Digitate CEO Akhilesh Tripathi joined the company in 2015 to launch its flagship product, ignio™. Under his leadership, ignio became one of the fastest-growing enterprise applications, with a global customer base spanning many industries and Fortune 500 companies.
Previously, Mr. Tripathi served as the head of Canada for TCS (Tata Consultancy Service), where he grew the entity from a small, relatively unknown firm to a perennial top 10 service provider. His 25-year career with TCS has also included serving as Head of Enterprise Solutions and Technology Practices for TCS in North America.
Akhilesh has also been active with volunteer organizations including the IEEE, Operation Eyesight, and the Canada-India Business Council. He earned an MBA from the University of Michigan (USA) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics from Savitribai Phule Pune University (India).
Company: Digitate
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
Akhilesh Tripathi: I joined Digitate in 2015 to launch our flagship product, ignio™. Our mission is to apply AI technologies, augmented with human intelligence, to solve real-world business problems – possibly even before they impact critical business KPIs. We believe that today’s enterprise must transition from manual to autonomous, and the autonomous transformation provides the ability to handle speed at scale. Our company’s philosophy revolves around three core pillars: unified observability, AI-driven insights, and closed-loop automation. These pillars aren’t just buzzwords; they are the foundation upon which we help our clients transform their operations.
Through unified observability, we provide a holistic view of our clients’ IT environments, ensuring they have real-time visibility into their entire technology stack. Our AI-driven insights allow us to proactively detect and address issues before they escalate, drastically reducing downtime and improving operational efficiency. What really sets us apart is our focus on closed-loop automation—where issues are not just identified but are resolved autonomously, freeing up our clients’ teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.
We assess the current state of our clients’ IT infrastructure using ignio™, which measures critical metrics such as uptime, MTTR, system performance, and alert correlation. By constantly monitoring and improving these metrics, we ensure that our clients achieve optimal performance and reliability in their operations. At Digitate, we’re not just providing a service; we’re partners in our clients’ journey towards a more efficient, resilient, and innovative future.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffett, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Akhilesh Tripathi: I’d describe Digitate as the company that ensures your IT proactively addresses issues before they impact your business. Our product is the only one that takes full responsibility for its recommendations and actions within the enterprise. While we’re not a big player in the industry, our a holistic end-to-end view of problem management uniquely positions us to predict technology failures before they happen. By getting ahead of critical issues, we equip enterprises with the tools to put out fires before they start, transforming operations from reactive to proactive and predictive.
Our biggest strength lies in this unique combination of visibility, intelligence, and automation. We’re helping businesses reduce downtime, improve system performance, and enhance their overall efficiency by providing a single platform that brings together AI-driven insights and actionable automation. In a world where IT complexity is only increasing, we deliver the resilience, increased efficiency, and superior customer experience that enterprises need to thrive.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, is an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Akhilesh Tripathi: The idea of the autonomous enterprise is all about creating value, and our culture reflects that same principle. We foster a collaborative environment where a group of like-minded individuals shares common values and passion, all while having fun doing the work we love. We have a strong sense of community, where everyone looks out for each other, and hierarchy takes a backseat.
To foster professional development and continuous learning, we offer regular training programs that are aligned with the latest industry trends, including AI, machine learning, and data analytics. We encourage our team to pursue certifications and attend workshops to stay ahead of the curve. Additionally, we place a strong emphasis on internal knowledge-sharing sessions, where team members can exchange ideas and learn from each other’s experiences. By exposing our IT team to customer feedback and real-world challenges, we ensure they are not only skilled but also attuned to the needs of the market.
Teamwork is at the core of our culture. We believe that when we work together, we can achieve incredible things. We celebrate successes, both big and small, to make sure that our team knows their efforts are valued and appreciated. As we navigate the shifts in the workplace landscape, we remain committed to fostering an environment where teamwork truly makes the dream work, keeping our employees feel engaged, motivated, and excited about their roles and contributions to the team.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Akhilesh Tripathi: As businesses increasingly rely on digital platforms, the need for robust, scalable, and reliable IT infrastructure has never been greater. At Digitate, we’re capitalizing on this shift by enhancing our offerings to support the growing demands of digital and remote operations.
