Cont. from previous issue

Ganesh Guruswamy, Country Manager & Director, Freescale Semiconductor India

Ganesh is the Director & Country Manager of Freescale Semiconductor India. In his present role, Ganesh is responsible for positioning the India operations as a high-end Research & Development hub for Freescale globally. He also drives the development of futuristic and cutting-edge technology at Freescale’s design centre in the region. Ganesh was responsible for creating

a Centre of Excellence for System on Chip (SoC) and Intellectual Property designs from India. He has over fifteen years of combined, design, development and team leadership experience in the semiconductor industry ranging from architecture to design and methodology.

Prior to joining Freescale, Ganesh worked for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in the Microprocessor Development Group on the development of X86 processors. Ganesh has been awarded a patent in his name in the area of Real Time Calibration using a PowerPC based SoC for embedded applications. He has also worked at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) working on INSAT projects.

He holds an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Idaho, USA. While studying, he worked at the Microelectronic Research Labs funded by NASA, developing solutions for different projects, including a Reconfigurable Datapath Processor. Ganesh lives with his wife and children in Noida, UP.

Subrotah Biswas, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Logitech  

At Logitech, he has helped drive remarkable growth rates for Logitech in his first year of joining. Through Logitech, he has also launched new concepts in entertainment like Harmony Universal Remotes and Squeezebox streaming music systems. 

He has aggressively expanded markets in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. He has been able to ensure

highest levels of productivity within the sales & marketing team and has already ensured two awards for Logitech India ––“Highest Revenue Growth Country in AP for 2007~2008” and”“Best Integrated Marketing Campaign (Harmony) in AP” for the same period. Prior to Logitech, Biswas was responsible for the establishment of Samsung India’s “Online Marketing Strategy in Place” with launch of www.samsungindia.com/ ecommerce and innovative initiatives like “buildurpc.com” (1999-2000). He was also responsible for driving the growth strategy for E-technology firm – an entrepreneurial organization. This strategy helped ramp up the business from Rs.30 lakh to Rs.2 crore in just two years (2001-03). He was also the driving force who took the market share of Samsung LCD/Plasma TVs in India to No. 1 position (2005). IT Channel Partners nominated Biswas as one of the Top Three National Product Managers (360 Magazine in 2006).

  Biswas manages Logitech’s sales and marketing operations in his region, including new product launches, product distribution and customer satisfaction.

Alamuri Sitaramaiah, General Manager, - aSales, Fluke Networks, India

When Sita joined Fluke Networks in India, they had limited value-added resellers who were primarily focussed on only one business line. He set up a clear Go-To-Market strategy by setting up separate fulfilment and solution partners and laid down a clear channel policy. Such clarity had a synergistic effect on the channels and the channels aligned to meet customer requirements.

The channels broadened the market approach by focussing on all the product lines as against ones with dominant customer pull. Keeping the price sensitiveness of the Indian consumer in mind, he developed strategies to offer solutions through service providers on an opex model. Fluke Networks, in the last two years, has been established as a brand to be included in the consideration set of customers looking for IT infrastructure management solutions. Emphasis has been laid on training, channels as well as customers.

He has been associated with the IT industry for over 20 years and has seen all the aspects of it – engineering, R&D, marketing, and sales. All along, his emphasis has been on meeting end-customer requirements with a consultative approach to serving customer requirements.

K. R. Naik, Executive Chairman, D-Link India

K. R. Naik is a Mechanical Engineer with Postgraduation in Industrial Engineering and Diploma in Business Management.    He started his career with IBM, working in various departments, including product design and development till their closure of India operations in 1979. He then started a computer-manufacturing unit under the brand name “Virtual”.  In 1994, he started a joint venture with the multinational D-Link Corporation under the

name “D-Link India”.  Today, D-Link has three state-of-the-art manufacturing plants in Goa, Corporate office in Mumbai, 17 nation-wide branch offices and 16 sales service centres with Software and R&D division at Bangalore and Goa. D-Link has grown to become one of the leading companies in the field of networking and communication with design, development and manufacturing of products, with software and R&D to cater to the needs of the local market and worldwide under D-Link brand. It has also set up a Global Technical Support Call Center in Mumbai. 

Consequently, Naik’s responsibilities have changed and evolved over time and he presently focusses mainly on strategic alliances, strategic business decisions, apprising board of directors and investors and, more importantly, charting the vision and mission of the Company. Naik is also the former President of the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT).

Manisha Sood, Country Manager SanDisk, India and SAARC

Manisha Sood is the Country Manager for SanDisk India and SAARC. At SanDisk, Manisha is responsible for establishing the sales and marketing infrastructure within India. She also oversees the sales of Memory Cards, USB, MP3, Gaming and Mobile products through leveraged distribution channels and a sales coverage

model covering the major cities and markets across India. Manisha is also responsible for establishing SanDisk as the consumer brand for mobile and digital devices memory cards in India.

