Dinesh Chandrashekhar
Practice Leader CRM & MDM CoE
Hitachi Consulting
Dinesh Chandrashekhar is a member of:
The Journey : Early days to How I got here
The choice of your IT specialization makes all the big difference and
especially when you are one among the talented IT lots you have in
India. I strongly believe that my passion for the CRM and its
application to productive use is the driving force behind my success so
far. What I focus is not just about the productivity but the value you
bring in to your customers and take genuine interest in making your
customer and your organization successful.
Decisions that mattered
I started my career as a Java programmer and I am really happy that I
failed miserably as a programmer. I call that a turning point in my life
to appreciate what it takes to be programmer and also not try to be
someone else. It was my decision to move into CRM application
development that made a big difference to my career. My experience with
Citigroup and GE Capital further helped to appreciate the customer side
of the project execution and also helped me to become a successful
consultant with IT major like Hitachi Consulting. I love to be proactive
and passionate; that’s my success mantra.
The turning points
I am really fortunate to have worked in multiple domains and
technologies especially my experience in CRM, MDM and BI projects really
helped me to become more customers focused and competitive. Each of
these technologies has its own nuances; for example, in CRM you get to
know more about what really differentiates a company in the eyes of the
customers and in MDM & BI you get to see the potential of the data
to make or break an organization. It’s like a roller coaster ride so far
and I really enjoyed being a part of such innovative projects.
Work and Role : Then and now
With Hitachi consulting it’s a whole new world of experience. You get to
work in strategic management consulting as well as innovative
technology implementation for a conglomerate cutting across multiple
domains. I will not ask for more and this is truly a memorable part of
my career.
Two years down the line
I want to gain good expertise in some of the Industry verticals both in
terms of knowledge as well as to innovate to address some of their key
issues. I have never asked for a position or incentive so far and what
it really fascinates me is that if you have the right attitude and
skills, all others will follow. If I follow my passion I am sure to make
it big in the next few years.
What I learnt along the way
There is nothing wrong to claim the credit for you and your team if you
really worked hard for the success of any initiative. The other
important thing is results are rewarded and efforts are not. I maintain a
very cordial relationship with my practice members, in fact we are like
a family and sometimes I take the privilege of being a big brother and
guide them in difficult times. I also enjoy the confidence of my
management team and you have to secure this confidence by doing “right
things- right” always.
Trends to watch out for
Mobility is something that fascinates me, especially its collaboration
with Social media. Today we are taking all the mission critical
applications to mobile and in the near future mobile solutions will rule
the business world, be it a CRM, ERP or BI; all is gone be on your
hand. The other one is innovation in the CRM space, my ever favorite
subject, specially the collaboration of CRM, MDM and BI to give the
state of the art of intelligence to our customers.
My advice if you are starting out
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish and Don’t Sprint the Marathon. The journey is
more important than the destination. It’s like putting yourself into a
furnace, you need to be part of challenges, risks, innovation, failures,
successes and finally appreciate the people for their weakness as well.
You need to learn to win as a team. Be it a BI, CRM or any other domain
all it takes is your passion to go and do the rest of the job next day
and come back home fun filled.
Must have skills in BI, as I see them
There is a great demand for the Out of the box BI implementation today
but the trend will change soon with a greater challenge to go beyond
packaged BI application specially the Behavioral and Predictive
analytics is going to be the game changes in near future.
Last but not the least
Have a long term goal, or even a shorter term goal – but have a goal and
be open to opportunities that come your way. If you’re doing a great
job now, someone will always look for ways to harness your skills as the
opportunities come along. It might not be next week, but if you focus
on what you are doing today and do it the best that you can,
opportunities follow. Mine came about every 3 years – yours might be
sooner or later, but they do come. A different focus, a new skill, a
different city or even a different country – all these opportunities are
part of being an IT consultant. But don’t be so focused on tomorrow
that you let go today. Be excellent in your role and career
opportunities will find you.