Our ignio™ AIOps platform is central to this strategy. It provides businesses with the tools they need to ensure their IT environments are performing optimally, even as workloads increase and become more distributed. By leveraging AI to monitor and manage these environments, we help our clients stay ahead of potential issues. In online shopping, for example, the stake is much higher as the cost of any system downtime can be disastrous. Every issue and failure can negatively impact the customer experience, resulting in irreversible losses for the retailers, that’s why proactive and predictive problem solving is the key to power frictionless operations.
We also see a significant opportunity in helping businesses manage the complexity of hybrid cloud environments, which are becoming the norm. As companies adopt a mix of on-premises, cloud, and SaaS platforms, our solutions are ready to meet this continued growth and adoption.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Akhilesh Tripathi: As AI capabilities rapidly advance, one of the significant challenges with AI is understanding its true value. Businesses tend to be optimistic in the short-term but pessimistic in the long-term about new technologies. AI is a hammer looking for a nail – its real potential lies in the application. The key is to figure out how to integrate AI into day-today operations in a way that enhances transparency, resilience, and control.
There is also an increasing urgency to establish clear regulations and governance frameworks that promote responsible AI development while fostering continued innovation. Recent pieces of AI legislation emerging in the EU and US underscore the growing focus on aligning AI with human values, prioritizing safety, transparency, privacy protection, and mitigating bias.
However, achieving truly unbiased and ethically aligned AI remains an ongoing challenge that will require continuous effort, collaboration, and a commitment to evolving societal values and ethical principles. Governments face the daunting task of enforcing compliance across remote global teams of developers, exacerbated by fragmented implementation of existing regulations across different regions.
We are always working to strike the right balance between responsible development and continued innovation. We keep the abovementioned concerns in mind when designing our products, ensuring that AI not only drives innovation but also offers a sense of control through explainability and transparency.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Akhilesh Tripathi: As automation impacts different areas, company culture often gets overlooked. There is a famous quote by the legendary management consultant and writer Peter Drucker, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” A robust company culture is crucial for executing any strategy effectively and managing changes successfully. Enterprises need to build the culture systematically to ensure employee buy-in and navigate change with confidence.
Take digital transformation for example, many outsource automation initiatives to vendors, thinking it absolves responsibility. This fails to shift the organization’s automation maturity, and measurements become crucial for gauging real impact beyond cost reduction. Many might mistake task automation or ticket generation as true “automation.” This provides little value.
Task automation is mere optimization, not transformation. To truly transform, organizations must take ownership of their automation roadmap, simplifying IT operations as a core initiative, not just a vendor responsibility. Intelligent automation should streamline and automate entire processes end-to-end, enabling self-healing systems with minimal human intervention.
It can be challenging to determine how leadership can impact the cultural narrative, invest in reskilling, and ensure employees are invested partners, not threatened. Especially in my field, where automation is a holistic transformation that drives leadership with clear success measurements beyond cost savings.
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?
Akhilesh Tripathi: If I could pick any business superpower, it would be the ability to unlock and maximize the full potential of human talent. In practice, this would mean seeing beyond the surface skills of every team member to identify their strengths and passion. With this power, I’d ensure that everyone is in a role where they can thrive, feel valued and engaged, as well as contribute their best work. Ultimately, it’s about empowering people to achieve more than they would ever thought possible, which I believe is the key to drive sustained business success.
What does “success” in 2024 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision
Akhilesh Tripathi: Digitate is paving the way of the autonomous enterprise. It’s no longer a distant dream but a tangible reality within reach. In 2024, I want to see us helping more organizations transition to a proactive, autonomous mode of operation where they can focus on strategic growth rather than day-to-day firefighting.
We’re also focused on the continuous enhancement of our ignio™ platform, integrating more advanced AI capabilities, and expanding our offerings to cover even more aspects of enterprise operations. More importantly, we’ll introduce new features to create a ticketless environment where AI and ML systems automatically resolve errors in real time. This means that our predictive maintenance will detect when IT infrastructure needs to be repaired before anything breaks down, significantly reducing ticket volumes, and empower IT teams to dedicate more time to innovate and drive growth.
Our Success will be measured by the new ticketless feature adoptions and tangible impact we have on our clients’ businesses—whether that’s through improved uptime, faster issue resolution, or more efficient use of resources.
