From Tech-Enabled to Tech-Led: The Shift That Redefined Growth

Yash Shah (00:06.318)

Hello and welcome to Building Momentum. My name is Yash, your host for the show and today I'm excited to welcome our next guest, Nitin. Nitin is one of the co-founders and CEO at Refteck. Refteck offers customized solutions that are innovative, strategic and cost efficient in the MRO, procurement and manufacturing space in 43 countries around the world. We'll get to know more about Refteck and the journey of building and growing it out.

Join me in welcoming Hidin who is here to share his journey and discuss how Refteck solves these challenges since 18 years for some of the largest companies in the world. Hey Hidin, how are you doing today?

Nitin Shah (00:43.56)

Hi, good afternoon. I'm doing very well, thank you. And how are you?

Yash Shah (00:48.482)

I'm doing great as well. But thank you for joining us for this episode and for this conversation. So let's start with understanding a little bit about Refteck. What is the big bad problem or the challenge that Refteck is trying to solve today?

Nitin Shah (01:07.38)

So our core underlying one line that represents us is supply chain. And with all the disruptions in the world currently happening, whether it is, you know, it all started from COVID and then never ended since until now with all the tariffs and everything else. So we play a very integral part in managing

supply chain and integrating ourselves with our clients to support them with equipment for their MRO needs worldwide.

Yash Shah (01:48.526)

Got it. Why did you start this company? I'm sure at some point of time you were young and you didn't... Do people aspire to build something in the supply chain space? At what point did you think, yeah, this is something that I feel passionate about. This is something that I have started.

Nitin Shah (02:09.737)

Yeah, so I spent, I had an opportunity of spending some time at a refinery complex in my younger years, many, many years ago. And, you know, I did have a chance to interact with some of the key personnel there inside the plant. And they, their biggest pain point was equipment and, you know, with the

Yash Shah (02:20.27)

Huh?

Nitin Shah (02:39.955)

with the varied geographies of the equipment, where it is available and how it can be brought to refinery complex is a very cumbersome and a very difficult task. that is where the gap was noticed. initially we set out to support our clients from the UK only. So we set up in the UK.

Over the years, just had the movement, like you said, the momentum kept on building. And hence, we had to continue to adjust ourselves to the requirements, the market demand and stuff. And that's how we almost now have a global footprint.

Yash Shah (03:16.354)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yash Shah (03:33.006)

You've been doing Refteck for about 18 years now. Started in 2007, very soon it will be two decades of Refteck. And so what I wanted to understand was over the years, how has the offering or the services that you offer at Refteck, how has that changed and evolved with technology?

So how has that changed?

Nitin Shah (04:05.789)

So my background has been tech. Well, I didn't study tech, but I got trained to be a tech guy in my early thirties. And so when we set up Refteck, know, one thing was very clear that we need to make sure that everything we do has an element of technology in our processes.

So fast forward to 2015, we set out on a journey to build our own platform. And we were very successful back in the day to do that. But we couldn't keep up with it, you know, on an ongoing basis. So I think in the early part of 2022, we realized that the platform that we have now

it is too expensive to either expand that further or to do anything with it, you know, but it was supporting us, it was supporting, but didn't have the scalability factor involved in it. So we then had to make an informed decision that we cannot be just tech enabled anymore, we need to become tech led. So, yeah, so I think...

Yash Shah (05:29.558)

wow.

Nitin Shah (05:33.469)

That is the time when we decided that we need to now migrate into a very highly scalable solution. anything and everything that we do just not be enabled. Being tech enabled is not enough anymore. It has to be tech led. And since then, we're not a tech company, but we are very much tech led as a business.

Yash Shah (05:59.128)

Hmm. Got it. And so basically from maybe in most of the tech enabled businesses, what we've had the opportunity to observe is that it helps the organization. So let's say if I'm a tech enabled business, it will help me save some amount of time or maybe do certain processes faster, automate some other workflows and stuff like that.

Could you dive into a little more and explain like what for a firm that exists in MRO procurement manufacturing space, what could it mean to say tech led? Are we talking about helping in acquiring new customers? Are we talking about just the outcomes of it, right? Are we talking about, so productivity gains for sure, but are we also talking about

Helping or saving not just saving time but also saving money. Can you you dive in a little more?

Nitin Shah (07:06.185)

So, yeah, sure. So the transition from tech enabled to tech led, tech enabled was simply making sure that it was allowing us to do things, you know, it's like little utilities, widgets that we created. was allowing us to do little, little things ourselves. Tech led basically is a single source of truth. So one platform and that platform does everything, whether...

Yash Shah (07:20.355)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (07:33.641)

whether someone wants to book a holiday vacation, someone wants to apply for a travel to go and see a client, whether it's a client whose work that we need to conduct and support on a daily basis. So that is the biggest change that we brought to the table. Change is not always easy.

Yash Shah (07:37.378)

Yeah.

