Economic recession has happened because of greed. Greed is universal but it is usually corrected by fear. But this time around greed had a long run and we are paying the price for it. It started off with subprime crisis in US and is now affecting the whole world since our economies are all connected loosely or tightly.

Sloka has seen the brunt of the recession because we lost many potential investors who were close to investing. We have not seen much effect on the customers and their markets since we have been selling into South Asia, Latin America, etc, who do not seem to be affected as much.

How to you plan to tide over the crisis?

I have learnt more about business in the last four months of crisis than all the four years of running Sloka. Crisis is good if you are ready to learn from it. However, it is bad in the sense that there is a chance you may run out of business.

We are planning to look at other business models to keep generating income in addition to selling products and solutions. Because of the slowdown, nobody is in a hurry to get things to the market – there is no premium attached to being first. Right now, the most important thing is to stay alive so that you can pick up the battles when things start becoming normal once again.

What are your company's future plans?

Sloka would like to position itself a leading radio access network equipment maker in the world. In the near future, Sloka will be launching Mobile WiMAX and 3G LTE network equipment focusing on Femto, Pico and Micro base stations. We will continue to invest in developing advanced technologies to solve the problems of providing broadband access to people in the developed and developing worlds.

Image: An electronic billboard outside Nasdaq offices in Times Square in New York shows the composite figure shortly after the close of trading. | Photograph: Reuters

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