CEO Insights Magazine

In this significantly overwhelming time, where technology is a disruptor, and businesses are largely benefitting from effective digital transformation strategies, Saurabh Mittal, Chief Customer Success Officer at Locuz is one such proficient leader who leads this evolution and relishes business growth. He is a strategic leader who is instrumental in Locuz’s overpowering success amongst significant clients today.

Saurabh engages in an exclusive conversation with CEO Insights, reminisces about his journey and delineates about Locuzs efficiency .

Give a brief account of your professional background and experiences.
I head the US business for Locuz Inc, a security-led digital partner based in Chicago. I have worked with over two dozen brands in North America & Europe on their Digital strategy, Omnichannel programs, data engineering, and modernization programs, and Verizon Wireless, Target Corp, Tesco, AT&T, Restoration Hardware, Tracfone, and Deluxe are a few of those.I am a certified AWS Solutions Architect. I have also completed Executive programs from IIM-Calcutta & Harvard Business School. I also publish a newsletter on LinkedIn every week.

You possess eighteen years of experience. How has your path to success and what is your success mantra?
I have been fortunate to have some great mentors who helped. Well, here are the three things that have shaped my career. One, I started looking for what business problems are IT programs solving and why they need solving. I was asking ‘why’ a lot. This took me from the cubicles of maintenance teams to the front lines. These front lines were where business discussions happened that shaped IT strategy. Second, I started visualizing how things could be done better, or how would I do it if I were in charge. There were so many opportunities around me to improve things. This mindset helped me take on more responsibility.

This paradigm also helped me move across industry domains and under

stand what the customer on the other side wanted.Third I realized communication is at the core of any engagement. Verbal, written, and visual communication can make or break great programs. I invested time and energy in honing those skills. To summarize, the core tenets have been taking risks, upskilling, and staying humble.

How would you define Locuz as an organization and its current position in the market?
Locuz is in an interesting spot to deliver on the global CXOs Agenda. We are 800 Engineers that deliver data center migrations, Cyber defense portfolio, Automation led ITOps, 24/7 Security & Network Ops, and modern data lakes.

Today, we work with global customers across US, Europe & APAC. Our deep capability in Cyber defense underpins everything that we do. This also differentiates us from companies focused on cloud native solutions or data engineering pieces in isolation. Our capability has come from building mission-critical systems for over 22 years. Systems like Tsunami warning systems or moon missions’ infrastructure need scalable Architecture, Operational efficiency, Security, and Performance. Over the years, we have also made investments in IPs and Accelerators in Infrastructure, Cyber Defense, and ITOps. Those are translating well in times of digital transformation.

Tell us about your flagship offerings and what value additions customers can expect from your offerings.
Locuz focuses globally on five core areas which are further narrowed down into solutions by industry verticals Cyber Defense, Infrastructure services, Data Engineering, High Performance Computing & ITOps which covers NOC, SOC, CloudOps, FinOps, and traditional ITOps.

If I were to describe five flagship offerings where CIOs and CISOs engage with us, they would be complete Security posture assessment this gets a CXO a baseline of their security vulnerabilities across networks, infrastructure, devices, and data. It is the first and most important step in building a mature security organization Managed Security Services the benefits are Reduction in Cyber insurance, Mature security of the organization, and speed up transformation projects Multicloud adoption, business case development & migration which proposes thinking RoI first on cloud infrastructure and planning for business impact Accelerated end-to-end Data to Insights pipeline which helps in deploying time tested scalable solutions for business impact and last is ITOps and our vision to maturity via AIOps to helps in improving business metrics and reducing costs with our automation & shared services model, which can selffund your ITOps.

Tell us about your leadership approach, and the guidelines or methodologies you follow to lead your team.
My approach to leadership and working in a team environment is based on a few facets, which follows-prioritizing action, taking quick decisions, and small bets, including experimenting with new ideas, questioning every assumption, focusing on the process, and doing the right things. Results should follow, hence keep on learning.

What is the future destination you are heading towards?
Our focus is to become an Advisory firm for Enterprises that helps CIOs & CISOs convert and execute their vision into an RoI-led blueprint.

We are investing heavily in building IPs in our focus areas of Cyber defense in Threat modeling, Cloud maturity models, and ITOps to ZeroOps. We are looking to grow in the US and Europe our focus is on enterprise and mid market clients, focused on the flagship offerings.

Saurabh Mittal Chief Customer Success Officer Locuz
Having extensive experience in the technology space driving leadership and change, Saurabh possesses business transformation skills and thus has been helping clients execute secure and profitable digital transformations through Locuz.

•Hobbies:Photography, Reading, DIY Wood working
•Favorite Cuisine:Mediterranean or Italian cuisine
•Favorite books:Think Again by Adam Grant and ‘never eat Alone’ by Keith Ferrazzi the two books had an immense impact on me.
•Favorite Travel Destination: Exploring beaches of South Florida