Full Transcript
David Savage: Welcome to today's episode of "In Conversation With" I'm lucky to be joined by Shibu Nambiar COO for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at Genpact. How are you this morning?
Shibhu Nambiar: I'm doing great. Thank you for having me here, Dave.
- No, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you into our pop-up studio for the day.
- It's exciting. It's actually a wonderful day too.
- And it's almost a repeat because I was lucky enough to sit down with you only two weeks ago for our podcast TechTalks.
- Yes.
- So, this is a bit of a repeat, hopefully an expansion on some of those points if people have had the opportunity to listen to that already.
- It was my first podcast, if you remember.
- It was.
- So, we got some audience to start with. So, let's see how it goes from here.
- Look, before anything else, I know that we've just referenced the podcast.
- Yeah.
- And people might have listened to it.
- Uh huh.
- But, there will be people tuning in who've not heard of Genpact, who don't know you. So, first of all, who are you?
- Who am I? Wow, that sounds profound. Let me word it this way. Father to two beautiful children.
- Yeah.
- Husband to an amazing woman. And as a leader I actually get to work with some of the really smart, passionate people at Genpact.
- Yup.
- And I'm happy to uncover a lot of that today with you in the show.
- And as COO, I mean, is that the COO role that people would be familiar with? Or are there any kind of interesting quirks within Genpact that make it a bit different or...
- I think it's the normal, it's a boring Chief Operating officer's job in any organisation, I guess. But, the good thing about what I get to do at Genpact, because of the spread of the countries, which I get to manage and support across three continents, in 15 countries, what makes it exciting is the cultural aspects of it and how diverse my teams are, and how I have been very fortunate to learn from that diversity over the past 15 years only in Europe and 20 years in the company.
- You've alluded to the fact there that Genpact are a large organisation it's a multinational organisation. You mentioned the culture there's probably a mix of different cultures there.
- Yeah.
- You've touched on a number of different areas and disciplines there, sometimes that people find quite difficult to stitch together.
- Uh huh.
- But one principle that you do talk about, and we talked about on the podcast, is this idea of collective intelligence.
- Yup.
- I suppose, brings together data and AI and some of that cultural aspect. When you talk about collective intelligence, what do you mean?
- I spoke about conscious and unconscious ways collective intelligence comes into play. I think last time I referred to the entire recording how I got to your studio, et cetera, et cetera. It's a similar setup here today in this studio. Let me actually, maybe unbundle that through an example, because that may help. At Genpact, we actually look at getting a lot of ideas in because the sheer size of us actually helps us, because we are 110,000 people in 35 countries. So, there is a lot of mass available internally for us to tap into for ideas. How do you actually use this foundation to extract what we want to be known for, what we want to do for our customers, as an example? So, we do something called hackathons, right? It's a simple term. We bring groups of people on a specific idea. So let's think about digital hackathon, as an example. We would have thousands of digitally savvy team members participate in this event. And through that event, we will put five or maybe 10 different problem statements from internal businesses, which we run across the board, as well as for our client businesses who are in, and remember, our clients in a variety of industries, high tech, manufacturing, banking, insurance and so on, so forth. So it's a broad spectrum of industries which we cover. So there is a problem to solve for as part of core business processes. We put that on the table and this group of people will then say, Okay, let's ideate and find solutions for that problem. We'll have groups of specialists who are digitally savvy, or we call them digital gurus because they know what kind of platforms to use, what kind of tools to use. Okay, I can use machine learning here, I can use AI here, and so on, so forth. They will actually listen to the ideas which the group, people are bringing in and help them stitch together a digital solution on that. So think about these hundreds of such ideas. We distil that down to maybe 10 or 15. And from those 10, 15, a panel of experts will then decide, okay, let's pick the top three ideas. So that we can then take those three ideas put the entire might of the organisation, resources, right? Whether it is funding subject matter experts, digital tools which is internally available, all with our partners, all of that put together, and then you create the proof of concept. Take those proof of concepts, apply that to one customer situation, five customer situation, 50 customer situation, and you create the multiplication factor of that and then see how that can stick. Things which stick actually then helps drive the outcomes or the business promises which we have made to our customers. All of that, if I summarise all of that, is collective intelligence at play.
- And what that speaks to, the fact is that a lot of organisations are facing very similar problems.
- Uh huh.
