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How This CEO Uses AI to Eliminate 70% of His Meetings · Speak In Flow

• 0:01
  Melinda Lee: Welcome to the Speak in Flow podcast, where we help CEOs and leadership teams align on what matters most, and using communication, we are going to move forward together.
• 0:13
  Melinda Lee: Today, we are talking about the alignment problem. Most CEOs face this issue with bottleneck, and where all decisions route back to the CEO. And so today, we are bringing in our guest, who has over 3 decades of experience helping to solve complex problems and moving organizations together in companies such as Honeywell.
• 0:37
  Melinda Lee: Philips, and Dell Sonic Wall. Today, he's a founder and CEO of Zin… Bye.
• 0:49
  Melinda Lee: And what I love about Sugata pulled together to solve the problems, to rise to the challenge, and help organizations grow, I'm so excited about our conversation. Welcome to the podcast, Sugata Sanyal.
• 1:03
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Thank you, Melinda. Thanks for having me. Super excited.
• 1:07
  Melinda Lee: I'm excited to dive in, thank you so much for joining, and so let's start off with the first question. There is a busy CEO leader who has stopped to listen to this podcast. What do you hope can change in this leader's life by taking in what you're about to tell them?
• 1:27
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think I would tell them that it's an amazing change that's happening, you know, driven by AI. We're hearing about that everywhere.
• 1:34
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But because of that, it's even more important to focus on the human.
• 1:40
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about that. So, there are a lot of tools that are today that can free up a lot of space on your schedule. So, what used to be reviews, reviews, reviews, meetings, meetings, meetings.
• 1:52
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): those, you can get rid of 60-70% of those through automation and leveraging AI, so you can actually focus on human-to-human conversations, whether it's meeting people, talking to them, picking up the phone, walking on the floor, going, seeing customers or partners.
• 2:10
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I think there's a whole paradigm shift, how we have all operated
• 2:14
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): resource constraint, budget constrained, time constrained. I think there should be more time for family, there's more time for people. I think that's what's a fundamental thing that's changing right now, so it's an incredible moment to be alive, and I think it's an incredible moment to be a leader.
• 2:30
  Melinda Lee: That is so exciting. I'm so interested, right off the bat, what you said. And so, for the audience, can you tell them more about what you do? And you shared about what is it…
• 2:48
  Melinda Lee: But tell them a little bit even more.
• 2:51
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, so, we…
• 2:53
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): provide an enterprise software platform for very large brands. We have, you know, several dozen Fortune 100 companies and mid-market companies, companies who sell through a reseller network.
• 3:05
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Through a partner's, or a consultant, or an installer, some kind. So when you look at our customer base, you know, GE, Schneider.
• 3:13
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): brother, Epson, etc.
• 3:16
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): they have resellers that resell their product to businesses. So our software allows them to manage those distributed companies' entities. So just like the way when you hire a direct salesperson.
• 3:27
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): or a direct technical person, you have to onboard them, you gotta train them, you gotta incentivize them, you gotta manage them, you gotta work with them. On the indirect side, when you partner up with a company to resell your product or your services.
• 3:39
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you need to have similar software and mechanism in place. So that's what we provide. We're a leader in our space.
• 3:45
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): We've been doing this for a while, and now we're completely focused on, you know, driving through an AI transformation. As I just said, everything is changing.
• 3:56
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And, so it's an exciting time in the industry, that's what we do for our customers.
• 4:01
  Melinda Lee: So, how do you help the people? So, you're saying that you have technology that's able to be that partner with you, able to help the companies grow, and then now you're focusing on, you believe that founders, CEOs can focus more on the people?
• 4:19
  Melinda Lee: Can you tell me more about that? How would a CEO or founder, build the people up that are typically non-sales people, that, don't… that prefer to be in the background? They'd rather be at the desk.
• 4:35
  Melinda Lee: How do we bring them all into alignment to have more conversations with, partners?
