The Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur had the privilege of hosting Ms. Nidhee Kekre, Lead – WPP Unilever Team, India at WPP for an interactive session on 9th January 2020. An industry veteran with over 18 years of experience, Ms. Kekre brought to life the session on how to build successful data-driven organizations.
Introducing her organization in a very unique manner, she explained how they bring together some of the brightest minds in the world to answer the primal question of a consumer; “What to buy?”. She further explained how her organization helps its clients through creative transformation and explained in-depth, the four pillars of creative transformation, viz. Communication, Experience, Technology, and Commerce. She drove the point home by unequivocally stating that consumer centricity is the core of all customer approaches.
She then took the time to shed light on some key values that are important for personal and professional growth. Explaining each value in great detail by giving multiple anecdotes, she introduced refreshing perspectives on some age-old truths. The lessons she enumerated were:
- Education is a continuous process
- Bravery and empathy are underrated
- Be infinite
- Do what you love
- Hobbies are sunshine on a bad day
- You may be replaced at work but never at home
- It is healthy to have friends outside of work
- Meet people to listen
She then presented how data-driven businesses have reengineered their product development processes to enhance their product lifecycle. In this data-driven model, products don’t have a decline stage but rather grow at a sustainable rate. She also took the time to introduce and analyse the key concepts required to analyse the PLCs.
She then proceeded to explain how organizations gain meaningful data from seemingly meaningless sources. Citing relevant examples, she demonstrated how various companies can gain insights about the consumer based on purchase patterns, payment patterns, etc. which can be used to micro-segment their customers to benefit the company and the end consumer equally.
Ms. Nidhee Kekre through her interaction conveyed important corporate lessons in a manner that reflected her expertise and command over the subject. The students of the Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur are ever grateful to have the opportunity of learning from such as esteemed personality.
