About Me
My Life & Technology
It was really a learning experience for me when I started working for Midwest Stock Exchange, a subsidiary of Chicago Stock Exchange way back in 1996. Earlier, I had the opportunity to work on some of the state-of-the-art technologies since 1988. I worked on creating 51/2 inch encrypted disk keys to prevent software piracy. When mouse came into the market, I worked on serial port communication and created mouse drivers. I felt working on assembly language was the ultimate thing until, I installed Microsoft® Windows 3.1 along with Microsoft® Visual Studio® version 1.0 on my home computer. Books on Windows SDK were very rare and I had to purchase them from a market in Mumbai. It was a cultural shock in real sense to switch to a graphical user interface straight from a console based interface, at best knowing how DBase works. It took a while learning the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) which basically helped me in creating C/C++ programs for Windows quickly. I slowly started enjoying the power of Windows SDK and MFC.
Samit Ray
Throughout my career, my favourite subject has always been hardcore technology. I always felt that there is nothing impossible in this world if it relates to technology. The difference between a floppy disks and a tiny memory chip is ‘innovation‘ and mankind continues to drive this innovation as long as there is a demand.
I started my journey as a developer, went through a lot of career transformation from a technology strategist to a CIO and then to a CEO.
Building Trading Engines World-wide
In 1996, when I joined NIIT’s Software Engineering Group, I was deputed to Thailand to working with the Midwest Stock Exchange (MSE). I work on developing system for Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). I then moved to Israel and worked on Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TSE). Finally moved to South Africa to work on Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
The Platform
The entire platform was based on VAX VMS. Today, we talk about floating databases to ensure lightning fast performances. Back in those days, our database was purely based on flat file structure and relied heavily on compute memory and was exceptionally fast. Remember, stock exchange trading depends on nano-second responses and that matters!
The Front Office
I was a part of the the front-end team who created the entire broker front office. It was developed using 16-bit architecture of Visual Studio version 1.
Moving to 32-Bit
Microsoft released their first ever 32-bit Windows desktop operrating system, Windows 95 (Windows versions). Our core stock exchange network system was based on 16-bit architecture and it involved a lot of work converting it to 32-bit.
What did I Learn?
During my journey with MSE, it was a fabulous experience learning the most of Microsoft Foundation Classes and experiencing the transition from 16-bit to 32-bit systems including the introduction of Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), the era which brought-in the concept of data sharing between software components.
Strategic Consulting
I came back to India and joined Price Waterhouse in 1998 as a Management Consultant in the Technology domain. My journey started with a fresh look at technology beyond its boundaries. Soon after joining, a merger with Coopers and Lybrand gave birth to what is best known today, PricewaterhouseCoopers or PwC. After PwC, I joined KPMG, initially as the Chief of IT and later as the Digital Head of East (India). Spent a total of 20 years with 2 of the Big 4s in my career.
Putting Ourselves Into The Shoes Of Clients
The best part to be a Management Consultant was to understand the key pain points of customers and then help them overcome the limitations. But how do you make recommendations?
To be on the other side of the table
I realized that, to be a successful strategist, it is important to put myself into the shoes of the customer. In other words, I needed to be sitting on the other side of the table. Once I started giving advice to one of the energy sector companies to improve their inter-departmental efficiencies and used the state-of-the-art methodologies of Pricewaterhouse Associates, a lot of thoughts started unfolding. At the end of the day, the customer was overwhelmed.
Delivering Java to C#, Oracle to SAP
While in PwC, I had setup an offshore development team of around 500 consultants who worked relentlessly to support all our international engagements. While my offshore team worked on innovative and intuitive technologies, the onsite team got themselves engaged deeply with the customers. I created the first offshore delivery model of PwC in India and the success made the Indian office stand like a star globally. The team of engineers delivered exceptional codes, business analytics and built excellent SAP system.
What did I Learn?
During my Consulting tenure, I learnt how to handle customer difficulties and help them achieve their goals. People say, Consultants are not delivery guys and they only talk and never face the implementation risks. In my case, I preferred to deliver Strategy to Implementation, everything together, so that customers see my work as a whole.
