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Rejo Francis

National Sales Head at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited

New Delhi, India

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Available For: Influencing
Travels From: anywhere
Speaking Topics: doesnt speciy

Speaking Fee $0 (In-Person)

Rejo Francis Points
Academic 0
Author 138
Influencer 46
Speaker 129
Entrepreneur 0
Total 313

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Featured Videos

Change - the Only Constant
December 10, 2023
Conquer your Stress
December 10, 2023
Chances Favour the Prepared Mind
December 10, 2023

Featured Topics

Company Information

Company Type: Enterprise
Business Unit: Sales
Theatre: New Delhi
Minimum Project Size: N/A
Average Hourly Rate: N/A
Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed
Media Experience: xxxx
Last Media Interview: 12/21/2019

Areas of Expertise

AI 30.35
Analytics 30.04
AR/VR
Autonomous Vehicles
Big Data 30.11
Blockchain 30.23
Business Strategy 33.94
COVID19 43.57
CRM
Culture 30.28
Customer Experience 30.54
Customer Loyalty 30.62
Design Thinking 30.15
Digital Disruption 35.30
Emerging Technology 30.30
Entrepreneurship 30.45
FinTech 30.12
Innovation 33.81
IoT
Leadership 30.84
Management 31.33
Mergers and Acquisitions
Open Innovation 32.03
Predictive Analytics 30.03
Retail
Sales 32.71
Startups 30.61
Future of Work 30.29
EdTech 31.35
Ecosystems 31.15
Supply Chain 30.35
Agile 30.03
Procurement 30.04
Business Continuity 35.76
Change Management 30.74
Digital Transformation 30.17
Social 30.24
Mental Health 30.70
Risk Management 30.23
Marketing 30.32
SportsTech 30.43
HR 30.20
Data Center 30.05
Diversity and Inclusion 30.23
Health and Wellness 30.24
Public Relations 30.17
Coaching 30.97
Creativity 30.57

Industry Experience

Consumer Products
Media
Retail
Telecommunications

Publications

36 Article/Blogs
Develop Within or Outsource?
LinkedIn
April 11, 2024
One of the biggest challenges faced by business managers today is in deciding which processes or components are to be outsourced and which areas should they build competence within the company.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Ecosystems - Transforming the Rules of Business
Linkedln
February 27, 2024
The idea about this article on ecosystems came about while discussing with an old friend of mine about how Bangalore which was a sleepy town about four decades ago has today metamorphosed into the tech hub and startup capital that we know today and what were the key enablers that could have assisted or ignited this change to come about.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

What differentiates the success of the likes of Kohli, Sachin and Federer?
Rejo's Biz Bytes
December 05, 2022
This is a continuation of the article that I had written about India becoming the CEO factory of the world. The link to this article is attached for your ready reference.

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Tags: Startups, Leadership, Marketing

Mapping #Emerging #Technologies to #Business #Models - 5 Key Success Factors
LinkedIn
January 23, 2022
The last decade and a half have drastically altered the way we live by the introduction of several new technologies which have helped organizations reach customers more effectively and helped these organizations to be become successful and in achieving scale.

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Tags: Emerging Technology, Business Strategy, Ecosystems

#Organizational #Structures –#Functional or #Divisional – Which works better?
LinkedIn
January 08, 2022
Traditionally all established large organizations in the last century have followed a divisional organizational structure ... On the contrary, when an organization is first formed by an entrepreneur it follows a functional organizational structure with every decision flowing back to the promoter to decide.

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Tags: Leadership, Business Strategy, Business Continuity

Emotional Intelligence (EI)-The key leadership skill which can be learnt
LinkedIn
January 03, 2022
We all would have worked with different kinds of leaders…with people who are analytical…with people who are indecisive…with people who keep on upward delegating... with people who try to build consensuses...with people who are extremely authoritative…with people who micromanage…with people who develop their teams …with people who are extremely aggressive with targets…and so on and so forth.

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Tags: Leadership, Mental Health

Key Routines from sports leaders for success in every day life
LinkedIn
December 10, 2021
Being a sports fan, I do keep a track of the various sporting actions and events related to sporting personalities. Happened to read a few days back how India’s earlier ace long jumper was awarded a prestigious award. Was also watching the series called match point in Zee5 which covers about 2 of India’s greatest tennis players Leader Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi ..they also combined together to form one of the world’s most successful doubles pairs winning every Grand Slam title. Here were two sets of players who had defied normal sporting logic and grown to achieve more success than was expected of them when they started off..

