We recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with Prakash Krishnamurthy, Chief Sales Officer (CSO) at FVC. Prakash has inspired many over the years by achieving tremendous professional growth through the skillful blending of leadership and business growth specialists.
At FVC, Prakash Krishnamurthy’s operational experience includes Strategy and Alliance in addition to Consulting and Advisory. In this insightful interview, the CSO speaks about his professional path over the years, the challenges he overcame, the role of technology in the coming times, and his plans for the company.
A Glimpse Of Prakash’s Journey
We started the interview by asking, “Can you walk us through your professional journey and how it led to where you are today?”
Prakash shared, “My career started around the year 1990 in the City of Mumbai. In those days Fax Machines and Telephone PBX systems were valuable technologies used by companies for effective communication. However, the Internet came to India around 1995 – which in turn disrupted the communication industry. At this point, the IT industry was emerging and hence we had to adapt ourselves by enhancing our skill sets in this field. The IT world is very dynamic with unprecedented changes daily.
As I was keen to pursue communication – I ventured into the field of Videoconferencing which brought me to FVC in Dubai. Somewhere in 2012, I was intrigued by the world of Cybersecurity, Cloud, and AI, and decided to embark on a journey to explore this cyberspace. Today, as a CSO, I have gained reasonable expertise in different domains like UCC, Cybersecurity, Cloud & AI.”
Overcoming Challenging Phases
While every business faces inevitable challenges, it is crucial to overcome them efficiently. To learn more about the challenges faced by Prakash Krishnamurthy’s business, we inquired, “Reflecting on your career, what have been some of the most significant challenges you’ve faced, and how did you overcome them?”
He replied, “During our times, there were drastic innovations like pagers and mobile phones were introduced, Email communication started, Black & white TVs became LED and social media started around the year 2000. The industry was very volatile with constant rapid changes. So, keeping yourself abreast of such unpredictable technological advancements was a difficult task.
Sustaining in the highly competitive and volatile world of IT was itself a significant challenge and many moved out as it was difficult to attain a work-life balance. No doubt, there was an IT boom – but every employee was getting stressed by the overburdened list of tasks and responsibilities.”
Maintaining A Balanced Approach
Eager to understand how Prakash Krishnamurthy manages a balance between his short and long-term obligations, we asked, “How do you balance long-term vision with short-term operational needs?”
Prakash shared, “Long-term vision comprises futuristic planning wherein it can have the following points. A three or five -year revenue and profitability goal plan. I question myself about the kind of actions that need to be taken to achieve such goals, the processes that need to be implemented to sustain the growth, or the kind of company’s strategy to attain consistency year after year.
Whereas, short-term operational needs will require addressing critical issues, and developing processes and workflows. As the long-term vision and short-term operational needs require different levels of thought- process, balancing is not a difficult task.
The main challenge comes when things do not go according to the long-term vision for which intermittent corrections need to be undertaken to ensure that progress is not hindered. The truth is – that leadership backed up with determination and tolerance teaches us to take appropriate actions on a timely basis.”
Plans We Asked Prakash
We further asked, “Tell us more about your services and if you are planning to add something new in the future.”
Prakash responds, “FVC is a value-added distribution platform, and our operational activities are governed by four main divisions – UCC (Unified Collaboration and Communications), AV (Audio Visuals), Cybersecurity and Services with AI and Cloud.
Our goal is to maintain our position as one of the leading distribution companies in the MEA region by introducing niche and innovative technologies and solutions. FVC is dedicated to developing a wide range of highly skilled, committed, and empowered channel communities. Following a strong growth of 25% in 2022 and a repeat performance in 2023 – we are now poised at the juncture of achieving aspirational revenue growth of 40% in 2024, propelling us forward exponentially.”
Analyzing Market Trends
To understand how Prakash Krishnamurthy analyzes the latest market developments and their influence on his business, we questioned, “What methods do you use to analyze market trends, and how have these influenced your business decisions?”
He shared, “Market trends and dynamics are of absolute importance to us as our strategies are governed by the upheavals in the industry. Our Vendors and channel partners do give us updates on market trends – however, we are also adept at gathering information from social media tools and ground-level customer connects.
One of the greatest strengths of FVC is its agility and flexibility. Being a growing establishment with a lean top management team gives us the ability to make fast decisions and react quickly to market changes. During challenging times, it was easy for us to empower our leaders to shoulder additional responsibilities. This way, we could not only overcome challenges but also thrive in a highly competitive environment.”
Impact Of Digital Transitions
We were curious to learn about the influence of fast-paced digital evolution on Prakash’s company, we asked, “How has digital transformation affected your business model?”
“Digitalization helps generate new growth opportunities. It enables capturing and retaining existing customers and potentially new customers directly. We are also exploring channel-friendly processes towards facilitating ‘ease of doing business’ with FVC.
Ideating and innovating have become necessities in today’s competitive world. As technologies continue to evolve, they automatically provide us with the expertise to create unique solutions. At FVC, we always strive hard to offer something distinctive to our customer and partner community.” He shared.
Envisioning The Future
To learn more about the insights of Prakash Krishnamurthy on the impact of technology on his industry in the upcoming years, we asked, “What emerging technologies do you believe will have the most significant impact on your industry in the next five years?”
Prakash replied, “The UCC and AV world are already undergoing positive transformation. The customer adoption has widened as the awareness has percolated to the SME & SMB and even at retail sectors. The trend seems to be highlighting exponential growth for many more years in the future.
The world of AI & Cloud is certainly the buzzword today and a big momentum is building towards adopting cloud and AI solutions by corporates, Banks & Governmental organizations. For the next five years and more – the Cybersecurity industry will be experiencing rapid growth and significant investments by corporate enterprises, Governments & Ministries, Banking and finance, and healthcare and manufacturing sectors.”
Ensuring Employee Satisfaction
For a business to succeed in the long term, it is paramount to prioritize employee satisfaction. We asked, “What strategies do you implement to maintain high levels of employee engagement and satisfaction?”
He shared, “A successful team is always backed by a group of empowered and highly motivated leaders. We at FVC have designed a ‘Growth path’ within its organization, which is instilling passion and ambition in all the employees. The energy levels of employees are of paramount importance. These energy levels depict whether the environment is charged and electrified or negative with despair and hopelessness.
Happiness and motivation are contagious. If senior leaders are ebullient and enthusiastic, it automatically percolates down to the entire breadth and depth of the employee community. This systemic enhancement generates an immense amount of momentum, leading to consistent growth.”
Securing The Legacy
Lastly, we asked, “How do you want your business to be remembered, and what steps are you taking to secure that legacy?”
Prakash concluded, “As a value-added distribution organization – our legacy has always been Value addition, empowering channel partner communities and addressing the unique requirements of customers. Over the last 20 years, we have upheld this legacy and built a formidable channel partner community of more than 600 Channels across the MEA region.
We value, we care, we empower, we entertain, and we enable our esteemed customer, partner, and vendor fraternity. We have been instrumental in the growth and prosperity of a vast number of companies through our team’s commendable dedication and unconditional support. Ethics and integrity have been part of our value system and employee empowerment has been our core intent towards building a strong and committed workforce. We are keen to be known as a leading VAD with core values and a strong culture.”
Follow Prakash Krishnamurthy on LinkedIn.
Find FVC on LinkedIn and visit their website http://www.fvc.com/
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