GAVEL & ZIF not just pithy acronyms –
GAVS' levers for IT disruption and drive towards higher availability of business services.

The CEO Magazine ● Chennai

On being asked what books he has been reading, Sumit Ganguli, CEO of GAVS Technologies, and a General Partner at Basil Partnersmentioned that he has been reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and A Little History of the World by E.H Gombrich.

We spoke with Sumit Ganguli at his Chennai office on a Friday evening, "Reading these books give one a broader perspective towards life, gives you dollops of humility and it spurs you to work towards leaving a legacy behind".

"Living a life is more important than supporting a livelihood", he had heard this phrase from a commencement speech.A lot of these values and life goals are directly implemented at GAVS Technologies, which obsesses on its RITE Values – Respect, Integrity, Trust and Empathy for all its employees, clients and stake holders.

Sumit has been in the US for the last 25 years and has been involved in the IT & IT Services business all of his career. He attended IIM Kolkata and NYU Sterns School of Management, after his degree in Engineering.Before joining GAVS, Mr. Ganguli worked with companies where he was involved in Global Sales, M&A,& Strategic Consulting.

He was intimately involved in GE Equity, investing in one of the companies and was the CEO of a BSE listed entity that was created through the merger of three companies with the focus on Embedded Systems. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, teaching International Business. Recently he has taken upwriting opinion pieces for various periodicals in the US and India.

GAVS Technologies is focused on Enabling Digital Transformation for its clients through Infrastructure Solutions and newer technologies. GAVS and its leaders have committed to use this as a platform to truly create a disruption in IT, and has developed a Predictive Analytics tool, GAVeLin the IT Service Management Space.

GAVeL has recently been awarded the Gartner's 'Cool Vendor'status in the ITSM 2.0 for 2016. GAVeL can predict potential outages and enhances user experience in contact center as well as data center environments

GAVS is also promoting a truly disruptive frame work, Zero Incident Framework (ZIF) that employs Instrumentation, Real User Monitoring, Automation, Predictive Analytics and Virtualized Desktops.

Through these innovative and disruptive technologies GAVS is committed to be a trusted partner of its clients in the Bi-Modal IT trend, managing current operations, lift & shift while using Automation, Instrumentation and other tools to redefine the IT Infrastructure Landscape.

GAVS is planning for some in-organic growth to either acquire new clients and new IP and would like to look at some liquidity event in the next 24 – 36 months.

"Our endeavor is to bring predictability in the IT operations, reduce manual interventions and drive towards a higher availability of business services" Mr. Ganguli explained. GAVeL& GAVS Aided Zero Incident Infrastructure have been conceived, developed and deployed by GAVS' key leaders – Chandra Mouleshwar, Balaji Uppili and Rao Haridasu.

GAVS' Predictive Analytics platform GAVelcorrelates events and data based on human intelligence and machine learning, to provide predictive insights into the operations, thereby driving increased revenue and enhanced customer satisfaction.

GAVS has also built strong expertise around Microsoft's Azure and other Cloud and Machine Learning technologies and IBM's Blue Mix and Softlayer.

GAVS was formed over 15 years ago, and one of the key characteristics of the companypromoted by its two founders was deep rooted, concierge like client intimacy. Basil Partners and its investors have taken majority control of GAVS during the last 1.5 years. GAVS is continuing this legacy of trying to provide obsessive, Seven Star Service to all of its clients while adding Innovation, Technology bias and RITE to the original recipe.

GAVS has been largely operating in the US, ME and is again growing its UK foot print. Health Care, Manufacturing, Media & Publishing are the focus areas of GAVS and it has strong presence in Oman and UAE, with the leading banks in that region.

GAVS is convinced that it will bring in genuine disruption in the Infrastructure Management space and usher a newer phase using Automation, Predictive Analytics, Instrumentation and reduce this total dependency on people based support, presently employed by the established IT Services company.

GAVS, in a major Infrastructure Managed Services engagement with a leading hospital in NYC and was able to bring in a saving of almost 31% in its IT Operations costs. This allowed the hospital to continue with its Clinical Support at the same level inspite of almost 7% reduction in budget which wasshy of a billion dollars.

GAVS is now engaged with the hospital to look at other newer technologies like Software Defined Data Centers, Automation, Analytics to improve its patient and user experience and further cost reduction. "The CIO ofthis hospital terms the engagement as "IT Managed Services with a heart".
"Most clients are looking for business agility and cost optimizations.

One such customer, a large publisher in the US is currently engaged with GAVS and its partner to support their Cloud orchestration, transition to cloud and have used DevOps to work towards significant productivity gains".

What are the major challenges that you have faced currently? How did you get rid of this? asked The CEO Magazine. "As a mid-sized organization, GAVS has been doing multiple things primarily being driven by clients.

The current challenge is to change the organization inside out – moving away from doing multiple things to focusing on our core competencies, developing solutions and framework of IP, and to bring about cultural changes in the organization to support the growth and changes, " as per Rao Haridasu , GAVS' Head of Solutions and Strategy. .

"By focusing on the crest of technology, trying to stay ahead of the curve, identifying niche and developing solutions, challenging our delivery leaders to focus on solutions to address client needs, and constant upskilling and training of the people to build on the existing competencies to align with the changing needs," he concluded.

To upskill employees, the company has built GAVS Learning Academy (GLA), in association with George Washington University. GAVS also has a tie-up with the British Council for employees to go through communication and presentation skills.

In order to prepare GAVS as an International Consulting company with CXO presences, GAVS has instituted in-house courses on Business Etiquette and cross cultural training.

Being asked to discuss about GAVS' culture, Sumit Ganguli said, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." Our company follows RITE Values; Respect, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – and this is seamlessly incorporated into our day-to-day functioning, and has become an integral part of GAVS' DNA. At GAVS we do not want HR and culture to be clichéd and filled with platitudes.

GAVS shares the same board-level quarterly updates with all of its employees. A favorite and most ubiquitous GAVS' sloganis – 'At GAVS We Care' emphasizes our response and approach to clients and employees, striving towards a better engagement that is aimed to 'delight' customers and employees alike with GAVS' commitment to goals and values.

Our employee centricity steers various in-house activities and programs that keeps motivation and employee engagement levels high. "

GAVS is immersed in the concept of Social Enterprise. "At GAVS, we believe that a bias towards altruism and being connected with the society at large gives our employees and leaders a larger vision and purpose, and we attract a different profile of personnel and it promotes a higher level of dialogue.

GAVS is closely engaged with the Dream Runners Half Marathon in Chennai that directly impacts the disabled by raising funds for prosthetic limbs. GAVS is extremely blessed, that we have been given an opportunity to nurture and support a small isolated village named Ramanwadi in Maharashtra.

The volunteers involved in supporting this small village have brought success in several areas of rural development and have the small hamlet inching towards self-sufficiency." Balaji Uppili, GAVS' Chief Delivery Officer explained.
The testament that some of these values have trickled down at GAVS, came from the individual effort that some of the GAVSIANS exhibited during the Chennai floods.

Sumit completed the interview with a small parable, which in his opinion surmised GAVS' efforts to make a difference both in the professional and altruistic world. "These are all very humble efforts compared to some of the massive projects undertaken by the largest of groups and individuals.

But I am reminded of the story – when a passerby witnessed a man who was painstakingly picking up upturned baby turtles, which had washed ashore and werestuck in the sand, and was rescuing them by taking them back into the ocean.

The passerby remarked that with so many of them on the beach, the man will not be able to make a difference in the world, to which the man smiled and said that to each baby turtle it would make the world of a difference".