Sanjay Vig, Chief Executive Officer, Orange Business Services

India It has been more than 17 years since Sanjay has been in the IT space, which includes both domestic and SEA market. He started his professional journey in 1989, with HCL, moved on to Wipro InfoTech in customer services and later in sales for a short while. In 1995, he moved to Singapore to work for Hewlett-Packard Singapore. Joining HP was the major turning

point in his career. He spent more then 11 years there, starting as a Project Manager, wherein he focussed on design services for network projects.

He recently moved to head the India business of Orange Business Services. This has been, perhaps, the most challenging and rewarding experience in his career as it involved complete integration of an Indian entity into Orange Business Services worldwide or rather France Telecom.

He joined Orange Business in September last year, and, at that time, his main priority was the smooth integration of GTL Ltd. (divisions include Managed Services and Enterprise Services) into the Orange system. His primary responsibility was to accelerate the business integration while managing cultural changes and transformation. Post its acquisition of the two divisions of GTL, our 2,000-plus employees cater to over 680 customers globally and are in a position to go to market with a complete range of services of the combined entity.

Prateek Garg, Managing Director & CEO, Progressive Infotech India Pvt. Ltd.

Prateek Garg started his career with HCL as a Customer Support Engineer and rose to the position of an Area Manager within three years, which was the fastest growth in the history of the company. He has numerous awards to his credit, including a special award for handling the launch of HCL UNIX mini-computers in India and developing a batch-testing programme for testing these mini computers.

Prateek Garg established Progressive Infotech Pvt. Ltd. in January 1998. He has been the backbone in building Progressive to its expertise in IT Infrastructure management by efficiently running the infrastructure set-ups of several large Indian enterprises. With an Integrated Quality Management system that comprises ISO 9001:2000, ISO 20000-1:2005 (previously BS15000-1) as well as ISO 27001:2005 (previously BS7799) standards, Progressive has redefined the way IT infrastructure management is being practised across the globe under the guidancce of Prateek Garg.

Progressive services its customers through its reach in 80-plus locations across India. For its globally distributed customers, Garg has set up a state-of-the-art remote infrastructure management centre in Noida, near New Delhi, which monitors and manages the IT Infrastructure of many companies in real time.

Ved Narayan, Vice-President, Asia-Pacific Operations, SolidWorks Corporation

Ved Narayan has been instrumental in driving the growth of SolidWorks in the Asia- Pacific and India and taking it to new heights. Through establishing a strong and extensive network of over 100 value-added resellers (VARs), SolidWorks has rapidly fuelled the adoption of SolidWorks 3D CAD software in the manufacturing ecosystem across Asia-Pacific.

The focus on customers is at the core of SolidWorks business and its VAR expansion strategy is centred around customers. SolidWorks VARs are strategically located in the key geographic regions and possess strong vertical industry expertise to understand and meet customer needs. SolidWorks is now the leading 3D CAD technology in India, helping engineers design better products and gain global market share in engineering design.

Ved’s vision is to help develop today’s students into tomorrow’s engineers. SolidWorks is helping Indian students gain access to powerful 3D CAD software, master 3D CAD fundamentals, and equip them with the skills to design breakthrough innovations. With its goldmine of engineering talent, India is quickly becoming the “Design Engineering Hub of the World” and SolidWorks is also helping both students and companies move from 2D to 3D CAD to realize the tremendous opportunities in high-value manufacturing design.

Mandeep Gupta, Country Manager – Government & Banking Business, Emerson Network Power (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Mandeep has been with Emerson for eight years and has worked in various roles in Channel Business. Prior to this, he was responsible for managing Enterprise Business Partner for Delhi region and further handled Micro-UPS Business for Emerson India. He was instrumental in launching ITON Range of product and increasing VAR base by 1,000 partners across the country.

Moving ahead in his career, he has taken up the responsibility of leading Government & Banking Vertical and formed a task force to drive business through this vertical. In his role as Country Manager – Government & Banking Vertical, he helped the company to get empanelment in the key government agencies and increased the business by 60% in this vertical. Currently, he is leading Channel Business for Emerson India and working towards strengthening channel business along with various partners.

His major contribution to the industry is opening up opportunities for Micro range of UPS such as ITON, GXT-MT for resellers. He also started unique NSP programme for SIs and Solution Providers to help partners work with Emerson on data centre projects, cooling solutions & services.

Bikram Dasgupta, Chairman, Synlog

Bikram has been in the IT Industry for over 28 years. During his first 10 years, he had to ensure there is sufficient buoyancy in hardware business. In 1995, he started the concept of building intelligent complexes for the offshore industry, to change the face of STPs in India. Infinity – the intelligent workplace, marked one such significant milestone, and led to the development of the Knowledge Park concept of today. In 1997, the concept of Software Finishing School was introduced by Bikram in India, which today is a watershed in bridging the gap between university education and work.

When Synergy Login was acquired and merged with Globsyn’s Software Services division, Bikram as the Head of the Organization had a challenge to address. The areas to focus were: organizational structure, fiscal discipline, role clarity of people, goals setting for the management, and customer care. With these few areas to focus on, Bikram set about his implementation plan.

Ever since Globsyn management has taken over Synlog, beginning with the first year-end, the company has made profits every quarter, so far. The management is lean and ready to go. The customer support has really been a significant turning point.