Learning the network before recommending its next shape

Mandate

Develop investment, ownership and service-scope proposals around a supportable operating business

Outcomes

• Recommended declining an acquisition with unresolved consent dependencies
• Developed a limited customer-owned spare-stock model
• Compared primary growth capital with a different full-sale proposal

Decisions in context

I became CSO in February 2021, leading fourteen colleagues through three leads with ₹4.9 crore annual function expense under Meera. Nikhil leads finance. Tevqoshi now employs 440 people and serves 64 hospital customers, with ₹92 crore revenue and ₹8.1 crore operating profit for FY 2026. I develop proposals with operating, technical and finance colleagues, while approvals remain with the appropriate authorities. Recent work includes acquisition permissions, customer-owned spare stock, a narrowed device-service agreement and the 2025 primary-equity round. The founder family now holds 60% and the regional industrial investor 40%. I hold no direct shares or statutory seat. My responsibility is to explain the business a proposed agreement would create, including the conditions and obligations that a headline price or scope can conceal.

Reason for the move

Current executive strategy role; no statutory directorship

Mandate

Evaluate network investments and growth opportunities with their operating conditions

Outcomes

• Expanded planning responsibility into investment proposals
• Owned the assumptions behind an unsuccessful remote-workshop expansion
• Supported closure and customer-agreed transitions after eighteen months

Decisions in context

In April 2013 I became head of corporate development, leading eleven colleagues through two leads with ₹3.6 crore annual expense under the CEO. The company employed 310 people and recorded ₹63 crore revenue for FY 2014. In 2018 I supported a remote workshop based on 250 monthly jobs; the first six months averaged ninety. We closed after eighteen months and retained ₹62 lakh of unrecovered startup cost, with customer-agreed transfers of responsibilities. I had not examined the travel pattern and work mix closely enough before endorsing the proposal. The experience changed how I assessed a network investment and how I explained my own responsibility when a model failed. The later transition was necessary work, but it did not make the original expansion successful or erase its cost.

Reason for the move

Appointed CSO in February 2021

Mandate

Connect customer opportunities with the service scope the business could support

Outcomes

• Moved into specialist hospital-equipment services
• Examined permissions, parts and customer arrangements in planning
• Developed proposals that connected opportunity with operating responsibility

Decisions in context

I joined Tevqoshi in July 2005. The company employed 180 people and recorded ₹31 crore revenue for FY 2006. I led eight planning colleagues through two leads with ₹2.3 crore annual expense, reporting to the CEO. The move required me to understand a specialist service business in which customer demand did not settle technical scope or permissions. I worked with colleagues responsible for those questions and brought their findings into the planning account. My role was to connect an opportunity with the conditions under which the enterprise could responsibly support it. I did not authorise every repair or decide when equipment could return to clinical use. This period broadened my commercial judgement and prepared me to examine network investments rather than only the allocation of work within an existing footprint.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head of corporate development in April 2013

Mandate

Examine how location, travel and work mix affected network support

Outcomes

• Took responsibility for a planning team and function expense
• Developed a practical account of service-network dependencies
• Worked with operations on the limits of a geographical footprint

Decisions in context

I became network planning manager in May 1997. Qerthavi had 170 employees and ₹28 crore revenue for FY 1998. I led nine colleagues through two leads with ₹1.8 crore annual expense under the operations director. The work showed me that a service location could look well placed while the travel pattern, available people or mix of activity made support more difficult than the map suggested. I learned to examine those conditions with operating colleagues and to distinguish planning responsibility from technical authority. Managing others also required me to explain why an attractive volume estimate did not answer every question about the work. The experience gave me a foundation for later business planning, although the remote-workshop mistake would show that knowing a principle did not ensure I applied it consistently.

Reason for the move

Joined a specialist workshop enterprise in July 2005

Mandate

Support the organisation of service activity with a clear account of work requirements

Outcomes

• Applied electronics study to the context of service operations
• Learned the distinction between a job count and its work pattern
• Built planning experience without assuming technical release authority

Decisions in context

I joined Qerthavi in July 1989 after completing my electronics degree in June. The company employed 55 people and recorded ₹6.4 crore revenue for FY ending March 1990. I worked in a six-person planning group under the service planning manager, without direct reports or delegated spending authority. The work involved organising service activity and understanding the conditions around it, rather than exercising independent authority to repair every device or release equipment for use. I learned from colleagues who knew the practical difference between two jobs carrying the same broad description. Travel, support and the right expertise mattered alongside the count. That early attention to the work behind the number became important as I later took responsibility for people, planning expenditure and the wider service network.

Reason for the move

Promoted to network planning manager in May 1997