Yash Shah (07:57.038)

Hmm.

Yash Shah (08:02.54)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (08:03.273)

A lot of customization, a lot of use cases needs to be produced. A lot of mistakes needs to be made. We fall first before we stand up and walk. So we went through our fair share of the journey. And with now being tackle ed, it's highly scalable to add a client, to add a service, to add a nation, to add a company, to add a warehouse.

Yash Shah (08:11.916)

Yeah.

Yash Shah (08:31.49)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (08:32.696)

is just click off button and like for example, I just added a warehouse in Italy and I, you it was a matter of 10 minutes. I okay, I have a warehouse. This is the address. This is the location. This is the contact information. Can you set up on the system and within like 10 minutes the warehouse was up and we could then allocate the equipment, the material to that warehouse. That is the

Yash Shah (08:35.054)

Yash Shah (08:59.916)

Nitin Shah (09:02.152)

That is the agility of it. So you can have a call with someone at 9 a.m. Agree on everything in principle and at 10 a.m. you say, okay, I put it live within two, three days, we'll start seeing movement all over the place. So that kind of thing, know. So similarly in India, we made a very conscious decision to make our platform GST enabled, which is a big thing in India. We never set out, the platform was never built for

Yash Shah (09:03.885)

Yeah.

Yash Shah (09:32.002)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (09:32.018)

to make sure that it's going to do transactions in India at that granular level. But then we thought, no, we need to be ready. So future ready, you can say. So all our tech is now GSTNAP. And so these are the things that allows us to be agile, to act fast. So not only save time, it's very efficient.

Yash Shah (09:48.526)

Hmm.

Yash Shah (09:59.576)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (10:00.493)

And it is very process led, doesn't allow, you know, doesn't have room to make mistakes and stuff. And it is transparent, I think. What clients in our space love is honesty and transparency. If there is a problem, be upfront, tell us. Don't hide with excuses. Those sort of things. And traceability is another very important part of our business.

Yash Shah (10:08.984)

Yeah? Yeah?

Yash Shah (10:19.704)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (10:29.672)

where clients would want not every time, but often want to have 100 % traceability of their equipment, where it was sourced, what was the process, how it is, know, how we went about it and the rest of it. you know, with a tech-led environment, all of that is possible. Again, on demand as you need it there, you know.

Yash Shah (10:50.765)

Yeah.

This is a nice way to think about it actually. So just every workflow on one system of record and that has benefits that may not be just save time, save money, make more money, but as you pointed out, things like transparency, right? which cannot be quantified, but it is something that the customers definitely will value you.

whenever they are, let's say, a vendor or whenever they are in that process. So interesting way to think about it. Have you had the twist with AI? What are your thoughts and opinions around the impact of AI on your industry?

Nitin Shah (11:29.244)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (11:46.483)

I mean, it's already here. mean, you know, on a standalone side, we use the AI, you know, very well known, the AI model all day long. Within our team, we use Gemini as well. But at the platform level, we already there, we already starting to create workflows that will be now, you know, in our next rollout.

in our roadmap, we already have a very highly integrated AI engine that will kickstart the process and fast forward it quite a bit for the team. yeah, it is happening. We are also integrating, going to be integrating AI in our...

Yash Shah (12:26.862)

Hmm.

Nitin Shah (12:42.608)

supply chain and deliverable process so it will keep on you know well you know we what we look to do is we we look to create lot of rule engines and flag engines and those all of those engines will use AI in a different manner depending on on on what the use case is but yeah it is most definitely is here you know and it cannot be ignored

Yash Shah (13:12.91)

And the impact of AI on your industry at large would largely be ability to do things faster, more accurately, better. Any one of those or all of those?

Nitin Shah (13:26.161)

Yeah.

All of those. mean, all of those. Yeah, faster, do better, be more accurate. And generally, AI will allow things to churn out information a lot quicker. mean, data is the currency now, you know, is beyond Bitcoin. So, I mean, one has to take that cue to say, you know, if

Yash Shah (13:49.56)

Yeah. Yeah.

Nitin Shah (13:58.33)

If I have data, what am I doing with it? And if I can use AI, nothing like it. So we are now also looking at integrating our tech into our clients' platforms. And AI will again, at that point, play a big role in managing all the data and drawing out the information that we really need to see.

Yash Shah (14:20.94)

getting insights as well.

Yash Shah (14:28.462)

Got it. Got it. The other thing that I wanted to understand, I think you also mentioned it a little while back, was sort of around, you had your fair share of challenges and maybe some amount of setback in terms of implementing technology as well across Refteck. Whether that or anything else, what are some two or three things that

that you have learned that have now sort of become your own rules or now you sort of become your own non-negotiables in terms of if there's any tech initiative that needs to happen at Refteck, these are the two, three things that we have learned that we will not, know, mistakes that we will not repeat or things that we know work surprisingly well and we'll do more of this. Like what are some two or three lessons that you've learned implementing Refteck over the last 18 odd years?

