Gaurav Nigam, Head, Product, Lava International
Gaurav Nigam has close to 15 years of experience in the Indian telecom sector. He started his career in 2002 with Bharti Airtel, where he spent over a decade in various roles across the sales, marketing, product development and distribution functions.
He joined Lava International in 2013 as head of customer services, a role that has vastly enriched his knowledge and expertise. “This is where I understood the enormity of operations while managing over 1,100 service partners, spares planning, spares distribution, warehousing, logistics, imports, service blueprint creation, cost efficiency and IT enablement, along with managing a very large team,” he says.
Heading the customer services vertical at Lava was both challenging and rewarding. “This was a completely new field for me and I wanted to prove to myself that one can do any task as long as one has the desire to learn and perform. The task at hand was humongous. However, with the constant effort of my strong team, the vertical has been performing well. In fact, we won the award for the Best Customer Experience Team of the Year, which is one of my most cherished moments.”
Nigam currently heads the product department at the company and is responsible for understanding industry and consumer needs and designing the right product configuration. He is also responsible for project management, product operations, market and business intelligence, and value-added services.
According to Nigam, “The handset industry is extremely competitive and dynamic and this gives rise to several opportunities for Lava, the key being designing products that are relevant and reliable, as well as identifying niche consumer segments. Going forward, with the increase in connected devices and greater availability of mobile devices, there will be massive data consumption and streaming of content. There will be a move towards 4G-enabled devices and LTE will become mainstream in 2016.”
Nigam has an MBA from SCMHRD, Pune. He lists his strengths as his strong listening skills, aptitude for problem solving and quick decision-making. However, he adds that he has a bigger list of weaknesses. When not at work, he likes reading, jogging, watching movies and playing with his son. “He is nine years old, and swims faster than me and wants to beat me in every sport,” says Nigam fondly. He draws a lot of support from his wife, who heads the HR function at Fenesta Building Systems, and from his mother.
