Amit RautDigital and AI, Singapore

Most companies make the right decision hard. I try to make it the easy one.Design the system so the right path costs the least effort.

Amit Raut

Amit Raut

Global Business, Digital & AI Transformation Executive

Based in Singapore

Drop a bead and it rolls into the well like all the others. Flick one fast enough and it gets away.

A goldfish in a bowl stays small.

What I believe

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Alan Kay

Alan Kay, said at a Xerox PARC meeting, 1971.

Written down in September 2026

We make the right decision hard.

We’re afraid of bold decisions, and we pass that fear on to everyone who works for us. I’d rather make it the easy one to take.

“If you want to get people to do something, make it easy.” Richard Thaler

Richard Thaler, said to NPR, December 2009.

the safe callthe right callbefore21°slope to the right callbeforeuphill, 12°afterdownhill, 9°same people, same call: only the ground moved
Hover to measure itTap to measure itwhat it’s worthThe right call stops needing courage.

I’d rather hire a black sheep.

Most teams are built from white sheep. I’m a black one, and I’ve no problem with people who think differently from me. School doesn’t reward being different, and neither do most workplaces. I do.

“Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” Mark Twain

Mark Twain, notebook entry, 13 October 1904 (Mark Twain’s Notebook, ed. Paine, 1935, p. 393). The popular short version is a paraphrase.

a gap inthe fenceheading: 11 the same way, 1 somewhere new
Hover to measure itTap to measure itwhat it’s worthThe idea the rest of the herd would have walked past.

Reward success, punish failure, and you get a herd.

Students pick the safe career and employees follow orders, and we end up as a herd walking in the safe direction. A goldfish in a bowl is safe, and it stays small. Put the same fish in a lake and it grows several times bigger. Playing safe costs you freedom and growth.

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” John A. Shedd

John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928, p. 20. Often credited to Grace Hopper or Einstein. Hopper used it; she didn’t coin it.

a bowla lake1×several times the sizesame fish, different roomwhat changed: the room, nothing else
Hover to measure itTap to measure itwhat it’s worthPeople grow to the size of the room you give them.

Get off the wrong train at the next station.

The longer you stay on, the longer it takes to get back. In 18 years I’ve boarded a few wrong trains. I don’t mind admitting it. I mind finding out late. So I ship early, because the sooner it’s out, the sooner I know which train I’m on.

“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Reid Hoffman

Reid Hoffman, his own post on X, 29 March 2017, and his LinkedIn essay on it.

where you meant to gothe train you got onget off here1 stop backstay on to the end: 10 stops backcost of finding out late
Hover to measure itTap to measure itwhat it’s worthA wrong turn costs one stop. Wait, and it costs ten.

What you measure is what you’ll get.

Count tickets closed and people will close tickets, solved or not. Choose the number with care.

“Tell me how you measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave.” Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Haystack Syndrome, 1990.

openclosedclosed: what the team countsfixed: what the customer saysclosedfixedclosed, not solved
Hover to measure itTap to measure itwhat it’s worthCount what the customer calls fixed, and fixing is what you get.

The AI that matters will look boring.

The first thing ever scanned with a barcode, in 1974, was a pack of chewing gum. The AI that changes a business will feel just as dull: an order that someone used to type by hand now gets created while nobody watches.

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Roy Amara

Roy Amara. Known as Amara’s law. No original written source has been found.

a pack of chewing gum, 1974first scan1 × chewing gumscanned, not typedday oneeverywherehow far it spread
Hover to measure itTap to measure itwhat it’s worthDull on day one. Everywhere a few years later.

AI will make handmade worth more.

Machines will write most of the code and do most of the bookkeeping. People will still pay 10 times more for a website built by one good designer, the same way they pay more for a handmade bag. I bake at home, so I may be biased.

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris

William Morris, lecture “The Beauty of Life”, 1880. He led the Arts and Crafts movement, a reaction to factory-made goods.

copiesmade by one pair of handswhat people pay for one1×10×cost of one more copy: close to nothing
Hover to measure itTap to measure itwhat it’s worthWhen copies cost nothing, the one-off is what people pay for.

Strict on who owns it. Relaxed on how.

How I lead

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” George S. Patton

George S. Patton, War As I Knew It, 1947. Also quoted as his rule in Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, 1952.

My team works like a start-up inside a very large, long-established company. They get the freedom and flexibility they need. I don’t act like the boss; I’d rather be the colleague who has a better idea.

The person in my team who did the work presents it to the Board, and I push for their promotion.

Handed something in trouble, I first decide if it’s worth fixing at all. Most of the time I start again from zero, because that’s quicker than spending months repairing something broken. At home it’s the other way round: I’ll open up a dishwasher to fix its circuit.

What my team finds hard about me: I don’t hand out step-by-step instructions. People who are used to having every step told, written down and put in a structure find that hard at first. I’m strict about who owns what, and relaxed about how they get there.

What I check first in the system

  • Who owns each end-to-end process, and who can decide.
  • Whether releases come out every month.
  • Whether an off-track number reaches the person who can fix it, automatically.
who owns ithow they get thereorder to cashone ownerprocure to payone ownerplan to deliverone ownersame finish line, their own routeoff-track, straight to the ownera release every monthdecidesdecidesdecides

Start again from zero.

