Nikhil Kothari is the Executive Director and Board Member at Intertec Systems. He is an inspirational leader and entrepreneur who has been passionate about business strategies, the digital world, and technology from quite a young age.
Intertec Systems is a technology services specialist in Digital, Cloud, Security, Business Applications, and Managed Services. It was founded in 1991 by Naresh Kothari, father of Nikhil Kothari.
Till now, the company has been evolving and expanding. They have more than 700 employees in 5 different companies and have exceptional delivery capabilities. You can follow them on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
Nikhil Kothari has over 24 years of experience working in the UAE, the UK, and India. We were impressed by how Nikhil had started taking an interest in his professional sphere at such a young age.
Learn more about Nikhil Kothari and Intertec Systems through the interview below.
Explain the background of you and the company in detail:
I am an MBA from Manchester Business School, and I completed my Engineering in Information Technology and succeeded in becoming a Software Engineer. Throughout my career, I have attended various certificate programs with Harvard Business School, IIMB, Grid International, and Toastmasters.
Since a very young age, I have been passionate about business strategy along with the digital and technological aspects. In the past 24 years, I’ve worked in markets such as the UAE, the UK, and India, which resulted in my expertise and career growth, as my experience ranged from developing local businesses, strategy, consulting, and marketing across geographies.
At Intertec, I focus on a wide range of strategic initiatives, digital business, and marketing. Over the years, I have matured our branding, software capabilities, country businesses, and industry strategies, to name a few. We are deepening our capabilities in Government, Financial Services, Retail, Healthcare, Utilities, and Manufacturing. This allows expanding our business beyond the Middle East & India to the West.
My father, Naresh Kothari, established Intertec Systems when there were barely any IT companies in the region. Even today, he is well-known in the industry for his foresight, bold decisions, and as a hard-working individual who built this organization from 3 employees back in 1991.
As a growing organization, Intertec Systems has unique capabilities as a regional option to global giants across digital, cloud, security & managed services. We have been deeply invested in internal capabilities so that we can offer higher commitment, responsiveness, and flexibility to our customers. Furthermore, We also hold strong beliefs at the Board on gender equality and giving back to society.
We locally operate 2 Network Operating Centers (NOC), a Security Operating Center (SOC), and a Software Development Center. This is amongst some of the calculative investments we have made to bring localized capabilities to our customers.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of yourself/your company right now?
Intertec Systems has a breadth of services with deeper internal delivery capabilities than most of our competitors. This allows our customers to gain a stronger commitment from Intertec Systems.
Due to specific initiatives and hard work, we manage to have market credibility to back complex and large programs and have successfully delivered $10M+ programs within 5 years. The organization has developed various IPs and accelerators to serve different industry cases to help customers accelerate their time in the market.
What was the path you/your company took to get to where you are today?
We, as a team, built solid industry-leading partnerships and technical capabilities to provide services to our customers. Further, we have not been shy about investing at an early stage in our capabilities, such as NOC and Development Centers. Developing the organization’s reputation for keeping commitments to its partners and customers was the backbone of its growth.
We have also made successful and failed attempts to bring niche technology companies to market early. For example, the companies we brought 20 years ago into the region today have successfully been acquired by Ivanti, Hexagon, Enghouse, etc. So, we enjoy the larger capability and mindshare.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have come across various challenges and risk-taking decisions, such as building a mid-management team that needed the capabilities to execute the organization’s vision and strategic direction, as well as digesting unplanned investments while undergoing larger programs. Managing fixed costs and software project budgets in an environment where customers do not like to accept change requests requires planning and alignment.
This was a learning period that became successful.
To conclude, these past and ongoing challenges have improved mine as well as Intertec’s capabilities and skills, which have made and will continue to make us successful.
Give us one word that describes you the best.
Creative.
What is the best way to build a great team?
I believe the best way to build a great team is by instilling a sense of purpose, sharing a common vision, and contributing to the organization’s short and long-term goals. Developing a joint strategy and a sense of ownership by fostering transparency is essential.
As a leader, it is also important to continuously communicate and engage the team in all actions, create openness, and fulfill your team members’ specific requirements. Developing a positive work environment and culture results in success.
Tell us about a project that forced you to be innovative and creative.
Intertec Systems’ digital line of the business has been working on process automation and application development for over a decade. However, I remember that 5 years ago, Intertec Systems provided an innovative digital government project that overshot the budget. In this situation, the big learning was the user experience expectations compared to our usual typical process automation projects. This situation gave birth to what we have now as a digital practice. We serve digitalized governments and enterprises to create superior experiences while maximizing efficiency.
To bridge the gap, Intertec Systems started developing in-house UX capabilities to work closely with process re-engineering teams, which resulted in delivering a superior customer experience. Our focus in these projects shifted from a project delivered to IT to being business-centric and customer-centric.
We eventually helped this customer drive revenue growth from 100+ digital services to their end customers, compared to 10-12 services before the initiative. This resulted in increased adoption, access to 10-fold more digital services, and satisfaction levels.
Today, we have succeeded in digital projects for utilities, healthcare, free zones, and Enterprises. We have successfully transformed their maturity curve and level of services delivered to their customers.
What are the strategies of your company, and how do they stand unique from your competitors?
The first strategy would be internal delivery capabilities. Unlike many other firms that subcontract work outside of core infrastructure, Intertec Systems has wholly enabled itself to deliver services with internal capabilities. This internal delivery capability has helped us provide our customers with better value, commitment, and flexibility.
The second would be managed services. Due to our internal NOC, SOC, and Software development facilities with high certifications, we have been a choice over global SI’s with a local flavor. We can build, sustain and scale easily with our customers.
What are the key values that helped you overcome the roadblocks/challenges in your career? Tell us something about your memorable incident in your leadership?
I would state our Founder & Managing Director, Naresh Kothari’s statement in terms of key values. He consistently exemplifies that “there is nothing above ethics, reputation, and commitment as guiding principles. In addition, we must be willing to take risks and invest at an early stage”.
Whenever we undergo challenging projects, this guiding principle makes it easier for us as a team to prioritize customer success over our financial objectives. We have always done what it takes to ensure a project is successful beyond a contract line.
Where is your leadership going? What benefits do your clients get from your company in this competitive world?
I think the previous statement answers this question mainly in terms of the benefits we provide to our customers compared to our competitors. However, about leadership and strategy, we’re trying to strengthen our offerings and our team itself to become a partner of choice globally.
What are the services/solutions or products offered by your company on par with the current industry standards?
We have broadly three pillars in our business.
Firstly, Digital Business comprises digital automation and experience, Microsoft applications, asset lifecycle intelligence, and application development & management. There are several industry use cases, such as accelerators and IPs, in addition to technological capabilities available for our customers.
Secondly, hybrid cloud & operations include cloud, infrastructure, data management, and managed services. Lastly, cybersecurity includes managed security services and security systems integration.
In each of the above, we have capabilities to consult, architect, build and sustain technology initiatives and large programs.
What do people need to get better at to run their own company someday?
The first biggest learning I would say is to trust your gut. You must confidently take steps based on your gut and validate them with your homework. While doing so, you need to be an excellent people leader, develop strong customer relationships, and plan your finances adequately.
Connect with Nikhil Kothari on LinkedIn.