• 4:42
  Melinda Lee: or…
• 4:47
  Melinda Lee: Collaborators with, you know, elevating the whole people part of the organization.
• 4:57
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, so, right before the recording, as we were chatting, you know, we serve, basically enterprise and mid-market customers.
• 5:05
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And our enterprise customers are very different than our mid-market customers. Our enterprise customers are large, they have global presence, they have thousands of resellers that they manage, and our software helps them to, you know, generate more revenue at a lower cost and be compliant in those countries that they operate. So it's a very complex environment.
• 5:24
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, the most important thing, you know, that I've tried to do, or my team has tried to do, is to really make all of our team members understand who we are serving.
• 5:36
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Because if you're not interested in understanding your serving, possibly this is not the right place to be, because what we do is very complex.
• 5:44
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And it has very high bars, very high set of requirements. We compete with the largest
• 5:49
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): CRM company out of San Francisco. They are, you know, head-on competitors, so… and it's an incredible company, as we all know.
• 5:57
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): for us to compete and win business against them and keep customers, we have to be so much better. So the first thing in alignment, you know, it's important when you're hiring people, they know who they're going to work for. They don't actually work for the company. Company is a contract through which we work for customers in the end.
• 6:15
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I think without understanding that, I think it's… it's…
• 6:20
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, it's very, very important to understand that.
• 6:22
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Second is, once you've understood and say, yeah, I want to be in this market, I want to serve these customers, I want to do these things functionally.
• 6:30
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Then the company processes, cultures.
• 6:33
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, how we deal with conflicts and issues and resolve them, those things all matter, because that's… that's what we're within.
• 6:41
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So… Getting to alignment.
• 6:45
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): it starts, I think, understanding and explaining to the entire team who the customer is.
• 6:51
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And then everything kind of starts from there. So maybe as we go through the rest of our conversation, we can kind of go through different bits and pieces of it. But that's the first thing that everybody needs to understand. Who we're serving, why we're serving, and what would, you know, keep them coming back. Unless we understand that, it's very, very difficult to align.
• 7:08
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): It's all an impossible delay.
• 7:10
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, how much information do you share about your clients? I'm sure you have a lot of different client profiles, and a lot of different client journeys. Okay, let's just focus on the mid-market.
• 7:24
  Melinda Lee: For the smaller firms? How do we help them? How do we raise awareness and help the people be just as passionate as you, right? You are so passionate about your company and what you do. Sometimes, you know, the people underneath you may or may not be just as passionate, but how have you been able to help them all be just as passionate?
• 7:46
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So there, I think there are two different phases, before AI and after AI.
• 7:50
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think that before AI, the biggest challenge was, you know, aggregating data, making it meaningful, that when you take an aggregated performance data at a customer level, you can break it down to a functional level. What does it mean for products? What does it mean for engineering?
• 8:07
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): What does it mean… does it even mean for, you know, pre-sales, what they committed to?
• 8:12
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But with AI, now almost 100% of our conversation with customers is recorded, right? Where they allow us to do so, and everybody does that.
• 8:24
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, in pre-sales, we have complete granularity what promises we're making, right? What do we have to deliver to keep that trust?
• 8:30
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And then… and post-sales, every engagement is recorded, every internal meetings are recorded, so through AI capabilities, we can build what we call these 360-degree profiles, who the customer is, what the account looks like, what do they need, and that is completely available to every team member.
• 8:50
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): that are working on those accounts, and at a management level across accounts. This was not possible, even 6 months ago, or a year ago. So I think transformation going on, how you can democratize
• 9:03
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, the access to not just data, to intelligence and insight.
• 9:08
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So people know who they're serving. And it's easier in mid-market, because the complexity is a lot less.
• 9:16
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): It's tough for an enterprise, but it's now possible on both dimensions.
• 9:20
  Melinda Lee: And what about the people that are non-sales people, the people that are in operations, that prefer not to speak to customers? They'd rather just be in the background. What would you say to these… how do you bring them into alignment?
