It was 20th March 2003 when I made my final shift from our flat in Hulimavu (Bangalore) to my newly rented flat in Kagadaspura. The world cup semi-finals were on with India playing Kenya. It was evening time when I left Hulimavu. I didn’t have a TV at my new flat and hence couldn’t follow the rest of the match. Thinking of today, you can say, I lived in the ice age after all today one can follow the match on the move via Cricinfo/cricbuzz or other streaming platforms. But that was 2003 and the India of 2003 was far different from the India of 2021. Internet penetration was not high and it was generally restricted to cyber cafes and offices those days. Smartphones were also not available. So though I wanted to see the match I couldn’t.

The reason I moved to a new place on the day of the world cup semifinals was that I was to get married the next day. Mine was a simple marriage against my parent’s wishes and took place in a temple. So on 21st March 2003, I tied the knot with Sushma and as I write this, we complete 18 years together. Quite a journey through thick and thin, which started in Bangalore and currently residing in Howrah!

A few years later in late 2006, I moved from Bangalore to Howrah (my ancestor’s place is in Howrah) because I got a job in Kolkata. One day while waiting for my bus near Webel More (sector V, Kolkata), I met my junior from college, Jahangir who was working at a nearby office in Sector V. We exchanged pleasantries, and then he put a call across to Asif, my roommate in Bangalore. Though I had been in touch with Asif when he was in Bangalore, I lost touch after 2003 when he shifted to Kolkata. Thanks to Jahangir, I got in touch with Asif again. A couple of weeks later, I visited his house and I met his wife, Sumbul for the first time. There I came to know that they got married in 2004 and hold your breath they got married exactly one year after me that is 21st March 2004. 

Dates are lovely isn’t it – they always find a connection. So as I celebrate my 18th Marriage anniversary today with Sushma, Asif and Sumbul are celebrating their 17th. Happy Anniversary to them too.

A few years later, Me, Asif, and Mukesh opened a software firm, AMS Technologies. Just as it happens at startups we struggled but thankfully we survived. Around 2012 with business growing, we decided to convert our firm into a Private Limited Company. When we applied for the same, it was brought to our notice that we can’t get the name AMS Technologies because it was already taken by some company in Maharastra. It was big trouble for us because it meant, we now needed a new name and that meant a lot of logistical issues. But we had no choice and finally got ourselves registered as Brainium Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd. 

Now, why am I telling this here which looks like a personal anniversary blogpost? Well, guess the date of registration of Brainium Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd? It was 21st March 2013.

How dates collide isn’t it?

3 different occasions in 3 different years all tightly knit on a common date – the 21st of March. 

Grand Coincidence!

So a very happy anniversary to all Brainites across India! May we all shine and make a difference in all our lives and our clients’ lives. Let’s continue our digital transformation journey. Let’s progress towards making this country truly digital.

Take care everyone and God bless!

It was 21st May around 9.30 AM when my house bell rang. I opened the door to find our driver, Bablu standing outside. I didn’t expect him at that time because we live on the 5th floor and our lift became a casualty of Cyclone Amphan that stuck us the previous evening. To understand the story we need to rewind what transpired in the previous 24 hours.

As has been the norm during the lockdown period, we have been providing support to our employees with regards to hardware. Three of our employees needed system support immediately and since an impending cyclone was ahead of us it was decided that we need get the work done immediately because after cyclone the road conditions could deteriorate and commute could be a problem. The Government and media had advertised enough regarding the Cyclone Amphan and it was predicted to hit Kolkata anytime between 4 to 6 PM. Based on that we told Bablu to leave early in the morning so that he can come back before 4 PM. Based on that plan he left around 7 AM in the morning. Unfortunately our system administrator, Zillu whom Bablu picked up from Thakurpukur and brought to our Sector V office was unable to fix some issues in a computer and kept struggling till 2.30 PM. 