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Tags: Leadership, Marketing, SportsTech

#BusinessModels -The key #success factors
Rejo Francis
December 09, 2021

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Tags: Business Strategy, COVID19, Ecosystems

Ecosystems - Transforming the Rules of Business
Rejo Francis
November 07, 2021

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Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Ecosystems

#Business #Models Series # 1 -The key #success factors
Rejo Francis
October 03, 2021

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Business Continuity

#Business #Models Series # 2 - When should you change and how?
Rejo Francis
October 03, 2021

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Business Continuity

Right Strategy for Success
Rejo Francis
August 28, 2021

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Tags: Risk Management, Business Strategy, Business Continuity

Why Managing Risk is a different Ballgame...
Rejo Francis
August 28, 2021

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Tags: Risk Management, Business Strategy, Business Continuity

Connecting #Learning and #Intelligence – #Natural and #Artificial
Rejo Francis
June 14, 2021
Both Learning and Artificial Intelligence are two topics about which I had written about earlier. To quickly refresh. In August 2020, I had written about learning styles which basically was about learning styles and how we could identify our natural learning style to learn and remember things in a faster and efficient manner. In November 2017 article had captured about how the advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) was making into reality Cyborgs which was watched in science fiction movies in my childhood and some of the means by which this was being accomplished. Also, in my articles on habits published at the end of 2020 have also written about how various patterns get formed and reinforced in our brain when a new habit is being formed.

All learning that is done by all humans and in fact all living organisms is hierarchal in nature. As kids we first start moving on our four legs ,then learn to stand on our legs, we start walking and then running. So the steps to learn to run are hierarchal where we first learn to crawl on our four feet we build on that learning to stand and with the learning of the crawling and the standing we learn to walk and based on all the earlier learnings we learn to run. This is what is meant by learning being hierarchal in nature.

The various learnings types which build one on top of another in the same hierarchal manner as explained above are

a) Signal Learning

As the name suggests we learn to respond in a particular way to a signal…Simplest examples that come to mind are we picking the mobile when it rings or stopping your vehicle at a red light or waking up when the alarm rings.

b) Stimulus Response Learning

In this case a desired response is obtained by a series of rewards and punishments. The best example that comes to mind is that of a plant or tree which twists and turns to reach sunlight if the sunlight available to it has been blocked due to some reason. Here the plant or tree knows the rewards of having sunlight and hence it responds in a way to get to sunlight when the same is blocked. Or while you are driving you overspeed and get a speed ticket from an automated camera there are two things that happen, either you will always stay within the speed limit and you will definitely stay within the speed limit where the automated camera is placed.

c) Chaining

This type of learning involves connecting two or more previously learned skills in a sequence. The best example that comes to mind is what happens when you learn driving…Driving is actually a series of skills learned under the stimulus response. Skill to start the car, Skill to get the car moving by changing gears, Skill to when to change gears and when to increase speed, Skill as to when to change lanes and when to overtake, Skill as to when to stop and reduce speed. So, when you actually learn driving it’s the end result of so many learnings which then get arranged in sequence.

d) Verbal Association

This is a type of chaining learning but which is verbal in nature, Or rather the items being connected are verbal in nature. For example, when you are learning a new language you actually think in the language that u know very well and are comfortable with and then convert the same to the new language using the right verbal linkages. This is one of the key skills that are required when we learn languages and this could explain why some people can pick up languages much more faster than others and why some people can learn to speak a language with ease but struggle to write the same.

e) Discrimination Learning

This involves learning to respond in different ways to a series of similar stimuli…The best example that comes to mind is how you respond differently to the same stimuli to your boss and to your sub coordinate …We also learn to differentiate between two types of cars even though they might look similar etc.

f) Concept Learning

This involves developing the ability to make the same response to different individual stimuli that come from the same class or category. Concept learning helps us to generalize. Taking on the same earlier example as driving once you learn to drive a bike, the basic process of starting, using the clutch and getting the vehicle moving, changing gears and so on are the same even if you drive a car.

g) Rule Learning

This higher learning is the ability to recognize relationships between concepts and to successfully apply these general rules to other scenarios, even scenarios not experienced by the learner earlier. The best example that is coming to mind are the numerous situations that we learn in our work environment. Some of these would be captured in SOPs which are there with you and some would have been learned on the job. But once learned the learning can be used in similar situations as they come up even if they are in different environments which haven’t been experience by us earlier.

h) Problem Solving

This is the most complex learning which allows the learner to invent complex rules to solve a problem and then apply those same rules to other problems. The best example that comes to mind are the thump rules or the work around that we learn and develop to handle and manage certain situations. These thumb rules become a reference point or a rule for us which we end up using in several other situations also.

The above learning styles were first postulated by Robert Gyan.


All functions that the neural networks in our brain do is hierarchical…So let’s take a small example when we move from a dark room to a room with much more light our eyes adjust to ensure only the right amount of light actually goes in and we are able to see the surroundings clearly. But this function or any other simple function that we perform as humans or identifying a particular model of car when we see one etc. are actually driven by a set of tasks which are hierarchical in nature.

What really adds to the complexity is that the light sensitive cells that detect the amount of light in a room do not directly talk or communicate to motor neurons which causes the iris in the eye to contract or expand. The light sensitive cells in the eye send messages along neural connections to a neuron in your brain. If this particular neuron gets enough build up of information from the sensory neurons, it then sends a signal to the motor neurons that control the iris.

