Ep. 61 | Rethinking ROI: Balancing Innovation and Stability in Business

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to the Resolution Room. Whether you're navigating conflict in your relationships, your work, or within yourself, you're in the right place. Let's step into the room.

Speaker B: All right. Can you please introduce yourself?

Speaker C: Uh, well, I am Fayed Yusri. I am an engineer by training. I've studied, uh, electronics and communications engineering at Cairo University. And I started my career being a software developer, spent around 10 years in the defense field. Then I moved to the, uh, startup, uh, industry or the ecosystem here. Founded a couple myself, then moved to Kuwait heading another startup that was focused on grocery delivery. Finally I joined a venture capital as a consultant for their ventures. So I've been doing digital transformation ever since the early 2000s. Now that makes me sound a bit old and been writing code. I was nine, so I'm a techie.

Speaker B: Wow. Wow. And where are you located right now? Where are you from?

Speaker C: M. I'm currently in Cairo, Egypt. I'm Egyptian.

Speaker B: Amazing. Um, so let's dive into digital transformation. So many people enter the world of startups and digital transformation because they're excited about technology, which you mentioned, uh, is in your background. But when I listened to you talk about this brief backstory, we met in an award ceremony in Dubai and you were giving a presentation that was amazing. So I knew I had to have you on the show. And so when I listen to you talk about your work, there seems to be a deeper purpose behind it. So. So what originally drew you into this space besides the technology itself?

Speaker C: Well, when I was younger, it was the technology itself. It's actually why I joined the, uh, um, aerospace and defense field because they are always on the cutting edge of technology. Whatever they have there, we'll see as, uh, civilians in maybe 10, 20 years, if we ever see it. So, um, that, that was the passion back then, finding, finding a complicated problem and solving it. As, as I've gained the experience and I grew older, I stopped thinking about building the tool or building the technology and actually finding the problem itself, defining the problem that we need to, to cater for using technology. And that took me to the business aspect of things. Had to study business, had to study management. A couple of degrees later I found, found out that the Matrix is far more complicated than, than. And trying to solve it, uh, in time. We actually need to know what's the purpose of what we're doing. Uh, and that will take us to another part. But if even uh, the main matrix, which is profit and loss, is not, in my humble opinion, is not the one matrix to look at. So finally what drives me in the morning to get up and do what I do is trying to leverage the great advancements that we're having in technology to better the life of myself and others basically maybe in the business, maybe on a national level, nobody knows.

Speaker B: And so uh, you've worked with both Fortune 500 companies and startups. So what did those experience teach you about how organizations succeed and fail?

Speaker C: Well taught me it's a balance. Well when you think Fortune 500 and you think large enterprises that has tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of employees, it's kinda uh, like watching an elephant move. It's not very nimble. It's, it's like an A380 uh driving it has a direction, it can carry a thousand people. However it cannot maneuver m quite, quite as nimbly as you would like. In in, in certain occasions the startups there are, there are many, many schools of, of how to to to run startups. I myself the meta school, the move fast and break things school. Having having a perfect product might um, not be as, as important as being in the market on time or in the market first or having a first movers advantage. So when you look what you look at the Fortune 500 you see governance, you see processes which is something that you really need as the business grows. And when you see a startup you see a five minute meeting that might change the direction of the ent. In between is where uh a, a good, a good manager or a good CEO will suit will, will, will place himself. I, I actually in, in my consultancy uh or in my, my job as a consultant. When I consult the, the startups in our vc one of the main things I do is to help them bridge that gap from being a startup it was five people, seven people. Now the business grows. We have like 60, 70 people on board. Now we need to start having processes. Now we need to start having governance. Now we need to start having actually job descriptions. When you have five people on board everybody does everything. Then as it grows you uh, either be able to transform to the, I won't say proper but the slower yet more uh sound stepped way of doing things as you're transforming to a bigger company or you will basically fail not due to the lack of growth but the inability to cope with the managerial tasks that you have with growth.

