An Exciting Transition
Akshaya Moondra describes the current phase that the telecom sector is going through as “hyper competition” with 12-14 operators in each circle.This state of affairs, says Idea Cellular’s chief financial officer (CFO), will inevitably lead to a certain amount of consolidation, bringing the number of players down to a level which he describes as more “reasonable and sustainable”.
Having worked with the Aditya Birla Group since the beginning of his career in 1986, Moondra, a chartered accountant and company secretary, has been part of a number of assignments within the group.
Until 1988, he was with Grasim Industries where he was initially engaged in a management audit role before moving to finance. In 1989, he moved to Thailand where he was also part of the group business. His last assignment in Thailand was with the acrylic fibre business as joint president, responsible for sales, marketing and procurement, in addition to finance.
“My stint in Thailand involved interactions with bankers, vendors, customers and consultants across the world and I travelled extensively. This gave me very good international exposure,” he says.
Working on an epoxy resin project from scratch, bringing the facility up to the operations stage and then setting up the initial processes in the company was a great learning experience for him.
Another challenging period was during the devaluation of the Thai baht in 1997. At that time, the acrylic fibre business had a significant foreign currency exposure and managing it between 1997 and 2000 was a challenging and fulfilling experience.
“The company, which almost went into negative net worth post-devaluation, came up strongly to a point where it was prepaying its debts by 2000,” he says. “Later, working on an acrylic fibre project in China from 2004 to 2006 was also challenging as one was working in an unfamiliar territory and environment. Acrylic fibre uses raw materials that are downstream petrochemical products and managing the business during the period of oil price rises in 2007 and 2008 was a difficult assignment.”
After almost 20 years in Thailand, Moondra moved back to India as CFO of Idea Cellular in July 2008 and made the exciting transition from manufacturing to telecom ?? “exciting” because there was simply so much happening in telecom and happening so fast that there was never a boring moment.
Moondra says that in this scenario, speed of execution has become of prime importance and it is crucial for companies to ensure that the established processes and controls are not compromised. At Idea Cellular, the focus is on strengthening controls, compliances and risk management.
“Telecom is a highly process-driven industry. The ability to run these processes efficiently and in a coordinated manner provides a competitive advantage. Hence, there is a constant focus on process improvement,” he says.
The size of the industry and the volume of transactions also accentuate the need for an efficient and easy-to-understand MIS. Consequently, data analysis to drive the right business decisions is another priority area for him as the CFO.
His responsibilities include accounts, taxation, MIS, treasury, revenue assurance, legal and investor relations. In addition, he is responsible for mergers and acquisitions and strategic initiatives in the business.
“Idea is a strong brand today with 56 million subscribers across the country. The company has a strong balance sheet which enables it to fund further growth, including bidding for 3G spectrum and the consequent 3G rollout,” he says.
As senior management, while Moondra expects the best from his teams, he tries not to push beyond a certain point, as it can be counter-productive and fail to bring out the best. He subscribes to the school of thought which postulates that team members need to be guided rather than pushed. Experience has taught him, moreover, that a quick, imperfect decision is quite often better than a perfect but delayed decision.
His working style has not remained static over the years. It has evolved, depending on circumstances. While earlier he tended to be very hands-on, he now delegates much more than before. “With the size of organisations that we have today, one can only be successful with a good team. My focus is on developing good teams and trusting them.”
His father was a great role model for Moondra, who learnt to have a positive attitude no matter what the difficulties and also to maintain the right balance between his personal and professional life.
“From my late uncle, Dinesh Maheshwari, I learnt the joy of giving. He was always willing to help anyone who came in touch with him without having any expectation in return ?? more importantly, one did not have to seek help from him, it was available without being asked for,” he says.
As a youngster, Moondra was prone to worrying a lot. Luckily, he spent a few years with his grandmother at around this time and she impressed upon him the idea that he could only do his best and as long as he did that, he did not have to worry about the result ?? a philosophy that has helped him enormously throughout his career.
Since Moondra’s father worked for Grasim, his education until Class 10 was in Nagda in a colony environment. He describes those years as “great years” and says that, with hindsight, he realises that the quality of life he enjoyed then was superb. He received a strong foundation from the colony school and its environment. What he has noticed since, both about himself and the people who grew up with him, is that they have all turned out to be balanced individuals.
Later, he moved to St Xavier’s School in Jaipur where he studied in Class 11 and 12. It was quite a change moving from a colony life to a big city, but this was the period when he lived with his grandmother and he describes it as “one of the best periods of my life”.
He joined Delhi University for his graduation but was in college for only a year before starting chartered accountancy. “While joining chartered accountancy at an early stage enabled me to complete my course at a young age, I sometimes regret having missed out on being in college,” he says.
Moondra says he is driven by the ability to add value to the organisation that he works for. “Creating value by a new idea, developing an organisation, improving operations, etc. are areas that I find most exciting. I also want to be someone who understands the industry very well. I could do that in my previous assignment, but being relatively new to the telecom industry, I find that I am still learning,” he says.
In the mornings, Moondra tries to concentrate on activities that require a real focus, such as reading. For much of the day, he is caught up in meeting. He also spends time every day, if he can, catching up with colleagues on various issues or developments which may not come up in the normal course of a day’s events due to time constraints but can be discussed informally.
To relax, Moondra listens to music and watches Formula One racing on television with his son, who is equally addicted to it. He also watches all tennis grand slam events and, from time to time, cricket. But owing to the glut of cricket matches in India these days, his interest has paled somewhat.
As a family, they try to spend time together in activities such as playing cards and other games. “My experience has been that spending time with family and friends is the best stress buster,”
