Convocation lecture at MITCOM by COO of Cybage

1. An enthralling speech by Deepak Nathani at the 6th Convocation Ceremony of MIT College of
Management (MITCOM), Pune
January, 2015
Students, faculty, dignitaries here, Dr. Vishwanath Karad, it’s a great pleasure for me to be present here
amongst you for your convocation ceremony. To be honest, I never attended my own convocation
ceremony and this is the first time I am attending some convocation ceremony wearing a robe, it feels
good. In fact, I have really enjoyed it and the way this whole ceremony has been planned and executed, I
must say this is a hallmark of a great institute. Congratulations Sir.
Cybage has been hiring a lot of engineers from MIT but this is the first time I visited MIT campus and I
must say this is a beautiful campus and you all students are fortunate to be graduating from this
wonderful institute. Congratulations. Few weeks back, Dr Sayali called me and said, “would you like to
come over as Guest of Honor for the convocation ceremony?” and I was wondering, I said yes, but later
on I was wondering, why did she call me, I am not a celebrity speaker, neither am I an MBA, so
technically all of you are more qualified than me here today, and I kind of feel little bit out of place. So
she said Deepak you can speak about Cybage’s Story, Cybage’s Growth, and I said that’s equally boring,
you know we don’t have any Stanford graduates or Howard graduates or IITian or IIMs who started this
company, neither do we have anyone from such elite institute in our core management, neither do we
have any high-profile director in our board representing from such institutes let alone that we don’t
even have college drop-outs who started this company. In fact, we don’t even have any Angel funding
legacy, no VC funding, no private equity participation, no mergers or acquisitions, you see its very
boring, yet we have grown to be one of the most successful IT services company in the country. Today,
we employ more than 5,000 engineers working on cutting-edge technologies serving likes of Microsoft,
Google, Symantec, Expedia to name a few and this question comes to me and Arun; Arun is the Founder

2. and my brother and CEO of the company, and this question has frequently been asked to us that ‘what
makes Cybage so successful, in spite of nothing what a regular start-up company needs? And, we always
tell them that we have kept things simple. When I say simple, just focus on providing value to your
clients.
What is business? Business is about transaction between a client and a vendor, as long as you provide
value to your clients, they will keep coming back to you. And that is something we realized in the initial
days. When we started there was a huge goal rush for ‘.com’ boom and we could have easily started
sending people to onsite and charge $100 an hour, but we stayed back and we said what is the purpose
of Cybage, we are here to give off-shore economics to our clients. So we stayed back, focused on off-
shore software development, perfected our delivery model and continued on that route rather than
getting digressed to on-site development, and that did pay dividend because when the .com burst
happened, everybody started coming back to India and grew by 300% that year. Cybage has few other
qualities, like we are very practical company, we never dream too big. If today somebody tells you that
Microsoft, Googles or Facebook when their founders started the companies and they thought or
dreamed that they will make it that big, they are lying. No company starts with the dreams of making it
that big. Companies grow big because they take one step at a time, even for us when we were a smaller
company, we used to think that from 5 people how to become 10 and from 10 to 25 and then 25 to 50,
100 and that’s how you take those baby steps, and things fall in place, so unlike other speakers who
might have told you in past that dream big, I’ll say dream with your eyes open, set small achievable
goals and once you have reached those goals, set another goal.
That has been the secret of our success; we never went for acquisitions because we wanted to have that
total rock-solid company like a good company is too expensive to buy and a bad company is not worth
buying, so Cybage has never acquired any companies, so we continue to grow totally through organic
method, other thing which Cybage has been focusing on is building efficiency. You all are managers now,
remember, efficiency is the main thing you have to focus on in any company you join. When you are an
efficient company, you pass on those savings or value whatever you create; you pass on to the clients
and that’s the way you compete with your peers and that is something which we realized long back and
we have processes in place. Being an IT company, we have set up our own systems to make sure that we
are tapping the highest efficiency, and finally you treat your employees with dignity. It doesn’t matter
whether you are dealing with the watchman of the company or the vice president, for you every person
is doing the job and you have to respect that, so as long as you build a fairness in your systems and
respect your employees, they give the best to you and that has been another secret you may say, that
Cybage’s core management has grown from, you know they joined us as fresher and today they are
senior vice-presidents in our company.
You all are very fortunate; I said I didn’t attend my convocation ceremony that was not by my wish, in
those days in 1985, the distances were not that short; flying from 1 place to other was not that easy.
Coming from a middle-class background taking a flight was also not easy so what do you do okay
convocation ceremony is there, fine. But you live in a modern era where distances are short, we all are
in a level playing field, it doesn’t matter whether you are living in a village or sitting in San Francisco you
are all connected. Today you see all Indian, and there are so many Indians at the helm of so many multi-
national companies and the one person who stands out is Satya Nadella. Why pick Satya Nadella’s name,
there are quite a few others but he graduated from Manipal University, a very mid-tier university, he

