aiTech‌ ‌Trend‌ ‌Interview‌ ‌with‌ Akhil Gupta,‌ Co-Founder & CEO ‌at‌ Total IT Global - AITechTrend
akhil gupta, total it global

aiTech‌ ‌Trend‌ ‌Interview‌ ‌with‌ Akhil Gupta,‌ Co-Founder & CEO ‌at‌ Total IT Global

Tell us how you came to be the CEO at Total IT?

As Co-Founder of Total IT Global, I have been invested in its growth from the initial years itself and have undertaken the role of Chief Executive Officer from 2016.

What are the key reasons behind the success of Total IT Global?

Our core values of agility, efficiency, and integrity have stood us in good stead over the years, helping us deliver service excellence at optimum cost. Constant innovation forms the basis of all our product development, where we anticipate and address complex technological challenges with cost-effective and cutting-edge solutions. With a multi-dimensional team spread across major continents, we power our customers with deep exposure and knowledge of the global landscape, thus providing a seamless experience across multiple geographies.
Keeping the customer at the core of all our business decisions has enabled us to maintain a 98.3% customer retention rate.

What are some of the common challenges customers approach Total IT with?

Our clients are large global conglomerates and Fortune500 companies, from varied industries and sectors. While challenges may differ for each, owing to the nature of their business, ultimately, the end goal for them is to be at the cutting edge of technology, while keeping an eye on costs. The most common pain points that our customers approach us with are:

  • High Upfront CAPEX to keep up with periodic technological upgrades
  • Extensive Use of Manpower for repetitive and duplicate IT support tasks
  • Lack of standardization in their IT Asset spread
  • Absence of Proactive Trend Analysis of their IT support issues
  • Inadequate transparency and predictability in their IT support costs outlay
  • Inefficiencies in managing the extensive spread of IT vendors across multiple scopes and geographies

Increased adoption of highly secure & seamless Digital Workplaces i.e. a cloud-based work platform that contains all relevant applications, tools, and information to enable businesses to move work to virtual spaces, is definitely something to watch out for. The global digital workplace market was anyways forecasted to grow by 11% from 2020 to 2027 (Grand View Research, May 2020). In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, this market is only set to grow higher than forecasted. In fact, Gartner reports that 82% of businesses plan to continue some remote work across all operations after COVID – and 47% will allow it full-time).
Hyper automation via RPA Centers of excellence to efficiently manage time-consuming & repetitive IT operational tasks for end-user support. (Gartner predicts that hyper-automation will reduce IT operational costs by 30% by 2024, while also decreasing complexity in modern IT environments)
Role of AI & ML in enhancing IT Service Delivery: Progressive Managed Service Providers are adopting innovative ways to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning targeted towards improved service delivery excellence and efficiency. AI and machine learning have the power to improve incident management by proactively predicting and preventing issues, reducing service disruptions and repeat problems.
Simple, Scalable & vendor-neutral Cloud Service Providers: The explosion of multiple cloud options and vendors over the last few years has added confusion to the already complex IT Infrastructure landscape, with companies struggling to choose the best options between public v/s private v/s hybrid clouds etc. Companies today are looking for the right and reliable MSPs who can simplify this critical piece of the puzzle and help them make informed and sustainable choices with respect to cloud infrastructure.

While AI-powered Chatbots, Drones, Self-driving vehicles, and AR are top of the mind, it is interesting to note the rise of ‘Smart Cities, ‘Smart Grids’, ‘Smart Homes’, and wearable tech. All of these have revolutionized the way we live and I firmly believe that the applications of Autonomous Technologies that we see today, are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot of good that can be done with the application of AI and IoT for every industry and sector, not just manufacturing, automotive, or supply chain. In fact, at Total IT Global, we are in the midst of acquiring deep technical expertise in the IoT space.

How do you define customer experience automation?

