Microland Digital Warriors

Microland Digital Warriors | 39 © MICROLAND LIMITED 2020. Internal Circulation Only 38 Owning the keys to the kingdom It’s easy to feel like a knight when you conquer new territories in tech. The Big Data Cluster (BDC) project was not just new territory, but it was with a Goliath of a client, EY. Fortune favors the brave and for Mohan it was those early conversations with the client on the next thing to do with the ocean of chaotic data that spurred him to propose the idea of BDC to the client. With no track record of executing something even remotely close to the gravitas of the ask, it was the strong sense of “can-do” that Mohan seems predisposed to, which gave him the courage to make this bold move. As the world rocketed towards the “Cloud” here was a project that demanded what one might daringly call a “reverse cloud”, a move away from Azure cloud to an on-premise solution. Mohan defined the job before him in a simple one liner: “To convince EY that we are better than Microsoft and other competition.” Now that takes courage! Catching the project even before it hit the RFP stage Mohan steered team Microland to outwit two strong incumbents and then eventually even usurp Microsoft. “We showcased our technical depth in our conversations and that won the client’s confidence,” he says recalling his razor-sharp focus in showing mettle on what mattered. “To win the contract from Microsoft that was one call away was BIG,” he exclaims almost understating the scale of the project (and here we were taking on 100 million pieces of structured and unstructured data across 20 different units of this Big 4). The BDC project pivoted Microland to be a player across the applications and infrastructure space, the keys to a kingdom with a treasure chest like none other. Harnessing a team across New York and Argentina, the POC elevated us to a different league as we exceeded the client’s expectations. The POC was peppered with thrills, like when our solutioning team “challenged Microsoft on its architecture and won the argument.” Plus, in a leap of faith, the client handed over the application and infrastructure piece to Microland despite Microsoft offering app support for free! “We had to demonstrate we were a good alternative to Microsoft,” and we sure did. There’s a grit that personifies Mohan—for someone passionate about yoga and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) at the same time, both mental and physical strength seems like a given. Now, the world is waiting to be conquered. Mohan Kumar This Digital Warrior was able to construct a digital story around a big data solution which had been conceptualized for the first time withinMicroland. The solution faced-off with other competing technologies and was a clincher inMicroland winning the project.”