So implementing technology at DevTech over the last 18 months.

Nitin Shah (15:31.527)

One thing we started to learn is that it's a from in the latest rollout what we have had rather than us going away and doing things and then bringing it back to the teams. We've actually have an exceptional team engagement now. So we have

you know, started to, we have been doing that. We have been asking our own colleagues to say, look, I want to make improvements in your process. You know, can you, I have some ideas. Can you work with us? So it's a lot of teamwork. And that helps because not at the initiation or at the concept stage, but the testing stage.

but they are able to test their own vision or this is how I'd like to see. This is working better for us or this is not working better for us. Those sort of use cases that we have realized. we, by department, we have a small cluster of teams that we keep on rotating and they are now engaged. So it's like, you know, our capabilities of rolling out and, you know, new ideas, new improvements.

Yash Shah (16:29.506)

Yeah. Yeah.

Nitin Shah (16:55.949)

you know, it gets enhanced significantly because it's only not two or three people in a room making those decisions. We now, you know, you know, our out of our total team strength, I think there are about 18 or 20 people now make those decisions. And that helps because when those phases are decided, what goes first, what takes priority over other, it's a very happy medium. No one

Yash Shah (16:59.096)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yash Shah (17:13.71)

Yash Shah (17:22.124)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (17:24.455)

Everyone gets a share of love, everyone is happy. Okay, you know, we're going to do xyz fast track some few things and slow down on like, you know, like I said, the GST implementation was a big feat for us. did not. If you had asked me three months ago, what do you think about GST? I would have said.

Yash Shah (17:45.464)

Ha

Nitin Shah (17:46.152)

but now we are fully GST compliant. So I mean, you know, we may not even use the modules for another six months or 12 months or whatever, but we are there, we are ready. So these are some of the things that we strive upon and it's something that we're very happy with.

Yash Shah (17:55.437)

Yeah.

But you're there already, yeah?

Yash Shah (18:11.31)

Correct. of course, AI is going to be like, so before I let you go, one of the things that I wanted to understand from you was on the lines of AI is definitely going to be a focus area from a tech standpoint for Refteck. And what are some other focus areas that you looking at in terms of implement?

Nitin Shah (18:28.284)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (18:39.631)

Integration with third party systems develops stickiness, develops transparency, helps scale up, provides a lot of learnings, a lot of learning. You can create a use case with one client and you exactly know what is required with the next client and the rest of it. So that helps significantly.

The next, you know, amongst the things that we're currently working on, third party integrations on the client side.

Yash Shah (19:17.698)

Yeah, so not just like transparency within Refteck but passing on that transparency to the client where they exist.

Nitin Shah (19:27.079)

Right. And visibility, know, full visibility. Right. You know, so that is one, you know, it's like, you know, imagine Amazon, you know, like it's a huge use case, you know, transparency at such a level, you know, and they have millions of vendors and millions of customers. And it's absolutely so, you know, if you scale it all the way down into a B2B environment.

Yash Shah (19:42.99)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yash Shah (19:49.88)

Yeah? Yeah?

Nitin Shah (19:56.785)

where your customer numbers are small and your clients are small and your vendors are also small, that way you can then understand, if they can do it at that scale, it should be relatively straightforward for us to do it at a lot smaller scale at a fraction of that. So I think that that is the vision that we're taking forward.

Yash Shah (19:57.036)

Yep.

Yash Shah (20:05.539)

Yeah.

Yash Shah (20:10.563)

Yeah.

Yash Shah (20:15.042)

Yeah.

Nitin Shah (20:24.47)

And of course it comes with its own challenges, it's all fun, know, things work, things break, and then things work again and know, miss a line. But you know, that's a part of technology that we love.

Yash Shah (20:28.546)

Yeah.

Yash Shah (20:39.17)

Yeah, absolutely. I know it. Sometimes when the tech breaks, it's a little painful. then solving that is fun. So that covers for it. But with that, Nitin, I think I enjoyed this conversation a lot. Hope the people who are watching or listening to this, if you found value in this conversation, then we will link.

Nitin's linked in the description wherever you are. Yeah, absolutely. And we'll also link Refteck website as well so you are able to look through the company and maybe have more contextual questions for Nitin as well. But thank you, Nitin, for taking out the time. This was a fun episode.

Nitin Shah (21:11.909)

Or sho-

For sure, yeah, please, that should be all fine. Thank you.

Nitin Shah (21:36.548)

No, thank you too as well for the opportunity. was my first time, but I hope I get seven on ten.

Yash Shah (21:43.33)

You did amazing. If this was your first time, you did amazing. It didn't feel like first.

Nitin Shah (21:46.694)

I hope I get 7 and 10. That's it.

Yash Shah (21:49.448)

more than that. But thank you. Thanks again. And we'll see you soon. Bye-bye.

Nitin Shah (21:54.724)

You're very welcome. Bye-bye.

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