• 9:35
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, we have actually operated very differently than, you know, competitors of our size. So, you know, our engineers get on calls with customers, our head of engineering on calls with customers, his direct team members are with customers.
• 9:49
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): We communicate because we're a very technical product, we're constantly communicating through emails and chats, and now there's AI agents there.
• 9:56
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, we have always had a very customer-linked Culture in every possible way.
• 10:02
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): In pre-sales, you know, engineering comes in, because a lot of these deployments require engineering evaluation. So there… so culturally, that has been, you know, very, very different for us. And it is even more amplified now, as we have deployed these AI systems across
• 10:21
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): marketing teams, you know, they know, and they have access to all pre- and post-sales customer conversations, so they can understand what we're putting on the website. Are we over-promising, or are we not, you know, highlighting the capabilities that we have that are better that the customers value?
• 10:39
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): those… those alignment and access to data was not there, so I would say…
• 10:44
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, this year has been a transformative year for us to really bring in voice of the customer, and to a great extent, also voice of the market.
• 10:52
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Where you can analyze segments and markets and competitive moves, and bring that available cross-function
• 10:58
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Including finance and HR, that was unthinkable, I think, a year ago, even 6 months ago.
• 11:03
  Melinda Lee: Wow, I love that. I think that is… is so exciting. That's very exciting. I mean, how have you seen with your teams, even within the past 6 months, just having all this data and, information, how was it before, and how is it now, and how can you see it going forward?
• 11:23
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, in the Valley, both of us from here, there is a saying that, you know, good news is no news, no news is bad news, and bad news is good news.
• 11:32
  Melinda Lee: Right?
• 11:33
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And I think the first thing that happens is when you connect all these data and make it available to everybody, it's kind of shocking to see how many gaps are there.
• 11:43
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And so the first thing you have to do is saying, telling the team that, hey, it has always been there, it's been hidden, you just got the x-ray, and you see you got a problem.
• 11:53
  Melinda Lee: You gotta see a problem.
• 11:55
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, now the question is, what is important to the customer? We can't solve everything today, so how do we prioritize? How do we bring in different perspectives? Because what sales wants today, it may take engineering to fix something later. On the other hand, what sales solved today, maybe it'll be very easy for engineering to fix.
• 12:15
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So we do these kind of 2x2 mapping, right? Impact, low and high.
• 12:20
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): degree of difficulty, low and high, and then we go after those things that we can go after, and I think that process has become…
• 12:28
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Significantly more efficient with using
• 12:31
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know, whether you use some sort of a GPT or Claude, or in Gemini, we use multiple tools in various levels. So the decision… the data collection, data cleanliness, decision process is hugely accelerated, so people feel empowered. Instead of there being told what to do.
• 12:50
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, they can see what is needed to be done, and I think that is a fundamental organizational change that has happened because of AI that was not possible before.
• 12:58
  Melinda Lee: Mmm, yeah, I can see that. So they're feeling empowered with the AI, with technology, with being able to make decisions at a higher level.
• 13:07
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, no, reviews are disappearing, meetings are disappearing.
• 13:11
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Because, it is relatively easy to design, like, things that, at a management level, we look for, right? QBRs are useless now. There's no need for a quarterly business review, because you have the entire business dynamic today. So, of course, you need planning.
• 13:27
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Because you have to aggregate data, you can't look at everything, every… metrics every day. So you have to have roll-ups, whether it's weekly, monthly, or a quarterly, 90-day trailings, or 12-month trailing. But those are all dashboard-driven data that then you have to come together
• 13:41
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And AI suggests a lot of options. It has benchmark data from external industries that we didn't have access to. So, the way I think, leadership operates
• 13:52
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): operated before, unless the leadership team, you know, the CEO, and the management team, and the next level down.
• 14:00
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think it's fundamentally different. I think it's very bottoms-up today.
• 14:05
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): It comes from the customer bottoms up, all the way.
• 14:09
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And so, now the goal, I think, for the leadership team is to really design that information system
• 14:16
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): That you still have to partition data, because we serve customers that are competitors with each other.
