#127 - Vinnie Mirchandani - A salute to the business heroics that made the difference in the pandemic

This podcast interview focuses on the heroics and entrepreneurship we have witnessed in the past three months of the pandemic. My guest is Vinnie Mirchandani.

Vinnie has become a regular guest on my podcast. In fact, it was only 7 months ago that we discussed ‘a decade in review’. He’s the founder of Deal Architect - a Technology strategy and negotiation firm listed as a leading "boutique" by the Black Book of Outsourcing. Earlier in his career, he had various technology consulting roles at PwC in the US, Europe and Asia, and worked as an industry analyst at Gartner.

He wrote various books about the evolution and future of enterprise software, amongst which Silicon Collar, The New Polymath, The New Technology Elite, and SAP Nation 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Other than that, he’s an inspiring blogger and is always curious about innovation. In fact, he’s recently conducted close to 50 interviews with entrepreneurs and change-makers from around the world about how they stepped up to make a difference in the global pandemic. I had the honor to be featured in one these interviews as well, where I shared various examples from different industries and countries.

And that’s exactly what triggered me to invite him again to my podcast. We explore some of the most inspiring examples Vinnie uncovered and what we can learn from this in terms of leadership, innovation, entrepreneurship, and our ability to drive meaningful change.

Here are some of his quotes:

As the pandemic was starting to hit the US, we had heard about some of the innovations in Asia and Europe. We were starting to hear about US healthcare heroics, in the media, but I was also starting to hear of a lot of business heroics.

Either scaling up or scaling down or innovating quickly or pivoting quickly, has required heroics. I was so glad to talk to these executives because the media is not giving them much attention. The media is so focused on the negative stories that unfortunately, these business executives are not getting enough attention. I wanted to get their word out on all the things that they're doing which deserve to be saluted.

During this interview, you will learn three things:

1. How to pivot 180 degree overnight and turn a 90% drop in revenue back into growth again.
2. That the art of creating momentum is about two things: relevancy and creating a sense of urgency. Let’s not forget this after the pandemic – it’s what marketing should be all about. The key is to not just try and keep selling what you had in the bag in January. The world has turned upside down since.
3. That opportunities for innovation are plentiful, and every executive everywhere needs help We just need to establish an eye for it and be willing to work with them.