Ashish Kataria

The CEO of a 250-person digital transformation company on workflow mapping over platform decisions, why 90% of revenue is repeat business, and what he turns down.

Ashish Kataria is the CEO of Epik Solutions, a digital transformation company he founded in California in October 2015. It now runs roughly 250 people across the United States, India and Mexico, working on customer, employee, IT and back-office systems for enterprise clients.

The firm works across utilities, climate programmes, workforce-heavy operations and organisations managing complex internal systems, and has expanded into AI-driven data platforms and climate technology including wildfire mitigation. Around 90% of its revenue comes from repeat clients.

In the conversation below he is unusually specific about the parts of transformation consulting most firms keep vague: how engagements are priced, what post-launch support actually involves, and the conditions under which he declines work.

Inside a Digital Transformation Company

Please introduce your company and describe your role as CEO within the organization.

I’m the CEO of Epik Solutions. We founded the company in October 2015 in California. Our mission is simple: help organizations simplify and grow through better technology and operational alignment.

We focus on improving customer, employee, IT, and back-office experiences together. I set strategy, review major client engagements, and stay involved in solution design. I also spend time with our delivery leads to ensure what we promise is what we execute. We operate across the U.S., India, and Mexico with roughly 250 team members.

What is your company’s core operating model? Do you use in-house teams or a hybrid approach?

We operate with a primarily in-house model. Our core architects, engineers, and transformation leads are internal. That gives us control over quality and accountability.

We use selective partners when a project requires a niche capability or regional presence. Those relationships are structured and managed by us. We do not outsource responsibility. Delivery stays under our governance framework.

How do you differentiate in a crowded transformation market?

We do not replace systems for the sake of change. We build around what already works. Many firms start with a platform decision. We start with workflow mapping. We observe how teams actually operate. Then we integrate and simplify. About 90% of our business comes from repeat clients. That tells me differentiation shows up in results, not marketing.

The Transformation Services in Demand Right Now

What industries do you serve, and how has that evolved?

We work across enterprise environments. That includes utilities, climate-related programs, workforce-heavy operations, and organizations managing complex internal systems.

Over time, we have expanded into AI-driven data platforms and climate technology, including wildfire mitigation initiatives. The shift happened because clients trusted us with larger system-level challenges.

What services are most in demand right now?

Three areas.

First, AI transformation tied to real operational use cases. Not experimentation. Production use.

Second, data integration and visualization. Many clients struggle with fragmented systems.

Third, workforce and talent solutions. Especially when organizations are scaling or restructuring internal capabilities.

How do you stay ahead when industry data is often outdated?

I spend time with operators. Not analysts.

We review active engagements weekly. We look at friction points in real environments. That gives faster insight than industry reports. We also track system performance metrics across projects. That gives us pattern recognition.

Working With a Transformation Partner: Clients, Results and Support

Do you have a high percentage of repeat clients? What drives that loyalty?

Yes. Around 90% of our revenue is from repeat business. We define KPIs at the start of each engagement. Service level indicators are documented. We review them with clients on a fixed cadence. Clients stay when expectations are clear and measured.

How do you measure and ensure high client satisfaction?

We track delivery metrics. Timeline adherence. Defect rates. Adoption rates. We also conduct structured feedback reviews after major milestones. If adoption is low, we treat it as a system issue, not a user issue. That mindset matters.

What post-project support do you provide?

We do not exit at launch. We provide stabilization support, usage monitoring, and optimization cycles. Some clients retain us under managed service agreements. Others engage quarterly review sessions. Most long-term relationships evolve from that support phase.

How Digital Transformation Consulting Is Priced

How do you structure pricing and billing?

We use milestone-based pricing for defined projects. Larger transformation programs may use phased pricing tied to deliverables. Managed services are typically structured as recurring monthly agreements. We align billing with measurable outcomes.

What is the typical project range, and how do you balance value?

Project size varies significantly. Some initiatives are focused integration efforts. Others are multi-phase enterprise transformations. I do not publish specific pricing publicly. Value is balanced by clarity. We define scope tightly. We do not oversell features. We align cost with business impact.

Have you turned down projects based on budget or scope? What are your minimum requirements?

Yes. If leadership is not aligned, we do not engage. If the expectation is a full system replacement without workflow analysis, we step back. Minimum fit includes executive sponsorship, defined goals, and measurable KPIs.

Leadership, Culture and What Comes Next

What key challenges have you faced in recent years?

Global coordination across regions has been complex. Managing teams across time zones requires process discipline. During COVID-19, uncertainty tested every organization. We chose not to lay off employees. That required financial discipline and pipeline management. The result strengthened trust internally.

How do you foster innovation and adapt to emerging trends?

Innovation is structured. We run internal pilot programs before recommending new capabilities to clients. AI experimentation is done in controlled use cases. If it does not produce measurable improvement, we do not scale it.

What role does company culture play in your success?

Culture drives retention and execution. We operate with global work-from-home flexibility. We measure output, not hours. “Work should fit into life” is not branding. It is policy. Retention supports continuity. Continuity supports quality.

Where do you see the company in 5 to 10 years?

We will continue expanding our platform capabilities, especially in AI-driven operational intelligence. Climate technology will remain a focus area. Growth will be steady. We prioritize sustainable expansion over rapid scale.

How has your leadership style evolved?

Early in my career, I focused on technical depth. Today, I focus on alignment and clarity. I spend more time asking questions than giving instructions.

What emerging technologies or shifts excite you most?

Applied AI. Not theoretical models. Predictive analytics tied to infrastructure resilience. Systems that prevent issues rather than react to them. Wildfire mitigation is one example.

What advice would you give to aspiring executives?

Start with process, not tools. Observe how work happens. One lesson stands out. We once redesigned a system after watching a frontline user struggle for five minutes. That observation prevented months of rework. Clarity beats complexity every time.

What Does a Digital Transformation Consultant Do?

Digital transformation consulting is the work of changing how an organisation operates, using technology as the means rather than the goal. It sits between management consulting, which stops at the recommendation, and systems integration, which starts once the decision has already been made.

In practice a transformation engagement usually runs through four stages. First, mapping how work actually happens today — which is rarely how the process documentation says it happens. Second, deciding what to integrate, what to replace and what to leave alone. Third, delivery: building the integrations, migrating the data, and getting people to adopt the result. Fourth, the stabilisation period after launch, when usage is monitored and the system is tuned against real behaviour.

The distinction Kataria draws above — starting with workflow mapping rather than a platform decision — is the fault line in the industry. A firm that leads with a platform has effectively chosen the answer before understanding the question, which is why so many transformation programmes deliver a working system nobody uses. Adoption rate, not go-live date, is the metric that reveals whether the work succeeded.

Pricing follows the same logic. Milestone-based billing tied to deliverables aligns the consultant with the outcome; time-and-materials billing does not. Buyers evaluating firms should ask what happens after launch, how adoption is measured, and under what circumstances the firm would decline the work — the last question tends to be the most revealing.

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