Leadership

Leadership lessons from everyday acts (part 1)

Leadership is like riding. – you need to know where you want to go. – you need a fair idea of how to reach there. – you re-route yourself if you face a traffic jam or any other situation which might stop you from reaching your destination. – you decide on the route based on the type of vehicle that you are driving. The routes that you can take while driving a bike is very different from the one that you can take while driving a car, which could be very different from the one that you can take if […]

Customer Engagement

Are large Indian retailers battle ready?

In their current state of operations, Indian organized retailers are in no way equipped to compete with the likes of Walmart, Tesco or Target. Let me re-count to you my experience based on which I have come to this conclusion. Last week, I went grocery shopping with my wife to a large format retail store in Bangalore. I was appalled at the thoughtless design of the store and the lack of the willingness to serve the customers in the entire staff. In my opinion, there are 2 key performance areas which are critical for a retailer to succeed in a […]

Leadership, Sales

3 qualities of a great sales manager

The three things that makes great sales manager are ability to Coach Absorb pressure Build a team I got this insight when I ran into an old friend late last evening. He currently works for a sales organization and was completely stressed out. When i asked for the reason for his stress, he indicated that the sales pressure being exerted on him by his manager is actually freaking him out. When I dug deep, he indicated that their organization follows the Jan – Dec sales cycle, which meant that they are in the last fortnight of the year and there is […]

Customer Engagement

Customer engagement vs customer centricity

As an employee responsible for customer advocacy at a software vendor, I often receive requests from colleagues in the development teams requesting me to help them connect to our customers and seek feedback on our existing products or solutions and validate new product ideas. Having been in this scenario so many times, I realise that there is a big difference between customer engagement and customer centricity. In one, you work with the customer, together to achieve common objectives (which is so rare). This activity can only succeed if both the customer and the supplier have deep skin in the game. […]

Sales

Best product demo ever

I chanced upon this demo of Sony Xperia Acro smart phone today. This is the best demo of a product that I have seen in a long long time… In my opinion, the following aspects makes this the best demo ever: It is contextual & experiential (with all the aura of the legendary James Bond, complete with the Bond music). It surprises! Not just the one’s who won the phone, but the entire audience.. This is the stuff that the people in the audience will talk about for sometime to come. And most important, this makes the point which is […]