How is this related to Artificial Intelligence?

Intelligence is defined as the ability to continuously learn thereby improving at skills over time.

Artificial Intelligence is the display of intelligence by a non-living object like a machine as opposed to Natural Intelligence which is seen in living creatures including humans. This artificially intelligent device perceives its environment and then takes action to optimize its chances of success at a given task…

But the challenge with most Artificial intelligence machines is that most of the machines are not created on the logic of neural networks but on logic components, for which writing code was easier when AI was getting developed.

The above has resulted in the following major differences between Natural Intelligence (NI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)…So while NI communicates electrothermally AI communicates electronically. So, while NI has billions of neurons AI has billions of transistors. AI is also 10 million times faster from a computational perspective compared to NI which also explains why AI machines are capable can manage data and computational responsibilities with more speed and efficiency

To understand how AI machines based on Neural networks will be different and how they will use the eight learning skills which are used by NI, watch this space for more…

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Tags: AI, Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation

AI in Sales Series – Part1 – Revolutionizing Traditional Products and Services
Rejo Francis
May 12, 2021
As sales professionals we sell a product or service to our end consumers. For enabling the same we build various types of channels to cater to the right target audience. We also build sales teams to help improve the processes…
We also build various processes and systems to help improve the efficiency and to improve the efficiency of the processes and increase the market share compared to our competitors. As per market/ consumer requirements we then modify the required product and services, which also leads to the creation of new/ enhanced products or services for non-consumers.
I remember how the introduction of mobile phones and laptops helped improved the efficiency and productivity of sales professionals like me. During the lockdown as well, we have found ways to stay in touch with our consumers using technology, channel partners and teams to ensure that the sales process continues to work seamlessly and efficiently.
There are several technologies which are at the tipping point from a user perspective… some of the key ones are as below.
1. AI or Artificial Intelligence
2. Blockchain
3. Virtual Reality
4. Augmented Reality
5. Big Data
6. IOT
Felt it would be helpful if we could understand some of the ways in which AI is being implemented successfully by some of the companies which would help us also look at ways for implementing the same in our organizations as well.
Artificial intelligence has been around for more than 50 years. What has changed in the last decade or so is the way we have changed our approach to AI which is when developers started looking at developing AI the way the human brain works…Please refer my articles in November 2017, January 2019 and April 2021 to get some inputs on the same.
When we do something for the first time the human brain creates a new pattern in the brain. When we repeat the same activity again and again it gets reenforced. Over a period of time, it leads to the creation of what is called a habit. Once it is a habit its execution is taken over by the sub conscious mind which is why if we make a habit of keeping your car keys in a particular place you always end up keeping it there itself though very often you might not even remember doing it
It is when developers started using the concept of neutral networks that AI started developing faster. The creation of huge amount of data that is created with the adaption of smart phones on a daily basis is also one of the other enablers’ AI becomes more and more efficient with the availability of more data, which it then uses to learn implementation of the process in a better and better way. The improvements in speed and efficiency of mobile networks while moving from a 2G network to a 4G network have also enabled.
Today we will take the example of company which produces something all of us use on a daily basis to move around.
A traditional product and service that we all use…
Kone…which produces elevators and escalators, which helps people to commute faster and efficiently...
We have all been using elevators for a very long time. I remember during the peak office times during morning and evening in Mumbai how you sometimes have to wait for so long for the elevator to actually stop on your floor during this time…We also come across similar situations in malls where you keep waiting and waiting for the elevator to stop and when it does stop, its too packed for you to get in..
With the restrictions of Covid 19 automated doors is another main product which is being implemented in all buildings to enable contactless entry and exit.
So how has a company having a very traditional product started using AI?
Kone has fitted sensors on its machines that can pick up the start and stop time of elevators in each floor, the acceleration, the temperature, the noise levels, and the frequency of the vibrations. In places where they are managing full buildings, they are also trying to understand people movement at various periods of time.
This information are then fed to the cloud and using the data that is available, machine learning algorithms can understand the varies movement trends in the building which is then fed to the group controls of the elevator systems which coordinates the way multiple elevators operate together and ensures the best decision to move everyone around efficiently is taken.
Kone has also separately packaged this service and now sells it to other operators as well, hence building a new revenue stream.
This also enables AI to predict potential failures of the machines in advance so that planned preventive maintenance can be done to ensure the machines continue to operate at full efficiency during the peak demand times.
The above example was the case of how AI could be used to improve efficiency of a traditional product where the interaction between the company and the consumers is continuously there for the full lifetime of the product to improve its market standing and hence its sales…
I will be covering how AI is being adopted by companies in different sectors and different segments and addressing different sets of consumers in my articles going forward …
So watch this space for more…




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Tags: AI, Predictive Analytics, Sales

Us vs Them - Do Communities help sell Products
Rejo Francis
April 27, 2021

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Tags: Innovation, Open Innovation, Social

The Placebo effect
Rejo Francis
April 27, 2021

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Tags: Innovation, Mental Health, Open Innovation

Shopping experience disruption
Rejo Francis
April 27, 2021

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Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Digital Disruption

Ecommerce - maturing, accelerating, growing
Rejo Francis
April 27, 2021

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Sales

Connecting #Learning and #Intelligence - #Natural and #Artificial
Rejo Francis
April 11, 2021
The article explores the connection between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence.

