His smile is disarming, immediately warming one to the affable CMD of BSNL. It certainly seems to help him cope with the stresses of running a telecom monolith locked in competition with half a dozen private operators, not to mention the responsibility for the welfare of more than 300,000 employees.
Kuldeep Goyal, CMD, BSNL
“Telecom is a highly competitive business. If you do not wear a smile, you would be too troubled and stressed to handle things,” explains Kuldeep Goyal, as he sits in his spacious wood-panelled office, filled with foliage and fresh flowers.
Clearly, Goyal doesn’t allow the many responsibilities of his job to faze him. He sees them as an opportunity to take BSNL to the next growth orbit. The largest operator in the country, BSNL has a presence in all the telecom circles barring Delhi and Mumbai. It is the leader in the wireline segment with over 80 per cent market share.
While its wireless share is more modest, at about 16 per cent, Goyal is now focusing strongly on increasing the company’s presence in this segment. “Our vision is to take this share to 33 per cent by December 2010 through the addition of 100 million mobile connections.”
In the internet segment, BSNL has 3.6 million connections ?? translating into more than 50 per cent market share. In the broadband segment too, Goyal says that his company has more than 50 per cent share of the market. He has further set a target to double the company’s total revenue by 2010 from the current $10 million. Expansion in the wireless and broadband segments is expected to fuel this growth.
Prior to his current appointment, Goyal was executive director, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL). During his 10-month tenure, he concentrated on increasing the company’s GSM market share in the Mumbai circle. MTNL’s market share almost doubled during this short span of time. Broadband services were also launched during this period.
Goyal grew up in Agra, the city of the Taj. He cleared the Indian Telecom Service examination and joined the telecom sector in 1972, soon after completing engineering from IIT Roorkee. After having spent over 35 years in the telecom sector, Goyal says that he had never imagined that he would be witness to such a revolution in telecommunications. “In the beginning of my career, we used technology such as electromechanical switches and large drawings for looking at the circuitry. These were soon replaced by new devices such as electronic analog switches and further by electronic digital switches. A technological revolution is happening in every decade.”
Keeping up with the rapid changes and devising the right solutions requires a lot of effort. “My work is a source of satisfaction and gives me a strong sense of achievement. Half-hearted measures can only lead to half-hearted results,” he says. But he also admits that being fully devoted to work has meant having less time for family. He acknowledges the support of his wife in this regard, and even jokes that she has come to terms with his passion for work, and that she wouldn’t hesitate to term his job as his second wife.
A typical day in office is spent attending to numerous phone calls, talking to visitors and holding coordination meetings with colleagues. This means that the only quiet time he has to scrutinise paperwork and important files is at home, late into the evening. In fact, according to Goyal, there are so many things that demand his attention that there is hardly a moment when he is not thinking about work. Whenever he gets a useful idea, he jots it down in his diary before it vanishes from his mind.
Goyal likes to get into the details of every assignment in hand. But this, he admits, is quite time consuming. So he has decided to increasingly delegate responsibility and focus on strategy planning and advising his subordinates. He also wants to move at a faster pace in terms of making and implementing decisions. He hopes that his efforts will make BSNL the service provider of choice for all segments of customers ?? enterprise, small and medium businesses, and the urban and rural masses.
Talking about the growth of the telecom sector in India, Goyal says that though cities like Delhi and Mumbai are near saturation in term of mobile usage, there is still plenty of scope in the rural areas. In the future, the mobile phone is going to be a device that will cater to all the needs of a consumer, from information and entertainment to banking. The use of local languages in applications will make the services accessible to a large number of people. “If applications are user friendly, one need not worry about their use; operating a phone should not be a big deal even for a street vendor,” he says.
According to Goyal, BSNL is taking huge strides in the adoption of new technology. State-of-the-art switching networks, the latest mobile networks and CDMA2001x EVDO are already in use.
The company is planning to launch 3G services as soon as spectrum is allotted by the government. Mobile Wi-Max rollouts are planned for Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The project for providing Wi-Max in 25,000 villages is at the request for proposal stage. Internet protocol TV services have already been launched in Pune, Kolkata and Bangalore, and will soon be extended to other cities.
Apart from technology, a key focus area for Goyal is BSNL’s vast workforce. He is keen on getting the best out of every employee. When the company was converted from a pure government organisation into a public sector undertaking, all the existing employees were retained. The company continues to assess and develop the capabilities of its workforce in addition to tapping new resources.
According to Goyal, a major challenge for BSNL is bridging the gap between the burgeoning demand for telecom services and network capacity. The teledensity of 25 per cent presents a big opportunity for growth. “In the past two years, our procurement had been stalled due to unforeseen problems. When we launched mobile services in 2002, we were the number two operator. We need to regain our position.”
But in his ceaseless efforts to propel the company to greater heights, many of his personal hobbies and activities have had to be left behind. Goyal used to do yoga regularly, and was a very enthusiastic bridge player. In fact, he once received an award for winning a bridge tournament at BSNL.
Goyal is a firm believer in human and cultural values. He says that these were lessons that his parents instilled in him when he was young. He also believes that technology should not rule people, and that it should be an enabler for a better, more fulfilling life.
Goyal often thinks about his college and hostel life at IIT Roorkee. With his usual engaging smile, he reveals how he used to get up early in the morning to practise yoga and then walk to college. In the evenings, he would go for long walks with friends or chat with them in the cafeteria over his favourite samosas and tea. That would be followed by long hours of study, often till two in the morning. Then a little sleep would refresh him for the next day.
As he finishes the task at hand and prepares to begin the next, he often takes a minute to relax and reminisce about those “golden” days of his life. These are memories he will always cherish.
