On the Globe

Telecom sector is in a mess. Back in February, 2018, I had written a blog post titled “ Telecom Companies shutting down in India ”. The trigger for me was the shutting down of Tata Photon / Indicom services. It was clear to me at that point that more telecom companies were going to shut down. But I did not know that the process will be so fast.  Idea and Vodafone had to merge in order to survive. Today, Vodafone Idea has posted a quarterly loss of over Rs 50,000 Crores – which is record high for any company in India. A year ago, the company had posted loss of about Rs 5000 Crore in the same quarter. Vodafone Idea’s revenue from operations has halved to about Rs 10,000 Cr from Rs 22,000 Cr earlier. The company is asking for help from government and its owners have declared that they would not invest any further money into the company and would start insolvency procedure if help from government is not offered. Although I am against government spending tax payers money to help p...

If you are working in a modern enterprise, I guess you must be using several of Microsoft tools, like Microsoft Outlook (do you use Outlook on the Web?), Skype (did you migrate to Skype from Lync?) and SharePoint. At the same time, it is important to look at how some of the other enterprise tools from Microsoft are getting popular by the day. Following is a short list of some of such tools I prepared for you: Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams is an enterprise collaborative platform as part of Office 365. Teams integrates content and tools with people, making it most effective and at the same time keeping it secure and safe. Using Microsoft Teams, employees can create their own groups which will also have their existing mailbox, Calendar, OneNote, SharePoint sites and a document library. Microsoft plans to make Microsoft Teams collect most features of Skype for Business and then Skype for Business would be replaced by Teams. Microsoft Stream Microsoft Stream is an Enter...

Once upon a time there used to be questions: What have IITans given to India - Tata, Birla, Ambani - none were from IITs. Flipkart, founded by two IIT Delhi engineers was an answer to that.  Why can't Indians build a Google, a Microsoft or an Amazon? Flipkart, India's biggest online store, was answer to that. Will e-businesses succeed in India where there is a large population of uneducated and rural people? Flipkart with valuation of $20 Billion gave answer to that. Do you need to be born with a silver spoon in mouth to make it big in India? Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal getting Rs 7000 Crores for his 5% stake in the company gave answer to that.  In just 11 years, Flipkart became so big that Walmart has paid $16 Billion i.e Rs 1 Lakh Crores to buy its 77% stake!  But still, this is one more flag down, one more dream run getting over, and one more India's success story interrupted for the time being. Maybe it is time to switch to Snapdeal. And m...

Now I will have to part with my Tata Photon Wifi dongle as Tata Indicom shuts shop in Delhi. For all of us born before 1990, we have seen exactly how India stepped into a modern, global economy with society witnessing widespread lifestyle and value system changes. Not all changes are for good, just like not all changes are for bad. Telecom sector has been a mirror of India's growth story. Black or Red Tata Photon dongles changed the way we accessed internet then. We did not need to go to 'Cyber Cafes' anymore. Not bound by a cable, we could make our laptops connect to the internet from anywhere. It was a revolution. When Wifi came, these dongles became WiFi devices too and continued to be in vogue. If you look back at recent years, you would realize that Videocon Telecom had to shut down; Aircel became bankrupt; MTS had to shutdown; Vodafone and Idea had to merge; RCom became bankrupt; Tata Teleservices is near to close down; and even telecom tower companies are...

Something nice to share:  Today if you go to SCN (SAP Community Network) and SAP APO – Production Planning, Interfaces and Global ATP page, and checkout the “12-month Leaderboard”; you will find that yours humbly is hosted at worldwide #10 :) - Rahul [Disclaimer: Screenshot taken from SCN.SAP.COM and copyright of SAP]

As Rohit came out of the VP’s chamber, he loosened his necktie and let some fresh air cool his nerves. He was still in a state of shock. What happened inside during last 30 minutes seemed to be a bad dream. As Rohit walked towards his office building, he recalled what had happened during last one year. Rohit carried with him experience of managing five mid to big size teams. Some of the assignments were pretty challenging. That was one of the reasons why he was chosen to manage his current team for a very big account. His company was in the field of services; with foreign clients paying on a fixed-price model. To make its margin, his company constituted a team with pyramid structure – keeping large number of fresh or less experienced team members and a few highly experienced ones. All through his career, Rohit has led teams which mostly had this model. He knew this model very well. From the beginning in this project also, he used his usual managerial style. But within a few mon...