Devi Kondapi: Accelerating the Digital Transformation Journey of an Enterprise with Cutting Edge Solutions

MSR Group is a multinational conglomerate headquartered in the US with several subsidiaries under its fold. As a parent company, it focuses mainly on IT services & solutions while allowing equal autonomy to its group companies to operate in Life Sciences (validations and IT), and emerging technologies.

Started as a consulting services company more than a decade ago, it evolved to become an Enterprise services company delivering a whole range of solutions and services to enterprise clients. MSR Group forges partnerships with technology pioneers such as SAP, Microsoft., Google, AWS, Cloudera, etc., to pursue new business models and revenue streams.

MSRcosmos, a subsidiary of MSR Group, is a digital transformation partner for global enterprises providing a wide range of IT products, solutions, and services. With a global network of strategic partners and extensive expertise in Cloud, Data/AI, Applications and Automation, the company's products, services, and solutions help clients transform their businesses. MSRcosmos shapes the customers' future by delivering on the promises and ultimately returning value to the society. Headquartered in the US, MSRcosmos has a strong presence in the US, India, and Australia.

A Visionary Leader

Devi Kondapi is the CEO of MSRcosmos. She is an IT graduate from Andhra University, with a motive to lead from the front and create job opportunities for sustaining families. Devi has a decade-and-a-half of international experience and association with world-class professional services organizations. Through her vision, leadership, extensive technical and varied domain experience, and relentless drive for adoption of the latest technologies, the company delivers top-quality solutions and measurable business value to the clients.

She has a strong background in technology complemented with a futuristic mindset, to perceive the importance of technology like SAP. An ERP that created liaison between the business world and technological world, when it reemerged in the market with a new suite of offerings in the early 2000s. Devi took the unconventional path of choosing SAP, to learn the business and technology, despite it being a new and emerging field.

She started her American journey as an H1B employee. Through the right exposure and several opportunities, Devi began taking on initiatives to enhance her expertise in services and deal with challenges that came her way. She maneuvered through the difficulties which gave her the confidence to think big and envision the future by not settling for less.

Devi's association with companies like AT&T, Accenture and SAP prompted her to learn and explore more while seizing new opportunities. This experience gave her the idea of creating her own product/service line. Toward this goal, she worked in various departments within the corporations, handling a wide variety of customers across diverse geographies, and became the bridge between the technology and the customer teams. This approach strengthened the customers' capabilities, solved their biggest pain points and established her reputation for grit and innovative thinker. Devi's thought leadership led her to new opportunities implementing cloud hosting services, learning about project management, and methodically presenting and winning service business.

Devi obtained the WBENC certification as a women-owned business as she joined MSRcosmos. She assembled offshore and US teams by hiring people with the right skill sets and proven experience.

At MSRcosmos, Devi established the company's product line, service offerings, and has leveraged a flexible offshore delivery model. Using this offshore delivery model akin to many of the software giants, enabled Devi to work on internal development and achieve project success.

Understanding that industry partnerships are critical to small businesses, Devi invested in Big Data/Analytics by establishing key partnerships with Hortonworks and Cloudera; earning the silver partner recognition for MSRcosmos. Under her leadership, the Company is recognized as the 100 most promising Big Data companies in 2015 by the CIO Review magazine and also received ISO, ISMS, and CMMI level-3 certification. These achievements helped gain customer trust and momentum. Within a few years, the Company became recognized for its expertise in Big Data/Analytics as well as in the surrounding technologies like AI and RPA. Under Devi's leadership, the company proudly served over 500 customers over the last 10 years

Deploying Strategy to Overcome Challenges

Devi viewed providing pure services and staffing offering may not benefit a mid-level enterprise to gain/retain clients. She realized MSRcosmos was relying on the expertise of the veterans and its skilled team to acquire projects while facing stiff competition against top multinational corporations. However, this did not deter Devi. She went on to reinforce the Company's offerings by building the required skillsets in compliance with the emerging technologies and worked on the onsite-offshore model to provide a flexible and cost-effective sourcing approach for international projects.

