreams, still haven't still haven't, haven't
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: given up on that yet. So you know, I think
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: I've learned a lot so far, gained a lot of experiences,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: and I want to apply this and you know, come
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: you know, go into a toward CIO level firm. You know,
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: not just be a technology partner, but be a business partner,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: being able to shape where the businesses are heading to,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: you know. So that's one of the dreams, you know,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: going to consultancy, you know, around that, you know, really
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: really bringing in my experiences around the process driven and
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: technology driven side of the side and shaping that more.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: And I've also got the other passion, which I want
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: to do some keynote speaking, you know, like talk about
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: my experiences, what I've learned together with my my own
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: personal experiences, and you know, encourage people to do better,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: you know, like you know, really motivate people and let
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: them know that there's this more that could be done.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: And you know, if there's if there's anything I can
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: do to to help them and motivate them and encourage them,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: then yeah, that's kind of thing that's something I'd love
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: to do as well, or something I'm looking to at
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: the moment.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Midge, I'm going to make a prediction on the record
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: that you're going to go the way to the top.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I don't doubt it, and thank you that's where your
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: journey will take you eventually. Absolute pleasure to have you
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: on the show. Thanks for sharing that incredible personal story
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: with us, and congratulations on all your success. And if
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: people want to connect with you, I presume LinkedIn is
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: your place.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, LinkedIn.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, phenomenal, Midge. Been lovely to have you on the
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Deck Show. We speak to you very soon, my friend.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 27:49
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• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Until next time,