Speaker B: And can you talk a little more about um, you mentioned the problem solving aspect. How you go into organizations and help them resolve their digital problems. What specific problems and organizations are you most passionate about solving?

Speaker C: Well it really depends on the Business um and the amount of complexity depends on the business. Let, let's take a um, an, an example and, and that's, that's, that's actually a white paper that I have published recently and it's part of our work in the Digital Transformation center that's an NGO I am, I am working on that aims to helping communities and businesses to undergo or to ease the uh, the, the to ease the digital transformation process and to define digital transformation. We're not basically trying to change bookkeeping into having expelled spreadsheet or an ERP system. That's digitization and that's an entirely different thing. That was 20 years ago. Now digital transformation is actually transforming the business to be able to leverage the current technology. Technology becomes one of the pillars of the business. It becomes part of the overall strategy. It's not being a retail store and having a website that sells online but it gives you the capability to actually see the product in the store, buy it online or buy the product in the store, return it online. It all becomes one ecosystem. One of the things that I am really passionate about is how we leverage all these technologies, uh high speed Internet, machine learning, AI, generative AI, agentic AI, cloud technology to solve real problems that, that, that humanity is suffering from. There is a um, uh statistic uh published by the World bank in 2020 if memory serves at 57% of UH students over the age of 10 in low income countries cannot try to read. There is a school problem, there is a teacher problem. I, I live in the Middle east in a third world country and we these problems, hundreds of thousands of students, not enough schools or teachers. So what about having an agentic AI based tutor for each and every one of those students. This is the kind having, having a national archive for all the content that, that the student might need to learn and an AI ah tool to tutor, to tutor them. And the beauty of that is like YouTube how it learns what we react to. The AI could learn what kind of videos or what kind of tutorials that the student responds to best and track their uh progress using, using tests. So it's a dream. There are bits and pieces being done here and there. There are great examples in India, Bangladesh, Estonia, Rwanda, some efforts in Jordan and here in Egypt. But such an integrated paradigm unfortunately doesn't yet exists. This is one of the things that drives passion and could solve a big problem. I know this is this, this might not answer your question. You are asking were asking about the business but I wanted to take a step back and show you how I think an impact on, on society would be and on a P L level it will make money. So you can have both a profitable business that creates opportunities, levels the playing field for people where a student in Rwanda or in Upper Egypt can have access to world class education like a person uh, uh, studying in the first world country. This is the digital transformation in the education industry. On a national level, for instance. I hope that answers your question.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. And so going back a little bit, um, again at your presentation, um, in Dubai, you, one thing that stuck with me was your redefining of roi. And so traditionally ROI usually focuses on financial return. And I think like you, many leaders are starting to rethink that metric. So when you talk, talk about this, what does ROI mean in your framework?

Speaker C: Well, again, it depends on the situation and it depends on the industry. Let me go a step back. ROI on, on, on, on financial ROI or a PNL level is the, the definition that works especially in a market economy. However, if we take a look at the former Soviet Union, they redefined ROI unsuccessfully, unfortunately a few times and their economy ended up collapsing. But the thing is, if we keep just a narrow track on having a single matrix as our compass, our, our guide, we will eventually lose sight of, of, of the bigger picture. Roi, uh, in the financial sense is a must. I mean that's the world we live in. No body will is, is willing to invest into something that will not bring back some kind of return. However, we see people looking at ROI differently. They do, they do not look at the financial roi, they look at impact. And we usually call those people philanthropists. In between this and that lies, lies my definition. So yes, at the end, end of uh, the day we are looking at a positive net profit. And at the end day we want to make money and we want to make our investors happy. And if we are unable to do that, then it's a moot point. Whatever we're saying. We can just write in books, but it will never, it will never be accomplished because you need money to do things. And on the other hand, in the problem definition, the thing that, that I started m our uh, lovely conversation with, in the problem definition we need to come up with the, the, the, the definition of the problem that we want to tackle and make money tackling. Let's take the gig economy. As an example, Uber and the likes, doordash, whatever those companies did create an extra revenue stream that did not exist before. People I see, I see high school students with bikes going here and there, delivering orders and Making money out of that. When I was their age, this did not exist. So it's an extra revenue stream and it's a problem to be solved. Did they make money? It's their every right to make money. Is it a perfect model? Maybe, yes, maybe, uh, a bit cannibalistic. It depends on how you look at it. But at the end of the day, they did solve a problem, they did create jobs and they made a ton of money doing that. So that's having a successful roi, provided that you do not become too cannibalistic with, with the service provider or with, don't, don't take too big a cut. Uh, so, uh, you'd allow, you, you'd make a, um, complete opportunity for others. We shouldn't be always looking at doing it on the chip or taking the biggest share yet. We take, we take our fair share. Others make money and we will become successful. If you take 15, 25%, making 8% at the bottom line. No, that's, that's fine. That's not catalyst. You need to do that. Making 60% would be a bit crazy.

