The progress and economic development of a region depend upon numerous factors like government policies, industrial development, education, transportation with connectivity, and staunch business personalities. The role of independent businessmen plays a pivotal role in boosting the local economy.

Entrepreneurs who run their business ventures create the need for numerous vendors and suppliers, offer employment opportunities to scores of people, contribute to sizeable tax payments, and offer different solutions through their business offerings. Some entrepreneurs work with a clear vision and a strong purpose of bringing positive change to society.

One name that comes up for developing a successful and meaningful business model, that focuses on empowering and enriching other organizations through its technology solutions is Imad Syed, CEO Middle East and APAC, CIO and Board member of PiLog Group.

Let’s meet Imad Syed, a dynamic entrepreneur who has been selected as ‘The Entrepreneur of the Year 2022,’ and let’s explore his interesting professional journey of challenges, strategies, and the vision-oriented work culture he created in PiLog Group.

With a Flying Start

Imad Syed holds prosperous eighteen-plus years of progressive career growth, beginning from Sr. Systems Engineer to today’s CEO of the Middle East and APAC, Group CIO, and Board Member at PiLog with overall experience spanning over Twenty years speaks volumes of his dedication.

He successfully led organizational initiatives from the front towards all value-management initiatives for PiLog group development and its esteem customers in go-to-market, revenue management, innovations, profitability, product development, and corporate advisory.

Imad is a visionary leader with vast experience in conceiving and designing business, enterprise information, and Data Quality HUB strategies for medium to large enterprises. His expertise in creating simple yet powerful policies for data governance, management, transformation, and analytics of complex system landscapes is empowering organizations.

Imad holds a proven track record of excelling in operational efficiency and effectiveness; revolutionized product and solution development using innovative frameworks that are agile and sustainable from the perspective of futuristic technology evolutions.

His focus has always been on developing and executing business strategies, be it for Go To Market (GTM), product management, or operational management, coupled with deep and diversified value-engineering solutions have been core strengths over the years.

Having a strong passion to nurture, create and lead high-performance teams resulting in best of both worlds in the form of customer and employee experience is the principle he believes, in and has proven several times. He conceived, designed, and built the architecture of enterprise solutions with state-of-the-art futuristic technologies, Cloud-based content micro-services (web services) with subscription models.

Imad thoughtfully crafted the structure of data lifecycle management processes, including iDataAcquisition, iDataHarmonization, iDataGovernance and iDataAnalytics for on-premises and on-cloud enterprise solutions that can be integrated on-demand across various platforms and operational systems.

An Awe-Inspiring Aura

Imad is looked up to as an inspiring innovator and an influential, forward-thinking Leader. Undoubtedly, the PiLog leadership team of Dr Salomon de Jager, Mr Gideon Huisamen, and Mr Pieter Strydom had an essential contribution in complementing each other’s capabilities from time to time. PiLog Group’s open-door policy and culture for change have helped budding talents to perform and take up leadership roles within a short span. Its leadership always believed in change for the good, influencing and promoting innovations.

The company has developed a cohesive culture of harmony, decentralized governance, zero roadblocks for change, ability to prove and improve every day. Imad is passionate about technology changes and adoption as he is aware of the early bird advantages. He aims to build business-driven technology through professional excellence with his deep love for data-knowledge management, motivating employees to build a strong and long-lasting customer association.

Mission and Goals had been very simple for Imad, with his motive to make organizations efficient and structured to meet dynamic business and technology demand with top and bottom line improvement by a minimum of 20 per cent YoY and Revenue to 200 MUSD by 2024 and 500 MUSD by 2030. Imad’s ability to build high-performing teams and products to endure market penetration and customer success is the employees’ and associates’ most significant motivational factor.

Rising and Growing Holistically

Established in 1996, PiLog has grown organically and inorganically across with a global presence to dominate the master data solution with the development of intrinsic products, enablers, tools, and accelerators with due application of agile service delivery models ensured customer success and retention over decades.

Customers earn value management with the continual improvement of efficiencies and resources, and an overall reduction in the total cost of ownership is its crucial motto. PiLog intends to grow on a value journey with innovative products and improved time to market; agile service delivery improving per capita revenue generation.

Solutions for enabled business value, process management and control through the robust master, meta and analytical control to drive business process digitalization and Transformation.

PiLog value theme for customers in the Year 2021:

• End-to-End Supply Chain Optimization
• Optimization of Asset Life Cycle Management
• Business partnership Evolution
• Robotic Process Automation
• Application & Technology Consolidation and Data Migration

PiLog’s Advantage

PiLog provides exclusive technical dictionaries and industrial libraries with content repositories that are the culmination of research, development, and execution over the past twenty years embedded into the PiLog Data Quality HUB platform. All our methodologies, processes, and solutions comply with international standards for delivering seamless systematic integration of content into various platforms such as SAP, S4 HANA, Oracle ERP Cloud, Maximo, MS Dynamics, and many more.

