This week, we interviewed Mr. Arun Goyal, IT Head of tituptrint.com. A winner of Next 100 CIO award, Arun implemented DevOps even before the practice was acknowledged worldwide. A mechanical engineer by education, with in-born entrepreneurial skills, he tries to solve difficult day-to-day problems via creative innovation.
In order to satiate his entrepreneurial hunger, he moved on from a monotonous mechanical job to software development, juggled multiple roles—from becoming a restaurateur, to offering SaaS to now offering consultancy for various IT projects.
Under his guidance, a journey that started as a very small platform 30 years back, strengthened each day and now ‘Titu Thesis Centre’ stands tall as one of the largest document centers in India. From serving customers for all their printing requirements, tituprint.com offers a range of products, including compilation, binding, flex printing, visiting cards, leaflets, brochures, vinyl printing, direct printing on t-shirts, personalized printing on various articles and more.
Read on as he takes us along on his journey of being an entrepreneur and an award-winning IT leader.
1. Please tell our readers a bit about yourself and your journey in the IT industry.
I completed my mechanical engineering in 1996. Then I joined the telecom industry in 2001 after coming back from the US. I have spent over 14 years in Shyam Telelink and MTS as a development and operation head. During this tenure, I helped in development of in-house telecom IT applications.
Later towards the end of year 2014, to sharpen my entrepreneurial skills, I opened an authentic Italian restaurant in Pink city, Jaipur for the tourists. I sold this restaurant after making it a profitable unit. In 2016, I joined IT sector again armed with native IT knowledge and now entrepreneurial skills.
I shook hands with a printing house and made them IT-enabled with Web to Print concept i.e. tituprint.com. After successful implementation of tituprint.com, now our team is doing customized development and digital marketing, mainly for start-ups. The team is sharing its experience to contribute towards the success of our business clients along with providing cost-effective IT solutions.
Very soon, we are joining hands with a very big printing house based in the US. I am also playing the role of a consultant in various projects of the Rajasthan government.
2. You won the Next 100 CIO award in 2013. Can you tell us about the main challenges that you faced during your tenure?
I won this award for my IT skills and the delivery done by my team, even in the worst-case scenarios. Since 2005, I was doing those IT practices in an organization which is now named as DevOps and is now recommended by most of the IT management agencies.
The world has now recognized this concept and has found it to be the most suitable strategy to follow for business houses. But, since it was not widely acclaimed at that time, I had to answer different questions raised by the colleagues and seniors and even IT auditors, sometimes.
3. What inspired you to join the IT industry after graduation in mechanical engineering?
By nature, I am a person who always like new challenges and address them with some creative innovation. My hunger was not being satisfied in the mechanical field where monotonous work was done daily. Perhaps, this hunger pulled me into the software development field, then restaurant and then into SaaS.
4. Being an entrepreneur and award-winning IT Leader, share three tips for other IT leaders to help them lead the digital transformation in their organization.
- Always present IT solutions as effective use of manpower rather than its replacement.
- IT enablement should start from Top to Bottom. If you try the reverse, it will take more time and energy, and hence the probability of failure will be more.
- If you want to make your organization an IT-enabled company, do not try to make this in one go. Start from small solutions which will give some level of comfort to the employees who are doing complex work and have more probability of making manual mistakes. Then switch to those IT applications that reduce the work of most employees.
From the very first day, keep in mind, how you will integrate all small applications to make your whole organization IT-enabled. In short, plan end to end but present and implement in bits and pieces.
5. What according to you will be the technology trends that will shape the IT industry in 2019 and beyond?
- AI will go mainstream – automobiles, mobile apps, home appliances, etc.
- Everything will be on mobile, especially AI and AR will play an important role in next-gen mobile apps.
- There will be an increased adoptability for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
6. How did you get the idea or concept for starting Tituprint, an online printing solution, and Midtown Multicuisine Restaurant?
Midtown Multicuisine Restaurant: Missed Indian food when I went to Naples, Italy. When I complained about it to the local travel agent, he stared at me and taunted for missing authentic Italian food at a tourist destination like Jaipur, Pink City. Then and there, I promised him that I will open an authentic Italian restaurant in Jaipur. He helped me in marketing it within the travel community in Europe, that we are a destination for authentic Italian food and that’s how Midtown Multi-cuisine restaurant came into the picture.
Tituprint.com: Currently, only 1.5% of the printing market is online, a huge opportunity is there in the market. It is a win-win situation for both – the consumer and the seller. So, I collaborated with a big printing production house and started tituprint.com.
Now I’ve also started sharing my experience with other start-ups in terms of IT enablement and digital marketing.
7. Please tell our readers about the services/products offered by Tituprint.
At present, tituprint offers commercial printing solutions to customers. The customers can get customized products online, including t-shirt, mug, photo-book, visiting card, letterheads, greeting cards and more.
Tituprint.com can address various corporate requirements and serve their printing requirements PAN India. They will receive same printing services at their PAN India branches with hassle free delivery. A customer can place the order even for one t-shirt or one greeting card with customization via online designer studio.
Now we have a different team for customized software development and digital marketing with a different brand name: 1TouchSolution.co.in.
8. What is the scope of online printing business in India?
Currently, only 1.5% of the printing market is online, so there’s a huge opportunity in the market. Very few players are presently there in the market. Vista is number one in this game. But a huge portion of opportunity is still there. A boom like e-commerce marketplace is yet to come in the web to print business.
Suggested reading: 10 technologies that CXOs should incorporate in their roadmaps and strategies in 2019
9. How does Tituprint differentiate itself from the competition?
Offline store in Jaipur is also available so that in case the customer needs assistance, he can visit the store and get help from the designers. Oneto-one interaction with the customer, even on call, is also there.
10. Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.
I always give more time on planning, monitoring and reviewing, in comparison to execution.
11. What are your New Year plans for the growth of your ventures?
- We are going to integrate our existing business with online market places like Amazon.
- We will support new start-ups for their IT enablement and digital marketing.
- We plan to learn more about AI and AR and will try to implement the same in our existing IT solutions.
- We also plan to increase our team size of developers from 20 to 100 within this year.
- We are targeting a revenue of 2.5X in 2019.
