2. ECONOMIC TIMES
Link: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.
com/2014-01-28/news/46735067_1_media-tal-ent-
pool-foxymoron
January 28, 2014
2
LIMITED AVAILABLE TALENT POOL
While the demand is high, the supply of talent is
limited. According to Ramani, since the digital space
itself is new, there is a need for experts who can
adapt and learn about the new developments in
the space and at the same time are thorough with
the existing platforms. “Hence the available pool of
people to select from is also small as compared to
other professions,” he explains.
Suveer Bajaj, co-founder, FoxyMoron states simi-lar
concerns over limited talent pool and also the
higher propensity for individuals to switch agen-cies.
“Keeping a healthy work environment plays
an important role in the retention of valuable re-sources.
A strong team builds a strong agency and
hence it is important to build, train and retain the
right team,” he adds.
OPPORTUNITIES GALORE IN 2014
Employers across sectors and recruitment consul-tants
have predicted 2014 to be the year of oppor-tunities
for social media specialists. “We predict
that 2014 will witness a whole new social media
analyst profile, whose core function will be to un-derstand
the social media data at hand, interpret it
using latest analytic tools and techniques and bring
the insights thus derived to the decision makers in
creative ways,” states Vohra.
Ramani suggested that aspiring social media candi-dates
should focus on brushing up their creative and
strategising skills to suit the job profile. “Skilled and
experienced candidates can earn upto Rs 25,000
per month,” he adds.
RISE IN DEMAND FOR SOCIAL MEDIA EX-PERTS
IN FMCG, BFSI, PHARMA COMPANIES
With the advent of new technologies, Internet, and
Big Data, young professionals now have a lot more
interesting career options than ever before. One
such interesting profile is for a social media analyst.
According to Gaurav Vohra, CEO, Jigsaw Academy,
“We see many companies hiring social media ana-lysts
today. They believe their image on social plat-forms
is critical to getting that competitive edge in
the marketplace.”
GROWING FOCUS ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
With the rising cost on social media marketing
through Facebook or Twitter, there is also a rise in
the demand for social media experts. Madhur Ra-mani,
co-founder and managing partner, Stratum
Consulting, states, “Since companies are spending
major share of their revenue on digital marketing
and advertising, they require experts who under-stand
and know the digital space thoroughly. The
total spend on marketing on social media by organi-sations
and brands is upwards 500 crores.”
He pointed out that social media services are uti-lised
maximum by B2C companies since they need
to regularly engage with their consumers and tar-get
audience, believe experts. “FMCG brands, BFSI,
pharmaceuticals, automobile companies and of
course digital media agencies are the top employers
of social media experts,” he specified.
3. 3
TIMES OF INDIA
BIZ RUNS IN THEIR BLOOD
December 21, 2013
4. TIMES OF INDIA
Link: http://content.timesjobs.com/best-ways-
4
to-assess-soft skills/?fromsite=toi&utm_
source=toi&utm_medium=referral&utm_cam-paign=
toi-tj-whitelabel
BEST WAYS TO ASSESS SOFT SKILLS
September 20, 2013
While it is duly recognised that it is indeed complex
to measure soft skills of an employee to assess per-formance,
organisations are finding ways to meet
this challenge. Here are two industry experts who
share their experience
DEEPIKA PILLAI, HUMAN RESOURCE DIRECTOR,
XAVIENT INDIA
Benchmarking: Defining skills benchmark for each
position is imperative for an organisation. This in-cludes
the hard skills and the soft skills to adeptly
determine the right fit and identify the skill gap. As a
result, this sets the expectations right and employ-ees
have a clear understanding of essential compe-tencies
for their role. For instance, for a leadership
role, certain soft skills such as leadership, communi-cation,
collaboration, team handling skills may have
higher significance.
HR analytics tools: There are various talent manage-ment
and employee assessment tools which help in
an on-going skill evaluation process. There are built-in
metrics which can gather data, identify changes
and trends in workforce. These tools provide data
to measure and track competency development in
the organisation and have an impact on learning
development, and improve execution by measuring
organisational alignment. Such tools provide a com-parative
data of the skill levels of the current work-force
in comparison with the industry.
MADHUR RAMANI, MANAGING PARTNER AND
CO-FOUNDER, STRATUM CONSULTING
Accountability and Responsibility: One needs to be
a team player when working in an organization. The
performance of the employee is also evaluated by
the amount of responsibility he/she takes for his
own work as well accountability of the work done by
his or her team members. One needs to take onus
for the performance of his team keeping in mind cli-ent
satisfaction as well.
Attitude and Cooperation: Soft skills include the atti-tude
of the employee towards his peers and his work
environment. One should be flexible and prepared
to perform or work on tasks outside his/her stan-dard
job profile and keep an open mind to learning.
He/she should have a positive approach towards
the work and overall functioning of the company.
360 DEGREE: THE COMMON FACTOR
According to Ramani, 360 degree feedback is an in-tegral
part of any performance review. Pillai agrees,
“Soft skills are pre-defined and real time assessment
is done for employees to ascertain whether and to
what extend employees possess these skills and at-tributes
which are crucial for their work. The 360 de-gree
model promotes a fair assessment.” She added
that this also creates awareness that such skills are
equally important and directly has an impact on the
performance appraisal process
5. 5
TIMES OF INDIA - TIMES ASCENT
Link: http://cms.itsmyascent.com/web/itsmyascent/
hr-zone/-/asset_publisher/zM4i/content/intrapre-neurs-
with-an-edge
INTRAPRENEURS, WITH AN EDGE
September 18, 2013
While it is duly recognised that it is indeed complex
to measure soft skills of an employee to assess per-formance,
organisations are finding ways to meet
this challenge. Here are two industry experts who
share their experience
DEEPIKA PILLAI, HUMAN RESOURCE DIRECTOR,
XAVIENT INDIA
Benchmarking: Defining skills benchmark for each
position is imperative for an organisation. This in-cludes
the hard skills and the soft skills to adeptly
determine the right fit and identify the skill gap. As a
result, this sets the expectations right and employ-ees
have a clear understanding of essential compe-tencies
for their role. For instance, for a leadership
role, certain soft skills such as leadership, communi-cation,
collaboration, team handling skills may have
higher significance.
HR analytics tools: There are various talent manage-ment
and employee assessment tools which help in
an on-going skill evaluation process. There are built-in
metrics which can gather data, identify changes
and trends in workforce. These tools provide data
to measure and track competency development in
the organisation and have an impact on learning
development, and improve execution by measuring
organisational alignment. Such tools provide a com-parative
data of the skill levels of the current work-force
in comparison with the industry.
MADHUR RAMANI, MANAGING PARTNER AND
CO-FOUNDER, STRATUM CONSULTING
Accountability and Responsibility: One needs to be
a team player when working in an organization. The
performance of the employee is also evaluated by
the amount of responsibility he/she takes for his
own work as well accountability of the work done by
his or her team members. One needs to take onus
for the performance of his team keeping in mind cli-ent
satisfaction as well.
Attitude and Cooperation: Soft skills include the atti-tude
of the employee towards his peers and his work
environment. One should be flexible and prepared
to perform or work on tasks outside his/her stan-dard
job profile and keep an open mind to learning.
He/she should have a positive approach towards
the work and overall functioning of the company.
360 DEGREE: THE COMMON FACTOR
According to Ramani, 360 degree feedback is an in-tegral
part of any performance review. Pillai agrees,
“Soft skills are pre-defined and real time assessment
is done for employees to ascertain whether and to
what extend employees possess these skills and at-tributes
which are crucial for their work. The 360 de-gree
model promotes a fair assessment.” She added
that this also creates awareness that such skills are
equally important and directly has an impact on the
performance appraisal process
7. 7
DNA
IN ALL FAIRNESS
April 23,2014
Diversity and inclusivity at workplace are the buzz
words of the corporate world. Prachi Rege speaks
to HR heads of companies about practicing and sus-taining
these new mantras
“Creating and managing a diverse workforce is a
process, not a destination.”
–R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr.
Over the years, there has been a paradigm shift in
the demographics of the workforce within emerging
markets across all levels – local, regional and glob-al.
Workplace diversity and inclusivity is now inte-gral
for any business to thrive. A diverse workforce
consists of people from all economic backgrounds
and gender with a variety
of innovative and creative
skill sets. “Fostering an en-vironment
of inclusiveness
gives an organisation an
upper hand in a competi-tive
market as it helps in-crease
positive interper-sonal
relations amongst
“Creating and managing a
diverse workforce is a pro-cess,
not a destination.”
–R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr.
the employees which can lead to higher output of
ideas, and a sense of mutual respect amongst hier-archy
levels,” says Suveer Bajaj, co-founder, FoxyMo-ron,
a digital agency. As an employer, it is essential
to leverage the talent that diverse employees bring
to the table to help your organisation’s bottom line.
However, experts believe that though Indian work-places
are open to diversity and inclusivity across
cast, culture, region and race, inequality towards
the fairer sex is still a practice. “Not all companies
respect gender diversity. A lot needs to be done to
nudge women positively in the direction of educa-tion,
growth and learning,” says Manjit Lakhmana,
Head HR, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce
Life Insurance Company. Madhur Ramani, co-found-er
and managing partner, Stratum Consulting – A
business HR advisory firm, sites the example of In-dian
Air Force which in a way is one of the nation’s
biggest corporates.
Referring to a recent comment—”Women are not
physically suited for flying fighter planes”, made by
the Indian Air Force Chief Marshal, Arup Raha, Ra-mani
says,”While on one hand women have excelled
in all walks of life and are at the helm of top leader-ship
positions, the air force industry deem them to
be physically unfit to fly fighter planes. This shows
that not all sectors in our country have a unified in-clusion
policy; especially towards women.”
Telecommunication giant Vodafone India Ltd (VIL),
represents the positive side of gender diversity in
action in India Inc. They hired 50 per cent wom-en
trainees from educational institutes across the
country under their Discover Campus Programme. It
is an aspirational ‘management trainee’ programme
that provides fast-track career growth, exciting and
challenging opportunities and a platform to connect
with fellow alumni. “32 per cent of mobile owners
in urban India are women. However, this propor-tion
of customer base did not reflect in the women
personnel at VIL. Hence, having a diverse workforce
became a strategic business imperative for us,” ex-plains
Ashok Ramchandran, director, Human Re-sources,
VIL.
