R R Dasgupta

Managing Partner – Strategy & Community at Aikon Labs
Aikon is focused on building a community centric innovation network. Our Vision is to create a unique and successful business model that helps transform Ideas into Software using a Community that “Seeds Ideas with Efforts”. The business will leverage User/Consumer driven Product Innovation, Community Efforts and Collaboration – the fundamentals of Web2.0 & Product 2.0 – enabled on a unique Platform. The key to our vision has been the conviction that there is a dire need for Angel and Seed investments, more so outside the US, to help software technology start-ups to progress from a bootstrapping mode and successfully achieve the requisite milestones to launch into the growth mode. For every idea that reaches a potential Angel or Seed investor there is multiple times that many ideas that never reach them, let alone get invested in. Eventually those ideas run out of resources and die.

As a Founder Team member my role is to articulate and execute our overall strategy. This includes defining the strategic direction, creating the community design guidelines, building the community and strategic strategic partnering


Group Head – GSO : Tech Mahindra Limited
I headed the GSO (Geography Support Operations) function for Asia Pacific & MEA at Tech Mahindra. My work involved working key customers in the geography to provide IT enabled solutions in the areas of Billing, CRM, OSS, Off-Shoring and Program Management.

Associate Vice President – Zensar Technologies Limited
I led Zensar’s Business Consulting and ECM Practices and was responsible for its global operations in 18 countries which included P&L responsibility, Practice growth and Competency Development initiatives. Zensar was acknowledged as one of “The Top 100 companies in Knowledge Management” by KMWorld for architecting some of the most innovative KM solutions.

Principal e-Business Strategy & Organizaation Change : IBM Business Consulting
As the Principal, I was responsible for Customer Relationship, Business growth and Program Management across multiple Projects. Articulated a new business strategy for Transportation & Logistics Services for a SUV major, led one of the most significant CRM Transformation Projects and was a key member for one of the most complex e-Business Transformation projects for a Chemicals an Petroleum major.

AVP – Centre for Business Transformation: Aptech Limited
As Leader of the Centre for Business Transformation at Aptech I was responsible for its growth. The Centre focused on value added consulting & advisory services in the areas of Business Process Reengineering and TQM. Was instrumental in creating a base of over 350 customers and its successful foray into 6 countries in the U.A.E.

Employer:	Two of India's I.T. majors and IBM Global Services
Position:	I.T. industry experience
Description:	RR's work has taken him across several industries in terms of direct employment, training and consulting. He has spent over 17 years in the I.T. industry working for two of India's I.T. majors and IBM Global Services. He has extensive exposure to Sales, Operations, Profit centre and People Management. His training and consulting experience spans across Automotive, High Tech Manufacturing, Defense, Aerospace, Petroleum & Chemicals, to name a few.

Employer:	Tech Mahindra Limited (a JV between Mahindras and British Telecom)
Position:	Group Head – Asia Pacific & MEA

Employer:	Zensar Technologies (a Fujitsu company)
Position:	AVP for Business Consulting & ECCM Practice

Employer:	IBM’s Business Consulting Group
Position:	e- Business Strategy and Organization Change Consulting
Description:	At IBM he held the leadership position for e-Business Consulting in India and was responsible for several key wins. He was a key member for the Global Practice and identified as trainer for the e-Business competency in Asia Pacific.

Employer:	Mid-tier IT Services Company
Position:	Work experience
Description:	RR helped adapt Kaplan’s Scorecard to be a Performance Management Framework for a mid-tier IT Services Company cutting across its Geographies, Strategic Business Units, Practice & Delivery units down to the level of individual associates. This helped align the company’s people and process to its strategic goals. This has been institutionalized as the company’s Strategic Business Performance Framework.

