Vishal Singh Raghuvanshi

Maj Vishal S Raghuvanshi is a multi-cultural visionary, strategist, P&L head, business evangelist and business development specialist with over two decades of experience in the Telecommunications Industry (MNO, OME and Tower) & IT industry enabling Pharma, Banking, and Education ecosystems across MNCs, corporates and the Indian Army. He is currently the “Group” COO for CREI (Communication and Renewable Energy Infrastructure) MNC headquartered at Dubai managing Asia, Africa and Latin America regions. Prior to this, he was CEO for Rajasthan in Indus Towers,  worked as CTO/ COO for Globalspace Tech Ltd, in the Directors role in Nokia Solutions & Network Ltd (India and Expat), AVP Business development in Rolta Thales Ltd and Plan Event manager in Reliance Communications.

From officer commanding in the Indian Army to Group COO in CREI & CEO of Indus Towers in Rajasthan, he has had a remarkable career. During his time with the Indian Army, he held positions such as Officer-in-Charge, Operations Manager, Administrative & HR Manager, and others. He is accomplished in his career having providing excellence in P&L Assurance, Revenue Strategy, Innovation, Project & Program Management, Talent Management, and other Technology areas as Data scientists and Analytics with new age evolutions. He has had notable success in P&L, Sales and Business Development of Technology enabler for the Organisations incl Armed Forces using a concept-to-completion approach, understanding specifications, customisations, and integration with legacy system requirements.

He built and maintained strong client relationships at all levels, with the goal of being a trusted business partner, as an expert in the full lifecycle of Business Portfolio P&L Management. Vishal has a thorough understanding of P&L and has deep data analytical skills for quick decision making. When he was at Rolta Thales Ltd, he was also instrumental in business development, persuading major stakeholders to evaluate and enable a Project Case worth Multi million USD.

Vishal is a well-known leader who excels at envisioning and implementing technical roadmaps, as well as leading all aspects of technology. He is currently working with CREI MNC Organisation, where he is conceptualising and implementing unique Business models of Telecom industry with Tower, Energy Solutions, NaaS and Fiber  solutions in collaboration with various Global MNOs and Investors. He also provides strategic direction to all operators, oversees process implementation, and ensures SLA compliance. As CEO Indus Rajasthan, Vishal has overseen & ensured 75% EBITDA & 70% market share With 1000 team members, including a partner ecosystem.

His professional career is filled with accomplishments, including the NSN Global Quality Award, which he received in recognition of TATA DOCOMO's 3G rollout achievements. He has also kept himself up to date through certifications and courses, and he has a background in both engineering and management. Vishal's journey has been inspiring, and he remains an industry visionary!

With unrelenting persuasion by companies of all sizes and scales in today’s cut throat competition towards profit maximisation (Optimisation) and customer satisfaction (Delight), the onus entirely lies on the effective capability of board and senior management to give the right vision, strategy and execution wings to the idea conceived, irrespective of industry and geography.

With so much at stake (both commercial and reputational), the objective performance evaluation of board and senior management is a matter of necessity rather than mere preference or convenience.

Objective performance evaluation (half yearly/ annually) is not new in industries across the globe and there are ample templates available to do as well, however when it come to board and senior management, more often or so it becomes a formality, triggered more by reputation, past rhetoric’s and prominence.aThe need to have fair assessment of performance is imperative and require more than the tools available. The risk of awkward debates and discussions right from setting KPIs till reviewing the same with both subjective and objective measurement criteria is quite high, however if people can get past the initial bruises to the ego, it is immensely liberating for self, board members and companies.

Communication is key in the entire process. The steps provided below are some suggestions, but may not be comprehensive.
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Tenacity and candidness by both reviewer and reviewee can bring near immaculate outcomes for benefits of large ecosystems of stakeholders and shareholders. Culture of open discussions in the companies mould the entire set-up to behave in a more predictable manner during the evaluations with minimal scope of coercions.

