I have been blessed to have many "dream come true" events happening in my life since my childhood. 24-Jun-08 was one such day when one of my skip level boss, whom I admire very much and with whom I have worked in two MNCs, called me. His message was simple - he has joined a new company and wanted to start its India center in Bengaluru and he asked me whether I'd be interested in starting and running this center (do you need a better definition of "dream come true"?). I was excited at starting something from scratch and running a center all by myself and readily agreed.
In the series to be labeled under "Intrapreneurship", I'll document my experience in setting up the India Development Center.
Thus started the long process. I was interviewed by several people including the CEO. Next step was to prepare a budget and I was told clearly that my bonus would be linked to my running the center under this budget and meeting the agreed deliverables. Suddenly, I was forced to think from the "other" side. Its funny, I've been in management for a while now, but the perspective suddenly changes if you are to run a center under a given budget.
Anyone in the IT industry would tell you that wage-bill is the biggest expense and I started looking at an optimal combination of the team that I need to hire. I eliminated several high-cost roles, took a few responsibilities upon myself and arrived at a "pyramid" with the right mix of experienced and fresh enggineers. Once the wage-bill was under control, I turned my attention to next big ticket item - infrastructure. I want to have a world class facility, it means there would not be any compromise on the IT infrastructure. All essential things got budgeted and the last item was the building. Office space availability in Bengaluru broadly falls in 3 zones:
1. The Whitefield, ORR, Electronic City - Typically housing large companies
2. The Central business district and
3. Predominantly residential areas like Jayanagar, J P Nagar, BTM, Koramangala etc.,
For the budget that I have, it makes sense to find some place in the 3rd zone (the fact that I live in J P Nagar is purely a coincidence).
After the budget got approved, we hired a consulting firm that would help us with incorporating India entity and all the reqd. paper work with several nodal agencies (RBI, SEZ/STPI, IT, Excise etc.,). The first decision to be made was whether we need to register under STPI or SEZ. In my next post, I'll talk about relative pros and cons of these two.
In the mean time, I've started reading The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels to prepare myself for the new role in the new organization.
In the series to be labeled under "Intrapreneurship", I'll document my experience in setting up the India Development Center.
Thus started the long process. I was interviewed by several people including the CEO. Next step was to prepare a budget and I was told clearly that my bonus would be linked to my running the center under this budget and meeting the agreed deliverables. Suddenly, I was forced to think from the "other" side. Its funny, I've been in management for a while now, but the perspective suddenly changes if you are to run a center under a given budget.
Anyone in the IT industry would tell you that wage-bill is the biggest expense and I started looking at an optimal combination of the team that I need to hire. I eliminated several high-cost roles, took a few responsibilities upon myself and arrived at a "pyramid" with the right mix of experienced and fresh enggineers. Once the wage-bill was under control, I turned my attention to next big ticket item - infrastructure. I want to have a world class facility, it means there would not be any compromise on the IT infrastructure. All essential things got budgeted and the last item was the building. Office space availability in Bengaluru broadly falls in 3 zones:
1. The Whitefield, ORR, Electronic City - Typically housing large companies
2. The Central business district and
3. Predominantly residential areas like Jayanagar, J P Nagar, BTM, Koramangala etc.,
For the budget that I have, it makes sense to find some place in the 3rd zone (the fact that I live in J P Nagar is purely a coincidence).
After the budget got approved, we hired a consulting firm that would help us with incorporating India entity and all the reqd. paper work with several nodal agencies (RBI, SEZ/STPI, IT, Excise etc.,). The first decision to be made was whether we need to register under STPI or SEZ. In my next post, I'll talk about relative pros and cons of these two.
In the mean time, I've started reading The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels to prepare myself for the new role in the new organization.
1 comment:
Congratulations! and an excellent theme to start on your blog.
It would interesting to know which roles you ended up eliminating and which roles finally made it.
All the best,
Vinay
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