The Unsung Hero-Episode 1

Today’s episode is about two IT visionaries; Ashish Mehta- President at AGS Transact Technologies Ltd and Deepak Khemani - IT Infrastructure Architect at AGS Transact Technologies Ltd

AGS Transact Technologies is India’s leading providers of end-to-end cash and digital payment solutions and automation technology. In a way they are responsible smooth functioning of ATM as well as online payments systems.

When it comes to BFSI sector compliance plays a major role. Considering that cloud transformation was a tough vision to achieve for Ashish. However when leader has a strong vision team gets huge encouragement. When Deepak joined the team he decided to play a role of catalyst to fulfil this vision.

Like an expert almost for a year Deepak spent time in identifying cloud platform for secure internet and internal application access. He knew that this cloud platform has to fulfil all the relevant compliances.

There were no dearth of challenges in this process. One of his key challenge was how to provide security, real time monitoring for remote workforce .This security to remote users  has to be at par with users in office. Moreover there were 3 clear key asks from the business; reliability, availability and service continuity.. However by Jan 2020 he not only identified the platform but made sure that deployment is done for all users for Zscaler ZIA ( Zscaler internet access )and ZPA (Zscaler private access)

As India’s worst coronavirus-hit state Maharashtra has enforced a partial shutdown, financial capital Mumbai came to a standstill. However the financial markets fraternity rose to the occasion in a show of its characteristic never-say-die spirit.

Situation at AGS was no different. The top level meeting called up regarding BCP just before  lockdown announcement. Everybody was eager to know how Ashish and team prepared for BCP. Like all other companies AGS was prepared for BCP but not for BCP during pandemic situation.

However Ashish gave a confidence that by using an existing cloud security platform they should be ready for BCP for any lockdown period.

There were few teams which never worked from home in AGS. These team are responsible for key ATM and online payment Operations. Deepak and team made sure this key application access given in a secure way to these team members from home by using Zscaler- ZPA solution. The key task was completed

Just before lockdown started IT team asked users to bring home laptops to office. IT team made sure Zscaler agents are installed in these machines. For all official machines Zscaler agent was already rolled out. So when lockdown started all AGS users started working from home. Since Zscaler agent was installed in all official and home machines; security was taken care. Users were getting a seamless and secure access for internet and internal applications. What Deepak promised to management about cloud reliability and scalability helped in a big way for work from home

So today even if lockdown period increased AGS Transact employees are still working from home and making sure that ATM across India are functionals for citizens

In very short span AGS Transact IT team successfully  enabled work from home seamlessly, while ensuring that client information and data are protected at all times.

While most of us are thankful for the doctors, nurses and emergency workers who are tending to the sick, we should also be appreciative for these IT visionaries like Ashish and Deepak who are making sure work goes on irrespective of situation. Salute to these Unsung Heros

Please join me in expressing your gratitude to these IT visionaries  .Let’s salute these  IT leaders who are unsung heroes during the most difficult time