Ehteshamul Haque, Managing Director, India and China, DCI
Ehteshamul Haque has been associated with the Seattle-headquartered Digital Control, Inc. (DCI) for the past 15 years. He was instrumental in setting up the company’s first office in India in 2006. In his current role, he heads DCI’s India and China business and is responsible for managing P&L, business development and channel engagement. He also leads the software development center in India, and oversees the company’s efforts in AR/VR.
For Haque, setting up DCI’s Indian operations from scratch was an enthralling experience, but not without challenges. “Building a team, expanding the reseller network, creating awareness about the then nascent HDD technology in telecom, was not easy. There were inefficiencies in market operations, paucity of machines and crew, and reluctance from clients.” But he took it in his stride and aggressively promoted HDD technology, training the crew and explaining the technology’s viability and profit potential. “Today, there is hardly any telecom fibre project that is undertaken without HDD technology,” he adds proudly.
He believes that the initial years of his career spent at Reliance Industries continue to be the bedrock of his learning. During his stint at Reliance, he was associated with construction equipment operations for Reliance Infocomm.
According to Haque, significant investments are required for connecting the last mile and augmenting the overall bandwidth to meet the growing data demand. Jio and Airtel are now offering FTTH services, which are yet to reach a mainstream level. Going forward, the government’s push to connect the unconnected, the increasing consumption of OTT services, connectivity requirements due to work-from-home, and onset of future tech like 5G will all require a massive infrastructure upgrade.
To this end, he believes that training of manpower to lay infrastructure is extremely crucial. “Underground is already congested with existing utilities as well as new utilities being installed on a regular basis. Training will help crew members in understanding the complexity and preventing damage to existing utilities.”
He is a mechanical engineer with an MBA from ISB, Hyderabad. He has also completed a leadership programme for senior executives at INSEAD. Haque has a passion for travelling and loves to explore new places. “I consider myself a nomad, for me living out of suitcase is way of life.” He is also an avid reader and likes to read whenever he has spare time. His family comprises his wife and a 12-year old son and a six-year old daughter.