When I called up Asif in the afternoon to discuss certain things I came to know that Bablu will be delayed and looking at things he won’t be able to come back till 5.30 PM. Alarm bells stuck immediately. I was wondering why can’t they just leave and come back. But they didn’t want to waste the day with no output so they went to Rajarhat to deliver one system before returning home. Hours passed and I got no news. With the wind speed picking up I was feeling very anxious. I called Bablu up around 6 PM to find out where he is . He said that while returning home after leaving Zilu he thought of taking the Vidyasagar Setu but the police had blocked it so he took the Bankim Setu only to face the barricade again. The authorities were not allowing any vehicular traffic on the bridge due to to the onslaught of the cyclone. It turned out to be an agonising wait for him. On one side he was stuck in the car with rains lashing and a heavy wind blowing and on the other side he couldn’t get in touch with his family to find out their well being. Again after an hour or so when I called him, his phone was not reachable. Myself, Mukesh and Asif all kept trying him every half an hour but to no avail. 

Suddenly around 9 PM, my phone rang and I saw Bablu was calling. Immediately I picked up the phone and what I heard was that the police allowed all the cars to go through after the wind subsided for a while but when he came to Andul Road, he found a few trees had fallen and the road was blocked. I asked him to take the short cut (There was a short cut near Botanical Garden) but when he reached there he found that the area was waterlogged and it was too risky to drive through. I told him that in that case the best scenario for him was to take the car into College Road where Mukesh resides and take rest at his place. He didn’t seem very excited about that idea because he felt he could still navigate and come back home without realising the danger that can befall. Later when Asif and Mukesh called him he got convinced and reached Mukesh’s place around 10.30 PM.

The struggle didn’t end there because the gate was blocked with fallen trees. Mukesh had to take help from his neighbours to clear the area so that the car could be brought in. After parking the car, Bablu took Dinner at Mukesh’s place and stayed through the night there. 

A support activity for the office which was expected to finish within 11-12 hours turned into a 24 hour ordeal.

In the morning, my Vodafone Network was not working so I didn’t know that Mukesh and Bablu were calling me. When I turned to the Jio Network, I saw a deluge of WhatsAPP messages to find that the car has stopped responding and was not starting. Bablu’s ordeal continued, first he along with Mukesh tried to get the car working and finally when all options dried up he decided to walk home.

Hence, I was quite surprised to find him at my doorstep at 9.30 AM because I expected him to first visit his home but he decided to update the situation to me since I was not reachable on phone. After asking about his well being he told the story of how he navigated the roads during the cyclone. Navigating through roads with Transformers Blasting and trees falling was something which felt like a Hollywood movie for him. Just to break the monotone, I told him that he is the real hero because in movies these are done in computer graphics but he experienced it live. It brought a smile to his face but I thanked him for keeping a cool head under such a crisis. A better time management and a little bit of fore thinking could have avoided the ordeal but in hindsight things always seems so. Anyways, the best part was that Bablu was safe and his spirits were still high.

As I write this, he is back to work and his support has helped us in providing the necessary hardware to our employees over the last 3 days. These are the stories which bring out the true spirit of a Brainite and it feels great that we are able to create a family feeling around our organisation.

This incident taught us a lot as well. We understood that we need to train our people a lot on crisis and time management. As the saying goes, life teaches you on the go and each day brings its own set of learnings. Learn, implement, understand, adapt and relearn. That’s how the cycle goes and life goes on.

Kolkata is coming back to normal. Cyclone Amphan and its after effects are relatively lower now. But the cases of Covid-19 keep rising. Lots of challenges ahead.

Keep Safe Everyone! God Bless You All.

As has been our usual norm during the lockdown days, I met the sales team online yesterday. The good thing was unlike other days all were more or less on time. This could have been because the meeting was postponed by 15 minutes or could be because all were genuinely interested to know more about today’s game. So after a bit of talking about how things were going and how the sales pipeline is shaping up for the quarter, we moved into the game zone.

The 11 Members were segregated in 4 teams. Each team was given a topic based on which they needed to collaborate with their team members and draw an image which best describes the topic. Each topic was something related to Brainium. Once they draw the images, each team will present it in front of the other teams and the other teams will have to predict the name of the topic without any prompting. The team whose image gets the quickest and the correct answer wins the game. So another simple but unique game, customised the Brainium way.

