Anil Gupta brings to the table around 20 years of work experience. Over the years, he has worked across industries such as process, manufacturing and services, and across functions like maintenance, supply chain, operations and general management. In the past, he has worked with organisations like the AV Birla Group, the KK Birla Group, Vedanta and Bharti Airtel.
At present, Gupta is responsible for the energy division of Indus Towers in his role as vice-president. His key responsibilities include running operations at optimum energy costs, reducing energy costs by improving operational efficiency and deploying energy-saving initiatives at tower sites. According to him, the telecom industry is witnessing interesting developments, with data growth outpacing voice growth. In addition, with the deeper penetration of 3G, 4G and long term evolution networks, the direct current load per site is increasing, as is the energy requirement.
Gupta outlines the challenges at hand, stating, “Energy is a major cost item in the financials of all our customers. It is, therefore, an area of focus and there are customer expectations for us to deliver year-on-year efficiency. Distributed assets and multiple-point energy consumption pose a challenge in implementing effective checks and controls on energy consumption.”
Of all his assignments, Gupta selects the Indus Green City project as his most memorable so far. Under this project, the company has envisioned ending diesel usage at tower sites by using alternative sources of energy, coupled with various technological solutions. The company launched Ahmedabad as the First Indus Green City, followed by seven other such green cities. It went on to win the GSMA Mobile Award for the project in 2013, at the World Mobile Conference, Barcelona.
Gupta counts his people management skills and ability to be analytical as his major strengths. However, he feels he needs to work on being patient. Commenting on his leadership style, Gupta says, “I strongly believe in teamwork and empowering the team to complete the task at hand. I think that a team should be given adequate freedom to experiment with innovative ideas without the fear of failure. As a manager, it is important to know at which point one’s intervention and support is needed.”
Gupta likes to unwind by watching movies and reading. He also enjoys spending time with his wife and counts his daughters as his greatest stress-busters.