400, 500, AGRA - 1986

The Taj Mahal was, is and always will be an attraction to Indians and people all over the world and when you are in Agra that’s the topic you would want to talk about. For this motley group of company executives however it was not Mumtaz but Canon that was occupying the mind space.

Well, as usual somehow rumours from “decent” sources do turn out to be true and we somewhat knew that our new range of machines would be from the East. Therefore the breakfast conversation in every table was all about what to anticipate. Given Arvind Wable at the helm of affairs and he being the MC, we were expecting some Magic.

Waking up in a luxurious bed that early was not everybody’s cup of tea but there we were sharp at 7.30 to devour the Sheraton Breakfast layout. The hungry mob piled up their plates and I know of many a “vegan” trying out swine meat for the first time, and declaring their long-term affiliation for the same!! I of course given my fancy for 5 star breakfasts spend a lot of time and that too circulating from table to table. I of course had this advantage of knowing people from different offices unlike many others and therefore there was a lot of catching up to do!!

The senior managers were of course going through this excruciating pain of knowing about what’s coming up and not being able to share at the risk of perhaps being hounded out of the premises by Rajiv Khanna and company. Some of them of course had no option but to actually blurt out bits and pieces of information, that sounded a bit like Chinese History!!. Then we knew for sure that the Magic Show was being organized well!!

The clock struck 9 and all of us were huddled into Dewan-I-Khas and we were seated for the show to start. The first was the brochure that came out of the magician’s hat. It was an Accordion Flat Folded brochure with all the 7 models (3 on one side and 4 on the other) and opened up like as you guessed - like an accordion!!! From far we could not actually make out the looks but then suddenly the stage was lit and we could the see the full range. The neon rays reflecting on the off white machines were a pleasure to watch and perhaps some of us were already planning an onslaught against the PCL stuff.

There were two sizes of machines in terms of platen width – 14 inches and 17 inches with variations in terms of display and memory capacity. The range was ensuring that were getting into penetrating the market, increase volumes and perhaps this was also a start where both small or big enterprises could now aspire for better quality typed communication for that final benefit of image enhancement. Later in life another dimension would get added to our marketing strategy but surely this was not the time. We were still in a status and quality attribute push.

The training programs were elaborate and exhaustive, while the seniors were kicking ass over individual office targets in some isolated meeting rooms. I was in the former group and thankfully so!!

The evenings were better with a bit of relaxation though some of our Delhi HO nitwit (the definition I like given in this link - http://nitwit.urbanup.com/544937) seniors were trying hard to behave as jail wardens. It was easy to handle those maneuvers and we did venture out to do a bit of unofficial sight seeing. From the Hotel one could see the Taj only from a particular balcony and one of the nights it was full moon that treated us to the brilliance!!

It was all about how to operate these new machines, the concept of “CODE”(like our CNTRL keys that has been de-glorified by the Mouse, Sticks and Scratching Pads!!!), the segments to sell and all that and more. The LAM teams having their own separate discussions (obviously!!!) and we having our own!! The divides had started. We had our own Major Accounts and the lists were used I guess to fix some targets. The negotiations were hard and there was as usual extra pressure on Mumbai for obvious reasons….big market and all that at the cost of perhaps lesser attention to other smaller (?) offices.

The story of target setting that used to go around would be known to one a many but would be worth recounting. It went like this. One fine morning the Managing Director dreams that he needs to push 6000 machines into the market in the next 6-8 months. So he calls in his General Manager and asks him to plan for 8000, The GM calls for a RM meeting and expects them to plan for 10000. The RMs come back and expects the Area Managers to plan for 12000 with individual pinning of figures for SEs. At the end of the period the average SE gets in 6000(composite of course). But that’s only 50% of ‘his” target and therefore gets a solid KITA!! The MD of course books himself a FC seat in Swiss Air!!

On the 3rd day, early morning at six, we gathered for our official walkathon to the Taj and back. It was quite a contingent and was enjoyable. It was a young company, with young people all walking with a young dream in their mind. The dream was simple. Get that machine into every nook and corner and kill PCL’s happiness!!