At FoxyMoron, teams represent inclusivity across
verticals and cities. “We con-sciously
employ people from var-ied
talent pools with different em-ployment
histories to equip each
employee with opportunities for
professional growth and encour-age
innovation,” says Bajaj. They
foster diversity and inclusivity
through quarterly activities like
FoxyConf’— a platform for every team to showcase
their work, learn from another colleague’s mistakes
and network with other teams and a weekly session
called ‘A Fox Wants To Know’—where every single
employee poses any business/ organisational re-lated
queries to the directors and co-founders of
the agency. “This open-dialogue helps results in in-formed
and aware employers and highly involved
employees. Thus resulting in positive business deci-sions,”
explains Bajaj.
“We are currently in the process of formalising cer-tain
practices of growth, learning and mentoring for
all our colleagues across diverse backgrounds, eth-nicity,
career patterns and specialisation, across all
career levels. We are excited to leverage our natu-ral
opportunities within the system, and anticipate
many more positive side-effects of these new hab-its,”
says Lakhmana.
Experts suggest that no matter how large the work-force
of your organisation is, it is important to foster
an environment where people have the opportu-nities
to voice their opinions, share their learning,
express their concerns without feeling like they are
being judged or personally attacked.
Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report-in-all-
fairness-1981124
8. Ramchandran strongly believes that corporates
must undertake simple but engaging initiatives like
celebrating national festivals for employees. “With
these in-house initiatives, the entire organisation
will imbibe the cultural hues of national festivals,
leading to the creation of a family celebration en-vironment,
8
building a closer connect amongst the
work force,” he signs off.
Foster diversity and inclusivity through...
1) A policy that ensures zero tolerance for negative
behavior which demeans a person and their values
or beliefs
2) Promote the use of technology and various com-munication
platforms to convey policies and other
company information across all verticals and teams
3) Reward employees who foster and encourage
team spirit across the organisation. Encourage
these employees to become advocates of a diverse
and inclusive workplace environment.
9. 9
POWER OF NETWORKING: MAPPING HOW
NETWORKING HAS EVOLVED
March 05, 2014
If Facebook were a country, it would be one of the
most populous countries in the world. This is what
networking has evolved into in the modern times.
Patricia Mascarenhas explores the power of net-working.
Think back to an office party you recent-ly
attended. You will recall that
there were guests who seemed
to know almost everyone in the
room, moving from group to
group with great ease, leaving no
hand unshaken. The ability to re-late
well with others is a sign of a
person’s art of networking. “Net-working
is the art and science of
building business relationships
with strangers by developing an
engaging and outgoing personal-ity,”
says Ganesh Natarajan, vice
chairman and CEO, ZenSar tech-nologies.
Pratik Gupta, co-founder, director- New Business
and Innovation, FoxyMoron also agrees, “It’s about
creating an impression or absorbing from them
things that will/could benefit your business or even
your way of thinking,” he adds.
Today networking has become one of the most pro-ductive
and enduring means to build relationships
for both individuals and organisations. “It is the use
of contacts to acquire information, advice, and re-ferrals
to boost your career,” says Osbert Dsouza,
assistant manager, Deloitte Haskins & Sells. In a
connected world like ours, it is extremely important
to build new contacts and develop existing relation-ships
for business benefit. “Most successful corpo-rate
professionals use networking as an important
element of developing business,” says Natarajan.
In India the concept of networking is understood
differently as compared to the west. “Individuals in
the west want to expand their networks in order to
grasp knowledge of various industries and connect
with like-minded people. In India, on the other hand,
networking is still constricted to build relationships
for business benefits/profit,” says Madhur Ramani,
co-founder and managing partner, Stratum Consult-
ing.
However, this approach is now beginning to change
where startups and entrepreneurs are coming to-gether
to help budding businesses. “This is called
“pay it forward” where mentoring and assisting is
done without expectations of obtaining something
in return,” informs Ramani. While it is great to meet
new people, it is not about the number of contacts
you have but, the quality of the relationships you
build. “The whole purpose of networking should be
to establish more fruitful relationships with people
in the long run,” he adds.
Apart from face to face activities
like participating in forums, con-ferences,
cocktail parties, golf etc;
being part of virtual platforms like
Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Samosa,
The Indian Network, etc can also
be productive. “There are indus-try
associations like CII, NASSCOM
and more closed user groups like
the HBS Club of India and IIT and
IIM alumni groups where one
can hear some ideas and discov-er
new trends within the field,”
informs Natarajan. Dsouza also
agrees, “Today Twitter is becom-ing
a popular means to engage and learn about new
job opening where conversations with the peers
help in finding the right organisation to work with,”
he adds.
Social networking plays a key role in the job hunt
today. “Social platforms allow employers to get to
know who you are outside the confines of a résumé
and interview, while they offer job seekers the op-portunity
to learn about companies they want to
join, connect with current and former employees,”
says Gupta.
But is networking enough? In the end, it’s not about
quantity, but about quality. “A smaller group of qual-ity
relationships is going to be that much more ef-fective
than a very large group of contacts that you
hardly know,” says Ramani. “Networking is only the
icing on the cake,” laughs Natarajan. Gupta agrees,
“Networking is just half the battle. Connecting and
creating relevant conversations to move forward is
another.”
DNA
Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report-power-
of-networking-mapping-how-networking-has-
evolved-1966854
10. WHY B SCHOOL GRADS ARE HEADING TO
START-UPS
May 13, 2014
Saturdays can bring mixed emotions. Those who
spend them working end up grumpy while those
who manage to keep themselves out of the office
remain chirpy mostly. It is one of those Saturdays at
Shopclues, an e-commerce company, and a team of
seven engineers is about to lock itself in the office,
on a weekend, for 48 hours.
And, believe it or not, they are not just chirpy, they
are positively excited. They have managed to push
out fancy office furniture from the conference room
and stuff it with portable mattresses, Coke, pizzas
and their favourite foods. The conference room is
now a boot camp for software
geeks — someone is a pro in
html, another knows php and Java
and someone else is an expert in
search engine optimisation. Ob-jective:
10
To come up with a mobility
proof of concept for their compa-ny’s
portal.
Fun@work, autonomy
keep young employees
motivated
More of a college dorm than an office, the confer-ence
room at Shopclues becomes a cauldron of
innovation and peer learning, where people come
together to make and discover new things.
“The attrition at Shopclues is zero at the middle
and senior level and it is because of the conviction
everyone shares for his or her work,” says Radhika
Ghai Aggarwal, Chief Marketing Officer and founder
of ShopClues.com. She is certain they (employees)
will not shift easily if an opportunity comes to them.
“People believe in what they are doing here, there is
so much room to grow and learn,” she adds.
The rapidly growing start-up seems to be getting it
right when it comes to managing employees. As part
of the organisational building strategy, the company
has introduced an employee engagement module
called 4Ts – in which, ‘T’ stands for team, technique,
time and task. Employees are free to choose their
projects and even teams.
“Post 2008 many companies have started taking
employee engagement seriously, some offer work-shops
and trainings, and some have even rede-signed
employee compensation, and floated eSops,”
says Jyorden T Misra, founder member and Manag-ing
Director of Spearhead InterSearch, an HR con-sulting
firm. “Around that time compensation was
most important but over time a deeper component
has come into play which makes young employees
think about what will make me stick to a company
for a while.”
EMPLOYEES EMPOWERED
Start-ups are leveraging the situation and changing
the rules of the game when it comes to employee
management.
They are making sure the best talent sticks with
them and don’t turn to MNCs in lure of compen-sation
and facilities. These newly-born companies
are able to retain talent by offering solutions to job
seekers’ key pain points – lack of autonomy, dele-gation
of work, fixed and stringent working hours,
little room for knowledge and skill
enhancement and company’s lack
of involvement with employees at
a personal level.
Tanya Seth, who has an MBA from
a top business school, opted to
work for a start-up in place of an MNC. “I have al-ways
looked for a great role and believe that learn-ing
has to be prioritised over money, especially at an
early stage of the career,” says Seth, who has been
working with FrogIdeas for a few months now. “It’s
been a huge learning curve since day one, we get
to create and execute solutions for clients across
industries. There’s never a dearth of ideas here.”
According to Jatin Modi, CEO and Co-Founder of
FrogIdeas, a digital strategy and marketing compa-ny,
the firm encourages employees to take owner-ship,
which means the company has to simply get
out of the way of smart people and allow them to
flourish. “There are no cabins or cubicles in the of-fice,
teams sit on long tables, which reduce bound-aries
and enable a flat structure when it comes to
decision-making,” he says. The founders have given
the team complete autonomy to pick and execute
projects and tasks in a manner as they (team mem-bers)
see fit. “This is regardless of experience and
is dependent on passion, willingness and ability to
execute only,” says Modi. “Regular training through
industry experts, flexible work hours, complete au-tonomy,
delegated decision-making, the opportuni-
THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE
Link: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/fea-tures/
newmanager/why-%C2%AD‐b-%C2%AD‐school-%
C2%AD‐grads-%C2%AD‐are-%C2%AD‐heading-%
C2%AD‐to-%C2%AD‐startups/
article6005637.ece
11. 11
ty to work on projects of choice, an informal work
culture, and chance to create globally visible cam-paigns
regardless of experience – all this creates a
culture of excellence,” he adds. FrogIdeas has 21
full-time employees on the board currently and the
number is likely to reach 65 in the coming year.
The start-up has expanded operations in three cities
and two countries within one year of operations and
is clocking revenue of $1 million. Its clients range
from e-commerce, IT, banking, consumer durables,
telecom, and real estate to hospitality. FrogIdeas
describes the internet as a marsh and the compa-ny
helps its clients to overtake their competitors
through innovative digital strategy.
AMBITION AT PLAY
Another breed of em-ployees
is taking shape at
fast-growing, highly tech-nology-
driven start-ups by
fresh graduates who opted
out of placements to pur-sue
their own businesses.
“This is where a well thought
out engagement strategy will
become very critical in these
companies,” says Ramani.
