Abhijith HK, Founder at Codewave Technologies

Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?

Abhijith HK: Back in 2013, India was predominantly looked at as an IT offshoring nation - known for Software engineering & maintenance services. Product/Design roles were predominantly outsourced to the west, leading to gaps, lack of integrated thinking & holistic collaborative problem solving. With Bangalore becoming India’s silicon valley, we felt there was an opportunity to bring the best of design worlds and tech worlds together - integrating them into a “design thinking led digital innovation” company.

We wanted to make influence a part of everyone’s job & consciously design multi-faceted,

cross-functional roles & teams - to help businesses go from idea to product. We want to be a dream-team a business wants for new product development or modernizing existing

products/services. That vision gave birth to a culture of innovation that celebrated authenticity, voice & influence of individuals shaping outcomes for our customers. Coming from the corporate world ourselves, we wanted to bust hierarchy, create a transparent & open environment for making work social & impactful. We designed our org, with human-centricity at the core, creating an ethos for design-thinking, with an atmosphere that nudges empathy & transparency.

Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Codewave Technologies

Abhijith HK: Codewave offers businesses requiring digital innovation or renovation work - end to end design led technology development services. New product development, Cloud/mobile app development, IoT & edge app development, eCommerce/Web store development, Digital strategy & Design thinking, CX & Customer journey design, UX/UI Design, Data strategy & AI aided solutions development, Blockchain development are key services we provide businesses.

Our design-thinking led digital transformation practice, brings a cross-functional team of

consultants - designers, architects & engineers to diagnose, intervene and transform outcomes for businesses.

Great Companies: What makes Codewave Technologies different from hundreds of other IT Services Firms?

Abhijith HK: We believe design-thinking is everyone’s job. Codewave’s integrated design-led-tech approach with cultural ethos encouraging start-with-why, common-sense & self-organizing teams - makes our team collectively strong in need-sensing, collaborative-planning, outcome-focus & continuous-learning.

Our customer journeys are designed to create value at every sprint, than at the end of 3 or 6 months - our team partnering with the customer team, to co-create the journey & outcomes. Everyone is a problem-solver, collaboratively piloting ideas with customer teams and learning through experiments. I believe design-thinking, innovation, agility & vulnerability are connected.

We’re an environment that has high tolerance for failure/mistakes and makes vulnerability &

lifelong learning, normal.

Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?

Abhijith HK: The current challenge we’re facing is in scaling up the business - while consciously retaining our core cultural values of transparency, empathy & peer-power. We’ve created our own practices that worked for us & evolved them over time, in other words - created some rules to run with less rules. Now we’re in a stage of transformation - where we’re strengthening our practices to sustain “self-management” at scale and make work hybrid, social & impactful.

We have our own internal Work-OS, called Timely - for hybrid, agile, self-managed teams that manages my presence, peers, projects & performance - in one app. Adoption of Timely within the org, to promote greater autonomy & accountability in teams, and productizing our learnings to help other workplaces, preparing for hybrid work is a challenge we’re actively working on.

Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Codewave Technologies?

Abhijith HK: As I see it, Codewave will continue to be a thriving design-led-tech services organization, intervening & transforming outcomes for our customers. We would continue to create meaningful employment, with a commitment to develop entrepreneurial spirit in teams.

Human transformation is our highest purpose. Like every living organism, our idea of growth is evolution & replication - celebrating adaptability & resilience on the journey. In 5 years from now,

I see Codewave branching out globally, each unit being a self-managed localised cluster of 150-200 people - sensing needs & giving what’s best for businesses. When done right, this can be replicated across multiple countries - driving impact at a larger scale. Each cluster will have it’s own local flavour, but a common cultural DNA that connects us as one. I can loosely compare this to how effectively McDonalds standardized their values & practices, with every branch delivering delight in under 30 seconds.

With self-management at scale, Codewave would also be building our own global product

focusing on the Future of Work (Hybrid Work-OS), to apply our strengths - in culture, values & practices to meaningfully address gaps, modern day workplaces need. Being a democratic environment, thriving on open, social, participative leadership - I’d love to co-create the 5-year plan with our team, so we create a mission that truly reflects our collective strengths and aspirations as a company.

Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Abhijith HK: Growing a business organically has taught me many valuable lessons - like how to deal with scarcity, how not to underestimate any challenge that’s coming your way, how to respond when cash hits the bank at the last minute, how to express to my team - my reality & vulnerability and what to do, when nothing seems to be going our way.

Entrepreneurship is about thriving in complexity, paradoxes and contradicting your own ideas, vulnerably. Don’t let complacency take over. Keep an open mind, trust the journey and learn on the go. Commit to facing extreme levels of conflict with integrity & resilience, as intelligence alone can be a double-edged sword. Beyond the business outcomes like money and fame, observe and appreciate the adventurous journey that life takes you on. But do all of this with enough self care to keep your body and mind healthy.

Website : https://www.codewave.com