- I think you talked, businesses, they like to think that they are unique.
- Uh huh.
- They like to talk about how they can diversify but there you say that this solution could be applied to 1, 5, 10, and it might stick. What are those common problems that you're seeing when you're running those hackathons? What are the challenges that organisations are facing?
- Yeah. Great leading question, Dave. Look, we are in the middle of multiple set of global crisis and headwinds, which we see in our business. You and I spoke about the disruptions in supply chain as an example. The reason there is disruptions at the back of the pandemic, at the back of the geopolitical issues, which we are seeing in the middle of Europe, at the back of the economic crisis and what's happening today. And of course you add the inflation and how the behaviours of people in general have changed as a result of all of that. It's a multitude of things to actually deal with, right? So commonality is all of these macro ecosystem, which is making it really tough to do business as such. So you pick any industry, you pick any organisation, all of them have this as a common thread.
- Uh huh.
- So now you say, Okay, how do you build resilience as an example? If you have to build resilience for yourself and for the organisation you're working for, you actually have very common threads on talent. How do I acquire talent? How do I nurture talent? How do I make sure that there is a sense of purpose for this individual to stay with Genpact and then work through that as an example. So that's a common opportunity. I personally believe every product or services company is also a technology company today because everything is bundled around technology. So which means the problems and the solutions is all connected through a digital layer today or a technology layer today. If that's the case, the platforms, or the tools, or the methodologies, which actually bundle all of this together is common again, right? So it doesn't matter whether you are in the entertainment industry or I'm in the services industry, it actually doesn't matter because we still need technology to stitch all of our solutions together. So that becomes a common opportunity too.
- You talk about talent.
- Yeah.
- We've had this notion of the great resignation over the last year, 18 months.
- Yeah.
- Retention is really important to organisations.
- Yeah.
- Collective intelligence can help organisations become more purpose driven, more inclusive, more innovative. What steps do you think, from what you've seen from working with your clients, do you think organisations can think about to help them stay engaged with their employees and make sure that those people feel that they are part of something?
- Yeah. Look, in our industry, especially in what we do for our customers, the need for somebody to stay longer is actually very high. Think about this. I need contextual knowledge to stay. So if I hire somebody, I train that person, and that person then does the job for a few months or a few years and then decides to leave. It's an asset who is trying to now leave. So for me, it's a big issue. I don't want, I actually don't like losing people, especially those people who are actually adding value to the organisation. So yes, great resignation, quiet quitting or moonlighting, there are this various phrases which is very randomly used today. But if you take a, if you and I take a step back and say what's the cause? Why it is happening? I think somewhere it lies on interpersonal connect. The reason to stay in organisation has to be more than compensation and benefit, as an example. And hence, I love the term which is which you used, which is purpose. What's the purpose? Why should I work for Genpact as a reason? It has to be a lot more than the paycheck I get at the end of the month, right? So we do spend a lot of our collective time, going back to collective intelligence, collective time on making sure there is a common purpose. And our purpose is very clear. We want to actually do, as much as possible, good for the people we work with, right? So, in our pursuit to do better for the people, in our pursuit to do better for the people, what are the various things I can actually bring in to create that stickiness? So when I hire people, I don't want to hire people to say, this is the job or the task which you have to deliver everyday, every week, every month of the year. You're joining Genpact because you're gonna be part of a very large reason which you will get attached to a customer, as an example, who is actually solving for a variety of issues the world has today, such as climate. What's our responsibility towards climate, as an example. So a lot of this is all purpose driven. And if we don't have the purpose, I personally think organisations have to be very focused on what they want to be known for to a. Attract, and then retain, else it's not gonna happen.
- I'll ask one more question and I'm afraid it's not a very simplistic question and hopefully I will phrase this in a way that makes sense. But you're talking about hiring people there at the beginning you talked about the fact that you're COO, multiple cultures, 110,000 people, 35 different countries.
- Yeah.
- In the last three years, we've obviously seen huge changes.
- Yeah.
- And just yesterday I was having a conversation with a colleague who said, Wow, it's a good thing the pandemic happened, because organisations would've had to have changed.
- Yeah.
- I said, well, why is that? He said, I'm relatively new out of university. I wouldn't have been able to afford to have this job. I would've, I just wouldn't have been able to come here. It would've cost too much. It's like, Okay, that's interesting. But you would've made it work because you would had to have made it work. And I was thinking about it in the broader context. People have changed their expectations of what is right to expect of a company, what is right for an organisation to ask of its people. And if I rewind it back even further and think about my own situation,
- Yeah.
