Parag Shah of Trilogy NextGen On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

When I was heading to college looking to study electrical engineering, a friend of our family told me to look into an up-and-coming technology — wireless communications. Those words led to an introduction to Ericsson, a Swedish wireless technology leader that was establishing its wireless presence in the U.S. at the time.

An internship led to my first major job and began my journey into the world of business. With the opportunity to catch a wave that was just forming, I was able to do so many things in many different areas that exposed me to how the parts of the business are put together and how processes interwork across many departments, from sales to engineering to finance.

Those early days defined my curiosity into how things work and ignited a passion for learning and developing which I continue to focus on today.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

It’s fair to say I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes. When you’re young and put into positions of leadership early, you think you know it all. That level of over-confidence and approach led to a lot of future self-reflection which helped define more of who I am today. The biggest takeaways from those days focus on:

• Be Yourself — know your strengths and weaknesses and let your authenticity shine.
• Everyone Has a Voice — discussions and debates drive more informed decisions and outcomes.
• Inspect What You Expect — Results don’t just come, work to ensure things move and progress to get the right outcome.
• Culture Trumps Talent — Build a diverse team that complements each other and you.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

During the beginning of my career, I had to give my first big technical presentation to a large customer. The VP and my manager at the time wanted to have a dry run practice so we would be prepared.

In those days, the presentations were done with overhead slides. I got up to present and ended up passing out since I was so nervous, knocking the slides off the overhead.

My manager and the VP took me to the side, told me they had faith in me and not to let this get to me.

I ended up giving the customer presentation which went very well. My manager took the time to take me under his wing, gave me more and more opportunities to demonstrate my capabilities, and taught me how to be a better version of myself. I owe a lot to his guidance and support, not only then but now as well.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

It might sound odd, but one of the authors that influenced me a lot was Tom Clancy — I love all his books in the Jack Ryan series. In reading those books there were a lot of takeaways for me that have helped me in the business world.

• Assess the situation around you to know what you can and can’t do.
• Take in information from many sources and synthesize the data to make the best decision you can at the time.
• Don’t be afraid to raise your hand and make points, including the good, bad, or ugly.
• Ultimately, you sometimes have to go with your gut no matter how many people say it’s never going to work.

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

I think the best part of my job is to see how we bring all that we are working on to benefit people in many different markets and make the world a safer and better place. Currently, we have projects ongoing in the education, warehousing and industrial markets, as well as with smart cities.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. Digital transformation can mean many things to many people, from your perspective, how do you define digital transformation in your industry?

To me digital transformation is all about reimagining the way we work and perform our functions. By leveraging new technologies and systems to realign business processes, we can make things more efficient, improve the customer experience, and provide simpler, more accurate and faster outputs across nearly any enterprise.

Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?

All companies can benefit by going “digital.”

One lesson from the Covid pandemic is that we need to think differently about how to accomplish our business, in order to better manage issues which may interrupt business continuity. That only happens by leveraging all things digital to enable businesses to operate even in the worst of times.

For example:

Security Industry — The ability to leverage robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) allows enterprises to more quickly and accurately identify and assess threats, while also providing levels of deterrents to prevent bad actors from doing bad things.

Warehousing and Logistics — Integrating new digital technologies, software and solutions like robotics means tasks can be performed more efficiently, enabling more outputs, and optimizes asset tracking to strengthen the supply chain.

Smart Cities — Digital transformation provides more connectivity and security to help citizens feel safer, and also gives them better ways to interact and manage their different services.

Banking — Banking and financial services markets can better manage the conversions from cash to credit while leveraging new capabilities brought about by mobile banking.

Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?

I think all companies have some level of challenges with digital transformation. Anytime you introduce new technologies and changes to business processes there will be impacts to people, departments and ultimately the culture of a company.

Bringing in consultants and system integration companies such as ours helps to retrain employees to better enable technology and take advantage of the new capabilities that result from digital transformation. It also helps to hasten the timelines and drive accountability to ensure success.

Here are some best practices we use to help enterprises implement digital transformation:

• Know your goals and expected outcomes.
• Prepare the organization for what’s coming and how employees and customers will benefit.
• Track your technology roadmap to align with success and determine best path to implementation.
• Measure your outcomes to provide data and analytics to the program.
• Get feedback to make sure it’s doing what you want to help the business.