AVINASH BHARJ

I am part of largest Business Lines (BL) of Capgemini Group, Engineering, Research and Development (ER&D BL), and am part of its Global Business Risk Management (BRM) function. BRM is an integral part of Collaborative Selling Cycle (Pre-Sales, Sales, Contracting) starting from Opportunity Qualification until Sales-to-Delivery Handover once Contract is established. Hence, in BRM role I collaborate with cross-functional teams, globally, spanning across Account Management, Sales, Bid Management, Solutioning & Delivery, Centre of Excellence, Subject Matter Experts/SME (Cyber Security, Data Privacy, Safety, Export Control), Tax, Finance, Legal, Commercial & Contracts Management, and Senior Leadership across BLs, Business Units. I directly report to Vice President - Global BRM & Bid Management.

In my BRM role, I support Opportunities across:

• Engineering Disciplines : Software engineering, Connectivity & network engineering, Data science, analysis & Artificial Intelligence (AI), Product, systems & Product Life-cycle (PLM) engineering, Mechanical & physical engineering, Electrical, electronics & semiconductors, manufacturing & process engineering, Industrial operations, compliance, quality & regulatory.
• Industries : Aerospace & defense, Automotive, Consumer, retail, Services & Public sector, Industrial, Energy & Utilities, Life sciences, Railways, Technology, Semiconductor & electronics, Telecom & media.
• Americas, APAC, Middle East geographies.
• Major client-accounts of Capgemini; including those which are part of Group Accounts (Platinum, Gold clients).

In my 7 years of BRM role, I have handled large opportunities with different level of complexities, including opportunities with delivery set-up in countries where Capgemini has not business entities, involving multiple offerings (Cloud & Infrastructure Services, Business Services, ER&D). On annual basis, my contribution is towards + 100 large opportunities, worth Euro 2 Billion, and my performance is measured on Key Performance Index (KPI): Win Ratio, Proposal Contribution Margin% (CM%), Sold CM%, Compliance with Capgemini group defined Deal Review Processes, and post award of project number of delivery risks with root cause originating during Sales or Contracting. My last performance review rated me "Excelling" with Win Ratio 63% (in terms of Contract Value), Sold CM of 40%, and Process Compliance above 96%.

In my BRM role, I significantly contribute towards Deal Shaping activities, which includes Independent assessment of risks, in consultation with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), on below risk profile, basis with I synthesize the opportunity's risk profile and present to Senior management for them to take Go / No-Go decision based on the risk profile, risk appetite of the business unit, importance of the client-account and profitability.

• Client:- based on external inputs related with financial standing (S&P, Moody's, D&B Credit ratings), ethics,
• Solutioning, staffing, delivery risk,
• Cyber Security risk,
• Data Privacy risk,
• Export Control,
• Safety-related:- human safety, functional safety,
• Ethics & Compliance related:- based on inputs from external reports detailing client's or sub-contractor's beneficiary ownership, adverse media, financial risk, litigation & regulatory standing, political exposure, watch lists,
• Financial risks, including IFRS15 analysis,
• Tax risks, including Permanent Establishment (PE) risk exposure,
• Contract risks based on standard contract negotiation guidelines
• Insurance.

As part of deal shaping, I also support the Pursuit team in meaningful assessment of Sustainability scope in the opportunity along with expected Client Carbon Benefit (tonnes-of-CO2-equivalent) and Generative AI based productivity gains & associated risk exposure.

As part of my BRM role, I have enhanced my capabilities in understanding & interpreting legal aspects in Contract terms & conditions (liabilities, indemnities, insurance, etc.), insurance provisions, taxation and IFRS15, taxation principles. These, coupled with my ability to understand various risk dimensions, enables me to give the right insights to Senior management in context of client's business requirements, the competitive landscape at different stages of the Collaborative Selling Cycles right from Opportunity Qualification.

I was also instrumental in digitization of entire review cycle during the life of the Opportunity, so that there is a structured reporting of the reviews, the decision criteria, actions enabling traceability of all artifacts for each proposal submitted to client, thereby ensuring Sales-to-Delivery Hand-Over for effective delivery governance.

As part of my Software Quality Assurance (SQA) Head role for IGATE's Product and Engineering Services (PE&S) business unit, I was the Transformation Lead for achieving the AutomotiveSPICE certification for IGATE. In this role, I was responsible for :

• Demonstrating to PE&S leadership the business need for having AutomotiveSPICE (ASPICE) based process improvement program, and getting leadership buy-in for the implementation and certification budget,
• Directly coordinating with Assessment Firm (Impronova - Sweden) to define assessment requirements and timelines, and also coordinating with Impronova during documentation review, pre-assessment, assessment-cycle and subsequent surveillance cycles,
• Forming a cross-functional team to enhance Quality Management System as per ASPICE Organization Process Capability Level 3 requirements, and its implementation,
• Working with delivery and functional teams for closure of assessment findings,
• Demonstrating sustained business benefits to senior most leadership from ASPICE based improvement program.

