Udaipur and Bangalore
I worked in Bangalore a few years ago. I used to think of Bangalore as a sweet combination of Bombay and Udaipur. Udaipur’s quaint beauty and nice weather with Bombay’s cosmopolitanism and opportunities. Bangalore was a much better place then. I keep visting Bangalore for business and cannot help notice the steady rise in pollution, traffic and headaches. In a recent visit, I had the opportunity to dwell over city’s booming IT business and the cultural changes it has brought. Bangalore is IT. I guess even paanwalla there stocks a USB storage device! Udaipur has history, palaces and lakes; not wi-fi hotspots. Advaiya should rather be at Bangalore. Whats Advaiya doing in Udaipur? But then I may not reach home, if it were in Bangalore, in less than five minutes. In Udaipur, Advaiya is talk of the town; at Bangaore, Advaiya would be one of — a rather large — bunch. We focus on doing great things for our clients here and we have lots of time to do that. If a customer calls, our guys would get out of their quilts and be at office in 10 minutes. And, Udaipur is much less expensive than Bangalore in almost every way. Udaipur might not have huge malls and multiplexes; Udaipur has Advaiya. Advaiya is proud to be in Udaipur.
Advaiya Expands Innovation Consulting Services
Innovation is central to every organization for various reasons – staying ahead of competition, attracting and retaining customers with differentiated offerings, cost cutting, improving productivity, etc. However, not all organizations are able to successfully plan, implement, and manage it. Organizations are not being able to create the right culture, participation, speed and governance required to innovate. Fruitful innovation in any organization requires a robust innovation platform. This means a culture of innovation, access to infrastructure for innovation, focused talent, and positive governance which channelizes the innovation efforts in right direction, and provides effective validation and feedback. One of the most important aspects is to build a pipeline of valuable ideas that reinforces the organization’s innovation culture and vice versa. Traditional approach like the suggestion box, or the funnel-based innovation approach from recent past were short-lived due to various challenges – lot of processing efforts, complex workflows, lower participation, good ideas going un-noticed, etc. This is very well stated in one of the HBR blogs that “It’s not an idea problem; it’s a recognition problem” [source], and this eventually leads an organization into a vicious circle of the above stated challenges. There are a few things that organizations need to understand about innovation management. First, innovation can come from anywhere, so it is important to tap into the collective intelligence of a company’s existing asset – employees, and its partners and customers. This helps in encouraging diversity of ideas and gives the organization highest probability of finding relevant opportunities. In addition, it is required to have a right innovation platform and governance model that is tuned to the specific organization’s innovation culture, and simplifies innovation process. And finally, it is vital to make contribution effortless, fun, and ensure that break-through ideas are gradually evolved and recognized. We offer Innovation consulting to our clients. We bring a comprehensive approach right from – identifying the purpose for innovating and developing targeted plans for innovation – to – providing processes, people, and tools necessary for institutionalization of effective innovation. Thus we help with product/service discovery, refinement, and identification; and adoption of innovation tools and processes. We have been serving our clients for many years with innovation management solutions, consulting, and innovative product development services. Recently, we have expanded and grown via partnering and additional capabilities. We (Advaiya) are an exclusive partner in India for IdeaScale – one of the largest innovation software provider [source]. We engage with IdeaScale clients to provide services around implementation, customization/localization, adoption/training, and ongoing support. We are also a Microsoft partner, thus leveraging deep partnership on various technologies including Microsoft Enterprise Project Management technologies. Therefore, with clustering of partner products, we enable an end-to-end innovation technology platform – from idea generation and innovation process enablement – to – project identification, and portfolio management. We also recognize that simply deploying any innovation technology is not sufficient for having effective innovation, and hence has built capabilities around Innovation – consulting, adoption and training, and managed services. Innovation-as-a-Managed Service is Advaiya’s lifecycle aware approach to support its clients in meeting their innovation purposes -by giving full cognizance to the upstream and downstream aspects of Innovation process. Internally too, Innovation has been one of the important pillars of Advaiya’s positioning and differentiation. Our cultural orientation has been towards what we call, ‘something new and different’. We have created innovation management solutions covering the aspects of collection, prioritization, and execution. Innovation has been largely informal and ingrained in how we approach any initiative. We have put in place internal tools and programs, like IdeaScale, social, hackathons, scheduled idea talks, etc. We use the IdeaScale platform to accelerate innovation at company level and also to drive innovation into our customer engagements, and solution initiatives. So, does your organization find it challenging to enthuse and motivate your employees to participate in idea contribution? Do you find the existing innovation process to be complex and time consuming? Do your innovation initiatives enable pragmatic and actionable ideas with mass engagement?
