The opening story goes back to the early years of the founder’s professional journey — spanning early software development, entrepreneurial failure, and a critical client interaction that exposed a fundamental flaw:

Effort was being rewarded where outcomes should have been designed.
Discipline was expected where systems were missing.

That realization became one of the foundational seeds for TPMS’s approach to management system design.

New stories will be added weekly, following the TPMS–Tantum journey as it unfolds across different contexts and eras.

If these situations feel familiar, it may not be a people problem —
it may be a system waiting to be redesigned.

The Setting

Intent Was Not the Problem

In 1988, I completed my Master’s in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, building on a Mechanical Engineering foundation — at a time when personal computers were just beginning to enter Indian industry.

At Tata Steel in Jamshedpur, I built my first serious software application to optimize the deployment of temporary skilled workers. The results were tangible and defensible. More importantly, the experience reinforced a belief that analytical thinking, combined with software, could materially improve large, complex operations.

In 1989, I moved to Mumbai to join Cable Corporation of India (CCI) as an Industrial Engineer. Over the next three years, I grew to lead the Industrial Engineering department. The work involved deep operational engagement, data-driven decision-making, and hands-on problem solving.

Outside office hours, I continued coding — investing in a self-funded personal computer and taking on small assignments driven by discipline and curiosity.

By mid-1994, I took the plunge.

Together with my professor, Dr. H. E. Nagarwalla, I co-founded a consulting firm in Mumbai. Over the next 18 months, we built a 15-member team and delivered multiple optimization projects — spanning conceptual design, modelling, software development, and implementation.

The work was demanding.

The problems were real.

The effort was unquestionable.

The Tension

Where Reality Kept Breaking Expectations

By any reasonable expectation, this should have worked.

We were delivering technically complex optimization work, often end to end. Clients were engaged. Teams were stretched. Projects ran in parallel. The work had visible operational impact.

Yet beneath the surface, something wasn’t adding up.

Despite sustained effort and increasing activity, the business remained fragile. Each new engagement added pressure without improving sustainability. More work meant more effort, more complexity, and more stress — not stronger economics.

This wasn’t a single bad decision or a temporary downturn.

The pattern repeated.

Effort increased.

Outcomes were delivered.

Viability did not follow.

The Blind Spot

What Could Not Be Defended

After 18 months, we shut the firm down. We were losing money.

Only later, when I set up the consulting division at APTECH and closed my first independent deal, did the blind spot become unmistakable.

We had been charging less than 20% of what the market was willing to pay.

The realization was uncomfortable not because it was complex, but because it was undeniable.

We had confused passion with business.

We had not benchmarked value.

We had assumed effort would justify economics.

It doesn’t.

It is not the client’s responsibility to ensure a provider is paid fairly.

That responsibility lies squarely with the provider.

System Insight

What Was Actually Missing

The work itself was not the problem. Real improvements were being delivered.

What was missing was a system that made value explicit and defensible — a system that clearly defined:

● what outcomes mattered,

● how those outcomes translated into economic value, and

● how that value could be priced and sustained.

In the absence of such a system, effort became a proxy for value.

Passion filled the gap where economic logic should have existed.

Given that structure — or rather, the lack of one — failure was not accidental. It was inevitable.

The Redesign (Conceptual)

What Changed in the Way of Thinking

That experience did not immediately provide answers. But it permanently changed the questions.

I stopped assuming that good work would justify itself.

I began questioning how value is defined, defended, and sustained — not hoped for.

The focus shifted from doing more to understanding what makes work viable in the first place.

Outcomes

What Became Clear

The immediate outcome was not success. It was clarity.

Two things became undeniable:

I could deliver meaningful, high-impact work.
Without a system to define and protect value, even good work could quietly destroy itself.

That clarity became foundational.

Reflection Bridge

Why This Story Matters in the TPMS Journey

This is the first part of a longer, six-part narrative that traces how experience gradually turned into structure — and how repeated encounters with the same underlying gap led to the formulation of TPMS.

Each part captures a different moment in that evolution. Taken together, they explain why TPMS became necessary long before it became explicit.

Appreciating each other better

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