There were initial challenges in implementation of a robust documentation control process, but we could overcome the same by implementation of strict documentation management and configuration management controls. ASPICE certification was successfully cleared and the Engineering Unit continues to sustain the same during surveillance cycles.

I was part of IGATE's Delivery Quality Leadership team and Delivery Quality Assurance Head for 5 business units:

• Product & Engineering Services,
• Enterprise Services,
• Business Intelligence & Analytics,
• Digital Cloud Practice,
• Independent Verification & Validation).

I led a team of 10 Senior Software Quality Advisors (SQA), and was accountable and responsible for Process Compliance (PC), Delivery Quality Assurance (DQA), Delivery Excellence (DE) across these units, which comprised of + 500 projects and +10,000 head count. My responsibilities including reporting to IGATE senior management achievement of agreed KPIs on PC, DQA, DE, with focus on how these KPIs directly improvement Client Satisfaction Score or Net Promoter Score.

I successfully implemented Proactive Delivery Alerts mechanism in above business units covering +200 projects with +3000 head counts, thus avoiding client escalation in these projects.

Directly supporting Accenture leadership in multiple initiatives associated with Solution and Costing Intelligence (SCI), essentially providing Insights in 4 dimensions (Capability, Commercials, Client and Competition) to support Revenue Growth (Sales Enablement) and increase Win Rate.

As part of SCI team, I worked with Industry Group Leads (Solutions, Delivery) and Solution Architects and provided them Insights on Capabilities (based on past Solutions and current Deliveries), Client's IT landscape and Competition's capability with respect to their Win Reasons (cost competitiveness, price points). Some of key initiatives I am managing and executing end-to-end included :

• Working with design/development team to build Sales Analytics Engine, which provided Insights related to Current Capability (delivery performance, cost parameters) and Competition,
• Worked with Market research team on external contracts database to understand market scenarios, client profile and competition strength and provide Global Sales Lead meaningful Insights to support account management and sales/growth,
• Provided leadership with delivery capability metrics and financials for key client base, and helped them in strategizing growth in these key client accounts (for profitable growth),
• Participated in Delivery Performance reviews with focus on determining gaps due to Solutioning issues, which could be prevented during the Sales Support & Solution Configuration phases.

I was selected by Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the Executive Assistant role. As Executive Assistant, I was involved in large transformational initiatives to improve Contribution Margin, Gross Margin and Gross Operating Profit for different business mix (especially for multi year large Application Development & Maintenance/ADM portfolio) by Pyramid Management, Offshore Leverage, Industrialization (including Lean), and Indirect Cost management.

I was directly involved in these initiatives with COO at Strategic Business Unit (SBU) level across 24 countries. I was also involved in managing SBU level initiatives related to Complex Engagement Review, Industrialization and LEAN. One of key aspects that I handled was to report financial saving generated by these initiatives to SBU management.

I was heading Software Quality Assurance (SQA) function for India operation across all Service Lines (Custom Software Development/CSD, Packages, Application Management/AM, Infrastructure Management, Testing) and all locations, and was handling team of100+ resources.

I was responsible for Process Implementation, Delivery Quality Assurance , Process Compliance & Delivery KPI Reporting, and Process Improvement using ISO / CMMi / ITIL models/framework. During this tenure, I was involved in CMMI v1.2 (Dev) Maturity Level 5 and CMMI v1.2 (SVC) Maturity Level 3 appraisal, where I was part of ATM team (for Dev, was managing High Maturity PAs).

I also executed large and complex Process Consultancy assignments for very large clients in the US and UK in areas of Process Measurement and Software Configuration Management.

As a certified 6 Sigma Black Belt, I executed and mentored complex process improvement projects in area of Software Productivity Improvement (CSD, AM) and Resolution Time Reduction (for corrective maintenance work).

Along with Software Process Improvement using ISO / CMMI v1.1 model, I was instrumental in Process Automation to expedite implementation of process improvement initiatives. In Process Automation function, I was responsible for Requirements Gathering (including Change Request), Functional Specification Review, User Acceptance Test, implementation support / training. I was also involved in evaluation of Software Engineering (Rational, Mercury, Compuware) and Project Management tools (PBN, Kintana, MS EPM), and also for deploying Central License Servers for various tools.

I also executed complex Process Consultancy assignment for Japanese client on "Leveraging Automation to Expedite Implementation of CMMI v1.1".

Software Quality Analyst for large Custom Development engagements and dedicated Software Configuration Manager for large web-based engagement.

I was Management Representative for design, documentation, implementation of Quality Management System (QMS) for Telecom SBU using ISO 9001 TickIT certification scheme, and also to sustain & improve QMS. I was instrumental in achieving and sustaining ISO 9001 for this SBU.

As additional responsibility, I was Quality Officer for very large ATM Client's Dedicated Offshore Centre, and was responsible for SQA activities for their engagements and certifying software products (applications, information products) prior to their release to Client's European and USA distribution centre for General Customer Availability.

I was responsible for design, documentation, implementation of Quality Management System in line with ISO 9001, ISO 9002, ISO9003 for multiple site locations across India. I was also involved in conducting training and auditing of QMS and its implementation at sites.