These techpreneurs are cultivating a force of em-ployees
who are competitive, and motivated to
prove their mettle to the industry. The exposure one
gets in such start-ups cannot be matched by large,
established companies. For Instance, Housing.com,
India’s first map-based home search portal started
by 12 IITians, has grown multi-fold within two years
of starting-up. The organisation has been on a hiring
spree since its first round of funding worth worth
$2.5 mn by Nexus Venture Partners.
The company essentially picks up young individuals
who are extremely ambitious and competitive.
“The constant urge to perform the best to one’s
ability creates an atmosphere of healthy competi-tion
that challenges each employee on a daily ba-sis,”
says Advitiya Sharma, Co-Founder & Marketing
Head of Housing.com.
“This culture helps maintain the level of motivation
we would like to have around the office.”
Housing.com’s workplace is designed to exude a
sense of excitement that makes it a vibrant and en-ergetic
space to work in.
“Surprise office parties when the lights and Wifi go
off, and the office turns into a nightclub, are pretty
efficient at keeping our employees motivated,” he
adds.
The company has embraced the culture where each
individual creates a significant impact to the busi-ness.
“Each individual would get a lot of responsibil-ity
and this, we have learned, brings in the thirst for
excellence,” Sharma says.
Housing.com currently has about 1,200 employees
on-board which includes around 200 professionals
from IITs, IIMs, ISB and other top colleges in India.
Young and fast-growing firms in technology, inter-net,
ecommerce, and digital marketing space are
doubling in size and man-power
every year.
In the second phase of
growth, however, when
the employee strength ex-ceeds
multifold, these firms
may face a situation where
the initial set of people are
highly engaged, whereas the newer set of people
are not engaged at all, according to Madhur Ramani,
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of a business HR
advisory firm, Stratum Consulting.
“This is where a well thought out engagement strat-egy
will become very critical in these companies,”
says Ramani.
“Weekly initiatives like Google’s TGIF (Thank God It’s
Friday) initiative — where the company’s top man-agement
engages with all employees on a weekly
basis and answers their queries — go a long way in
keeping the newer set of employees engaged.”
12. CHALLENGES IN SUCCESSION PLANNING FOR
FMBS
April 23, 2014
One of the challenges concerning family-run organ-isiations
12
is delinking the businesses’ identity with
that of the promoter.
Family businesses have been an integral part of the
Indian economy, a major source of income and em-ployment
for India since long. A white paper study
of April 2012 carried by the Thomas Schmidheiny,
Chair of Family Business and Wealth Management,
Indian School of Business (ISB), states that, “Family
businesses constitute more than 85 per cent busi-nesses
in India and account for the vast majority of
national output and employment.” Though a stag-gering
number, they also infer, “There is a paucity of
knowledge about the ways of organising and man-aging
business in these rapidly changing times.”
However, with a dynamic economy, these Family
Managed Businesses (FMBs) are facing a number of
challenges and finding it difficult to survive beyond
the second or third generation. While operating un-der
extreme pressures within the evolving markets,
they are facing issues like mismanagement, lack of
professionalism or the absence of a proper succes-sion
plan in place.
In the current scenario, FMBs are also facing inter-nal
challenges such as hiring and retaining non-fam-ily
management talent, preparing the next genera-tion
for leadership and lack of support in adapting
to new growth processes according to the global
economic markets.
Today’s gen next business leaders are young, am-bitious
and want to implement new processes,
undertake expansions and keep up with the glob-al
markets to accelerate growth and yield quick re-sults.
They have a different vision for growth of the
business, and a discrepancy towards this outlook
with the elders in the family, sometimes proves to
be a hindrance in the overall progress. It becomes
difficult for traditional business owners to accept or
adapt to these changes.
One of the other bigger challenges concerning FMBs
is delinking the businesses’ identity with that of the
promoter. It is difficult for traditional FMB owners to
let go of decision-making powers and let an outsider
or somebody other than a family member take deci-sions
on behalf of the company.
The businesses are generally owner-centric and de-pend
entirely on the owners or promoters.
Identifying these challenges, it is important for
FMBs to lay down a proper succession plan in place.
FMBs should look at succession planning at a more
integral level and it should not only consist of find-ing
a CEO as the successor of an organisation but
also have a more integrated approach to achieve it.
Succession planning needs to be done at two lev-els
— one is a core team of high performers for the
head of the organisation and the other is succession
planning that needs to be done at a functional level.
The identity of the organisation need not be entirely
dependent on its promoter. FMBs need to work to-wards
making the organisation independent of the
promoter which is possible if there is a core team of
high performers involved in decision-making for the
organisation. Similarly, succession planning needs
to take place at a functional level as well where in-ternal
team members are mentored and trained to
take up larger roles and more responsibility to take
decisions at the function level. This core team at
both levels should believe in the vision and overall
goals and objectives of the organisation and be able
to function without too much involvement of the
promoter or owner or the head of their respective
functions.
Indian family managed businesses need to move
from their traditional working mindset and adapt to
a dynamic environment placing importance on pro-fessionalism,
flexibility, teamwork and adaptability
to the emerging economy.
The writer is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of
Stratum Consulting, a business HR advisory firm.
FMBs need to work towards making the organisa-tion
independent of the promoter which is possible
if there is a core team of high performers involved in
decision-making for the organisation.
THE HINDU
Link: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/
tp-features/tp-opportunities/challenges-in-succes-sion-
planning-for-fmbs/article5939163.ece
13. 13
ZEE NEWS
IN ALL FAIRNESS
April 22, 2014
Diversity and inclusivity at workplace are the buzz
words of the corporate world. Prachi Rege speaks
to HR heads of companies about practicing and sus-taining
these new mantras
“Creating and managing a diverse workforce is a
process, not a destination.”
–R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr.
Over the years, there has been a paradigm shift in
the demographics of the workforce within emerging
markets across all levels – local, regional and glob-al.
Workplace diversity and inclusivity is now inte-gral
for any business to thrive. A diverse workforce
consists of people from all economic backgrounds
and gender with a variety
of innovative and creative
skill sets. “Fostering an en-vironment
of inclusiveness
gives an organisation an
upper hand in a competi-tive
market as it helps in-crease
positive interper-sonal
relations amongst
“Creating and managing a
diverse workforce is a pro-cess,
not a destination.”
–R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr.
the employees which can lead to higher output of
ideas, and a sense of mutual respect amongst hier-archy
levels,” says Suveer Bajaj, co-founder, FoxyMo-ron,
a digital agency. As an employer, it is essential
to leverage the talent that diverse employees bring
to the table to help your organisation’s bottom line.
However, experts believe that though Indian work-places
are open to diversity and inclusivity across
cast, culture, region and race, inequality towards
the fairer sex is still a practice. “Not all companies
respect gender diversity. A lot needs to be done to
nudge women positively in the direction of educa-tion,
growth and learning,” says Manjit Lakhmana,
Head HR, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce
Life Insurance Company. Madhur Ramani, co-found-er
and managing partner, Stratum Consulting – A
business HR advisory firm, sites the example of In-dian
Air Force which in a way is one of the nation’s
biggest corporates.
Referring to a recent comment—”Women are not
physically suited for flying fighter planes”, made
by the Indian Air Force Chief Marshal, Arup Raha,
Ramani says,”While on one hand women have ex-celled
in all walks of life and are at the helm of top
leadership positions, the air force industry deem
a unified inclusion policy; especially towards wom-en.”
Telecommunication giant Vodafone India Ltd (VIL),
represents the positive side of gender diversity in
action in India Inc. They hired 50 per cent wom-en
trainees from educational institutes across the
country under their Discover Campus Programme. It
is an aspirational ‘management trainee’ programme
that provides fast-track career growth, exciting and
challenging opportunities and a platform to connect
with fellow alumni. “32 per cent of mobile owners
in urban India are women. However, this propor-tion
of customer base did not reflect in the women
personnel at VIL. Hence, having a diverse workforce
became a strategic business imperative for us,” ex-plains
Ashok Ramchandran, director, Human Re-sources,
VIL.
At FoxyMoron, teams represent inclusivity across
verticals and cities. “We consciously employ people
from varied talent pools with dif-ferent
employment histories to
equip each employee with oppor-tunities
for professional growth
and encourage innovation,” says
Bajaj. They foster diversity and
inclusivity through quarterly ac-tivities
like FoxyConf’— a platform
for every team to showcase their
work, learn from another colleague’s mistakes and
network with other teams and a weekly session
called ‘A Fox Wants To Know’—where every single
employee poses any business/ organisational re-lated
queries to the directors and co-founders of
the agency. “This open-dialogue helps results in in-formed
and aware employers and highly involved
employees. Thus resulting in positive business deci-sions,”
explains Bajaj.
“We are currently in the process of formalising cer-tain
practices of growth, learning and mentoring for
all our colleagues across diverse backgrounds, eth-nicity,
career patterns and specialisation, across all
career levels. We are excited to leverage our natu-ral
opportunities within the system, and anticipate
many more positive side-effects of these new hab-its,”
says Lakhmana.
Experts suggest that no matter how large the work-force
of your organisation is, it is important to foster
an environment where people have the opportu-nities
to voice their opinions, share their learning,
express their concerns without feeling like they are
being judged or personally attacked.
Ramchandran strongly believes that corporates
Link: http://zeenews.india.com/news/education/in-all-
fairness_926498.html
14. ZEE NEWS
Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/column-‐
strategic-‐
partner-‐
1929322
STRATEGIC PARTNER
December 4, 2013
Many business die an unnatural death because they
fail to harness the full potential of their venture
through an integrated Human Resources system,
says Madhur Ramani.
“India has the highest percentage of family busi-nesses
14
in Asia”, states the Asian Family Business Re-port
of 2011 by the Credit Suisse Emerging Markets
Research Institute. The study finds that India has
the highest percentage (67%) of family businesses
and that family businesses contribute significantly
to investments and employment. Also according to
an ASSOCHAM study, SMEs contribute over 22 per-cent
to India`s GDP. But majority of the Family Man-aged
Businesses (FMBs) do not survive beyond the
third generation and SMEs do not grow due to va-riety
of reasons, one of them being failure of FMBs
and SMEs to harness the full business potential of
their set-ups through integrated HR systems.