Working with the IT Infrastructure
During my tenure with PwC, in 2008, I was also assigned the role of the Chief Information Officer for the India office. A year before, the Great Recession started and I was given a challenging task to reduce IT expenditure but still bring-in newer technologies. My role in KPMG in 2014 was also similar with similar set of goals.
How Ideas can Reduce IT Expenditure
Cost reduction, specially in the area of technology is something that plays in the minds of all CEOs. However, you won’t find a single CEO who will be willing to compromise on adopting latest technologies. Business grows based on technology adoption. How can you reduce cost, but still grow the business with technology?
Looking at Opportunities
I looked at various opportunities and realized that I can use very cheap but failsafe methods to introduce some of the modern technologies. They were really necessary to improve business efficiencies. I also found opportunities to cut down on telecommunications costs without impacting the service quality. Starting from network to servers, everywhere, there were hidden opportunities. It only took some insights and innovation to reduce cost, in some cases 100%. The target was met, albeit more effectively.
Making Life of Individuals Easy
As the CIO, it is important to also look at opportunities to improve the life of employees. When auditors sit with their clients, as a team, they need easy access to the centralized data repository. Unlike today’s blazing fast network, it was really a challenge to remain connect at that time. We innovated and made sure that the auditors are concentrating on their work and not on technology.
What did I Learn?
It gave me tons of opportunities to learn different levels of technology infrastructure. We were the first to adopt cloud infrastructure for any of the Big-4s in India. It wasn’t only the courage, but ensuring right technology backed by right risk mitigating system was the key to success.
Business Security
The best part of my journey as the CIO of PwC and KPMG was to manage the information security and dealing with data security breaches. For any big consulting firm, it is of utmost importance to safeguard customer data. Compromising on customer data means not only losing that particular customer business, you may have to undergo several cross-country litigation suits involving government agencies and that means a lot of money and loss of reputation globally.
As I had mentioned earlier, cost was a big constraint, but we had to implement strict controls to safeguard data theft. Remember, data can be taken out using Pen Drives or Networked Media at your home or Cloud Storages or even using Bluetooth enabled storages. We implemented several measures and ensured that every bit of data that moves in or out of the company is accounted for. Any unnatural data movement would trigger series of emails and there were several people including senior Partners who got involved. We have had instances when someone left the company, but we were able to track the data that was taken out.
Obviously, there will be challenges coming from the employees when you implement such strict restrictions. Everybody wants ease of doing business and access to data whenever they want, even on their personal devices. It is important to educate employees on the dark side of data theft and how it impacts them personally and how it impacts their company.
My Digital Interests
Valve radios to Microcontrollers
When I was a little kid, about 4 or 5 years old, I started gaining a lot of interests on electronics, though I had no idea how our Philips Radio worked. But I could sit for hours watching repairing jobs while my friends were busy playing. That deep attraction towards electronics world pulled me towards much more deeper insights of digital world.
The Learning Curve
I remember, during my early days, I possibly broke a dozen things before I started fixing them. Glad that my parents did allow me! I broke several Swiss watches to see how the spring works and how the time can be adjusted. When I was in 6th Grade (class 6), we were taught about convex lenses and I built a film projector using a simple light bulb inside a shoe box. Got a length of film from a person working in a movie theatre. That was an awesome experience.
Listening to Music
I have been an avid listener of good music, but I needed a good amplifier as well. During my college days, I started building my own music system with 20 band graphic equalizer. Started experimenting with capacitors and inductors and how they filter audio frequencies together. Started creating several projects based on Integrated Circuits.
Microcontrollers
Time came when I started experimenting with Microcontrollers. With my C/C++ background, it looked like a breeze. With so many sensors available in the market, the opportunities looked unlimited. Building Printed Circuit Boards became easy with the help of laser printers and hot Irons. So, I built my own digital music system with digital tone control, Bluetooth serial communication etc. Click here to read more about it.
The Connected World
With the availability of so many types of microcontrollers in the market, it became easy to innovate all types of digital enablers. So, I started designing digital locks for the Hospitality Industry, solution for tracking mineral transport for the Mining Industry, solution for tracking warehouse inventory movement and many more.