Pro talk thursday

QnA

1)How did you plan to get into the field you are in now?

Mr Akil-I was associated in business operations for over 10 years. As part of business operations, we used to do work on process improvement that’s how I came to implement Six Sigma, Quality Management System, CMMI Appraisal and TRIZ. After working on these excellence model, I realized I wanted to work exclusively on business excellence and help organization get better in solving their problems.

2)Any professional courses which helped you?

Mr Akil-Six Sigma methods helped a lot in realizing how to improve process efficiency.

3)Any extra-curricular activities which helped you mould your personality?

Mr Akil-Participating in debates helped me get better in striking conversations.

4)Did you ever plan to have an alternate career, why did you not pursue it? Any regrets?

Mr Akil-I am a CS and I wanted to be Company Secretary of a large listed entity. Once I started in operations there was no going back to CS. Have no regrets as that would have been one dimensional work and I would not have had the opportunity to do things I am currently doing.

5)What are the Skills required to do your job?

Mr Akil-Analytics, Program management, Good at socialising, Strategy, eye for detail

6)Challenges in the current profession?

Mr Akil-The process excellence models keep on changing and getting replaced by newer stuff. A lot of focus on AI I an emerging challenge.

7)Scope, opportunities for people wanting to join the same career?

Mr Akil-There are ample opportunities as with growing competition all organization wants to stay ahead of the curve. There is a quest to improve continually to stay relevant in the business/industry. With organization getting leaner there is higher focus on having a excellence team in play to execute strategies and keep drive improved performance.

8)How do you deal with Failure at work?

Mr Akil-Reflect on the root causes of failure and identify opportunity to improve. All our programs are result of learning of previous programs which did not work.

9)Can you emphasize the importance of Maths and knowledge of maths in your profession?

Mr Akil-Maths helps in analysis. With emerging trend of Big Data and AI knowledge of Maths is very important to execute the large scale transformation programs based on AI/Big Data.

10)Message for our readers.

Mr Akil-Keep learning and improving. Whatever we learn is school is no guarantee will be relevant for coming years.