Departing is always a sad moment and this time we were to take a bus to Mathura to board the Paschim Express to Mumbai. We were on time but due to traffic accident on the highway we were delayed. There was tension in the air since the probability of missing the train was becoming rather high. The bus had to cross an over bridge (bang on top of the tracks) before we could reach the station. We could see the train waiting and we quickly planned our steps. Ambrose and myself ran into the platform and jumped aboard the first compartment and got into the washroom and waited to pull the chain if the train starts moving. We had to finally!! The whole contingent with our luggage both suitcases and some human beings were to be literally brought in. We were one our way but this time the journey was shorter since it was a faster train. The gambling team was back in action, while some were catching up on lost sleep.
I was thinking of the good byes that one wanted to say but could not. But more than that I was thinking of my first team session on the next working day!! There was a lot of excitement in the air, we were all primed and it was Ready and Get Set. The GO was about to be fired!!

I was also thinking about all the older team mates that I met. The Hyderabad office people like GP, Rajkumar, LB, Ravikumar, Krishnaveni, Vivekananda and others were all there. Our Kolkata office was as usual colourful but were under the strict supervision of Sushil Joshi and Asit Pal. Not that we did not manage a bit of flirty conversations here and there!!

It was a good conference and exciting one and one could see that the organisation was growing. It was getting difficult to remember all names and as usual the Marketing Team at HO pulled off a great show!!

Precursor to the Golden Era - Mumbai Part 2 - 1986

Network had grown in the last two years and there were a lot of additions all over India and Head Office at Delhi. A few stalwarts from Head Office was the cool Arvind Wable our Marketing Chief. Rajeev Khanna with his impressive voice and stature was a favourite of many. Chacha with his genuine behavior was always a pleasure. Mr. Dang was the MD so I understood his keeping distance from us but I guess he had managed a good team at the helm. R.Kannan our Sales Chief was our God but I guess he was on his way to carve out a different future for himself outside Network. Asheem Dasgupta the cool dude and Manufacturing Head was the calm but perfect person to talk to!! There were more and off and on names would be cropping up depending on my brain sparks!!! I will always remember Nandlal ji from the factory and wonder where is he now!!

So Agra was to have all these people and I was as usual waiting for the Kolkata Office contingent since the Bong Girls were there? My friend Prithvish would also be coming!!

There were about 30-40 people supposed to travel from Mumbai and due to logistics we were booked in one of the worst trains possible. It was the Dadar Amritsar express that would straight take us to Agra in the middle of the night. It was a bit of chaos since a few of us did not have reservation in AC 2 Tier and they had to be booked 3 Tier Non AC!! I pity them and something like that cannot ever be undone and erased from the memory. You could spew your salesperson –should-bear-it-all logic all day long but I am not going to accept the same!! To make some sort of amends we used to bring one or two guys into AC 2 Tier by rotation. We became quite adept at the same and in the 2^nd night we made sure all of them in AC comfort!!

We had the typical gambling and unlawful liquor consumption. The girls were there too and being a manager(!!) one had to be ensure that nobody’s behavior was compromised!. Mohan George was a good partner in generally looking after people while K Ravishankar absolutely behaved like the King which meant that he just enjoyed and did no work, at least in the train!!

Our train reached Bhopal when the GT express from Chennai also happened to chug in. We heard that Sumathi Gurumurthy’s gold chain was snatched in one of the stations!! There was no time, and off we went in our different trains, only to catch up later on the details!

Our train reached Agra and there Rajiv Khanna’s pet Kapil Chawla was waiting at the station to greet the team. We were shunted into couple of buses and taken to Mughal Sheraton an Aga Khan Proze winner for Architecture. It was a sprawling hotel and we were shown to our rooms – three in a room. Joydeep and Anil Bedi were my room mates and I remember Eunice Coutinho and two other girls in the room beside us!!. We were informed that breakfast was at 0700 while the sessions would start off at 0900!!

It was a total surprise package and the next day was the start of what I call the Golden Era of Network that lasted approximately 5 years!! (Refer http://networkdays.blogspot.com/2009/06/network-years-classified.html).

Discovering Myself in Mumbai - 1986 - Part 1

Mumbai then Bombay was a big City. I had been to Mumbai once earlier for a job interview when I flew from Kolkata. That was an experience to remember since the right engine of the aircraft had caught fire midway. This time I was travelling by train from Hyderabad to Bombay and perhaps you would have glanced through the farewell pictures posted earlier in the blog.
So as such Mumbai was an unknown destination to me and while I was excited there was bit of uneasiness too. Tapesh Sinha, a friend from Kolkata was already in Mumbai and he was staying in these bachelor’s temporary stay at YMCA Bombay Central. The tragedy was that he was being ousted out and he was in a quandary on finding a staying place. And then I too arrived and with all my luggage went straight to Network Worli Office. I dumped all my luggage in the store and then both of us went to this place somewhere near Byculla where they allow you to stay for just seven days. It was a dorm and I knew that we had to find something quickly.

