THE CELERITAS FILES

Chapter 4/ 28

By 4:15 pm, Conference Room Number Four of Hotel Taj Palace had two new additions: Vinoth Ramamurthy, the Head of Indian operations of Groupe Leroy and François Leroy, the Managing Director of Groupe Leroy. Both were dressed immaculately in well-ironed suits and ties, making Sivakumar feel that he was the most underdressed person in the room. He was wearing a slightly old gray suit over a white shirt but no tie. Like most Indian SMEs, the office culture of Bliksem was extremely informal so he never got the opportunity to wear suits and ties.

François Leroy was a tall and slim Frenchman with well-combed blond hair. He had light blue eyes and looked to be in his early fifties. His handshake was extremely firm and his attitude seemed extremely professional with almost no scope for small talk. There was a reason for his cold demeanor that Ramamurthy had explained to him a few days back.

François Leroy hated his visits to India. Groupe Leroy's operations in India contributed to less than two percent of its total revenues. The Indian market was dominated by budget smartphones and the scope for a niche luxury handsets market was very limited which is why it did not even seem like Groupe Leroy was going to make any significant progress in their Indian revenues over the coming years. François considered his visits to India, a waste of his precious time and tried keeping them as short as possible. He also had the tendency to fall sick during his India visits because of the weather change which is why he despised these visits even more.

"Shall we start?" said Shaina, addressing Ramamurthy who was busy whispering something to Leroy while she was turning on the projector.

"Oh yes, absolutely," he replied, "I have just given a very brief overview to François regarding your product. The stage is all yours now."

"Sir, I would want to start off on a very simplistic note, without any technical mumbo jumbo by demonstrating exactly what all of this is about," Shaina started, addressing Leroy, "Could you please tell me what phone are you using?"

Leroy frowned.

"I use the Leroy Diamant III," he replied hesitantly, in perfect English. He did not have even the slightest hint of a French accent in his voice, probably because he had completed a large part of his studies from New York. Shaina was half expecting his 'the' to sound like 'ze' but it was clear that the man did not live up to any typical French stereotypes.

"Ah wonderful!" she exclaimed, "If I am not wrong that is one of the costliest smartphones of Groupe Leroy, priced at close to two thousand euros."

Leroy nodded curtly and looked at Sivakumar. He was also looking at Shaina with an extremely confident look on his face. The woman was heading towards a point and Leroy realized that he needed to be patient until she got there.

"Sir, can you tell me approximately how much time does your Leroy Diamant III take to be fully charged from zero to a hundred percent?"

"Well, it has the best-in-class charging capabilities as against all its peers so I would say around forty-five minutes to an hour assuming the phone is not being used while it is charging," replied Leroy with a hint of arrogance in his voice. He was clearly a very proud man, especially with respect to the products that his company sold.

"Exactly," replied Shaina, tapping a key on her laptop that started her presentation to the first slide which was filled with snapshots of articles from many different global newspapers and business journals such as the Economist, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the Times of India.

"Any person working in the portable electronics industry in a product development position would say exactly what is written in all these articles and what you just said, Mr. Leroy," she said, pointing her hand at the projection, "that the fastest charging time for any mobile phone today is around forty-five minutes to an hour even for the most expensive phones available in the market. Also, these articles specify this aspect has seen negligible progress over the years owing to the limitations of Lithium-Ion batteries and charging devices. While the processing capacities and the memory of cell phones have increased more than five to ten folds over the past ten years, the charging duration of these high-end phones has only reduced from three hours to an hour. Also, researchers claim to have hit a road block in this field and the belief is that this forty-five minutes time is expected to stay for quite a few years."