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There was no precedence when we started. Nobody had ever attempted to bring telecom operators and service providers in the South Asian region (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, often referred as SAARC countries) together to explore opportunities of mutual co-operation. Not many know that SAARC as a block is much bigger than China, a market that everybody in the world aspires to capture. No one needs to be told that SAARC is one sub-continent with so many commonalities that it is like one market. The objective of the CEO Conclave 2006 was to see if the strengths of individual SAARC members could be leveraged to the mutual advantage of the entire region.

While everyone got excited when we told them of our plan to hold a SAARC level telecom summit, there was also a lot of pessimism. Nothing will work among SAARC countries unless they resolve political differences among them. In fact some even said that SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-Operation) has proved to be one of the most ineffective regional co-operation association ever.

To make the conference more complete and meaningful, it was therefore decided that there must be participation of all stake-holders who would benefit from a SAARC level industry co-operation. Besides telcos, we invited large enterprise users of telecom services, many of whom will have their own experiences and expectations to share. Outsourcing, which is a big success story for India, was also on the agenda because other SAARC countries had to be demonstrated that services can be a strong point for not just India but everyone in the SAARC region, and these services can be in the area of telecom too. And yes, equipment vendors and other solution providers, were also invited to this conference to bring in their perspective of the SAARC opportunity.

While lots of ideas, many of which were wild and out of the box, came up in the three days of deliberations, the final outcome was very positive. All the participants agreed that a SAARC level co-operation is something that they would like to actively work upon. And, that the desire for this was not emotional, but came out of business sense. Clearly, the heart as well as the mind, of all stake-holders in telecom, supported this.

Therefore, there should be no reason that the next steps will not take place. A very senior level CII representative, made an announcement that it would put together a secretariat cell to work on SAARC level telecom co-operation and take it forward. All participants agreed that they would like to meet once again, maybe in the next 3 to 6 months time, draw out the action plan. From that small get-together of about 200 industry seniors, it was emerging that telecom was transforming SAARC from the 'most ineffective regional association' to a 'very exciting association'.

In the middle of all this, one also sensed that there was a bit of apprehension-especially among the operators from smaller SAARC nations. A few SAARC operators were not too sure if a relationship with India could be a win-win relationship. They felt it could end up as an invasion by Indian players. It is therefore important that Indian operators, vendors and other value added service providers allay these fears, and work out business cases where everybody gains. So many such possibilities were discussed. It is now a question of converting these dreams into reality.

ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in