Making it Big in the World of Sales

The most beautiful thing about learning is that, “Nobody can take it away from you and that it is a constant ongoing process, not bound or restricted by the four walls of a classroom”. Curiosity and observation are the drivers of this incredible process of learning. This was the crux of the guest lecture delivered at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, on 31^st August, 2019. Our beloved Jaguars were as always invigorated by the opportunity to learn more, as Ms. Aayushi Singh, National Key Accounts Manager (Modern Trade) – Hector Beverages, and Mr. Deepak Pandey, with more than 10-years of experience with Nestlé took the stage. With a razor-sharp agenda in mind, Ms. Aayushi and Mr. Deepak addressed the Jaguars to intimate and educate them about the intricacies of the adrenaline-rush filled field of “Sales”. They dived deep into the workings and career opportunities within this field.

Ms. Aayushi Singh, handles Business for the following Modern Trade Chains – Walmart, Future Group, Easy Day, Vishal Mega Mart, DMart, ABRL, Reliance Retail, Spencer’s, GPIL and Tesco (Star Bazaar) in Hector Beverages. She has worked as a brand manager with Paper Boat as well. She is an MBA graduate from FORE School of Management.

Mr. Deepak Pandey, carries expertise in Digital Transformation of Energy Management and Automation in Homes, Buildings, Data Centers, Infrastructure and Industries. He has also worked in Nestlé for over 11 years in various profiles like Sales Officer, Sales Executive, Sr. Area Manager and Senior Key Account Manager. He is an MBA graduate from IIFT, New Delhi.

Mr. Deepak kicked off a session of learning with his experience with Nestlé and explaining the importance of sales as a career option by citing examples of Suresh Narayanan – Chairman & Managing Director, Nestlé India. He used numerous examples to drive home the importance of accepting the company you work for and how passion comes into picture. He then dedicated a lot of time to explain B2B and B2C sales, revealing the spider’s web and attempting to clear these two terms for our “Primed for Placements”, Jaguars. The reaction that followed was evidence enough to say, “Mission Accomplished”. He, then moved on to Sales Automation, where he explained how Sales Automation is the upcoming field for all the techies interested in sales. He explained how Sales Automation is vital for the companies and how costs are taken care of along with the advancement of technology. He strongly emphasized the importance of visibility in the sales process which can be achieved through Sales Automation. By touching upon the road ahead for sales he passed the mic over to Ms. Aayushi.

Ms. Aayushi, an extremely energetic, driven and passionate individual, was extremely relatable to the Jaguars as she had very recently begun her own journey in Sales and thus, she tried keeping the topic general, simple and yet quite insightful. Extracting a round of laughter from the crowd, Ms. Aayushi started off with a question, “How many of us are actually interested in Sales?” She went on to explain the qualities companies look for in a candidate seeking a career in Sales. She explained different challenges faced by her as she was a woman in a man’s world, choosing sales as her career. Everyone right from her family to her friends and colleagues tried to talk her out of this idea, but she came out on top and “sold” her ideas to them using her negotiation skills and thus proving she is well equipped for the same. She stressed upon how sales, the ultimate reason for the existence of a company is important and even people working in other domains should understand it as Sales is the only department that has multiple touch points to the end customer and this helps in developing strategies. She elaborated how sales as a career has changed her way of thinking and shaped her personal life for the better. Ending her talk with two of her go-to motivational videos, she opened the session for questions from the audience. A barrage of questions and answers followed, post which the Jaguars thanked the guests for their guidance, insights and their valuable time.

Written by:

Ms. Jaswinder Kaur, PGDM and Mr. Indrajeet Vadgama, PGDM Class of 2020 “Jaguars”

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon

Data Analytics v/s Biased Decision Making – Deloitte on Campus

“Data is the new oil”, is what Clive Humby said in 2006 and that is what we at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, believe. Seeking an opportunity to give our beloved Jaguars, the PGDM class of 2018-20, direct exposure to the Data Analytics industry and the possible roles they can play in it, we played host to Mr. Abhimanyu Dasgupta, Head of Science Based Services, Deloitte Analytics & Cognitive and Mr. Samidh Chatterjee Manager in the Applied AI group in Deloitte India (Offices of the US).

