Beyond tech: Life & learnings

“I make a lot of tech related statements. But this time, it will be less tech,” stated retail tech leader Vishal Kapil setting the tone for his SOLOx (Stories, Opinion, Learning, Outcome) speech at the IMAGES RetailME Awards 2024.

A simple man from mountains in India, as Kapil likes to call himself, “let’s do it” has been his life’s motto. An excerpt in his own words.

“I didn’t know or plan for the ‘IT’ part in ‘let’s do it’ to become IT (information technology).

When my engineering entrance exam results came through, seven of us scored the same mark and competed for one seat. It was so competitive. I didn’t get in, but I didn’t lose hope. I chose a different path and did my graduation and post-graduation in Mathematics.

Thereafter, I worked with a creative company 21st Century Fox in 2003 where my bosses pushed me to take on tech projects. That’s where I learned coding, among several other things. Fast forward to 2012, I got the opportunity to manage the technology for Cardinal Health, a $130 billion company. We consistently succeeded, and the systems we designed then are still running.

What I learned there is that building scale is very difficult. People who know how to build scale must educate others about what it takes to build scale. I’ve been fortunate to be part of projects that scaled. For instance, as British brand Marks & Spencer’s first CTO hired in India, I designed an app for the company in 16 weeks, which in four months recorded 400 million page views. I did this with three people, and my learning was we don’t need huge amount of budget to achieve scale, we need capabilities.

And I’d like to add that if you’re keen to build tech, keep the consultants and transformation people out of the room. Give charge to people who has been there and done that to do amazing things.”