"Nortel Networks Can Create a Unified Customer Experience that Goes Beyond Products and Services,"

Clarence J Chandran, chief operating officer (COO), Nortel Networks, reports directly to John Smith, CEO and president, Nortel Networks and is based in Boston. He has the global responsibility for Nortel Networks day-to-day operations with carrier, service provider and enterprise customers, including sales, marketing, R&D and customer care. He is also responsible for the integration of acquisitions, human resource and information systems. Chandran joined Nortel Networks in 1985 from Bell Canada where he started his telecommunications career in 1973. During his tenure at Northern Telecom Canada (1985-1990), he held key appointments including vice-president sales, service and engineering, for the DMS public switching product line; vice-president major accounts, and director of marketing for the Meridian business communications product line, among various other portfolios. Besides, Chandran was a member of the Tri-Lateral Task Force on higher education collaboration involving the US, Mexico and Canada in support of NAFTA.

During the first week of November, Chandran visited four cities in India to discuss the country's potential as an Internet driven economy, with top level government and business leaders and was the keynote speaker at Bangalore IT.com 2000. At the forum, Chandran shared Nortel Networks vision of building the high-performance Internet. "We are putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to India; we will invest in India's Internet infrastructure, grow its Internet workforce, stimulate technology exports, and allocate a percentage of network bandwidth to educational and social initiatives," stressed Chandran during his India visit. Clarence Chandran in converation with Voice & Data …

Our belief is that the "I" factor (I-Internet & India) is core to your strategy for future growth? Especially, when you have some of the key people at Nortel, like you, Anil Khatod, president, Global Internet Solutions, Service Provider & Carrier, and Kannankote Srikanth, president, Professional Services, at the helm of affairs. How do you view this?

We do believe that the Internet is at the very core of our strategy for growth in the future. We also believe firmly that the Internet will play a crucial role in the growth and development of India. There is not only a tremendous potential for Internet usage in India, but there is also the need for it. With key personnel like Anil and Srikanth at the helm of affairs, we are poised to realize the potential in the market to the fullest. India is a strategic country for Nortel Networks since it has the potential to lead Asia in terms of software exports and information technology talent. The spotlight is on India with all companies and countries competing for information technology talent and R&D Lab expansions. From our perspective, we see a tremendous potential in India in terms of people, ideas and networks. First, with the Indian population of 1 billion, if the capacity of education is increased, then the supply can significantly increase. Second, 40 percent of Silicon Valley start-ups are by Indians and if we can provide leading edge infrastructure and entrepreneurial environment, we can see similar success stories being created here in the new economy.

How is India seen by the technology community?

I see India as a tremendous base for intellectual capital, as well as a big market for products and services. In addition to the advantage in cost, the reason for this prioritization is that Indian society has always emphasized on education and academics, which has resulted in a highly skilled workforce. This has led to the global recognition that India provides some of the best technical talent. India has world class managerial talent and one of our strategies is to have a run of leaders from India. India should not be viewed as just another outsourcing base.

Competition from new data companies has seen the first big casualty in Richard McGinn of Lucent Technologies. What about Nortel? Would you be splitting Nortel too?

Nortel Networks is a successful and diverse company with multiple growth engines including strong businesses in optical, wireless, e-business and local Internet. The company has no plans to split itself up.

Global networks are converging-voice and data, wireless and wireline-forming consolidated, cost-effective, packet-based networks that are easier to manage, maintain and modernize. How would you view convergence, as Nortel along with Lucent have come from the telecom world, while others have come from the datacom world? How do you see yourself in competition against the Ciscos and Lucent?

Succession, Nortel Networks convergence solution, creates successful futures by delivering next-generation packet networks that combine the best of the Internet and today's telephone network. This advanced switching and routing architecture creates an economic engine by delivering today's high value telephony features and tomorrow's advanced multimedia services over a unified packet infrastructure, reducing capital expense and the cost of network ownership.

Nortel Networks vast experience in delivering carrier grade telephony on a global basis, clearly positions us to lead in the marketplace. Nortel also has extensive data experience. For example, Nortel was the first to market with ATM technology. We also gained substantial routing experience from the Bay Networks acquisition. Another leadership edge is Nortel's worldwide professional service organization, which delivers worldwide systems integration and implementation of packet networks. In fact, Cable & Wireless is quoted as saying this service capability is a major reason why we won the recent $1.4 billion deal.

Nortel Networks has an additional leadership advantage from our close working relationships with some of the world's largest carriers, including Cable & Wireless, AT&T, British Telecom and SBC. These relationships enable us to clearly understand customer business drivers and requirements.