Technology companies are expected to deliver the solutions and services that will drive the Indian IT industry and eventually the economy. The role of an individual behind driving an organization’s growth also cannot be undermined. This seems all the more true in the case of a successful spokesperson who personifies a brand they lead for.
The Face of the Company, in the most popular parlance is the one who provides a coherent identity to the brand. As a matter of fact, he is the one entrusted with the responsibility to lead the organization, to position the brand in the market and put in their best efforts to take the organizations to great heights and drive standards by increasing adoption of cutting edge technology across the country.
Ambarish-Deshpande
Ambarish Deshpande
Managing Director – India Sales,
Blue Coat Systems Inc
I believe that every leader and manager faces multiple challenges in their current role and even in their career. They should be aware of the key resources they have, strengths of their people & products and clear short term and long-term goals to achieve their success. When one is not in sync with ground realities, they end up facing organisational challenges to drive on-going commitments.
There are significant opportunities available to all and these are around us in every aspect of business. Every organisation has “Unique Value Proposition”. A leader with a strong business acumen, positive attitude and flexible mind-set can be an extremely creative in his/her approach to take his organisation to top.
Anand-Naik
Anand Naik,
Managing Director – Sales,
India and SAARC, Symantec
The biggest challenge today lies in creating an ecosystem that supports ambitious or high growth rates. Ambitious targets can be achieved with a sound support system – right from the creation of innovative products, developing a strong customer support mechanism and ensuringthat every function is geared for growth. Putting together such an ecosystem is a challenge.
Developing right type of leadership is also a part of this challenge. A true sign of a leader is his ability to adapt to change and keep his organization’s goals closely aligned to that of his workforce, imperative for the company’s long term success. A creative leader emerges as a winner even in situations beyond an individual’s control, namely economic or market conditions.
Another area of focus for a leader is decision making – both for the long term and immediate impact, and smartly balance the decisions for desired outcomes.
ashis-guha
Ashis Guha,
President – Global Sales,
Sanovi Technologies Pvt Ltd
Planning the goals and keeping them simple is very important for a leader. A strategy towards achieving those goals is yet another step preceding the first. Building the right ‘TEAM’ abiding by the four core principles of -Trust (trusting in each other), Empower (Empowering the team), Attitude (having the right attitude),Motivate (each other and the team)
I try to encourage the team to meet the business goals and try to –
• Inspire the team to see the vision and deliver and execute
• To think Out of Box that is very useful in our case and helps us quickly adapt and react to different situations positively.
• Use the Social Media/Network, which is very important in this day and age
• Listen to the team, environment and not hastening a decision. Accepting that I may not have answers to everything. Be open & flexible to change, as things/situations are constantly changing.
• And Believe – “It will be Done.”
Edgar-Dias
Edgar Dias,
Regional Director,
Brocade Communications India
The challenge is in the terms of explosive growth in the industry and how this growth is being catered.
I follow the five principles to bring in the quality to business and to the organization-
1. Understand your market?- Marketing is all about understanding the market and growing the market. To win, one has to be realistic.
2. Differentiate – It’s tricky, but successful companies have to make their product stand out from the competition while not being too different.
3. Work towards the common goal – The Marketing strategy should encompass all aspects of the business – sales, engineering, advertising, PR and communication. The approach should be united towards one goal.
4. Creating the chicken, or the egg – Entire infrastructures need to be built around a high-tech product for true mainstream uptake. New products need to be supported on the one hand and on the other by complementary technology.
Kartik-Shahani
Kartik Shahani,
Country Manager,
RSA-India and SAARC
Leadership should not be confused with managerial qualities. Creative leadership is a function of having a long term Vision that allows the organization and its participants to inorganically grow in terms of Brand, Revenue and personal development. Hence always….
a. Hire a team that shares the vision
b. Look at disruptive yet new processes that could accelerate route to achieving the vision
c. Leverage the partner ecosystem and make them truly a part of the growth rather than a cog in the wheel
d. Ensure high level of energy and motivation by being part of the team that executes
e. Provide continuous guidance and advice to managers that are executing the plans
f. Be open to suggestions, have the ability to take calculated risks, be prepared in case of a failure, change gears to match the changing environment.
