Zohar Zisapel, chairman of RAD Data Communications, founded the company in 1981 together with his brother, Yehuda. In a relatively short period, RAD has grown into a group of 13 companies with aggregate sales of $775 million in 2009. Five of those companies are traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange: RADVision, Ceragon Networks, Radware, RADCOM, and Silicom. Prior to founding RAD, Zisapel served as head of the electronic research department of the ministry of defence. In an interaction with Sudhir Chowdhary, he speaks about his entrepreneurial journey and technologies that will play major role in the future of communications. Excerpts:
How important is the spirit of entrepreneurship for you and how has it helped you build the RAD Group?
It is extremely important. It is the main thing if you want to set up a company and do your own business. And it is something that comes from within, but it is something that develops over time. I have always been an entrepreneur. Even before I started RAD, I had done a lot of ventures including cosmetics and even building the lighting at discotheques.
I had the spirit of entrepreneurship all the time. So I think that either you have it, or you don?t have it. You can learn a lot of things along the way, including technology of course. But the spirit of entrepreneurship is something that you are born with.
Before the RAD Group happened, I was in a very comfortable job in the army. It was very challenging, but comfortable. I had 1,000 people working with me and had a big office. And when I left and started a start-up, I was sitting with four people in the same room. But it is something that I needed to do. It is like having your own baby. This is what entrepreneurship is all about. It is about changing, the world, doing it your own way.
How did the RAD Group start its operations and what was the broad focus of activities when it was conceptualised? Has it changed over the past many years?
It was in the year 1982, at a dinner meeting with my mother and my brother, Yehuda Zisapel that we conceptualised the RAD Group. At that time, my brother was a distributor and a value added reseller, in Israel. He was successful but he wanted to do something more. He found out that how risky it can be when you represent other companies, especially the US companies which tend to merge and be acquired and disappear.
On the other hand, I was in the army and I felt to do something else. So we decided to use his knowledge of the market and my knowledge in developing products and that?s how the RAD Group was formed. We developed products in the data communications or computer networking space.
How has the unique business model of RAD Group emerged?
The unique thing right now is the way we start new ventures and start-ups. It was not unique then, when we started, we just started with one company in modems and multiplexers. After it became successful, we looked for ways to do something else. We had arguments between my brother and myself on what to do. He said we should do more and I said that we should focus. Then we decided to look for another person who could run the company as a CEO. I agreed to this idea and somebody did come and he was good. That became a successful move for us, so we did it again and again. We had a lot of ideas but didn?t have the right people, because it wasn?t that easy to find people who can come and work for start-ups.
Over time, it became a model for us. On one side, we looked for an idea and on the other side we looked for good people who wanted to be entrepreneurs. We matched them, we invested money and brought the idea and this is how we started new companies again and again. And this is what is unique now.
What impact has the RAD Group had on the global telecom markets?
We did have an impact in many areas within wireless, videoconferencing and broadband. We are doing a lot with the infrastructure of the cellular operators. We allow them to combine voice and data and everything together.
We are basically in the telecom infrastructure space, so the consumer does not see us. We are selling either to operators or to big enterprises, but as a company we are making a big difference.
But what is the secret of your success as a globally recognised entrepreneur?
We are constantly innovating and thinking about unique things. We are starting things nobody else did. I am getting an excellent team of technical people on board and Israel has good education so highly educated people are there.
There is very little telecom manufacturing happening in India. How can this scenario change for better?
India is very strong in software, and the country should completely realise the potential where it is strong. Indian companies have been serving other companies globally. Indian companies can add software product offerings to their services and present an interesting proposition.
What technologies will play a major role in the future of communications?
I think that everything should become wireless. Right now only our cellphone is wireless. I see no reason why the television at your home should not be wireless.
The other area is video;video is creating a lot of stress on the bandwidth. In order to transfer video, you need 1,000 times more bandwidth than you need for voice. This means that you need your network to be 1,000 times broader and faster. So this is going to be another area where people will invest. This is going to go on and on, because bandwidth is like drugs. The more you get, the more you need.