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Tags: AI, EdTech, Emerging Technology

Develop-within-integral-core-competency-vs-sourcing-out-
Rejo Francis
October 26, 2020
The article explores the pros and cons of developing core competencies within an organisation vs sourcing out

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Tags: Agile, Future of Work, Procurement

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-learning-normal-how-covid-19-lockdown-has-rejo-francis/
Rejo Francis
October 17, 2020
The article explores the pros and cons of developing core competencies within an organization vs sourcing out

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Tags: COVID19, EdTech, Emerging Technology

The #New #Learning #Normal-How the #COVID-19 #Lockdown has #Disrupted #Education
Rejo Francis
October 17, 2020
I had written about the various learning styles that are there a few weeks back and how understanding the learning style that suits you best will help each one of us to improve our learning efficiency dramatically …The lock down period has also brought about a few changes or rather shifts …My daughters have completed one semester through online classes and they keep sharing some of the difficulties that they face on a daily basis in adapting to the new normal…I also have old classmates who are teachers now who share the challenges that they face while taking classes through online means…

Meanwhile the Indian government has also announced the new education policy which if implemented properly could drastically alter the way education or learning has been happening…Moreover whenever I open the Sunday newspaper I find at least two full page advertisements about learning apps..

But before I actually get into let me share a personal experience that I had which I think would get altered with the new education policy…I had taken admission to a part time PhD programme about 7 years back…I was on a high after getting the admission as I had qualified through a rigorous written exam and interview for this well-known institute…

As business professionals we run into day to day challenges which are diverse and which challenge your experience levels…We always find a solution to each and every challenge that comes up and always finds ways to keep growing your business…However most of the learnings from each of these experiences would stay with me and my team which we would probably evolve as thumb rules when encountering such situations in future, Some of these would also become part of the company best practices…I was looking forward to the programme to learn or identify a successful way in which these learnings could be understood from a research perspective to share these learnings to a wider audience. I had no intention of taking a career shift and was also clear that this course was in no way going to help me develop and grow in my career the way I had envisaged it to grow…So the jobs to be done had been clear for me..This was the case of the majority of the people who had enrolled for the programme.

What I found in the institute was a modified version of the normal full time programme…the only difference being that instead of maybe visiting the university for all five days a week you could visit the campus for 10 days which included two weekends once in every 2 to 3 months.

Everything else including programme content, delivery ,processes and assessment systems all remained the same…While the Jobs to be done were very different for the participants in both the batches, what was being offered by the university was exactly the same..

On the contrary let me share the success story of a university the South New Hampshire University which by identifying the right jobs to be done that the concerned students were trying to address was able to build a huge and profitable business… Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) under the leadership of its President Doctor Paul J. LeBlanc has grown from 2,800 students in 2003 to over 135,000 learners and is the largest non-profit provider of online higher education in the United States.

Even in 2003 ,The SNHU ran both online and normal programmes but like the experience that I had used to treat both the programmes as two sides of the coin…every process from responding to enquiries, financing options to programme delivery were treated in the same way… When SNHU identified that the requirements (Jobs to be Done) were very different for the people taking the online courses and modified their process to address the same that they became hugely popular and profitable..

The above example shows the present standardised nature into which our education or learning process has fallen into .The key elements of the education process are the learning process and the assessment which is done to check if the concerned person has understood the learnings…The present teaching delivery that we use is one of mass delivery where the teacher teaches what that person feels is the best to make the students understand the concepts ..Like explained in my earlier article each person has a prominent learning style and this will explain why we always found learning one subject easier or we found teaching by one particular teacher to be easier to understand..

But this kind of mass education or learning is only a 100 years old…As learning originated it was a very personalised way of teaching…We know about Gurukuls in India and about the Shaolin temple in China and about Jesus Christ having twelve disciples.

Here the students and teachers lived together, and the teacher imparted all his knowledge to his students. This kind of personal teaching was so intense that the teacher knew everything about the student including his weaknesses. Malayalees will remember the movie called “Kayamkulam Kochunni” which portrayed the real-life story “Kochunni” in the 19th century in the state of Travancore. The movie depicts how “Kochunni” learned the martial arts and how his teacher knew his student so well that after so many years also he could tell weak point in his defence which would eventually lead to his capture.

