The office was filled with people, no electricity and no work. His colleagues were having fun discussing and bullying each other. Sitting on new furniture in front of his laptop which still had some power left he was deep lost into his thoughts and pain.
All he was thinking is what has left of his life, a job which might end in a month time as the company is not making money, his business which has turned into dust by the force of nature and his love which does not love him anymore. Peter Baldwin, short, fair, black eyed was deep lost into his thoughts when approached by his colleague, Catherine. Catherine had a liking for peter, which peter was aware about. His acute instinct of people has always been his strength, which has brought him a little success what was about to get over soon. Bit annoyed he greeted her. To his surprise he was faced with a blunt question, “what is bothering you, all of us can see you are a bit low”. Peter knew she cares about him, but the way he was losing his love had created hatred inside him. He started to hate girls; his understanding of feminine sensitivity was shaken and broken. Rudely “he said I am not low...thanks for the concern”.
Peter’s direct resistance to Catherine, have made her more and more persistent in having him, but peter being aware of everything didn’t care a bit. With couple of cell phone, music plugged into his ears he decided to take a long walk, he thought perhaps a glass of juice and people on the road can be a better place to be lost again.
The weather was dry, hot and windy. His pace was slow, his thought still moving deep into his life, picturing Kate, in his arms. He knew she was always selfish and mean, but his belief of her being a good person somewhere deep down into her heart what made peter fell for her. As much he remembered her, his pain grew more and more. Kate was Ambitious, competitive, sharp, witty, pretty and very charming. Her charm had always attracted peter at a same time have made him insecure, but a bomb got dropped on his heart when he learned her fast drift into other man’s arm.
After a long walk he reached the juice corner. He saw people, to his surprise he saw people alone walking, doing their things. He didn’t feel much bad seeing it; it made him aware that he is not only alone in this world. The world is full of souls who are alone, scared, cheated and deprived. Thinking that with a small smile he asked for a juice.
Suddenly, he was approached by women in late 60’s. Name unidentified( Women in green), She wore a green torn saree, hand rusted by the wind of time, She was saying something. Annoyed again, Peter tried to understand what she is saying. All he could hear was gibberish, he wondered, but soon realized she is asking for something to eat. He immediately asked the nearby food stall to offer some of the bread. Deep down inside peter was a humanitarian, helping weak and helpless had always made him feel better. He walked and sat on the bench, when he actually saw that the woman was not alone, she was with a man in the mid 70’s sitting on the road. The man could hardly speak. With the bread in her hand, she went to this man, and offered three fourth of her bread to him.
In a split second all the questions and problems in his head got cleared. He actually saw what he always wanted to feel deep down inside of him. “He was seeing love”. His hatred of woman vanished like a flame in the candle. He felt stronger and was amazed with the power of his own. He walked instantly to the food stall and asked them to offer these guys few more breads so that they can fill their stomach. He walked back thinking how little little things in life give direction and wisdom. The women is green was his heroine. At such an age she exhibited compassion which is the most costly jewelery for any woman. Smilingly, he took his walk back into his office. Reborn like a phoenix, now he knew Kate didn’t deserve his love. Company collapsed because he didn’t give much, and he knew how to turn around his job.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Four step sales solution
Being into the IT industry for over past 4 years I have always wondered why I haven’t written a blog on the function of sales and marketing. I still remember my career when it started with Marvsn a long time ago when I was doing my engineering, at that time my confusion was the only means for me to be curious to know and learn more. In the year 2005, I recall sitting at “teaspot” with some of my mates discussing business. To be honest none of us knew much, still it used to be fun to brainstorm and conclude something to move ahead. I could see the fire in the eyes of my friends at that time, hope it is still there.
Now, when I look at the IT industry I now see why sales & marketing becomes one of the difficult tasks to achieve. More than 90% of the IT companies are tier 2 and 3 the share of the market becomes more and more less, giving rise to large fight and bids on projects. This reduces the profit margin, jeopardize the cash flow and more importantly defocus IT companies focus on building core competencies. In the recent past we have seen the growth in the client maturity in the developed economy, their demand on project at the same cost has increased, attrition has increased, visa regulation has been tightened, and salary cost has risen. All these factors are the current challenges of any IT company, my question is how can a sales and marketing function can find solution to solve all of them. I would be wrong to assume that the other core IT functions would not play an important role to solve it they need to be streamlined accordingly.