Primarily, automation is about replacing manual, time-consuming and repetitive tasks that consume valuable human bandwidth, with tools or systems that not only enable the employees to focus on tasks requiring real human intelligence but also improve response times and efficiencies within the entire process life cycle, while also reducing human error. In the area of Customer Experience, the benefits of automation extend beyond this i.e. it not only enables more structured customer interactions powered by strong past trends of buyer behavior, but it also gives a WOW experience to the customer and strengthens the positioning of the company as a thought leader at the forefront of technology. AI Chatbots, Customer Experience Portals, and Mobile applications are few such examples that have been helpful in elevating customer experience across businesses and industries.
Having said that, customer experience is a wider, holistic term meant to make the brand experience seamless and intuitive, through several moments of truth. A Customer’s experience with a brand is not limited only to machine interaction. Hence, while customer experience automation may not address a 360-degree customer experience, it does ease the repetitive and mundane tasks into an uninterrupted, predictive flow.

How would you describe Total IT Global’s evolution and how are you bringing innovationto the Customer via your products?

Over the past few years, Total IT Global has grown from a Managed services and third-party maintenance solutions provider, to one that customizes solutions for its Clients, using a consultative approach. In keeping with the shift towards a ‘subscription economy’, Total IT Global has also successfully created solutions that offer Clients the flexibility of a predictive, monthly cost, rather than upfront large investments, through Device as a Service. Through our subscription-based offerings for enterprise and end-user computing devices, we help operationalize the capital expenditure of our Client’s businesses, thus offering substantial bottom-line benefits, accuracy in predicting gross margins, and freeing up crucial cash flow. We also anticipated the move towards Digital Workspaces, thus introduced Digital Kiosks and Smart Lockers for our Clients. Simultaneously, through AI-assisted knowledge management and other innovative machine learning-powered tools, we continue to intelligently automate our
helpdesk support thus providing our customers with cost-effective & cutting-edge solutions. These innovative products have marked our successful progression into an evolved, integrated
solutions provider.

What is that one quote that has stayed with you throughout your professional life?

“Change is the only Constant.” This is one of the many quotes that has always inspired me in my professional journey. It defines my philosophy in business as well as in my personal life. As long as we keep learning and adapting, we are growing. If we challenge ‘change’ it will be more painful. Instead, I embrace ‘change’ and use it as fuel to be the best version of myself every day. This is what drives me.


Bio for Akhil Gupta / Chief Executive Officer at Total IT Global:

An Angel Investor & Business Growth Specialist with 20+ years of experience in IT Infrastructure, Digital Technologies & Professional Services Industry. His core expertise is in the area of Business Transformation, Business Development, Consulting, Marketing & Customer Experience. Having represented the IT Industry in various industry-specific associations, he has gained deep & comprehensive insights into Upcoming Trends in the IT industry. He founded & built high growth & successful Multi-National Companies with more than 1850 headcounts spread across 5 countries i.e. Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, United Kingdom & India. With the advent
of Industrial Revolution 4.0, his most recent investment is in the Digital Technology domain with the vision of launching AI-driven software tools & products.
When I am not working, I enjoy riding my motorbike along scenic routes or play golf. My true passion is to inspire people. This motivates me to be a better human being every day, by practicing compassion and gratitude. I believe that technology is just a tool to help us build bigger, better communities and not alienate us from each other.

Bio for Total IT Global:

Total IT Global is an integrated IT solutions provider offering holistic vendor agnostic, hardware, and managed service solutions in over 123 countries for workspaces, data centers, and cloud infrastructure. Our geographical footprint provides our clients with a unique combination of extensive worldwide resources, substantial local knowledge, and an integrated global supply chain network. Total IT Global delivers a holistic experience by owning the entire IT infrastructure lifecycle, from hardware provisioning, professional services, maintenance support, all the way to disposal and certified data destruction, all under one roof.

Over the years, Total IT Global has achieved the distinction of being recognized as one of the ‘Top 10 IT Field Service Solution Providers’ in 2019, by APAC CIO Outlook magazine. Total IT Global was featured among the top London-based IT Infrastructure Companies in the UK in 2020. We have also been awarded the Great Place to Work® certification for the year 2021-22, by Great place to Work® Institute, the global authority on building, sustaining, and recognizing High-Trust, High-Performance CultureTM at workplaces.