Kuldeep-Raina
Kuldeep Raina,
Country Manager,
SOPHOS
One of the few challenges that I believe everyone in their journey comes across would be to find and retain competent workforce to drive the business. There is a complete transformation in the way the business is driven now-a-days.
Four competencies that I believe are the most critical for success in the present and in the future –
1. Leading people – One need to set the right example for their team. A leader should be competent, open to new ideas and accessible to its employees.
2. Strategic planning – I try to allocate resources and understand current positions and the possible avenues to pursue particular course of action in a situation. I believe a perfect planned decision keeping in mind the positives and negatives can never go wrong.
3. Managing change – We all know that the technology is changing. A leader should always be ready to adopt the changing technology and adjust with the business requirement.
Prosenjit-Sen
Prosenjit Sen,
Director, Channel Sales,
BlackBerry, India
As businesses grow, an organization faces different challenges and opportunities. Moreover as the markets evolve, different challenges demand different solutions. To put things in perspective- what worked a year ago might now work in present circumstances. Therefore as a leader of an organization, one has to identify appropriate opportunities, recognize common pitfalls with growth and craft solutions that mitigate business risks, creating sustainable growth for the future.
Organizations depend upon capable leadership to guide them through unprecedented changes. And a capable leadership helps companies effectively navigate complex situations while getting the job done. Having said that, it is equally important that a leader should be humble and be able to take responsibility in a time of crisis. A leader, apart from leading the company towards success must also be taking his employees to the top and get the best out of them.
Rajeev-Singh
Rajeev Singh,
Country Head and GM,
BenQ India
In today’s environment business challenges span across boundaries, so too must leadership. The ever-increasing complexity and interdependence of today’s world calls for a critical transformation in leadership from managing and protecting boundaries to boundary spanning – the capability to create direction, alignment, and commitment across boundaries in service of a higher vision or goal. In my view, Effective organizational leadership occurs when groups collaborate across boundaries to achieve outcomes that are above and beyond what those groups could achieve on their own. We recognize the potential for synergistic outcomes at the nexus between groups by giving work across departmental boundary dimensions, with the top 3 priorities being: collaboration across functions, empowering employees at all levels, and developing cross-organizational learning capabilities.
Rajesh-Doshi
Rajesh Doshi
Director-Purchase & Marketing,
Top Notch Infotronix India Pvt. Ltd.
I have established internally four principles to define our target market segment and to differentiate our value offering within this segment, staying one step ahead –
Recognize your market – Marketing is not just about branding and events. I tell my team – it is about understanding our target and defining strategies to reach it. A brand builds its market through channel partners, programs, tie ups, paying attention towards enhancing the products/solutions etc.
Distinguish – To flourish, we have to make our products stand out in the cluttered market – at the same time we cannot be too different.
Work towards the familiar objective – The moment the sales team and marketing team of a company chases different goals, it leads to failure or mis-balanced internal behaviour within the organisation.
What work for others may not work for you – We decided not to try and follow our competitors or the pioneers of the industry.
Rajesh-Gupta
Rajesh Gupta,
Country Manager, India,
SanDisk Corporation
Leadership is not thrust on someone. You can be put into a senior position or in a position of authority but that does not make you a leader. No matter what your position in an organization is, how old you are and where you lived, you have the power to show leadership. Nothing can ever deny you that. That being the premise, in my estimate, passion and people is what drives leadership. That’s when you really start connecting and engaging. How much close your ear is to the ground decides how much you succeed as a leader.
Leadership is about vision and establishing long term goals and directions. Leadership is about passion and people and bringing collective synergies out of a team and the leader is the facilitator of that process. As a leader you provoke people to change and challenge status quo. Leadership is about having unshaken faith in your vision and unrelenting confidence in your power to make positive change happen.
Ranjit-Nambiar
Ranjit Nambiar,
Director of Sales, IAM,
South Asia, HID Global
The biggest organizational challenge in our business today will be navigating a fundamental paradigm shift in technology that began in 2012. We are on the brink of dramatically changing how identities are created, used and managed. At the same time, we have to develop an organizational scalability to meet the customers’ needs associated with these technological changes across all functions of our organization. ‘Customer First’ is our mantra, which means that customer satisfaction is at the centre of everything we do.
