The company’s expansion plans have 4 more datacenters in pipeline for completion in a couple of months further expanding its global presence outside India apart from the 24 locations in operation. Sridhar shares his expectations and plans for future, “Between Cloud and Datacenter, we are looking at almost USD 400 million of revenue in the next 4-5 years, and about 70 to 80 cloud bots operational. In India, we are looking at a 100 Megawatt datacenter infrastructure in the next 3-4 years. We are making two more datacenters operational and will have six by the end of the financial year.
More than 80 percent of the new business that the company is signing has been coming through Cloud4C Community Cloud.
Advice for Startups and Young India entrepreneurs
From his own experience as a young entrepreneur when founding CtrlS, Sridhar believes that a young business leader aspiring to make it big in any industry cannot get discouraged by risks and setbacks. “When I set about this business, everyone around was puzzled. They remarks went from ‘Why?’ to ‘It will not work’. I’m sure 90 percent of individuals starting a new business often hear things like this. My advice is that you should listen to what people have to say but don’t let any of it discourage you. Look at it from the perspective of knowing what can go wrong, working on it and thus perfecting the business. Let it be a step in preparation for the business.” Sridhar continues, “Every business has risks. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to face it, there’s no other way around it. Once you get in, expect big obstacles, swim through and overcome them.”
“Every business has risks. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to face it, there’s no other way around it.”
On Managing a Widespread Large Enterprise Business
For people who love their job, managing personal and professional lives is no big mountain to scale. As Sridhar states, It’s actually quite simple because I enjoy my job. Going to work every day is something I look forward to. The energy that work brings is a joy and something that keeps me going.” Sridhar maintains a strict Sunday evening to Friday evening work schedule. “Pretty much 95 percent of my productive time goes in work and thinking about work. I put in about 60 hours in this phase. Earlier, this time used to be more than 60 hours but now in the current phase of my life I’ve restricted it to that number. I spend time with friends and family on Saturday and Sunday, and get back to it Sunday evening.”
The innovative entrepreneur has an interesting ideology towards running his company where in he tries to divide his work time among different tasks to ensure he makes most out of his time from the business perspective for CtrlS, “What I try to do is cater only 30 percent of my productive time to management, and rest 70 percent time I wear the hat of a standalone executive. This time is leveraged to create innovation in our processes, products and services, and other vital roles like building important client relationships, tackling problem areas within the organization or planning finances and fund raising. These are various task I perform as a standalone executive, and probably that’s what keeps it going, else with just the management part, the week will be quite boring.”
Unwinding and de-cluttering the mind
Being in love with what he does, Sridhar generally doesn’t need a lot of regular unwinding. He shares, “I try to get some time in the gym, or the swimming pool or cycling. Doing some extreme physical activity relaxes my mind and clears the clutter and makes me feel more energetic.” For leisure and to satisfy the travel bug, the leisure destination closest to the entrepreneur’s heart are the majestic Himalayas which offer his the peace of mind which is missing in his regular business destinations of urban cities. “Personally, Himalayas are my favorite. Better than any other place in the world. I’ve been to the great mountains eight or nine times so far. The tranquility is surreal, the resorts are a stress buster and trekking around the landscape is something I absolutely love. This unwinds me and allows me to come back with fresh ideas. It also gives me a lot of time to introspect.”
Likes and Dislikes from an Entrepreneurial Perspective
Sridhar believes that dislikes are just inabilities to tackle situations from a business leader’s point of view. “Everything that’s not to my liking, I try to work upon it and figure out a way to address it. If you want to grow as a leader, there shouldn’t be anything that you can’t deal with. One should develop the skills and abilities to deal with any situation. That’s also my belief in life.”
By: Chitresh Sehgal csehgal@accentinfomedia.com