PiLog’s Key Products:

Data Quality HUB including Data Harmonization, Data Migration, and Governance Solution for multi-domain master and metadata objects with impactful tools of Industry Standards (repository, templates), ML and AI-driven and IoT enabled

• Business Partner Life Cycle Management (Vendors and Customers)
• Business Performance Analytics Platform (Spend and Inventory Visibility)
• Fixed Asset and eSPIR software
• Master Data and Process Maturity Assessment Software Add On (ECA, MCA, SCMA, ALCMA)

Key Services:

• Cleansing Services covering Cleanse, Standardization, Categorization and Enrichment of multi-domain master data
• Management Consulting
• Business Process Outsourcing (AR/AP, Data Management, S2P, Category Management)
• Asset and Supply Chain Process Optimization
• Master Data and Process Maturity Assessment Software Add On (ECA, MCA, SCMA, ALCMA)

The competitive advantages offered through the dynamic products and services are

• Wider market penetration (Geography, Verticals, Products and Services)
• Stronger financial ability
• Higher professional count across geography
• More aggressive GTM strategies
• Faster time to market
• More investment in technology, innovation, and reskilling

The Technological Edge

Current and near future market conditions will be cautious, with more and more organizations looking at opportunities to consolidate and optimize business and IT processes and investments. Though it is murky for IT products and services companies to sustain innovation, automation and the right vision will enable the IT products, consulting, and services industry to blossom…

PiLog focuses on Data such as Master, Meta, and real-time analytics optimization and, in turn, business processes that the large industries the most on the four M’s (Man, Machine, Money, and Material) for Extended Supply Chain and Asset Life Cycle Management.

Meeting and Succeeding Challenges

Imad elaborated on the challenges faced and how he identified and worked out some interesting and feasible solutions with the team.

Key Challenges and Effective Management:

• Market Penetration across Geographies and Industry Sectors was one of the major challenges, which was well addressed with revised geographical strategies and effective partnership management
• Retention of knowledge base was managed effectively with a career development plan; equal opportunities to progress and profit-sharing models
• Adoption of evolving technologies and synchronization of platforms to meet dynamic customer demand and huge competition was forward thinking product release plans and improved customer user experience and limited change management
• Business plans with short-term to long-term longevity and sustainability had helped the business to sustain in both favourable and unfavourable market conditions, including that of the recent COVID 19 pandemic
• Transformation of employees and customer relations to experience better communication, coordination, and customer satisfaction.

Valuable Directions

Imad’s two cents for budding entrepreneurs is to follow simple commandments of business evolution:

• Transparent, passionate, and vision-based organization management
• Be front runner in adoption and Go to Market
• Having the right set of business partners for your organizational growth
• Challenges and problems will make you stronger to sustain and progress
• Define and effectively manage value for internal and external engagements
• Continual Investment in Innovations
• Create a value chain within the organization for a better experience

Poised For a Dynamic Future

PiLog’s short to mid and long-term business plan is derived with controlled aggression and the ability to effectively manage quarterly meeting organizational objectives:

• Improved profitability with increased automation, PCBs, and per capita income
• Top Line and Bottom-Line improvement above market derivations and expectations
• Increase market penetration across geographies with a strong partnership, analyst collaboration, and beefing up digital marketing and sales management
• Extend the service line and amalgamation of products to Data Quality HUB with modular availability to customers to pick and choose on-premises or on cloud
• Focused Investment on Innovation Council

Inspiring Entrepreneur Attributes

PiLog recommendations and acceptance are always built on a consensus model with all stakeholders with the approach which is mainly accepted:

• Best Practices for Recommendation with trackability and authentication with data.
• Tailor-made recommendations contextualized to organizational demands and situational analysis.
• Value-driven Road-mapping

PiLog believes in partnership for the successful implementation of its products and services by engaging customers SMEs, and stakeholders:

• Joint PMO
• SMEs or core teams during the whole course of the engagement
• Change management enablers
• Drive end-user training and testing
• Measurement of outcome and value during execution and post-execution.

Reflections of Success

It is simple for employees, investors and partners, customers, and stakeholders to choose PiLog as their Partner of Choice. The work culture of PiLog has been so well synchronized that it has a profound effect on every single entity attached to it. Happy and satisfied customers, enthusiastic employees, a positive brand image, and steadily growing industry goodwill have all stood testimony to the dynamism of the PiLog work culture.

• Employee Welfare and Society Wellbeing First Policy.
• Focus on deriving value for investment.
• A strong advocate of Win – Win Model to endure Sustainable Partnership and growth.
• Faster time to market with Cross Industry Innovative and Modular Products (Both on cloud and on-premises) on PiLog Data Quality HUB built on the latest and greatest technology.
• Agile delivery with 100% compliance to SLAs, OLAs etc.
• Standard like ISO 8000, ISO 22745, ISO 11179, ISO 29002, and IEC 60050 (IEV), ISO 45000, ISO 55000, KKS, UNSPSC, ISIC, NATO etc., imbibed in products and services.
• Development and Innovation partnership with major ERP players like SAP and Oracle.
• Large customer base across industries with extended partnerships with industry giants for a decade or more.
• Winner of Gartner MDM Voice of Customer Choice Award for the Year 2022
• Best Idea Award in Supply Chain Optimization from Crain Energy India – Vedanta Group for the Year 2020
• Recognition in the Gartner Magic Quadrant as Niche Player for the last 2 Years in MDM Solutions
• Champion in the Emotional Footprint Report and Leader in the Data Quadrant in Infotech Software Reviews