Currently, most organisations consider HR as only
a support function and fail to recognise its impor-tance
as a business function. It is also a fact that HR
teams do not fully comprehend the business objec-tives
or goals of an organisation and in some cases
the business itself. They are unable to identify the
gaps that hinder the organisation from fulfilling its
business objectives. This in turn leads to hiring of
talent that does not have the requisite skill set for a
particular position or that not equipped to provide
real solutions to the actual business challenges.
HR should see itself as the capacity builder where
it helps and defines organisational capabilities. It
should understand global business context and
build relevant organisational capabilities around
that. It is crucial for companies to train and devel-op
HR systems that understand the business and
its objectives first, identify problems that hinder
growth and then provide solutions to eliminate the
existing problem.
This step will ultimately lead to the growth of the
business. The role of HR is not only limited to talent
acquisition and performance management but also
to integrate itself with the overall functioning of a
business.
An organisation may achieve business goals by re-
placing traditional HR processes that are holding
back its potential, with modern, business-linked HR
processes. There are HR consultancy firms that act
as a tool in structuring and streamlining processes
while making use of the existing data and insights
into the organisation.
They provide solutions at a deeper and integral
level through data capturing, identifying gaps and
problems across verticals, laying out management
processes for various services and helping in best
implementation of their available resources.
It is important to understand that HR services al-though
inevitably linked to the operational function-ing
of an organisation can also be integrated in the
business outcomes of the organisation. Companies
should stop perceiving HR as merely an external op-erational
support function and also explore its po-tential
as a strategic partner in business processes.
They should position it as a value-adding function.
An organisation will be able to achieve both- opera-tional
and strategic results if HR services are maxi-mised
by using it as a strategic business partner that
can provide strong inputs and direction to the busi-ness
strategy in a more structured manner.
The author is co-founder and managing partner of
Stratum Consulting, HR advisory firm.
15. 15
Link: http://zeenews.india.com/news/education/
strategic-partner_894384.html
STRATEGIC PARTNER
December 4, 2013
Many business die an unnatural death because they
fail to harness the full potential of their venture
through an integrated Human Resources system,
says Madhur Ramani.
“India has the highest percentage of family busi-nesses
in Asia”, states the Asian Family Business Re-port
of 2011 by the Credit Suisse Emerging Markets
Research Institute. The study finds that India has
the highest percentage (67%) of family businesses
and that family businesses contribute significantly
to investments and employment. Also according to
an ASSOCHAM study, SMEs contribute over 22 per-cent
to India`s GDP. But majority of the Family Man-aged
Businesses (FMBs) do not survive beyond the
third generation and SMEs do not grow due to va-riety
of reasons, one of them being failure of FMBs
and SMEs to harness the full business potential of
their set-ups through integrated HR systems.
Currently, most organisations consider HR as only
a support function and fail to recognise its impor-tance
as a business function. It is also a fact that HR
teams do not fully comprehend the business objec-tives
or goals of an organisation and in some cases
the business itself. They are unable to identify the
gaps that hinder the organisation from fulfilling its
business objectives. This in turn leads to hiring of
talent that does not have the requisite skill set for a
particular position or that not equipped to provide
real solutions to the actual business challenges.
HR should see itself as the capacity builder where
it helps and defines organisational capabilities. It
should understand global business context and
build relevant organisational capabilities around
that. It is crucial for companies to train and devel-op
HR systems that understand the business and
its objectives first, identify problems that hinder
growth and then provide solutions to eliminate the
existing problem.
This step will ultimately lead to the growth of the
business. The role of HR is not only limited to talent
acquisition and performance management but also
to integrate itself with the overall functioning of a
business.
An organisation may achieve business goals by re-
placing traditional HR processes that are holding
back its potential, with modern, business-linked HR
processes. There are HR consultancy firms that act
as a tool in structuring and streamlining processes
while making use of the existing data and insights
into the organisation.
They provide solutions at a deeper and integral
level through data capturing, identifying gaps and
problems across verticals, laying out management
processes for various services and helping in best
implementation of their available resources.
It is important to understand that HR services al-though
inevitably linked to the operational function-ing
of an organisation can also be integrated in the
business outcomes of the organisation. Companies
should stop perceiving HR as merely an external op-erational
support function and also explore its po-tential
as a strategic partner in business processes.
They should position it as a value-adding function.
An organisation will be able to achieve both- opera-tional
and strategic results if HR services are maxi-mised
by using it as a strategic business partner that
can provide strong inputs and direction to the busi-ness
strategy in a more structured manner.
The author is co-founder and managing partner of
Stratum Consulting, HR advisory firm.
ZEE NEWS
16. YAHOO
Link: https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/budget-
2014--paving-the-way-for-start-ups-074031815.
html
BUDGET 2014: PAVING THE WAY FOR START-UPS
July 25, 2014
Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech
announced the setting up of a Rs 10,000 crore fund
to boost capital flow to startups and small and me-dium
16
enterprises (SMEs) in the country. He alsopro-posed
allowing foreign retailers, who manufacture
products in the country, to sell via e-commerce
platforms, a step towards liberalising foreign invest-ment
in the country’s $13 billion e-commerce sector.
Sameer Parwani, Founder and CEO, CouponDunia
- India’s popular coupon code website and Madhur
Ramani, Co-Founder and Managing Partner - Stra-tum
Consulting - A business HR advisory firm spell
out the pros and cons in this year’s budget
Sameer Parwani, Founder and CEO, CouponDunia,
thinks,” Increased FDI in e-commerce will definitely
be a boon for the economy. In my opinion, it will in-crease
the competition in the market and bring effi-ciency
into the system as the implementation of the
best global practices will become a compulsion. This
will be beneficial for the end-consumer in terms of
choice as well as reduced prices.”
“Additionally, domestic start-ups will get access to
capital, and with it, the expertise required in build-ing
world class companies - something India desper-ately
needs as an emerging superpower, he adds.
Madhur Ramani, Co-Founder and Managing Partner,
Stratum Consulting says, “While the government
has allocated 10,000 Cr for start-up companies in
the budget 2014, the reality is that 80 to 90 percent
of start-ups shut down within the first three years
of their business. It would be crucial to see how the
government is looking to build a support network
for these companies in terms of mentorship, guid-ance,
training and development to encourage their
scalability and sustainability. This would also ensure
that 10,000 Crores of the tax payers is put to good
use”.
17. 17
REDIFF.COM
Link: http://www.rediff.com/business/report/
qualities-that-will-help-a-leader-tide-over-cri-sis/
QUALITIES THAT WILL HELP A LEADER TIDE
OVER CRISIS
For an organisation to survive a crisis with its rep-utation,
operations and financial condition intact
depends on the timeliness and effectiveness of the
response by the top leaders of the organisation.
Crisis arise due to a number of reasons like profes-sional
improprieties or economic factors, loss of key
employees or loss of key customers, organisational
changes or factors that the organisation has no con-trol
over.
When crisis occur, they often take an organisation
by surprise and call for an effective response by the
leader of the organiza-tion
to the situation.
Since crises are a part
and parcel of running
any business function,
sooner or later nearly ev-ery
organisation faces a
crisis situation.
And when they do, there
arises a need for strong
and effective leadership
to take care of it while protecting the interest of the
organization and its employees.
Crises have a direct impact on a company’s produc-tivity,
profits, image and other quantitative mea-sures
of success.
It can put a company’s reputation at stake and ham-per
its business growth if right measures are not
taken by the management at the right time.
During a crisis situation, effective communication
both internally and externally is one of the most
important measures that any organisation should
keep in mind.
An interesting example that can be referenced here
is the Kingfisher airline crisis.
The airline was facing issues since a few years but
the major crisis was brought to light only in 2010.
They were facing debts worth $1.4billion after mak-ing
annual losses for five consecutive years. The
airline’s bank accounts were frozen and pilots were
on strike. The company was almost on the brink of
collapse and the pilots also lost their flying permit.
While the company was going through all this, the
world only saw the owner billionaire - Vijay Mallya
and his son continue to live their flamboyant and
lavish lifestyle.
With thousands of employees not being paid for
months, the owner was not available most of the
time for comments or seen standing and fighting it
out and facing the situation head on.
The ideal situation would have been for Vijay Mallya
to have remained the face of the organisation by en-gaging
directly with his employees.
He could have avoided the
negative publicity by man-aging
the crisis better and
in a controlled manner
rather than exhibiting his
opulent and flamboyant life
in public which created a
sense of insecurity amongst
his employees seething un-der
the situation of blocked
payments for a span of four
months.
Mallya was subjected to severe criticism for flaunt-ing
his affluent lifestyle at a time when his company
was struggling under mounting debts.
When confronted with organisational crisis, the pri-mary
goal is to resolve it and get back to business
as quickly as possible without prolonging the crisis.
Organisations should invest in leadership develop-ment
that focuses on crisis management and effec-tive
communication.
Effective crisis response should aim not only at
damage control but also push the company to get
on with business faster and better than before.
For example, the global automobile company Ford
found themselves at the receiving end for sexist ad-vertisements
by their advertising agency.
The advertisements were not the final cuts but the
April 07, 2014
A leader should develop effective
leadership and communication
skills that will help his firm sur-vive
difficult situations, writes
Madhur Ramani, co-founder and
managing partner at HR advisory
firm, Stratum Consulting
20140407.htm
18. automobile major was about to be hit by one of the
worst reputation damaging crisis of all times. The
ads that featured caricatures of women bound and
gagged in the trunk of a Ford Figo were slammed for
being sexist and offensive.
But timely and prompt response by the top man-agement
18
of the company averted the situation.The
Indian unit of Ford Motor Co. issued a statement
apologising for advertisements decried as demean-ing
to women.
The brand managed to protect their reputation and
at the same time not hamper sales of their cars.
Here, good effective leadership helped when Ford
took ownership and high-lighted
the actual issue
to its consumers with the
right communication from
the right people going out
at the right time.
Usually, in times of crisis
the onus to take action
and effectively respond
to the crisis falls on the
shoulders of the manage-ment
leader. They hold
the fate of the company in
their hands.
The leader of the company
not only needs to address
the current problem but
also ensure that organisa-tion
is running smoothly even with the situation at
hand.
Hence, managing becomes more difficult during a
crisis. Top executives need to step forward and un-derstand
the complexity and ambiguity of the crisis
by bringing order to chaos.
