IT’s KEY INFLUENCERS: Making a Difference

The HP-Compaq merger makes Doraisamy the head of the largest IT

group in India, with the combined entity leading in most hardware segments. His

job–to make a very difficult merger work in India and maintain the lead that

products of the two separate companies enjoyed over the years. It will be

Doraisamy and the new HP that will determine vendor strategies in the ongoing

year.

Balu Doraisamy



President, HP India

Arguably the most important man in the BPO space in India,

Bhasin is full of ideas for transforming ‘back-office’ India. He believes

that if the right linkages are formed between the BPO industry and universities,

India can have another 45,000 trained students enter the industry. And he is

leading by example–against original manpower targets of 10,000, GE already has

20,000 employees in India.

Pramod Bhasin



President, GE Caps

This pioneer in the field of publishing and content services in

the IT industry more than rose to the challenge of the slowdown. At a time when

most of the competition was getting wiped out, Gupta’s vision helped Cyber

Media walk through the year without layoffs or product truncation. What’s

more, he went into consolidation mode and launched a school for content creation

and management in a tough year.

Pradeep Gupta



Managing Director, Cyber Media (India)*

Despite having taken over as Nasscom chief in the shadow of an

illustrious predecessor, the subdued but forthright Karnik has slipped into the

role of Indian IT’s brand ambassador with ease. He has successfully hosted the

Indian IT and ITeS Strategy Summit 2002, helped identify and counter the Chinese

threat, and guided the industry through a very tough year. As for a final

verdict on his performance, it’s early days yet.

Kiran Karnik



President, Nasscom

On the threshold of entering his fourth year in office, Mahajan

is Indian IT’s best friend in high places. He’s been pivotal in pushing

along critical reform in the industry, especially the ICT space. His greatest

asset–an amazing rapport with all the players in the industry. His new goal,

after the demise of close friend Dewang Mehta–to push the Indian IT brand

globally.

Pramod Mahajan



Union Minister for IT, Telecom & Parliamentary Affairs

India’s telecom price warrior has single-handedly managed to

bring down abnormally high phone tariffs. He started with national long distance

and then shifted to international long distance–forcing others to cut call

rates drastically. Interestingly, he did this without his company having started

both services. He is now kicking off another price-cut cascade, this time in the

mobile space, with flagship Airtel leading from the front.

Sunil Bharti Mittal



Chairman & MD, Bharti Enterprises

He is acknowledged as the ‘Father of Corporate Governance and

Disclosure’ in Indian corporate circles. He ushered in an era of transparency

in the industry–using extensive financial reporting standards and complete

openness, even with the media–at a time when no one had heard of it. Having

helped create a 12,000-employee organization from scratch, Murthy has now taken

upon himself the task of pushing the ‘IT India Inc’ brand worldwide.

Narayana NR Murthy



Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies

When everyone got together to share the spoils of fiscal

2001-02, no one could question the size of Nadar’s turnover and profits… or

equal his kitty when it came to acquisitions and tieups–the perfect

consolidation weapons in a slowdown. HCLT ended the year with three

acquisitions, three joint ventures and a new subsidiary. And while this cost a

total of Rs 188 crore, its cash reserves still rose from Rs 844 crore to Rs

1,256 crore.

Shiv Nadar



Chairman, President and CEO, HCL Technologies

His dream is to see his company enter the Top 5 league in the

Indian IT sector. This pioneer of the third-party service concept in India has

lately been focusing his energies on pushing Accel ICIM’s software business,

having already established a very successful hardware services wing.

NR Panicker



Chairman & CEO, Accel ICIM

"Perform or die"–tough as his diktat sounds, Paul

has used strict performance accountability (first to introduce Bottom 5% Policy)

and fabulous achievement rewards to drive his division’s strong growth over

the last two years. Also, Wipro’s brand identity in the US market has jumped

many notches–helping his company survive a very tough year with growth rates

still respectable.

Vivek Paul



CEO, Wipro Technologies

If there were to be one face of Indian IT worldwide, that face

would have to be that of S Ramadorai, if it were not for the low profile he

likes to maintain. In a slowdown year marked by benchings and sackings, this CEO’s

vision has seen Asia’s largest software exporter take on 7,000 more employees,

to reach a total headcount of 23,000! Call him Keynes of Indian IT.

S Ramadorai



CEO, Tata Consultancy Services

Blame Puri if India seems a very profitable playground for IT

hardware manufacturing. In a slowdown year, he has guided MBIL to 102% revenue

growth. More importantly, he achieved these numbers in the hardware

manufacturing exports field–where few had even identified growth

opportunities. What’s more, Moser Baer just doubled capacity, with plans to

push up output even further.