Let’s look at the few of the items of the clients want:
1> Fixed price model
2> Reduce time to deliver.
3> Previous experience
4> Clear scope of work
5> Provision for keeping changes in requirement if the timeframe is long and business dynamic is volatile.
6> Transparency into the development process.
7> High code quality to reduce maintenance cost and increase system uptime.
And the list can go on.......
When we look at the above demand it might look simple for an outside visitor, but delivering projects with changes in a given time is very difficult. Imagine developing an ERP solution using agile. Competitive advantage any IT company has is wrt time, cost, expertise and quality.
Step 1:
Action:
Choose your market carefully; target the segment where there is a high probability of getting project in your expertise.
Impact
IT companies will be more likely to get projects in their expertise spectrum which will maintain their direction of achieving their core competencies.
Cost pressure will be low, as Sales and Marketing team will be able to negotiate price easily.
Gives you more ability to gain fixed price project.
Step 2 :
Action: Run a survey, develop a market level report.
Impact
A stringent task but the result is fruitful, it helps to develop accurate sales and marketing strategy, tactics and operations.
Help to identify your target market, which increases your sales and marketing team productivity by having higher proportion of conversion.
Step 3:
Action: promote agile methodology
Impact: Give your team the ability to take ownership, deliver high code quality, accommodate changes in requirement as per the business need, increases code quality and deliver project with higher customer satisfaction. (Given if your sales and Marketing team can convince your client to participate equally).
Step 4 :
Action: keep your sales and Marketing team motivated
Impact
In a simple word right project at the right time.
In the end keeps things simple, focus on developing IPR’s which can reduce development cycle, develop/buy ALM tool to provide visibility into the development process.
The above solution is in the test phase; so far result has been positive as it also provides me the confidence to share with you all.
Now, when I look at the IT industry I now see why sales & marketing becomes one of the difficult tasks to achieve. More than 90% of the IT companies are tier 2 and 3 the share of the market becomes more and more less, giving rise to large fight and bids on projects. This reduces the profit margin, jeopardize the cash flow and more importantly defocus IT companies focus on building core competencies. In the recent past we have seen the growth in the client maturity in the developed economy, their demand on project at the same cost has increased, attrition has increased, visa regulation has been tightened, and salary cost has risen. All these factors are the current challenges of any IT company, my question is how can a sales and marketing function can find solution to solve all of them. I would be wrong to assume that the other core IT functions would not play an important role to solve it they need to be streamlined accordingly.
Let’s look at the few of the items of the clients want:
1> Fixed price model
2> Reduce time to deliver.
3> Previous experience
4> Clear scope of work
5> Provision for keeping changes in requirement if the timeframe is long and business dynamic is volatile.
6> Transparency into the development process.
7> High code quality to reduce maintenance cost and increase system uptime.
And the list can go on.......
When we look at the above demand it might look simple for an outside visitor, but delivering projects with changes in a given time is very difficult. Imagine developing an ERP solution using agile. Competitive advantage any IT company has is wrt time, cost, expertise and quality.
Step 1:
Action:
Choose your market carefully; target the segment where there is a high probability of getting project in your expertise.
Impact
IT companies will be more likely to get projects in their expertise spectrum which will maintain their direction of achieving their core competencies.
Cost pressure will be low, as Sales and Marketing team will be able to negotiate price easily.
Gives you more ability to gain fixed price project.
Step 2 :
Action: Run a survey, develop a market level report.
Impact
A stringent task but the result is fruitful, it helps to develop accurate sales and marketing strategy, tactics and operations.
Help to identify your target market, which increases your sales and marketing team productivity by having higher proportion of conversion.
