Naveen Gattu Podcast Transcript

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Headshot of Co-Founder and COO Naveen Gattu

Naveen Gattu Podcast Transcript

Naveen Gattu joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.

Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.

Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Naveen Gattu. Naveen Gattu is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of Gramener, a design led data science company. Naveen advises enterprises on data driven leadership strategies and roadmaps and is an avid speaker at industry academic forums like Open Data Conference, Startup Sundays, NASSCOM, TIE, Big data conferences.

He also advises entrepreneurs and tech founders at founders Institute, startup leadership programs, startup Sundays, et cetera. Naveen is a proud recipient of the Lufthansa pioneering spirit award.

Well, good afternoon, Naveen. Welcome to the show!

Naveen Gattu: Thank you, Brian. Pleasure to be here.

Brian Thomas: Thank you so much for making the time.

And I know you do a lot of traveling, traverse the globe, just like this podcast does. So, I appreciate you making the time. I know times aren’t always convenient, but again, glad you’re here. And Naveen, we’re going to jump right into your questions. You’ve got quite the career in technology. You’re a general manager, you’re a mentor.

Now, the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Gramener, could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?

Naveen Gattu: Wow. Yeah. As you asked the question, I realized it’s been more than 25 years in my professional career, Brian, and not that I know the secret formula, but having you ask the question where it’s at.

You didn’t look back. And see myself, what I’ve done over 25 years and what has been the attributes, which really kind of made me move up the professional ladder and also give me the push what is needed. I think the first attribute I would look at, Brian, is being open to the challenges, what come across as my way.

So, I think rather than being a closed mindset that I’m going to do this, I’m going to pursue this, but more important is look at what’s coming to your way. Look ahead where the future is moving, where the technology is shaping up. And then if you are able to latch on to it, that’s something which, when I look back, I was able to kind of, you know, pick opportunities which come across my way, evaluate and latch on to it.

That’s the first attribute I would say. Second, more important Brian, is to have a curiosity in what you’re trying to do. I was more curious, inquisitive in terms of to understand and go real deep into it, what I’m trying to do, where is it going, what’s the impact it’s making to myself, to my clients, to my people, right?

So being curious in your nature of work, I would say that’s a second key attribute, which kept me moving, which gave me the needed adrenaline and the success. And the third most important thing, which when I look back really made impact in my Grammar career and all through in my professional life has been the persistence.

I think we always tend to look at the failures and try to give up things. Things are always hard to start, but as you, you know, be persistent on it, try to push things forward, you’ll see the success, right? I think that’s something when I look back, it made a huge impact in my career when I look back. So to sum it up, it’s more open to challenges, you know, being curious in what you’re trying to do.

Brian Thomas: I love that. Thank you again for sharing and breaking that all down. That’s amazing. We like to hear how people got to where they are today, their successes and challenges. And that helps every one of us here in our audience. So, Naveen, move into the next question here. Your platform addresses the essential need for bridging the gap between data science and decision-making shrinking decision making times by 70 percent using low code AI and data platform.

Can you walk us through your process here?

Naveen Gattu: Sure. Yeah, I think. See, when we started back in 2010 and 11, Brian, we were analytics at that point was very nascent. I mean, people were talking about analytics, machine learning, AI and we started off just like any other analytics firm. We said, hey, you know, why don’t we do, you know, analytics in the energy area?

Why don’t we do analytics in the media? But as we started, you know, applying these solutions to enterprise customers. And especially working with non-technical users, primarily the business folks. What we realized is while I do good machine learning, good analytics, you know, spit out the models, spitting out the results, people have a hard time understanding data, understanding the machine learning output.

We said, why don’t we focus on this? Seems to be a sweet spot. So in fact, we kind of pivoted ourselves towards as a data consumption or a data storytelling company. which bridges the gap for analytics and enables users to make the right decisions. Essentially shrink your decision-making time by 80 percent drag.

That’s how we got started off. Now, as we started and then trying to apply these techniques of data consumption, data storytelling to analytics and position ourselves as a design led analytics firm. What we also realized is for us to scale, we’re not going to scale with people. Technology will scale the business.

So, we try to embed all our learnings into a low code platform, simply putting it in a way that, think about this low code as a set of Lego blocks. So, I have a set of Lego blocks or components embedded in the platform. And tomorrow, if I need to build an XYZ application, example, if I need to build a cyber analytics application, taking in data from 10 different sources, performing analytics, spitting in an output to a see saw.