With the start of industrialisation, the need for more educated and trained manpower started growing…This led to the creation of the teaching and assessment methods that we know of today. Teaching methods were teachers teach to hundreds of students leading to varying levels of learning and understanding of what is being taught…

Assessment were basically brought about for the below reasons:

· To understand if a person has mastered a subject or material

· To understand if they are ready for progress

· For comparison and ranking between students

· To get an idea on what percentage of the subject has been mastered by each student

As per the assessment method that is being followed today a person is promoted to the next level if they score above 40 or 50% marks. Technically it means that if a person has learned 50% of what was expected of him he is considered good to be shifted to next level.

What this leads to is people being at the same level of learning administratively while being at different levels in their knowledge level…So we might have a person who is studying in the 10th grade but whose knowledge of algebra would still be at the level of the 8th grade…In the case of Biology the same person might be at the 10th grade level itself.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get the same personalised learning which we had followed a century ago? Maybe this unexpected lockdown has set in motion a sequence of events which could very well lead to the same…Due to restricted movement we have been having online classes for students starting from schools to professional colleges.

Both teachers, students and parents have now got used to this. Similarly assessments also during the lockdown have shifted totally online ..Under normal conditions this change would have taken us years to bring about. This is what disruption does…

The lockdown has also brought about the following new shifts:

Companies like Coursera have been offering 30,000 courses free for about 1000 students of each college. During the initial phases several institutions also were not really aligned to take up online teaching these institutions have grabbed this opportunity with both hands. Assuming at least 50% of the students would have sampled these Coursera courses it has brought about a huge sampling for their courses which would have otherwise taken years to accomplish..

Companies like Google have established their intentions to get aggressive in this space…This will also lead to better and more efficient products coming out in the personalised learning space…In addition several companies have launched education products which are targeted at providing learnings based on the present learning levels of the students…Like I said in my earlier example we might have a student in 10th grade whose algebra knowledge would still be at that of 8th grade…With these personalised learning products the learning could actually restart from the 7th grade level.

Online education platforms

Like e-commerce platforms am anticipating these platforms to become the next growth story… Udemy an education platform revenues have doubled in the first quarter of financial year 2020 ..As per my understanding this trend is only likely to grow…The growth of platforms like Udemy is also likely to bring in two sets of non-consumers into the education space..

Platforms like Udemy provides the option to anyone including individuals to upload and sell courses on their platforms. Many of these courses are very short term and skill related which would not be offered by any university. As I said in the beginning this is addressing two types of non-consumption.

It is prompting several working professionals to take these courses offered to build on their skill levels. It is also providing a platform for industry professionals with wide experience, but who are not from the traditional teaching faculty to build courses based on their industry experience…It has even started a trend where students create teaching material for other students..

Value Networks

The supporting networks in a system are what we call as the Value Networks…In the case of the educational system these would include the following

• Textbooks

• Which will include people writing the prescribed textbooks

• Will also include agencies involved in printing and the Sale and Distribution of these textbooks

• National, State and Local Boards

• These boards decide the curriculum to be followed for each course

• They decide the institutes which get approved and affiliated

• The number of seats that each institute can offer for each approved course

• The norms for faculty

• Content delivery to student

• Testing

• Teachers training

As we move away from the present teaching and learning methods these value networks also will undergo and change and will need to modify to suite the new normal. One the biggest hindrances which usually prevent such dramatic changes in the huge power that these value networks wield…The Lockdown has drastically altered the situation which would normally have required years to change.

Govt approval for online courses

Another hurdle which has prevented the dramatic growth of these courses which are provided by different platforms were the lack of Government accreditation. The Government of India has started the process to build the process and parameters for accreditation of all such courses

New Courses to be offered as per New Education Policy

As per the New Education Policy students have the option to select wide range of courses as per their personal choices. Most of the education institutions do not presently have the capability to offer many of these courses and will have to find options to provide the same as per requirement

Am reminded of this interesting study on US and Japanese car company assembly lines which was done by Steven Spear…

In this study they were trying to understand what made the Toyota assembly line so unique when everyone had also imbibed the concept of the assembly line from the Japanese. .So while the US car companies had implemented the assembly line a new recruit would be provided training on all the 10 steps of the assembly line that he would have to do on the first day and he would be on the line from the next day…At the Toyota line if the first step that the new recruit would have to do would be put the front driver seat in its position he would just do that activity till it reached perfection before more activities were added to his work…So while the US car companies and a large pool of inspectors to recheck all the products coming off the assembly line the Toyota system with hardly any inspectors had a better quality product ..