The most important factor that leaders need to keep
in mind while dealing with a crisis is to first identify
the source of the crisis, then identify its organisa-tional
implications and accordingly develop an ac-tion
plan to resolve the crisis.
Crisis situations demand leaders to demonstrate
situational awareness and grasp the ramifications
and its likely impact on the company and its stake-holders.
An effective leader should be able to make the
right decisions during contingencies. He/she should
demonstrate ability to redirect their energy and re-sources
to mobilise a quick response to protect the
company’s image and interest of the stakeholders.
The key is to safeguard the value of the enterprise
and develop a strategy to bounce back to regular
business as soon as possible.
A suitable example to validate this approach is that
of global player Johnson & Johnson when it was hit
by the Tylenol crisis in 1982 resulting in seven unfor-tunate
deaths.
It is one of the examples
of crisis situations arising
as a result of tampering of
the product by an external
party.
The company faced a fall
in its share value by $1 bn
and its reputation was at
stake. The company devel-oped
an upfront approach
to tackle the crisis situation
at hand by immediately re-calling
Tylenol from every
outlet in the market.
Apart from this, the com-pany
also decided not to
re-establish the product
on shelves until better
product protection was ensured for the future thus
adopting a consumer first approach.
Appropriate action at the right time by the leaders
of the organization not only helped Johnson & John-son
recover from the loss but also succeeded in pre-serving
the long term value of the brand.
The company within five months of the disaster
managed to recover 70 per cent of its market share
for the drug and safeguarded its reputation as well.
This example demonstrates that one can be a better
leader in times of crisis by addressing it through a
structured framework and understanding the crisis
through multiple perspectives.
The leader should be proactive rather than reactive
and should solve the issue through structured crisis
19. 19
management, fill up the loopholes and thereby re-build
the organisation.
During a crisis, the leader should not forget about
the interest of his employees and distribute the
scope of work after understanding their capabilities
and limitations.
In times of crisis, the focus of the organisation should
be the future of the organization. Strategies should
be developed keeping in mind resources that can
mobilise business growth.
The leader should be able to determine the right
channels of communication and comprehend the
crisis barriers and accordingly craft a plan to work
around these obstacles.
The overall culture of the organisation also plays
an important role during a crisis situation since
social-cultural trends of the company help the em-ployees
and the leaders to manage and learn from
the crisis and overcome the situation together as a
team.
On a whole, appropriate and effective leadership is
one of the saving factors for an organization during
crisis.
A leader can not only succeed by developing effec-tive
leadership and communication skills that will
help the organisation to survive the crisis but also
with a team that provides support and stands by the
organisation in times of crisis.
20. REDIFF.COM
Link: http://realtime.rediff.com/news/realtime/Rise-in-
demand-for-social-media-experts-in-FMCG-BFSI-pharma-
companies/72a47f6f3bca7b2d
January 28, 2014
20
A strong team builds a strong agency and hence it is
important to build, train and retain the right team,”
he adds.
OPPORTUNITIES GALORE IN 2014
Employers across sectors and recruitment consul-tants
have predicted 2014 to be the year of oppor-tunities
for social media specialists. “We predict that
2014 will witness a whole new social media analyst
profile, whose core function will be to understand
the social media data at hand, interpret it using lat-est
analytic tools and techniques and bring the in-sights
thus derived to the decision makers in cre-ative
ways,” states Vohra.
Ramani suggested that aspiring social media candi-dates
should focus on brushing up their creative and
strategising skills to suit the job profile. “Skilled and
experienced candidates can earn upto Rs 25,000
per month,” he adds.
RISE IN DEMAND FOR SOCIAL MEDIA EX-PERTS
IN FMCG, BFSI, PHARMA COMPANIES
With the advent of new technologies, Internet, and
Big Data, young professionals now have a lot more
interesting career options than ever before. One
such interesting profile is for a social media analyst.
According to Gaurav Vohra, CEO, Jigsaw Academy,
“We see many companies hiring social media ana-lysts
today. They believe their image on social plat-forms
is critical to getting that competitive edge in
the marketplace.”
GROWING FOCUS ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
With the rising cost on social media marketing
through Facebook or Twitter, there is also a rise in
the demand for social media experts. Madhur Ra-mani,
co-founder and managing partner, Stratum
Consulting, states, “Since companies are spending
major share of their revenue on digital marketing
and advertising, they require experts who under-stand
and know the digital space thoroughly. The
total spend on marketing on social media by organi-sations
and brands is upwards 500 crores.”
He pointed out that social media services are uti-lised
maximum by B2C companies since they need
to regularly engage with their consumers and tar-get
audience, believe experts. “FMCG brands, BFSI,
pharmaceuticals, automobile companies and of
course digital media agencies are the top employers
of social media experts,” he specified.
LIMITED AVAILABLE TALENT POOL
While the demand is high, the supply of talent is
limited. According to Ramani, since the digital space
itself is new, there is a need for experts who can
adapt and learn about the new developments in the
space and at the same time are thorough with the
existing platforms. “Hence the available pool of peo-ple
to select from is also small as compared to other
professions,” he explains.
Suveer Bajaj, co-founder, FoxyMoron states simi-lar
concerns over limited talent pool and also the
higher propensity for individuals to switch agencies.
“Keeping a healthy work environment plays an im-portant
role in the retention of valuable resources.
21. 21
ENTREPRENEUR INDIA.COM
Link: http://www.entrepreneurindia.com/article/
resources/columnists/How-Social-HR-Help-Start-ups-
Scale-up-497/
HOW SOCIAL HR HELP START-UPS SCALE UP
September 05, 2014
With the increase in competition, locally or global-ly,
organisations must become more adaptable and
employee friendly to succeed. Incorporating tech-nology
in the HR processes will help start-ups to
compete with MNCs both in terms of attracting and
retaining talent.
One of the emerging technologies in HR space is
Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs). FMBs (Family
Businesses) and Start-ups are yet to recognise the
importance of ESNs whereas MNCs are already
deriving benefits from them. One of the emerging
trends identified in the year 2014
is that organisations should stop
perceiving the growing usage of
social media as a threat and learn
how to use it to their advantage for
collaboration, knowledge sharing
and networking within as well as
outside the organisation.
EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
In less than a decade, social media
has become an indispensable part
of our society by integrating itself
in our personal and professional
lives. McKinsey Global Institute states that “while
72 per cent of companies use social technologies in
some way, very few are anywhere near to achieving
the full potential benefit.” Gradually, organisations
have begun to recognise the importance of integrat-ing
social technologies into their businesses to offer
a better experience to their employees and custom-ers
and how social media practices can be imple-mented
to contribute to business goals.
Companies like IBM, Nokia, PwC and many others
have already started embracing Enterprise Social
Networks to amplify and enhance communication
within their organisations. These channels not only
help in communication at different levels of the or-ganisation
but also empower them to self-organise
their functional operations.
NEW WAYS TO RETAIN TALENT
Additionally, innovation through peer-to-peer
knowledge sharing can be enhanced via social net-working
practices that will help in better decision
making within the organisations. It is important for
SMEs and FMBs to connect with their employees
and bridge the gap between senior and mid-level
management. Founders should be in touch with the
new employees in a fast growing set-up where the
strength of the organisation is continuously increas-ing.
Once employees feel connected to the organisa-tion,
they become more participative and respon-sive
towards their work as well as what other teams
are doing. Engaged employees can offer solutions
across locations within the organisation.
For instance, if the Delhi team of
an organisation needs some ideas/
solutions for a project, employees
sitting in the Mumbai office can
offer them via knowledge sharing
platforms. These mediums can
also be used to post job openings
internally and help in finding the
right talent within the organisation
before looking outside.
These days, organisations are also
employing social media tools to en-gage
new recruits in the pre-join-ing
phase to create excitement
about their new employment. During the induction
and orientation of new employees, learning and en-gagement
aspects are given equal importance along
with training and monitoring.
Today, financial incentives aren’t the only way to
retain employees and motivate them to work hard.
Employees should feel valued in the organisation
with the flexibility to contribute meaningful work
regardless of their role. Public recognition makes
a huge difference in employee engagement as re-wards
and appreciation can boost a person’s confi-dence
to a great extent. This plays a significant role
in the growth of the organisation since high levels of
employee engagement reduces employee turnover
and increases employee loyalty.
THE ROAD AHEAD
22. Social media is also giving organisations an oppor-tunity
22
to bring the employer brand to life, promot-ing
the organization’s values and culture to poten-tial
candidates. It is also helping an organisation to
showcase its work culture and map it against com-petition
and make their presence felt in the market.
Employer branding becomes imperative in retaining
the hired talent as well attracting new talent.
Overall, HR has evolved through social media by
shifting from an administrative function to an inte-gral
strategic business partner that adds value to
the organisation’s workforce and its ability to deliv-er
against key goals of the organisation. Good or-ganisations
are already leveraging social media to
engage employees and using it for collaboration,
learning, training and development of the employ-ees
as well as accelerate business growth. It is about
time that other organisations also start recognising
the benefits of such practices.
The author of this article is Madhur Ramani,
Co-Founder and Managing Partner – Stratum Con-sulting.
The firm provides innovative and technolog-ical
Business HR solutions for FMBs and start-ups to
scale up and compete in global markets.
24. FOR AGENCY HEADS: BUILDING CULTURE IN
DIGITAL FIRMS WITH SQUADS
May 28, 2014
In today’s fast paced environment and cut throat
competition, digital marketing agencies that func-tion
24
within the digital economy need to continu-ously
reinvent themselves to remain at the top of
the pyramid. Many organizations are striving hard
to implement innovative work practices in order to
support their business objectives.
CREATING CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMS
By creating cross-functional teams, digital market-ing
organizations can conceptualize, create, design
and innovate in a way that allows the group to meet
the objective set by them, while ensuring that these
objectives are aligned with the goals of the compa-ny.
Cross-functional teams function as self-directed
teams assigned to a specific task that call for inputs
and expertise of various other teams.
This is an example of a good culture building prac-tice
within an organization since it brings together
employees with different skill sets on the same ta-ble
to work towards a common goal. Additionally,
this process is also a great way to make the organi-zations
less dependent on the heads or owners by
encouraging the employees to think independently.
It enables faster growth of the organization and also
the employees as it gives them an opportunity to
think about the business objectives and understand
its various aspects.
