CxO of the Week: Vikas Sood, CIO, Clove Dental

Vikas Sood, CIO, Clove Dental has 21+ years of experience and he is also entrusted with the role of Chief Product Designer for Patient Relationship Management System (Patient CRM & EMR solution).

What is your top priority while making decisions to improve tech infra in your organization?

Being in the healthcare business, our top priority at Clove has always been to provide a consistent patient-friendly experience for all our patients visiting us at any of our 321 clinics pan 28 cities in India.

We set up a blueprint for IT infrastructure from our initial clinics' setup. This included building our own next-generation EMR ( Electronic Medical Record Mgmt System). This came around post evaluation of more than 10 different EMR systems available on the market, but we realised that for a mammoth of operation with 700+ odd clinics by year 2022...we needed our own truly “Dental” EMR solution.

Having this centralised web-based EMR cum CRM solution, we were able to provide patients a seem less experience across all there interactions at any of our clinics, be it be for Appointments Scheduling and reminders or Electronic medical records keeping including oral images and X-rays or Billing or Feedbacks etc.

We continue to invest in improvements towards IT Landscape for the organisation. The latest edition being the Clinic Infrastructure Mgmt System to map all clinics related information at a centralised place for easier access, tracking and use in ongoing maintenance.

Challenges you face in driving digital transformation?

The task at hand was of automating processes with people at the Center of this transformation.

The biggest challenge was to have an EMR solution which dentists will be able to learn easily and use. The need was to have a user interface which was not only user-friendly but was also mostly self-explanatory for the Drs to understand.

We followed an approach generally used in POS ( Point of Sale) Terminals. The idea was to layout big touch-enabled buttons on the screen and allow most of the work to be possible by just clicking on these buttons and needing very little text entering. We also provided upfront training and handholding to the new joiners for a better understanding of the systems.

Do you feel that freshers in the industry come with only basic knowledge but don’t have the right skills to fulfil job requirements? If yes, your suggestion to students and colleges?

India today is churning out 1.5 million engineers every year for 2.5 trillion dollars Indian economy compared to 1 million engineers passing out of the US for 20 trillion dollars economy. Most engineering colleges focus on Quantity over Quality of course curriculum.

Once these engineers reach the industries for jobs they realise that the skills thought to them over the last 4 years of education are either no longer relevant or the industry where they are seeking a job does not need that knowledge. A good example is the IT industry where more than 90 % engineers passing out are seeking jobs but only 5% out of them learned those skills in colleges.

My suggestions to engineering students ( seeking a career in Information Technology) will be to choose a specific area of interest which they are thinking of excelling in by the 2nd year of engineering degree course, start studying and training in that area and even take part in open source projects. This will help them to be prepared and ready for the challenges of the industry by the time they pass out.

What’s your mantra to become successful in life?

There are no shortcuts in life! My mantra for success is hard work, be thorough in what you choose to do and Do Not Be Afraid of making mistakes on the way! You make mistakes only if you are ready to explore new things, take calculated risks and learn to expand your horizons of knowledge.

What would you like to give back to society?

We are trying to help the fresh engineering graduates in our own way to get started with a career in the software industry. After a detailed 3 step screening process, we enrol them into our trainee internship program, where they work alongside experienced engineers on live products and harness hands-on knowledge needed by the industry.

Your favourite book and what are you reading now?

My favourite book has been :

The Design Of Everyday Things by Don Normon.

I am reading: Mindset by Dr Carol S Dweck

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

My favourite past time is watching science fiction films and documentaries help disconnect from the real world and reset your mind.

Achievements (Awards & Recognitions)

Presented a paper on “Agile Estimations” at QAI’s first ever Estimation Colloquium in Bangalore - Aug 2006
Presented paper on “Agile Testing Suggestive Approach” at QAI’s 8th annual conference on Software Testing in Bangalore - Nov 2008
Took part in a talk on “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Healthcare’ at the recently concluded Healthcare Innovations Summit at Mumbai- June 2019. We at Clove were awarded for Excellence as "Leading Brand in EHR and MHR” at the same summit.

Experience

Vikas Sood, CIO, Clove Dental has 21+ Yrs. of extensive experience across the entire gamut of Information Technologies. An Electrical engineer with hands-on programming experience and also certified by Sun Microsystems (Now Oracle) as a Programmer (SCJP Java2), Developer (SCJD Java2), Business Component Developer, (SCBCDJ2ee1.3) & Architect (SCEA J2ee 1.3 Part-1). The core experience is around Software Development Life Cycle - in analysis, design, architecture, development, implementation, coding and testing of products using various technologies like Java / J2ee suit of technologies, C# dot net, LAMP stack for enterprise applications & Android/ Swift for mobile apps etc.

He has in the past worked on and has provided solutions in the domains of Corporate Communication, Information Mgmt(MIS), E-commerce, SCM including Procurement & Warehousing, ERP (Manufacturing), EHR / EMR system for HealthCare, IT Infra setup & Mgmt.

Currently has been playing the key role of CIO for one of the fastest growing Dental Chain in India- Clove Dental with 325+ clinics in 28 cities, wherein he is also entrusted with the role of Chief Product Designer for Patient Relationship Management System (Patient CRM & EMR solution), OneIvory ( E-commerce - MarketSite for Dental Supplies: Ordering and Inventory Mgmt) & myClove App ( Clinic Expense Mgmt / Appt. Scheduling / Corporate Internal Communication Platform) being built and supported with the help of an internal development team. His responsibilities here also include providing enterprise level Software solutions (on SAP B-1 ERP, HRMS, LMS, IBM-Maximo, etc in implementation & support) and Hardware & Infra Mgmt solutions (for Offices /Contact Centers/ Clinics / Warehouses IT infra setup and support) thus working on fulfilling the needs of all Business Functions of Clove Dental.

First Job - Site Engineer for a Railway Engineering Company working on the conversion of older mechanical signalling systems to Multi-aspect colour light signalling system.

Education - Electrical Engineering