• 14:21
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So we gotta make sure those teams stay separate, they're not talking to each other, what things that they're working on.
• 14:27
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But on the other hand, once you're within the team, functionally and cross-functionally.
• 14:32
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): they have complete access to… and it's only gonna get better. I mean, I'm so much more excited about, like, I think what's gonna happen in 2027. I think as a provider.
• 14:42
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I'm convinced we will exponentially improve what we do
• 14:47
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): In marketing, in sales, in products, in engineering, you know, the debt that has happened across functions over the years.
• 14:55
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think will start disappearing, and we're already seeing that disappearing at a rapid space. That was just not thinkable.
• 15:02
  Melinda Lee: And how do you…
• 15:04
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and how do you think that impacts the way that we communicate with each other?
• 15:09
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think there's an overall broad narrative in the press that AI is gonna have a very negative impact on employment.
• 15:18
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I think there is a, you know, a certain amount of uncertainty for people to deal with
• 15:24
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): these technologies thinking, oh, I will automate everything, then I will no longer be needed.
• 15:30
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Unfortunately, some part of that is true, because the skills that are required to build these infrastructures, operate these infrastructures, leverage them are possibly at a much higher and more complex
• 15:41
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And a much more creative level.
• 15:44
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But having said that, I think as people go through it.
• 15:50
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And then absorb the capability, whether I'm building a new forecasting model, whether we're building
• 15:57
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): New, you know, defect analysis, like where the software bugs are, or figuring out feature roadmap.
• 16:05
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Those are incredibly more creative and powerful, I think gives you confidence that you're actually in charge, versus guessing.
• 16:13
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): feedback loop are much shorter, right? So… so I think we're going through a massive transformation. There's going to be skill shifts, job shifts that we're seeing happening. It has happened in our companies also.
• 16:24
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But I think, on the other hand, people who are adopting and growing
• 16:28
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): They have, an incredible feature.
• 16:32
  Melinda Lee: Oh my gosh.
• 16:32
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Communicate, so…
• 16:34
  Melinda Lee: And that's to communicate?
• 16:36
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, that's what you communicate. That, you know, change is here, change is happening, we have to change, we have to evolve.
• 16:41
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And as people see results and see it's attainable and doable, then people can change.
• 16:51
  Melinda Lee: adapting to the way that they're communicating to the clients? Are they able to take this information and communicate it back, in the way that you would hope, that you want them to represent the company?
• 17:04
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, our customer base is, you know, pretty diverse, media and enterprise, but also in IT and manufacturing.
• 17:11
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, what we see is that in the customer base, there are different cohorts, how fast they are driving change.
• 17:19
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So when you look at a smaller IT software company, they're possibly changing as fast as we're changing.
• 17:25
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But if you look at a large manufacturing customer with thousands, maybe hundreds and thousands of suppliers, millions of parts.
• 17:33
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know, hundreds of thousands of people, the rate of change is quite slow, so I think you have to meet where the customers are.
• 17:41
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): For us, I think it's very, very important for our size to stay nimble, stay productive, stay effective, and provide, most importantly, a better quality service.
• 17:50
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And product, we have to change first. So, first is, we're customer zero, that's what we're always talking about. Like, everything that we're doing in marketing, we're customer zero. Everything we're doing in sales, we're customer zero. And products, like, everything is retooled, like, completely. We're about 30-40% there across functions.
• 18:06
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But… but… it's a complete transformation. But then you bring that to the customer.
• 18:13
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): At a pace and a speed they can absorb.
• 18:16
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Right? So, whether it's introduction of new features like AI, on our website, if you go, you will see
• 18:22
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): We talk about AI in your way. If you turn one… if you want to turn everything off, turn everything off. Just use it as a plain SaaS product. If you want to turn everything on and use it in an Agentic platform, do that. If you do that in a country.
