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Vivek Bansal of GlobespanVirata is a business
thought-leader in the true sense. He believes in sharing international
best practices in broadband with service providers in India, says
GAURAV PATRA
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| Vivek Bansal, President, GlobespanVirata
India |
VIVEK Bansal, serving GlobespanVirata as executive
vice president since January 2000, has recently taken over the responsibility
of expanding its India operations, and has been promoted as president
of the company’s operations in the country.
Bansal did his schooling from Delhi Public School.
After that he earned his engineering degree from MS University,
Baroda, and then did his post-graduation in computer sciences from
Kansas University, US. “While in Gujarat I was surrounded by
people who wanted to go to the US. That very atmosphere also motivated
me to go to America for higher studies,” says Bansal. He considers
himself fortunate to do research on the foundation of the Internet
at a time (late 80s-early 90s) when Internet research was at its
peak, and both commercial and industrial segments were showing signs
of interest. He published a sizeable number of research papers in
various publications.
Just before completing his graduation, he got
a call from a top official of NEC Research Worldwide who had heard
about the university and Bansal. He wanted Bansal to come down to
NEC’s Princeton Lab in New Jersey to discuss his work. After
Bansal did so, he got an offer from the lab. “I was surprised
by the offer. At that juncture I was undecided whether I should
go for my PhD or take up the career path,” he says. However,
he knew that the NEC research lab is one of the best research labs
in the world, and a number of talented researchers have worked there.
It would be a great experience to work for them, and that’s
why he decided to try his hand on the job. He worked there for three
years as one of the lead researchers. Bansal says he will always
be proud of being a part of the R&D team at NEC, whose efforts
led to the inception of broadband technology.
After spending three years at NEC, Bansal, who
loves to take up new challenges, thought of exploring even more
challenging opportunities. He decided to move on to expand his horizons,
not just in the technical world, but also in terms of exploring
business entrepreneurship. He started his first entrepreneurial
venture at that time, a company called Ficon Technology, a product
and communications software developer for broadband platforms. “The
goal of Ficon Technology was to continue to work in Internet technology
with initial focus on providing high R&D, consulting and software
development to leading OEMs in the world,” says Bansal. Ficon
was developing products in the arena of IP routers, IP switches
and ATM switches. The company developed full-fledged products which
were bought by different customers across the globe. Ficon grew
very fast; within three years they had three offices—two in
the US and one in India. Bansal served as the president and chief
executive officer of Ficon.
After three and half years, GlobespanVirata approached
his company. “GlobespanVirata was a semiconductor company,
and at that point of time it was an emerging company in the DSL
technology area,” says Bansal. Following a lot of discussions,
it was clear that there was lot of synergy between what Globespan
was doing and the expertise that Ficon had achieved over the years.
Globespan acquired Ficon in January 2000 for $90 million.
The synergy that was built was that Globespan
focussed on the physical layer and Ficon Technology built systems
expertise of software and processing technology. GlobespanVirata,
at that point time, had around 190 employees; after the merger Bansal
focussed on the integration of employees and culture. Subsequently,
he took over the marketing responsibility of the company. Within
a span of one year he took charge of the whole DSL business of the
company. Under his leadership the company grew the North American-centric
business into a global business spread over Europe and Asia Pacific
countries.
Drawing on his extensive experience in the fields
of semiconductors, broadband communications, digital media and software,
Bansal has been responsible for GlobespanVirata’s worldwide
marketing and business development, product development and corporate
strategies. Under his leadership the company has registered substantial
growth from less than $100 million in annualised revenues in 1999
to projected revenue of more than $500 million in 2004. In the process,
Globespan also acquired 12 companies where Bansal played a major
role. Bansal motivated the people in the company to believe in themselves
and the organisation, and this was one of primary reasons for the
success of GlobespanVirata.
Recently, GlobespanVirata signed a definitive
agreement with Conexant to combine the two companies in a strategic
merger. This was again an activity initiated by Bansal. The combination
will create the leader in semiconductor solutions for the digital
home.
It was never his aim to go to the US, it was
never his dream to start a company, but it all happened. At every
stage people find different kinds of strengths. Bansal’s case
is one of the prime examples of that. When he joined NEC, he was
one of the first researchers who had just a master’s degree—the
rest were all PhDs. Again, he surprised people with his capability
and business acumen when he started his company. All along his main
goal was to come back to India, which he eventually did. After successfully
building and managing global companies, he decided to move back
to India in August 2003.
Today this 35-year-old professional is a satisfied
man, but he is still aspires to give back to India and contribute
to Indian industry. After 15 years of his life spent outside India,
Bansal wants to devote himself to the Indian IT industry. He believes
there is a huge opportunity in product focus rather than service
focus. “I believe that we, as Indians, can contribute a lot
in that direction,” he declares. Bansal loves playing golf
and travelling across the globe to know more about the cultures
of different countries.
gaurav@expresscomputeronline.com
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