Adding Value

Sudhir Narang believes that the telecom industry is not local but global. As managing director of British Telecom, India, his main focus is on growing the company’s operations and offerings in line with changing industry dynamics….

What drives Sudhir Narang? Who inspires him? The answer is his hero, his father, who came to India after Partition empty-handed and supported himself by selling balloons in the morning and studying at night by the light of a street lamp. He managed to get into Hindu College and built a great career, eventually retiring from the Ministry of Defence. Narang’s father was 12 years old when the family, along with so many others, went through this trauma and his father’s courage and determination made a great impression on the young boy. “That is inspiration, what my father went through. In comparison, I think we are spoiled children,” he says.

The impact has been lasting. Over the years, while pursuing his career, Narang has been mindful of the need to add value to other people’s lives, of trying to see the bigger perspective on issues, of trying to make a strong impression on a few individuals. In short, to go beyond merely working for one’s family which, after all, everyone does. “I am aspiring to do something different,” he says. “That’s what I keep telling my team. Can we make a bigger impact overall? That’s what we need to focus on.”

Based in New Delhi, Narang is managing director of BT Global Services’ India operations since December 2007 and is responsible for all the business operations,  strategy in India, and promoting the company. He also leads the Network and System Integration Practice for Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa (AMEA), where he is responsible for creating propositions, processes and delivery infrastructure to broaden BT’s existing customer relationships. Earlier, he was also responsible for sales operations across AMEA for over four years.

Narang is pleased that BT has been able to get into various market segments with a broad portfolio of offerings. Every organisation, he says, faces day-to-day operational challenges and BT is no different, but in terms of overall activities, it has enjoyed a smooth run.

“We are introducing a few more pro­positions, especially the cloud of clouds, which is proving attractive to many multinational and Indian organisations. They are looking at our vision. They are looking at our plan for execution and they are looking at how to integrate their various cloud services,” says Narang.

The telecom industry, he says, is not local or domestic but global, with everyone integrated into the global network through their mobile phones. What is happening, he says, is that organisations are looking to find their spot in the changing industry, which is becoming increasingly more controlled by the handheld device that the consumer is working with, be it voice, video, or data.

“The major trend that is happening globally is social media. How do you integrate video because everyone wants to make a video call? More and more traffic is being generated. How do you become more secure, whether it is e-transactions, or efficiency tools, or whether it is your organisation’s information? So you are becoming mobile, you want security, you want video and on top of that, you want to access it across the globe, so is it there on the cloud? You have to integrate with the global network, you are not a domestic-grade telecom citizen now,” he says.

Narang has over 28 years’ experience in the Indian IT/telecom sector, with a strong grounding in all aspects of business operation sales and business development, customer delivery and service. A graduate of BITS Pilani, he was chief executive officer of Tulip IT Services, a data telecom service provider and IT solutions company, before joining BT. He also held various leadership positions, including that of senior vice-president, India and SAARC, at Cisco Systems.

At Cisco, where he spent close to a decade, Narang worked with business verticals including enterprise, IT/ITeS, the public sector and service providers. He was responsible for exponential growth in these areas and helped to build a world-class team to execute various projects. Before joining Cisco, he was general manager at HCL Comnet, the networking line of business for HCL.

He thrives on the challenge of creating something new, either a new business in the company or joining a small operation and trying to scale it up. That is partly why he thoroughly enjoyed his time at HCL Comnet because it was a small company that was growing fast and he was one of the initial members, involved in conceptualising and executing. This involved a strong learning phase about how to create various businesses and groups.

Likewise at Cisco, when he joined the company, it was very small and operated in a niche market and here too, he was instrumental in its growth during the almost nine years he was with the company. “Cisco was a dream company for many to join in those days, between 1998 and 2007. That was a memorable time for me. Comnet gave me the skills set I needed to create and at Cisco, I was able to experiment. Then, at BT, I have been able to look at the overall organisation and every aspect of it,” he says.

“I strongly believe that everyone has an entrepreneurial spirit and that innovation should come from the bottom rather than it being a topdown approach.”

When he joined BT about eight years ago, the company seemed to be looking at India mainly as a market; now it seems to be looking at India more “as a service”. He says that India has emerged from being the route to “silk” to being the route to “skill”.

“If you look at my career, my style is more entrepreneurial than anything else. I strongly believe that everyone has an entrepreneurial spirit and that innovation should come from the bottom rather than it being a top-down approach,” he says.

Not surprisingly, given the inspiration of his father (and the example of his mother), Narang feels that his strengths are his human values. “I owe it to my upbringing and my parents,” he says. “Human resources mean nothing if the human element isn’t there. So if you put yourself in someone else’s place, if you try to see how someone else looks at things, and how they would feel on getting certain feedback, that is important.”

His workload has improved in recent years. It used to be 12-14-hour days. Now it is 8-10 hours. His style is to remain relaxed. Passion, yes. Aggression, no. At home, he relaxes by spending time with his wife, a public prosecutor with the Delhi government; his daughter, who has just graduated in the UK; and with his, son who is in Class 12 at Modern School.

The spousal roles have not exactly switched, but what’s happened is that his wife is now hugely busy because she is also head of the Rape Cell for Delhi’s Commission for Women and so she often teases him that now it is his turn to be supportive while she is overloaded with responsibility.

Another way of relaxing for Narang is to listen to music of the 1970s and 1980s. And dancing – he loves dancing and knows many dance forms.

For Narang, BT is a great company to be with because it is a very strong brand and very people-centric. Out of all the companies he has worked with, he says that BT is really right up there at the top.

He is a core committee member of the British Business Group and a member of the European Business Group’s Regional Council. He is also a member on the board of Katha, a leading non-profit organisation dedicated to providing education to children from the weaker sections of society.

“My career has been very rewarding and my family and friends have been very supportive,” he says. “My circumstances have been kind to me. Now I want to see if I can be of value to the wider society around me.”

“We are introducing a few more propositions, especially the cloud of clouds, which is proving attractive to many multinational organisations. They are looking at how to integrate their various cloud services.”