Don’t let your short term goals bruise your long term vision: Pramad Jandhyala, co-founder, Latentview

Whether it is her confident body language or the conviction of doing something close to her heart or even the carefully thought out replies, it is impossible to meet Pramad Jandhyala and not come away impressed. Though I met her at the conglomeration of notable BITS Pilani alumni, she still stood out in her crisp cotton sari and short hair. Life has been a well executed plan of action till now for Pramad. Right from her Computer Science graduation from BITS Pilani to her MBA from IIM-Calcutta followed by working on financial services (and analytics) for over a decade before co-founding Latentview, a data analytics and data management firm, there is nothing that Pramad would like to change from her past. Here’s a glimpse of Pramad’s journey from her early childhood to being the Director of Finance & Human Capital at Latentview.

Of strong fundamentals – Remembering college days

Pramad has grown up under the influence of following three qualities:

I. Discipline

II. Hard work

III. Standing up for what you believe

Sharing her learning from the college days at BITS Pilani, she says, “I was introduced to the phrase ‘broad-based’ curriculum in the orientation session of college and true to its spirit, I experienced collaborative learning, developed a risk-taking appetite, got a first-hand experience of running business while being a part of the BITS cooperative store (made a software for billing) and a lot beyond the academic world. The beauty of Pilani is that you become a part of the self-centred universe there with no distraction.”

Fast forward to Latentview

Pramad has worked in securities market, credit ratings and financial services, all themed around data and analytics. She also focuses on people side of things, that is, to understand what motivates them to work and related aspects. It was a marriage of her work experience and interest that brought about the birth of Latentview where she is Director of Finance & Human Capital. Founded in 2006, the company is now a 320-member strong team working at five locations.

Latentview does business analytics for companies by operating on data and thus supports them with better business and marketing decisions enabled by the tech revolution and customer behavior information. Two core values of the company are ambition and self-belief owing to which it has been successfully doubling the revenue Y-o-Y basis.Speaking about the competitive advantage of Latentview over other players, Pramad says , “We provide business led solutions and do not look at data as a math problem. Our clients are relationship driven. These two factors give us an edge over any other competitor.” She stated that they want to scale up their outreach and footprint in the market and set up processes to support the expanded clientele in the near future.

Experience speaks

From her experience of two decades in the data and analytics space, Pramad has seen it changing like never before. She shared some of the recent trends in this space as following:

1. Social Media: It definitely gives a company the benefit of listening to a customer and captures the buzz in the market.
2. Big data: Since traditional servers are unable to match on cloud, companies have comfortably made the transition to analysis on cloud.
3. Mobile: It brings very interesting dynamics because it can track you all the time given the fact that you are glued to it. It adds an aspect of intelligent system with all the personal data.
4. Visualization: It helps to get the message of data analysis across avoiding the situation of ‘drowning in data and striving for insights’.

Being a womanPramad believes that though there are different sets of challenges faced by women today in various stages of life, it all boils down to a few critical decisions:

1. Prioritize either home or profession and stick to it. Eventually, it will work out well.
2. Irrespective of gender it is important to be able to make compromises. No battle can be won without it and sooner you understand this, the better it is for you.

Pramad is convinced that the number of women pursuing what they believe in is increasing, and this will inspire more to join in. It might not happen overnight because of the existing social structure but the change is evident.

Learning from the past and message for the future

Switching jobs across different areas (securities market to financial accounting) gives you confidence. One should simply absorb and embrace different experiences without filtering them into categories.

Pramad signed off on a high note with the following message for young women professionals:

“Getting out of your comfort zone will take you through the best of learning experiences. So work towards making your dreams come true and have conviction. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes and stay focused as your long term vision may get bruised by your short term goals but you have to stay on course.”