Kochi, Kerala, India
Mathew heads Edutor Technologies, s software product company in the EdTech industry. He has worked in and around building technology products/solutions all through his career : Telecom billing industry (Amdocs), Retail technology for a franchisee retailer (Alshaya) and EdTech. Mathew brings a calm demeanor, a hands-on approach and a resilient attitude to everything that he does.
Own the roadmap for the IGNITOR Learning, a courseware app that powers e-learning content distribution to over 1,000 educational institutions in India, Middle East and South Africa. Highlights: 1. Led the organization through a period of flux as the old guard (company founders) made way for the transition to the company becoming a subsidiary of S Chand and Company. 2. Client relationship management driving retention and growth of key accounts, rationalising of non-revenue generating accounts and recovery of overdue payments from both the government and private clients. 3. Revamped our marketing efforts : Relaunched the company website, re-initiated participation in education industry-focused exhibitions (DIDAC, ET Tech X, New Delhi World Book Fair). 4. Re-designed our flagship courseware app into a user-first, secure and cost-optimised platform for our customers and end-users. 5. Revamped our operations : a. Shifted out of a permanent office space to a co-working space (we moved to remote working during COVID and have made it work) b. Replaced customer operations tasks that required manual admin work with self-service for our customers. The objective was to reduce time-to-market for our customers and reduce project costs to reduce prices and improve margins. c. Introduced processes in the workplace to build a culture of transparency, objectivity and ownership.
- Owned Analytics (in-app, app usage). - Responsible for the App Ecosystem (CRM, Payments, Education utilities). - Established partnerships with academia for research at the intersection of technology and pedagogy. As part of this, I initiated an internship program with the Center for Educational Innovation at TISS, Mumbai.
Took a break as we relocated from Kuwait to Hyderabad. Spent time evaluating options to put one foot out into new territories (role and industry-wise). Doubled up as a priceless bonding (and baby-sitting) period with our first child.
Led digital transformation projects. Developed a view about the management approaches that help land large-impact projects, with the intended impact. Highlights: - Managed an HR Self-Service rollout project to over 10,000 employees (diverse audience - Fork-lift operators, store sales associates, Head-Office staff, CXOs). From a culture of employees walking over and talking to their HR Business Partners and Payroll staff members, employees had to adopt online HR processes. The change management didn't land well and it took months of relentless work to embed new processes and change mindsets (more than 80 nationalities!) - Managed a payroll systems re-implementation that had been attempted and had failed 2 times previously. - Led these digital transformation projects which were positioned as precursors to a company-wide digital transformation initiative. - First project to launch with cloud infrastructure. Grovelled through information/cyber security hurdles, lack of in-house know-how, organisational politics et all. - First project that tested willingness to adhere to industry-standard processes available on SaaS platforms versus embedding legacy processes into these platforms. - Great learning experience working with CXO stakeholders (COO, VP-HR, VP-Tech, division presidents) and keeping things moving.
Designed processes for launching Alshaya's - First eCommerce store (happened to be in the UK). - First loyalty programme 2012 to 2014 were still early years as far as eCommerce and CRM were concerned in the Middle-East. Intense cross-division engagements with Finance, Logistics, Supply Chain and Store Operations to introduce : - Inter-country shipment of online orders - In-store collection for online orders - In-store registration for loyalty programmes and redemption of loyalty rewards Order Management and fulfilment from multiple warehouses, Store stock visibility, Reverse Logistics were all tinkered with to enable customer-first experiences online and in-store! 2015 - 16 : I managed Alshaya’s in-house Labor Scheduling application that was used across 4,000 stores & restaurants - We needed store managers to stop compliance-driven usage of the app and instead, be willing adopters this app that was essential for headcount planning and ensuring on-floor customer service through optimal staffing. - Focus groups with staff from multiple countries, Prototyping, UI revamping, Analytics were all part of my initiatives. - It was an introduction to building apps that had simple, familiar alternatives (Microsoft Excel), muck akin to communication platforms in today's WhatsApp era.
Member of the APRM (Amdocs Partner Management) application development team at Amdocs in various capacities: software developer (C, Unix), solution design lead, acting team lead, pre-sales engineer Participated in sales presentations to tier-1 telecom service providers in South Africa, Thailand and USA