20 years of globe trotting Amsterdam to Mexico & in between - Trip 5 : Part 5 Mauritius - Final leg!!

Serious work

The next week saw some serious work related to completing the assessment. Multi model assessment using ISO standards and CMM meant we had to do some careful mapping to avoid double effort and getting client teams overloaded with duplicate efforts and meeting. We were scheduled to close the assessment that week to start consolidation and do an analysis of the strengths and opportunities for improvements.

In those days the famous SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis later renamed by us as SLOT (Strength, Limitations, Opportunities and Threats). The aim was to make is less negative :) Consulting at its best :)

We were joined that week by our engagement manager Mr. K K T. Let me call him K. He along with us completed the consolidation, analysis and prepared the findings presentation. We had a executive team review and signed it off. Then came the hour presentation with the client entire team.

It was a very interesting thing with the senior most member who headed Administration function saying these words "In 4 weeks you have captured all our issues and troubles. You have done a great job. Now the question is what can you do to change this?"

Some humor, some uncomfortable truths

Well before K could answer I did something which even now I wonder how I dared. I asked the client team "How many have read Harry Potter books?" (at that time Harry Potter was getting to be the famous thing to read. Every hand shot up including K all smiles.

I said "Good so we all know Professor Dumbledore." Everyone nodded. "Dumbledore has a magic wand, by waving it he can perform magic to create things and do things in a moment. Unfortunately none of us are Dumbledore's and none of us can perform magic. So we cannot give a magic figure but working together we can arrive at a realistic timeline and agree to reach it together."

Everyone clapped and agreed. I was suddenly struck with the enormity of what I did I spoke out of turn and said a very realistic but dangerous statement and got away with it.

We worked with client the whole next week and came up with a road map and approach. Then came the first hit. The price K and my friend P wanted and the timelines I disagreed. I was overruled. 15 months for ISO/ CMM journey for an ad hoc operations organization with a culture of not over loading like we Indians are used to was overkill in my view. Also for an organization with around 15-20 million revenue an outlay of 1-2% was also over kill in my view.

I was proven right timelines they agreed but price no. In fact client Head Mr. K his name but not same as my boss K :) He made a very uncomfortable statement for us "You guys offered a low price to enter into our deal and now trying to charge a high rate is more like opportunistic and milking the worst possible way." Finally we ended with an 18 month journey plan for less than 1%  for year 1 and less than .5% for year 2.

Port Louis

We had shifted to Port Louis the previous week. The one point was that near the casino there were many restaurants and we experimented with Indian, Chinese, Italian and more food options. We even walked in to the casino and looked around.

Weekly calls were easy from that area with lots of phones. Daily call to my family I did and spent more money than my colleagues. One thing about Port Louis was the hotel was a bit more dark feeling and less secure as there were a few night commotions and we had to call reception and security once.

The streets were always deserted after 8 and we even saw some commotions and we were told that there were drug related crimes in Port Louis. Parking was an impossibility in Port Louis in day time. It was definitely not as crowded as any Indian metro but it was the crowded place with all main offices of State Bank or Mauritius, Air Mauritius and all embassies and government offices.

Tourists were not there yet so we did not have troubles booking hotels.

Time to leave - shopping and a Hindi movie

My friend P had departed after the findings presentation. K asked me why I was allowed stay back instead of the original plan. I said I have no clue. I was told by K that "I Listen more and speak less that is the reason." I learned a valuable lesson. It is good to speak less :)

We were there for one more weekend and got our return tickets confirmed for mid week after negotiation for final figure of proposals. We decided in between to see a movie a Hindi movie -I still remember it was a Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor movie - Main Prem ki Deewani hum I believe was the title :) Oh God such a fiasco it was.

We went shopping picked up some rocks of volcanic origin and I picked a polished round rock with minerals. We also picked a few Armani shirts on sale at 60% discount making it affordable at Park Avenue shirt prices after the discount :) So I became a proud Armani wearer like the ex cricket team captain Azharuddin :)

Departure to Chennai

So time came we had our adieus with promise to return and a farewell dinner hosted by client team. We were returning via Chennai unlike flying in via Mumbai. We stayed overnight at Chennai in GRT Grand Days and boarded domestic flight for Hyderabad and had some fun with luggage scan guy asking what is the round thing with metals in my case. After I explained in Tamil they asked me "Why you pick rocks don't you have any other thing to buy?"

Me and K laughed all the way till boarding. That was the end of my trip number 5.

Some pointers

I liked Mauritius. Food was not an issue - European, Indian, Chinese, African you get it all. Weather was moderate and less hot or humid compared to Mumbai at least.

At that time there was no unrest or issues or challenges and it was very friendly people and places. Less crimes and less crowding compared to Europe or Asian attractions.

I liked Mauritius and the overall experience :)