Mr. Javed Tapia, Founder and MD, Clover Infotech
Interviewed By: Sandeep Kshatriya, Facilitator, The CEO Insights
The CEO Insights: You’ve dedicated more than 20 years of your career to help companies grow in diverse sectors; we would love to hear about your experiences?
Javed Tapia: Companies have a peculiar trait, irrespective of sectors they operate in. They adapt to a culture that the leader of the organization sets. It is thus, important to set the right culture in place when we incubate companies. In the organizations that I lead, I try to set a culture of innovation, integrity, and excellence.
Once this culture is set and you get the right people who believe in this culture, the company can grow from strength to strength.
The CEO Insights: How has been your experience to serve on interview panel for prospective applicants to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business?
Javed Tapia: It is a refreshing experience to interact with youngsters. The prospective applications bring in fresh thought, new ideas and amazing clarity on what they want to achieve. Interviewing the prospective applications gives me a great way to connect with the young generation and gain some great insights.
Javed Tapia: While we respect all our partnerships and do great work together, our focus remains the customer. We try to understand how IT can help the customers to solve business problems and enable them to get best return on their IT investments. We have been focusing on the domestic markets for over two decades and considering the cost pressures our customers face, we rely heavily on technology and innovation to come up with apt solutions for them.
The CEO Insights: How has been the transition of organization to open source in India as compared to other countries?
Javed Tapia: I think Liberalization, nearly two and a half decades ago, has enabled India to leapfrog into an era of sustainable development. The bedrock of this has been an open mindset towards change, competition and embracing excellence.
When I brought open source to India through a joint venture with Red Hat Inc., we were very pleased with the pace at which India embraced the open source revolution. Whether it was the private sector or public enterprises, everyone realized the value it brought and was willing to adapt to open source technologies. The next decade has proved that “open source” is here to stay and grow. I would believe India has adapted it better than most other countries. The internet era in India has seen the benefits of open source technologies and the current era of mobile technologies and applications will also reap huge benefits from it.
The CEO Insights: Your views on recent Digital India’s mandate to adopt Open Source Software for Government of India (GOI)?
Javed Tapia: I feel really good and proud of it. The e-governance projects planned by the government should get a fillip as the total cost of ownership is expected to reduce with the adoption of open source software (OSS). It will also enable to constantly develop and scale the technologies used for projects initiated by the GOI.
The CEO Insights: How do you feel being awarded third consecutive CIO Choice recognition for your Database Management Solutions Support?
Javed Tapia: As an organization, we are humbled to be honored with the recognition. What makes it special is that it is a result of votes by eminent CIOs (Chief IT Officers) of the industry across sectors. I am sure our team is doing a great job for our customers. If I may, I take this opportunity to thank my team for working hard to serve our customers in the best way possible. I would also like to thank our customers for their unflinching trust in us for nearly two decades now.
The CEO Insights: We would love to hear more about Clover Realty and Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd & Clover Solar Pvt. Ltd
Javed Tapia: As I said in the first question, the culture that we have tried to create is that of innovation, excellence and integrity. These values help the entities stay true to its customers and serve them in the best possible manner.
Clover Realty & Infrastructure has been addressing many a customer’s dream of owning a house. It has also been allowing customers to get the best possible amenities at the most affordable costs.
Clover Solar is an initiative to contribute to the ever increasing energy needs of our nation. While catering to this demand, we are also focusing on ensuring that we generate clean energy that will not harm the environment and the ecosystem.
The CEO Insights: You have customers across different geographies, how do you target different market segments?
Javed Tapia: As I said, we have been focusing on the domestic markets in India and have been providing excellent solutions and services in the most cost-effective manner. Many customers have taken us to their parent companies which are based internationally and we offer our solutions and services to these companies as well.
We have realized with experience that customers across geographies have similar needs from their IT partners. Our customers, irrespective of geographies, have sought cost-effective, scalable solutions which create value for them and allow them bandwidth to focus on their core competencies. We target the various markets by presenting our expertise in leveraging technology to solve business problems and ensure seamless functioning of the business.
The CEO Insights: What technologies & strategies should companies consider in the near term to drive the Digital India campaign?
Javed Tapia: Companies should realize that the innovations such as smart cities, e-governance, and paperless offices would make the Digital India campaign significantly relevant.
Digital India campaign aims to connect 1.2 billion Indians through technology and IT. This fact itself offers immense opportunities and companies would have created strategies around it.
Digital India will democratize growth opportunities by creating an unbiased knowledge economy. Further, Digital India should also enable access to a host of services such as banking, healthcare, insurance etc. which is critical for us as a nation.
As for the technologies and strategies, companies should first go digital themselves. They should then understand the impact of “Digital India” on people across India, rendering of services and the need for technology in ensuring last mile reach of the services rendered. These insights would be useful when they create strategies to drive “Digital India” in the near term.
The CEO Insights: You are also member of Mumbai Angel, who is your favorite start-up
Javed Tapia: Skillwiz.
The CEO Insights: What are your hobbies?
Javed Tapia: Horse riding, diving, and traveling to relatively unexplored places and seeing them in a different light
Clover Infotech Pvt. Ltd., founded in 1994, is an ISO 27001:2005 certified comprehensive IT services provider. For more information, visit: http://www.cloverinfotech.com/