Learning is an everyday process. We come across and process various little information (Movies, Social Media, literature etc.) around us in our day to day life, which enhances our knowledge base and help fine tuning our decisions more accurately. Hence our long term goals may be written on a stone but short-term aspirations and approach towards our primary aim changes with each passing moment.Prior to my graduation, with the little knowledge I had back then, I always wanted to secure a position in a well-established organization with a stable environment where I can explore my academic knowledge and enhance my acquired/technical skills to fulfil the organisational and personal aspiration(to be a known and successful person in my profession). Being a class topper and Extrovert helped me becoming a Placement coordinator of our Institution and with the responsibilities that came alongside it I discover my leadership and managerial skills. That was my first glimpse at the corporate world and I loved it. I started my professional journey as a Sales and Marketing executive for refractory items in OCL India Ltd.(A Dalmia Bharat Group company). Hindalco-Sambalpur was my very first client. Being a fresh graduate from college in the very first month in sales was extremely difficult for me. I had practically zero knowledge and experience of marketing and its pre requisites like Market research, analysis, Market share of various competitors in different items , various incoterms used past relations with a particular customer, product performance history etc. But having a big customer as Hindalco boosted my confidence. Hindalco's procurement executives were very amiable, they understood my difficulties and lend the helping hand at the right time. A help in dire need is difficult to forget. One thing for sure Adity Birla group will always be my first and favourite customer in the life time.
I started my professional career as a sales executive for refractory items in the eastern region of India. Being a batch topper and placement coordinator, I was the only one in the fresh recruits to be promoted to corporate office at Kolkata. I had practically zero experience in Sales, so it was really difficult for me to cope up with the pressure and most importantly the expectations my organisation had on me. Along with that OCL India Ltd had a bad relationship with various significant customers in that region regarding unsettled bills. Hence my biggest challenge was to overcome all my professional lacunas and achieve my annual target while recovering all the unpaid bills at the same time.
To make thing worse IBC got introduced the same year and most of my targeted customers came under its fold and my management wanted to reduce its financial exposure to these companies as soon as possible and made it the primary focus point for sales executive. In order to overcome this situation I categorized my customers in four groups in terms of refractory purchase and outstanding bills and prioritise my efforts and time accordingly (1-4 in descending order) i.e.-
- Low purchase, high outstanding.
- High purchase, high outstanding
- Low purchase, low outstanding.
- High purchase, low outstanding.
Through this, I tried to re-establish good relations with our defaulter customers, identify and exploit the technical and payment aspects where I could leverage our product and force them into settlements. One of our biggest customers, M/S Jai Balaji had an outstanding of around 40 lakhs. During one of my visits to them, I came to know about an item which could be supplied only by us in the given time. I took the order and convinced them to arrive an out of court full and final settlement for the previous outstanding bills before dispatch. Similarly, during raw material unavailability of refractories in China, operations of various steel plants came to a halt. Fortunately, OCL had an alternative refractory of inferior quality. I took an order of INR 3Cr from Usha Martin, one of the biggest defaulters of OCL India and persuade them to release the funds immediately with interests before even manufacturing the order. I designed and Marketed a new product in order to reconnect with the old customers who stopped taking OCL’s services. Hence, though I missed the target of first 3 quarters I redeemed myself in the final one and achieved 95% of my annual target. I cleared the financial debts of four stressed customers while maintaining good positive relationship with them. In the consecutive year I met all the deadlines and targets beforetime till I was working there. Today they are one of the biggest customers of OCL nationally.
I learn the most important and basic lesson of professionalism as Mr. James Madison rightly said “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives”.
