Executive Vice President of Marketing, Sitime
Search every verified Piyush Sevalia interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Piyush Sevalia, Executive Vice President of Marketing at SiTime, participated in a discussion in 2021 about aligning employees within an organization. He stated that many companies fail at achieving alignment and argued that execution, rather than strategy, is the critical factor for success. Sevalia described methods for gaining employee buy-in, including telling a simple story so that every employee understands their role, and using a "4D methodology" (discover, define, develop, deploy) to teach customer journey mapping to staff and board members. Sevalia also discussed the importance of creating a culture of innovation and data-driven decision-making. He advocated for programming change through conscious programs rather than relying on emails or wishes, and for creating an environment where employees feel empowered to take risks. He noted that his organization invested in a central transformation team and used a balanced scorecard with metrics tied to transformation to cascade goals throughout the company.
“Getting alignment is really important and I think a lot of companies fail in getting alignment. Strategy is important but it's not critical; execution comes from alignment, so how do you get everybody to buy into the story and understand their role in it?”
“To get alignment you need to tell the story well, simply, and in a way that everybody from top to bottom understands not only the story but their part in it, like the janitor who was putting the man on the moon.”
“Adult learning comes from learning by doing, so we created hackathons and accelerators not to create the next iPhone but to give our people the confidence and ability to get their hands dirty and align everybody's thinking to what we wanted to get done.”
“I'm a big believer in a balanced scorecard; in 2014 I redid the scorecard for the company and carved out 20-25% of it on transforming the company. Those metrics were embraced by the whole management team and cascaded down so everybody knew what they needed to do.”
“We invested in a central transformation team focused on creating a culture of innovation, agile working, and data-driven decision making. This team is small but key to driving programs of change across the company.”
“Change doesn't happen because you send an email or wish it; change must be programmed through conscious, definitive programs that you can package, communicate, and drive down the system until people get it.”
“You have to create an environment where people are willing to take risks and be entrepreneurs because they believe they can make an impact. This not only makes a difference to the company but also keeps employees more engaged, lowering turnover and attrition rates.”
“A relentless focus on what is right for the customer established a simple rubric: if it makes sense for the customer, you're empowered to do it. This liberated people to do the right thing and was key to our culture transformation.”
“We developed a 4D methodology—discover, define, develop, and deploy—to teach our people customer journey mapping, including our board and senior team, spending two days at an offsite retreat learning observation and journey mapping techniques.”
“Increasingly, much of our customer interaction happens digitally, so we instrument and track customer movement to understand pain points and where customers get stuck or fall off, combining real-world observation with digital data to perfect the discovery process.”
In 2021 Piyush and dropping were co-nominated by Thinkers50 for “Ideas into Practice” Award. They were also invited to present ...
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