Anirban Das CEO, Infogen Global

Given a chance, he would have been a music director. But, as of now, he has to be content as an entrepreneur, whose prime concern is providing IT (information technology) solutions in the project management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) areas. That’s Anirban Das, chief executive officer of Infogen Global — a software solutions provider.

Das was born in a middle-class Bengali family. His father was a commerce professor at Surendra Nath College, Calcutta. So the young Das found academics both easy and a focus area. “I did my schooling from Jadavpur Vidyapith and went on to complete my bachelors in electrical engineering from Jadavpur University. I was a good student throughout my academic career,” says Das.

As a child, however, he had aspired to be a music director and had never contemplated becoming an entrepreneur. “I even had a band of my own,” he remembers. “I used to play the synthesiser.” But once armed with a degree in electrical engineering, it seemed more logical to get hold of a decent, well-paying job than playing music.

Das began his career with MNC subsidiary Siemens India, where he was recruited as a trainee engineer. After that he moved on to Larsen & Toubro, followed by Invensys. He then went to the UK in search of better career opportunities, only to realise that he would be better off being an entrepreneur. “Infogen Global started its journey in 2000 under managing director Anirban Ghosh with 18 promising IT professionals,” says Das. “Today, it is a family of 235 software and engineering specialists. It is primed for major growth. The company has been able to scale new heights due to team effort.”

Das seems to have imbibed a lot of experience and knowledge from the companies he had worked for before becoming an entrepreneur. Apart from those mentioned earlier, he had stints with Lauer of Germany, iCube Solutions, Elecom Software and BrandSoft Solutions. “From each assignment, I learnt that dedication, patience and job satisfaction helps one move ahead,” says he.

Ever since the inception of Infogen, Das has played a pivotal role in the growth of the company. His ability to develop and deploy strategic vision, establish and nurture strong relationships with clients and business partners, and build talented teams makes him an integral part of the company. It is his strengths in channel management and his understanding of the underlying technology and innovation trends that has made the company a leading integrator in the SAP enterprise market.

He feels that attrition of employees is a major concern for the IT industry. Today, young engineers have multiple opportunities and managements have to work overtime to stop them jumping ship. “In this regard Calcutta is relatively better placed. Ours is a people-centric industry and eastern India has its pool of educated manpower which prefers to work in Calcutta,” he says. However, he feels that the quality of IT professionals is not that good. “Here the professionals don’t have the killer instinct. They need to focus on expanding their educational base, both in terms of numbers and quality.”

Being innovative right from his childhood, Das has a creative bent of mind. “I am an ardent learner,” he says. “I always keep myself updated about new technologies. This helps in the long run.”

About his future plans, he talks about the strides he would like his company to take. “As we are on an aggressive hiring drive, I expect to recruit another 150-200 IT professionals,” he says. “We have a plan to set up our own animation studio in Calcutta. We have been getting lots of business opportunities from different corners of the world.”

So where would he have been if not an entrepreneur? “I love music so I guess the music industry is where I would have been.” Now that his company is sailing smoothly, Das is all set to make a debut in music. “I have composed the music for a Hindi serial that is yet to be aired and this year I plan to release a Puja album too,” he says.

Based on a conversation with Shabina Akhtar in Calcutta