MAM
What next after the WFH honeymoon?
NEW DELHI: The ‘new normal’ might already have started setting in with major conglomerates of the world taking calls like allowing their employees to work from home ‘forever’. Recently, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced in a company-wide email that while opening the offices will be the company’s call, to come back will be totally an employee’s choice.
Several other tech companies, including the other two giants Facebook and Google, have told their employees to work from home till the end of this year. Closer home, e-learning platform Unacademy announced that 60 per cent of its workforce will be working from home permanently, even after the lockdown.
This gives a clear picture of what the future of workplaces is going to be like, at least for the tech firms where most of the work can be managed over servers and clouds. Reacting to the same, brand-thinker and independent consultant Harish Bijoor noted: “WFH makes sense for every factor: economic, social, family, commute, cost, time, and common sense. Corporate society does not need to artificially divide home and work anymore. It makes great sense!”
Brand-nomics managing director Viren Razdan said: “While Google has announced WFH beyond the lockdown, the truth is tech companies have thrived on the idea of WFH or rather WFA or Work From Anywhere. Amazon and Apple were born in home-garages, giving birth to the cult of ‘ideas behind napkins’, start-up buzz at cafes, the informality bred a new culture of play.”
Sharing his thoughts on how the culture can be embedded in other industries, he added, “This IS perhaps the WFH honeymoon; we are all learning and encouraging, holding each other’s hand firmly through this phase. The real truths would unveil once we bring the practice into regular play. The biggest challenge perhaps would be to disrupt our culture to allow this fluidity and freedom. Our models at work based on firm control, checks and balances in place. The buzzing office is symbolic of efficiency and business as usual. Companies would be pushed to make accountability a key factor, and shed the weight of authority. A lot of companies are moving to fast-forward to agile models of work, which are perhaps more conducive to adapt to these new systems.”
Recently, in a webinar hosted by the Advertising Club of Bangalore, BBH India CEO and managing partner Subhash Kamath and Wunderman Thompson South Asia group CEO and chairman Tarun Rai supported the idea of allowing flexibility to agency workforce to work from home, citing reasons like the fact that it will bring more gender-equality within the teams and liberate the talent from geography.
However, they had also noted that to make this culture a reality, people will have to bring some behavioural changes in themselves and leave control that they like to have on subordinates, and also the firms will have to rework their appraisal policies.
Agreeing to this, Samsika Marketing Consultants MD Jagdeep Kapoor said: “I had learnt this from grandmother and it stands relevant today that when everything closes there should be one thing that remains open, and that is your mind. I think any transition will be possible if people keep an open mind and accept changes.”
He also vouched for the many benefits that working from home will come with. “I think working from home increases productivity, saves time, and allows teams across cities to work together for better deliverables. Personally, I have been working from a home office for more than a decade now and it has been great. I have this policy that I don’t visit client offices and meet them at my place. With remote working, now clients have eased out even more and we have those meetings over video calls now.”
Brands
Boeing appoints Barun as head of FP&A for global engineering function
Seasoned finance leader to steer budgets and strategy across global centres
BENGALURU: Boeing’s finance cockpit has a new pilot, and he is no stranger to turbulence or transformation. Boeing has appointed Barun as head of FP&A for global engineering, placing him at the centre of financial strategy for its worldwide engineering and technology operations.
Based in Bengaluru, Barun steps into a role that is as expansive as it is critical. He will serve as the primary finance lead for Boeing’s Engineering and Technology Centers globally, working closely with executive leadership to shape financial decisions, manage complex budgets, and design scalable finance processes that support the company’s growing engineering footprint.
In a note announcing his move Barun said, “I’m excited to share that I’ve joined Boeing Global Engineering. This opportunity is incredibly meaningful to me not just from a professional standpoint, but also for what Boeing represents globally.” He added that he looks forward to contributing to an organisation that continues to shape the future of aerospace and innovation.
Barun’s mandate spans strategic financial leadership, operational oversight, and stakeholder engagement. From directing large-scale budgets and schedules to influencing long-term organisational goals, the role blends financial discipline with business foresight. He will also lead cross-functional teams and partner with finance colleagues worldwide to support engineering programmes across geographies, including India.
The appointment caps a long stint at Juniper Networks, where Barun spent over a decade, most recently as finance senior manager. There, he led FP&A for global product business units and G&A functions, driving budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning. He also played a key role in enterprise-wide transformation, including spearheading an Oracle to SAP ERP migration and building advanced analytics capabilities using tools such as Tableau and SAP Analytics Cloud.
His earlier career includes finance leadership roles at Sony India Software Centre, Cognizant Technology Solutions, and Mphasis, where he focused on financial planning, governance frameworks, and operational efficiency across global delivery centres.
A chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Barun brings nearly two decades of experience across financial planning, digital transformation, and analytics-led decision making.
His appointment comes at a time when global engineering operations are becoming increasingly complex and distributed, requiring sharper financial oversight and agile planning. With Barun at the helm of FP&A for engineering, Boeing appears to be tightening its financial playbook as it looks to scale innovation with discipline.
