COVID-19, A true test of Indian Leadership

COVID-19, A true test of Indian Leadership

COVID-19 or Coronavirus just landed and caught everyone globally, including India, unaware and by surprise. Truly, no one knew what it was! Even now, people are struggling to decode and trying to find exit options. COVID-19 continues to be a mystery, writes Kumar Bachchan, Co-founder and COO, Niveshan Technologies India Private Limited.

In the context of business, it may be interesting to understand “what did COVID-19 mean to different Sectors, Industries, and Companies”. Niveshan Technologies, an ICT (Information Technology, Communication, and Telecom) company, would like to share our experience and journey broadly under four perspectives:

  1. How did we take COVID-19 on face value, as it landed at our doorstep as a Nation & Company!

  2. What all we did, in our wisdom, right to go through the motions of COVID-19

  3. What all we did not do convincingly, by design

  4. Our learning from the pandemic, possibly once in a lifetime for some, like COVID-19

We are a young company, in the third year of our operations. We believe, one of our biggest advantages & strengths under such a situation was “we didn’t have much legacy or baggage”. Our being Mindful, Focused, Absolute commitment to our Customers-Partners-People, and attitude to ‘Take Responsibility’ was good enough to see through COVID-19. We do understand, it is not yet over; but we as well don’t know ‘when and how’, we will overcome this phenomenon. The only certainty in visibility is ‘uncertainty’. So, what is the resolution! “live through the motions”.

Also Read: Technology Driving India’s Transformation: Kumar Bachchan

Early 2020, COVID-19 started appearing in discussions, conversation, & interactions little lightly and possibly NOT many people were aware of “what is coming”! We, at Niveshan as an organisation and people, were somewhat cautious. We adopted precautionary measures within our offices and in our internal & external engagements. We had no hesitation in acknowledging implicitly & explicitly that we ‘care’, esp. during unaware & unknown scenarios.

Reasonably early, we started taking stock of our business in terms of projects under execution, a new business in the pipeline for closure, our backward & forward partner’s ability & readiness to support the business, fund flows, new initiatives, our people’s whereabouts, and other fundamentals of our business.

I must acknowledge, our entire leadership team was together. We were possibly more & better together during COVID-19 than when we were in our offices. Clearly, the productivity of our people was far better than BAU (Business As Usual) for two primary reasons (a) all the time & energy spent on commuting & travel for various business meetings had gone, as even other side didn’t want to meet or meet @ minimum and (b) all counter-productivity in internal & socializing meetings had gone.

Also Read: NIC strengthening India’s e-governance amidst corona crisis 

We decided one thing as a prerequisite right in the beginning that we will not touch the people’s fundamentals like compensation, working from home, real minimal movement of people unless warranted, and mobilise all possible resources on best effort basis. We continued our hiring and onboarding people across levels, across disciplines. This superbly worked as a major confidence-building measure for our teams that ‘All is Well’. No insecurities related to the job.

Human Capital building was one of our major focuses. We invested in all-round training & workshops for our people. We conceived new workshops and invested a lot internally like a program. Investment in people is coupled with strengthening the processes to enable them like a well-oiled well-greased engine.

We remained focused on the execution of our business. Most of our customer projects are mission-critical, the dependency on the availability of ICT infrastructure in running their business is high, … Despite being in times of uncertainties & prevailing scenarios, we remained with our customers.

In one case, our team came up with an innovative solution for very peculiar communication requirements of one of our Public Sector customers. The entire solution was delivered & rolled out Pan-India in less than 100 locations within 7-10 days.

Portability and Agility in one of our projects were seen recently in one of our City’s Command and Control Center (CCC). The CCC was reconfigured and deployed seamlessly for COVID-19 monitoring operation within the same day. This speaks of Government Leadership and Project Execution Excellence.

Our Leaders were on the top of affairs, such that available resources were deployed in the most optimal manner. Credit to our teams across levels & across discipline, who delivered their best with full commitment. It is important to make one point here, no one (not even a single employee) was expected to perform his/her duty (esp onsite) under any constraints. We struck a good balance between business: work: people. Our teams found means & ways to achieve optimally and innovatively.

We had an amazing experience in working upon and closing a mega-deal totally digitally and working from home. The customer is one of the giants in Asia, the partner is another Industry leader from another country, and yet another mega entity from India. All done during the peak of COVID-19 without any major challenge, esp, in-person meeting or logistics.

Also Read: “No Panic Only Awareness” our motto to fight COVID: P Narahari

I can say quite comfortably, all this helped us serve our customers by beating their expectations; though we will fail in our responsibility & accountability if we do not extend our sincere thanks to our customers for extending all their possible & required support. A Big Salute to our Customers for staying engaged throughout the project lifecycle, including sign-off and honouring commercial commitments.

In today’s business, no success comes without partners as an integral part of the overall execution. Our partners were standing next to us, all the time, in delivering our commitments. We were equally professional in our reciprocation to our partners.

On our learning, look at the big picture and see beyond. Everything is temporary, even COVID’19 like situation would be temporary; though stretch is still unknown. Do not, I repeat do not mess with business fundamentals; stick to your core values, keep the flock together, manage uncertainties by keeping them at distance. This is across all facets of business 3600 wrt. All stakeholders.

One more learning, stay together @ home and ensure your people stay together at their home. This is one reason, we continue to operate almost full strength ‘Work from Home’ till now, July’2020.

Niveshan is an end-to-end core ICT services provider that specializes in IT Application, Infrastructure services and ICT Solutions.

As a part of IT Application & Infrastructure services we have different Service Portfolios, namely

  • Software & IT application Support Services, Network, Security, Storage and Back-up, Mainframe and Database, End-User computing and Datacenter services, and technology strategic outsourcing.

Niveshan is in the third year in operations, Profitable, and Revenue in Three digits with absolute Focus on Growth with a Difference is all about ‘NextGen Niveshan’.

Niveshan Executive Leadership team is backed by Investors in varied sectors and fields; to name a few Real Estate, Solar Power, and Warehouses & Logistics. Such vast and rich expertise & experience is guiding force in our Conceptualization through Successful Execution journey.

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