We believe that our consumer-centric business model is the key to maintain a leading position in the industry. We continue to increase our focus and attention on our customers to ensure they were receiving our complete support, maximizing the business value with these customers and helping them anticipate the market changes. For instance, we’re seeing accelerating adoption of key ecosystem elements such as NFC-enabled smartphones that are a prerequisite for growth in mobile access control services and applications.
sunil-sharma
Sunil Sharma,
VP Sales & Operations, India & SAARC,
Cyberoam
We are up against a rough economic terrain. Getting the best out of one’s talent capital with all possible means of empowerment, be it providing lucrative career roadmaps, training and mentoring sessions is vital to endure this phase and we are on it. Indian rupee continues its nosedive against strengthening dollar and other factors adding to growing fiscal volatility. We have managed to absorb this burden and are able to shield customers’ interest by keeping the cost of products & services almost unchanged. Being a people focused organization, we are confident of making a difference by embracing a creative leadership that empowers and derives the best out of its people even when the going gets tough.
Ankesh-Kumar
Ankesh Kumar,
Director – Channel Products and Marketing,
Emerson Network Power
Tapping into the right talent pool is our main challenge for maintaining the growth momentum. As much as we value talented managers, we need skilled labour to execute the projects. Also, a devalued Rupee distorts the planned cap-ex budgets of existing projects. Our challenge is to provide the right technical and financial support to our partners in class B & C cities and enable them to leverage their domain strengths to stay competitive in a tough economy.
There is no textbook to being a successful leader. My management attitude extends to how I behave in my life in general, which is being ethical, transparent and passionate.
As a leader’s creative nature I believe that every idea deserves due thought, no matter however irrelevant it may seem at the time. Learning to adjust your sails based on concrete facts and then putting your best foot forward with an honest effort in everything you select to do shifts the focus from the ‘result’ to the ‘process’.
Virender-Aggarwal
Virender Aggarwal,
Chief Executive Officer,
Ramco Systems
In prevailing market conditions, every organization finds it challenging to deliver high growth, because, the profit and growth pull in two different directions. In such situations, it’s important to assess the market conditions, understand the scope of emerging markets and the risks associated with it.
At Ramco, in order to build a high performance oriented culture, the key is to build an organization which is driven with a very open atmosphere, break down all hierarchies. While grey hair is important, in a world which is driven by Innovation, the emphasis leans more towards what comes out as a result. Teams huddle together to create and deliver world-class software for the international markets, which they are passionate about. It’s bound to create a difference amongst the competition. At Ramco every employee is valued for his/her work and they are mildly guided to re-align to their and company’s objective. When all the employees are aware of their goal, it’s bound to bring the organization to greater heights.
xu-dejun
Xu Dejun,
CEO,
ZTE India
I believe that a leader should have a problem solving approach and encourage the same in his colleagues. Being a Chinese company, we ought to face challenges with regard to policies and approvals. However, we have innovatively transformed ourselves to emerge as one of the key players in the Indian telecom arena. In fact with our recent launch of smartphones, we have a set strategy to capture the market innovatively. We have introduced ‘At your doorstep’ service model which gives our customers the convenience to get the phones repaired with the comfort of their homes. Most essentially, we try to encourage creativity in the workplace and create a conducive atmosphere which can further foster creativity.
Vijay-Parekh
Vijay Parekh,
Head Marketing Communications,
Matrix Comsec
With vibrant external and internal environment, an organization faces new challenges at every turning point. To be in tune with the extremes of complex human behavior and pursuing objectives in the dynamic environment is challenging. Also, what keeps you on toes is the passion to be true to your commitments without succumbing to hurdles like changing market dynamics, aligning thoughts and objectives, be upright to your principles, challenging self to perform better, challenging time-frames, knowledge confinements and so on.
Humility, acknowledging failure, self-awareness, motivate, empower and inspire others towards achieving organizations objective, igniting innovation and genuineness are a few qualities of creative leadership required for the success of an organization. Other qualities like being original and out-of-box thinker, getting solutions which can solve problems simply and optimally and spreading organizational consciousness from top to bottom, are too important.