Network Mumbai was run by K. Ravishankar who was earlier the chief of Hyderabad Office. On my first meet with him he came across as a no nonsense person and straightaway started talking about sales calls, targets and my favorite sales reports. In Mumbai we had two offices and I was supposed to handle the Nariman Point office along with a team of expert Mumbai sales people!! The other sales office was at Worli and was being handled Rachna Atre. I knew that we were now getting into a bit of professional rivalry if not between me and Rachna, definitely between the two teams!!

My team was introduced to me. There was Anil Bedi brother of Rakesh Bedi(Boillywood Comedian), Joydeep (son of GOC-in-C, Army Western Command), Constantine Rodriguez(perhaps stays in Mira Road now), Alex Jacob(the small bearded Saudi returned ferocious Malayali) and there was Nalini our office secretary whose husband was in Air India. So that was neat I thought and the day next reached Nariman Point, Tulsiani Chambers and was greeted with flowers!! I was being briefed on the accounts we had and basically the sales agenda. K Ravishankar was there too supervising all the interactions. The territories were explained and so were reporting expectations. Basically I was all set to go.

In the evenings myself and Taoesh were back house hunting and it was quite difficult I must say since nobody was willing to rent out to bachelors. We wanted to stay together and therefore the PG format would not work since most of such acco were for singles Our seven days quickly ran out and we were on the streets, literally. The office came to our rescue!! I used to work and then in the evening we used to lock up the premises and then I would meet up my friend somewhere. The keys were with me and we would return to office, and sleep on the tables. The office had an attached bath and in the morning we would get ready. We used to go out for breakfast and I used to return back to office fresh as if have come from somewhere else. Nobody knew that we were spending our nights in that very premises in a comfortable air conditioned environment!!
This honeymoon did not go on for long and finally we found something in Dadar East and that was a relief!! It was Parsi family and our wants of having an independent entrance was solved too. The approach road of course would qualify for the one of the most crowded roads in Mumbai and I was not too happy about it. Beggars could not be choosers though.

Coming back to office, I started going out for calls with my guys. The market was absolutely different in terms of response, demands, negotiations and decision making. It was all upfront. If the customer liked the machine, there was hardly any delay in decision making. When I landed up cpmpetition was again the PCL FX 653 which was tryly a blank beauty compared to our bulky stuff. We still managed to push in ours and we were winning most of the time too. The factors in our favpur was our reputation and after sales and of course pure feature count. But to some discerning customers we were losing out on aesthetics, space and price!!

Then came the news that we were going to have a sales conference in Agra. We were to get a completely new range of machines and we started preparing for the same. At that point of time Network introduce a new team named LAM (Large accounts team) and Balbir Bahl was put in charge of the same reporting directly to Rajeev Khanna at Head office. I always had a conflict with this idea in the sense that we could have ourselves handled the same and especially since I had a government account background. Thankfully the private sector was not into the LAM scheme and thank God for that since the Mumbai private sector contributed more than this new teams’s domain. So when there was this talk of the TATAs being put under LAM, I freaked out and resisted and succeeded too. I was growing up too and learning the nuances of office politics in whatever form!! Ravishankar supported me and Rachna for obvious reasons and we proved ourselves better than the arrogant LAM team!!

The Sales Conference was to be held at Mughal Sheraton, and the whole Mumbai Team was to travel by train. That was the time I was also getting friendly with Mohan George our Customer Service Manager. His wife and Aunt were staying at Bandra and so was K. Ravishankar.
The reservations were done. We had recruited some new sales people like Ambrose Tellis, Aloysius D’ Souza, Llewellyn and others!! We were anticipating in earnest and then the day arrived!! Next time it would be all about Agra and more.

Daisy Wheeling and Dealing in Vizag!!! 1985-86

The Godavari Express is a daily overnight train from Secunderabad to Vizag and vice versa. The journey is comfortable and I found a few passengers all ready and prepared to go straight to work from the station. There was some breakfast in the train in the form of cold insipid idli and vadas but we were not complaining. The hotel was reasonably comfortable and my first introduction to a person was a gentleman named Chinna Rao. He happened to be Rakjumar’s fixed and favourite Auto Rickshaw Driver and little did I know as to how important a role he would play during my stint in this place.