So, what I do specifically, Brian, here is I go to my platform, pick up 10 Lego blocks, assemble them towards the right solution very quickly with a very minimal code. And then build out a solution. So net output, if I’m writing 10, 000 lines of code of an application, pretty much 80 to 90 percent of it comes through components and the new lines of code is going to be additional 10%.

That scales up analytics much faster in enterprises and enterprises would be able to build solutions or applications much faster, better and able to take it to the market. And That’s what we do. I mean, primarily simplifying decision, you know, data for effective decision making. And more important, accelerate the process of building the safe.

Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate you breaking that down. And we’ve had quite a bit of discussions on this topic of low code being implemented more and more in people’s environment. It obviously allows for a lot of benefits, efficiencies to scale faster, as you mentioned. So, I appreciate you breaking that down for us.

That’s. That’s really, really cool. We like to get into the tech part of this. And Naveen, there is a lot of buzz around Straive’s acquisition of Gramener. Could you tell us what added value this brings for all your customers?

Naveen Gattu: Yeah, I’m super excited, Brian with this acquisition because it gives us a required scale and then the push for us to kind of take our solutions closer to our clients.

Now, as you would know, Straive is part of Behring’s Private Equity, VPA Equity Partners, one of the third largest private equity. So, definitely gets us access to the market, access to the resources, and scale much faster, but more important to our clients. If you look at this, Brian, you know, we’ve been operating onto the right-hand spectrum of the data landscape.

What that means is we are heavier on the advanced analytics, data visualization, AI, few of the solutions. Over a period of time, over the last 10 years, the market, I would say, analytics market has been commoditized. There’s been increased need from enterprises and, uh, enterprise CIOs or CDOs are looking for one partner to help them out.

I just don’t need a guy doing data warehousing, a person doing data management, another vendor doing advanced analytics. So, they want one partner or vendor to work with them. Right from data acquisition to data visualization or A. I. Or Jenny, I right now in this process, as we’re looking at trying to look at synergistic partners, we were looking at someone who is more aligned towards the left-hand spectrum of data, which is more heavy on data acquisition, data management so that you know, we’re able to complement with our skills.

And go to our customers as one data partner that we would be the one partner who would be able to help you in this entire data landscape. That’s number one. Number two, which strive, they have access to strong domain competencies. So in the organization, we have close to 600 odd PhDs in science, you know, working with pharma and life sciences.

So that helps quite a bit. And third, the scale, that is the people aspect of it. So, all the AI is becoming today, the human in the loop kind of an approach. So as a granular client, our clients get access to scale in terms of people, domain. And we being one partner for the data and that’s, we’re seeing the results, you know, flowing seamlessly to us over the last couple of weeks now.

Brian Thomas: Thank you. And there’s been quite a bit of buzz and press around the Strive acquisition. And I really do like the fact that you’re offering so much more now in, in your entire platform in those different areas that you did speak to. And we’re just really excited about that. And I’m sure your customers are as well.

So, thank you. Naveen, you’re obviously leveraging some new and emerging tech in your business and your tech stack. We talked a little bit about it, but is there anything you might be able to share with us today?

Naveen Gattu: Yeah. Can there be not any podcast without having a Gen AI, Brian? So that’s the buzz now. I think no matter, I mean, I get on a lot of client calls, eight out of 10 client calls, we talk about Gen AI and When I really look back of all the emerging technology, this is one technology which is revolutionizing quite a bit.

I mean, you know, me and my co-founder, we talk very often, Brian, on this, what we believe is what the Google or the search has did to their industry. I think that is what Gen AI is doing for the industry right now, revolutionizing quite a bit of fields. And two I think the impact it’s going to have is going to be, I can’t describe in words, but it’s going to be huge over next at least five to six years, Brian.

And then this is where we are seeing and advising a lot of our clients. Today, there’s a lot of talk, but minimal application. But I was surprised to see that we ourselves have implemented good, at least, I would say, four to five production applications over the last three months. That’s how quick the Gen AI is.

The LLM models application applying towards marketing content at the thing, you know, especially extracting any wiki-based content. So, this is 1 thing which I’m super excited about prime and loud to speak more about Jenny. So, in my view, I think this is going to revolutionize industry.

Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And yes, there’s been a huge buzz. I think every podcast, no matter who the guest is, we talk about conversational AI or generative AI, and it’s just been amazing. And there’s so many applications that have sprung out because of this and their ability to leverage some of the conversational AI that’s developed, whether it’s through open AI or other.

Platform. So, thank you so much. And Naveen, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.

Naveen Gattu: Thank you, Brian. Thanks for your time.

Brian Thomas: Bye for now.

Naveen Gattu Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.

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