• 18:34
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But turn off on all other countries? Do that, right? If you want to do with a few users, just do that. So I think the biggest thing people are looking for today, whether it's the employee side or a customer side, is a sense of control.
• 18:46
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Because when you're going through this massive change, we're all trying to figure out, what do I hang on to?
• 18:51
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I think giving them the confidence that you can control, you know, what you can do, because you can't control the context, like what these frontier models are happening, you know, what's going to happen policy-wise. We can't control those.
• 19:04
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Well, we can control what we do, so I think that gives this, sort of, not just message of empowerment, but makes it real for employees, as well as for customers. They're like, okay, these guys are moving, you know, in the right direction, or even ahead of us, but I can be where I need to be, and I'll go
• 19:20
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): They can.
• 19:22
  Melinda Lee: Right, right, that's amazing. That's great that you've been able to do that. Yeah, give the… give the sense of control, and give the sense of how much do I… going to where they need to be at for the customers.
• 19:32
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, because there's just so much happening, and so being able to adapt to where they are, helping them to adapt slowly, at their pace.
• 19:41
  Melinda Lee: And you mentioned you bring people together in your organizations, bringing people together to solve complex problems, and that's what you've done with so many things. How have you… where did you get this, like, mantra and this belief? Like, how did that all…
• 19:59
  Melinda Lee: Happens.
• 19:59
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, like, my journey began in, you know, these incredible companies. When you look at Honeywell, Philips, you know, SonicWall is a small company which was later on bought by Dell. These are highly customer-focused, high, you know, high-tech organizations, and there was nothing you could do by yourself.
• 20:19
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, whether you're trying to put together an audio system in a consumer market, you know, you need sound engineers, you need materials designer, you need government regulations people, you need distribution people, you need
• 20:34
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, you need… so everything I think we do, and we have done, or I have done, has always been cross-functional, so…
• 20:42
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know you're a facilitator, you have to bring your, you know, skills to the table, but you always know you're never complete, and I don't know who you follow, you will know a Harari, I mean, this whole… his principles of sapiens, human being progressed.
• 20:56
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): fundamentally because of… we know how to work with each other, right? That is our own skills, and monkeys and chimpanzees, they don't.
• 21:03
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, I mean, they're better skilled than some other animals, but… but one of the reasons we have succeeded and continue to succeed… so now in that workforce, I think collaboration means very much bringing in agents, so…
• 21:17
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think, previously, what, 10 people did something? You're possibly gonna have 3 people do that, and you're gonna have 400 agents.
• 21:24
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So collaboration means something very, very different.
• 21:28
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And, and so, yeah, so… so what it used to be, what it meant, I think it's very different now, but it's definitely, you know, being there is here and will be there.
• 21:41
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and I'm excited. I'm excited about the journey. I'm excited to look forward to what we can do with regard to bringing in more of the people, bringing more of the collaboration and the communication and the connection to solving these solving these problems with agents. And how do we do that to better the world?
• 21:59
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, one example I'll give you, we were discussing this yesterday at the customer success event.
• 22:03
  Melinda Lee: Huh.
• 22:04
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, if you take a multi-channel approach with customers, or omnichannel, whether they're reaching out through text, or email, or phone call.
• 22:12
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): or videos,
• 22:16
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Closer we are, more face-to-face we are, more rich the conversation is. 90% of our communication is verbal, right?
• 22:24
  Melinda Lee: Huh?
• 22:25
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Like, visual, like, how we… facial, like, how we behave, how we move, how we say, right?
• 22:30
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, videos, there are tools available now. If customer's on a call, I mean, we can completely see
• 22:36
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): A text message is very cryptic. It's very, very functionally problem-focused.
• 22:43
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But on a video call with a customer, there's a lot of emotions involved, good or bad, that you can read into to understand the health of the account.
• 22:52
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Same exact way in…
• 22:54
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): with employees is that when you get a text, or an email, or a Slack, or Teams, versus when you get on a call, whether on a video, or meet them face-to-face, you get a completely, you know, different dimension. So I think what the AI tools will be able to do, take out the functional pieces of our job, and become very, very efficient.
