Vendors meet...

This customer being a golden customer (i selectively avoided 'one of the' :-) here ), and biggest ever license deal for us, this meeting is really a big deal. Yes, the customer is conductin a metting in CTS office for all the (Indian) vendors .. (yes that what we are called as..I was fuminng for the first time in Singapore for DHL..but I got used to this). Being a big company and knowing the size of the implementaion, the project has been given to lot of Vendors. We were one among them. Other are CTS - doing the bigger pie (legacy systems integrations), HCL - handling the testing part of the implementation (well the final go-ahead has to come from them), Infy - handling the ESB integration (they were not present in the meeting for some reason) and then the Cap Gemini - implementing Siebel.

Since CTS is handling most of the IT part the meeting was completely hosted by CTS in their office - Manuyatha park. 30 Kms far from my office. Meeting was planned at 9:00 AM - a video con and hence I have to sacrifise my breakfast and morning aerobics (not necessarily in same order !!). It felt like a trip going to the other end of bangalore.. When we crossed the old madras road, technically, we are 'entering' the bangalore city again - atleast that is what sign boards smiling at as.

Well there were not many signing or checking process in CTS thank god and the tech park was quite good. Just that I was keeping an eye on the people's language, since I was expecting if people is speaking a different language as I have travelled so much.As instructed we are in formal attire. I was in a light blue striped shirt and a kaki pant, brown shoe and Ramkumar (my manager) was with a blazer (I didn't realise he was having this untill I get in to this room). The facility was classy look and as if it is used only for such high profile meeting (cheap thinking..!! can't help..). It was well planned to the extent that even the seating locations for induvidual were pre-allocated. I was seated next to the this chap - Anand a guy with a thick mush from CTS chennai - should be a Lead or a buddign manager (I like his answer that "Well my team members discuss with him regularly for mapping..I discusses about plans.." OK buddy, you are a manager - not developer, my mistake). My a/c manager Avijit too was there in a blazer..well all-most all of them were in a formal balzer. Am I the odd one without the blazer. I looked around..but no some one interesting is there for my company too. WIll come to her soon.I was just carrying my jacket which looked almost like a formal blazer (thanks western stores - commercial street !!) from distance. I could have used it.

Within 15 mts most of the seats were full and soon the meeting started. I like the intro part of the meeting. There first slide has the following questions..

• Your Name.
• Your company and the group of this project.
• Your home town.
• Where you studied your high school. (Not your graduation, your high school. Interesting)
• Your association withe them [customer].
• And one personnel note that you like to share..

The organizer also explained why this little unorthodox way of introduction....it small world and you can find some connections with some one in the room. And surprisingly yes, it was correct. [Actually a week latter there was a sweet 'small world' incidence happened again..]

There were 4 people in the room from coimbatore - city my town was part of and place where I did my college.Majority of them from chennai (considering CTS hosting this meeting). Surprisingly only a limited people are from nort india and all are from Hcl Noida - that explains. Majority of the people know and speak Tamil. Some people really did share their personal note..were interesting..some choosed not to..but nobody forced. Amit from Hcl sitting next to me has recently got promoted - to Dad position.There was this nice gentle man Mr.Srikumar, from Madurai and now settled in Chennai. He mentioned his hometown as "the city of temples" Madurai. I dont know how many people noted this but I liked !!

Aastha - the only oasis for me (since I blv all the others are 'Knot to be disturbed'.)- is from Delhi.She learns / practises dancing and feels that is one of her best stress-busters. I seriously repent about my discontinuing of free-style dancing 6 months ago (in my second class though !!) She is the only & nice looking girl in the room and she is giving company for my not-wearing-blazer-team.But her costume - a sleelve less black shirt - is not revealing but good looking. There was an other lady - Smitha - the Testing team's manger (Astha's manager too), but probably a second place only after Miss. Sleeveless - hopefully Ms

Most of the Names of the CTS folks are derived either from Haran or Hari..Harikumar,Anandha Krishnan (Hari again), Ramkumar (totally 3 in number), Rangarajan..and so on.My god the whole "belt gang" is sitting here. Some of the take aways of the meetings..

• As expected the meeting ran out of time - so all the (useless) brain stromming session were stopped abruplty ,but for a better reason - lunch.
• No solid plans were attained - which is good - else some one has to note it.
• Always have a jacket in meeting room - you never know the AC's condition.
• Never sit infront a Aastha. Well I mean any Ms.sleeveless. [But here, I didn't choose it]
• We (product company)are always ahead of the other players and Services company has no clue what is going to happen.
• Never take a seat - or sandwiched - between two bigs during lunch. You will be never be able to have nice food (Courtesy : My manager Ram. I never make this mistake :-) He mentioned 'he didn't even have proper lunch').
• Videocon sometime doesn't mean real video conferencing..Here we were not seeing the other party..only the US folks were seeing us.
• Wait for a while before asking for a project change, you may work with some Ms.Slvls..but its too late for me.