Lokesh Jindal Of Axtria On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level
‘Don’t fix what is not broken’ — A legacy mindset of thinking that everything is ok as the business is functioning is the next big hurdle. Not everyone has a forward-looking mindset, and very few anticipate the challenges that will come or how the competitive dimension will change in the future until it is too late.
As part of our series about “How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lokesh Jindal.
Lokesh is a veteran product executive with 25+ years of multifaceted experience. He is currently Head, Products at Axtria. He is responsible for driving Axtria’s product strategy, roadmap, market rollouts, and customer success in his current role. His mission is to make the Life Sciences customers successful with world-class analytics and operational excellence through enterprise cloud software products. Lokesh has an MBA from INSEAD, France; a Masters in Marketing and Finance from XLRI, India; and a Bachelors of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Yes, absolutely. A big part of my backstory is that I have benefitted from taking the right turns every time there was a fork in the road in my career. I was born and brought up in India during the 1980s and 1990s. This was a transformational period for India as well as the IT industry. One can even say that the IT revolution contributed a great deal toward India’s transformation. I was pursuing engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in the late 1980s when the IT revolution began, which was the talk of the town. I was clear that I wanted to stay in India rather than move to the US. I was excited about the prospect of doing electronic engineering/computing research in India. So, I enthusiastically grabbed an opportunity to do a summer internship with the best-known technology company of that time but was very disappointed with the level of research being done. That made me focus and change track to pursue a management degree from XLRI, Jamshedpur. This was a game-changer in my personal growth, and I also found friends with whom I decided to start an entrepreneurial venture. Remember that this was when the only funding you could get was with collateral, and we had none! I did that for seven years and probably grew 15 years in that time! Things did not go according to plan; however, they seldom do! We, as co-founders, drifted apart in our goals, and I left the business. I tried my best to get a strategy consulting role in any of the well-known companies in India and failed! I had exhausted all avenues. I did not want to do a Ph.D., but I knew that I needed to fortify my management skills. So I decided to retool myself with an MBA from INSEAD, France (I call it the finishing school!) and joined a boutique strategy consulting firm focused on the technology sector in Silicon Valley. As luck would have it, I started that journey a month before the Y2K crash, and all work disappeared from the Valley. But now, I was operating on the cusp of business and technology and was really enjoying it. The next fork took me to a Fortune 500 software company that set the stage for leadership. Since then, I have always been in leadership roles at the intersection of business and technology.
My current work at Axtria is about how we can help life sciences companies improve patient outcomes and lives by solving real-world problems through AI/ML-enabled cloud technologies and digital innovations. I am responsible for Axtria’s product development efforts to build and enhance a world-class interconnected suite of cloud software that accelerates our customers’ journey from data insights action.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
Early in my career, I traveled to Chicago for an important business meeting scheduled to take place over lunch. I was meeting with a colleague that I didn’t know very well but was excited to kick off our work together. On that particular day, our schedule was very tight, and he was running late from another meeting that had run over. In an effort to optimize our time, I decided to order for him. (This was, of course, the mistake.) Not thinking, I ordered him the meat lover’s pizza. Fast forward to him arriving at the restaurant. We introduce ourselves, we begin chatting about our project, and he takes his laptop out of his bag. I immediately noticed an American Vegetarian Association (AVA) sticker, which coincided with the waiter delivering his meat lover’s pizza to him! Awkward! Luckily, he was gracious, and we laughed about it while the waiter rushed to get us an order of the vegetarian delight pizza.
I have thought about this story several times over the years. Again, I was lucky it turned into a funny mistake, but I learned not to have preconceived notions about people. It is vital to be aware of that and ensure that you are unbiased, remembering that everyone has different likes and preferences. Working with a diverse workforce and creating an authentic and inclusive work environment goes a long way in creating a culture where people flourish and enjoy work.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
You are right that we all need help throughout our personal and professional journeys. I have been fortunate to have many mentors and friends along the way who helped shape my career. I am particularly grateful for the mentoring I received from Jacob Lamm, with whom I worked very closely during my 12 years at CA Technologies. His strategic vision and a remarkably calm demeanor in dealing with people were crucial in my development as a leader. There was a point in my career when I was reporting to him and got an opportunity to lead the India Development Center in a different group, and he was my biggest sponsor, helping me get that role that truly gave me an opportunity to be a people leader at scale.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? by Louis Gerstner. A few things resonated with me in this book, but the key one was that every institution is an extended shadow of one person. Essentially a leader can shape the culture and outlook of an organization. When I was leading the India Development Center at CA Technologies, my CEO visited the center after a year. His comment was — sometimes we forget how much difference one person can make. Being consistent in your vision and values and consistently living those values, and staying true to that vision shapes an organization and their culture.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
That is so very true. Your sense of purpose gives you the grit that is required to survive and thrive over the long haul. Business success does not happen overnight; it is a result of believing in a greater purpose and following the path, despite ups and downs over time. And what greater purpose than to improve the quality of life of our fellow human beings!