• 23:14
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But on the other hand, you know, an angry customer, the best way to do is get on a call, do a video, or get on a plane, go see them, right? And an agent won't be able to do that. Same thing with an employee that is going through a difficult time. I mean.
• 23:29
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know, companies are like families. I mean, not everybody's at the same place. There are issues that people go through, right?
• 23:35
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And those are not, you can capture them on email, they cannot do Teams, but when you talk to them, they will tell you what's going on in their lives, in their families, where there are things that are going on in their lives, you have no idea unless you meet them face-to-face, right? So I think leadership, which used to be…
• 23:51
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): a large part of a leadership agenda dominated by so-called, what I would call, bureaucracy, like paperwork, which I always hated.
• 23:59
  Melinda Lee: Me too.
• 24:00
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You can move from paperwork to peoplework.
• 24:03
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 24:04
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): and actually let the agents do all of your paperwork, reviews, and reports, or analysis. Then you can take that insight and talk to, say, hey, Melinda.
• 24:13
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I see this is what's kind of going on. Talk to me, what's going on? Right. I think that's where the shift, will happen, and that's why we're trying to make the shift happen. Talk more to customers on videos like this, right? Versus staying behind tickets.
• 24:27
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): get on more calls in pre-sales than going through emails, right? And go see customers, go see events. So I think we're going to see a lot more liberation from how we engage and what channels we engage, and so far.
• 24:42
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Also, this… this entire internet thing that happens, as you see, trolling, right? People troll each other, bully each other, because we're at… we're at our worst.
• 24:52
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): When we are not meeting face-to-face.
• 24:55
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and I really… I like what you said, too, about, yeah, we're kicking away from the administrative work, taking away from the paperwork, and doing more of the people work, and imagine, now that we have all this information that we've gathered, maybe we are starting to see patterns across your clients.
• 25:12
  Melinda Lee: across your employees. Now, when you go in to talk to them, you're… have these conversations, you have information, you have patterns, you have things to go on, so that the person feels like, oh my gosh, this person understands me, or this person gets me, and you're going to the people to where they're at.
• 25:31
  Melinda Lee: Because you have this, wealth of information.
• 25:34
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, and also, I think it's very important as a leader at this time to make people understand that a significant onus is also on them for this change. While as a, you know, as a company, we have to provide the tools and the infrastructure and
• 25:50
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Access to training, because every tool that we use, you know, they come with enormous amount of training and certification capabilities.
• 25:58
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Right. But the old ways of… I think that's completely falling apart, where you have a very prescriptive line of sight of, go through this module of training, then another month of onboarding, another… I think that's gone. I think it's very much back to… and I see that on the customer side, even larger customers.
• 26:18
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): is very much…
• 26:20
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know, learn it by doing. Yeah. Because what you're learning today didn't exist yesterday. So there's no expert out there that is gonna… I mean, most of these YouTube videos that are getting hits, if you look at their one week old, two weeks old, and then they fall off. Yeah. Like, I don't know if you heard the announcements,
• 26:37
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know, Typeface announced another model, Jeff, about a month ago, and the guy used to work at OpenAI, came and started up his company, and it has huge traction. And there, there is no even chat interface.
• 26:50
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Agents are just working with agents in the back. So, you can't put together a training curricula and say, hey, I'm gonna train you to get you ready. Not gonna… I think those paradigms are gone.
• 27:01
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I see a lot of surveys, companies are saying, well, companies are not doing enough, you know, with training. I think companies
• 27:08
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I can tell you from my perspective, our perspective, and seeing on the customer side, they're gonna provide you with the infrastructure, give you access to the latest tools, but if you don't move.
• 27:18
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): There is no ability companies have, because the amount it takes time to put a training course together, curricula together, roll it out, a lot of those tools are obsolete.
• 27:27
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 27:28
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I think there has to be an interest… this whole word of agents, and then agency, I think the number one skill… agents will have functional skills, and humans need to have a lot more agency.
