We are the largest IT employer of Kerala: UST Global

By Manishika Miglani

In a career span of 23 years, Vivek Varshney, VP & Head, Telecom, UST Global, has witnessed various phases of telecom and the transformation it went through. He talks about the road ahead for UST Global, the M2M growth in India and the key highlights of his career in an interview with Voice&Data. Some excerpts:

 Voice&Data: Can you give an overview of UST Global and its journey so far?

Vivek Varshney: UST Global is an IT Services and Solutions Provider which started its operations in 1999 simultaneously from Trivandrum and Los Angeles. Our company has domain expertise in healthcare, insurance, retail, financial services, transportation & logistics, manufacturing & automotive, telecommunications and media & entertainment.

During the 90s, our founder wanted to generate employment for the people of Kerala, as most of them either had to go to Bangalore that had emerged as the Silicon Valley of Asia, or they had to move out of the country. Today, we are the largest IT employer in Kerala with a workforce of 9000+ people. Globally, we employ 17,000 people. Apart from Trivandrum, we have presence in Cochin, Chennai, Bangalore and Gurgaon. In Gurgaon, we have set up Center for Excellence for telecom sector along with catering to the government sectors.

 Voice&Data: Tell us something about your campus in Kerala?

Vivek Varshney: We have our biggest campus in Techno Park, Kerala. It is spread over 36 acres and will see four phases of development.

 Voice&Data: Can you elaborate on the various solutions UST Global provides?

Vivek Varshney: We have a range of solutions including Smart-Home Solutions dealing with security and remote surveillance. We have also tied up with some companies which are pioneers offering similar solutions in Europe. Then, we also offer M-Health solutions wherein we are working with the government agencies to get calibration certification for the devices required. In the US, we are working with one of the top service providers for providing solutions to their enterprise customers. We also have a solution for tracking school children where we use the technologies of M2M and Point-of-Presence.

We work with Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies. Of these, there are a many big telcos, equipment providers and OEMs.

Voice&Data: What work does your company undertake with Telecom Service Providers?

Vivek Varshney: We provide value-based delivery to the operators to make an impact in their top-line as well as their bottom-line. Our company has been involved in the development of long term strategy for service providers for investment in technology solutions for launching innovative solutions and services.

We have a unique concept of the “client university” to make sure that resources are trained enough while handling the projects of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies.

Also, telecom is a vast area. We are working on OSS/BSS, we have as well moved to the emerging areas of telecom such as cloud services and M2M for which we have a few niche solutions.

Voice&Data: What are the factors driving the M2M growth in India.

Vivek Varshney: India is getting into the right direction in the M2M domain. Although M2M has been in existence since many years but there was a lack of a much-needed structure. But now, the government is working on making a Telecom-M2M roadmap and providing its support.

I foresee exponential growth in M2M. PresentIy, there are 7 billion people in the world and if they have five devices each, then one can expect 35 billion devices. The basic focus of M2M is to make people’s life easy in every sphere of life. Be it home-automation, fleet-tracking and security. Also, the technology does not intend to reduce manpower in any sense.

The government is coming up with projects of smart-city, intelligent transportation, smart energy grid signifying the M2M growth in India. If implemented correctly, M2M is going to change people’s lives in terms of making them more productive.

 Voice&Data: In what time frame do you see such growth taking place in the M2M sector?

Vivek Varshney: For M2M, we need a complete eco-system which is gradually coming up. The service providers are planning to implement the entire M2M platform. Then, one needs the applications on the M2M front and connectivity by the service providers. And with 4G on the anvil, it is going to change the game completely with its available bandwidth.

Our mobile revolution has reached the blazes. Data is the driving factor for service providers leaving voice behind. And to fuel this growth, we need more OTT applications like Skype, Viber and Whatsapp.

Voice&Data: What do have to say about the KYC norms in M2M?

Vivek Varshney: For the success of M2M, KYC norms have to be different. The government of India is framing policies in this regard, thereby becoming a catalyst.

 Voice&Data: What are your strategies when you approach the customers with your solutions given the competitive market?

Vivek Varshney: We do not believe in competing. We believe in catering to the needs of the customers by our unique value-proposition strategies. Hence, we are responsive to the customers’ requirements. We strongly believe in generating business by delivering what the customers need. We kill the competition when we come up with our niche solutions. We always work as a partner with our clients instead of acting as a vendor. This helps us to have a connection with our clients in the long run.

Voice&Data: What key projects have you undertaken in the span of your career so far?

Vivek Varshney: In telecom, I have been a part of important projects with BSNL, Ukrainian Mobile Communications, Zimbabwe Telecom, MTNL (Dolphin project), Optus and Telstra in Australia among others.