Sujit & Abhishek were first up with Sujit presenting the image in front of us.

No one could catch the theme. All were busy discussing about the quality of the 3 hands in the picture. Ashish commented that the screwdriver drawn belongs to Zillu. Though the comments brought up, gave us a good laugh but unfortunately no one could envisage that what Sujit wanted to show is “Brainium” (which was his topic). With Sujit’s team failing, we moved on to the next team.

Bikash asked Sarmistha to show the image to all of us without realising that Sarmistha’s video is not working. So with Sarmistha unable to present the image, they decided to have Rudra present the same. 

Since Rudra was on mobile, it was a bit difficult to get the full picture on screen but as soon as he presented it, Bias understood the concept and answered, “Services of Brainium”. It was a great catch and she got a round of applause for getting the concept so quickly.

The next team to present was Ashish and Debargha’s whom we call as Dave. Dave presented on behalf of his team.

Frankly no one understood the concept. Infact I felt the image was about some Corona Warriors but nothing looked like related to Brainium. One of our team mates told it was about Games but then Games is part of our service and that topic was already over. No body quite expectedly get the concept because the presenters themselves didn’t understood the concept unfortunately. The concept given to them was “Brainium Solutions” and when asked how this image is relatable, the ever quick witted, Ashish answered that the image depicts Zillu in fire fighting mode providing solutions to employee’s systems. It was one of the craziest answers I could have heard but then “Laughter and Fun” are the motto of our weekly meetings.

Moving on, the final presentation was given by Azhar with full confidence that their presentation will be understood the quickest and they will win the game easily.

Looking at the image, people started analysing the concept. Good thing was everyone was trying to understand and the individually they were getting it. Abhishek understood Time & Material but before that people were concentrating on point 3 and some hilarious discussion on who in the picture is being taken out from a group of people by the 2 hands. Once Abhishek realised Time & Material as Point 2, understanding Point 1 was easy (Dedicated Hiring) and then they guessed that the third point must mean FPC (Fixed Price Contract). The topic given to Azhar was “Billing Models of Brainium“. Though his first 2 points were well understood, no body could fathom the meaning of the third point and hence his over confidence of winning the game fell flat.

We all had a good laugh though and the meeting ended with congratulating Bikash’s team (Rudra, Sarmistha, Biswa & Bikash) for winning the game and a special mention to Bias for predicting the image in double quick time.

All in all another meeting, with another game with some unbridled fun & laughter.

Au Revoir!

So once every week I get the sales team together in the evening via Zoom or Google Meet and have a chit chat. This has been a ritual from the time the lockdown started due to Covid-19. The activity was purposefully kept very informal in all our meetings. Quite understandably all are working in a controlled environment and so informal meetings where we talk less of business and more of fun gives relaxation.

Sales teams as in all organisations work in a very high pressure environment. With Covid-19 kicking in the pressure has only increased. So it’s important that we allow some fun moments so that people can chill. In the last 6 weeks of lockdown, we have had 5 such meetings. One meeting was with one of our sales team members doing a stand up comedy. It was good fun and he promised for more such acts in the coming weeks but unfortunately its yet to happen. We are still waiting for his script to get ready. Looks like a blockbuster evening is coming soon!

Another meeting was just “Chai Pe Adda”. Everyone got their Zoom on and we just chit chatted with a cup of tea in hand. Tea Over! Meeting Over. Cool isn’t it?

So this time, I planned something different. Purposefully I kept my plans under wraps and disclosed the same when the entire sales team logged in at 6 PM yesterday. I planned to play a Psych Game. A game of Predictions and how much you really know about your colleague. Quite understandably many were not aware and hence logged in from their mobiles for the meeting. Unfortunately they had to borrow a spare mobile phone from one of their family members (thankfully that was not denied). Personally, I am pretty bad at these online games but a few days back, my son showed me this game (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wb.goog.ellen.psych) and I found it to be pretty cool. So I thought of playing it with the sales team members.

