CXO of the Week: Rahul Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO, blackNgreen

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

Technology is the primary tool in my organization as my startup is telecom oriented and we have to keep on updating to match the current trends in technology. To do so, we regularly do update on the latest devices and equipment available in the market which can be beneficial to us in running our operations. Apart from this, we conduct the training session on regular intervals for our manpower to co-up with changing technology advancements.

Challenges you face in driving digital transformation?

We operate in an industry that is full of disruptions and we create disruptive digital products for operators ourselves, thus we always kept our digital strategies and execution plans in place right from the beginning. So to answer your question, we don’t face any new challenges other than the obvious.T he key is to understand the basic nature of individuals to be change-averse especially when teams are in their comfort zones who’ve been following certain predefined processes for too long. To them, any big change is a threat in some way or they just don’t see any real impact of the change. Here the onus lies on the leaders to make the transition as smooth as can be without really forcing it on the teams but also slowly yet firmly communicating their ideas and the long-term positive impact. Training teams appropriately, hand-holding and getting them involved early on are some ways we can overcome these challenges.

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?

Our Engineering colleges are 10 years backwards in their curriculum. Most engineer graduates are not industry-ready and require a lot of honing. It takes a significant amount of training to make them corporate ready, fruitful and really productive that wastes a lot of our time and money. Frankly speaking, it’s high time that the colleges should take the onus for their graduates’ learn ability and skill development rather than expecting the industry to train them. The curriculum should be updated to include the latest technologies, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics, making students work on real-time large projects, creating a simulated corporate workplace in the classrooms.

What’s your mantra to become successful in life?

There is no magical mantra to success. For me what worked is a strong belief in my ability to identify the right project and what will never fail you in life is your hard work, perseverance, multitasking ability, learning ability, honesty and humility. And it’s very important to believe in your people to build and empower teams who would contribute immensely to your success.

What would you like to give back to the society?

I would love to use technology to educate and train the masses, especially the underprivileged to empower them and help create better societies and develop virtues. Education provides tools to enhance progress and makes the world a better place and with the ever-increasing data penetration it has become possible to use technology to reach the masses, which wasn’t possible 5 years back.

Your favourite book and what are you reading now?

My favourite has to be ‘Why Nations Fail’ by Daron Acemoglu.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I love to travel, play tennis, read books, and go off-roading.

Achievements (Awards & Recognitions)

blackNgreen which started as a small-scale service provider, startup, now is a big player in the VAS sector with a presence in more than 70 countries without any prior funding. We are a self made startup without any external help. And we are targetting to go more than our expectation in places such as Latin America and many more.

Experience

14 years of experience in the industry

First Job: Spice Digital

Education: BTech and MBA