Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?
In my 2nd year of college, I got an opportunity to intern with The Climber where I was a part of a three-member team. We were responsible to increase the revenue and were given a target to sell 30 workshops. We underestimated the task at hand and managed to sell only 7 workshops. The failure to achieve this helped me learn more about sales and marketing. Since, initially, we targeted only our friends, I understood the importance to approach the right target audience. Furthermore, the feedbacks also helped me understand the gaps in our sales pitch. Learning from our mistakes, we altered the sales pitch and instead of approaching the students individually, we targeted the entire class at a time. This also improved our efficiency as we could reach a larger audience in less time. Within 1 month, we were able to sell over 500 workshops, generating a revenue of INR 5,00,000.
Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.
Owing to my fear of public speaking during my school times, I started doing a practice which is whenever I am driving, walking or sitting alone. I randomly give myself a topic and just start speaking on the same for 10-15 mins. The topics that I use for myself vary a lot and are usually picked up from what is happening in my life at moment. No one knows that I do this exercise and there have been times when I went on with the topic for over 30 mins without a break. This exercise helped me immensely during my college and my jobs. From not being able to utter a single word on the stage in my school, I went on to host numerous events during my college and my job. I hosted events such as Farewell, Freshers, Year-end company events with an audience of over 2000 people. Even though I haven't told anyone about this exercise, I take immense pride that I followed this and was able to learn so much from it.
What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?
1. Revamping of Urban Company's Spa and Massage Business: In my previous role as a Category Manager in Urban Company, I was leading the South Cluster for the Spa and Massage business for the company. Few months into the role, we realised that most of the demand for Spa and Massage is coming from the people who had already taken up some other service from the company specifically Men's Grooming and Salon. This was majorly because unlike Men's Grooming and Salon services, Spa and Massage is a luxury service. This was a concern for us since a drop in these verticals would mean, a dip in our vertical as well. I was given the charge to come up with a solution for this concern and lead this project. I realised that there has to be a fundamental shift in the way people look at Spa and Massage business. After market research, I found out a few things which I had to solve on priority: More than 80% of the customer base booked Spa and Massage services when they were Stressed whereas we provided a range of other massages as well. Most of the users were not aware of the massages that we offered i.e. Swedish Massage, Deep Tissue Massage whereas these are some of the most common massages. Repeat users had a very different experience when different service partners went to deliver these services. In order to overcome these problems, I suggested revamping the entire Spa and Massage vertical of Urban Company. This seemed like a drastic measure to everyone and the management was taken aback by such a suggestion.
But I backed up my suggestion with the following argument. We needed to make the cart more user friendly and provide need-based SKUs. In order to increase the customer base, we have to come up with services that provide solutions to more tangible problems such as Back Pain Relief, Leg Pain Relief, Destress Therapy, Sleep Therapy etc. We need to standardise our service as the expertise of all the service providers was not equal, therefore customers had varied experiences when different partners visited. This could be solved by introducing tools in the services like Percussion Guns, Rollers etc. Eventually, after long discussions, my suggestions were accepted and we decided to pilot this model in the Bangalore region where we launched 17 new SKUs. This was the most drastic shift ever in the business. There were a lot of vectors that had to be catered to in order to make this pilot a success, major one beings: Onboarding a physiotherapist for these specialised services, training all the service providers on all the SKUs, finalising vendors for new oils and all the tools, deciding on the consumer journey on the app, shooting new videos etc. Finally, the SKUs were launched in the first week of June in a part of the Delhi NCR region. The success matrix for this pilot was to increase repeat customers by 30% in the next 90 days and new trials by 20% in the next 60 days.
2. Co-founded the largest production house: Having realised my interest in theatre, I co-founded a production house (Orpheus Productions) in my college which is currently the largest production house of the college with over 200 active members in it. We won more than 30 national-level fests including Mood Indigo (Asia's largest cultural fest) organised by Mood Indigo. However, I realised that heading such a large organisation should not only mean participating and winning fests, therefore, I decided that we should put the talents of so many people for a larger cause. In order to achieve this, we started performing in Bangalore to spread awareness of social issues. We performed over 20 such plays in a span of 18 months with an audience of about 100-150 people in each performance. Furthermore, I led the team to become the first team of the college to perform a professional play. We performed one of our flagship plays in Prabath KH Kalasoudha in Bangalore with a full house and generated a revenue of over INR 40,000 in a day. Leading a team with such talented individuals and performing on such great platforms is one of my greatest achievements.
Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?
Five years down the line, I would like to be a part of one of the major management consulting firms as a consultant. This desire of being a consultant comes from my interest in problem-solving. Having done various projects which required extensive analytical and problem-solving skills, I believe consultancy as a career would be a right fit for me. Furthermore, I wish to build an alternative profession where I would like to mentor students about their careers and competitive examinations. I would also take out time to mentor underprivileged kids for free. I developed a liking towards mentoring others after being a part of Anatha Shishu NGO in Bangalore. I served 1 week in the NGO as a tutor and that gave me immense satisfaction.
What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?
I believe that one should always be humble and empathetic towards others. In my opinion, this is one characteristic that makes one not only likeable but gives him/her the ability to quickly learn from others as well. Being empathetic towards others enables you to view situation from different perspective. I believe that this an essential quality for a budding manager to possess. In todays dynamic world with so much uncertainty, being able to have a 360 degree approach to problems and coming to a solution after thorough analysis can help one go a long way.
In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?
In my opinion, passion for the goal that the manager is trying to achieve is very important. This not only improves the drive with which the manager works but he is also able to imbibe the same culture to his/her team members. This increases the motivation with which the entire team works. In addition, I believe ownership of the results is another quality that a successful manager possesses. A manager is not driven by the tasks assigned by his boss but is self-motivated to achieve the right results. This enables him to go over and above what is required. This also helps in bringing in more innovation to the company. Lastly, a successful manager has the ability to identify opportunities around him. Opportunities do not present themselves very often and when it does, he/she should not only be able to identify them but also capitalise on them. This ensures growth at an accelerated pace for any organisation. This also helps to bring innovative ideas to the table.
Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.
During my job, I built an excel based tool that helped to automate the process, reduce the FTE (Full-time equivalent) by 0.4 and analyse the data more effectively. One of the important features of the tool was that it could calculate the number of days taken by a team member to finish the request. I had a conflict of view with my team lead when she asked me to use a formula which even though was easier to implement, led to inflated results in certain situations. The dilemma I faced was whether to follow the orders of the team lead or to keep working on my formula.Since, abiding by the team leads suggestion would mean misrepresenting the data to the management, I decided against her suggestion and approached my supervisor. As a result, my recommendation was implemented and appreciated by the senior manager.
If you were the CEO of any company of your choosing, which company would you choose and what would your first action be as CEO?
I would like to be the CEO of Proctor and Gamble. Post my discussion with P&G leaders in the P&G Emerging Leaders Program, I had a discussion with one of the top executives about naming the product Whisper. I loved the company's ideology and values about removing the taboos that exist in different segments of India and one of these was the use of sanitary pads by the women of rural India. This intrigued me as to why, if the company follows such strong values, named the product Whisper. The sounded ironic to me. However, I understood the managements point on this as well where they said there is a right time for everything and currently, we still need to focus on increasing the usage and then solve another problem. As the CEO of P&G, a company with such great resources and talent, I will prepone this decision and drive a campaign where there is not even 1% ambiguity because of the name. This will be a huge decision for the company but a bold move like this is what is expected from a company with such a strong heritage and value system.
***
Check The List Of InsideIIM’s 50 Most Promising Incoming Students 2021 Here!
For the Class Of 2022, we are back with the 8th season of InsideIIM's Best 50 - India's Most Employable MBA Graduates - Class Of 2022! If you're graduating from a B-School in 2022, you're eligible to take part in this competition! Grab the chance to bring out your best side and impress your recruiters and peers. Take the opportunity to show the world why you are special, on your own terms.
If you're using a web browser (Mozilla or Google Chrome), then you can take part through this link. Otherwise, please download the Kampus App (Android | iOS), and head over to Competitions.
Chat
Comments