Given the recent unfolding of numerous frictions among promoters, shadow directors and senior board members, it’s quite evident that there is a need to bring more sanctity to the entire process involved in performance evaluation of Board members and Senior management. Hence the role being played by Non-Executive Independent Directors becomes of paramount importance to bring balance, objectivity and rationality in the entire method for larger cause.

In today’s world of “Instant Delivery” (Everything Real Time) and “Use and Throw” (Short attention and retention spans) culture, time is of absolute essence. Industries and companies are running against neck break speed between new technology evolutions and dynamic customer experience needs cascaded by geopolitical challenges impacting the global supply chain and other natural complexities.  

The scope to falter in ensuring speed with changes is miniscule and can cost huge losses in terms of new customer acquisitions, financials, market share and sometimes, even existence. These all point towards the capability of companies to embrace risks in today’s scenarios to stay 2-3 steps ahead of the rest.  Till the time risks are taken intelligently and not recklessly, there is something to be learned.  

Risk taking capability in any organisation depends deeply in the culture of innovation and experiments imbibed, starting from the lowest echelons till board and senior management. It’s a strategy rather than tactics for success or sheer survival. Policy incorporation in terms of risk appetite (Financially, Growth, Market) has to be thoroughly vetted and measured against well deliberated assessment of each risk along with response and mitigation plan. Following are the ways to eclipse risk in organisations, although these may not be comprehensive.

It is important to empower executive teams to act when required as per risk mitigation strategy at the slightest sight of symptoms rather than developing a culture of conducting subsequent autopsies with blame.

The cost of failures due to cloud of hubris for legacy products and perceptions in today’s fast moving world is far higher than changing with tides and embracing discretionary expenses related with ERM (Enterprise Risk Management), R&D, Training, Innovative marketing and being close to customer mood swings.

The world is witnessing some gigantic changes in terms of technology evolution and revolution over the last decade or so in every possible manner, that too on a fast pace.  As a global consumer, it is great to be a part of such dynamic progress. Having said so, it is one of the biggest concern for leaders and headache for leaders and KMPs in the companies as well. Every day, new buzz words right from AI, ML, AR, VR, Bloakchain, Web 4, Metaverse and so many more keep the entire leadership teams in the world of puzzles, especially in the non IT sector.

Polls across the world done by top consultants along with CEO’s/CTO’s/CIO’s are testimony to the fact and suggest unequivocally for the need to adapt technology adoption in some or the other form to stay tuned to new ever changing customer needs and profiling it to suit the experience. Undoubtedly, keeping up pace with new evolving technology is critical for not only survival but for thriving as well.

Problem for board and senior managements is not the intent on technology adoption or incorporation, but is about the complete clarity on, which problem or challenge to be fixed by enabling which technology. Teams needs to go back to drawing board to identify the old legacy issues or new recent evolving challenges in operations, supply chain cycle, data analytics layers, critical path analysis on project, decisions timelines and whole lot of such numerous such issues causing major impact on the profitability, efficiency and performance of the organisations.

Once the issues have been redefined and identified with depth and width of same, the solution discussion with experts to fix the same with which ever technology suits the most within the budget is the next step and not the other way round.

Companies in the rush of adopting technology for demonstrating “One step ahead syndrome” in market and competition, often miss the key element of context and use case to fix certain problems, which will yield the optimal outcome by deploying suitable technology as enabler.  Such haste cause waste in terms of resource (people and finance) allocations with little to moderate knowledge on ultimate outcome, as the solution providers will only act as per the problem defined to enforce the technology as compulsion and not as cure.

Technology should also be seen as the most simplified form of solution to ease the experience by making it a delight moment for user. The MMI (Man-Machine Interface) has been simplified by engineers across the world by bringing absolutely new fresh air of simplified ways of adoption, that the end user has to just focus on identifying right set of issues being faced with anticipated outcomes. Technology is an enabler for already existing cause by expediting the entire process and experience, hence adoption should be envisaged as cure to certain problem being faced by the organisation and sheer compulsion should not be enforced on teams for early mover advantage syndrome.