Step 3:
Action: promote agile methodology
Impact: Give your team the ability to take ownership, deliver high code quality, accommodate changes in requirement as per the business need, increases code quality and deliver project with higher customer satisfaction. (Given if your sales and Marketing team can convince your client to participate equally).
Step 4 :
Action: keep your sales and Marketing team motivated
Impact
In a simple word right project at the right time.
In the end keeps things simple, focus on developing IPR’s which can reduce development cycle, develop/buy ALM tool to provide visibility into the development process.
The above solution is in the test phase; so far result has been positive as it also provides me the confidence to share with you all.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The two critical A's (Awareness and Acceptance)
The virtue of greatness encompasses the entire spectrum of a human behaviour and the following actions. We live in a world of our own. Little pieces of moments combines to provide what we call life. Still it remains in our best interest to choose those pieces and rearrange them in our memories of present to be happy and sad.
Remembering what was inside us when we lost the battle of life make us weak, sad and empty. We survive in hope of a better tomorrow, but we often forget that future cannot be better if we live in the world of our past. Life tests us, it often does winning is not important but surviving the test happily embarks a beginning of greatness. Feelings and logic are the same side of a coin; we believe it’s opposite, but is it? Logic gives you direction and emotions give you the thrust to move. Awareness of this helps to decide and focus.
I once encountered a person in my life who told me that “The greatest victory ever won is the victory over oneself”. I wondered what it meant. It meant the very conflict inside us when we have choices. He also told me that “The Most powerful thing in this world is Knowledge”. Amalgam of information gives knowledge and amalgam of knowledge gives wisdom. If we use this to our very oneself. We can clearly see the conflict within us. These conflicts put us down, make us weak and throw us in the cloud of uncertainty. We fail to extrapolate the facts and figures, and fail to formulate where we are being lead by our own confusion and conflict.
I had a chance to meet Afridi and Viv Richards at the same time at Bangalore Airport once. One can make out the difference in the two just by their body language and the conversation. Richards was very calm, composed knew what he is talking, A genius at speaking. Afridi was shooting in every direction. Richards had wisdom; Afridi had knowledge, yet caught up in his own conflict.
The solution which I seek is nothing more than awareness and acceptance. Awareness about yourself and acceptance of the situation can only help us to win over this conflict. How can one look inside them and get information. An art of retrospection and introspection can help to gather these fine information, and use acceptance as a tool to solve the conflict based on situations. Ones knowledge and understanding will be tested in devising the solution, but gathering information accurately will be a challenge.
Remembering what was inside us when we lost the battle of life make us weak, sad and empty. We survive in hope of a better tomorrow, but we often forget that future cannot be better if we live in the world of our past. Life tests us, it often does winning is not important but surviving the test happily embarks a beginning of greatness. Feelings and logic are the same side of a coin; we believe it’s opposite, but is it? Logic gives you direction and emotions give you the thrust to move. Awareness of this helps to decide and focus.
I once encountered a person in my life who told me that “The greatest victory ever won is the victory over oneself”. I wondered what it meant. It meant the very conflict inside us when we have choices. He also told me that “The Most powerful thing in this world is Knowledge”. Amalgam of information gives knowledge and amalgam of knowledge gives wisdom. If we use this to our very oneself. We can clearly see the conflict within us. These conflicts put us down, make us weak and throw us in the cloud of uncertainty. We fail to extrapolate the facts and figures, and fail to formulate where we are being lead by our own confusion and conflict.
I had a chance to meet Afridi and Viv Richards at the same time at Bangalore Airport once. One can make out the difference in the two just by their body language and the conversation. Richards was very calm, composed knew what he is talking, A genius at speaking. Afridi was shooting in every direction. Richards had wisdom; Afridi had knowledge, yet caught up in his own conflict.
The solution which I seek is nothing more than awareness and acceptance. Awareness about yourself and acceptance of the situation can only help us to win over this conflict. How can one look inside them and get information. An art of retrospection and introspection can help to gather these fine information, and use acceptance as a tool to solve the conflict based on situations. Ones knowledge and understanding will be tested in devising the solution, but gathering information accurately will be a challenge.
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