Employer:	Global Telecom Equipment Manufacturer
Position:	Work experience
Description:	For a Global Telecom Equipment Manufacturer, RR mentored a team of consultants who helped the company map its current business processes in Japan as a precursor to the company’s roll-out of its Global Partner Support Processes. The engagement led to several recommendations for process improvements even before the Global Process Roll-out and received global acknowledgement for the quality of work done. For the same company, RR led a Business Process Optimization & Outsourcing in U.S.A. The Charter of the Global Sales Support organization of this company was to enable the Lead to Order Process through just in time competency development and readiness for its Sales and Technical Teams. Among the processes that were addressed were their Education Management Process (for registration and management of the Learning Programs), the Content Promotion and Management Process and the Reporting Process. The Business Processes were mapped and recommendations for improvement were made. Within this 9 week engagement two critical processes viz. Education Management and Content Promotion were outsourced to chosen off-shore vendors. For the Reporting Function a Centralized Reporting Services Bureau was formed leading to adoption of common practices and taxonomy for Reporting along with significant improvements in quality and speed, including rationalization of >750 Reports to less than 150. Even before optimization of the other two processes the company is looking at a quick win of 26% reduction in its costs for supporting those processes globally. He has worked with the Leadership Team of the company’s Collaborative Workspace Group (A Global Shared Services servicing Collaborative Communities within the enterprise). The charter of this engagement is to map and aggregate the Collaborative Processes serving over 45 communities across the enterprise value chain, set up standards and governance mechanisms and also rationalize the tools of collaboration around Open Text’s suite of Collaboration Products.

Employer:	Manufacturing major in Asia Pacific
Position:	Team leader
Description:	For a Manufacturing major in Asia Pacific, RR led a team which defined its e-Transformation Roadmap covering 3 of its SBUs. Competitive Benchmarking, Pain-point analysis and the Balanced Business Scorecard was used to define the enterprise e-business initiatives. This was supplemented by an Business Architecture and Governance Framework. This helped the customer to roll-out initiatives on the Sell-side which include collaborative solutions with partners and distributors, customer self-help, e-marketing, campaign management and e-sales.

Employer:	Sports Utility Vehicle major
Position:	Team leader
Description:	A Sports Utility Vehicle major in Asia wanted to increase their participation in the life cycle of its Utility Vehicles. RR led the team, which defined its Strategy and Roadmap for a Transport Solutions Program. This led to significant quick wins for the company in terms of additional sales of its utility vehicles and long-term lock in with these customers. This continues to be one of the most profitable lines of business for the company and was appreciated by a leading Management Guru. RR also led 2 (two) CRM Business Planning assignments for the same company which addressed its Automotive and Farm Equipment divisions, leading to significant competitive advantage for the company in the marketplace. He then played a key role in defining the E-Business Strategy and Management System for this company, which helped save substantial costs through optimization of their e-Business Initiative Portfolio and the resultant prioritization of the e-business initiatives.

Employer:	Multi-Utility companies
Position:	Work experience
Description:	RR led a KM Strategy and Deployment engagement with one of the world’s largest multi-Utility companies in U.K., where the focus was on deploying strategic KM initiatives within their Contract Solutions (Business Development) Group. In just 2 weeks he identified more than 20 such initiatives, many of which would bring immediate and dramatic returns on productivity and effectiveness. Scenario Planning was used to map KM propositions to its Business Strategy and then align the selected initiatives in order of priority. A high level IT Architecture for Knowledge Management was also delivered. A collaborative portal solution encompassing all internal and external stakeholders was built in less than 20 days, which resulted in significant reduction in their Bid Response time from an average of 10 days to 4 days – a saving of 60%. Zensar has continued its involvement with the company over several other Enterprise Collaboration & KM initiatives and has achieved the status of Sole Supplier for all KM related Solutions.

Employer:	Multi-brand Men’s' Garment manufacturer
Position:	Work experience
Description:	A leading multi-brand Men’s' Garment manufacturer in India required to re-engineer its Procurement Process to gain significant reductions in cycle times and cost. The outcome was a potential reduction in planned production inventory from 3 weeks (current) to less than 1 week (to be).

Employer:	Defense Aircraft manufacturer
Position:	Work experience
Description:	For a Defense Aircraft manufacturer, RR led an end-to-end Reengineering initiative for their Aircraft Overhaul Fulfillment Process leading to a reduction in Cycle time from 350 days (current) to less than 150 days (To Be) per aircraft, bringing in significant saving in overheads and also increase in their throughput and responsiveness. This factory in India is now indigenizing the most advanced fighter aircrafts in the world.