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 Ravi
Chauhan tells Pankaj Mishra why a management degree is
essential for engineers to cope with unexpected situations that
one has to encounter in professional life
“A
challenging business management position in a high growth company
with a strong technology focus”. Chauhan’s ‘curriculum
vitae’ kicks off with the above objective. He is very passionate
about starting a business unit right from scratch and making it
a profit centre. When asked if he would be interested in launching
his own venture someday, Chauhan exclaims that he always wanted
to head a ‘small but fast growing division’ in a large
company.
When
Chauhan finished his Bachelor of Engineering in 1986, he found himself
at crossroads with his career choice. One option was to go ahead
and pursue a post-graduate course in engineering. “But I wanted
to get a broader understanding of the market and the market dynamics
that create need for products,” says Chauhan. “The course
at IIM was an eye-opener. Engineering is about structured thinking
while professional life is full of unstructured situations. Therefore
I opted for an MBA.” After completing his MBA, Chauhan joined
Wipro in the position of senior executive marketing. His responsibilities
included the sales of Sun Microsystems’s workstations in the
country.
The
year 1990 found Chauhan looking for better challenges in his job.
Digital made an offer. “I was responsible for managing Digital’s
networking product line and was contented to make a substantial
contribution towards making Digital the fourth largest PC networking
company in India,” explains Chauhan. Subsequent to this, Chauhan
was made business manager, technical computing and he spear-headed
Digital’s entry into the Indian technical computing market.
In
1996, Chauhan was approached by Cabletron to head the company’s
India operations as country manager. He accepted the offer and that
was the beginning of his long exposure to Asian markets. “My
stint with Cabletron was very fruitful in terms of understanding
the markets of China, Japan and Singapore. I got first-hand knowledge
of the cultural diversity which helped me understand people from
various origins and faith.” When Chauhan joined Cabletron,
the networking market in India was witnessing a negative growth
rate of -1.1 percent. To make matters worse, Cabletron was a late
entrant into the market. “Our team efforts paid off when the
company achieved a market share of 28 percent in 1998,” says
Chauhan.
During
his Cabletron job, Chauhan used to interact with regional Nortel
executives. “In the course of my interaction, the Nortel offer
came my way which proved to be another challenging proposition and
I decided to go for it,” says Chauhan. He informed that Nortel
had great products, but the strategy was diffused and the value
propositions were not clear. Today, the company is gunning for leadership
in three well defined areas—Metro Optical Networks, IT Enabled
Services and IP Telephony.
An
avid reader, Chauhan considers Autobiography of Gandhi by Louise
Fischer the best book he has ever read. He says, “I am inspired
by the sheer simplicity of Gandhi and he is my role model. Once
you have a goal, the means will follow.” He also enjoyed reading
a book titled Not For Bread Alone by the founder of Matsushita,
Japan. “Prior to the stock market crash, I was planning to
work only till I turn 40, but now I plan to work till the age of
45.” After that, Chauhan plans to get involved in community
activities for achieving “internal” satisfaction and happiness.
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