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Will shows the way

After working with TCS for almost a decade and half, Minoo Dastur co-founded Nihilent Technologies. Today, as the Director and COO of his organisation, he discloses his driving principles to Renuka Vembu

On a Monday morning in the Hilton coffee shop in Mumbai, the conversation embarks with an unexpected remark. “I will first tell you my pet peeves with the IT sector,” says Minoo Dastur and continues, “The fundamental problem with the IT industry lies in its inability to tackle the issues of problem-solving. Focus on quality consciousness, level of customer satisfaction and adherence to timeline has eventually led to the issues in technology never getting addressed and resolved.”

He believes that while process issues were given due priority, the people issues suffered. In his words, “IT was so successful that HR died. The client pays five times more to sympathise with people but IT killed the expertise, depth of knowledge and level of understanding.”  This dissatisfaction sparked off the process of forming his own IT solutions company, his ‘baby’, Nihilent Technologies.

Take Dastur away for some time from the IT industry and his company into the flashback phase, lead him to his childhood days and the home environment which had a profound impact in shaping his personality, and he is quick to give due credit to his father. Late Dr (Prof) Darab K Dastur was a neuropathologist who strongly believed in and passionately worked towards building a better and brighter India. Minoo Dastur’s mother, Hilla D Dastur, was in the civil services. His grandfather was a devoted follower of the Gandhian principles and participated in India’s freedom struggle movement.

Dastur’s family ambience coupled with his schooling in Bombay International School helped him immensely to think out-of-the-box and walk down the untrodden path. Experiential learning by selecting a topic—then thinking, presenting, debating and analysing it, was the pattern followed at school level which made students like him tap their creative resources and understand the concepts better.

The theme behind this was to work and argue with a limited knowledge and then see how ideas and opinions changed when an iota of information was added to it and in the process, to discover new knowledge.

This structured methodology and experience in elocution competitions and participation in debates broadened his avenues to think better and explore the boundaries.

Dastur’s disapproval with the functioning of the Indian education system is unmistakably evident. He states, “Teachers are doing a rut job and there is no fire. Learning happens in a classroom based on the mood of the teacher and the student. There are no assignments to assess if the students have grasped the fundamentals and understood the concepts. There are fixed subjects and time-tables and unlike the US, there is no option of mix and match, of being able to select and learn the subject one is passionate about.” From this discontent and displeasure stems his interest of wanting to set up a school and be a teacher.

Dastur encourages students who question, think differently, apply, and discover. According to him, the later they learn the more painful it is for them.  

After completing his post-graduation in Business Management, Dastur joined TCS in 1986. He headed their Corporate Banking Group, then their Corporate Marketing Group and was also a key player in the evolution of the Banking and Services Business Unit.

One of his major accomplishments in his 14-year stint with TCS and his proudest career moment came in 1994, when he went to South Africa and explored and exploited a whole new market there.

Dastur was the driving force behind setting up of a joint venture firm with South Africa’s active IT business group, DIDATA.

In TCS, Dastur found a challenging team comprising exciting people and an open and interesting environment. TCS built tools, innovated technologies, disseminated knowledge to learners, and the learners in turn turned trainers and the training materials got documented into manuals.

However, the decision to move away from the brand arose because they engineered systems and could not derail the model that made them so successful; they were unwilling to experiment.  

Dastur co-founded a new company that catered to the growing demands and needs of the consulting side of the business.

Nihilent Technologies, a collective endeavour of a journey embarked by a group of ex-TCS employees, helps improve the systems of the IT companies, provides solutions and designs strategies and tactics to beat the competition.

The word ‘nihil’ signifies the intangible and the invisible. Dastur says, “He who is responsive and has the hunger to succeed, is more successful. So play better and outperform or die.” His ‘ambitious’ vision as he puts it, is for Nihilent Technolo-gies to become a global player in the consulting business. Personally, his passion for learning and enjoying what he is doing keeps him going.

In the very near future, he plans to write a book, the details for which we will have to wait and watch. His wife, Banoo M Dastur, is a lawyer and an HR professional, and he dotes on his two sons, Jahaan and Danesh.

In his leisure time, Dastur plays rugby, enjoys trekking and climbing. He is interested in astronomy and reads books on wide array of topics ranging from economics and science and technology to sociology and history. His life and his career can indeed be summed up in his own words, “How good you are makes you how big you are.”