Digital Transformation – Brass Tacks: Interview with Dharmesh Godha, President Advaiya

Marketing Darwinism:  Dharmesh you’ve been on our pages before, welcome back.  Tells us about the progress at Advaiya.

Dharmesh: Thanks Paul.  2020 has been a year of massive amplitudes.  In society, there are many people who are suffering and have lost loves ones and jobs. In the business world, companies of all sizes have been jolted into a new state of being; many have realized that all of the earlier talk about sustainability, disaster recovery, and- frankly- agility was real.  Black swan events happen and will happen and companies need the digital infrastructure and a corresponding culture to manage through them.  We’ve been very fortunate to be able to help a variety of organizations through this process this year.

Marketing Darwinism:  Can you give us more specifics? Can we move away from “Digital Transformation” as a one-size fits all approach?

Dharmesh:  We agree.  The details and nuances are the nub of the matter.  We believe very strongly in a vertical contextuality not just a patina of “understanding” that is really in practice superficial.  I can’t help a Financial Services company create a digital backbone if I don’t understand its customers, its regulatory environment, and the changing landscape in the space.  Similarly, we’ve seen the healthcare system buckle under lack of capacity because earlier consultants thought of them as “any old” industry and convinced them to be “just in time.” In reality, they are a social service that requires a peak load view not a base load view.  These snapshots of vertical insight differentiate us often.

Marketing Darwinism:  In a WFH or now Work-From-Anywhere context, how do organizations need to think about digitization?

Dharmesh:  We have believed in WFA and SFA (Source from Anywhere) for a long time.  We have understood that the best talent for the job can be found anywhere and that our customers themselves are not fixed in time and space.  We believe that in a WFH and WFA context, the “silicon” isn’t the full solution- people and culture are a big part of the equation.  Technology infrastructure and applications need to enable them to uncover new scenarios and act on them.  That is the heart of real innovation and progress.

Marketing Darwinism:  How is Advaiya’s growth orientation?

Dharmesh:  Over the last 5 years, we’ve had a continuous, secular growth trajectory.  Q2 of this year was a hiccup as we all adjusted to the new reality of Covid.  But as companies sought change and wisdom and frankly help in Q3, we’ve seen our growth return.  Right now, we are focused purely on customers and partnerships; growth will persist if we maintain that focus.

Marketing Darwinism:  You work a lot in aiding marketing organizations.  How is that going?

Dharmesh:  In our incarnation as an agency- for content, digital assets, analytics, visualization of data, and so on, we attempt to be an organic part of the teams we support.  Marketing teams have been wonderful to work with- at times we are simply a human-being extension and at times we are developing markets together.  None of our offerings are atomic- they all connect to a larger marketing reality.

Marketing Darwinism:  What’s next?

Dharmesh:  We have a lot planned for 2021. We are continuing our big push with applications and infrastructure but also with our “last mile” customer work.  As we grow in both North America and Asia, we’ve been able to bring on some exceptional talent.  As with everything, they’ll help us define what is next!