After everyone downloaded the game, to make it more fun I asked all to log in with some crazy or pseudo names (The predictability gets creepier). This is a game where the players become the game. Various real questions would be thrown up with one of the players as the central character and all the players have to give an answer. In the second step, all have to choose their favorite answer and finally who gets maximum votes for his or her answers is declared the winner.

So we were 12 of us with 12 crazy names and the games began. It was a 10 round game with loads of fun. First of all, some of the names were so funny that all of us got busy to predict who is who. Then when the questions started coming the answers were equally hilarious. Discussing those answers were itself a lot of fun. Add to that where a couple of players took forever to answer and the entire team waited and kept getting frustrated. Unfortunately the game was such that till everyone is on board it won’t move to the next step. Probably the guys who were delaying, were themselves allowing the fun to continue a bit longer.

Finally the last 3 rounds went quite quick (I guess client calls were getting delayed) and at the end, can you believe it, we had a tie. Sales Team’s A & A won the game jointly. Quite understandably as the game suggests the 2 most jovial and hilarious guys won it.

All in all it was good fun and I look forward to many more such fun filled meetings with all Brainites in the future.

Till that time, take care and God Bless!

Marketing & Sales are independent departments in any organisation but it is always interlinked. There always existed a thin line between both these departments. Sales Teams in general have an aura around them because they are fronting the company and also because they are in direct access to the clients as well as the management. But can a sales professional drive in consistent sales and hit the sales target on a consistent basis without a good marketing team. Marketing team helps in generating interest for a company’s products or services which in turn generate leads for the sales team who then goes ahead and close the deal. This is how Sales & Marketing teams function generally across the spectrum.

Being a sales professional with close to 20 years of industry experience I can very well say that things are changing. With the advent of Digital Marketing & Social Media, the thin line between Sales & Marketing is quickly vanishing. A sales professional can no longer say that my duty is only to get sales and I can do it in the old fashioned way. Today one needs to do proper research on LinkedIn regarding a prospect before pitching. If any sales person is not doing it then I am very sure his sales performance must be heading southwards. You can be in B2B or B2C space but you need to connect with your potential customer to make the sale. This could be a good time to read back what I wrote about relationship building, few years back.

 
 
Today buyer preferences and decision making process has changed. With so much content available on the internet, a potential buyer does enough research before even showing his or her first interest on a company to enquire about a product or service. So its vital for a company to generate interesting articles/content/blogs to the targeted potential customers. Generating content is one thing but making it reach far and wide is another thing. Marketing team is responsible to generate and distribute the content but I think the distribution part should be a shared responsibility among all stake holders of the company more so by the sales team. Thats because a sales professional will always look to make a sale quickly. After all who won’t be happy to cross their designated targets before half the month is over? Now take for example, that a blog has been posted and one of your target potentials read it and shows interest in your company’s product or service by filling in the company’s contact form. From my experience, I can tell you that closing this deal will be far more easier than other leads which might come through PPC or other sources. That’s because, today buyers do research and show interest only on those companies which passes his or her conceived preferences. Hence, its important that the sales team take active participation in content distribution.
 

Content is the king and hence Sales Professionals should take active interest in content marketing, atleast in helping the marketing team to distribute content. Being active in Social Media is a way of life today. All of us these days, at an average spend 1-2 hours on social media platforms be it WhatsAPP, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. So sharing the content on these platforms can be done on the go and there is this additional benefit that you might end up making a good sale with this deed, for the company.

When a strategy is set by the marketing team its important to have a goal. Its important to monitor traffic and its equally important to check out the traction thats being received against each generated content. The sales team should always proactively give feedback to the marketing team about what they feel about potential customers. Based on the type of questions potential customers are coming up with, can be a good feeder for future content. This will help the marketing team to generate content which will ultimately in the long run help the company to get targeted customers whom they want to serve. This goal can only be achieved when sales and marketing teams work in sync. If they keep working independently then at today’s age of social selling & content marketing, will ultimately lead a company towards disaster.

As the saying goes, Change is the only constant so embrace the change and excel in your job role.

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