Axtria was founded in 2010 by Jaswinder Chadha (Jassi), who had the vision of building cutting-edge analytics and software solutions that would help life sciences companies effectively manage the exponentially increasing data and get timely insights to transform their commercial operations and help deliver better patient outcomes. Jassi had the early realization that it is not only our direct customers (i.e., life sciences companies) that benefit from our work but also their customers (i.e., patients) who are the true beneficiaries of our work. This made us purpose-driven.
Today, our work includes building and continuously enhancing our state-of-the-art products and solutions to help our clients navigate a complex and dynamic ecosystem. And we are guided by our purpose in every aspect of this journey. What we are doing at Axtria today is beyond what we had envisioned at the start of the journey, and we are very proud of that.
Also, let me tell you that this can be very empowering at an individual level. Our associates share this passion and take pride in this purpose and mission. In fact, we encourage our associates to share stories of how a particular drug they helped become successful in the market impacted the lives of those close to them. Nothing can beat that mission!
Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
Absolutely, yes. As I mentioned earlier, we have chosen a powerful purpose-driven niche for ourselves, and having made that choice, everything we do now is exciting and meaningful for our clients and us.
The life sciences industry is the most innovative and influential industry of all, which has been proven by what has happened across the globe in the last two years due to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. It is a dynamic ecosystem of many players, such as pharma, biotech, medical technology, provider, patient, payer, and policymaker, who strive to improve human life, and we cater to this innovative and dynamic industry! The tremendous R&D innovation, as is clear from the accelerated approval rate of drugs by the FDA, is pushing the envelope on commercial operations as well so that the last mile execution to providers and patients is equally innovative and effective.
As a result, we are seeing a very high demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-enabled analytics and an acceleration in data-driven digital transformation initiatives. To give you some background, the life sciences industry has not yet adopted technology as much as other industries, but that is not to say that digital transformation has been absent. But the initiatives so far have been siloed, disconnected, unscalable, and therefore, lack enterprise-wide applicability and appeal. The industry has learned its lessons, and we see a strong push to leverage cloud-based software technology and AI/ML-enabled analytics to ensure efficiency, consistency, and scalability across the commercial operations and geographical footprint.
With recent funding from Bain Capital, we are committed to further accelerating our investments in enterprise software products, building on the four category-leading suite of products (AxtriaSalesIQ™, Axtria CustomerIQ™, Axtria DataMAx™, and Axtria InsightsMAx™) that help our customers build trusted data clouds, derive insights from that data by leveraging AI/ML, and then driving timely decisions and actions based on those insights.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like to engage in a Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is a process in which an enterprise moves from ad hoc disjointed or non-contiguous systems to an enterprise ecosystem that captures all the data digitally and then leverages that data to drive both insights and execution.
On a practical level, one must start with baselining the existing data and processes and determining the points of data generation and capture, and then defining the to-be state and the value that this digital transformation needs to create. The journey can be easily planned if the starting point and the endpoint are clear. Although completing that journey is usually full of surprises, twists, and course corrections, but that is typical of any long-term, transformational initiative.
Another critical aspect of digital transformation is to move from process-centricity to data-centricity. The focus is not so much on figuring out the right processes and codifying them but more on ensuring access to the right data and deriving insights from it.
Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?
All companies can benefit from a digital transformation, especially in life sciences, where different disciplines have operated in silos. Let’s take the example of customer engagement; before the pandemic, the engagement mainly was driven through the sales reps, and other channels were almost an afterthought. But the information consumption behavior of customers has changed over the last two years. Suddenly, there is a need to bring the sales and marketing channels together and then enhance them with analytics to drive the right customer engagement. This is only possible through a digital transformation journey — having the foundation in place that brings data together and then treats all channels as options for optimization based on customers’ preferences. This also requires the customer to move to data-centricity, as the next best engagement will be determined by analyzing the data and not because of a pre-defined step in a process. This is not unique to any particular company but applies to all companies across the board.
We’d love to hear about your experiences helping others with Digital Transformation. In your experience, how has Digital Transformation helped improve operations, processes and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.
Let’s start with something fundamental — data itself. We have helped many organizations create trusted data clouds that significantly improve their ability to access relevant data, which can be trusted both in terms of quality and lineage. Building this to allow business users to access relevant data is the key. And so is the fact that the underlying platform is a product and thus stays ahead of the curve in terms of the latest technologies and features. This significantly improves the company’s operations and reduces the strain on its technology resources.
On the process front, we have been transforming the sales operations and planning process almost since the company’s inception. Today, several of the top 50 life sciences companies trust our products to digitally transform this area that has traditionally been done in spreadsheets or disjointed systems. Bringing together Segmentation & Targeting, Alignment & Roster, and Incentive Compensation as part of one digital platform has been a transformative process for our customers.