• 27:41
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Go drive through this change, and…
• 27:44
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know, this country is built on change, right? And I think unless, you know, you get on that bandwagon, go to the other side of the country, knowing very well, half of you may not get there, and what I'm saying, possibly, is not
• 27:58
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): A lot of people want to hear it, but you gotta get on the wagon, you know? Yeah. Go to that Dust Bowl. You gotta get to the other side, and the onus has to be on you.
• 28:07
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 28:08
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Nobody's gonna build the train or the jet. That's much later, right? That you can get on and sip on a drink and travel. I think we're in that level of change that's happening at a ground level.
• 28:21
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Owners is on leadership to build the infrastructure and make it available to the people, because they can't build the infrastructure.
• 28:28
  Melinda Lee: Right. Right.
• 28:29
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Once that is there.
• 28:31
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): using the tools, using the data, upsca… everybody should be watching at least hour, hour and a half of YouTube every day.
• 28:40
  Melinda Lee: Love it, I love it.
• 28:42
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Hundreds.
• 28:42
  Melinda Lee: That's true.
• 28:43
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Right? Because if you're not upskilling it, nobody will.
• 28:45
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): There's no… I mean…
• 28:48
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): courses in Udemy and others, and they're, like, useless, right? Because they're so old, so packaged. I mean, you look at the YouTube, the level of knowledge being taught by these influencers are amazing, the quality level.
• 29:02
  Melinda Lee: Oh my god, it's so true, it's so true, and it's on… it's, like, live, and it's in the moment, and it's exactly.
• 29:07
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Oh, yeah.
• 29:08
  Melinda Lee: Right now, right, on demand. And so how would you help your company, or what would you tell companies out there? Like, you're talking about, you know, this communicate the infrastructure, installing the infrastructure within the company as a leader, that's the onus on the leader. What about, what if you could install a communication infrastructure? Meaning that you have a system for sharing knowledge.
• 29:31
  Melinda Lee: for re… reworking out knowledge, for executing knowledge, for all this information that you have. Like, you have a system to share what you learned from the customers, what you are going to execute to the customers, you know, what could that look like?
• 29:46
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So just like, you know, just like, the marketplace, or the societies, or at large, every company has early adopters, early majority.
• 29:57
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, mainstream and laggards, when it comes to change.
• 30:02
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think it's very, very important to figure out who those early adopters are.
• 30:05
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah. And then enable them super fast, so that they can become the change agents
• 30:12
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): To bring the early majority.
• 30:14
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And as you bring the early majority, you see more of the mainstream, and then the laggards, like, okay, maybe I can do that. Maybe it's not that scary. Maybe it's not too much of a change, right?
• 30:23
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So it's very, very important, is that first, you have to be the…
• 30:27
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): you know, change… leaders of change in charge. That it starts… I think every CEO at this moment, if they're not waking up and say, I'm looking at a mirror, and the mirror is breaking up in the many pieces.
• 30:41
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I gotta create a new mirror, and I gotta create that. And who I want to see in that mirror is not the same
• 30:48
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): When the mirror got broken apart.
• 30:51
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I think you have to identify very clearly who do you want to see in the mirror.
• 30:57
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And unless you have that clarity, I think it's very difficult to put… take companies through this transition. Second, you have to identify those adopters
• 31:06
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): That can see these mirrors cracking up, and there's another image coming on the other side, they have to be able to see that.
• 31:13
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Because you yourself will not be able to communicate the massiveness of this. This change has not ever… I mean, I've been in IT more than 3 decades, I've never seen something like this. Never.
• 31:22
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Right. And we're at the epicenter of this, and that's why we started this Founders Community, because they're 12, 18, 36 months out, they're working on problems that they think are not being solved by these incredible tech.
• 31:33
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And when you see that, I think the first requirement is change. You have to be able to wake up today and say, hey, all the stuff I built yesterday, a lot of it are not relevant. What do I have to do today? So you have to find those people within your organization. And so if you have 100 people, at the most, you possibly have 10. You know, you're lucky if you have 10.