So while our present learning and education system is like the US assembly line the lockdown induced changes we will love into a Toyota kind of learning system…As we further progress on this path educational institutions and teaching as we know today will evolve rapidly. Institutes will also face competition from unexpected sources like say a Google…

Whether the institutes will adapt to the new normal or get swept away like a Kodak camera or a Nokia Mobile only time can tell…

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Tags: COVID19, Digital Disruption, EdTech

We Work - Business Model
Rejo Francis
October 17, 2020

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Tags: Business Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Innovation

Insta sell - changing face of ecommerce
Rejo Francis
October 17, 2020

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Tags: Business Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Innovation

35 Author Newsletters
Do Larger Organizations grow faster than the smaller ones? Growth Strategies...
Linkedln
April 13, 2024
Month on month and quarter and quarter growth is one of the key things in the minds of all business leaders..This is the case at all times but under extreme and unpredictable times like the last 4 to 5 months the factors to be considered have also increased or changed dramatically.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

The different mindsets which affect our everyday actions.
Linkedln
April 09, 2024
If we think back into our day-to-day interactions and various actions associated with it, we can identify different patterns that we generally follow. These patterns which we could call as our mindsets could alter or change even during a conversation or any other action that we are into. It could also alter based on a particular tone of the person to whom we are talking or the change in a particular situation that we are into at that point in time.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Why do Small Wins matter so much...
Linkedln
March 25, 2024
Have you observed how a small success, however small they are, gets us into a very energetic and hyperactive mode throughout the day. While most of the time we don’t think about these to really understand them in detail, what has been found in various studies done across is that such small wins not only change the way we perform individually but also as a team.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Managing Risk is a different ball game.
Linkedln
March 18, 2024
The best example of unforeseen risk is what happened at the end of March 2020 when places were suddenly locked down with just a few days’ notice. What started out as for a couple of days got extended and extended for well over 4 to 5 months hitting personal and business life in a total unexpected way.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Mentoring Relationships - Much more than Knowledge Transfer
Linkedln
March 17, 2024
In operational and customer-facing roles particularly and in others there are hundreds of day-to-day decisions that people must make to ensure that the overall goals are met. While most of these decisions will be based on the overall goals or SOPs laid out by the organisations there will always be several unique learnings which will be there in each of these activities.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Operational Efficiencies to delight Customers
Linkedln
March 16, 2024
Every organization works on process improvements on a continuous basis to improve on their operational efficiency which in turn leads to increased productivity, better utilization of manpower and increased profitability. The improvements could be because of automation, trained manpower, more efficient technology etc.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Mindset Shift: Selling Products vs Selling Services
Linkedln
March 10, 2024
Until the time I joined an organization that was a service provider, my career had mainly been in in companies selling products. Product companies sell tangible goods, which customers can see, touch, and feel. This allows for demonstrations and physical product trials. Service companies sell intangible offerings, such as expertise, solutions, or experiences, making it crucial to focus on conveying value through communication and knowledge transfer.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

When should you change your Business Model and Why?
Linkedln
March 07, 2024
In the last article I had mentioned the key ingredients that form part of a Business Model. One of the biggest challenges faced by organizations is in identifying when exactly to go ahead with changes in its existing business model besides deciding whether they really need a change in business model.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

The Value of Agile
Linkedln
March 03, 2024
We have seen how several startups have grown into unicorns in the last few years at a very rapid pace. We have also seen how several of the world’s topmost companies that were small companies which started in garages have grown to where they are today…

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Crucibles of Leadership – Triggers for Reinvention
Linkedln
February 28, 2024
We have heard of several small instances which bring about a drastic change in a person and sets about bringing out skill sets in the person which probably even he or she never knew existed within them.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

The Hidden Challenges of Transformation
Linkedln
February 28, 2024
Some would be minor changes due to changes in the leadership of our departments. Changes in verticals, companies and business models would be a major change usually brought about by regulation, mergers, technology, competition etc.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Lessons from the Production Line - Engage and Empower for better Creativity
Linkedln
February 26, 2024
My first experience of seeing a moving production line was during my induction program at my first job with India’s then most valuable and sought-after consumer durables company. As part of our induction, we were taken to several factories of the companies of the group which manufactured everything from color televisions to washing machines, refrigerators, and even medical equipment. The group also manufactured many components required for these products like printed circuit boards, deflection yokes, line output transformers and so on. I watched in awe the then latest machines like the wave soldering machine that ensured all the components that were inserted in the printed circuit board got soldered within seconds with amazing efficiency and accuracy.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Big Data - The Real Benefits
Linkedln
February 24, 2024
With the way technology has taken over everything that we do, so also is everything being captured at some data source continuously. Whatever we do on the smartphone or on our laptops are captured, the cars we drive are tech enabled and capture a lot of information. We walk out into the streets or go for a drive the cameras kept at different places capture our movements and patterns including the car coming opposite to you captures your information.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Customer Delight - Employee Commitment - The Key Differentiator
Linkedln
February 22, 2024
I was prompted to write this article based on my experience on visiting three different banks over the last three days for getting the same requirements done and the entirely different experience that I had in each of these banks. What is interesting is that although the three banks operated in the same area and were governed by the same set of rules that are laid down by RBI, the experience was very different in each of them.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Is your Brain as fit as your Body?
Linkedln
February 19, 2024
Few things which led to the thought for this article are as below:

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Finding the Creneau to get the right positioning.
Linkedln
February 17, 2024
During the early stages of my career, I was working for a durables brand which was the market leader at that point in time. It had the most technologically advanced and best quality products that lasted and hence offered good value to customers. The trade margins were average but since the brand pull was so strong, customers came asking for this companies’ products and the trade had to stock and sell these products.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Key Routines from sports leaders for success in every day life
Linkedln
February 16, 2024
Being a sports fan, I do keep a track of the various sporting actions and events related to sporting personalities. Happened to read a few days back how India’s earlier ace long jumper was awarded a prestigious award. Was also watching the series called match point in Zee5 which covers about 2 of India’s greatest tennis players Leader Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi ..they also combined together to form one of the world’s most successful doubles pairs winning every Grand Slam title. Here were two sets of players who had defied normal sporting logic and grown to achieve more success than was expected of them when they started off..

