Meet Open Orbit and its nimble problem-solving platform
In every business, there are problems to solve and business processes crying out for improvement. What Open Orbit offers is a unique digital Expertise Automation platform which utilises AI techniques to solve problems in a whole new way.
Chatting to Niranjan Deodhar, Founder of Open Orbit, we picked his brains about Open Orbit and the recent win at the Australian Business Awards (ABA) 100 — Winner of Technology and Software categories.
Efficiency is obviously Niranjan’s middle name, but where does the name Open Orbit come from?
Niranjan says, “Open — because we want to drive collaboration between people who are solving problems… and Orbit which is about looking at the problem from every perspective, making sure you look at it from all angles.”
Interestingly, Open Orbit uses medical concepts of symptom, cause and remedy to diagnose business problems in order to accelerate the thinking of the problem solver towards finding the right remedy (solution).
Niranjan’s extensive background has seen him hold various senior positions in companies like Genpact, IBM, PwC Consulting and Siemens. His brainchild, Open Orbit, he says was born out of these experiences in seeing a clear need for an innovative platform to solve problems for complex enterprises.
He reflects, “You feel that there should be a better way of doing this. It should be easier to solve these problems, it shouldn’t take that long and shouldn’t cost that much. Even as a start-up, we run on a shoestring budget, and that is essential, as you need to run long. You can’t just sprint and say I ran out of money.”
Driving sustainable change especially in business process improvement is no easy feat, but Niranjan says it all comes down to making sure these processes are continuously reviewed.
He explains, “Process is a thing of itself, it decays over time if you don’t look after it. I think a lot of programs that try to implement business-related change lack that perspective, and so we decided to increase the organisation’s ability to press on that lever.”
“The uniqueness of Open Orbit is that it automates the expertise of the improvement practitioner and puts it in the hands of the non-practitioner. Doesn’t mean that the practitioner goes away, but just means that they can step back into the role of a mentor, rather than do all the leg work of capturing the problem.”
Open Orbit’s bold method goes further than simply mapping out the issues, but instead it guides the problem solver through what the business process should actually look like and how to get there.
Niranjan says that in order for change to occur, it needs to come from a top-down mandate.
He says, “However, in the words of one of our clients, you also need to make it easy for the person. You can’t just tell them to do it, you have to make it easy for them.”
Open Orbit’s integrated approach allows added business value through making process change better, cheaper and faster which catapults business benefits by bringing them forward.
The beauty of Open Orbit is that it produces collective benefit, not only for the problem solver but for the people in the company who are able to share in the learnings and knowledge.
Niranjan says, “With this platform (symptom, cause, remedy) the causal chain that you have gone through in solving the problem has already been captured.”
In this way, Open Orbit avoids the problem of neglecting to capture learnings from previous projects as it brings up old projects and shows you how and what that person was thinking at the time.
When asked about if his start-up could be compared with an animal, Niranjan was quick to answer: “Owls are supposed to be clever and wise.”
The start-up has recently expanded to include Julian Humphreys, Chief Marketing Officer.
Julian says, “I see my role as trying to enrich the Open Orbit experience and interact with customers, in order to understand their business process perspective and exploring how Open Orbit fits into their customer profile.”
Niranjan is off to the UK to work with Stone & Chalk’s valued corporate partner, HSBC. He notes that HSBC’s dynamic method of problem-solving has made collaborating via Open Orbit a really positive experience in helping them drive projects in record time.
If you’d like to find out how clever meets simple through Open Orbit and see how its digital platform can transform your future projects, click here.
11 September 2018