INNOVATIVE CONCEPT CALL ‘SQUADS’
One such innovative concept that can be imple-mented
by organizations in order to bring all cre-ative
heads together is that of – ‘Squads’.
‘Squads’ are cross-functional teams with a dedicated
mission that is directly linked to the larger mission
of the company in terms of service capabilities, busi-ness
growth or customer satisfaction or innovation
in a particular aspect.
Organizations can look towards to setting up of
two or three teams together from different de-partments
that meet twice every week to discuss
and work on their particular squad mission. It is a
known fact that ‘people make a company’ and they
are the engines behind the growth of an organiza-tion.
Through these Squads, experts from different
teams come together to brainstorm for a specific
task or a project. When multi-disciplinary individuals
think together, there are greater chances of more
creativity, out of the box ideas and better innovative
approaches towards the task. The outcome of such
a process is better decisions and better results.This
paves a path for alternate perspective and new po-tential
solutions to tasks or projects, thus aiding the
growth and progress of the organization.
Spotify – a music software company, started this
concept a few years ago, however it can be imple-mented
by several organizations sectors including
the digital industry.
SOCIAL SAMOSA
Link: http://www.socialsamosa.com/2014/05/build-ing-
culture-digital-firms-squads/
25. 25
them to be physically unfit to fly fighter planes. This
shows that not all sectors in our country have must
undertake simple but engaging initiatives like cele-brating
national festivals for employees. “With these
in-house initiatives, the entire organisation will im-bibe
the cultural hues of national festivals, leading
to the creation of a family celebration environment,
building a closer connect amongst the work force,”
he signs off.
Foster diversity and inclusivity through...
1) A policy that ensures zero tolerance for negative
behavior which demeans a person and their values
or beliefs
2) Promote the use of technology and various com-munication
platforms to convey policies and other
company information across all verticals and teams
3) Reward employees who foster and encourage
team spirit across the organisation. Encourage
these employees to become advocates of a diverse
and inclusive workplace environment.
26. FOXYMORON LAUNCHES ITS NEW ‘PUBLIC
RELATIONS’ VERTICAL
February 24, 2014
One of India’s leading independent digital market-ing,
26
ideas and media solutions agencies, FoxyMoron
has extended its service offerings by launching its
own Public Relations vertical. With an objective to
provide integrated Media & Marketing solutions for
brands, FoxyMoron will also offer Public Relations
along with other service offerings, including social
media marketing, web de-sign
and development,
search engine optimiza-tion,
media buying and
planning and audio visual
content creation to name
a few.
With an ever evolving in-dustry
scenario, there is a
growing need for reaching
out to the new age con-sumer
that is on-the-go.
There is a constant need
for engagement for great-er
brand recall that requires a mix of integrated
marketing strategies. Identifying this growing need
for a holistic approach, the new PR vertical will pro-vide
a 360 degree integrated service that includes
both online and offline PR. The vertical has been in
the set up phase over the last few months and is
now fully functional.’
The division is currently catering to clients like Stra-tum
Consulting - A Business HR advisory firm and
a national level entrepreneurship challenge called
‘Power to Empower 2013’ by the National Skills De-velopment
Corporation and India @75 and man-aged
by innovation accelerator, Ennovent to name
a few.
Suveer Bajaj, Co-founder, FoxyMoron, also the Ac-count
Director of the Public Relations division said,
‘Over the last 6 years, FoxyMoron has conceptual-ized
some unique and award-winning communi-cation
strategies. It was only a matter of time that
we integrated all our service offerings to provide
brands with an additional opportunity to commu-nicate
through the same platform using different
mediums. With traditional media and the new age
digital medium often crossing paths, it is increasing-
ly becoming difficult to ignore the importance of ei-ther
medium. They cannot co-exist together without
walking hand in hand. The team we’ve put together
to set the ball-rolling for the new vertical brings a
decade’s experience across sectors - corporate, fi-nance,
fashion and lifestyle.’
‘When exploring options for PR support for a recent
client contract we came across FoxyMoron and their
newly launched PR Services. The company’s reputa-tion
as an agency that thinks outside the box is ev-ident
even in this newly launched vertical and their
team impressed us with their flexibility in creating
a campaign that matched
our client’s requirements.
During execution, Foxy-
Moron’s PR team im-pressed
us with their per-severance
and ability to
deliver tangible results for
clients’, said, Perzen Patel,
Manager Marketing, En-novent.
Talking about the impor-tance
of integrating PR
with social media, Madhur
Ramani, Founder & Man-aging
Partner, Stratum
Consulting said, ‘PR when integrated with digital me-dia
can help brands reach out to their consumers
better. As one of the leaders in the industry, they
understand the significance and power of the digital
and social space. We are happy to have FoxyMoron
on board as our Public Relations partners and look
forward to a rewarding association.’
FoxyMoron was founded by Harshil Karia, Paritosh
Ajmera, Pratik Gupta and Suveer Bajaj in 2008. Cur-rently,
with over 175 employees across Mumbai and
Gurgaon, the agency has conceptualized and execut-ed
some recognized and award-winning campaigns
including Garnier Men - PowerLight A Village, May-belline
New York India - Baby Lips, Femina Made By
You Issue, L’Oreal Paris - Stay Rooted, The Sula Fest
website among many others.
SOCIAL SAMOSA
Link: http://www.socialsamosa.com/2014/02/foxy-moron-
launches-public-relations/
27. higher propensity for individuals to switch agencies.
“Keeping a healthy work environment plays an im-portant
role in the retention of valuable resources.
A strong team builds a strong agency and hence it is
important to build, train and retain the right team,”
he adds.
OPPORTUNITIES GALORE IN 2014
Employers across sectors and recruitment consul-tants
have predicted 2014 to be the year of oppor-tunities
for social media specialists. “We predict that
2014 will witness a whole new social media analyst
profile, whose core function will be to understand
the social media data at hand, interpret it using lat-est
analytic tools and techniques and bring the in-sights
thus derived to the decision makers in cre-ative
ways,” states Vohra.
Ramani suggested that aspiring social media candi-dates
should focus on brushing up their creative and
strategising skills to suit the job profile. “Skilled and
experienced candidates can earn upto Rs 25,000
per month,” he adds.
27
TIMES JOB
Link: http://content.timesjobs.com/rise-‐
in-‐
de-mand-
‐
for-‐
social-‐
media-‐
experts-‐
in-‐
fmcg-‐
bf-si-
‐
pharma-‐
companies/?fromsite=toi&utm_source=toi&utm_
medium=referral&utm_campaign=toi-‐
tj-‐
whitela-bel
RISE IN DEMAND FOR SOCIAL MEDIA EX-PERTS
IN FMCG, BFSI, PHARMA COMPANIES
January 13, 2014
With the advent of new technologies, Internet, and
Big Data, young professionals now have a lot more
interesting career options than ever before. One
such interesting profile is for a social media analyst.
According to Gaurav Vohra, CEO, Jigsaw Academy,
“We see many companies hiring social media ana-lysts
today. They believe their image on social plat-forms
is critical to getting that competitive edge in
the marketplace.”
GROWING FOCUS ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
With the rising cost on social media marketing
through Facebook or Twitter, there is also a rise in
the demand for social media experts. Madhur Ra-mani,
co-founder and managing partner, Stratum
Consulting, states, “Since companies are spending
major share of their revenue on digital marketing
and advertising, they require experts who under-stand
and know the digital space thoroughly. The
total spend on marketing on social media by organi-sations
and brands is upwards 500 crores.”
He pointed out that social media services are uti-lised
maximum by B2C companies since they need
to regularly engage with their consumers and tar-get
audience, believe experts. “FMCG brands, BFSI,
pharmaceuticals, automobile companies and of
course digital media agencies are the top employers
of social media experts,” he specified.
LIMITED AVAILABLE TALENT POOL
While the demand is high, the supply of talent is
limited. According to Ramani, since the digital space
itself is new, there is a need for experts who can
adapt and learn about the new developments in the
space and at the same time are thorough with the
existing platforms. “Hence the available pool of peo-ple
to select from is also small as compared to other
professions,” he explains.
Suveer Bajaj, co-founder, FoxyMoron states simi-lar
concerns over limited talent pool and also the
28. ‘TRAINING, SKILL DEVELOPMENT KEY TO-WARDS
January 09, 2014
28
RETAINING MID-LEVEL MANAGERS’
According to a TimesJobs.com survey, over 30 per
cent organisations find middle management hiring
most challenging. The primary reason being, these
positions call for as much authority as accountabili-ty
and responsibility, reasons the respondents.
Multifarious Challenges: Attitude, Ambiguity, Remu-neration
It’s always a challenge to
hire the right set of talent
for a particular profile; it is
even more challenging to
hire candidates for mid-lev-el
positions, opine indus-try
experts. For mid-level
managers, the link be-tween
executives and top
management, having ade-quate
leadership qualities
and domain knowledge
become extremely cru-cial.
However, attitude is deemed fundamental for
mid-management personnel.
Attitude: “While attitude, skills and experience, are
essential for mid-level managers, attitude is pivotal
for corporate success,” says Sanjay Singh, CEO, hCen-tive
Inc. According to Madhur Ramani, co-founder
and managing partner, Stratum Consulting, attitude
and skills combined, makes an individual contribute
to the setup, lead to growth opportunities within
the company and add value to the organisation. “It’s
the attitude of an individual which determines his or
her reaction or value-add in a situational behaviour.
Skills entirely back the attitude which helps the indi-vidual
scale in his/ her career,” he adds.
Apprehension: Individuals at this level get caught in
a mid-life crisis situation and are unable to take any
concrete decision. “They try to map themselves with
regards to what they are doing and more often than
not are unsatisfied with the position they find them-selves
in. At the same time as there is no clarity in
their mind on what they can and wish to do in the
long term, they are unable to map the career oppor-tunities
or visualise their future career path,” states
Nitinchandra Shinde, general manager-head, Talent
Management, Persistent Systems.
Position and compensation: Experts believe that
people at mid-managerial level seek both position
and pay package. According to Asit Mohapatra, di-rector-
HR, Raymond Textile, “At the mid-levels sal-ary
is the major driver. Designations also seem to
matter a lot.” Moreover, job profile and creative
freedom are also increasingly becoming crucial for
professionals at this level, resonated experts across
sectors.