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Know your Brain...
Linkedln
February 14, 2024
As we already know the brain is made up of two hemispheres that are interconnected but are used for very different functions. The left hemisphere is made up of neurons which are usually used for taking care of all the routine tasks that we do. The right hemisphere deals with newer things and experiences and whose data are less structured and less linear both mathematically and otherwise. The right hemisphere is image based and imaginative ...It is also widely believed that the right hemisphere deteriorates faster than the left hemisphere.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Remodeling Legacy Ecosystems
Linkedln
February 12, 2024
In the article I had also quoted several examples of successful ecosystems…Today let us try and understand why it is that very few established and very successful organizations of the 21st century are able to adapt or modify their existing very successful ecosystems to meet the requirements of the changing times…

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Emotional Intelligence - The key leadership skill
Linkedln
February 11, 2024
We all would have worked with different kinds of leaders…with people who are analytical…with people who are indecisive…with people who keep on upward delegating... with people who try to build consensuses...with people who are extremely authoritative…with people who micromanage…with people who develop their teams …with people who are extremely aggressive with targets…and so on and so forth.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Organizational Structures –Functional or Divisional – Which works better?
Linkedln
February 07, 2024
Traditionally all established large organizations in the last century have followed a divisional organizational structure ... On the contrary, when an organization is first formed by an entrepreneur it follows a functional organizational structure with every decision flowing back to the promoter to decide.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Mapping Emerging Technologies to Business Models - Five CSFs
Linkedln
February 05, 2024
The last decade and a half have drastically altered the way we live by the introduction of several new technologies which have helped organizations reach customers more effectively and helped these organizations to be become successful and in achieving scale.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Do we need to Test / Pilot before we Launch or Not at All?
Linkedln
February 03, 2024
It's our accepted practice to do pilots or do beta versions to test out a concept or anything new to further understand the suitability of the product or service for all planned needs of all stakeholders. Based on the feedback received during this period the concept is finetuned incorporating additional requirements or modifications before it gets launched on a wider scale. At times if the pilot doesn’t work out successfully the entire concept might not be taken further.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

The Right Innovation Mix
Linkedln
February 02, 2024
All organizations cater to different segments of consumers to meet their organizational and business goals. Out of these segments organizations decide to focus on certain segments depending on the vision and mission of the company. So, organizations could target a new segment or category or geography which might need a new product or service. While entering into this particular space the company continues to function in the existing product or geography that it is presently operating in.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Platforms and their Players
Linkedln
January 30, 2024
Whenever we think of platforms what is that comes to our mind, some immediate recollections are.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

2 Influencer Awards
Award - India 500 Quality Leaders Awards
MSME Awards, India
December 21, 2019

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Tags: Management, Leadership, Sales

Emerging Leader of the Year Award
UBS Forums
September 25, 2018

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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership

8 Keynotes
Unleashing Change Management Summit - Looking beyond Covid 19
Global Executive Events
June 02, 2021

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Tags: Business Continuity, Change Management, COVID19

AI in Sales
Inventicon
June 02, 2021

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Tags: AI, Digital Disruption, Sales

https://www.gtreview.com/videos/keynote-looking-beyond-covid-indias-new-normal-look-like/
Global Trade Review
April 27, 2021
A look back on the impact of COVID-19 in India and the new changes emerging as the new normal

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Tags: COVID19, Future of Work, Innovation

Looking beyond COVID- what does India's new normal look like?
Global Trade Review
April 27, 2021

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Tags: Business Continuity, COVID19

Shift from pipeline models to platform models post COVID
Rejo Francis
April 11, 2021
The video explores the shift from pipeline models to platform models post COVID

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Tags: COVID19, Ecosystems, Supply Chain

The Evolving Media Landscape
Rejo Francis
October 17, 2020
ATxSG Asia Tech event

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

AI Summit - TechXLR Singapore
AI Summit - TechXLR Singapore
September 14, 2019

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Tags: AI, Digital Disruption, Open Innovation

Disruption
Youtube
September 02, 2019

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption

2 Media Interviews
Award - Stevie Award - Gold for National Sales
Stevie Awards USA
February 22, 2019

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Tags: Sales

International Stevie Awards for National Sales - Gold Sales Director - Silver and Sales Manager - Silver
Stevie Award
February 22, 2019

