In continuation of our Life at Sodales series, we connected with one of our key leaders to learn a little bit more about what it’s like to lead the team here at Sodales. In this blog post, we talked to Nas, Sodales’ Chief Product Officer (CPO) in Canada, where we dove into the evolution of Sodales’ product, and what it is like to work as the CPO of an enterprise health, safety, and employee relations software company.
Let’s start with a little bit of history on Sodales. Sodales started in 2013, as an incident management software; the company has since evolved to where it is today as the product was further developed and expanded through co-innovation with our customers and the dedicated hard work of our entire team. Sodales now offers a robust solution beyond just incident management for organizations in both the private and public sectors, including manufacturing, transportation, state and local governments, construction and more. As the CPO, Nas found it necessary to evolve the product in order to cater to a wider variety of industries and provide a configurable product that will meet our customers every need when it comes to health, safety and employee relations.
How did you come to be the CPO of Sodales?
The role of a CPO is to lead and facilitate product management and development, in order to ensure that the products being delivered are valuable to the end-user and the business. Nas spent much of his professional career in the operational space, having obtained his MBA in Operations Management, which led him to large corporations such as L’Oréal, Gap, Sony, and Bell. He was directly responsible for all Human Resources labor workforces including both unionized and non-unionized groups, managing contracts, and more. His experience in health and safety, and labor relations led him to Sodales, as they were looking for someone with the business knowhow and expertise in health, safety, and labor relations. Alongside the CEO Sana, Nas began to develop Sodales’ first product, focusing on incident management, which would eventually expand through product development to service multiple sectors.
How has Sodales evolved since you’ve been with the company?
“The evolution of Sodales came simply from evolving the product,” says Nas. He points out that a business can only be as successful as the product it offers to its customers; to be successful is to offer a comprehensive product to any type of customer, and this is the gap that Sodales has successfully filled.
Having worked in larger corporations, Nas saw that health, safety, and labor management systems were operated independently of one another, and with inefficient siloed processes. He felt there was no effective way of managing these systems within the company’s main system. When he joined Sodales, Nas’ view aligned with that of Sana’s in that, they wanted to develop a system that was fully integrated into the HR space. In short, Nas explains that the evolution of Sodales came as the team continued to build new modules, and within these new modules, new capabilities; after incident management, came disability management, then proactive safety topics such as inspections, audits, and environmental safety. Nas says, “our success is in the fact that we have been at the forefront of innovation within each module, bringing new ideas, new features, new capabilities, and even more modules throughout this journey.” Constant development and evolution have inevitably built customer confidence, as Sodales delivers a reliable and innovative product with a configurable model that can best suit the needs of each and every customer no matter what industry they are in.
“All about balance”
I asked Nas, “what does a typical day look like for a CPO of an enterprise software company,” and from what I gathered, it requires balance. Nas explains that there are three parts to his day. First, is to deliver the customer projects, and to always be aware of what is happening in each stage of the project’s progression. Following each step allows him to ensure that not only the customer, but his staff, are getting the necessary guidance to bring this project to life.
Second, would be product innovation and standardization – he works closely with his team to think of new ways to make the product better and more functional. Lastly, and arguably, most importantly is the human resources aspect of his job. Employees of Sodales may constantly have questions about their tasks, their performance, and so on. Nas finds it so important to ensure that each employee is provided with the adequate amount of training to ensure that they can deliver their duties to the best of their ability, ultimately helping both them and the company to succeed.
Though the general role of a CPO is to develop and manage the product of a company, Nas’ experience has showed him how important maintaining relationships with customers and his employees are for the success of the company. Balancing the product, the HR element, and the customer service element allows him to deliver for the end-user, and for the business.
If you had one piece of advice for somebody looking to get into a role like yours, what would it be?
“In order to be a good CPO you need to know the product, which requires you to have subject matter expertise, meaning, you need to understand the industry, and understand how to decipher what your customer is asking for versus what they need – your customer may be asking for ‘A’ but what they really need is ‘B’,” exclaimed Nas.
Nas goes on to explain the importance of technical knowledge, because customers may ask for things that may be technically difficult to achieve, so it is up to the CPO and their team, to be able to decipher the nature of the customer’s ask – “do they really need this, or do they think they need this?”
Nas learned from his mentor at a young age of the “80/20 rule;” every project requires 100% effort, and the customer expects 100% effort, but 80% of what the customer asks may only require 20% effort. The remaining 20% of what the client asks for may require 80% effort or more. The mountain you may have to climb to achieve this remaining 20% may be a steep one, that is time consuming and expensive for the customer, so it is up to the CPO and their experience to be able to explain to the customer that certain asks may not be required or may not be worth the customer’s investment at this time. Using that experience, Nas provides customers with new solutions that will still achieve their end goal but will do so as efficiently as possible.
What has been your proudest moment at Sodales?
“Getting a phone call, email, or text, from a client explaining to me how amazing my team is or how impressively they delivered a project, is the proudest moment for me.”
How was the transition from a large corporation to a then start-up company?
In short, he loved it. When working for large multinational companies he felt as though he was a small part of a “spaceship,” and was limited in what he could learn or achieve. Conversely, working in a start-up requires hunger, drive, and an entrepreneurial mindset. Working at Sodales produces new challenges, and new experiences- if something fails, you learn and grow from it.
What does it take to become part of the team at Sodales Solutions?
Nas explains that to become part of the Sodales team, you must be a driven person. With a willingness to learn, proactive and team-player mindset, you will succeed at Sodales. It is the nature of any fast-paced, growing business; having a personality where you want to see not only the business grow but see yourself grow and develop your skills as an employee will inevitably make you succeed with Sodales.
At Sodales, our passion is to help highly regulated industries improve their health, safety and employee relations measures, and that starts with developing a product that aligns with the goals of the company and for our customers. Do you share our vision for breaking down barriers and proactively approaching health, safety, and employee relations? If so, we invite you to explore our careers page to learn more about our company culture and any open opportunities to join our team. As a rapidly expanding company, we are constantly seeking out talented individuals to become part of our team.