English and C
Somebody I know gave an interesting hypothesis. Good English language (or, maybe, any language) skills go hand-in-hand with good programming skills. Though I have not put this to rigorous test, I have reasons to believe that this is true. Programming is nothing but communicating to the computer. Language is a way to communicate to people. Every good programmer knows that its not syntax but capability to design the, well, communique which makes her program a success; Shakespeare would vouch. So, maybe, a programmer would be greatly helped by reading literature. And a good programmer should be able to communicate to people as well. Maybe some of us just find computers to be better company!
What’s in a name
I and the team (just a bunch of half a dozen enthusiasts) had been working to build solutions, applications and programs for around a year when we got serious about organizing ourselves. We had been working under the aegis of a company that my father founded (which he proudly finds true to its name: a bundle of initiatives) but then we needed another identity. We were looking for a good name for this new company. We wanted our name to say something about what we have in our minds about what we do. Its an interesting loop: you define yourself, the definition leads to a name, and then the name defines you. This leads to the realization that finding a name can be a very effective intervention. Then, came up ‘Advaiya’ — and it sounded good — which according to the suggester meant ‘unique’. But then Advaiya is a Sanskrit word and is the root of ‘Advaita’. Advaita or non-dualism is a profound philosophy expounded by Shankaracharya. So Advaiya would be the non-dual entity. It could not have been more apt. I have been fascinated by the concept that all knowledge and all skill are manifestations of the ‘core’ and the core is not segmented into disciplines, functions, fields, subjects or domains. Now I had a name for that: Advaiya. It described us neatly. While we worked on a very small set of technologies, we never could define ourselves by that. For us, technology was just a tool though an interesting, fascinating tool which was in itself an extension to our world-view. Technology, for us, is a natural ingredient in the rational scheme of things which we felt all around us. This rationality has been our window to the core, to Advaiya. It is so common and so frustrating to see people and companies go about thinking that theory and practice are different, that means and goals are different, that dreams and reality are different, that business and technology are different. We find this narrow. We feel that this inhibits experiencing Advaiya. And, so, we define ourselves: we would help people and companies by building solutions which cut across technologies, functions, departments and teams: which bring them together, which help them experience the Advaiya — the oneness — that, we believe, would lead everyone to their objectives better and faster.
Article for Jewels of Udaipur
Advaiya is a technology and consulting firm with a focus on ensuring a positive impact of technology on businesses, large and small. Advaiya started operations in July 2005 with just a couple of technology enthusiasts with a conviction that valuable solutions can only come by removing the apparent dichotomy of business and technology. We inculcated an interdisciplinary team which provides strategic consulting, technical and marketing content, training, pre-sales support, software development, IT services, technology advisory, staffing and creative expertise to many of the top companies like Microsoft, Google, VMWare and some of the most innovative startups. We also have deep partnerships with leading technology firms to drive scale and value. Advaiya has recently been awarded the “Best Organization for Environmental Sustainability” by Society for Environment Education and Research, India in collaboration with Rotary Club. This award has been given in view of the green initiatives being taken by Advaiya. Some of these initiatives are advanced energy efficient air conditioning, green architecture, extensive plantation and solar power generation initiative. Manish Godha, Founder and CEO of Advaiya has also recently been awarded as the Young Achiever award by “Innerwheel International”.
