CEO Insights Magazine

Over the years, telecommunications has evolved beyond the realm of human – human communication and now includes human – machine and machine – machine connectivity. This is a huge leap forward towards infinite connectivity and places immense pressure on networks in terms of capacity and robustness..Unlike other nations where 2G gave way to 3G and 3G saw its dusk with the dawn of 4G, India, due to spectrum limitations, has 2G, 3G & 4G technologies co-existing simultaneously. Networks further get complex & demanding with the multitude of radio and backhaul technologies, equipment hailing from different regimes and constantly increasing customer demands in terms of bandwidth, speed & connectivity. Such increasingly complex networks demand intelligent network engineering expertise & round the clock maintenance. This is precisely the space where Origin To Future (O2F) has built its forte. Created in 2006, this New Delhi headquartered company, in a short span of 12 years, has emerged as a leading player with its 500+ strong people team, catering to the entire ecosystem of telecom operators and OEMs, offering reliable, efficient and cost-effective telecom network engineering services.

An alumnus of IIT-Roorkee with an MBA from FMS, Delhi, Ravi Sondhi (MD & CEO) has been a part of the telecom sector’s rapid evolution since the early days of telecom liberalisation and has attained a 360-degree perspective of the entire telecom sector, be it across marketing and strategy, project management, procurement or operational transformation across India and overseas. Ravi, in an exclusive interview with CEO Insights, articulates O2F’s USPs,

overarching services and future aspirations. Here are the edited excerpts.

Kindly tell us about the unique factors that set O2F apart from the competition.
We take pride in the fact that we offer uncompromised reliability across the entire telecom spectrum – we have never left any project, activity or engagement mid-way –either due to our inability to complete it or our clients’ lack of trust or satisfaction in our delivery capabilities. This reliability is paramount in our sector. We are one of the very few cost effective service providers, who not just offer the entire gamut of network engineering services, but also cover the country’s entire geographic span with our PAN India presence. This helps us to provide our clients with a single point partner engagement yet pan country local service delivery, hallmarked by speed, efficiency and domain expertise.. From an employee perspective, our strong people connect enables us to offer them career growth, skill enhancement and technological enrichment on the job. We take immense pride in the fact that not only a large number of our substantial workforce have built their careers with us, a large number of O2F alumni have made their mark across the industry.

"We take pride in partnering our clients across planning, network build as well as managed services, thus being their all under one roofpartner"

Give us some insight on the way you run the organization.
Our clients and our people are the core of our existence. So on the one end we ensure that we remain aligned to meeting our clients’ business needs of speed, reliability, quality and cost effectiveness yet are able to build, maintain and nurture the skillpool required for the same.

Please throw some light on your services with emphasis on your flagship offering.
Telecom networks today require 24x7 engineering – be it expansion or maintenance – they are under round the clock evolution. All of this while ensuring constantly improving quality of service to the users. We take pride in partnering our clients across planning, network build as

well as managed services, thus being their all under one roof partner. With every alteration to the network comes the need for optimization services. Our Network Planning & Optimization services facilitate our clients to optimize their network’s coverage, speed& accessibility. We invisibly help improve user experience in terms of the quality of service that the it networks bring to them.

How are you updating yourself & your clients with the latest technologies & industry trends?
As we work with all OEMs and telecom operators, we constantly get invited to collaborate whenever they add new technologies to their networks, thus partaking in all their innovations. We pass on the benefits of our flexible delivery to our clients, which helps them improve their time to market, while rolling out new technologies.

What is the future roadmap charted out for O2F?
Our dynamic growth plans include increasing our geographic market share and enhancing our competitive position in all the lines that we presently operate in. However, we’d like to re-engineer our capacity in line with the industry’s technology roadmaps and become an active collaborator in evolving areas like Fibre to Home, bundled convergence and Network Operation & Maintenance, which bring in a new wave of opportunities for the future. We intend to play an active role in ushering in technological advancements like IOT & 5G. We also aim to partner in network tools and device innovations at cost optimal points.

Key Management:
Ravi Sondhi, Managing Director & CEO
An IIT-Roorkee and FMS. Delhi alumnus with over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry, he has actively contributed in some of the largest telecom rollouts that India has witnessed.

Offices: Noida (Headquarters), Hyderabad & Delaware (U.S.)

Offerings: Telecom Engineering Services including Network Rollout, Network Planning and Optimisation, FTTH and Operational Support Systems