New: The Story of Indian IT Professionals in New Zealand
From Yesterday to Tomorrow: 60 Years of Tech in New Zealand
Co-authored with Lalita Kasanji
India is a global IT powerhouse, and we know its tech professionals have contributed to developed nations since at least the 1970s. New Zealand too has been a beneficiary of this immense talent, and from the development of its earliest systems and infrastructure, through to the current fibre rollout, Indian IT professionals have played a significant role.
Letters from India
Or the Street Where I LiveIT Professionals Tech Blog, Sunit Prakash, Guest Post. 09 March 2020, 5:00 am
Originally published in CIO NZ
On my sometimes annual sojourn to Mumbai, I am always struck by the changes and adaptation of technology and its impact on life and human behaviour.
Tackling the digital skills gap? Look at the kiwi fruit industry
Applying classic product inventory management models and principles to the digital technology sector.CIO NZ 09 January, 2018 07:00
“We need to know as much as we can about the size, scale and nature of the digital skills shortage in the digital technology sector, and across New Zealand” - Communications Minister Clare CurranClick here to open the pdf for the full article.
Summary of the 7 steps to measuring the digital skills inventory
1. Demand - form a view of employers’ HR related trends
2. Supply - get a perspective from a resource perspective
3. Data, information, reports & systems
4. Add imports - validate from the larger ecosystem
5. Subtract exports - the brain drain
6. Diversity - under utilisation & under employment in the workforce
7. Learn - from countries who are exporters (and successful importers of talent)
Not very different from the kiwifruit industry and its inventory management systems I suspect !
IT boot-camp
I recently ran a couple of sessions to help skilled migrants find jobs in Wellington.
The experience highlighted key challenges the ICT sector needs to tackle as it prepares the workforce for unceasing change
CIO NZ: 09 January, 2018 07:00
I have been mentoring ICT professionals - new graduates, migrants - for years.
And, with apologies to the original Kiwi Landing Pad based in San Francisco which helps New Zealand companies gain a toehold in the US market, I raised the idea of transposing this concept for skilled migrants.
I called it the Wellington-based Kiwi Landing Pad for skilled migrants.
Development of New International Education Strategy - inputs to EducationNZ
“We are setting out to challenge and be challenged – we encourage all interested parties to be involved in strategy development.” - 9 Recommendations; October 2016
NZX Consultation - Diversity on Boards
Submission to NZX on its Consultation Paper to do with Ethnic Diversity on Boards; September 2016
7 Lessons in Customer Engagement from Australasia's Most Profitable Airline
Guest Blog: Astute Solutions, July 2014
Social media and brands: for big companies this can often cause panic, fear, and stress because they worry about a negative post going viral, or having no social customer strategy at all. We’ve posted about the negative effects of social media too, but how about turning it on its head and focussing on positive customer engagement instead?
Reaping India's Demographic Dividend
Guestblog, Institute of IT Professionals Techblog, Dec 2011
Laurence Millar kicked off a whole chain of thoughts when I attended his NZCS session "Agenda for the Digital Economy". He inspired me to write this article, about Indian students coming to study in New Zealand, Indian organisations servicing New Zealand, New Zealand organisations exploring India - and the challenges and opportunities this presents to New Zealand.
Click here: IITP Techblog
Opinion: Toyota's 'lean' model tackles IT complexity
ComputerWorld, October 2007
Many IT companies have learnt that to succeed in business you can not save your way to success - you need to add value to prosper and grow
Click here: ComputerWorld
Role of the Indian Diaspora in Building Bridges between New Zealand and India
The Independent, Aug 2008
India may well prove to be a more accessible and rewarding market than China for New Zealand's export driven businesses.
Free Trade Agreement with India; opportunities for New Zealand companies
NZ Institute of Director's BoardRoom Magazine, July 2008
Can the lessons from New Zealand's FTA with China be applied to India ?
Click here: Free Trade Agreement with India
Value Proposition of Support – Supporting the solutions Sales People Sell
Guest Editorial in the New Zealand Reseller News, October 2007
The business model of Nasdaq listed ERP vendors, and the business of support.
Click here: Value Proposition of Support
Satellite TV Revolution in India – Time to join the “global village” people
Guest article on changes in India; The Dominion IT Weekly; September 1994
Click here: Satellite TV Revolution in India
PatelNet: The future of IT enabled corner dairies – Corner diary options with PatelNet;
Guest article on e-enabling and connecting corner dairies with a common infrastructure and network; The Dominion IT Weekly; October 1994
Click here: PatelNet: The Future of IT enabled dairies
The activities and elements that need to be in place to set up and run an effective & successful service delivery & support organisation.
0. Business Philosophy, strategy & drivers
Business case, business plan, overall strategy & model
1. Initiation
Location, hiring, infrastructure, core systems, processes
2. Technology
Tools, support platform, call logging, telephony, call routing, multi-channel support
3. People
Effective teams, appraisals, goal setting, compensation, incentives, rewards, rostering, career planning & growth, retention, succession planning, knowledge management, training & development, team dynamics & staff morale, energising, transforming & invigorating the team, internal comms
4. Customer
Segmentation, relationship, key accounts, customer communications, new customer onboarding, customer satisfaction benchmarking, measurement, improvement, proactive service, escalations, intensive care, reference customers, marketing communications, customer loyalty, user groups
5. Finance
Billing, renewals, retention, budgeting, forecasting, new business dev, new offerings, support & service programs, service & support models, contracts, grand-fathering & retiring old versions and superseded contracts, (multi)-vendor & alliance management
6. Operations
Reporting, KPIs, scorecards, capacity planning, escalations, critical situations, call flow models, service delivery, continual improvement, alliances, external providers, offshore providers, 3rd level support, organisational readiness for new products, versions & releases, 24 hr support
7. Excellence
Customer satisfaction measurement, benchmarking & improvement, matrixed organisations, local vs global, ITIL, Lean, ISO20000, frameworks, standards
8. Mergers, Acquisition, Exit
Integration of operations on account of mergers & acquisitions, divestitures & spinoffs, exits
Strategic Lean Service
A case study of how a global IT service delivery organisation used Lean to drive organisational transformation and achieve customer satisfaction
Robert Oh & Sunit Prakash
Coaching, Guiding & Mentoring New Skilled Immigrants
Someone gave me a leg up when I first arrived in New Zealand, many were kind and generous to a fault.
Now in a position to pay if forward, I find myself coaching, guiding & mentoring skilled new immigrants to New Zealand - with very "deep-down-inside" satisfying results.
Currently documenting their stories and successes as case studies; and finding & connecting with like-minded people and organisations.
Gone Walkabouts:
4WD & Travel
As a family we decided to pull our son out of school for a term and see some of Australia before we headed home to Wellington.
The result was an epic 80 day, 21,000 km 4WD trip through the centre of Australia from Sydney to Broome, and then back again the long way.
We have seen more of Australia than most Australians and are so much the richer for it.
Here is a link to a clip if you are interested !
Quality Thinking Time:
Royal Enfield Bullet
... and for quality thinking and to find my peace of mind, I ride my Royal Enfield Bullet motorbike.
Link to article in KiwiRider.
India-NZ connections
I believe people like myself who are local in Australia, New Zealand & India have a role to play in building bridges between the countries... I play my small part by informally guiding businesses interested in these markets.
sunit@
sunit.co.nz 
+64 21 144 8181
+61 415 32 82 72
+91 98207 09945
@
sunitprakash 
nz.linkedin.com/in/sunitprakash