The orders nobody wanted to type

Email is over fifty years old, and plenty of business customers still order by sending one, often with a PDF attached. For years, someone in customer service read each order and typed it into SAP. Someone in my team built a first version that could read those orders by itself. My part was the less exciting work: getting it funded, deciding who owns what, and taking it from one region to five. It now handles orders for about 1,500 business customers in 5 regions, and routine order entry is off the customer-service desks. From the outside it’s about as exciting as a barcode beep, and I’m fine with that.

The same story as a log you can run. Step names only.

An email with a PDFRead by itselfCheckedOrder created in SAPCustomers keep ordering the way they already dofrom one region to fiveabout 1,500 business customersRoutine order entry is off the customer-service desks
PDF

An email arrives, with the order in a PDF.

customer
C-0417
item
AX-220
quantity
40
deliver by
14 Nov

What the AI reads out of it.

Order created in SAP.

Nobody typed it.

Example order, not real data. Hover to run it again.Tap to run it again.

order-flow
  1. email in, PDF attached
  2. document AI reads the order
  3. order checked
  4. order created in SAP
  5. runs on SAP’s cloud platform (BTP), ships with the monthly release

Get off at the next station.

Where I come from

I trained as an engineer, then did an MBA, and in 2008 I started in supply chain and logistics consulting in India. Then China, helping set up the supply chain for a new plant. Then Germany, on the technology side of a cross-border acquisition. Singapore since 2015. I came to AI the long way round: supply chain and ERP first, then digital platforms and the data underneath them. So I know the work the AI now sits inside.

The same route as a stack. Each layer was built on the one below it.

India2008supply chain and logisticsconsultingChinasupply chain fora new plantGermany2012technology side of across-border acquisitionSingapore2015 to nowdigital platforms, dataand AI
2008logistics systems, from process design to go-live2012core-system integration across plants and legal entities2015one warehouse-management model, reused across 9 countries2019SAP S/4HANA and a self-service digital platform2026document AI on SAP’s cloud platform, monthly releasesdata, throughevery layeroff-track numbers goto their owner,automaticallycost tracked againstvalue, every project

In numbers

Hover a number to see what it’s worth.Tap a number to see what it’s worth.

~1,500business customers whose emailed orders are read by AI, in 5 regionscustomers whose email and PDF orders are read by document AI and created in SAP, in 5 regionsemail in, order out, in 5 regions

what it’s worthRoutine orders no longer get typed in by hand.

85%+of customers chose the self-service digital platform because it was easieradoption, counted by who chose it rather than by the go-live datecopper: chose it, nobody chased them

what it’s worthAdoption nobody had to chase.

9countries on one warehouse modelcountries running one warehouse-management model, built once and reusedbuilt once, used in 9 countries

what it’s worthOne design, reused instead of rebuilt.

EUR 30M+yearly budgetyearly budget, with cost tracked against value for every project it pays forevery project: cost against value

what it’s worthEvery euro traced to a project and the value it brings.

SAP Global Innovation Award, 2024, with my team. Full CV on request.

Ship it before it feels ready.

Field notes

What I’m writing and saying, one line each. It fills in as each post goes out. The first went out on 28 Sep.

The same list as release notes. A post only appears once it’s live on LinkedIn.

  1. The first thing ever scanned was chewing gum. Boring first use cases are the ones that last.
  1. v1boring first use cases last

Hire the black sheep.

Questions I get asked

A black sheep who stayed 18 years at one company?
I’ve had five jobs in four countries without changing employer, and most of them started from a blank page: the supply chain for a new plant in China, the technology side of an acquisition across Europe and North America, and in 2026 a new AI team set up from scratch.
Technologist or business leader?
Flip the switch at the top of this page.You’ve just flipped the switch. I sit between the Board and the engineers, and I’m comfortable on both sides of it.
No P&L?
The P&L sits with the business, and my job is to move its numbers. I run a yearly budget of over EUR 30M and track cost against value for every project it pays for.

Outside work

My favourite hours off are in the kitchen, baking with the music on. After that, I like fixing whatever has broken at home, a door or a dishwasher circuit.

baking, music ona dishwasher circuit

From my bookshelf

Eleven I keep going back to.

The same shelf as a reference list, oldest first.

Hover a spine to take it off the shelf.Tap a spine to take it off the shelf.

  1. [1]Bhagavad Gita. Part of the Mahabharata, traditionally credited to Vyasa. More than 2,000 years old.
  2. [2]Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. Private notes, written around 170 to 180 AD.
  3. [3]Ries, E. (2011). The lean startup.
  4. [4]Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow.
  5. [5]Sinek, S. (2014). Leaders eat last.
  6. [6]van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score.
  7. [7]Willink, J., & Babin, L. (2015). Extreme ownership.
  8. [8]Voss, C., & Raz, T. (2016). Never split the difference.
  9. [9]Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits.
  10. [10]Greene, R. (2018). The laws of human nature.
  11. [11]Housel, M. (2020). The psychology of money.

Connect

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The same card, turned inside out: the text the QR code carries.

Amit Raut

Global Business, Digital & AI Transformation Executive

based in Singaporeweb amitraut.app

amit@amitraut.app

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