Customer experience transformation is a relatively new area or one that has accelerated due to the pandemic. As I shared above, this is a prime focus for us in creating a seamless omnichannel experience for the customers based on their past behavior and company objectives. This is only possible if the foundational data digital transformation is already in place or further emphasizes the need for that fundamental transformation.
Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?
Yes, absolutely, it has been very challenging. You take any industry and any company, and I can assure you there will be more failure stories than success stories. Let’s pick a few.
- ‘This is my domain’ — Established siloed domains in a company are the biggest challenge. Any change threatens the status quo of power, and unless there is a higher purpose that everyone buys into, this is not easy to overcome.
- ‘Don’t fix what is not broken’ — The next big hurdle is a legacy mindset of thinking that everything is ok as the business is functioning. Not everyone has a forward-looking mindset, and very few anticipate the challenges that will come or how the competitive dimension will change in the future until it is too late.
- ‘We have tried this before, and it does not work here’ — Using past failure as an excuse for not trying something new again. Not learning from previous mistakes to do a better job next time in making it happen or not taking the right help to do the transformation is another hurdle that is difficult to overcome.
- ‘Not invented here’ — Often, the IT department is the problem, especially if they have been trying to drive the digital transformation. If they don’t make headway, it is very difficult for them to admit that a different direction is needed, and they continue to throw good money after bad.
There are several more. What is important is that we make it easy and non-threatening for our customers to undergo this transformational journey. Having a faster time-to-value by leveraging our products reduces the risk faced by our customers. Axtria has built an ecosystem of AI-powered connected products, Axtria DataMAx™ for data management, Axtria InsightsMAx™ for AI-powered analytics, and Axtria SalesIQ™ and Axtria CustomerIQ™ for omnichannel customer engagement, that help life sciences companies advance their digital transformation agenda.
Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Use Digital Transformation To Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.
Only five? Honestly, there are innumerable ways a company can leverage digital transformation to take it to the next level. In the life sciences context, the entire value chain (discovery, clinical development, regulatory, manufacturing, and commercial operations) has so many opportunities where digital transformation can add tremendous value. On the clinical side, the innovation can be accelerated using data and interconnected systems. We saw this with Moderna. Data/AI-driven drug discovery and digitized virtual clinical trials can reduce time-to-market drastically. Velocity and accuracy of decision-making are strategic competitive advantages enabled by digital transformation.
On the commercial side, where the last mile execution happens, the impact of digital transformation on providers, policymakers, and eventually patients can be huge. The holy grail of omnichannel engagement enables orchestrated engagement with the entire ecosystem to create value for all. From a providers’ perspective, it enables them to have the right information at the right time through the right channel to determine the right course of action for a patient. From a patients’ perspective, it enables the right therapy to reach them at the right time. Digital transformation allows data/AI-driven insights to be generated in real-time and delivered to the point of decision/action of last-mile execution. All of this ultimately has a positive impact on patient outcomes, which is the purpose that drives us.
Of course, capabilities to handle digital data will be foundational for successful digital transformation. Creating smarter and business-ready datasets will enable integrated real-time insights that move quickly to the point of decision-making and execution. At Axtria, we are driven by “store everything, analyze anything.”
In your opinion, how can companies best create a “culture of innovation” in order to create new competitive advantages?
In my 30 years of industry and management experience, there is one foundational element that must exist in a company that fosters a culture of innovation. It is the ‘lack of fear of failure’ — innovation won’t happen if the employees are worried about failure. Eight out of 10 attempts at innovation fail. Employees will only try innovation if the culture supports failure and does not blame them for not making progress or wasting corporate resources. Of course, learning from failures is an important part of innovation. You cannot be making the same mistakes that led to failure in the past, so it’s extremely important that the failures are treated as the best learning lessons on what not to do. This, combined with a maniacal focus on increasing customer value, is what drives innovation in companies.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”
While you should always make plans for your life and career, keep your ears and eyes open for opportunities as they come along and give them consideration, even if they don’t seem to be in line with your plans. It is possible that they may lead you to a better place! I was very clear that I did not want to leave India to come to the US. Circumstances made me consider going to France for higher studies, and then an opportunity presented itself to go to Silicon Valley and get back to my technology roots! The rest is, as they say, history!
How can our readers further follow your work?
The most effective way to do this would be to subscribe to Axtria’s monthly newsletter “The Axtria Collective.” A sure-shot way to know about our work, recent developments, and thought leadership. I strongly recommend that.
You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where we actively provide updates across various dimensions (we are most active on LinkedIn). We also participate in the industry events as global sponsors, such as Reuters Events (both in the USA and EU), PMSA, and NASSCOM Product Conclave.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
