Pradipto Ganguly, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Britzo
Pradipto Ganguly co-founded Britzo with the mission of providing an affordable but technologically evolved alternative to feature phones in India. According to him, the handset market is undergoing a paradigm shift. Feature phones have had a makeover and a new class of phones – the smart feature phone, or the 4G feature phone – has emerged. These new phones have become the frontrunners in the digitalisation of rural India, where two thirds of the country’s population, or potential telecom base, resides. Britzo, a relatively new entrant in the handset domain, offers smart feature phones targeted at consumers in Tier III, Tier IV and Tier V markets.
Ganguly is a telecom veteran, who has spent close to two decades of his career at companies such as Bharti Airtel, Samsung and Transsion Holdings, before taking the entrepreneurial plunge with Britzo. At Airtel, he was instrumental in the company’s foray into Odisha, and was a part of the team that established Airtel as the revenue market leader in Kolkata. He has also contributed significantly to the growth path of companies like Samsung and Transsion Holdings in India.
In his current role as the CEO of Britzo, Ganguly spearheads the company’s end-to-end business operations, including administration, finalisation of strategic alliances, market analysis and ideation, as well as product innovation and development. “The challenges are very similar to creating a new category in the market and then bringing it to a phase of maturity,” he says. “In order to develop smarter feature phones we need a complete ecosystem in place, which is a herculean task and needs out-of-the-box thinking. Rural and urban geographies are very different. At present, the needs of rural customers are limited to certain applications that help them avail of e-services. They also need multimedia support to benefit from cutting-edge approaches in farming, animal husbandry, etc.”
Ganguly has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. When it comes to managing people, he follows a democratic and inclusive approach, and strongly believes in involving people while chasing goals. Ganguly accords the credit for his entrepreneurial journey to his wife, Minerva. “It’s not easy to follow a dream, setting aside a secure job. She was a constant source of support and stability,” he says. Ganguly is fond of listening to music and watching movies. He loves spending time with his family – his wife and their two sons, Piyush and Eshan.