Speaker B: So, and so, yeah, uh, yeah. And thinking about again, the financial part of ROI and sort of the invisible returns that companies may overlook, how do factors like team cohesion, innovation capacity and cultural alignment factor into roi?

Speaker C: Well, these, these things, without these things, the machine doesn't work. I mean that's, that's the lubricant that, that, that keeps the entire thing running. It, it, it stops it from, from, uh, from seizing. I mean, it. I have managed teams that, including people from 5 to 50 nationalities. And it's a bit tricky, to be perfectly honest. And the one thing that you need to understand or to always keep in mind is to keep an open mind and to understand that people are different and they might approach things differently. The definition of urgent is in Germany is very, very different from that very definition in Egypt or in Italy. I mean, Egypt and Italy is quite similar. So you need to understand when a guy from my Cairo office tells me, tells me that this is urgent, I need to make sure that it actually is urgent. Because their definition of urgent is probably we, uh, need it done by end of day. While when you hear it from a German, it's probably if we don't have this fixed in an hour, the sky will fall. So eventually people, people need to find the common language, a common cultural background, and maybe that's the engineer in me talking. But usually having things put in a numerical way is the easiest way for everybody to understand it. If you Talk to business people, if you talk to techies. It's all, it's all objective. Till we put numbers, then that's subject. You cannot ETU is a 2 anywhere in the world, in any culture.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: So that might or might not directly contribute into your return on impact, not your return on investment, but without it you cannot function.

Speaker B: M, um, yes, I, I, there's so many things going through my mind because I know how difficult it can be to try to get team alignment with people from the same culture. Right. So working across multinational teams, I can only imagine the sort of strain that happens there sometimes. And so you mentioned language, which of course is a huge component of just human connection in general. Um, what other challenges do you notice that come up the most when aligning multinational teams?

Speaker C: Well actually language is the least of our worries. Most of the people are working with, speak English to a certain extent, but the being, being articulate with English, being your second language is a bit challenging. You always need to keep space putting in mind that the person talking to you, their English is a second. English to them is a second language as well. And he might be using a term, the closest term he can think of to the translation of the thought in his mother tongue. And you might find it offensive, but you shouldn't get offended. You need to make sure that he didn't mean to offend you. But the language, the language aspect is, isn't the most difficult part. Neither is the time zones. The cultural background is, uh, is, is, is uh, is the main challenge. As, as I said, people even, even if we say, let's say, let's give you an example, when you tell a uh, Manhattan investment banker, you tell them a million dollars, that's nothing. It might be a 10 second decision. When you tell a software uh, developer in India a million dollars, that's a lifetime fortune. So that's, that's, that's both a cultural culture, a cultural thing and a background thing. A person dealing with billions on a daily, on a daily uh, war, huh. Will, will look, will look at the sum far differently from a person who aspires to do that kind of money in his lifetime. If I hit a million dollars, I retired comfortably. So the, the definitions are, are quite, are quite different. However, if the team is inspired enough to solve their same problem or share the same vision to head to the same goal, most likely they will overcome that and find a way to communicate, find a way to move forward. And that's how the multinationals have been functioning for a while.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love the way you explain that? Because right, right there I just picked up on what you're talking about because even when I said language, I actually wasn't even thinking of English versus Spanish versus Arabic. I was actually thinking of the way you communicate, like how words translate to other cultures as well. So even just explaining what language was, was a cultural gap.

