I’m in Hyderbad now, its about one hour flight north of Bangalore, on the south-east portion of the country.
We should be here for two days but may cut it short depending on how one of our meetings go. The days are long, we show up, do meetings all day and go to dinner with the vendor. Indian companies don’t have a line between personal and professional lives and also, they are wining and dining us.
Hyderbad is much drier and warmer than Bangalore. Also, the city is laid out well, is more modern and traffic is much much better. I’m getting ahead of myself so let me bring you up to speed.
We fly from Bangalore to Hyderabad this morning on Sahara air,a domestic Indian carrier. The flight was only an hour but they gave us a full two course breakfast.
We landed in Hyderabad and we’re met by our host, Satyam a NYSE-listed software services company. They picked us up, had cars ready and we drove to their facility 12km outside Hyderabda, I still have no idea what that is in miles but it took awhile.
Cattle, bicycles, people walking and cars share a 30 foot wide strip of asphat/dirt that is called a road. One of the main reasons you need an amusement park is because driving is safe and orderly in the US. I sat in th front seat once and swallowed my tongue a couple of times as cars, people on bikes and autorishaws would pull out in front of us, from every angle and direction, and we would barely miss them. I took the back seat the rest of the time, I sleep better now.
You drive on a combination of roads and back roads and sometimes a road will turn into a dirt road for a 100 yards and then turn back into a road; you don’t drive too fast. India may be well ahead of Mexico on technology and science but at least Mexico has nicer roads.
We arrived at Satyam’s corp headquaters which is more like a resort, with guards, lush landscaping, animal perserves and low slung white buildings over 125 acres.
We were greeted by a half dozen corp VPs, sales folks and handlers. We made our greetings and made our way into the entry way where we were presented with flowers and a photographer; that’s right’s a photographer.
We had presentations all day and then went on a walk of the facility. It included a walk by the 9 hole executive golf course, the club house and thru the indian deer enclosure on the property. Instead of a corporate overview they showed us a movie set in a series of movies screens and finally a theater with 5 screens, fiber-optic lighting and leather chairs. It was a well coordinated commerical that was meant to convey the sophication of the company and impart on the viewer a feel good attitude about the company. I thought it was a bit over the top.
We meet with the chairman of the company, a very nice justure and had a nice 20 min conversation. We also had our picitures taken as we talked with the chairman, toured the facility and walked back to our meeting room. They had a tortoise enclosure but I didn’t get my picture taken with them, maybe next time.
We wrapped up our day and then headed back to the city. We had gone directly from the airport to Satyam so we still had to check-in and then we went to dinner. We got back to the hotel a little after midnight and passed out from exhaustion.
Observations
This place has better cell phone coverage than the US in my opinion, my Blackberry (my cellphone) sends/recieves email everywhere, in fact I am writing all of these emails on it. However, who knows how much its costing me.
India is a world of contrasts, thousand year-old temples and brand-new office parks, modern sophitication and ancient ways, vast wealth and dire poverty, all coohabitating a rapidly changing country.
I fly back to Bangalore tomorrow and I promise more pictures.