Q&A with Saurav Gupta
As part of our Q&A blog series, our Sales Engineer Saurav Gupta discusses why data is the foundation for modern life, as well as a key enabler to overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic.
What’s your job role at InterSystems and what does it involve?
I work as a Sales Engineer within InterSystems. This means I wear multiple hats including pre-sales, solutions architect, and technology evangelist, but to put it simply, I help solve customer challenges using InterSystems technology. My main motivation in my work life is striving for excellence in whatever I do. I have worked for the organisation for the past 14 years and have enjoyed every bit of it.
Can you give a brief background of your career prior to InterSystems?
In my previous role, I was managing the offshore Enterprise Data Warehouse team in NCR Corporation. It was one of the largest enterprise data warehouses built in Teradata and I was instrumental in leading the transition of the EDW team from offshore service partner to NCR’s offshore delivery centre in India. Prior to that I worked as a back-end developer across OLTP, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence applications.
What’s a recent project you’re proud to have been involved in?
I have been working with the State of Jersey’s Modernisation and Digital team in developing their integration layer which has helped them share information across all government digital services in a controlled, reliable, and repeatable manner. During the pandemic, they were able to use this foundation to quickly put their Covid-19 test and trace system in place on the island.
Why does data matter?
Data is the foundation of modern life, and every organisation and individual depends on it. Data helps organisations make decisions quicker and solve problems faster. It helps in building a holistic view of the business involving both internal and external stakeholders. In turn, this enables business leaders to make fully informed decisions in a timely manner.
What’s your biggest frustration in the world of data?
My biggest frustration is when organisations embark on data strategies without considering business benefits. They spend too much time planning and collecting data without delivering any business value to an organisation. To overcome this, organisations must rid themselves of siloes and simplify things by taking one business outcome at a time.
How do you see data and its uses evolving in the future?
We are in a digital era and data will continue to increase in all three facets: volume, velocity, and variety. Data privacy and protection will be the guiding principle of any data strategy, moving away from centralised to distributed data strategies that help organisations to accelerate the value from data in near-real time.
Without a doubt, the pandemic is forcing us to change the way we live and work. It’s driving organisations to accelerate their adoption of digital technologies and understand the importance of real time decision-making based on data. Our ability to recover from this pandemic relies on data driven decision-making in governments around the world and how businesses can respond to this grave challenge. It has has changed customer behaviour and organisations need to re-engage with their customers differently within a short period of time. Data will be the key enabler in this journey.
What are the biggest benefits you’ve seen in the utilisation of AI whilst working at InterSystems?
The key focus at InterSystems has been how we can help organisations to create the next generation of applications where AI and machine learning (ML) are embedded into transaction processing and business processing. A key feature of the InterSystems IRIS Data platform is to seamlessly execute ML models dynamically in response to real-time events and transactions, without extracting or moving any models or data. Additionally, our Integrated ML feature empowers application developers to utilise ML-enabled applications without requiring specialised data science skills.
Just for fun – if you could choose any job in the world, what would you choose?
Anything to do with cricket.
And lastly, tell us something about yourself that your work colleagues wouldn’t know.
No, as they will then definitely know!