Speaker C: Yeah. Uh,

Speaker B: that's so funny. So I'm thinking practically about this, like how to apply this sort of multinational team management. If a leader is managing a team across, let's say say five countries, what is one mindset shift that you think would immediately improve how that team works together?

Speaker C: Well, they all need to understand what I have just been saying. We need to find, if, if we agree to move towards finding a uh, common language. And that shouldn't, I mean we, we have, we have team members who cannot manage English quite well. And you find, you find others sending them screenshots with circles on them. This needs to be fixed so you can go graphical. You can, you can, I mean humans find the way to communicate if they want to communicate.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker C: People, people, people say 500 years ago people sailed to lands, didn't know it exists, met people they haven't seen before, um, and managed to communicate. Even, even war is a form of communication.

Speaker B: Mhm hm.

Speaker C: It's, it's, it's struggling, but it's a form of communication. I mean it's a struggle is a kind of communication.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Silence is communication.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, yeah. It makes me think when I was living in Jordan during the Peace Corps, you know, I had very minimal Arabic based uh, language training, but I had lived in a house with a local family and literally 98% of our communication was playing charade, trying to figure out what the other person had to just act it out and it was just pointing to things and just trying to make sense of it. But you're absolutely right. You, when you have to communicate, you will find a way to make it work.

Speaker C: And having, having high speed Internet and being able to video conference. I come from a time where an international, an international call was something that was quite expensive. So having, having, having audio, visual communication is, is really, is really something you can place your rate.

Speaker B: Mhm, absolutely. So you're deeply involved again in conversations about AI, digital ecosystems, um, emerging technologies. What changes do you think leaders should be preparing for right now?

Speaker C: AI as a force multiplier. I uh, so people look at, at, at AI, some, some with fear and AI agents will take our jobs which will happen. And um, others, others hoping that the AI will automate everything. Neither is the case yet. If you don't integrate AI into the day to day tasks and having an AI capable team you're most definitely lagging behind. Now in 2026 you're lagging behind. In a couple of years you won't exist. A uh, single, a single designer who knows how to properly prompt an AI to generate a picture then they tweak it. Using other tools is as productive as eight or nine Illustrator designers. So even if you're a freelance you will be more productive. Provide, provide the best quality and you're saving your time and that of the client. So if you don't know how to use it, you're becoming a dinosaur. And integrating that on, on the uh, the managerial level and the enterprise level is important in the sense that I no longer need to go through a 2070 page report about every company every month Portfolio has around 10. I have a few AI tools that gives me a dashboard and alerts where ever something goes out of the ordinary.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: So that's a tool that is built on top of the ERP on top of the, the, the, the tools that, that people when they think digital transformation they think I'll have a bookkeeping tool and a uh, project management tool and having an enterprise resource planning application. If you. That's that's not it. That, that was 10 years ago. Now we place a few tools on top of that and it presents me a problem proposed solutions from our historical data and I can take a decision at the glance actually at some point the AI will take decisions on. We have already delegated some tasks to the artificial intelligence.

Speaker B: Mhm mhm.

Speaker C: This did not, this did not leading to my cutting jobs actually the gross adapting ah the technology the growth was so fast we're actually hiring with all that automation we need more people to handle the growth because the mediocre day to day tasks are handled by machines now. And I need people who can drive the business forward.

Speaker B: So we're hiring it and so thinking then how should companies balance the innovation versus stability of what's been working?

