Health Tech: Anar Mammadov On How Senpex’s Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness
Listen to your heart and love what you do. Trust yourself. Even if you feel you are failing, you must be confident you have what it takes to succeed. If you focus on your job, listen to your client’s feedback, and love what you do, you are bound to succeed.
In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course, many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anar Mammadov.
Mammadov is the owner and CEO of Senpex Technology, a personalized logistics and delivery service that utilizes groundbreaking artificial intelligence to optimize routes. With 18 years of experience in enterprise solutions, he has applied his practical and results-oriented approach to Senpex. In doing so, he has created a personalized logistics and delivery service that utilizes groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize routes and provide the fastest, most efficient last-mile delivery resource for businesses.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
I’m originally from the small country of Azerbaijan. My parents were both highly educated. My mother was a doctor, and my father was an engineer.
I grew up in the shadow of the Soviet Union, which collapsed when I was a teenager. You could say I grew up in two very different cultures. During my childhood, we were a part of a massive regime. Under communism, I remember everyone attended school for free, and everyone had a job, but I also remember the problems. There was no motivation to work hard and no reason not to do the bare minimum. Everyone was paid the same amount. You could grow, but you were always on the same level. Few people had dreams or goals about their careers.
After the collapse, we lived in a struggling, independent nation. Unemployment was high, but we began forming goals about what we wanted to do with our lives.
One beneficial consequence of my upbringing is that I am fluent in five languages. I speak Azeri, Turkish, Russian, Farsi, and English.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
My most interesting story involves my journey as an immigrant. I started out working for large companies in Eastern Europe, but I began to realize I wanted to establish something of my own. As an immigrant, I moved with my family to the United States. At first, I struggled. It took me two years to understand how to start my own company here. I felt the focus on my company took a lot of time away from my family.
Starting a business takes time. I clearly remember one long day, in particular. We launched our website and spent thousands to advertise on Facebook. We sat in front of the computer and waited for clients to call about our service. We waited one hour, two hours, three hours — and got nothing. It seemed like it took an eternity to attract our first clients. I would encourage any entrepreneur starting out to remain persistent and focused. Things will happen if you don’t give up.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
As I started my business, I worked with a mentor who helped me a great deal, free of charge. At one point, I remember struggling to understand pricing strategies. To explain this to me, he took me to a special coffee shop. I was quizzing him about algorithms and strategies, but when we arrived, he simply told me to go to the counter and buy some coffee for us to drink. When I returned with two cups of coffee, he asked me how much I had paid. I told him I didn’t know exactly, but that it was somewhere around $10 or $15. He pointed out that the exact amount meant less to a client than the value and service they received. That was when I learned it’s important to consider pricing, but even more critical to focus on providing an excellent customer experience. Advice from wise and patient mentors is one of the reasons I have been able to start and grow this company.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have learned several very significant life lessons throughout my entrepreneurial journey. First, be single-minded. If you start a business, fully dedicate yourself to that business. I’ve learned it is impossible to succeed when you focus on multiple tasks. I regularly receive offers to join various projects, but I don’t accept them because I want to focus on scaling my company.
Second, listen to and take feedback from your clients. When your business starts growing, you become very busy hiring and training employees or moving locations. Never become so busy that you ignore feedback about the service or product you provide.
Finally, listen to your heart and love what you do. Trust yourself. Even if you feel you are failing, you must be confident you have what it takes to succeed. If you focus on your job, listen to your client’s feedback, and love what you do, you are bound to succeed.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Good leaders are good listeners. It’s important to have your own vision and know what you want to do, but you have to listen to people.
Second, leaders have to be able to inspire and motivate people. Not everyone can do this. My employees are not here just because of their paychecks. They are inspired to do the job they are doing. Leaders enable their followers to love what they do and help them see a vision for their work. As leaders, we bring that inspiration to the table.
Finally, as leaders, we have to work hard, and the people who follow us need to see us working hard. When we started, I was the company founder, but I was making deliveries right along with the drivers I employed. This was frustrating at first, but in time I realized that experience helped me to understand my drivers today.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?
My business incorporates technology to make deliveries possible in very small and reliable time windows. It’s extremely challenging to deliver packages in an hour, but we have developed a logistics platform that can do it.
Our AI technology batches deliveries and optimizes routes enabling us to deliver urgent medical supplies quickly and reliably. For example, during the pandemic, our couriers were on the front lines. We delivered thousands of samples, test kits, and vaccines.
How do you think your technology can address this?
We use technology and artificial intelligence to make our plans. No human dispatcher could optimize the schedule for delivering thousands of packages with no time to lose. Technology allows us to keep our suppliers, drivers, and recipients in constant contact and updated with real-time GPS tracking of their packages.
Imagine you have 8,000 drivers in different states and different time zones. Without AI and smart management tools, this job would be impossible. We have a single dashboard allowing us to keep track of all of those drivers. We also have dashboards enabling us to track performance metrics for our drivers. Examining this data enables us to bolster our strengths and improve our weaknesses. That is how we ensure health clinics, hospitals, laboratories, drug manufacturers, and patients all receive urgent supplies on time. Technology is involved in every step of our planning, management, and analytics.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
I am passionate about this tech because it is helping us scale jobs we could not even begin to accomplish without it. Technology is breaking down barriers. We are not confined by human limitations or even by our business’s location. I have an office, but at this moment, I’m working from home thanks to technology. I increase the tech we employ to make things possible. The more I decrease human involvement, the faster and more reliable our processes become.
How do you think this might change the world?
Technology is changing the world by making tasks easier and more efficient. It is simplifying virtually every process. In addition, it enables us to connect everyone involved with a job and bring them together, no matter where they are in the world. One of the most important changes tech is bringing about is the ability to make data-driven decisions. In seconds, AI acquires and analyzes millions of pieces of information and makes informed decisions based on that data. Data-driven business intelligence has the power to transform economies.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
We’re more dependent on technology than ever. Technology has made life easier. It has enabled us to purchase affordable food and goods, but we are crippled without it. It has changed our lives, our world, and has transformed the ways we interact with the people around us. While that is amazing, it is also cause for concern.
Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)
First of all, we’re solving a unique problem with technology. We can deliver items in less than one hour.
Secondly, we are able to increase visibility into the supply chain across multiple industries. By allowing everyone access to information, we enable businesses to react more quickly and make the entire supply chain more flexible. When everyone has access to information, the chance of supply chain failure decreases.
Thirdly, technology enables us to enhance customer satisfaction. When orders arrive quickly and reliably, customers are happy. More than anything else, our clients want to provide excellent customer experience.
Technology also enables us to create jobs. Currently, we employ more than 8,000 drivers across 10 different states. Without the tech to manage this force, we couldn’t offer employment to this large group.
The last benefit technology is bringing is ecological. We are using carbon-free transportation and electric vehicles to protect the environment. In addition, we are starting a special recycling project. We have developed software enabling recycling businesses to use our service as well.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Everyone needs to understand the benefit of bringing value to society. We should all do our part to make this a better place to live. That’s the reason we do what we do.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Ever since childhood, I’ve admired Albert Einstein. I’d love to sit down with him, not so much to talk about science, but just to learn more about his personality. I’m fascinated with the way his brain worked. When you have the opportunity to talk with someone like that, it’s life-changing. I have never been all that interested in meeting famous individuals, but I get very excited about the chance to meet someone who is either incredibly brilliant or passionate.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best way to contact me is through our website or Linkedin.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.
Thank you, as well!
Health Tech: Anar Mammadov On How Senpex’s Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.