An interview with Mr. Pichappan Pethachi, Executive Director, Verizon Data Services India, Chennai.

What does Verizon stand for?

We coined the word Verizon from the Latin term 'veritas', which means truth and connotes certainty and reliability, and 'horizon' that signifies forward thinking, and limitless possibilities. It is a name we believe, reflects a new kind of company that is a global voice in data and Internet communications.

How was Verizon established?

Verizon Communications Inc was formed last year by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. It combines the strengths of both companies and offers a single source solution for residential, business and government customers for local, long distance, wireless, Internet, paging and directory services.

Verizon Data Services India is a 100%-owned subsidiary of Verizon Data Services USA Inc, which is the information technology division of Verizon Communications.

Tell us something about Verizon Data Services India.

Verizon Data Services India is a dedicated development center for Verizon Communications. It is the only development center built by Verizon outside the US. India was chosen as the preferred development center because of the technical strengths and quality of resources.

This development center will be an extension of the development environment in the US using state-of- the- art tools and techniques. Currently, activation, inventory, provisioning, work force despatch and engineering design systems for Verizon OSS infrastructure is being developed and maintained by VDS India.

As you are a very new company on the Indian scene, how did you recruit the kind of people you needed?

We went about hiring in a very systematic way. We started by advertising in national dailies like The Hindu but we never hired en masse. We were sure that we wanted to establish our operations and get stabilised first. After we had hired the first few people and they saw our working environment and the facilities provided, word spread around and candidates automatically started applying.

We also co-sponsored the Information Technology exhibition organised by CII by which we got tremendous exposure to public, business and the student community. Moreover, in the recent terrorist attack, Verizon's role in restoring the communication infrastructure in Manhattan and Washington DC and contribution of free wireless telephones to the rescue workers was widely noticed by the Indian community. By these ways we were able to get the Verizon name out in the market .We want to work our way slowly and steadily in India.

As a Fortune Ten company how did you train your people to the Verizon way of working?

While hiring we were very particular that we wanted to take only experienced people and not fresh graduates. We hired the best professionals from the market who were well versed with in technical skills and inculcated the Verizon work culture in them.

We flew in a team of professionals from the US to help each and every team in all aspects. This helped us tremendously right from day one. Other than this, we incorporated all the policies and processes that are in practice in the US and adapted them to suit the Indian conditions.

With offices in India and US how is your internal communication process structured?

From the day a candidate joins Verizon he has access to the Intranet, his login and password are kept ready for him. From the Intranet he can get to know about company policies, all the projects that we are working on, their details etc. We have a PC to PC video conferencing facility, which helps the professionals to interact irrespective of where they are working.

We also have a chat tool called "jabber" by which professionals can log on and chat with their counterparts even from their residence. We also have traditional means of communication like the weekly conference call. With all these facilities a person who enters Verizon is integrated into the system soon.

How rigid or flexible is your hierarchy?

We are neither a very rigid organisation nor very flat, rather somewhere in between. If you look at the organisational layers in the US, we have just three tiers. I am completely in charge of operations in Chennai and I report to the Senior Vice-President who reports to the CIO. The CIO can directly contact me for any clarifications.

Apart from technical expertise what do you look for in candidates you recruit?

Besides technical skills we find out how much of business knowledge the candidate has in the field of telecommunications. We look for leadership skills. It is like a triangle with technical skills, business knowledge and leadership skills at each corner and together they form the attributes we look for in a candidate.

There are some young professionals in Verizon who hold prominent positions, there is no age bar in the company and your career growth depends purely on your performance.

MALINI SURYANARAYANAN

maalini.mds@careercommunity.co.in