Altron Karabina has appointed Basha Pillay to the position of Business Unit Lead – Modern Platform. He will be tasked with helping businesses in their quest toward becoming digitally transformed.
Pillay has worked in the IT space for over 25 years, having started in development, before moving on to project and programme management. He has worked for a number of technology companies including Dimension Data and Internet Solutions, and Gijima.
“It was while doing a Management Development programme through the Gordon Institute of Business Science that the innovation bug really bit,” says Pillay. “Since then my focus has always been on how we can use technologies and skills to innovate in the workplace.
According to Pillay, the Modern Platforms space looks at how companies change the way they do business. It brings together the aspects of cloud, from an infrastructure perspective, all the way through to modernising applications using containers and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to enable a digital workforce through secure, seamless collaboration.
Within his business unit, Pillay is looking to embed a culture of continuous learning, and leading by example, and has set the goal for team members to each be seen as the expert – in their specific domain – that others turn to for assistance. He adds that combining this core skill set with a secondary future skillset like AI, ML or robotic process automation will set team members on the path to success.
“The key is ensuring that everyone has bought into the strategy and vision, and that we put in place measurable, achievable outcomes that we can all aspire to. This process needs to be participative and the overall strategy needs to be a collaborative effort. Thereafter, it’s about bringing together the right mix of skill, passion and drive from a team perspective and executing relentlessly against this agreed strategy,” Pillay explains.
Looking toward the future, Pillay says that the short-term goal is to work toward Altron Karabina becoming the first or second Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP) in South Africa, which is the pinnacle in terms of what Microsoft defines as the best Azure partner to work with. In the longer term, he is looking to play his part in turning the company into a powerhouse in the industry, and to become a centre of excellence for Modern Platforms globally.
“One of the key values of Altron Karabina is ‘Delivering Innovation that Matters’, and that’s what I look forward to the most. I believe we all have the ingredients necessary to build amazing solutions, and partnerships that will actually drive innovation that matters within our clients and country. I want to be able to tell my kids that my team was responsible for building a particular solution, and how it changed a business – or even the country – for the better,” concludes Pillay.