Deepak Puri



MD, Moser Baer India

After years of holding top corporate office–with Wipro and

Mindtree–Soota is now in the public eye. The first from the IT industry to be

named president of key industry association CII, Soota carries industry hopes on

his shoulders. He has experience on his side, having held positions in MAIT and

in the Prime Minister’s IT Task Force.

Ashok Soota



President, CII

This IAS officer has spearheaded Kerala’s rise on the country’s IT map,

rewriting policies to kickstart development and e-gov initiatives. She is

chasing a new and ambitious target–that of making Kerala a 100% IT-literate

state.

Aruna Sundararajan



IT Secretary, Kerala

Aggression was never thought to be his forte, but Tata put that theory to

rest when he outwitted RIL and bagged VSNL. Today, he’s not just transformed

his company from a staid Old Economy giant to a New Economy war horse, he is at

the forefront of thebrigade that’s changing the face of Indian telecom.

Ratan J Tata



Group Chairman, Tata Sons

His war for low-cost telecom solutions helped develop corDECT–which has now

won worldwide acclaim. If that weren’t enough, the IIT (Madras) professor has

over 200 research journals to his credit.

Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala



Professor, Electrical Engg, IIT (Madras)

He is the man behind BPCL’s online push, which saw delivery cycles being

cut dramatically–from many weeks to just a few days.Through his efforts, BPCL

has taken 25% of all its transactions online. Teltumbde’s new objective is to

take 90% of Bharat Petroleum Corp’s Rs 40,000-crore business online this year!

Anand Teltumbde



GM (IT), Bharat Petroleum Corporation

For once, management control and IT responsibilities rest with the same man–and

ICICI CEO KV Kamath has blended both perfectly to create a financial

behemoth of global standards. For him, money is technology and technology is

money.

This ‘voice’ of the Indian CIO is better known than the organization he

works for. The reason is simple–under Ram’s direction, HDFC Bank has steeped

itself in tech-enablement, to an extent where it stands right in the front rows.

For Ram, accolades and national recognition have followed. For HDFC, the rewards

have been fantastic business growth and branding at par with global players.

CN Ram



Chief Information Officer, HDFC Bank

Premji heads Indian IT’s third-largest group, one that spans the entire

gamut of IT solutions–from HW and SW services to peripherals and IT-enabled

services. Among the first to insist on quality standards and certification,

Premji is acknowledged as the force who drove outsourcing growth in India.

Azim Premji



Chairman, Wipro Ltd

Just running a company that has its processors inside nearly every desktop in

the country is enough to get Saini placed on any industry list. But he is much

more than that–he’s done development work for years, and was behind the

setting up of Intel’s IDC, now being run by Manni Kantipudi.

Avtar Saini



Director (South Asia), Intel Corporation

Leading Reliance into the convergence era, Ambani is living true to his

promise–"We will be present in the whole play, end-to-end." What he

is referring to is national and international telephony, wireless and data

networks with over 2,000 points of presence in India. Do not exclude mobile

handsets, the new economics of which may be dictated by RIL.

Mukesh Ambani



Chairman, Reliance Group

In a year when there were few jobs going around, naukri.com stayed afloat due

to the instincts of its creator–Bikhchandani.

For a man who often

claims it is hard to extract value from the Net, he seems to be passing the

tough test with flying colors. Encore CEO Vinay Deshpande is the father of what could be the Maruti

equivalent of computers–the ‘common man’s PC’. He is the man behind the

Simputer, which, with prices ranging from Rs 10,500 to Rs 23,000, will be

capable of running in 11 Indian languages–it could also end up revolutionizing

rural Indian connectivity.

Sanjeev Bikhchandani



CEO, naukri.com

Having transitioned from villainy to comedy, Khan has also helped make

Bollywood IT-friendly. The man who tickles our funny bone with his ribald

dialogues has been penning down every single vignette on a notebook–for the

last ten years. Good going in an industry that has no time for computer

languages, or anything "technical".

Kader Khan



Actor-Dialogue Writer, Bollywood

What three successive governments couldn’t do in 11 years,

Shourie achieved in under two–the divestment program. Of the 22 PSUs that have

gone under the auctioneer’s hammer since he took the helm, three–CMC, VSNL

and HTL–are from the ICT space. Not only were these divestments critical, they

were strategic–all went to a single investor, along with total management

control.

Arun Shourie



Union Disinvestment Minister

Now riding the pre-independence wave with his portrayal of

Shaheed Bhagat Singh, the media-shy Devgan is a known techno-freak, and took

over during the making of home production Raju Chacha. It marked the first

instance of heavy technicals and special effects being used by the Indian film

industry.

Ajay Devgan



Actor, Bollywood

Venturing into uncharted waters, Majumdar has successfully

used the Internet to provide personalized astrological predictions on a

one-on-one basis to a global marketplace. Under his helmsmanship, Cyber Astro

has seen financial black ink, working on the principles of ancient Vedic

astrology.

Satrajit Majumdar



Cyber Astro*