Speaker C: Well that would depend uh, mainly on the size of the company. So if we're talking startups then it's only innovation usually all the way. If we're talking a medium to a size to a large enterprise. Yeah you need to find the balance. If you become too conservative and shun innovation you will end up like Nokia. And if, if you try to innovate too fast there are, there are a few uh, examples of people trying to, to innovate Too fast and, and and they ended, they ended up uh being driven out of business. These are by the hundreds. So having tried and tested methods of course branching out branches and testing innovation as much as possible is always a good thing. Departments and uh one of the most successful uh company within a company examples to balance out the innovation and being a giant is at a um US Defense contractor, one of the biggest in the world called Lukid Martin Duke and Martin builds our seven triple 7s our, our 747s and the B52s. On the other hand they had a small department on the inside headed by a guy who, who founded it. He, he died called Kelly and this, this is called the Skunk Works. The Skunk Works was a company within Lockheed Martin still is that is tasked with technological advancements and innovation. These, these are the guys who gave the the US the U2 and the SR71. Um built in the 60s and it's the fastest plate to date. So you can be a giant and have an innovative arm within you. Google is another great example. Actually there isn't a Fortune 500 that doesn't have a, a strong innovative arm. If you don't you will stagnate. How fast do we move with the arm? Um how much momentum do we give? It depends on how big is the rest of the body.

Speaker B: So when you look at the work that you're doing today, what impact do you hope it ultimately has on organizations and the people inside of them?

Speaker C: Well we hope that we leave the business because we usually help the business get on its feet and leave my team and I hope when we leave the business we leave them with a clear heading, a well thought of problem solution statement and well governed processes that will help the business uh run smoothly while freeing the innovators that founded the business to continue innovating. There was nothing sadder for the that uh than seeing a, A an innovator who started the business and he gets bogged down on day to day managerial tasks and, and putting and putting out fires and, and the reason I invested in him as a venture capital is the innovation, the, the innovative parts that we have that he had. So what, what we accomplish, what we try to accomplish, giving them a clear vision, a strategy uh that integrates uh digital, the digital aspects of uh think including artificial intelligence and a methodology to adapt new technologies as they come in anywhere. Very well documented process yet that gives them room to change as they go and the tools to, to develop to, to accomplish all of that.

Speaker B: Well we have to end with A signature resolution question. So when you encounter tension or resistance inside an organization, how do you pause long enough to see the pattern before reacting to the moment?

Speaker C: Well, I usually try to de, escalate if, if, if the tension reaches a certain level until, until head school and I dropping in a question for one of the two peoples, mainly asking him to explain his view point, asking the other guy to wait till I understand, then moving to the other guy and doing the same thing. And you would be amazed that maybe in 10 to 90, 90% of the cases that resolves the issue since it's usually a communication issue. Um, especially with innovators, they are so passionate about what they do and what they say they don't really understand. Somebody says the same thing in a different way. So giving a, a moment, it usually takes a couple of minutes for them to explain. It takes the time. How long do I pose if somebody, if, if, if, if I see in somebody's eyes or I see the vein, somebody is going to lose, lose the nerves, then I, I definitely jump into the escalate.

Speaker B: That's a good call. Okay. Well, it was absolutely amazing talking to you. Thank you so much for taking the time this evening. Can you please let everyone know where to follow you in your work? If they want to learn more about you?

Speaker C: Well, they can follow the dtc. It's the NGO I'm working on. Uh, me and a great uh, body of people, like minded people who, who uh, want to use technology to help make, make the world a better place. It's dtc, that's Delka Delta Tango Charlie foundation, that's the website. And uh, I'm um, you can find me on LinkedIn at, uh, Fayed, uh, Usri. Uh, that's F A Y E D Y U S R Y. It's been A pleasure, Dr. Low.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: If this conversation gave you something to reflect on, consider taking a moment to rate and subscribe. It helps more people find their way into these conversations. And if you'd like to bring a conversation like this into your organization or community, you can submit a speaking request. And if you prefer to start on your own, visit the Resolution Library for a collection of digital resources designed to help you put this into practice one step at a time. Access to our community speaking requests and online resources can be found at our website, linked in the show notes. Until next time, keep building in the quiet because that's what will carry you forward.