B.S. Shantharaju, CEO, Indus Towers, has been guided throughout his career by the need to make a contribution to the lives of others…

BS. Shantharaju’s personal motto in life is “to make a substantial difference to the lives of other people”, and that is why he chose to work in the infrastructure sector. When he was handling the Delhi airport project after privatisation (he was then CEO of Delhi International Airports Limited), his task was to bring in a customer focus, build a strong team that could give a distinct identity to the airport, and improve the whole passenger experience.

“That is the kind of assignment where you can have an impact on people because it is path-breaking. We took the airport, which was one of the worst in the country, to among the top 10 in the world – the fourth best to be precise,” he says.

He is pleased to be in a similarly path-breaking job as CEO of Indus Towers, which, he says, is estimated to handle two out of three mobile calls. “It makes a big difference to the lives of ordinary citizens,” he notes.

Though the company is only three and a half years old, it is today the world’s largest telecom tower company. Shantharaju’s top priorities are building a new business pipeline and running a training programme to upgrade the skills of over 10,000 people out of an estimated 30,000 people the company employs through its service vendors so as to institutionalise the Indus way of running a world-class infrastructure business.

“Indus has a major role to play in providing continuous mobile telecommunication facilities to ordinary citizens. Amongst all the services, mobile telephony is the least interrupted service our citizens have experienced,” he says.

The company measures six-sigma uptime for a tower on a monthly basis, which is a very stringent standard. Each tower has 43,200 minutes a month of 30 days. A tower qualifies for six-sigma uptime if it has provided uninterrupted services for 43,199 minutes and 54 seconds. He says with satisfaction that Indus provided six-sigma uptime for 91 per cent of its towers, up from 81 per cent around 18 months earlier. “This is a big achievement in an environment where the power supply is either not available or continuously interrupted,” he says.

Indus has played a major role in the speed of delivery of services. When India embraced 3G technology, it took up the ambitious task of hosting 3G equipment on 18,000 sites in less than six months. Today, it hosts more than 24,000 base stations servicing 3G, almost 80 per cent of the total installed in the country. Due to its scale and organisational strength, the company is expected to play a leading role in the industry.

The company has three “anchor” customers – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular – all three market leaders, in the same order, by revenue share. Indus has given more than 100,000 of its towers on an open-sharing basis for all telecom operators and Shantharaju says the company enjoys the confidence of all the operators.

One area where development is still needed, however, is in setting up towers in rural and remote areas, and managing tower sites in these areas. Since the company engages with more than 30,000 people for its tower management – for operations, fuel filling, and preventive and corrective maintenance – in a highly distributed geographical environment, ensuring uptime under such conditions coupled with the poor quality of power is quite a challenge.

“Consolidation is evident on the opco (operating company) side. Six to seven players will emerge, lending stability to the industry. Practically, consolidation has already happened in the marketplace. More than 90 per cent of the revenue market share is enjoyed by four to five players in each circle,” he points out, adding that he expects the returns per month to improve and the market followers to be more aggressive in rolling out infrastructure to catch up with the leaders.

Shantharaju, who took over this position in 2009, was earlier CEO of Delhi International Airports Limited and before that, managing director of Gujarat Gas Company Limited, India’s largest city gas distribution company. He spent a large part of his career with SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals as finance director of India and country head of Bangladesh.

Asked which of his personal attributes stand out, he replies that he is a “simple and authentic” person. “I am straight and trust people for what they are, not for what I want. I am highly focused in my approach to key issues facing the business. Being straight, I may come across as blunt – though I am humane. I realise that this has hurt people at times,” he says. Flaws? “I do become upset when things move slowly, leading to some tension.”

A critical element of his job is performing rigorous reviews and setting the right organisational priorities. He spends 70 per cent of his time reviewing transformational initiatives and the remaining 30 per cent on enhancement projects and “pain remover” projects. He calls his management team “exceptional” for their rich experience, knowledge, ability to maximise operational efficiencies, and talent for finding new ways to lead Indus Towers towards a better future.

Describing a typical workday, he says, “My first meeting of the day is usually business-critical or one that deals with strategic issues. This could be anything from new business opportunities to people-centric initiatives. I devote the afternoon to reviews, meeting customers or resolving their issues. The last meeting of the day is usually a relationship call.”

A qualified accountant and an MBA from the International Management Institute, Shantharaju is an alumnus of the London Business School. He grew up in Bangalore when the city was beautiful and cool, even in the summers. He used to walk to college, about an hour one way, to save the bus ticket money. On the long walk home, he used to mentally revise the day’s classroom teachings.

From childhood onwards, his mother has been his source of inspiration. Uneducated herself, she made sure that he focused on his studies. When he failed in high school, she created an “emotional environment in which I promised to study well”. Her contribution to his development – or rather just one of them – was her focus on values rather than the pursuit of material things. “It has stood the test of time and made me grow in life,” he observes.

Shantharaju was a dreamer, always conjuring up big roles and big challenges, though not necessarily big job titles. His biggest challenge was when he became chief financial officer at the age of 33 for a large listed multinational. After that, his ambition was to head a large business.

“My personal transformation happened in 1996 when I wrote the statement of purpose of my life. It was: I will make a positive difference to the lives of people in society and around me. From then on, I accepted a job only when I felt that it would allow me to make a positive contribution to others,” he says.