Mr. Abhimanyu Dasgupta, specializes in the design, development and deployment of data science algorithms across Insurance and various other sectors globally. He began his journey with Deloitte 13 years ago and has led engagement teams in driving end-to-end data science solutions for leading firms. He has contributed to several industries and data science forums through his points of view, speaking engagements, articles and patents.  He is recognized as one of India’s top 10 data scientists by Analytics India Magazine, 2016.

Mr. Samidh Chatterjee, Manager in the Applied Artificial Intelligence group in Deloitte US-India office at Gurgaon. Mr. Samidh leads the technical team in client projects, and is also one of the mentors in the team for junior as well as senior level folks. Before joining Deloitte, Mr. Samidh used to work for HERE Technologies at their R&D office in Mumbai. Prior to HERE, Samidh was based out of the US and Europe where he worked for Xerox Research as well as in algorithmic trading industry followed by multiple start-ups in the field of location analytics, digital marketing and digital advertisement. He has a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Computer Science (Experimental Algorithms & Computational Geometry) from Florida State University.

The excitement in the room was tangible after the guests were introduced, as the Jaguars realised they were being addressed by two of the top Data Analysts in the country. Over the next hour, our guests enthralled our Jaguars by helping them understand the need of analytics, how it is being used in consulting industry with some real-life implementation examples and finally by explaining the roles aspiring data analysts can play in this industry.

Mr. Abhimanyu started the session with the question, “What is Analytics?”  for the clique. He then went on to ask the crowd to guess the population of San Francisco given that the population of New York is something around 8.5 million. Our Jaguars understood the possibility of a catch, to which Mr. Abhimanyu said, “Humans are heavily biased in their decision making. So, we need analytics to get actionable insights from data and take decisions without any bias. Data science is a business revolution and in turn changing the way we live, work and enjoy our lives”.

“It’s not to say equations can do a better job than experts, it’s about them (equation and experts) working together, proving to be more powerful than just one of them in isolation” stated Mr Abhimanyu. Connecting with the young audience with references from the movie Moneyball, Mr. Abhimanyu tried to drive home the above point. Election campaigns, identifying diseases using analytics and helping doctors in diagnosis and treatment were some of the other examples, all of which supported the fact that data analytics is a tool just like many others and it is about how the tool is used to achieve desired goals. He also explained the concept of General AI, Narrow AI, Cognitive Analytics, Intelligent Automation and RPA, stating that humans right now are somewhere in between the Narrow AI and Cognitive Analytics, General AI being one that is comparable to Skynet from the famous Terminator movies.

Bringing a real-life example to the table, Mr. Samidh explained one of his implementations of analytics for a large telecom provider in US. The project basically aimed at augmenting human supervision with analytics. He also touched upon the biggest challenge chat-bots face, the one where they lack the emotional quotient required to hold meaningful conversations with human beings. Another real-life analytics example shared was identifying the purity of oil by extracting information in real time from the acoustic signals generated during the extraction of oil. This is where the Jaguars’ minds were blown by the amazingly intuitive way of judging the purity of oil by analyzing the sound it makes in a pipe while being pumped out of the ground, practically reducing the time taken to confirm the purity of Oil from several weeks to instantaneous.

To conclude the lecture, our guests drew a clear picture of the skills needed to become a data scientist of tomorrow. Mr. Abhimanyu highlighted that to become a Data analyst the three basic skills required are Statistical/Quantitative knowledge, Coding, and Business Understanding.

The floor was then opened to questions and discussions flowed from the implementation problems of cognitive analytics, business consulting to the coming age of analytics. The audience was awed by the depth of the session and by the presence of a stalwart of Indian analytics zeal. Indeed, a truly remarkable afternoon to remember.

Written by:

Indrajeet Vadgama & Emmanuel Swain, PGDM Class of 2020 “Jaguars”

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon