Chief Strategy Officer / India
A narrower proposition can still deserve commitment
- An efficiency-project enterprise
- 165 employees
- ₹124 crore FY26 company revenue; selected assets at customer premises
- A defined planning remit
- 14 strategy colleagues
- Three leads and ₹4.2 crore FY2026–27 expense; proposal approval remains separate
- Market evidence to enterprise choice
- 32 years
- Five appointments from July 1994; CSO since January 2021
Decisions & consequences
01Replacing my additive portfolio claim with an examined package model
In 2022 I approved a portfolio paper that added twelve standalone efficiency estimates to 19.2 GWh a year. The individual studies were useful, but several measures affected the same underlying system. Their estimates did not establish the benefit of implementing the measures together. Hamid's technical review challenged the interpretation I had allowed the aggregate to carry. I had treated a list of opportunities as though it were already a coherent package.
The development sponsor wanted to preserve the larger account while the details were refined. It helped communicate the scale of the opportunity and supported continued customer discussion. I agreed that the individual ideas should not disappear, but the total was being used to justify a combined proposition. Keeping it as the headline would have allowed a known uncertainty to remain inside the investment argument. I withdrew that portfolio claim and asked the responsible technical, commercial and financial owners to examine the package under stated conditions.
The review cost ₹72 lakh. It produced a package model indicating 11.4 GWh a year under its assumptions. That was not an observed reduction in customer consumption, a verified financial saving or an emissions result. The revised model informed the decision to fund three bounded pilots with ₹2.6 crore approved expenditure. Technical owners retained the design and measurement work; finance and the authorised decision-makers retained investment and accounting responsibilities. My team organised the strategic choices and made the difference between the old sum and the revised proposition explicit.
The consequence was a smaller forecast and a more limited next commitment than the original paper implied. We retained the review expense and gave up some of the apparent scale that had helped the proposal gain attention. I did not describe the difference between the two estimates as a benefit recovered by strategy. It was a correction to the account, and my earlier approval belonged in that explanation. I would now ask how measures interact before presenting a portfolio total, so that the business considers the package it may actually deliver rather than a sum whose components were assessed separately.
Narrowing a seven-year service proposition around unresolved site tenure
The 2023 proposal involved twenty-one customer sites and a planned ₹8.4 crore commitment to a seven-year service proposition. Some customers operated from premises whose present tenure was shorter than the proposed service term. The commercial account assumed that renewal or consent would be resolved in the ordinary course. I asked whether that assumption was sufficiently established for the asset and service obligations we were considering.
The sponsor argued that these were continuing industrial businesses with reasons to remain in place. Requiring every arrangement to be resolved early could lose momentum and frustrate customers who regarded renewal as routine. That was a practical concern, but an expectation did not by itself establish the company's right or ability to continue the proposed service at each site. Legal, commercial and site owners reviewed the actual circumstances. Strategy did not pronounce on the effect of a particular lease or substitute a general rule for the terms involved.
Nine sites had arrangements compatible with the proposed term at review; twelve still needed resolution. The assessment cost ₹39 lakh. We selected a four-site pilot with ₹1.7 crore approved expenditure from the compatible group, subject to the remaining technical and commercial approvals. The other five compatible sites were not automatically committed, and the twelve unresolved sites did not become approved because the pilot proceeded. The narrower route let the company examine the service with a more credible site basis while retaining the questions outside its scope.
The ₹8.4 crore proposal and ₹1.7 crore pilot did not buy the same footprint, so I did not present their difference as a like-for-like saving. We gave up a wider initial rollout and accepted that some customers might choose another route while arrangements were examined. The result did not prove that shorter tenure always makes an efficiency project unsuitable. It showed that this service proposition required a site relationship that had not been established everywhere. I would put tenure and consent into the first portfolio account next time, before a long service term is treated as a simple continuation of access we have today.
Revising the resale assumption behind assets that could not all leave their sites
A 2024 portfolio model included ₹3.2 crore of potential gross equipment resale at the end of selected customer relationships. The company owned the relevant assets, but ownership had been treated as sufficient support for a practical exit. I asked the team to examine whether the units could be removed, what rights and obligations applied and whether an appropriate subsequent use had been considered. The model's final-year value depended on more than an entry in the asset register.
The portfolio sponsor favoured retaining the original assumption because the equipment had a useful technical life beyond the service term. That could make later value possible, but it did not establish recovery from a particular site or a buyer at the assumed amount. Technical, legal, operating and finance owners assessed the actual population and conditions. I wanted their findings inside the strategy account before the residual value was used to improve the apparent economics of new commitments. The review was not an instruction to remove equipment or interfere with customer operations.
Of eighty units examined, fifty-two were candidates for removal subject to the relevant rights and technical assessment. Twenty-eight were integrated into their sites. The ₹58 lakh review led to a revised potential gross resale assumption of ₹1.1 crore in the model. No sale had occurred. The figure was not net recovery after every removal and transaction cost, and it was not a conclusion about accounting carrying value or impairment. Those questions remained with the qualified owners and the actual facts of each relationship.
The revised model made some proposed commitments less attractive and required further work on the exit arrangements. I did not describe the ₹2.1 crore change in assumption as an actual cash loss or claim that every integrated unit had no value. The finding was that the earlier resale account was inadequately supported. We retained the review cost and the distinction between a candidate exit and an accomplished one. I would examine the end-of-term pathway alongside the initial installation proposal, so that a service model does not borrow credibility from an asset recovery it has not yet made practical.
Testing paid scoping after free assessments failed to establish an acquisition model
Our 2025 customer-development account highlighted ninety-six free preliminary assessments. They had introduced prospective customers to possible efficiency work and kept the technical team busy. At the review date, fourteen had led to paid follow-on engagements with ₹36 lakh in fees; eighty-two had not. The preliminary assessments themselves cost ₹84 lakh. I asked whether the activity total was helping us understand the commercial route or merely making the effort look substantial.
The commercial sponsor argued that trust takes time and that an early assessment can lead to work much later. I accepted that the review date did not establish the final lifetime value of every relationship. Free work could also reveal that a proposed project was unsuitable, which had value beyond immediate conversion. My concern was that we were committing continuing capacity without a sufficiently clear account of whom the route served, what it cost and which later commitments it realistically supported. The initial fee and expense figures were not a complete profit-and-loss account.
I recommended a bounded paid-scoping trial with six clients and ₹24 lakh approved expense. The trial defined a paid preliminary engagement before a larger project proposal, with commercial, technical and financial owners agreeing the actual terms and delivery scope. We did not assume that six participants represented the whole market or that customers unwilling to pay were necessarily poor prospects. The new route could exclude useful relationships and required us to explain the value of preliminary work more clearly.
The result was an experiment in the acquisition model, not a proved improvement in returns. The ninety-six assessments, fourteen follow-on engagements, eighty-two without progression and the ₹84 lakh cost remained in the historical account. The ₹36 lakh fees were not presented as profit or automatically netted against every cost of later work. I would define the decision and review population before launching a broad free-assessment campaign next time. Strategy should decide deliberately when unpaid work is an investment in learning or relationships, rather than allow the word free to conceal the resources the company is spending.