Guest Speak of this Month: Subroto Das, Director, India & South Asia, WD

Subroto Das Director, India & South Asia WD 

Please talk about your accomplishments in the industry that would sustain your interest in the long haul? 

Since the time I joined the technology industry in 1988, it has been an interesting journey for me; its fast pace, dynamism, complexities involved in solving a business problem and the sheer diversity of people and processes have always managed to sustain my interest in this particular field. Prior to WD, I worked with Wipro, Cisco, HP, EMC and IBM and saw a rapid growth across all the companies. My job roles took me to various places in Asia Pacific like Japan, Australia and of course, India. I have been a part of the storage industry since 2001 and the tremendous potential for growth in this space, especially in consumer storage, makes it very exciting.

Can you reveal some of your success stories from the past?

When working in countries like China, Australia and Korea, I was instrumental in closing quite a few big ticket deals that required complex and strategic solutions. One of my major successes while I was at EMC was the UIDAI (Aadhar Project). I had the opportunity to liaise with some fantastic teams across different regions of Asia Pacific.

What are the major bottlenecks in the Industry when you design the business eco system?

In my opinion, the eco-system focuses less on Attach & Refresh (Install Base) initiatives. There is a general belief that it is easier to sell more gear to an existing customer than gain a new customer. There is scope for enhancement in enterprise offerings through SIs to provide better solutions to customers’ business issues. Similarly, the resellers could offer more value-addition to their customers in the distribution sphere.

Where do you see yourself three years from now?

Three years from now, I see myself In WD. I visualise WD to be synonymous with storage like Dettol is with antiseptics, Xerox is with photocopy machines and Google is with web searching!

Besides IT, what are your other areas of interests?

I follow Tennis a lot. Roger Federer is my favourite player. I love to indulge in the sport over the weekends and do manage to take out time to fire some aces. I love travelling and my job requires me to travel quite a bit. If given an opportunity, I would love to go for deep sea fishing or angling! That would be quite a thrilling experience!