We were chauffeured to Saptagiri Steels a renowned Building Material Supplier with a modern outlook and were introduced to the owner and his brother. They also happened to be some sort of a reseller for ours. It was a three-storied building and the terrace was converted to an office that was let out to Network. The office had a table and two chairs and a phone and lots of space for us to install a billiards board!!

The agenda for the day was tight since Rajkumar wanted to introduce the main clients of the region to me. The first visit was to Vizag Steel Plan which was about 30-40 kilometers from town and Chinna Rao was in full form with his Telugu accented Hindi while Rajkumar with his Hyderabadi intonation. I was the silent audience with minor interjections and questions here and there.

The Steel Plant complex was under construction and once we reached the gate, the main road led us into tributaries of muddy roads with all sorts of cranes, fork lift trucks and heavy duty load trucks roaming up and down. The factory was almost under completion and we finally reached the office complex. The first stop was at the Finance Section since we needed to collect some payments that were outstanding (the outstanding story is a historic one in Network that I would delve in a later blog). Rajkumar explained the GARN system to me, and if I meet you in person I would be able to narrate a hilarious adult anecdote associated with it.

Later on visited a few other persons of concern in different departments and then went on to our other sojourns to the various naval establishments. The day was over quickly while in evening we went over to Hotel Dolphin for a beer and I had one of the best Fish Mayo ever served in a restaurant. It was fresh Bhekti and it was absolutely slurp, slurp!! The vegetarians please do pardon me for my indulgence which is of course mutual!!

The next day was again spent visiting some other leads and in the evening we were back on our way to Secunderabad. I was to come back to Vizag, bag and baggage the following week and I learnt that KVS would also be relocated to Vizag for looking after the increasing support needs.

Thanks to Chinna Rao, I had fixed up my accommodation in the previous trip. Chinna was there at the station to receive me and off we went to Siripuram where this house was located. It had a restaurant downstairs, so I knew that food was not a thing to be worried about. Later I fixed a monthly scheme with the guys that worked effective for both parties.

My routine was quite unique in the sense that I had to wake early morning at about 4.30 or so daily since the water supply was at that time and I needed to store my requirements. In continuation I also finished with my morning jobs and was ready for office by 6 AM!! I went off to sleep again and Chinna Rao would come and wake me up for breakfast and then we would go off to office. KVS had taken up some other place and he had his two-wheeler. We would quickly plan our day and get on with our visits. The late afternoons were typically reserved for administrative jobs like accounting and stuff since we had consumables and spares to handle and invoice.

Chinna Rao while being my constant chauffeur was also used by us as our delivery person. So there were times when we used to plan visits where while I make my calls in a particular establishment, he would go and deliver consumables and take necessary signatures on invoices or go and collect payments, etc. While in office he was also our office boy in terms of getting tea and stuff. The arrangement was productive and useful and we also developed a relationship with the guy. There were times when he would take me to places on holidays and I have even been to his house to meet his family.

While in Secunderabad I did not encounter corruption as such but Vizag did introduce to me the murkier side of Government deals. I would not say that it was very rampant but it did start off with minor variations.

Eastern Naval Command was an untapped establishment and I was delighted when I got through with an appointment with Nadkarni the then GOC-in-C who later on went on to become the Chief of Navy. He was pretty impressed with our equipment but his budget was only for a Network 102 (Hermes vintage). The inclination was towards a 316 and how they managed the same was always a good story for me. They bought a 102 and used it for a couple of months and given that background they requisitioned for 2 more. The best part was that these machines were not being used by the GOC’s office. They were all given to other subordinate officers.

Nadkarni after all wanted the 316. Then one fine morning I was summoned and his secretary Venugopal had this proposition. It was proposed that on paper they would place orders for consumables worth a 316 value (about 37000 INR in 1985) and I needed to supply them a machine instead. Needless to say, this was done. There were four invoices and subsequently four payments were made by the CDA (Central Defence Accounts). Believe me, when I say that R.Kannan summoned me to Delhi for explaining these transactions to Audit!! But then I had got used to the ways of Network and nobody was complaining!!

The executives in the Government sector had unique ideas on how to get things that they really wanted. So I was not surprised when Naval Science and Technological laboratory bought an Oscilloscope for me. The name of the equipment sold by me was Instrument 332!! I am sure the latter did not have a lens for sure.

