Starting Serious Shit!
When I finally decided to quit the Army early, I had to choose a new profession. I worked through an inventory of interests, mostly aerosports! Obviously, I could do nothing with those.
I liked travel and photography. Maybe a career in cinematography? A quick afternoon trip to the Film and Television Institute in Poona put me off cinema permanently. Here was an institute in crisis and by the looks of it (I just spoke to the guard and what he told me was enough!!) nothing was going to change.
On my way back from FTII, I decided to come through the university to see what they offered in PG programs. And then I saw this board "CDAC ACTS" and that was that! CDAC was our super computer heros - the guys who developed Param, India's first super computers. And ACTS was they computer school. I knew I din't have to travel up till the University office for a program brochure.
My new career would be in computers. But what in computers? I decided to do the six-month program at ACTS and then determine a course of action. I was 34 years of age and already had two small school going kids. And I knew that I wouldn't be seeing them for a very long time, at least until I knew where I was headed.
The six-months at ACTS was revealing. It was a brave new world of technology - old technology, new technology, technology against competing technologies, playoff between standards and protocols. It was not always the best that succeeded. There was always this closing window for adoption. If you made the window, your technology succeeded. If not, it fell by the wayside.
It was then I realized something about my new line of work. You could never afford to sit still. The rate of obsolescence in technology was phenomenal. We learnt to keep pace. You always had three skills - one threshold skill to get your foot in the door, a differentiating skill that made you employable and an emerging skill that ensured you had a future!
Selecting which of the technologies to go with was also a challenge, as it was never clear which would succeed and which would fall by the way. So I decided to take the easy was and specialize in an ERP. And it was Baan (Triton in those early days) that dropped into my lap, not for any reason other than the fact that I had just finished implementing one of the earliest ERP implementations in India and we were, as the hiring folks said, "hot"! Baan was, of course, nothing like the Avalon I had implemented in a large Automotive conglomerate.
ERP was an express highway to learning business skills. As consultants, you always worked with the best people in each firm within an industry. It was relentless and fast-paced learning for several years as we figured the innards of the enterprise - Strategy, Planning, Logistics, Manufacturing, Scheduling, Inventory Control, Warehousing, Vendor Management, Supply Chain, Accounting, Financial Reporting, Compliance.
Every company was different. Every industry had its own language. Electronics, Automotive, Packaging, Metals, Mining, Oil & Gas, Telecommunications, even Government. New versions of the base software rolled out even as we were wrapping up "high priority" customization's of a previous version. There was no time even for familiarization training, such was the pace. We were always either at a client site or flying to another one. Crossing multiple time zones became a norm.
Family came on weekends. We saw our kids grow, horizontally, as it was late by the time we got in on Friday, and early, when we set out Monday mornings. Living in Singapore meant, every flight or boat out was international.
I liked travel and photography. Maybe a career in cinematography? A quick afternoon trip to the Film and Television Institute in Poona put me off cinema permanently. Here was an institute in crisis and by the looks of it (I just spoke to the guard and what he told me was enough!!) nothing was going to change.
On my way back from FTII, I decided to come through the university to see what they offered in PG programs. And then I saw this board "CDAC ACTS" and that was that! CDAC was our super computer heros - the guys who developed Param, India's first super computers. And ACTS was they computer school. I knew I din't have to travel up till the University office for a program brochure.
My new career would be in computers. But what in computers? I decided to do the six-month program at ACTS and then determine a course of action. I was 34 years of age and already had two small school going kids. And I knew that I wouldn't be seeing them for a very long time, at least until I knew where I was headed.
The six-months at ACTS was revealing. It was a brave new world of technology - old technology, new technology, technology against competing technologies, playoff between standards and protocols. It was not always the best that succeeded. There was always this closing window for adoption. If you made the window, your technology succeeded. If not, it fell by the wayside.
It was then I realized something about my new line of work. You could never afford to sit still. The rate of obsolescence in technology was phenomenal. We learnt to keep pace. You always had three skills - one threshold skill to get your foot in the door, a differentiating skill that made you employable and an emerging skill that ensured you had a future!
Selecting which of the technologies to go with was also a challenge, as it was never clear which would succeed and which would fall by the way. So I decided to take the easy was and specialize in an ERP. And it was Baan (Triton in those early days) that dropped into my lap, not for any reason other than the fact that I had just finished implementing one of the earliest ERP implementations in India and we were, as the hiring folks said, "hot"! Baan was, of course, nothing like the Avalon I had implemented in a large Automotive conglomerate.
ERP was an express highway to learning business skills. As consultants, you always worked with the best people in each firm within an industry. It was relentless and fast-paced learning for several years as we figured the innards of the enterprise - Strategy, Planning, Logistics, Manufacturing, Scheduling, Inventory Control, Warehousing, Vendor Management, Supply Chain, Accounting, Financial Reporting, Compliance.
Every company was different. Every industry had its own language. Electronics, Automotive, Packaging, Metals, Mining, Oil & Gas, Telecommunications, even Government. New versions of the base software rolled out even as we were wrapping up "high priority" customization's of a previous version. There was no time even for familiarization training, such was the pace. We were always either at a client site or flying to another one. Crossing multiple time zones became a norm.
Family came on weekends. We saw our kids grow, horizontally, as it was late by the time we got in on Friday, and early, when we set out Monday mornings. Living in Singapore meant, every flight or boat out was international.
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