Heroes in Business - Sandeep Chennakeshu, fmr President Blackberry, CTO Ericsson Mobile, COO Uhnder, author Your Company is Your Castle

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

7 Steps to Be Successful. Sandeep Chennakeshu, fmr President Blackberry, CTO Ericsson Mobile, COO Uhnder, author Your Company is Your Castle is interviewed by David Cogan Host of the Heroes Show and Founder of Eliances entrepreneur community.  

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. That's right, and we're back. And you know, I can't believe how many interviews we've done, over 1400 interviews. And we're still getting feedback on one of the earlier interviews that we did when I had the President of the United Nations General Assembly on. So make sure that you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. So I'm excited about our next interview. Are you ready for this?

We have with us on the show Sandeep Chenekeshu. He is the former CTO of mobile phones and Sony Ericsson, former president of BlackBerry. Can you believe that? And COO of Under. Blackberry, can you believe that? And COO of Under. He's got a new book that's coming out called Your Company is Your Castle, which can be found on Amazon. And also you can go to his website to learn more, which is Sandeep Chenekeshu. And we'll have that on our website so you can go ahead and be able to click on it and know the spelling. So welcome to the show, Sandeep. Really excited to have you here today. Thank you, David. And thank you for inviting me today.

You have quite many accomplishments and quite a history in regards to business in that. Boy, where do we even start? I mean, you know, you're president of BlackBerry at that time. I mean, everybody knew what BlackBerry was. Talk to us about, like, how that even became to be. Well, if you go back to my background, I was very fortunate to have great parents who encouraged me to follow my passion. And that led me to North America to pursue a PhD. And once I finished it, I got one great job after another and I got immersed in three industries, mobile phones, where I basically built wireless technology with my team across the world and then migrated into semiconductors for medical, consumer, and automotive electronics, and

then moved into software and security. And that's essentially what I did at BlackBerry. I came after the phone days at BlackBerry, and I ran what is called BlackBerry Technology Solutions. And it's been a fascinating career over the last 35 years where I've got the chance to work with incredible people across 14 countries and build multi-generations of products used by a very, very large population in the world. Yeah, wasn't it at one time that like all government officials, I think think were only allowed to use a blackberry or something at that time there was something yes i mean blackberry was largely used in the enterprise world and wherever security was prevalent because blackberry even today has

very superior security technology and the ability to manage your content and data extremely securely. Now, with all of the experience that you've had, what was the then motivation to go ahead and write a book? It's a really good question. You know, I had the opportunity to, I had the opportunity to basically work in a number of industries. And I thought about writing this book several years ago, and I had a framework. But I thought to myself, what should the theme be? And this is what I struck upon.

and this is what I struck upon. You know, when I started my career, I got promoted rather quickly because of my technical and operational knowledge, but I frankly didn't know anything about business. I was clueless, and I made a ton of mistakes. I stumbled, but every stumbling block became a stepping stone for success. So I said, what if I write a book chronicling all that I've experienced and creating a framework of principles that others could use to build businesses and build themselves to run businesses?

and build themselves to run businesses, hopefully to avoid the pitfalls and traps that I stumbled upon. And hence, I decided that I'd write this book with the title it has. Yeah, that's fantastic. And again, it's Your Company is Your Castle, and you can get that on Amazon.com. So go to Amazon.com and get Your Company is Your Castle. Let's an astrion, you know, that's a ginormous number. Why is that? I think, you know, most companies are started by clever people with clever ideas. Unfortunately, it takes much more to build a company. Very often, people opt for speed

rather than building a company systematically with all the elements that needs that needs to be built in order to structure the business to survive because businesses experience competition and businesses also experience macroeconomic factors like recessions, depressions, periods of pandemics, etc. How do they basically survive through all of this and continue to remain profitable? And when you don't have the structure to do that, you invariably run out of money and you fail. and you fail. And I want to let our listeners and viewers know that alliances has now celebrating its 10th year anniversary this year. So we made it so far, Sandeep, are we doing good?

