The Indigenous Era - 1990-92

DJFM is where Network Salespeople suddenly saw Incentives as the main source of money. The trend was changing unlike the past where the focus was on the quality of sale. The thrill in the past was on how to convince customers and crack deals and minds. We were now at the peak of our product life cycle. Customers needed the machines, We were supplying them in an extreme competitive environment and incentive was the driver. Margins were shrinking. Network and its competitors were paying more attention to deals rather than products. Personal Computers were slowly and steadily creeping in to the business space and it was perhaps time for the Network think tank to innovate on survival strategies.

It was a classic normal curve where we were making merry of our existence on the peak. In the meantime I was personally getting sick of Kolkata Office with the atmosphere. People were leaving and I sensed a bit of downfall for that place, socially that is.

Then one fine day WKH informed me that I was needed at Delhi for two weeks. As usual, he was not clear in his communication and I finally reached Delhi where Sunil Kishore gave me the dope. I was to act as the Host/Trainer/Interface or in Army Terms - a Subedar Major for the new cadets(management trainees) that were to join that year. I spent about two weeks in Head Office preparing myself with the Course Material, arranging Guest Lectures if required and so on and so forth.

It was a 7 day program where we were holed up in Sofitel Surya in Friends Colony(Now Best Western I think) and I had a gruelling schedule ahead with the guys and gals. I am still trying to search and get connected to them but so far have not been able to accomplish my target. Anyway, we had a great time and think it was a productive 7 days given that I was from the "field" and could bring in life experiences rather than theoretical ones. This program while I am sure helped the participants, it also helped me in terms of Training techniques and my own improvement.

Then came the news that I was to be posted at Pune. So I was still maintaining the record of being in different locations every year so far with Network. Pune was a great city to be in for a young couple. The weather, the surroundings, the picinic and short visits and the people in Pune Office were all a delight. Our machines were selling and more than talking about capabilities we were on this dicsount binge. The market had degenerated to be so and Network was trying to get some value out of it though its Letracomp. The Letracomp was a glorified Electronic Typewriter with some added Fonts and minute adjustements so that it could serve the printer's market in terms of publishing. It could not survive the onslaight of DTP and it had to die rather prematurely.

The Typerwiters were still going great guns but then margins were less. So a major strategic shift happened in Network. Overnight our Service Engineers were turned into salesmen. They were now primarily judged in terms of Service Contracts they could win for the machines. They were 2 years, 3 years, 5 years schemes and a lot of customers did fall for it only to realise their folly later.(Will cover that in later posts).

My Pune stint was for a year and I landed up in Head office in charge of Sales Control reporting to S.Guha. Head Ofiice I realised was far removed from on the ground relaities especially with the people who never worked in our branches. I figured that unlike when Network started off our schemes or promotions were customer focused albeit push strategies but now we were changing over to our own priorities. So stocks, profit targets(nothing derogatory if based on market needs) were the key drivers. We also had a most sort of whimsical production plan exercise month after month.

We were also reeling from the after shocks of our indigenous electronic typewriters in terms of more service calls, not enough resources, service engineers spending time on sales calls, faulty spare parts, local repairs leading to more faults, etc. We were now on the post maturity stage on the Product lIfe cycle.

Network then started looking at the Russian Market. Nishat Khan was the spearheader(incidentally he stood for Parliamentary Elections from Park Street, Kolkata and lost his deposit) and was in that country eating bread for about 2-3 years. Along with him was our dear friend BALA. The russian machines did sell but then again sales forecasts were wrong and we had plenty of these machines to be converted and sold in the domestic market.

One year had passed and again it was time for a change of role. Head office had this New Installtion Group(NIG) led by the efficeint and competent Devesh Nayel who was now transferred to Finance and I took over his responsibilities too. So it was sales control, Distribution, NIG and Collections that I was spending time on.

Devesh under Subhas Guha had brought about a radical change in our "Collection" thought process. There were major outstandings and sales people were often not bothered with recoveries. DN and his team scrupulously got about clearing out this major mess and frankly speaking it was always the Governemnt and LAM guys who were the worst offenders.

In this scheme of things my earlier learnings of corporate sins were polished a bit further. Blank boxes being transported out of Duty paid godowns in order to have inflated sales figures were one of them. Trucks vanishing into thin air to accomodate stock shortfalls and insurance claims(that never fructified obviously).

Head office work was a bit different from branches. The Daily Sales Report was an important adrenalin rush tool for the management. This entailed daily telephone calls to all branches to report their sales and collection figures, etc. Then we had the finance figures on the same subject and like in most corporates all over the world they never matched. So we did reconcile the differences every day. And so on and so forth, as Murphy says, that unimportant apparently creative work fills up the void. So we were busy all right!!

The bad report use to go later in the day. The actual sales day book was actually negative, what with all the over invoicing being done during the year and quarter ends. HCL Group - ishtyle!!!

PCs as mentioned earlier were becoming popular and prices were crashing every month. PCL our closest comptetitor closed shop for tyerwiters and started focusing on Computers. Network was at cross roads. They started looking out for "other ventures". Talk about that and myself next time.