3. went to US and again did MBA from a mid-tier institute and yet he is heading one of the largest
companies in the world. What does that prove; any one of us can be Satya Nadella of tomorrow,
provided you put in your best, give in your 100% and nothing will seem impossible.
Personally, I have a small success mantra which I follow; I have a WhatsApp status which says live it up.
In which L is for Love and for me love is religion. Wherever you are, learn to love everyone, love your
company; unless you love the place you work for, you will never give your 100%. So whenever you join a
company, give your 100% and love that company as if it’s your own. In your personal life also, you will
never find a perfect person in the world. Neither I am perfect nor are you. So treat the people the way
you would like to be treated. Ignore their short-comings because nobody’s perfect. Once you accept
that, you will start loving everyone.
I stand for inspire. Now that you are managers, there are some experienced managers on my left; you
can agree with me that gone are the days of ordering your sub-ordinates. Now you have to inspire your
subordinates and how do you do that? You cannot inspire your subordinates unless you know the
subject matter. You have to stay ahead of your peers or sub-ordinates. You have to work hard towards
gathering the knowledge. You should be the ‘go to’ person. If there is anyone stuck with anything, they
should come to you for solution and when you are in that position, trust me the growth is automatic. In
fact, your boss should come to you and ask for a solution, you should be that good. When you are in
that position you are a successful manager and you are inspiring everyone to do good.
V is for values and believe me today standing in MIT, I feel values is what you all have been imparted
very rightly here. I was sitting in Dr. Vishwanath’s office and I felt as if I am sitting in a temple. Sir, it was
pleasure being there. Coming from middle-class background, we have been imparted values from our
parents and we follow that in Cybage or in our life on everyday basis. Cybage is a very successful
company. We get offers take government projects, and some agents come to us and say give 40% as a
kick back and this 20 cr. project is yours and believe me we have not taken a single government project
till date. It’s not about just making money; you should be making money with pride where you can sleep
peacefully in the night. Believe me there will be lot of Riches who have made money in a wrong way but
that is not the way you will be happy. If you want to be happy, follow the values.
And Finally E is for enjoy the present. Hitesh mentioned that in his speech very well. Life goes by very
fast, believe me. I graduated 29 years back and it feels like only yesterday. So make the best of your time
and enjoy in every way. When I say enjoy, you are not supposed to take enjoyment at every place. When
you are at work, you are working and when you are at home, think of home, think of family. Personally I
have created a very nice partition, when I am at work, if my wife calls me, it better be an emergency and
when I am at home I don’t even remember if Cybage exists. Today, it was an interesting day; I usually
play golf on Saturdays and tomorrow morning I am taking my Harley to Amby Valley. So one has to find
hobbies and ways to be involved in other things because work is not the only thing we live for. You have
to remember work is just a medium to live a happy life. So God Bless you all. I wish you all the best and
live it up. Thank you.