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Showing posts from December, 2017

The struggle of Mid-Managers

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Raj was the Head of Business Unit of a big group in India and was getting ready for his presentation which he was making to the Top Management for a new project. The new project was very important for both the organization and Raj’s area of work as he proposed to enter a new segment generating additional revenues. He reviewed his slides again and again for one last time before he saved the presentation and closed his laptop. Gathered some confidence and picked up his laptop, diary,  pen and set off to the board room. He made sure he was in the room at least 10 mins earlier to set up the projector and start the presentation on time. The Management team comprising of 2 Vice Presidents and 1 CEO of the group entered the room on time. Everything was set and with the initial greetings done, Raj started his presentation. The presentation deeply covered all topics keeping the objective in focus. He indeed had worked on this for months. When he reached the slide talk

Understand your customer well before you INVEST on them !!

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That is what we have been taught in corporate from the day one we joined the organization. But today with growing competition and reducing loyalty, 'some' customers are exploiting companies and below is one example :  A year back after rolling out a major program, the sales team started meeting customers one by one.  One Afternoon, sales guy called me up fully excited. He wanted to break the news to me that he had made a big break through  “Yes, I am at a big prospect right now and he is good potential. We presented the complete program and is willing to buy our products. But, to gain confidence he is asking for this XXX part number on Free of Cost”. Trying out product before buying was a common practice and therefore I wasn’t surprised. But I knew he was exploiting us because to taste Coke / Pepsi you can taste it with a 200ml cup too, you don’t need to buy 10 bottles of 2.5Ltr bottle for tasting.  You get what am trying to say. To taste Coke / Pepsi yo