"In my opinion, the pandemic served as a catalyst for change and growth"
Arshad Masood is the Managing Director and CEO of Visionet Systems, a leading digital technology solutions company built on the premise of disruptive innovation that helps companies worldwide increase agility, reduce costs, and minimize business risk. He oversees Visionet’s products and services, and is focused on driving its global growth.
He has more than 30 years of professional experience in the field of technology, data and cloud, and much of his experience has been oriented to Executive Management. Arshad started Visionet in 1995 and today the company has expanded to over 15 locations across the globe, has forged strong alliances with technology leaders like Microsoft, AWS, Salesforce and Adobe, and serves more than 350 leading companies across a wide array of industry verticals.
Arshad’s journey started in IBM where he worked for nearly 10 years in sales and managerial roles. Since then, he has held multiple high-profile positions in reputable wireless, network, and technology companies.
Arshad holds an MBA in Management Information System from Baruch College.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Arshad Masood: I’m the current managing director and CEO of Visionet Systems, Inc & Visionet Ventures, which is a venture capital firm. My journey is a story in itself. I worked for 10 years for IBM, mostly in sales and managerial roles. Using my experience and an aggressive approach, I laid the foundations of Visionet Systems Inc. Previously, I was also the co-founder and president of GeePs Inc & Aeron Solutions. My unorthodox approach towards business scaling has enabled Visionet to be the leader firmly positioned for global takeover.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Arshad Masood: In my opinion, the pandemic served as a catalyst for change and growth. It was nothing short of an accelerant for businesses that were willing to get out of their comfort zone and innovate in terms of newer domain discoveries.
Stepping into the future, I believe, we will witness more adoption of hybrid cloud services and usage of AI in the cloud. Moreover, upcoming trends will include an approach that focuses on hyper-personalization and a holistic digital transformation approach.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Arshad Masood: The pandemic has shown how vulnerable we are without proper future planning. Failing to plan is planning to fail. The most important resolution should be to strive towards exploring newer domains in the world of technology and remove any aspect of stagnancy from your business.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Arshad Masood: The pandemic caused a lot of unprecedented disruptions, which negatively influenced supply chain operations. Adaptation is the keyword here. Our strategy was to utilize the latest strategies and technologies to negate the disruptions caused by the COVID chaos.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Arshad Masood: Let us focus on the things we can control without damaging the culture we have built over the years.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Arshad Masood: I expect we will enter a new world built on the precipice of digital transformation. Companies that do not evolve to the new normal will not be able to survive. Furthermore, hybrid working models will be put into practice and more emphasis will be put on remote work.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Arshad Masood: Approximately four to five hours a day
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Arshad Masood: I always say perseverance matters. If you are hitting a roadblock, it could be an opportunity to double the effort. If it was so easy, everyone would have done it.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Arshad Masood: The real challenge right now for enterprises is to invest in emerging technologies. Most executives simply lack the knowledge of what can be done with technologies like Channel Discovery, Customer Segmentation, and the prowess of Cloud and RPA.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Arshad Masood: Supply chain disruptions have presented a great opportunity to help our customers. These disruptions are not the result of software bugs. We have to rethink how we align and collaborate with our partners, vendors, and customers. We need a near real-time picture of all these interactions. I am focused on this area as customers are in need of help.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Arshad Masood: Luckily, our company has not experienced The Great Resignation. We are doing very exciting work on automation, streaming/video commerce, supply chain transparency, etc., which keeps our teams excited and dedicated to their work.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Arshad Masood: I would like to understand the changing needs of the market better. How do we align our teams and efforts such that we meet our customer’s needs while they arise? The best example of this was adding a camera to a mobile phone years prior to people realizing there was such a need.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Arshad Masood: We must find the right work-from-home and onsite training/coloration model. We did OK during the last two years, because the core team was intact, and they knew how to work together. We are expanding, and we are hiring fresh graduates. How do we integrate them? How do we make them feel connected?
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Arshad Masood for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Arshad Masood or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
