Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Nagpur had the privilege of hosting Mr Kayzad Hiramanek for a guest lecture on October 17, 2020. Mr. Hiramanek is an experienced professional and is currently working in the field of Operations and Customer Experience. He delivered an intuitive lecture on the topic - ‘Future of work and how digital disruption is here to stay’

The following is an excerpt from the interview with him-

 

Q1. Your elaborate career started in sales and you are currently the chief of operations, how are the two related and how did you make the transition?

Ans. The department of operations is the organisation's heart and soul. It effectively ties the entire life cycle of the client from the time of prospecting to the time of exit and also ensures very important controls such as fraud risk, mortality risk, risk of morbidity, risk of compliance, etc. Most importantly, since the operations department does not focus on selling, the consumer is more comfortable purchasing from a person who does not sell. Thus, the Operations department is the closest link to the customer and is the organisation's best sales person because he does not go under the garb of selling, he goes under the garb of service.

Q2. There are several ways for brands to increase visibility, attract and retain clients, as well as improve online ratings against competitors, even causing digital disruption once a while. Will this become the new normal?

Ans. You are as good as dead if you don't have a digital presence today. Through activities that you do online, your online presence are the eyeballs of online recall. You either have a damn good product that sells itself, or you have an online presence that makes people think you're the biggest player on the market.

Q3. When managing large multi-national, multi-functional and multi-geography teams, what are some common traits that you have noticed in human beings across cultures?

Ans. One thing that has been seen in most people is that they want to be successful. People want everything they do to have a sense of respect. At the end of the day, people search for feelings of happiness, knowing well that they have done something meaningful with their time. Further, people want a sense of change, they want to see that their goals being catered to by an organisation and they want to be led by positive people.

Q4. With AI becoming smarter by the day and learning the human behaviour, do you see a future where the machine would know what a person wants before the person wants it? How would sales, marketing and operations look in such a scenario?

Ans. Whether you like it or not, this will be the future. Machines that completely replace humans, however, won’t be a reality in the near future. But a time will come when computers will take transactional decisions and leave human beings with the most judgmental or fundamentally human decisions.

Q5. With the advent of Industry 4.0, the way businesses operate is changing on a rapid scale and many of the human occupied positions are now redundant, if you could don the hat of a soothsayer, how do you see the future of operations as a domain?

Ans. Operations in its older avatar is finished. Operations today can only survive if a) individuals who lead such vertical styles manage a team of experts and b) build the organisation's potential power. Operations is the glue that binds the organisation. Operations is not seen as a vertical that handles transactions, but rather as a vertical that with every single customer interaction, adds value.

Q6. Since everything these days has moved online, so have our seminars. How has your experience been of briefing the student managers at the Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur?

Ans. To be honest with you, I quite enjoy online interactions. I am not one of those persons who believes that I have to be present at a certain place to conduct a seminar. The world is becoming a smaller place and thanks to the digital media, we can conduct any kind of sessions online. I enjoyed interacting with the students and loved answering their invigorating questions. I loved the whole session.