Any kind of transformation is hard. When it involves a company and its complex systems, it’s even harder. During times of economic change, fluctuating customer expectations, and digital disruption, companies must build a business model that is agile and able to adapt to constant change.
Founded by Karthik S. Cloud Kinetics is an organization that helps people with their digital transformation journeys. Their super-talented team of Cloud Architects and Engineers, with their exceptional services, gets you on your happy digital transformation journeys.
In an interview with The Enterprise World, Founder Karthik S. tells us about the journey of Cloud Kinetics. Let us find out more.
Cloud Kinetics
Tell us about Cloud Kinetics.
Cloud Kinetics was founded in 2012, as a ‘born-in-the-cloud company. A Singapore company with operations also in India & Thailand, Cloud Kinetics focuses on enabling digital transformation for its customers, with its expertise and experience in Cloud consulting, Application Modernization, Data Services, all underpinned by our comprehensive Managed Cloud platform and services.
What were the initial challenges you faced?
The advantages and challenges in the early days were caused by the same source – the early days of cloud adoption. We were ahead of the curve in cloud technologies, and the slow adoption rate, especially in the financial and Enterprise sectors were challenged affecting our business growth.
Which was that point that triggered the growth of Cloud Kinetics?
In the markets that we operated in – primarily ASEAN and India, 2017-18 was a landmark year. The year marked the approval of Government (and public sector enterprises) approval of Public cloud services, which opened up business opportunities. Also, the entry of a mature public cloud service model by
Microsoft expanded the scope of cloud business. Cloud Kinetics’ experience and expertise became sought after, and we started serving larger enterprises and improved our reputation.
What is the reason behind Cloud Kinetics’ long-standing success?
For modern technology-oriented businesses to succeed, two factors are-
A. Commitment and focus on core service offering – i.e what is it that the business excels in
B. Customer Success – i.e applying our technology and business models, to ensure that the customer derives maximum value from our service
The Products/Services
What are the products/services Cloud Kinetics focuses on? How are your services different from those in the market?
Cloud Kinetics offers comprehensive enterprise-grade services in
- Modernization of Applications
- Cloud Infrastructure & Platform implementations
- Data Engineering & Analysis Services Supported by our complete 24×7 Managed Services platform, Arcus (https://arcuscloud.io/), and multiple Delivery/support Centers.
A special advantage for customers who work with us is the ‘peace-of-mind guarantee, that arises from us managing the long-term lifecycle of the customer cloud assets and data, with our Managed Services.
Almost 95% of Cloud Kinetics customers are long-term customers, with an average retention rate of 3+ years.
How do you decide to take Cloud Kinetics a step further in terms of your products/services?
Cloud Kinetics realizes that Cloud adoption has turned a corner now. The rush to migrate and implement new technologies has brought forth tons of opportunities, and newer players. Scaling up rapidly to better serve these opportunities is a key tactical step for us.
Strategically, Cloud Kinetics will continue to build on our advantages, and build on data and application modernization, which will help complete the business landscape transformation for our customers.
Is there any new addition to the list of products/services? Anything exciting you would like to share?
1. Arcus platform for complete ‘Managed Customer Ops’ package – encompassing omnichannel support, dedicated concierge, automated infrastructure operations and ML-based spend analytics is being released as ‘SaaS’ platform to our Enterprise customers in this quarter
Leadership
What do you think are the responsibilities of an entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur’s primary responsibility is to his/her business itself. The growth of the business sustains so many aspects incidental to it – the employees, the customer, the technology (domain), etc. Hence, an entrepreneur should focus on the passion that them to found the business in the first place – the problem that they set out to solve with their business- and pursue that relentlessly to excellence.
Can you please brief us about your professional experience?
With early stints in Database administration in India’s leading Mutual fund organization, I then worked in Network technology management with Telco’s in US & UK for slightly more than a decade. Expanding on the network and infrastructure experience to cloud, and working with Silicon Valley startups in cloud technologies led to the founding and sustenance of the cloud services business.
What are the key achievements of your entrepreneurial journey?
One of the unique aspects of technology startups is the number of talented but raw youngsters in the team. Surpassing all other achievements is the story of how we have been able to groom the youngsters into many aspects of professional life including customer focus, problem-solving, and finding satisfaction in their work-life by solving customer business problems. The maturing of these youngsters is much more than if they would work in large organizations.
How do you look after your employees? What makes your team unique?
To an 8-year old technology specialist company like Cloud Kinetics, employees are our core strength, and their experience is key. The flat org structure and family-like togetherness of the team, have been key factors in our structure.
What makes our team unique is that we have people from a wide range of backgrounds and they all bring their set of unique experiences to the table. The team can harness each other’s core competencies well. We give our employees the space to experiment and grow.
Is there any special experience with your clients you would like to highlight?
With due respect to all technology excellence that our teams display, the most memorable experiences with customers have been always related to how we supported them during a critical juncture. An experience that happened during the Covid-crisis is how the customer (a very large global infrastructure company) had a budget and social distancing severely inhibiting their key technology projects, and how we offered some out-of-the-box solutions such as establishing a delivery center in less-impact areas, in record time, and support their transition from third-party vendors to Production rollout with our team working remotely.
The range of solutions we implemented – from senior team members working weekends, to the management team rolling up their sleeves to ramp up a new office infrastructure, offered plenty for the customer to smile.
Personal Questions
Can you tell us which your favorite book is? And your favorite part of the book?
One of the books that I have liked recently is ‘Collaborate or Perish: Reaching Across Boundaries in a Networked World’ by William Bratton and Zachary Tumin. Thanks to the amazingly connected world that we live in today, collaboration has been a game-changer. It’s practical and thought-provoking and I especially liked the case studies used to explain specific approaches.
One person, who you admire the most?
I admire leaders like MLK Jr., Ho Chi Minh, and Gandhi for their passion, perseverance, and leadership.
Whose business story do you find the most inspiring?
I find Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu’s story the most inspiring in recent times. Born in the small village of Thanjavur in southern India, he has gone on to build a tech giant in an industry where he is competing with the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google. I also admire him for his empathy and for using his business acumen to bring progress to villages and villagers’ livelihoods.
Which is the most inspiring quote you have read?
If you can’t fly, then run.
If you can’t run, then walk.
If you can’t walk, then crawl.
But whatever you do, keep moving forward.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Constant vigilance- a need or a strategy? Please share your views.
Constant Vigilance is a need today. We are living in increasingly uncertain times. Global Pandemic, Natural Disasters, Data breaches, Fraud, etc. – companies need to be vigilant about the integrity and security of their data and digital assets.
It’s a rat race out there. How do you cope with that?
Healthy competition is always welcome. Competitiveness encourages innovation and progress. I have always felt motivated by the competition and the so-called “rat-race” does not stress me out a lot.