“We are a single-circle player and have to compete with pan-Indian brands,” points out Mahadevan. “The main challenge before us is growing revenues and expanding our subscriber base in a saturated market like Mumbai.”

Mahadevan has 25 years of experience in areas such as planning, launching and implementing various products and services, developing operating procedures and promoting the use of best practices in the telecom and FMCG spaces. He began his career as a senior marketing officer with Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Limited. Thereafter, he moved to Jagatjit Industries Limited and worked in its food division.

His stint in the telecom sector began with Aircel, where he was assistant general manager, customer care, Rest of Tamil Nadu circle. He then moved to Reliance Infocomm as marketing head for wireless devices in Tamil Nadu and then to TTSL as COO, Kerala circle, and head of the regional retail business. “I oversaw the Kerala circle’s business operations, which included the sales and revenue collection functions. Maintaining EBITDA margins and achieving service quality targets for all our businesses were key priorities,” says Mahadevan.

He joined Loop Mobile in 2008. In his current position, he is responsible for the sales, marketing, brand and customer service delivery functions in the Mumbai circle, and handles a team of over 200 employees. While he considers his stint at Jagatjit Industries among his most memorable, he says, working at Loop has been special: “My job has provided me with a number of opportunities to ‘learn-plan-do-succeed’ and ‘fail-learn’.”

Going forward, he says his targets are to create top-of-the-line infrastructure, leverage new streams of business and ensure customer stickiness. On future telecom trends, Mahadevan says that the sector is likely to witness a qualitative change. He feels that all internet-based activities, such as social networking, email and e-commerce transactions, will take place via the mobile phone. “A voice-responsive operating system will change the user’s experience and new revenue streams such as mobile advertising will present themselves,” he says.