Training Offers Solution: Foster Leadership, Mana-gerial
Skills
For all the mid-level pro-files,
training acts as an
important tool when it
comes to grooming these
professionals. This often
serves as a solution for
all the challenges, feel ex-perts.
According to Singh,
“Middle managers are the
cornerstone of an organi-sation.
They are essential
to the continued success
of a company and we must
ensure that they not only
have the proper training in
regard to domain expertise, but also in managing
teams. Training and skill development at this level
delivers immense value to an organisation’s overall
development.”
As stated by Ramani, “It is extremely important for
training employees at the mid-management level.
They are individuals who can take the organisation
to the next level, hence the need to train them to
hone their skills and grow along with them.” He high-lighted
that training them further ensures retention
and forming a core team for the organisation.
Shinde stated that the main focus of training should
be on imparting relevant technical skills, bring in
certain behavioural changes and developing certain
softer competencies such as communication, ne-gotiation,
leadership skills, etc. “At this level, more
than the traditional approach, mentoring works the
best,” he suggests.
TIMES JOB
Link: http://content.timesjobs.com/training-skill-de-velopment-
key-towards-retaining-mid-level-manag-ers/
29. 29
CAUGHT IN WRONG JOB? HOLD ON
December 7, 2013
Don’t switch companies for now, say experts, citing
dynamics in market.
Looking for a shift in job? The time is not right. Given
the fact that the Economy is marked with inflation—
coupled with economic slowdown—job hopping is
not advisable for a few extra bucks, say experts.
“It is always better to stick with an old devil than en-counter
a new one. The fact remains that in today’s
job market, it is difficult to find dream job. You never
know what you are getting into till you start working
in the new place,” says Yogesh Saigal, independent
HR consultant.
Experts say reasons like low salary and minor prob-lems
with boss are no longer considered big enough
to switch jobs in the current scenario. “Every Office
has its own problems. There is no guarantee that
the existing problems in the office will not crop up at
the new workplace. One has to adjust; try and find a
niche,” says Girish Baliga, CEO and founder, Career
Vita.
The reason, remarks Baliga, is the lack of good op-portunities
in the market right now. In fact, a huge
salary raise might make you unsaleable in the mar-
ket for the next three-four years. “In today’s sce-nario,
it will be nothing less than being in a golden
cage,” says Baliga.
In most cases, compensation philosophy works on
salary range positioning of individuals most of the
time. “It effectively means that at a certain level/des-ignation
in that company, if you are being hired at
the maximum of the salary range, it is highly likely
that your subsequent increments post appraisals in
the initial few years/cycles will be lower than aver-age,”
says Saigal.
Companies mostly offer exorbitant salaries to peo-ple
due to specific skill-set requirements or general-ly
when there is a build phase of a project or some
new process being transitioned in. The high initial
package is to attract talent as an immediate need—
it more often than not is not really aimed to retain
one on a long term basis.
“Also, if you are unhappy with the job, the market
is such that you will not be able to make a shift eas-ily
without taking a pay cut. Hence, it is advisable
to stick to a known brand even if compensation
does not match your expectations,” says Prof Uday
Salunkhe, group director, WeSchool.
“It is easy for an outsider to tell someone else to
be bold and take a risk (even in a downturn), but
people should gauge their risk profile and appetite
properly before making a move,” says Madhur Ra-mani,
Co-founder and Managing Partner at Stratum
Consulting.
How he got Back to square One
Dhruv Solanki switched from an investment bank
to a global ecommerce company with a pay of Rs
22 lakh per annum. However, five months into the
company, Solanki started hunting for a new job,
which was not easy to come. Solanki had to take a
pay cut and return to his old company at the pay
scale he had left. “Though, I got a good hike, I real-ised
the work Environment was not as good as my
previous company. I tried at many places, and was
ready to move at the same salary level. However, I
did not get any good offer and had to return to my
old company at a lower salary,” says Solanki.
TIMES JOB
Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report-bangalore-
caught-in-wrong-job-hold-on-1931170
30. TIMES JOB
Link: http://content.timesjobs.com/india-inc-em-brace-
workplace-flexibility/
BEST WAYS TO ASSESS SOFT SKILLS
September 20, 2013
According to a recently concluded study by Times-
Jobs.com, about 60 per cent of the organisations
stated to have a formal policy on workplace flexi-bility.
30
Flexible workplace policies have been around
for a long time and time and again researches have
shown how beneficial they are to employees and to
employers.
Strengthening the connect
Offering flexible work schedules builds a sense of
belongingness among employees. It is said to im-prove
efficiency and loyalty towards the organiza-tion,
thus boosting the business output. According
to Jatin Desai, CEO, The DeSai Group, USA & Innova-tion
Management Expert, “Flexible workplace shows
improvement in employee engagement scores. Im-proved
engagement scores have shown enhanced
in organisational productivity and profits.” He add-ed
that in India the flexibility trend may be gain-ing
momentum but in other parts of the world the
trend has slowed down. “In India, there is still a huge
benefit to promoting this policy in certain types of
sectors and organizations,” he said.
Changing market forces and influx of technology in
every sphere of work are few of the major reasons
behind the growth of flexible work options in India
Inc.
Countering challenges
According to the TimesJobs.com survey results, while
almost all major industry segments are providing
flexibility options to its employees, in some way or
the other, for about 40 per cent of the organizations,
the trend is still evolving. Of those organisations that
don’t have a formal flexibility policy, 40 per cent are
unsure about adopting one or more flexible work
arrangements in the near future. As per Desai, lack
of innovation could be on the reasons behind this.
“In our research, it has been proven that innovation
is a social art. Without interactions, innovations do
not occur. Best ideas occur when few people work in
a team face to face. Often bet ideas occur accidently
and not in a formal setting. Therefore, it is very hard
to generate innovative culture when many employ-ees
often work in isolation,” he articulated.
Sans the cons
Minus the associated downsides of workplace flexi-bility,
industry experts believe that offering flexibil-ity
is indeed beneficial for both the employee and
the employer. They opined that offering flexible
work schedules help curb attrition and also adds-on
to the employer brand.
Quoting a Regus Study Madhur Ramani, Co-Found-er
and Managing Partner, Stratum Consulting said,
“According to the study, a majority of senior man-agers
and business owners globally report a direct
link between flexible working practices and im-proved
productivity (72 per cent).” He added that
many businesses have come to the consensus that
work flexibility keeps the employee’s motivated and
results in better productivity, reducing work stress
and frustration levels.
Future is flexible
Experts added that being flexible creates an envi-ronment
where employers and employees can look
at work and personal needs in a balanced approach,
which is mutually beneficial, feels industry experts.
According to the TimesJobs.com study, close to 60
per cent of the organizations are likely to implement
more flexibility options, in near future.
Devarajan Duraibabu, COO of Disha communica-tions
believes that workplace flexibility is a step in
the future direction and a progressive way forward.
“It is undoubtedly, a smart strategy to retain em-ployees
and attract talent, and I would rate it right
at the top of all EEPs (Employee engagement pro-grammes),”
he said.
“According to a Regus September 2013 report, by
2015, the world’s mobile worker population will
reach 1.3 billion, representing 37.2 per cent of the
total workforce,” Ramani concluded.
31. 31
TIMES JOB NEWSLETTER- TJINSITE
INDIA INC EMBRACES WORKPLACE
FLEXIBILITY
November, 2013
32. FOXYMORON LAUNCHES ITS NEW ‘PUBLIC
RELATIONS’ VERTICAL
February 03, 2014
One of India’s leading independent digital market-ing,
32
ideas and media solutions agencies, FoxyMoron
has extended its service offerings by launching its
own Public Relations vertical. With an objective to
provide integrated Media & Marketing solutions for
brands, FoxyMoron will also offer Public Relations
along with other service offerings, including social
media marketing, web design and development,
search engine optimization, media buying and plan-ning
and audio visual content creation to name a
few.
With an ever evolving industry scenario, there is a
growing need for reaching out to the new age con-sumer
that is on-the-go. There is a constant need for
engagement for greater brand recall that requires a
mix of integrated marketing strategies. Identifying
this growing need for a holistic approach, the new
PR vertical will provide a 360 degree integrated ser-vice
that includes both online and offline PR. The
vertical has been in the set up phase over the last
few months and is now fully functional.’
The division is currently catering to clients like Stra-tum
Consulting - A Business HR advisory firm and
a national level entrepreneurship challenge called
‘Power to Empower 2013’ by the National Skills De-velopment
Corporation and India @75 and man-aged
by innovation accelerator, Ennovent to name
a few.
Suveer Bajaj, Co-founder, FoxyMoron, also the Ac-count
Director of the Public Relations division said,
‘Over the last 6 years, FoxyMoron has conceptual-ized
some unique and award-winning communi-cation
strategies. It was only a matter of time that
we integrated all our service offerings to provide
brands with an additional opportunity to commu-nicate
through the same platform using different
mediums. With traditional media and the new age
digital medium often crossing paths, it is increasing-ly
becoming difficult to ignore the importance of ei-ther
medium. They cannot co-exist together without
walking hand in hand. The team we’ve put together
to set the ball-rolling for the new vertical brings a
decade’s experience across sectors - corporate, fi-nance,
fashion and lifestyle.’
‘When exploring options for PR support for a recent
client contract we came across FoxyMoron and their
newly launched PR Services. The company’s reputa-tion
as an agency that thinks outside the box is ev-ident
even in this newly launched vertical and their
team impressed us with their flexibility in creating a
campaign that matched our client’s requirements.
During execution, FoxyMoron’s PR team impressed
us with their perseverance and ability to deliver tan-gible
results for clients’, said, Perzen Patel, Manager
Marketing, Ennovent.
Talking about the importance of integrating PR with
social media, Madhur Ramani, Founder & Managing
Partner, Stratum Consulting said, ‘PR when integrat-ed
with digital media can help brands reach out to
their consumers better. As one of the leaders in the
industry, they understand the significance and pow-er
of the digital and social space. We are happy to
have FoxyMoron on board as our Public Relations
partners and look forward to a rewarding associa-tion.’
