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We are pleased to publish an interview with Mr. Atul Vashistha who is the Founder & Chairman of neoIT, a management consulting company focused on helping clients leverage services globalization. Atul is also the Founder & Chairman of NeoGroup; a company focused on outsourced governance, program and project management. Atul is a leading proponent and practitioner of globalization and futurizing enterprises. Atul co-founded neoIT in 1999 and NeoGroup in 2007 with the mission of helping enterprises grow their business and improve operations by capitalizing on services globalization.
Atul’s opinions are valued by media and wall street analysts such as CNN, ABC News, CNBC, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, CIO and other global organizations. Atul continues to be a vocal proponent of globalization. He has co-authored a book on services globalization titled, “The Offshore Nation” which focuses on the services globalization mega-trend and its economic and human impact on nations and firms.
Consulting Magazine named Atul as one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Consultants” in 2006 and “Top 6 IT Powerbrokers” in 2004. HRO Today named Atul as a HR Outsourcing Superstar five years in a row from 2004 through 2008. FAO named Atul a FAO Superstar from 2006 through 2008.
For chronicle, Yogesh K. Upadhyaya discusses with him about his high profile career and consulting activities for IT industry.
(Atul Vashistha)
To view Atul’s bio-data, please click here
Q-1: Welcome, Sir. Please introduce yourself to our readers.
I was very fortunate to have been born in India in Rajasthan. My parents are originally from Rajasthan but after retirement settled in Lucknow (UP). Growing up was very interesting as we experienced the diversity of India from Jaipur to Guwahati and from Patna to Bombay. I am the third of four brothers where two of us ended in engineering (IIT/ITBHU) and the other two ended up in medical school. I absolutely enjoyed my four years at IT-BHU, though I do confess that studies were the last thing on my mind. My very close friend, RS Srinivas Atreya, and I put more energy into basketball than in classes, and it was our class-mates like Swami, Chancy and Sarma, whose notes got us through. Once I graduated with my B. Tech. in 1988, I headed to the USA for my MBA. I started at Temple University but switched to Arizona State after the first semester. I do confess that I did hit my stride there and realized that I really loved business management.
Q-2: How did your experience in health care and outsourcing field helped your career?
I had interesting choices as I was graduating in spring 1991 with my MBA in International Management & Services Marketing. The choice was to go to a large company or take a bigger role in a smaller company. I decided to head to a $50 Million, 50-year old company focused on safety services and pre-hospital healthcare. In seven years, we grew the company to $600M, took it public and loved it! I rose fast from a marketing analyst with nine promotions in 6 years to Vice President of Marketing & Business Development. Then I decided that I needed big company experience and ended up choosing a Fortune 25 healthcare services company, Cardinal Health, as Senior Vice President of International, in 1998. S
I spent almost two years with 70% of my time outside the United States. I loved the challenge and learnt a lot from highly qualified colleagues. The thirst to control my own destiny and capitalize on the confluence of internet and globalization, led me to put a big bet on myself. In 2000, I left to devote full-time to neoIT. The last 8 years at neoIT have been very interesting! I have learnt a lot about managing at the speed of change, the value of emotional intelligence and why not to do business with family. Also, I learnt a lot about human behavior during good times and especially during not so good times.
Q-3: Why did you decide to found neoIT?
In 1988 at Cardinal Health, I was very fortunate to have a total global view at a Global 25 firm. As I was helping Cardinal expand, I was amazed at the challenges we had with finding IT talent in the USA and was absolutely impressed with how GE and Citi were leveraging talent in India, Chile, China and other such locations. I could just feel that this was going to explode. I had been looking for an idea for ten years to start my own company and with this idea, it was the first time I felt that I could take the risk.
I started the company with my brother. I brought the global leadership experience and he brought the technical expertise. We founded this in summer of 1999 as an experiment and knew by December 1999 that this needed to be our full-time job. In a few years we built the leading management consulting brand focused around global outsourcing. We focused our energies on Global 2000 companies and believed that we could create value by being the best at what we did. We focused our energies entirely on client outcomes and only do fixed priced consulting.
I led the company as CEO until 2007 when I turned the role to a leader that has been with the company since its founding. As Chairman now, I focus my time on long term strategy, large account advisory and brand management.
Also, in 2007, I saw a gap in the market around governance and program management. I noticed that the large programs that companies have, lack in performance management and reporting. So, this new firm is focused entirely on helping clients optimize, monitor and report on major programs and governance. Another way to look at this business service is “outsourced program and project management”.
