CEO Insights Magazine

Even before the pandemic hit, new and transformative technologies were making a fast entry into workplaces, ensuring that businesses are agile and thriving in the fast-paced digital era. In this age, utilising technology is no longer a choice but a mandate for every business. Technology strategies are required to be woven into all parts of an organisation in order to achieve higher employee retention and innovation, detailed data insights, improved collaborations and more personalised customer interactions.

Leveraging the disruption of digital technology is Bluebik, a leading consultancy firm focused on comprehensive advice on digital transformation to improve the capabilities of  businesses through technological application. With Management Consulting, Strategic PMO and Go-to-market Strategy, Digital Excellence & Delivery, Digital Uplift, and Big Data & Advanced Analytics  Bluebik is set to use creativity and new technology to generate the best result for clients in the digital disruption age. Pochara (Boat) Arayakarnkul, CEO, has been an indomitable force that has made the company progress in significant ways. Through his leadership, Bluebik has been transforming ambitions to reality as a global business solution provider.

CEO Insights Asia engages in an exclusive interaction with Pochara (Boat) Arayakarnkul, where we discuss the company's growth, its journey and his journey as well. Here's the snippet from our interaction with Pochara.

Could you share the turning points in your career so far and your journey with the Bluebik Group?

I have worked in many roles in the past. I was in Technology Consulting, Strategy Consulting and also  Startup Management. I have been passionate about technology my whole life, so I started from where it felt comfortable. However, after working in that industry for a while, I found a new passion in business which led me to do an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. After that, I transitioned my career into strategy consulting where I focused on how technology can be used to transform a business. With that interest in mind, my co-founders and I decided to start a small software house to cater to Thai businesses to be more ready for the digital disruption. I was working at BCG at that time where I witnessed many businesses transform themselves from a local status to a global one. I was working at the software house only part-time that time and I realised that building softwares will not solve the problem but what is required is to incorporate business transformation, where we change how things are run. The goal was to help transform business using technology and I saw that there is a huge opportunity for Bluebik to be a consulting firm that bridges between strategy and technology to make a real impact. That's when I left my job at BCG to work at Bluebik and make it an end-to-end digital transformation consulting firm.

As the CEO, could you tell me how those previous experiences are helping you in your current operations so far? My previous experiences of working at different roles helped a lot. I have a strong background in technology and having been a Strategy Consultant helped me understand the business side of things. I worked for many Fortune 500 organisations where I learned from the best CEOs. This accumulated experience and knowledge was very useful. I applied the lessons learned to make Bluebik more effective. Also having worked at a startup enabled me to understand how to handle our company when we just started out when we were crunched for time and money. 

What has been your success mantra?

I think prioritisation is probably my success mantra. As a CEO there are a million things to do all at once. There are tasks which require a lot of effort with little impact and then there's the opposite where there are tasks which require little effort but have big impacts. So, I classify those tasks accordingly, and pay attention to those tasks which are really important and generate 80 percent of the impact. If something important slips through the cracks, it will have a negative result and you cannot have that happen. So, prioritisation is the key. Correct classification of work is a priority and I follow that as closely as possible. 

What will be your advice to budding professional stepping into this domain?

You need to look at the bigger picture because in reality, perfection does not exist. You cannot do everything by yourself and go very far. You need to let some other people do some jobs and you become more like a manager. When you manage, you don't do it yourself but you ensure that everything gets done. But when your organisation scales, you need to build a team of reliable people you need to leverage them more in the longer run and delegate some of the management tasks to them as well  and you as a result become a leader and a coach.

Pochara (Boat) Arayakarnkul, CEO, Bluebik Group

Pochara (Boat) Arayakarnkul has completed MBA (Distinction) in Strategy, Finance and Marketing from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University along with Bachelor of Engineering (1st Class Honours) in Computer Engineering from Chulalongkorn University. He loves to play soccer and basketball and also strums the guitar.