Lanterna Rally

Author: Adip Roy

Publisher: Adip Roy

Published: 2021-09-27

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13:

This story is set in the 90’s when Information Technology was undergoing rapid and dramatic change. A focal point is the transition from proprietary to industry standard systems and how Indian companies navigated the change. The book discusses the inner workings, struggles, turmoil, successes and failures as seen through the eyes of protagonist, Rohan Gupta. Rohan is a self-made, hardworking and career executive, blessed with a supportive family – Madhuri, his wife and a homemaker and two sons Ivan and Ishan. Rohan takes on a senior leadership role at a MNC – GCL, replacing their expat Vice President (Services) only to find that he has inherited a laid back, sluggish team in a dramatically changing IT landscape. It would soon be a battle of survival not only for him, but for the entire business. The story is about an organization culture transformation to being at the forefront of demonstrating results. There is a unique insider’s view of services business management. ‘Corporate Quality’ which is often a mere slogan, can be an extremely powerful vehicle, when the organization internalizes and starts implements the policies. Through the text readers will be able to ‘touch and feel’ an effective quality control system, learn about measuring ‘service gaps’ and a number of other novel service management techniques. The technical matters are presented to readers in a relatable, colloquial manner that are easy to grasp. IT began as an account management tool. In the 90’s, IT was gradually making an entry into many other areas namely travel booking/ reservation system etc. One such system was finger-print storage and retrieval system, namely ‘criminal records system.’ The story takes the reader through the typical Government purchase process. The role of planning, organizing, training and effective control can never be over emphasized in any business. A number of events highlighted the methodical implementation of them in GCL Services business. They become lively to the readers along with the characters and not only dry, hard theories. Customers are one of the most important entities for any business and dealing with them with care and systematic approach visibly improved not only the services but also sales revenue for GCL. Successful customer interaction opens up additional sources of business and at the same time improve the customer satisfaction ratings. Every parameter for services business of GCL was in growth mode. The story also discusses the weaker areas of GCL. With declining customer orders of a particular product, the story exposes GCL’s failure to deal with the production related issues in their factory. The dynamic IT world had started adopting industry standard machines (UNIX and Personal Computers). The change hurt GCL, their profitability and cash flow was heavily impacted. A new set of IT Companies emerged posing a serious threat to GCL. GCL Management team huddled into a strategy meeting. What happens next?