Dr. Sukunta Kumar Jena: A Leader Renovating IT Landscape with Strong Experience & Contemporary Skills
Dr. Sukanta Kumar Jena
CEO
Setting a great precedent in terms of leveraging these existing market opportunities and landscape to create agile business solutions and take this proposition further forward is Inovaantage one of the fastest growing IT solutions companies in Singapore. Under the leadership of Dr. Sukanta Kumar Jena, the company's CEO, who is passionate about delivering unmatched values to the customers in the form of tailor made, tech powered, and pioneering solutions, Inovaantage specializes in verticals including electricity, telecom, transpor tation, and logistics. The company is currently present in the UK, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Hong Kong and is expanding its global footprint.
Responsible for everything from top leadership to Sales, Marketing & Delivery, Dr. Sukanta has been working with various utilities, telecom concerns and transpor tation, providing consulting, IT & automation, building a stellar reputation in the process. Assisting organizations to navigate their digital transformations and improve organizational performance as a data driven enterprise under the guidance of Dr. Sukanta, Inovaantage has not only been able to demonstrate an exponential growth graph since its inception, but has also successfully managed to carve its position as one of the most elite and revolutionary names in the country's IT/OT landscape.
Dr. Sukanta engages in an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights.
Having more than 20 plus years of experience working with various industries in the IT sector, what has been the special ingredient responsible for shaping you into a new-age leader?
By the virtue of my prolific industry experience across countries like the UK, US, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, I have been helping Inovaantage to go global. My experience from different countries has given me good confidence to know more comprehensively about investment and management which are exclusive factors towards building a global reputation for the company. Currently, we are in the process of establishing an office in the UK, and my previous experience as well as the career factors have played a bene volent role in continuing the journey of Inovaantage in newer territories. While taking the comp
any to a universal podium, gaining and maintaining a dedicated set of customers is extremely important and this issue has been addressed by the existing ecosystem of my friends and partners in different countries, owing to my previous 23 years of industry experiences.
What is the current scenario of the IT industry in Singapore and going forward, what opportunities do you think the market holds for young entrepreneurs entering into this industry?
Not only in Singapore, but the business is experiencing vicissitudes almost world wide. Especially after COVID, the market situation has changed manifold and digitization has taken the front seat. As traveling was restricted across many countries, business meetings that were done physically earlier were ceased and we realized that meeting physically and connecting are two different things. Business is now done differently and currently; the IT industry has taken a 360-degree approach to adopt completely digitized operations.
Since the global IT industry is heavily dependent on Indian resources and tends to search for Indian faces during every project, if a massive delivery happens, a company from India is required. I think that perspective is also changing a lot of companies as well as a lot of customers, as most companies are eager to know how strong your local team is and whether they can rely on it or not. To have a strong customer connection, even the young entrepreneurs have to increase their local presence and they cannot rely on bringing resources from India every time. So, there should be a strong local presence and after it is established, the local team working offshore is fair enough. Earlier it was a different ballgame, but now the scenario has changed.
What are the differential factors that separate Inovaantage from other IT services providers in the Singapore market?
We take an inclusive approach to address all the components of our projects. For example, if a project scope is ABC and our responsibility is to take care of the 'A' component and meanwhile the customer is supposed to provide 'B' & 'C' component, we take the overall responsibility of the project. We will have one representative within our team for the 'B' part and one expert level representative for the 'C' part. We talk to our customers while working as a team, and I don't think any other vendors, contractors, or system integrators are doing this. This is one of the big differentiators which separates us from the rest of the clients.
What are the differential factors that separate Inovaantage from
My experience from different countries has given me a good confidence to know more comprehensively about investment and management which are exclusive factors towards building a global reputation for the company
What is the current scenario of the IT industry in Singapore and going forward, what opportunities do you think the market holds for young entrepreneurs entering into this industry?
Not only in Singapore, but the business is experiencing vicissitudes almost world wide. Especially after COVID, the market situation has changed manifold and digitization has taken the front seat. As traveling was restricted across many countries, business meetings that were done physically earlier were ceased and we realized that meeting physically and connecting are two different things. Business is now done differently and currently; the IT industry has taken a 360-degree approach to adopt completely digitized operations.
Since the global IT industry is heavily dependent on Indian resources and tends to search for Indian faces during every project, if a massive delivery happens, a company from India is required. I think that perspective is also changing a lot of companies as well as a lot of customers, as most companies are eager to know how strong your local team is and whether they can rely on it or not. To have a strong customer connection, even the young entrepreneurs have to increase their local presence and they cannot rely on bringing resources from India every time. So, there should be a strong local presence and after it is established, the local team working offshore is fair enough. Earlier it was a different ballgame, but now the scenario has changed.
What are the differential factors that separate Inovaantage from other IT services providers in the Singapore market?
