CIO Spotlight: Martin de Martini, Y Soft Corporation

Martin de Martini co-founded Y Soft with Vaclav Muchna. As CIO, Martin oversees the company’s global IT and system integration teams, project managers and Y Soft’s internal and external standardization processes while continuing to evangelize new technologies. Here he shares his thoughts on digital transformation, Y Soft’s 6 Attitudes (core values) and how ‘failure’ is really a path to growth and success.

What was your first job? Since Y Soft started while I was still in college, I didn’t have the opportunity to work for any other company. I had a few summer jobs unrelated to IT (such as bottling pickled gherkins and selling construction tools), but back then I already knew that having a boss was not going to be my way of life … and ironically, now I have many thousands of bosses by means of our customers.

Did you always want to work in IT? Yes and no. As a little kid I wanted to be a garbage man. It seemed kind of cool to ride the truck. During high school, I was into chemistry and I seriously considered a career in bio-chemistry. Through the preparation work, I became indirectly involved with PC programming (until then I used computers only for video games) and I’ve been absolutely mesmerized by the fact I can tell the computer what to do with few basic commands.

Tell us about your career path. With our new company, I really started as a developer and created the first version of our core product. Then I became head of the software development team and then CTO. However, our company grew way faster than our (and my) managerial skills. I stepped down to make way for an experienced manager and moved toward where my [skills were best suited] –  the product management and consultancy for our biggest customers. Then, two years ago we were challenged with a global ERP implementation that was near to becoming a disaster and I was nominated by our board as the best one to handle it. So, through my experience with global deliveries and implementation of our products I [found my way to] the back office.

What business or technology initiatives will be most significant in driving IT investments in your organization in the coming year? In the short term I’m planning a huge renewal of our data center to automate our DevOps. As we are moving deeper and deeper toward agile development and continuous integration, we need to have the infrastructure and tools to support that and need it to be able to grow with us. That means I’m looking into investing in a software defined data center that can initially run over 1,000 virtual computers easily and has connectivity to public clouds for offloading larger scale tests. Spending the money is the easy part. Making sure we utilize the investment in terms that adds real value to our business is the tricky part. In the longer term, office workflow automation tools, automatization for production (aka industry 4.0) and cloud technologies (we have quite few already).

What are the CEO’s top priorities for you in the coming year? How do you plan to support the business with IT? The priorities are to: Put Our Customers First; Keep Our Business Growing; Leverage New Channels; Launch New Products; and Improve Our Operational Efficiency. For me the answer is simple. Our customers will appreciate tools that will simplify their decision-making process and their communication with us, and that’s where IT can help a lot. On the second two priorities – If we can provide better tools for sales management and improve the efficiency of our DevOps, we are poised to grow. And regarding efficiency … I have a team that is looking into individual business and back-office processes to suggest where we can save unnecessary human work through automation.

Does the conventional CIO role include responsibilities it should not hold? Should the role have additional responsibilities it does not currently include? I think the conventional CIO role used to be pretty much in operating IT. In the fast changing digitally transforming world, I believe the role of the CIO shall be way more about understanding the business and acquiring and creating tools and technologies that can improve and innovate the business and business processes. Starting with the back office, manufacturing, DevOps all the way to marketing, sales and customer support. So pretty much cross-functional reach. And to be the leader in empowering the organization to embrace the change. IT has to be the business enabler and innovator, not the cost center. And lastly, I almost forgot to mention cybersecurity. Today, more than ever in history, it is important to understanding the topic and educate the company.

Are you leading a digital transformation? If so, does it emphasize customer experience and revenue growth or operational efficiency? How do you balance the two? I do believe we lead the transformation. With both our products and with our internal approach as well. My primary focus is on automation and my team is highly incentivized with a reduction of unnecessary or time consuming manual work. Regardless whether it comes to electronic data exchange with our partners, order processing, e-invoicing, automation of paper workflows, automation of bookkeeping, simple web tools for sales management and CRM integration, transparent data for operational decisions or automation and significant improvements of our DevOps teams. All initiatives lead to reducing administrative workload, a simplification of the process for our customers (with an “easy to to do business with us” mantra) thus indirectly improving the customer experience and growing revenue.

Describe the maturity of your digital business. For example, do you have KPIs to quantify the value of IT? I dare say we are at CMMI level 4-5. Our KPIs include grade-of-service toward the company, satisfaction of internal and external customers and also the level of automation and saved efficiency in man hours to our core business and our business partners. The last one is probably the closest to real interim quantification of the value, as the true value comes long term via happier employees and customers and then improved EBITDA …

What does good culture fit look like in your organization? How do you cultivate it?  We have our Y Soft 6 Attitudes, what most refer to as core values (Be Driven, Be Energetic, Be Open, Be Accountable, Be Enthusiastic and Be Ethical) and we start with matching the right people during our hiring and onboarding processes. We also have cultural match as part of our regular quarterly evaluation process with an interesting impact to the bonus program.

What roles or skills are you finding (or anticipate to be) the most difficult to fill? All technical or highly skilled positions, and with developers and their managers are in extreme demand. But I think this is mostly due to the fact that the unemployment rate in our region is close to zero. In general, however, the combination of great technical skills and great business (and social) skills in one person is extremely rare.

What’s the best career advice you ever received? Not sure if it is really career advice, but one of the very best pieces of advice (and lessons) I ever received in business was to make sure I am well prepared for any business meeting or negotiation. And I figured out this is valid outside of the office as well. When you are prepared it is hard to be hit by surprise. And you also learn not to assume/expect because (as I learned in Silicon Valley) –  Assumption Is the Mother Of All F-ups.

Do you have a succession plan? If so, discuss the importance of and challenges with training up high-performing staff. No. I will be with the company as long as I’m a valuable asset. When I’m not, I will be discussing with my peers and find a solution that is in the company’s best interest. In the meanwhile, we as a company have a leadership coaching and mentoring program that helps with successions in the long run.

What advice would you give to aspiring IT leaders? Start your career with some business facing roles. Whether you go for sales, support or consultancy, knowing the customers and the business is the key. You cannot help your own company without knowing what your customers really want. Seeing the added value and bringing the added value is really what makes the difference.

What has been your greatest career achievement? I see quite a few. My failure as an R&D leader and the opportunity to serve our biggest customers; My personal involvement in technical selling our product to a few of the biggest Fortune 500 tech companies. And my current engagement with improving our global operational excellency. The most significant achievements are however, yet to come.

Looking back with 20:20 hindsight, what would you have done differently? I wouldn’t change a thing. Every step I took and every mistake I made gave me the opportunity to learn. When I look at some of my decisions and plans only year or two back, in principle they seemed to be solid, but many seem to be quite funny or even ridiculous now. And that means I’m learning and improving and that’s the only way to continue to bring value to the world.

This interview is part of CIO’s regular Spotlight series, which focuses on the career paths of IT leaders. If you know someone (or are someone) with a story worth telling, please contact kate_hoy@idg.com.