Dear Self,
Howdy from your favourite alien!
Your week has gone by, and it seems like a blur, much like the year gone by.
An iconic business veteran was kind enough to fulfill his commitment to share his wisdom. He was generous in his advice on topics as varied as challenges large FMCG enterprises face, disruption of business models and how one can build a practice around it, SME IPOs, AI and data sets that need the tech, and the emerging opportunities for consulting companies like yours. In the end, he spoke about focus and how it was important not to get into the bread-and-butter territory of your competitors or in other words, their strong turf.
Doing business for over 16 years has taught you one thing. You make many small and big decisions. When they go right, you have a story about why it went right, and when they don't, you have a story about why they didn't. Successes and failures work better in hindsight. And yet, one must not stop evaluating to make better choices. One wonders if you make choices or choices make you.
Your core team is on an overdrive to ensure the e-book you wrote so passionately on "Building Epic Brands" 4 years ago, sees the light of day on hard cover. It has not been a new thought, you had wanted it long back but you also knew you couldn't do it by yourself. You needed someone to pull it off for you. One thing that's gone right in the year that went by in a blur is that you got lucky. You have a team that wants to see BOD succeed like never before. Ok, let's play the hindsight game. Did you bring this A-team together or is the A-team bringing you together? I think getting lucky in business is underrated. The number of people who have backed you and continue to back you has only increased each year. Show some gratitude bugger!
This week should be dedicated to education. Not that you learned anything new.
You spent time with your team deliberating the challenges faced by private universities in India. You discussed how their fortunes are intertwined between admissions and placements and how both seem to have come under immense pressure in the last few years. Let's not get to the reasons, just yet. You are looking to address some of their challenges using some of what you know about solving them. You did comprehensive reviews with two schools to help them deep dive into the strategic directions they have chosen over the last few live labs. You brainstormed with seasoned school pedagogy trainers on how schools are struggling to implement the New Education Policy despite the intent being right placed. So much for education, so little for learning.
Every New Year comes with this strange uncanny ability to inspire people to make resolutions, and, therefore, decisions. The Yeses, Nos, and the Maybes punctuated the week. Some new clients confirmed they want to begin working with you, others excused themselves citing budget constraints. Some older clients affirmed their commitment to go long with you, while others couldn't acknowledge or respond to your New Year Greetings! Some team members got their act together and decided to make a big difference this year, while others chose this as the perfect time to create a future outside BOD.
Thanks to extremely diligent efforts over the last few weeks by your Admin and HR team, the week started with an almost flawless transition of workspace tech from one major cloud platform to another. It was a tough choice to make as you had been with one since the beginning of time. 2024 was a year of making tough choices. You made some out of your will. Most choices were made because you had no choice. Some will be proven right. Which ones? Nobody knows yet. Will you make a compelling story of how you made that perfect choice? You get all flustered when I make cheeky comments about you, don’t you?
Cheers,
Your friend for life.
Howdy from your favourite alien!
Your week has gone by, and it seems like a blur, much like the year gone by.
An iconic business veteran was kind enough to fulfill his commitment to share his wisdom. He was generous in his advice on topics as varied as challenges large FMCG enterprises face, disruption of business models and how one can build a practice around it, SME IPOs, AI and data sets that need the tech, and the emerging opportunities for consulting companies like yours. In the end, he spoke about focus and how it was important not to get into the bread-and-butter territory of your competitors or in other words, their strong turf.
Doing business for over 16 years has taught you one thing. You make many small and big decisions. When they go right, you have a story about why it went right, and when they don't, you have a story about why they didn't. Successes and failures work better in hindsight. And yet, one must not stop evaluating to make better choices. One wonders if you make choices or choices make you.
Your core team is on an overdrive to ensure the e-book you wrote so passionately on "Building Epic Brands" 4 years ago, sees the light of day on hard cover. It has not been a new thought, you had wanted it long back but you also knew you couldn't do it by yourself. You needed someone to pull it off for you. One thing that's gone right in the year that went by in a blur is that you got lucky. You have a team that wants to see BOD succeed like never before. Ok, let's play the hindsight game. Did you bring this A-team together or is the A-team bringing you together? I think getting lucky in business is underrated. The number of people who have backed you and continue to back you has only increased each year. Show some gratitude bugger!
This week should be dedicated to education. Not that you learned anything new.
You spent time with your team deliberating the challenges faced by private universities in India. You discussed how their fortunes are intertwined between admissions and placements and how both seem to have come under immense pressure in the last few years. Let's not get to the reasons, just yet. You are looking to address some of their challenges using some of what you know about solving them. You did comprehensive reviews with two schools to help them deep dive into the strategic directions they have chosen over the last few live labs. You brainstormed with seasoned school pedagogy trainers on how schools are struggling to implement the New Education Policy despite the intent being right placed. So much for education, so little for learning.
Every New Year comes with this strange uncanny ability to inspire people to make resolutions, and, therefore, decisions. The Yeses, Nos, and the Maybes punctuated the week. Some new clients confirmed they want to begin working with you, others excused themselves citing budget constraints. Some older clients affirmed their commitment to go long with you, while others couldn't acknowledge or respond to your New Year Greetings! Some team members got their act together and decided to make a big difference this year, while others chose this as the perfect time to create a future outside BOD.
Thanks to extremely diligent efforts over the last few weeks by your Admin and HR team, the week started with an almost flawless transition of workspace tech from one major cloud platform to another. It was a tough choice to make as you had been with one since the beginning of time. 2024 was a year of making tough choices. You made some out of your will. Most choices were made because you had no choice. Some will be proven right. Which ones? Nobody knows yet. Will you make a compelling story of how you made that perfect choice? You get all flustered when I make cheeky comments about you, don’t you?
Cheers,
Your friend for life.