Zinnov Podcast

In this episode of the Zinnov Podcast – Business Resilience series, Rick Crandall, a technology stalwart and author of the book, ‘The Dog Who Took Me Up A Mountain,’ talks about why the leadership model of passion with purpose is key for effective leadership. Rick, after a stellar career in technology, found an unlikely partner in a dog who made him discover a new passion for mountaineering and gave him a renewed sense of purpose. At the age of 64, he started pursuing something that most thought was impossible – he scaled all 58 of 14,000 ft mountains in the Rockies. Rick shares with us his experiences – both business and mountaineering – and explains how ‘WILL’ trumps ‘SKILL,’ how partnerships are important, and how any problem, however complex, is not insurmountable if one has passion and purpose. This is especially relevant in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business environment, where organizations and leaders are striving to stay ahead and keep their eye on the metaphorical summit.

In part 1 of the podcast, Praveen Bhadada, Managing Partner, Zinnov and Sameer Garde, President of Cisco India and SAARC discuss the state of Small Medium Businesses (SMBs) in the wake of COVID-19 and how technology is playing a key role in helping SMBs combat the COVID crisis. In the second part of the podcast, they discuss the role of government and technology companies in keeping the SMB sector afloat.

COVID-19 has affected millions of Small Medium Businesses (SMBs). Many of these SMBs are fighting for survival as they face severe liquidity crunch, supply chain issues, and unavailability of workers. In this podcast, Praveen Bhadada, Managing Partner, Zinnov and Sameer Garde, President of Cisco India and SAARC discuss at length on how the current pandemic has impacted the overall SMB sector, how SMBs are fighting back, and what role is technology and different ecosystem players can play to help SMBs chart a course of recovery.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted every industry, every vertical, especially Travel, Hospitality, Gaming & Casinos, Airlines. It has compelled companies across the globe to go into survival mode, with little or no room for error. As companies evaluate their costs, they have been forced to make difficult decisions like furloughs and lay-offs. In this episode of Zinnov Podcast, Nilesh Thakker, Managing Partner and Global Head of Zinnov’s Engineering Excellence Practice, shares his insights on how companies can take a hard look at their budgets to optimize costs and achieve up to 20% savings on their bottom line.

In this episode of the Zinnov Podcast, Roopa Unnikrishnan, Head of Strategy at HARMAN and Award-winning author shares her leadership experiences with Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov. Roopa and Pari discuss how internal and external jolts (like COVID) force leaders to rethink their fundamentals. Roopa, who first came up with the idea of ‘Jolts’ in her book ‘The Career Catapult’ shares anecdotes on how these inflection points make leaders find and practice courage that allow them to be effective when there are many variables and unknowns. Through the conversation, Roopa and Pari discuss the types of leaderships that exist and how the path of resilience lies effectively on the shoulders of those leaders that can strike a balance between business and humanity, and can stay authentic while they continually reinvent themselves.

While the healthcare sector has been at the forefront of this crisis, Telemedicine has emerged as a silent hero that is making a difference every day by helping people stay home and stay healthy. In this episode of the Zinnov Podcast, Kali Durgampudi, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at Greenway Health shares his insights on how Telemedicine services have evolved in this current crisis and how we will continue to see the long term effects of this evolution even in a post-COVID era.

Tune in to the first episode of our Business Resilience series where Sivaram S, Head, Zinnov Zones shares key insights on what lies ahead for the Automotive Industry.