Abhay Karhade Steps Down as Group CIO of Indo Count Industries

Abhay Karhade, Group CIO and Vice President IT, Indo Count Industries has resigned, the company informed in its filing to the exchanges. 

He served the company for more than a year as a member of the senior management. Karhade who succeeded Sachin Songaonkar in August 2024 is not joining any company but will continue as CEO in his venture Expeditor India Systems, he said speaking with FE CIO and added, Indo Count Industries hasn’t appointed a CIO after his departure.

Abhay Karhade’s Future Plans

The company informing about Karhade’s resignation said, “Mr. Abhay Karhade, Vice President – Information Technology of the Company, designated as Senior Management Personnel has tendered his resignation and will ceased to be in the employment of the Company on 12th December, 2025 from the closure of business hours.” 

Karhade in his resignation letter to Senior General Manager - HR & Administration, Samir Bhiwapurkar and K. Muralidharan Chief Financial Officer said, “Thank you for our discussions and appreciating my parting for better prospect. Please relieve me today 12-12-2025 after office hours and settle the due at earliest. I wish you great success for the organization and I am sure our Team will take fullest effort to make Unnati initiatives successful. I will be always available for any help on my mobile and (email id mentioned). Thanking you again.”

Following the departure from Indo Count, Karhade does not plan to join any company but concentrate on his venture Expeditor India Systems, “No, I am not joining any company. I will be taking care of my own organization, Expeditor India Systems. What was necessary was to give a good amount of time to family and then do something. I will be running my own company.” 

Highlights Of Stint At Indo Count Industries

Indo Count had hired Karhade for implementing the transition from on-premise SAP S/4HANA to RISE with SAP, “After the departure ( of the former CIO Sachin Songaonkar) last year, I joined to take care of this project (SAP RISE). We just went live on the 1st of April this year (2025), and thereafter, we stabilized the system and then I thought, now it's time to really move on.”

The highlights during Karhade’s stint apart from RISE with SAP rollout include implementing a supplier portal and Exim, GST related application, “We moved to SAP RISE and implemented the supplier portal and Innoval system (OptiGST), which takes care of all import-export processes as well as the GST filing.” 

Next CIO at Indo Count Industries?

When asked who will take over after his departure, Karhade informed no appointment has been made, “I have few general managers working with me. I think that's a management call to re-elevate someone or if they want to get someone, they can even look for it but that's not my outlook now. They have not appointed (anybody yet).” 

Learnings from Transition: SAP S/4 HANA To RISE With SAP

Sharing his observations from leading the SAP RISE transition at Indo Count Industries Karhade stressed on choosing the right partner, infrastructure planning, ensuring data quality and clear demarcation of the solution scope as the essential elements for a successful implementation.

“It is essential that the infrastructure, the SAP servers, the partner selection has to be well planned; there's a requirement of defining the project interfaces and giving comfortable time for the project to succeed. That's very important. Now since SAP is also changing their landscape very fast they are coming out with agile, agentic AI, so it is necessary that all those new implementations should be planned basically this into the view so for that, it is essential that data quality which is required has to be very perfect.”