Business Leaders

Tardid Technologies is an AI-powered product delivery company. It is an AI-driven Scientific Decision Intelligence Platform that helps to manage assets by proactively informing the end customers of probable outcomes/ failures/ anomalies. Tardid allows the end customer to plan better and avert any undue breakdowns in advance, thereby ensuring production continuity. 

Aastha Verma is the Co-Founder and COO of Tardid. She holds an Engineering and MBA degree and holds 15 years of industry experience. Aastha started her professional journey as a Business Analyst from B-School and moved into different roles and responsibilities as she changed cities and jobs accordingly. She also started her first venture when she could not go to a full-time job and had to take care of her kids. After a great four years, Aastha went back to work as head of strategic alliances and global sales.   

At Tardid, she looks into alliances, sales, marketing, and everything which is not technical in its attribute. Aastha says that all the technology and product decisions are made by the Founder & CEO, Niladri Dutta. 

 

Assisting Heavy Industry to Reduce Downtime with AI  

Tardid is changing the entire landscape of how a massive industrial asset should be managed. The company is enabling and encouraging businesses to shift from age-old systematic casual analysis to scientific model-driven methodology. Especially in COVID times, when the entire focus is on reducing touch and exposure, Tardid's AI Platform, Brainbox™, proves to be a great enabler. With Brainbox, the company focuses on the mitigation of risks and costs associated due to the failure of heavy industrial assets, understanding that the assets need to continue operation and function with minimal interaction. 

Tardid assists the heavy industries like Marine, Manufacturing, Defense, Oil & Gas, and others, to move away from a reactive to a proactive approach for their maintenance. 

 

Sustaining Through Technology Disruption 

According to Aastha, disruptive technologies are changing today's innovation canvas. However, it is also vital to manage the balance between disruption and longevity. For example, in the pre-COVID world, many hyper-local apps and business models entered the market. However, very few could sustain through challenging business scenarios with cease in travel and business areas. 

She feels that it is significant to understand disruption and disruptive technology as a leader, but it is equally essential to understand the business and market scenarios. It is critical for the next year to understand the impact of COVID and businesses' behaviour, as they have constantly been changing. In this context, Aastha advises that while working on a new project/ product/ innovation, businesses must develop a future proof system that doesn't get impacted in the new normal. 

Imparting Essential Leadership Traits 

Radiating attributes of next-generation leadership, Aastha says that leaders must pose: 

Good Communication: Effective communication is necessary for every facet of leadership, including building relationships with others, delegating assignments, defining goals and objectives, coaching and giving feedback, praising and criticizing, managing performance, influencing or persuading others, handling conflicts or problems, managing and guiding people through change, and presenting views and information in an honest and balanced manner. 

Interpersonal Skills: Interpersonal skills include the ability to interact and deal with others individually, in groups, and within teams. 

Problem Solving: Effective problem solving and decision-making skills are a must-have for any good leader. This is because decisions - often hard ones - are part of every leadership role. 

Delegation: It enables other individuals within an organization to grow and work on meaningful and challenging tasks, taking off works from a leader so that he/she can focus on other priorities. This builds trust with others and helps leaders expand the scope of results that they can produce. 

 

Challenges in Balancing Personal and Professional Growth 

Aastha asserts that there were always many challenges. Being a woman, starting a career itself, was a challenge. She was limited by choice of location where she could take placement. "Once I started working, I was forced to change locations and also let go of great professional opportunities due to my duties as a mother. Did I enjoy transitioning between a professional and a mother? Yes, I absolutely did. Still, after a few years, it was all about bringing out a balance between a professional and a mother in me," she said. Aastha also faced certain personal challenges, which made her a stronger and more determined person. 

Aastha believes that challenges keep coming with every passing day. More recently, the entire world faces a never imagined challenge of COVID, but businesses are discovering and inventing new ways to resolve the day to day challenges. 

 

Invaluable Leadership Accomplishments 

Aastha learned the biggest lesson of her life when she became a mother. She discovered how to manage a balance between professional and personal lives, how to prioritize herself, and how to believe in her instincts and follow it with hard work. 

From past experiences at her workplaces, Aastha learned that it is important to respect the seniors in the organization, as well as it is also more crucial to have respect within peers to achieve the tasks completed in time and to the best standards.   

Taking her cues when she started Tardid, Aastha wanted to incorporate the best practices which she had learned from her past experiences. When she looks at her team, she has more perspective to understand their actions and work. 

Aastha feels that being a homemaker is the toughest job in the world. She always tries and utilizes her experience from her few years of being a homemaker in her professional life. There are two points which she uses in most scenarios:   

a) Compassion toward the team, because they need empathy to become an achiever in their respective areas.

b) Aastha feels this is most important as a leader,"The buck stops at me."Her team is her responsibility, in case they fail at any point, it is Aastha's failure rather than just theirs. So, it is imperative that she involves herself with them at all points, at the same time, gives them enough independence to show their individuality. It allows the team to stretch their creativity and imagination when they know they can take the risks they choose to take. 

 

The Future Influenced by AI 

Aastha firmly believes that Tardid and similar companies will have a great future in the coming years. "We may have been the early adopters for AI in Heavy Industries, but slowly we are observing many companies joining the race. There is a great demand for a product like Brainbox™ which can help industry reduce their risks," she mentioned. 

Industries are indicating great interest in Artificial Intelligence. Businesses have an excellent appetite for AI-based products to increase their productivity and reduce the risk of unplanned downtime. In the near future, Tardid sees a large number of AI-enabled Industries utilizing disruptive technologies to solve their inherent problems. 

 

Advice to Next Generation Leaders 

Aastha advises emerging leaders to realize cybersecurity as the entire world is going digital. It will undoubtedly introduce increased, and different kinds of cyber threats like ransomware or could pose a complete loss of years of information due to human error. The breach in cybersecurity can cause companies huge losses both in terms of money and credibility. Thus, it is a leader's accountability in cybersecurity space to focus on the unseen ways to tackle a threat that is not prevalent. As some may say it is being paranoid, Aastha thought it is better to have paranoia and plan for it rather than facing it as an unknown stranger.