Eastern Naval Command was my biggest reference point. I managed to get this Pass organized for me so that I could enter any naval establishment without problems even during mock war exercises. The whole of Navy knew that if I was to be contacted a call to the C-in-C’s office was the ideal number!! So when Piyush of PCL one day came to the Command Office I blatantly told him that he should not waste his productive time in the Navy.

The attachment with Navy grew beyond professional the arena and I started mixing around with Officers at the clubs and started getting home invitations. As a bachelor what more could I want? Except of course that most of them were young officers and therefore there were no issues who I could get friendly with!!!

The life in Vizag was of course somewhat monotonous, and after some time it got on my nerves. It was all like a routine. There were some sojourns of course to Koraput for the HAL and INDAL accounts but that was that. As usual it was always a pleasure to visit them since their behavior and attitude was as if I was doing a favour by allowing them to use our machines!

This stint also created this opportunity of visiting KVS’s house in a village near Rajahmundry and that was a pleasure. Hyderabad is only one part of Andhra and I am grateful to both KVS and LB (stayed with him in his house at Vijaywada) for allowing me to experience other places. The experience of such visits was absolutely different than from when I would go on official visits, except of course my official trips to the jungles of South Orissa visiting NALCO or otherwise.

The sea in Vizag was an important part of my evenings. A casual walk down to the beach on a moonlit night was beautiful as usual. Me and my later on room partner(Anand Sharma – later joined Network HR) were almost regular visitors. There were a couple of friends from Hindustan Petroleum and that was our group for movies and stuff,

Then one day Prithviraj called me and said that Mumbai beckoned me and I needed to be there as early as possible. It was almost a year and I was absolutely excited. Mumbai was an extremely important phase in terms of me learning sales and relationships. Yeh hai Mumbai nagariya, tu dekh babua!!! But that’s due next!!

Stabilising our Interfaces - 1985

The RS232C must be meaning something but we did not really care for the elongated form. We wanted to see what the hell was it all about since the PCL 653 apparently had a parallel port and our machines did not. So RS232C was the answer. We were told that Serial Ports(RS232C) are better of than Parallel ports in some way or the other which I am sure could be taken with a pinch of salt given the application we were talking about, but we sincerely believed in what was being bull dozed into our minds and that was that.
I think it was SV Prasad and Santosh Das from R&D who had come down to give us the dope on this small additional box that would work as the middleware (pardon me, current computer folks) between the typewriter and the clients PC.

The best part is that worked and to our enjoyment we could see that Wordstar commands were producing printouts on the electronic typewriter. In some ways this was also a bit of a beginning to the end…but the end was to come years later!!

However my first sale of a RS232C Interface box along with a machine was not for a PC to be hooked up. I had gone for this demonstration to CMC where the local R&D whizkid wanted to see if we could connect our thingy to his PDP-100!! He also wanted to see whether he could use the ET as a terminal for both input and output and ….my eyes popped when this fellow was jumping up and down with joy when he was keying in a command and the printouts were coming out. I showed a demo on the 332 but he finally bought a 102.which was OK with me. You see a parallel port (PCL) could never work as a input system too…and that was a clincher!! I did not go back to check how were they utilizing our machine there…but looks like for the time being then,,,it was allright.

So then came up these orders for separate interface boxes as well as typewriters along with boxes, though I could assure you that Chacha(YKC) had a lot of heart burn with these interfaces later on in life!!

Then came another innovation from the same stable in terms of Voltage stabilizers. I know for sure that some of the pieces did destabilize the power supply but over and all it was quite a seller and that was the first time when YKC saw himself seriously as a profut center. That Service Contracts later on pulled the organization was a great achievement in any case…but the beginning was important.

So we puny sales people, at least were increasingly getting dependent on our engineers for repeat business and new leads. We were sending less time on prospecting and more time on converting and that for sure was a boon to the organization.

In the middle of this one day GP told me that I had to leave Hyderabad and settle down in Vizag to start the office there. All this while Rajkumar used to visit Vizag and apparently the top honchos thought that let us send this rookie to fend for himself. So my first trip was with Rajkumar in AC 2 Tier Compartment of Godavari Express from Sec’bad station. A biryani from Alpha and then the train started at about 9 PM in the night. Next day morning was the start of another eventful period. All about this trip and later in the next episode. Till then … ADIEU!!