Q-4: What are your views about outsourcing of services by western countries such as USA and its impact?
I am a very big proponent of globalization but do believe that the current model has challenges. I was reminded of it very clearly by Lou Dobbs when I debated him live on CNN in 2004. As companies around the world globalize, the benefits they realize are numerous such as lower cost of operations, flexible business model, speed to innovation, improved productivity and access to global talent. If you want to be globally competitive, you cannot afford not to leverage globalization. Of course, not all execute well!
On the other side, in tough economic times, in the short term it results in job losses without the prospect of finding a like one. Also, without retraining, it is tough for many to find jobs in other industries. This is an area where industry and government have to play a role on helping displaced workers retrain and gain skills that will result in gainful employment in other industries or different job roles.
As the talent in these offshore nations develops higher end skills, it will be even more important to accelerate job re-skilling and invest in R&D to create jobs in new fields.
Q-5: Your advice to engineers looking to start IT consulting companies?
Management consulting is a tough business. I find it much harder than my role at the Fortune 25 firm, Cardinal Health. I think that there are numerous opportunities in software that I am interested in than in consulting. We are fortunate to have a strong brand and that aids us and for many that takes time to build.
I think the opportunities in the market are tremendous. If you are interested in IT, I think they are in the small and medium size sector. But, I believe there are more opportunities in software. Just look at the amount of applications that are being built every day for the Apple iPhone. I find smaller firms to be even more innovative in sectors like gaming, software and bio-tech.
Q-6: Please describe your college days
The days at IT-BHU were idyllic. Our metallurgical batch had only 23 students and we all got along very well! Often we would spend the evening at the chai or ice cream shop discussing politics or world events. Weekends were reserved for going out to Lanka for a meal and maybe a movie. What else was there to do? The farmhouse hostel was definitely the best and so I am glad that we were there in our final year. The year-end concerts were a treat! One key memory is running for elections and before we could all vote, there was a sine die. Running the mess hall was fun and we were told that we always had the best food! I did get selected as a TISCO graduate trainee and worked there for a month and then my visa to the USA came through. The truth is that memories become more positive as the time separation grows!!!
Arizona State University was a different experience. It had over 40,000 students but I was in the College of Business and that was a more intimate setting. I discovered that I loved business and as a Graduate Assistant for the Marketing Department, I got to know the Professors very well. I actively participated in a student organization called AIESEC and parties!!! It was fun to lead AIESEC and meet students from all over the world. On one camping trip to the Grand Canyon, there were over 40 of us from over 25 countries. Business school was a lot easier than engineering!
Recently, I decided to upgrade my skills and now have to take a Young Presidents Seminar (1 week at a time) at Harvard Business School for the last two years. It is more intense than any other educational experience that I have had!
Q-7: Please tell us about your personal life
We are well settled in Northern California. Wife is the President of the PTA (parents and teachers association in school) while my daughter is on the student council. We get a lot out of being involved in our community and have a great set of friends. Key interests are to travel, go hiking, read historical fiction and collect wine. I am also writing my second book, “The Seven Secrets of Great Globalizers” and hope to have it published by this summer.
I am heavily influenced by a drive to do things differently, change business models and make a difference personally and professionally. It seems to be an inner drive rather than external factors. One person that continues to inspire me is my wife!
Sir, it was nice talking to you.
One of my favorite quotes is from Winston Churchill who once said, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” This is how I try to live my life and hope to make a difference!
Atul can be reached at: atul@vashistha.com
Education:
*B. Tech. (Metallurgical Engineering) from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India (1988)
*MBA from Arizona State University, International Management/Services Marketing , 1991.
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Additional links:
1) NeoIT
2) Collection of published scholarly articles by Atul Vashistha on management and globalization
http://www.crossingmedia.com/search.asp?type=author&keyword=Vashistha
3) Interview of Atul Vashistha with Intelligent Outsourcing Strategies
Five questions with neoIT's Atul Vashistha
http://www.sharedxpertise.org/file/1164/five-questions-with-neoits-atul-vashistha.html
4) The Offshore Nation: Strategies for Success in Global Outsourcing and Offshoring
By Atul Vashistha and Avinash Vashistha
http://www.amazon.com/Offshore-Nation-Strategies-Outsourcing-Offshoring/dp/0071468129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232117983&sr=1-1
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Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP