Mukesh Gupta

Managing director, e92plus

Career so far It has been 23 years dedicated to e92plus.

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and why? Roman Abramovich. He has lots of money to enjoy a fantastic life, plus I would get to watch Chelsea become the Champions of Europe and buy the best players in the world.

What will next year’s most overhyped industry buzzword be? The cloud is overhyped – not as a technology, but as a label. It has been great to embrace hosted and managed services, but having flexible, innovative products that fit customers’ requirements is key rather than just calling it cloud and hoping that means someone else is looking after it.

Has 2012 been a good, bad or ugly year? It has been a good year – we are enjoying our fourth successive year of growth. But there’s always a little bad and ugly to keep us on our toes.

What would you have as your last meal? You can’t beat a good curry and chips.

What keeps you awake at night? The excitement of the next day.

What piece of technology could you not be without? My cars – they get me to my customers and partners and I can use my phone, unlike the horrors of public transport.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? Our investment in virtualisation and wireless has been rewarded with tremendous growth alongside our core security business. The explosion in mobile devices and shift to flexible working made those two markets obvious ones to move into.

What is the best partner/customer trip you have ever been on? There have been a few great trips, but going away with the whole of the e92plus team earlier this year to help kick off 2012 was lots of fun.

What do you see as the channel’s biggest challenge in 2013? Delivering growth! That means developing innovative ideas that add value and help encourage customers to invest in our solutions.