We take an inclusive approach to address all the components of our projects. For example, if a project scope is ABC and our responsibility is to take care of the 'A' component and meanwhile the customer is supposed to provide 'B' & 'C' component, we take the overall responsibility of the project. We will have one representative within our team for the 'B' part and one expert level representative for the 'C' part. We talk to our customers while working as a team, and I don't think any other vendors, contractors, or system integrators are doing this. This is one of the big differentiators which separates us from the rest of the clients.
What are the differential factors that separate Inovaantage from
other IT services providers in the Singapore market?
We take an inclusive approach to address all the components of our projects. For example, if a project scope is ABC and our responsibility is to take care of the 'A' component and meanwhile the customer is supposed to provide 'B'&'C'component, we take the overall responsibility of the project. We will have one representative within our team for the 'B' part and one expert level representative for the 'C' part. We talk to our customers while working as a team, and I don't think any other vendors, contractors, or system integrators are doing this. This is one of the big differentiators which separates us from the rest of the clients.
Even though it is not directly linked to quality, this eventually takes care of the overall quality of the project and the overall integration of that project. By ensuring the testing, quality, timeline, and peripheral work of the project, we take care of everything and that is our USP.
What would be some of the most memorable milestones in your professional journey so far?
After completing my PhD in GIS, I started my career as a researcher and soon shifted my career to that of a software developer. Although I have been asked many times in my life that being a researcher why I opted to become a developer, my answer has always been the same, `because I enjoyed it'. As long as I enjoyed software development, I did it and then later, I got the opportunity to support various multinational companies in their bidding and presales activity. Soon I found myself supporting the presales for the entire global business of many organizations.
After a few years, I moved to the sales domain. Every time these transitions happened I have learned a new domain that further sharpened my professional abilities. It made me what I am today and every change of experience is a milestone for me.
Going forward, what are your goals and how do you plan to execute them in the future?
Starting from Australia to the Asia Pacific region, Inovaantage is currently considered a very respected company in utilities, telecommunication, and transportation. We have been preparing ourselves to venture into a few other areas as well. At present, we are doing a lot of investment in the UK and I'm very curious about how this investment is going to return. Recently we have started a few tractions in the US as well. With every thing happening very fast, we are expecting to repeat our success in the Asia Pacific region in the rest of the world as well.
Dr.Sukunta Kumara Jena
An alumnus of IIT Bombay, Dr. Sukanta has completed his Masters' and PhD in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in 1997 and 2000 respectively. Starting his professional journey as a Senior Research Officer in Dept. of Science and Technology of Indian Govt., Dr. Sukanta has been associated with many renowned firms such as TTCS, RMSI, and many more in his illustrious career before joining Inovaantage as a Utility Digital Transformation Consultant in 2019. Owing to his prolific professionalism, he soon rose to power and resumed the role of CEO of Inovaantage in 2020.
We take an inclusive approach to address all the components of our projects. For example, if a project scope is ABC and our responsibility is to take care of the 'A' component and meanwhile the customer is supposed to provide 'B'&'C'component, we take the overall responsibility of the project. We will have one representative within our team for the 'B' part and one expert level representative for the 'C' part. We talk to our customers while working as a team, and I don't think any other vendors, contractors, or system integrators are doing this. This is one of the big differentiators which separates us from the rest of the clients.
Even though it is not directly linked to quality, this eventually takes care of the overall quality of the project and the overall integration of that project. By ensuring the testing, quality, timeline, and peripheral work of the project, we take care of everything and that is our USP.
What would be some of the most memorable milestones in your professional journey so far?
After completing my PhD in GIS, I started my career as a researcher and soon shifted my career to that of a software developer. Although I have been asked many times in my life that being a researcher why I opted to become a developer, my answer has always been the same, `because I enjoyed it'. As long as I enjoyed software development, I did it and then later, I got the opportunity to support various multinational companies in their bidding and presales activity. Soon I found myself supporting the presales for the entire global business of many organizations.
After a few years, I moved to the sales domain. Every time these transitions happened I have learned a new domain that further sharpened my professional abilities. It made me what I am today and every change of experience is a milestone for me.
Going forward, what are your goals and how do you plan to execute them in the future?
Starting from Australia to the Asia Pacific region, Inovaantage is currently considered a very respected company in utilities, telecommunication, and transportation. We have been preparing ourselves to venture into a few other areas as well. At present, we are doing a lot of investment in the UK and I'm very curious about how this investment is going to return. Recently we have started a few tractions in the US as well. With every thing happening very fast, we are expecting to repeat our success in the Asia Pacific region in the rest of the world as well.
Dr.Sukunta Kumara Jena
An alumnus of IIT Bombay, Dr. Sukanta has completed his Masters' and PhD in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in 1997 and 2000 respectively. Starting his professional journey as a Senior Research Officer in Dept. of Science and Technology of Indian Govt., Dr. Sukanta has been associated with many renowned firms such as TTCS, RMSI, and many more in his illustrious career before joining Inovaantage as a Utility Digital Transformation Consultant in 2019. Owing to his prolific professionalism, he soon rose to power and resumed the role of CEO of Inovaantage in 2020.