Yes, absolutely. You're obviously doing something completely correct. 10 years we're celebrating it. So we've made so far the cut. Now, again, you've been also too very successful at transforming broken companies. What are some of the secrets to doing that? Yeah, so what I basically talk about in the book

is I compare building a business to very similar to that of a medieval castle. Why have medieval castles that have stood the test of time, why are they still standing? You know, how have they withstood invaders for several years? And how have they withstood nature's elements? So I look at eight elements of a castle, and I look at eight elements of a business that I've compared and contrasted them. And in the case of a company, you have competitors who are the

invaders, and you have macroeconomic factors that are nature's elements. And I believe that all businesses should have these eight elements. The first is to start with a business model that is both sticky, that is consumers or customers are averse to leaving your products. And two, a business that basically generates cash because cash funds growth and helps you build every part of your business. The second element is the strategy. This is like the pedometer wall that encompasses the castle or surrounds the castle and the strategy has to basically protect your castle and this when you have this castle, this strategy basically protects what is called the central element of the castle,

which is the keep. And this is where people, nobility lived. It had the granary, it had your arms, etc. Now in the company, the keep is the culture. So, you know, strategy is what you need done, but culture is what you get done. So if your culture and strategy are not aligned, then you're invariably your strategy will not come to fruition. And then you need a number of, the perimeter wall has to be protected by towers

because the towers which they house guards that could keep a lookout as to oncoming armies as well as to protect people breaching the walls and these four towers are essentially product creation product delivery sales channels and execution across every aspect of the company across every aspect of the company. And finally, you need what I call stakeholder confidence. This is the roof on the castle. And the roof protects you against, again, nature's elements and arrows. And this roof or stakeholder confidence comprises basically getting the confidence of your investors,

getting the confidence of your customers, and getting the confidence of your employees. And once you put all of this together in a fashion that interlocks and reinforces each other, you build a company to last. Well said. Sandeep, at the beginning you mentioned, and I think this is important as we just have a little bit more time left here for our interview, is you mentioned about your parents and that. What advice do you have for parents

or young adults out there too, how they can make a difference in the world like you have? Again, having been CTO of Ericsson Mobile Phones, president of BlackBerry and so on and so on, now author of your company as your castle on Amazon. What do you see as that? I mean, you were fortunate to have parents. I have seven beliefs that I preach to both my children as well as all my mentees. And the first belief is dream with conviction. You know, when I was starting my career,

I wanted to be in mobile phones in the 80s. Everyone told me that's an uncertain path. Even a big consulting company says there's not even going to be a million phones sold by the year 2000. And they're big and bulky and strapped to your back. But I thought differently. And I bet everything and went to the mobile phones and I've never regretted it. So I would say dream with conviction. Number two, periodically leave your comfort zone to basically learn new things and to adapt and change. Number three, you know, in life, we all have successes and we have failures. You know, while the memories of success are confidence boosting, the reflection on failure actually can be enlightening if you choose to address these issues.

Number four, I say deal with adversity. You know, we all face adversity, but how you deal with it is important. You either walk away from it, you accept it and deal with it, but don't let it ever swallow you. I also tell all my mentees, go get battle tested. When you play a game, no amount of practice helps. It's what you do in the middle against formidable opponents. And you can't be an analyst of the game to learn the game. You actually have to be a player. So I said, go get battle tested. And then be curious.

Constantly try to learn something, even if it's a little bit. You don't have to be an expert in everything get knowledge learn learn from others keep an open mind because knowledge is powerful and if used properly and finally straight stay true to yourself because you have to believe in yourself and believe in what you do because nobody will believe in you more and i if you you know i followed these seven principles and beliefs and uh i think can find some benefit from these beliefs fantastic and we appreciate you sharing that And we appreciate you sharing that. Sandy, you help transform broken companies and help them build a more successful, sustainable one. That's a hero. Sandy Tenkeshu, CTO of Ericsson Mobile Phones, Sony Ericsson, President of BlackBerry, CEO of Under. You can reach him by going to his website, which we'll have posted on alliances.com.

And make sure you get his book, Your Castle Company is Your Castle. Your Company is Your Castle. That's featured on Amazon. Thank you so much again, Sandy, for being here. This has been great. Thank you, David.