Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year - 2012

This new year gives us an opportunity to carry forward that thirst for excellence into yet another 365 days and more! Technical excellence has always been the bedrock of ConceptWaves from the day it was setup. I am sure you will be excited to expand the envelope to include excellence in everything else we do around technology - processes, operations and business development.

I have emailed you a ppt that reflects the potential that our team can achieve. I have presented this ppt during our sales meet a couple of weeks ago in Hyderabad. I need each and every one of us to be at their optimum best to be able to achieve the targets. These are not just some random numbers - they are our collective dreams. These are numbers that need to be achieved if we need to do justice to the efforts we have put in over the last 5 years or so.

Continuous change and a burning desire to improve oneself every second is a must for any meaningful organization if it has to come trumps in today's world of hyper competition. There certainly are areas where we can do better this year than what we had done in 2011. Let us address each of those in a phased and focused manner. We will choose one area of improvement every month and I will need help from each and everyone of you to ensure that we have a zero tolerance to any deviation from our resolution for that month.

2011 has blessed us with lots of traction and I sense a big explosion somewhere round the corner soon. We need to self-cleanse ourselves of any bad habits that we might have picked up over years and be ready to welcome the shower of opportunities with both hands. The transition from 2011 to 2012 will be a game changer for us - we will be talking of massive scale in 2012 in everything we do.

I want everyone to remember that 2012 will need team-play at its best. While I have no doubt about individual brilliance about each and everyone of you, we will need to find ways of ensuring a perfect team-play with out diluting individual brilliance.

Ye 2012 - Look Out! ConceptWaves has arrived!

Cheers,
Raghu

Monday, September 17, 2007

Happy Birthday ConceptWaves



I must confess that when ConceptWaves was founded a year ago, we chose to enter education sector more as a 'chance' than based on any real strategic planning or market analysis. But today, as India celebrates its 60th Independent year, I feel we could not have chosen a more satisfying option. Afterall, even culturally we as a nation have always had greater respect for 'saraswati' than even 'lakshmi'!

There is little doubt that India will continue to march on to become one of the top 3 nations in terms of might and influence. But what each one of us would like to see is that the growth should be an equitable one and the benefits should reach out to each and every citizen of this great nation. And in my opinion, there is practically no greater leveller than education to provide equal opportunities to one and all to compete fairly in this knowledge economy that we live in.

Yes,education can be a great leveller but how can we make sure it reaches out to one and all? Perhaps Technology can help here! So I believe that Education when married with Technology brings in the etra zing into the whole equation of transforming this nation!

And thats what should make all of us working at ConceptWaves proud! Because the systems we architect are addressing and providing an infrastructure to education service providers (ESP) streamline their operations so that they can focus on the quality of their teaching. The systems we build are enabling education service providers penetrate to more students with out being limited by scale and geography.

Our products have made a humble but steady begining. We are supporting, enhancing at times and sometimes even challenging the way ESPs think about the economics of service delivery, scale, management metrics, processes and other parameters of doing their business!

It is important we remember that we play a supporting role in helping our customers concentrate on the core issues of quality teaching and hence understand that we thrive in the market only when we deliver real value to them in everything we do. A lot of firms can survive in the market place offering sub-optimal solutions, but to thrive and to be the best, takes lot more skills and attitude! And I must confess that I really believe that I have got a fantastic team in you guys, who would not settle for anything but the best! We do not believe in silver! Do we need to when we know we can get the gold?

As a company we have grown at a decent rate over the last one year. Our growth was not mercurial and it was so by design. We want to have a growth based on strong principles, good processes and passionate people. And I think we have not compromised on any of those parameters. You know how we have picked you guys based more on attitude than the skills you possessed at the time when you joined the company!

I have always loved the enthusiasm you guys showed whenever we wrapped a new deal, and the way we celebrated every little success that came our way in this one year. I always admire the faith you have shown in the difficult times. We have a long way to go, but whatever we are today, could not have been possible with out your help.

A year ago, we had to bother about our survival. Today, the question for ConceptWaves is no longer about survival - it is about being the best! You know that we have been quite unconventional that we never even cared or bothered to know who our competitors were, what their offerings looked like or what they priced them at! It is not because we could not afford to concentrate on competitors' portfolio! It is because we believed that only two parties mattered in the equation - we and our customers! We know what they want and we will deliver what they need! Competition is irrelevant as long as we continue to deliver 'solutions that work'!

As I look back, I must share the credit for helping us in our journey so far with the wonderful customers we had. We had a chance to interact with the finest people in the education business and I wish to thank them for the opportunities they have given us to prove our claims. It has been a pleasure to do business with each of them. I specifically wish to thank the early adopters of our product with out whom we would not have been at this stage.

We never looked at ourselves as a software company writing code! We believed we were a bunch of 'young and energetic dudes and dudettes' who loved to stage experiences for our customers!

Let me explain what I mean by 'staging an experience'. If I have a flat tyre, a good service company will respond immediately when I call them up to report the incident! But wait... thats good but thats not a 'WOW!' - now for me, a WOW experience is when the mechanic calls me even before I reach out for my mobile and says "sir, I think you have a flat tyre and I will be right there at your place in the next few minutes!" Now thats the benchmark for ConceptWaves I would settle for! Nothing less! I hope all of you now understand why we invested so much in building our 'alerting framework' which alerts us of any issues on system even before the users notice any problem!

I would say I am a little happy with what we have achieved so far - but am not yet thrilled! And I would believe the thrilling years are right ahead! We have been adding more customers and soon we will be expanding our staff once again. But I am banking on you again, as I always did in the past, to ensure that you will make sure that the culture we built, the values that we stand remain intact through the transition of scaling up!

You guys have shown faith, attitude and maturity that defies your age to build ConceptWaves! Thanks for all your support, affection and ownership! The DNA that we collectively instilled in ConceptWaves should take it to the next levels where we all would not just be satisfied but be thrilled!