- I would struggle to afford to come into the office five days a week now because I moved out of London during the pandemic.
- Uh hmm.
- Given people's expectations have changed and are evolving all the time, how does an organisation like yours respond to that? How do you decide how often someone should be there, if they should be there, and what's going to work for the business going forward?
- Yeah, that's a lot to unbundle there, Dave. But look, I personally believe and I wanna use the word believe, that there is a reset opportunity here with you and with me, as an example. The reset opportunity is to say the following; the global pandemic, it's not over, it's still there, the pandemic is still there, we learned a lot over the last two and a half years, we realised a lot of things can be done remotely, we realised that the talent is available in different parts of the world versus focused on a country, a city, a locality, we realised that a lot of the work which we thought has to happen in a office building or a closed room can be done differently. we broke a lot of myths of how those business models needs to work. So a lot of things have changed, right? Then we saw in the last few months when things have opened up and we got a grip around this pandemic, that people have started to now think about, Oh, let's bring everybody back to office and they're all rushed back to the office. Now what it does is behaviours have changed. This is what you are pointing towards. The behaviours of the time I spent to commute to go to office, the behaviour of, I actually thought living in a big capital city is cool, but I have moved from being a 20 year old to now a 40 year old. So my needs have changed. So if my needs have changed maybe I don't need to be in a big capital city. The pandemic allowed me to do my job from a different place and I actually did that job pretty well. Now, how do you then use that as an opportunity and create a different model? I think we have to go back to the drawing board, start from the scratch and say, Here are the top 15 or 20 or 35 learnings I have. Now use those as a learning opportunity, again, going back to collective intelligence, and use that opportunity to rebuild and remodel a hybrid, the true sense of hybrid. Today we say some people are working from home, some people are working from office and that's hybrid. Or Dave, you can actually come to office twice a week and three days a week you can work from home. That's hybrid, today. But I think hybrid has to be a little bit more than that. How am I going to effectively manage my teams who are dispersed in multiple cities, multiple countries, different parts of, and maybe I don't even have an office. You don't have an office, Dave. What do you do then, right? So, we need to have a digital solution, going back to what Genpact does for our customers, we need to have a digital solution, which actually enables managing a hybrid workforce. We are in experimenting, we are trying different models, we are using platforms to create that digital solution. And I think many organisations need to do that, like Genpact, and that collective solution is going to make a very different world in the years to come.
- If someone's listening and they're interested in what that collective solution might look like, what do you think the best way of finding out more about your work is?
- It's no secret. We use a platform called Enterprise 360. This is a proprietary tool of Genpact, which is build on a partner platform. The partner platform is ServiceNow. What we are trying to do is, we are using that platform to, starting from doing a morning huddle, so imagine you're part of my team and I am actually in conversation with you with other 15 people, and we all are in different places, but we are having a conversation. But that conversation is enabled through this platform, and it has different modules available which is making sure where you are, where I am where somebody else is, how attentive we are, are we aligned to the goals which we have set out for that day, for that week, for that month. What's the output is expected from Shibu. What's the output expected from Dave, and how those outputs are measured, quality and so on and so forth. All of that is managed here. How engaged are you, Dave? Do you want to continue to work for Genpact, as an example? How do I find that? I will have a bot maybe come and talk to you every now and then? Her name is Amber, but she's again part of that Enterprise 360 platform. So think of this as a App store and the App store has multiple apps, which is taking care of different needs of enabling, managing that spread out workforce or the true hybrid model. It's not perfect. The are a lot, my teams are telling me that Shibu, this doesn't work, that doesn't work. And I'm like, That's great. Tell me exactly what doesn't work. We are actually going to pick those items, take that feedback very seriously, and make sure that it works because we are gonna bring new versions of it,
- Yup.
- right? And that's the beauty of today's world. We can bring new versions of everything which we do today.
- Yeah. You don't wanna spoil a good idea with a perfect one.
- Exactly.
- Look, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you again, as we said, second time in as many weeks I think. But thank you for your time.
- The pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much, Dave.
- If you've enjoyed today's episode of "In Conversation With" have a look around the website. There are plenty more to find.
