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Leading the Way: Balajee Rajaram’s First Week at Exasol

Balajee Rajaram
· · 3 mins read

Our editorial team had the opportunity to speak with one of Exasol’s newest team members, Balajee Rajaram, who will lead Exasol’s new Engineering and Product Development Center (EPDC) in Chennai, India. He shared his observations and learnings from a busy and eventful first week at the company.

Passionate People and Shared Insights

What a hectic week it has been for me at Exasol! I met a wide variety of people who were all extremely passionate, interactive, and welcoming.

  • Oleksander (OK): Explained the core strength of Exasol in comparison to other databases.
  • Ruslan: Highlighted key challenges faced during the company’s growth.
  • Andrew: Shared how the ‘train’ was made from the ‘core DB engine.’
  • Sebastian Nehls: Provided insights into the current build process and challenges.
  • Sebastian Bahr: Discussed drivers, integrations, and challenges in software deprecation.
  • Florian: Explained how Exasol, while being one product at its core, provides multiple solutions.
  • Marie: Spoke about the sales positives and negatives.
  • Swen: Shared the structure and requirements of customer support.
  • Marco: Walked through the latest and future projects.

I could see many passionate individuals coming together to build something bigger, though they sometimes seemed like pockets and islands of effort.

Expanding Our Organizational Potential

One of Plato’s famous sayings is, “The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.” Similarly, Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher, said, “Who conquers others is strong; who conquers self is mighty.”

It’s not that we don’t know our ‘self.’ We know it in pockets and islands. However, there are dark spots within ourselves that remain unexplored because of the busyness of life. These dark spots often come up and block our functioning without us understanding what hit us.

The same principle applies to organizations. Businesses must conquer themselves before conquering new markets and winning customers. Many organizations have dark spots—areas of knowledge gaps, customer issues, or internal tensions—that arise from knowing themselves only in fragments.

Exasol’s Focus on Continuous Improvement

As I see it, the Chennai EPDC (Engineering Product Development Center) is one part of Exasol trying to understand its ‘self.’ By creating bandwidth to introspect and gain deeper knowledge about its products and processes, Exasol is setting the stage to conquer new markets and customers.

This process will help:

  • Make the product the best in engineering.
  • Match offerings to the right customer needs.
  • Seek and fill market needs globally.
  • Expand solutions to address more and more demands.

The Future of Exasol in a GenAI and ML World

As analytics intelligence scales up due to GenAI and ML, the need for Exasol’s Analytics Engine that prioritizes speed will only grow. This presents enormous opportunities—if we are ready by knowing ourselves fully and gearing up to conquer the hearts and minds of customers.

Balajee Rajaram
Balajee Rajaram

Balajee Rajaram leads the new Exasol’s Engineering and Product Development Center (EPDC) in Chennai, India. He has 34 years of experience in product development across personal workspace, gaming, and telecom. Previously, he served as the Head of Logitech Engineering India, where he established Logitech’s product development center in Chennai. He has also worked with Ericsson, Midas Communications, IIT-Madras, WSTL, and other organizations.