Leveraging Emerging Technologies to Drive Innovation

Devi firmly believes that all the products and solutions should focus on the 'value' delivered for the positive business outcome of the users and impactfulness of the stakeholders. More so, every line of code should be effective and be measured to access the speed through which the clients can launch new solutions in the market. The code or application should improve the customer experience with a new look & seamless backend integrations.

Another fundamental philosophy regards innovation. Devi believes a delivery model should foster a culture of innovation that aids in co-innovation, co-investment and collaboration. This business approach of co-innovation includes joint IP, sharing in revenue/profit and zero-cost development. Co-investment fosters acquiring new businesses and/or growing existing ones with the proposition to share in revenue and equity positions. The collaboration includes joint go-to-market planning & execution, with a dedicated focus on targeted account base, project /services outsourcing model and fixed bid projects.

Disruptive Technologies at the Forefront to Drive Positive Outcomes

Devi works with skilled colleagues who are creating viable solutions based on disruptive/emerging technologies like Blockchain, AI, IoT, RPA, Cloud, Big Data. She asserts that multiple technologies solve a customer's challenge, and prompt leaders to create maximum value by aligning human ingenuity with the current digital workforce. These emerging technologies will strongly influence and impact the role of a leader. Advanced technologies are critical to achieving companies goals and dreams.

Attributes of a Transformational Leader

Devi's leadership attributes are simply conveyed in the acronym, E-GRIT. The combination of Empathy, with a Growth mentality combined with a culture of Resilience, Innovation and Talent. Transforming businesses to new levels requires this combination that spans leadership traits to personnel talent. Lastly, the leader's ethics, commitment to fairness and delivering on one's promise is core to success.

"Success is always outside the comfort zone. Irrespective of the magnitude of an opportunity, the goal is to serve with full diligence without neglect and deliver it grandly. It is important to empathize with customers, truly listen to their issues and understand their dreams," adds Devi.

Devi trusts in God and believes that a higher power is providing help to guide in the life's journey. Having a loyal team sharing mutual respect enables a leader to reflect and realize their thoughts and ideas easily. Devi views that a balance of both organic and inorganic growth, aids to boost the revenues and the overall growth of the Company. Under her leadership, Devi acquired several companies that complimented MSR's service offerings and strengthened employee base and skillsets. This step also gave scope to geographic expansion, increased customer base, and increased offerings.

"Every leader should lead by example. Be the person they want to be and do the right things. ", advises Devi.

She says that people watch and follow what a leader does and not what they say. More than the personal benefit, the leaders must think about ways to create more employment opportunities and ultimately serve the society.

Unveiling the Future

Devi aims to make MSRcosmos a billion-dollar company in valuation in the next five years. She wants to create enough job opportunities and non-profit investment for India and America.

She is passionate about making technology seamless for the business people in order to help them with a smooth digital transformation without having to bother or worry about technical innovations and trends.

"The IT industry in the future will see a significant tilt towards these contemporary developments such as BlockChain, AI, IoT, RPA, Cloud, and Big Data, amongst others. The future will shift towards full or partial automation and will be enriching for those who want to build a career in IT, and are ready to reskill their technical and functional skill with a short learning cycle," she asserts.

Words of Advice to Young Leaders

Devi says innovation is part of the MSRcosmos' DNA. The Company thrives on technology and pushes the limits. They use technology to enable their customers', partners' and employees' dreams

She has advice on 5 attributes for every successful company and leader. They are:

1. Stand by your Word – your word is your reputation. When you commit or make a promise, ensure you deliver.

2. Dream Big – at every level you should dream big, think big and always be curious.

3. Trust through Transparency – we earn trust honesty, integrity and candor.

4. Make it Matter – you have an opportunity to make a difference in the world. Whatever you do, make it matter to you, your family and your community.

5. Win as a Team – be accountable to yourself and each other. Celebrate diversity and share the success.