Versatile and on the move

A graduate from IIM Ahmedabad, Atanu Mandal has handled multiple portfolios in his 12-year-long career. He tells Punita Jasrotia, that his experiences as a business analyst and marketing head gave him the necessary confidence to start his own venture

Atanu Mandal, managing director and chief executive officer, Cellnext Solutions, has always been a man on the move, literally. After the experience of working with seven different organisations in a span of 12 years with varied expertise in finance, infotech and telecom, setting up Cellnext was the most obvious career move. Cellnext Solutions is a wireless IT company promoted by the Escorts Group. Its products include multi-component messaging engines, telco content aggregation platforms and enterprise application integrators. According to Mandal all this has been possible because of his focused approach in life. Whether it be his marketing days with TCS or DCM, his financial tryst with ICRA or stint with Escorts Group, all have helped him add value to himself.

Mandal started his career with TCS-Westinghouse after completing his BTech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. Set up to address the high technology services segment, this joint venture between TCS and Westinghouse was involved in providing software services to overseas clients. Starting as a marketing executive, the job involved working in the US and other countries in the APAC region. Later, the company was merged with TCS, after which Mandal had another short stint with DCM Electronics, which also could not hold his interest for long.

He then shifted from high-tech marketing to financial analysis. Joining ICRA as a business analyst, his job involved analysing the business and financial status of companies and assessing their integrity and market strength. According to Mandal, this proved to be one of the most satisfying stints in his career and a major learning experience. “ICRA taught me a lot about how business is done, what are the shortcomings of it and how to read between the lines for both understanding and interpreting the status and future of a business,” he says. In his three-year stint with ICRA, he was able to cover 25 companies spread across 20 different sectors.

Mandal again decided to return to technology (in the high-end segment), in a relatively emerging field of telecom. He joined the Escorts Group in 1995 and was deputed as the head of strategic planning and investment for Escotel, which was the company’s start-up operation in the telecom sector. “Escorts provided me with the opportunity to try my hand at planning, providing solutions, financial strategy and even marketing,” he says.

After a successful stint with Escotel, Mandal decided to move ahead and joined Modi Telestra as chief financial officer. During his tenure with Modi Telestra, he presided over their financial closure by securing a sanctioned line of credit (from ANZ Grindlays Bank and Deutsche Bank), towards their second phase funding. He also rationalised the channel incentive structure and entry package pricing as of October 1997—resulting in higher market share. The market share of new subscription also improved from 55 percent to 65 percent, during the quarter October to December 1997, as a result of changes made by Mandal. Soon after, he joined Sterling Cellular as Swisscom AG nominee (June 1998-November 1999), as the chief marketing officer (CMO). His stint with Sterling saw Mandal playing a pivotal role in developing two distinct brands—Essar Cellphone (targeted towards the premium segment with post-paid services) and ‘Speed’ (aimed at the mass market with pre-paid services). During his years with Sterling, the company’s pre-paid market share rose to 75 percent by November 1998. He also rationalised Sterling’s Autoram pricing by drastically reducing monthly subscription charges and introducing a VPLMN surcharge. This led to a four-fold increase in roaming penetration over a 12-month period. The roaming revenues also increased by more than two times during this period. Later, the company was named as Swisscom.

Enriched by his varied working experiences, Mandal decided to start his own entrepreneurial venture and Cellnext was established in March 2000. What gave him the necessary confidence was his professional background in finance, strategic planning, marketing and business development. Sensing the opportunity in the Internet wireless arena, Mandal made it his obvious choice.

Possessing a good relationship with the Escorts Group, he was able to realise his dream. Focusing on the wireless communication industry as well as wireless IT needs of the enterprise market, the company’s core competence revolved around GSM data technologies like SMS, WAP, SS7, GPRS, 3G and also IVR. The company also provides application design, development and integration services to both enterprises and wireless telecom operators.

Initially, Cellnext was focused on building its IPR and producing quality products. The company has been successful in achieving an ISO 9001:2000 certified by BVQI, London, for design, development, deployment and maintenance of software products, customised software solutions services for enterprises and telecom companies. Besides this, the company also won an IBM excellence solution award for its ‘P-Biz’ (a middleware product). The organisation is looking at expanding in a major way to offer its solutions to the European market. It would initially focus on service creation for mobile operators, GSM data and Net technologies. Mandal believes that the telecom industry provided him with the much-needed dream of working in the high-tech sector. Handling different portfolios enabled him to achieve so much in so little time.