• 31:53
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And so I think we're fortunate, you know, we have quite a few of those sort of early adopters. Second, you have to really, really find
• 32:01
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You have to create time on your calendar.
• 32:04
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): I have to say, I gotta stop going to meetings, I gotta stop reading emails, I gotta stop, like, stop, like, complete 100% off.
• 32:12
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): then come back and say, okay, did the company blow up? The company won't blow up. Because if you… because then you're in a bad shape. If you can't stop meetings and start… stop reading emails for a month, and the company cannot run, then you got other problems.
• 32:28
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So I think that you gotta create that space, because you have to look in the mirror that you're trying to create, and say, what does this person in the mirror, his or her calendar look like?
• 32:38
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): that calendar.
• 32:39
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): So, because you control your time, you don't control anything else.
• 32:42
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You think you control people, you don't, right? You can hire people, you can put goals together, you can incentivize them, and when it doesn't work out, worst case is you have to ask them to go, right? But you don't control people. So the only key you control is that image in the mirror that you're creating, and figuring out how many of them relate to that.
• 32:59
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And then you let those 10 becomes 25, and then 25 becomes 50, and the 50 becomes 75, and maybe you will not get to the last 25. You have to understand that.
• 33:11
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And then… and then you have to, you know, figure out that how you remake, you know, over a period of time.
• 33:16
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): with customers, and sometimes you have to let certain customers go, because you're like, you know, they're not the right customers for us anymore. We can't serve them. So you talk to them, you give them time, you get out a contract, you have to do all of those things, so… so… yeah, but you have to change.
• 33:31
  Melinda Lee: Right, right. Oh, I love that. And it starts with the mirror, and if the mirror is cracked, then what are you gonna do about it?
• 33:38
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Yeah, yeah.
• 33:40
  Melinda Lee: Right, oh my gosh. Sugata, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. I truly think that we are on the precipice of this amazing change, positive change, and I'm glad that you're out there leading us.
• 33:53
  Melinda Lee: guiding us through it, sharing your knowledge, and helping other organizations grow. And so, would you mind, if someone out there, a leader out there, would like your support, how could they get ahold of you?
• 34:06
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): You know, I'm on LinkedIn.
• 34:08
  Melinda Lee: Okay?
• 34:08
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Best way to ping me on LinkedIn, yeah, I love talking to other, you know, leaders and CEOs, so I'm connected with you. If somebody comes through you, you have my email and contact details, get me connected, yeah.
• 34:18
  Melinda Lee: Awesome, awesome. And you have this wonderful group, in the Pleasanton East Bay that has started, really wonderful, teaches a lot, and so you can have them join? Yeah.
• 34:29
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Absolutely, yeah, yeah, they can come and join. We started a community called East Bay Founders. Yeah.eastbayfounders.net, it's a non-profit, it's predominantly for founders.
• 34:38
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): But we have about 1,600 members, 400 founders, 400 CXOs, and individual contributors in between, so it's a pretty large community.
• 34:47
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): And, you know, we run events, we run workshops, these are all free, sponsored by other people, so yeah.
• 34:53
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 34:53
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): We'd love to have them, so…
• 34:55
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, let's do this, let's do this, let's get this out there, and so thank you so much for, your… your expertise. I really enjoyed the conversation.
• 35:04
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Same here. Thanks for having me, Melinda. Have a good day.
• 35:06
  Melinda Lee: Thank you. And thank you for joining the Speak It Flow podcast. Remember, anytime you have a chance to communicate, communicate what matters, communicate it often, so your people move forward together. Until next time, take care. Bye-bye.
• 35:21
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Bye-bye.
• 35:22
  Melinda Lee: Bye-bye.
• 35:24
  Sugata Sanyal (ZINFI): Awesome.
• 35:26
  Melinda Lee: Oh, shoot. Alright.