Turning fortunes

Rukmini Priyadarshini

ADMIRED in industry circles as the `turnaround' strategist, Pawan Kumar is a familiar figure on India's IT scene. One of the CEOs groomed in the Tata stable, Pawan Kumar spent nearly two decades at TCS, before moving on to Fujitsu ICIM, IBM Global Services and DSQ Software as CEO.

eWorld caught up with Pawan Kumar at vMoksha -- his new baby -- the e-business and e-infrastructure services startup that has bagged $10 million in funding from an angel investor. In this interview, he talks about how he earned the turnaround sobriquet and about his `learning experiences' through his career of three decades.

Every assignment has enabled him to enhance his reputation for achieving turnarounds. ``Each assignment has also been a learning experience for me,'' says Pawan Kumar -- right from his first job as Operations Manager for IIT-Kanpur to his time as CEO in DSQ Software.

``At IIT-K, I learnt people and resource management,'' he recounts. Though it was the largest computer centre in the country, before he took over, there were complaints that research scholars, staff and students were unable to make full use of the facilities.

When the centre's staff found him willing to work long hours and not hesitate to do any task however menial, they developed a more user-friendly attitude. ``I still believe in being the role-model for my teams,'' he says.

On joining TCS in 1974, he had 500 people reporting to him. But it was the computing resources that were critical to the operations: ``The IBM 1401 and 1901s were considered the most valuable resources.''

In the early 80s, when computing resources became cheaper, the dollars moved to software and Pawan Kumar created TCS' software maintenance group. He also looked after banking projects -- for Citicorp (Aus) and AmEx (Mexico).

When he left, the group of 30 people in TCS Delhi had grown to about 800 and contributed 20 per cent of TCS' revenues. ``People management was critical to our growth.''

``In 1993, I decided I wanted to learn strategy: That came with my move to Fujitsu ICIM -- RPG Enterprises' joint venture with Fujitsu of Japan and UK's ICL,'' he says. In about three-and-a-half years, ``we grew from 80 to 850 people but my biggest kick there was that we were there, right behind Infosys, playing catch up''.

The most widely-known turnaround touch that Pawan Kumar has given has been to IBM Global Services as President. The IBM ASEAN arm was responsible for both domestic IT services and software services exports. Capacity utilisation was low -- about 56 per cent -- and the export business was focussed on lab work and hardware design -- little or no commercial work was being accomplished.

``My single most important task there was improvement in the utilisation rate: It went up from 56 per cent to 86 per cent.'' He suggests that a 75 per cent utilisation rate is optimal -- ``We must consider work-life balance for employees as well as the need for a few people on the bench to be able to move quickly and effortlessly onto new projects.'' The utilisation was brought down to 75 per cent at IBM subsequently, he says.

During his time there, IBM Global services started a robust ERP practice with very strong implementation at ABB, Holland Tractor, HLL and Bhilwara. He got a Rs 100 crore system integration project from the RBI, signed a Rs 200-crore, 10-year outsourcing deal with Siemens India and deals with Belarus Industries, Colgate, Cadburys, ICICI and so on.

He was instrumental in swinging a $3-billion AT&T deal in favour of IBM US, with a lot of work to be done from India. ``Similarly work for customers like FORD, AMEX and Prudential came to India,'' he says, apart from high margin direct contracts.

Big though TCS was as an organisation, ``my time at IBM taught me the importance of processes for mature, stable enterprises,'' he says. IBM has strong HR, business management, marketing planning processes and that is vital for a large global company, according to him.

The move to DSQ, which puzzled industry watchers, came in May 2000. Many thought he was making a mistake but ``I learnt what it means to work in a listed company,'' he asserts. ``I had no previous experience of the pressures, obligations and processes that go into the functioning of such companies.'' Bringing in transparency was a challenge as well as deeply satisfying, he says.

At DSQ, Pawan Kumar created India's first ASP -- DSQ World (now called Antrix). ``Antrix is the first end-to-end ASP in India. I am still passionate about the ASP model of outsourcing for small to medium businesses.''

The entrepreneurial bug seems to have bitten him while at DSQ: ``I always knew I had the aptitude, but not the attitude until now.'' In comfortable circumstances now, and minus the fear of bankruptcy due to possible failures, Pawan Kumar has plumped for providing e-business services.

``There is no such thing as doing e-business: You either become an e-business or not,'' declares the vMoksha chairman. That is, only where the business involves e-commerce, CRM, supply chain integration, ERP and business intelligence can it be called an e-business.

vMoksha is focussing on the banking and financial sector as well as on retail, distribution and logistics verticals. The startup intends to offer strategic inputs through consulting, design and development and implement the solutions. ``We also offer e-infrastructure support to customers for as long as they want it,'' he says.

With ambitious growth plans -- from 60 to 300 people by the end of the year and clarity on business solutions, its USP, vMoksha could well be Pawan Kumar's most interesting learning experience yet.

Pic.: Mr Pawan Kumar.

Please e-mail us at bleditor@thehindu.co.in if you have queries on computer usage or if you find an interesting way of using the computer.