Emerging Tier II Cities leading to renaissance in IT in India
The extent of technological innovation coming out of an emerging tier of urban areas in India can provide lessons for IT abroad. The Information technology industry in India has gained a brand identity as a knowledge economy in the IT World. It has transformed India’s image on the global platform and has also fuelled economic growth by energising higher education sector. The industry has employed almost 10 million Indians and hence, has contributed a lot to social transformation in the country. From engineers and IT professionals in Silicon Valley to the notion of outsourcing IT services and development to teams based in India, it’s clear the country plays a strong role in the global IT value chain. Sure, there has been some controversy about jobs moving overseas, but there has been more than enough evidence to show that a strong value chain is good for all IT professionals. There’s now a relatively unknown, but rapidly emerging, link in this value chain: India’s “third cities.” First, a quick primer on Indian political geography is in order. India has four large cities, which are referred to as “metros.” These are Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai. Following closely on the heels of the metros is a second tier of cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Bangalore has long been synonymous with IT and has been dubbed India’s Silicon Valley. These cities house the bulk of India’s technology companies. They also currently occupy the majority of mindshare when it comes to India’s role in the global IT value chain. Innovation abounds in these cities as large companies and small companies create the dialectic relationships and human-capital flow that in turn generate milieus of innovation, progress and wealth. Of course, a country of 1.2 billion people (of which 500 million or so live in urban areas) can’t be fully defined by the contributions of seven cities. Enter the next emerging tier—India’s third cities. Many of these have had the advantage of legacy of education, entrepreneurship and industry. These are channeling grounds for incredible energy, inspiration and innovation as they apply to IT. The stories of progress emanating from these cities are noteworthy. This underscores the notion that innovation comes from all quarters, and reaffirms the importance and cohesion of the worldwide IT fraternity. Udaipur—a picturesque city in the state of Rajasthan possesses the impressive potential and kinetic energy evident in the IT community. There’s some innovative and unique technological development being done there. By Indian standards, Udaipur is a small city. It boasts a population of 600,000 but possibly many more techies per capita than similar locations. Within India’s boundaries, the city is known more for its lakes, palaces and tourist hot spots than for its IT community. It has an IT community which provides not just IT enabled services, but innovative products and high value consulting to users and corporations all over the world. “Udaipur,” said one, “is a city few think about regarding technology, but it’s one in which we take tech very seriously.” The city, even though it’s thought of in India as a technology backwater, is in actuality very progressive and dynamic. Soon, cities such as Udaipur will be a haven for IT professionals, developers and the entire technology community. This is an example of a so-called third city which are emerging “IT Parks”, having the IT potential with a group of successful businesspeople. The traditional industries in these cities, like engineering, mining, and transportation, were all hiring IT professionals to streamline operations and create value, transparency, and operational efficiency. The power of digital communication and digital delivery has created a world that’s more accessible to all, regardless of where they live and work. It’s a world in which two IT professionals, who live in circumstances defined by difference, can share the common threads of professional opportunities and stresses and who can work problems out together as they play their roles in the worldwide IT value chain. Companies in a small city in India can empower, energize and animate IT and IT professionals in Seattle, Silicon Valley, New York, London and Berlin. That’s a bold testament to the power of the value chain that thousands of people have built as they create companies—and opportunities—on a worldwide basis. The innovation and energy of India’s third cities is something that all IT professionals should experience. These cities exemplify the importance of the trinity of themes that define IT professionals everywhere: innovation, excellence, and the desire to empower businesses to create new products and services.
The three threes and a four – Advaiya
This sums up nicely! Our value proposition is based on the triad of technology depth, business context knowledge and methodology alignment. We have recognized the three aspects of professionalism at Advaiya – being result oriented, excellence and effective communication. Capability, integrity and courtesy are the three important virtues we value. As a business, we have organized ourselves to deliver four, mutually augmenting, broad services. Strategic consulting, content to support the strategy, training and evangelization, and pre-sales and technology delivery support.
Capability, Integrity and Courtesy
In a recent offsite (at very scenic Eklingji) we dwelled on the virtues that we value as an organization. We could articulate and enumerate the most important as Capability, Integrity and Courtesy. We realized that these form the recipe for our continued growth and survival. Capability is the obvious winner for us. Our capabilities in technology, marketing and business domains allow us to produce deliverables that are valuable to our customers. Integrity, we surmised is essential to build trust. Our commitment to ethical behavior and honest communication generates trust among our customers, team members, vendors and partners without which growth would be impossible. Courtesy, for us, encompasses the aspects of humility and respect. It reminds us that if we have been able look far, as Newton said, we did it by standing on the shoulders of giants. We are thankful to all so many contributors to whatever accomplishments that we make. While being respectful of our environment and capabilities, we have the humility to acknowledge that we have to be constantly working hard to make sure that we are valuable to our customers.
These Eventful Five Years
We recently completed (on July 1) five years of operations as Advaiya. As we celebrated this milestone for the organization and for the team members who have travelled along this journey, we did look back through these years with nostalgia and pride. During these years, the organization has indeed seen growth, and successes and failures, but most importantly we have matured into a community of passionate professionals, working with whom is rewarding, stimulating, and fun.