FoxyMoron was founded by Harshil Karia, Paritosh
Ajmera, Pratik Gupta and Suveer Bajaj in 2008. Cur-rently,
with over 175 employees across Mumbai and
Gurgaon, the agency has conceptualized and execut-ed
some recognized and award-winning campaigns
including Garnier Men - PowerLight A Village, May-belline
New York India - Baby Lips, Femina Made By
You Issue, L’Oreal Paris - Stay Rooted, The Sula Fest
website among many others.
EQUITY BULLS
Link: http://www.equitybulls.com/admin/
news2006/news_det.asp?id=134557
33. 33
DATAQUEST
Link: http://www.dqchannels.com/dq-channels/
news/217368/-life-journey-destination-equal-ly-
madhur-ramani-stratum-consulting
‘LIFE IS A JOURNEY BUT THE DESTINATION IS
EQUALLY IMPORTANT’, SAYS MADHUR RAMA-NI
OF STRATUM CONSULTING
July 10, 2014
DQ Channels in a chit chat with Madhur Ramani,
managing partner at Stratum Consulting
Home: Half a month in Bombay & Half a month in
Delhi
School/College: Delhi Institute of Technology (Netaji
Subhash Institute Of Technology)
Company: Stratum Consulting
Family: Small and close
I would like to be reborn as: Myself, but with the time
& money to travel a lot more (Have always been pas-sionate
about travel experiences)
Most memorable event of my life: Difficult to choose
one. The holiday in Europe this year. The first invoice
we raised on a client 5 yrs ago. The first pay cheque
13 yrs ago.
With my first pay cheque: Bought a Nokia phone 14
yrs ago. Monochrome display. Bulky. External an-tenna.
And I loved it.
Idol in life: No one in particular. However, my work
makes me meet many Entrepreneurs who have lost
everything in business, but have had the courage to
build everything back again from scratch. Find that
very inspiring.
Can’t live without: The Internet & my gadgets (As
many of my friends tell me repeatedly)
Favourite Gadget: My Macbook, iPhone & iPad.
Great design, great build quality & keeps everything
synced
Favourite Book: Not one in particular. When I get
time to read a book (which is on holidays), I prefer
spy thrillers mostly.
Work-out regime: Outdoor activities. Not a gym per-son.
Hobby: Travelling/reading online (with 30-40 tabs
open together)/music. I am happiest when I can do
all three together
Favourite holiday destination: Western and South-ern
Europe
Favourite Food: Not a foodie, so don’t care about it.
But do care a lot about the ambience/experience of
where I am eating
I can’t stand: Hypocrisy and Politics
Social media preference: Waiting for the next Face-book
/Twitter. Thought Google+ had a lot of poten-tial,
but unfortunately it never took off. Currently,
Instagram is my favourite
Best compliment I ever received: When someone
occasionally tells me I inspire them. Don’t think I
have achieved anything (yet) to inspire anyone
Car I drive: Chevrolet Aveo
Motto in Life: Life is a journey, but the destination is
equally important
Advice to budding entrepreneurs: It’s easy to get
enamored by media stories of multi-million dollar
acquisitions, but there usually always is an untold
story of a lot of persistence and personal sacrifice
behind that success
Like to watch on Television: Various genres - Spy
thrillers, Sitcoms, Drama. However Spy thrillers are
my favorite
The cause I care for: I believe that if children/young-sters
from lower strata of society are taught just
three subjects - English, Computers & Basic Math -
that can drastically transform their lives in terms of
financial independence
One thing I would like to change in myself: Become
more comfortable with walking upto a stranger and
starting a conversation. Would certainly help a lot
professionally.
5 years down the line I would be: hoping to have
achieved a balance between professional success,
personal relationships and health/fitness (all three
things balanced)
If not in the current industry, I would be: Not sure. I
am where I want to be.
34. HTSYNDICATION.COM
Link: http://htsyndication.com/htsportal/article/-
Life-is-a-journey-but-the-destination-is-equally-im-portant-,-
says-Madhur-Ramani-of-Stratum-Consult-ing/
4989026
‘LIFE IS A JOURNEY BUT THE DESTINATION IS
EQUALLY IMPORTANT’, SAYS MADHUR RAMA-NI
OF STRATUM CONSULTING
July 10, 2014
DQ Channels in a chit chat with Madhur Ramani,
managing partner at Stratum Consulting
Home: Half a month in Bombay & Half a month in
Delhi
School/College: Delhi Institute of Technology (Netaji
Subhash Institute Of Technology)
Company: Stratum Consulting
Family: Small and close
I would like to be reborn as: Myself, but with the time
& money to travel a lot more (Have always been pas-sionate
34
about travel experiences)
Most memorable event of my life: Difficult to choose
one. The holiday in Europe this year. The first invoice
we raised on a client 5 yrs ago. The first pay cheque
13 yrs ago.
With my first pay cheque: Bought a Nokia phone 14
yrs ago. Monochrome display. Bulky. External an-tenna.
And I loved it.
Idol in life: No one in particular. However, my work
makes me meet many Entrepreneurs who have lost
everything in business, but have had the courage to
build everything back again from scratch. Find that
very inspiring.
Can’t live without: The Internet & my gadgets (As
many of my friends tell me repeatedly)
Favourite Gadget: My Macbook, iPhone & iPad.
Great design, great build quality & keeps everything
synced
Favourite Book: Not one in particular. When I get
time to read a book (which is on holidays), I prefer
spy thrillers mostly.
Work-out regime: Outdoor activities. Not a gym per-son.
Hobby: Travelling/reading online (with 30-40 tabs
open together)/music. I am happiest when I can do
all three together
Favourite holiday destination: Western and South-ern
Europe
Favourite Food: Not a foodie, so don’t care about it.
But do care a lot about the ambience/experience of
where I am eating
I can’t stand: Hypocrisy and Politics
Social media preference: Waiting for the next Face-book
/Twitter. Thought Google+ had a lot of poten-tial,
but unfortunately it never took off. Currently,
Instagram is my favourite
Best compliment I ever received: When someone
occasionally tells me I inspire them. Don’t think I
have achieved anything (yet) to inspire anyone
Car I drive: Chevrolet Aveo
Motto in Life: Life is a journey, but the destination is
equally important
Advice to budding entrepreneurs: It’s easy to get
enamored by media stories of multi-million dollar
acquisitions, but there usually always is an untold
story of a lot of persistence and personal sacrifice
behind that success
Like to watch on Television: Various genres - Spy
thrillers, Sitcoms, Drama. However Spy thrillers are
my favorite
The cause I care for: I believe that if children/young-sters
from lower strata of society are taught just
three subjects - English, Computers & Basic Math -
that can drastically transform their lives in terms of
financial independence
One thing I would like to change in myself: Become
more comfortable with walking upto a stranger and
starting a conversation. Would certainly help a lot
professionally.
5 years down the line I would be: hoping to have
achieved a balance between professional success,
personal relationships and health/fitness (all three
things balanced)
If not in the current industry, I would be: Not sure. I
am where I want to be.
35. its_business_with_launch_of_public_rela-tions
‘When exploring options for PR support for a recent
35
MY NEWS
Link: http://www.mynews.in/News/foxymoron_ex-pands_
FOXYMORON LAUNCHES ITS NEW ‘PUBLIC
RELATIONS’ VERTICAL
February 25, 2014
One of India’s leading independent digital market-ing,
ideas and media solutions agencies, FoxyMoron
has extended its service offerings by launching its
own Public Relations vertical. With an objective to
provide integrated Media & Marketing solutions for
brands, FoxyMoron will also offer Public Relations
along with other service offerings, including social
media marketing, web design and development,
search engine optimization, media buying and plan-ning
and audio visual content creation to name a
few.
With an ever evolving industry scenario, there is a
growing need for reaching out to the new age con-sumer
that is on-the-go. There is a constant need for
engagement for greater brand recall that requires a
mix of integrated marketing strategies. Identifying
this growing need for a holistic approach, the new
PR vertical will provide a 360 degree integrated ser-vice
that includes both online and offline PR. The
vertical has been in the set up phase over the last
few months and is now fully functional.’
The division is currently catering to clients like Stra-tum
Consulting - A Business HR advisory firm and
a national level entrepreneurship challenge called
‘Power to Empower 2013’ by the National Skills De-velopment
Corporation and India @75 and man-aged
by innovation accelerator, Ennovent to name
a few.
Suveer Bajaj, Co-founder, FoxyMoron, also the Ac-count
Director of the Public Relations division said,
‘Over the last 6 years, FoxyMoron has conceptual-ized
some unique and award-winning communi-cation
strategies. It was only a matter of time that
we integrated all our service offerings to provide
brands with an additional opportunity to commu-nicate
through the same platform using different
mediums. With traditional media and the new age
digital medium often crossing paths, it is increasing-ly
becoming difficult to ignore the importance of ei-ther
medium. They cannot co-exist together without
walking hand in hand. The team we’ve put together
to set the ball-rolling for the new vertical brings a
decade’s experience across sectors - corporate,
finance, fashion and lifestyle.’
client contract we came across FoxyMoron and their
newly launched PR Services. The company’s reputa-tion
as an agency that thinks outside the box is ev-ident
even in this newly launched vertical and their
team impressed us with their flexibility in creating a
campaign that matched our client’s requirements.
During execution, FoxyMoron’s PR team impressed
us with their perseverance and ability to deliver tan-gible
results for clients’, said, Perzen Patel, Manager
Marketing, Ennovent.
Talking about the importance of integrating PR with
social media, Madhur Ramani, Founder & Managing
Partner, Stratum Consulting said, ‘PR when integrat-ed
with digital media can help brands reach out to
their consumers better. As one of the leaders in the
industry, they understand the significance and pow-er
of the digital and social space. We are happy to
have FoxyMoron on board as our Public Relations
partners and look forward to a rewarding associa-tion.’
FoxyMoron was founded by Harshil Karia, Paritosh
Ajmera, Pratik Gupta and Suveer Bajaj in 2008. Cur-rently,
with over 175 employees across Mumbai and
Gurgaon, the agency has conceptualized and execut-ed
some recognized and award-winning campaigns
including Garnier Men - PowerLight A Village, May-belline
New York India - Baby Lips, Femina Made By
You Issue, L’Oreal Paris - Stay Rooted, The Sula Fest
website among many others.