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Tags: Leadership, Sales

1 Miscellaneous
Podcast
Rejo Francis
January 03, 2022
Big Data and why it Matters

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Tags: Big Data, Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation

3 Miscellaneouss
Podcast - Business Models Series 1 - Factors that make a Business Model Successful
Rejo Francis
October 10, 2021

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Tags: Customer Experience, Innovation, Business Strategy

Podcast - Business Models Series 2 - When do you change and how?
Rejo Francis
October 10, 2021

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Tags: Customer Experience, Innovation, Business Strategy

Rejo's Podcast - Law of Opposite...
Rejo Francis
October 10, 2021

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Tags: Innovation, Marketing, Business Strategy

1 Panel
Business Intelligence and Analytics
Transformance Forums
July 26, 2019

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Tags: Analytics, Big Data, Predictive Analytics

3 Podcasts
Do prizes influence our purchase decisions?
Rejo Francis
September 16, 2021

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Tags: Customer Experience, Business Strategy, Customer Loyalty

Should brands focus on community selling/influencing more?
Rejo Francis
September 16, 2021

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Tags: Customer Experience, Business Strategy, Customer Loyalty

Should brands focus on community selling/influencing more? Part 1
Rejo Francis
September 16, 2021

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Tags: Customer Experience, Business Strategy, Customer Loyalty

7 Speaking Engagements
Organizational Structures that Promote Success
Rejo Francis
January 03, 2022
This podcast talks about the various Organizational Structures that Promote Success

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Tags: Change Management, Future of Work, HR

Managing-Your-Innovation-Portfolio-Core-Innovation
Rejo Francis
January 03, 2022
This podcast series talks about mix of the innovation required for addressing the following three scenarios which are essential to meet the various goals that an organization sets out to achieve…
this is the first in the series which is on focusing on Core innovation
To maintain and grow the existing markets and segments that the company is present the company will still have to get better in the way it does things presently. The core innovation is to address this segment. This involves innovation for existing customers and markets and would involve mainly improving the existing products using the existing assets. These innovations would be incremental and continuous.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Management

Managing-Your-Innovation-Portfolio-Adjacent Innovation
Rejo Francis
January 03, 2022
This podcast series talks about mix of the innovation required for addressing the following three scenarios which are essential to meet the various goals that an organization sets out to achieve…
this is the second in the series which is on focusing on Adjacent Core innovation
This innovation is used by organizations when they want to expand into nearby categories or segments where the same competencies that the organization is presently good at is used to enter these segments and markets. So, using this innovation the company adds incremental products and services which helps organizations to add new customers who aren’t using the products or services presently.

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Tags: Business Continuity, Digital Transformation, Innovation

Managing-Your-Innovation-Portfolio-3. Transformational Innovation
Rejo Francis
January 03, 2022
This podcast series talks about mix of the innovation required for addressing the following three scenarios which are essential to meet the various goals that an organization sets out to achieve…
this is the second in the series which is on focusing on Transformational Innovation.

This innovation which is probably the most difficult to plan and execute as it involves creating products and services to cater to new consumers. This involves developing breakthroughs and inventing things for markets that don’t yet exist.

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Tags: Business Continuity, Digital Transformation, Innovation

Disrupt yourself - Mumbai Unplugged
Youtube
July 26, 2019

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Tags: Culture, Digital Disruption, Leadership

Disruption - Strategy Leaders Summit Mumbai
Youtube
March 17, 2019

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption

Disruption - Strategy & Execution Forum Dubai
Youtube
May 01, 2018

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption

2 Trainings
The #New #Learning #Normal-How the #COVID-19 #Lockdown has #Disrupted #Education
Rejo Francis
April 27, 2021

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Tags: COVID19, EdTech, Innovation

The #New #Learning #Normal-How the #COVID-19 #Lockdown has #Disrupted #Education
Rejo Francis
October 17, 2020

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Tags: COVID19, EdTech, Innovation

2 Videos
instant innovation
Youtube
August 19, 2023

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

Daily delights Uncovering new horizons
Youtube
August 10, 2023

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Innovation

2 Videos
Boost your Learning Efficiency
Rejo Francis
November 26, 2023
Tips to boost your Learning Efficiency

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Tags: Coaching, EdTech, Innovation

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge
Rejo Francis
November 26, 2023
A short video explaining the differences and nuances of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge...

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Tags: Coaching, Culture, Future of Work

5 Webinars
Demystifying Artificial Intelligence
Youtube
September 02, 2019

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Tags: AI, Digital Disruption, Open Innovation

Leadership Types - Efficient or Effective
Youtube
September 02, 2019

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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership

Disruption defined
Youtube
August 11, 2019

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Tags: Digital Disruption

Future Trends in Disruption
Youtube
May 08, 2019

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Tags: Digital Disruption

Blockchain Demystified
Youtube
June 22, 2018

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Tags: Blockchain

Thinkers360 Credentials

15 Badges

Blog

52 Article/Blogs
Why do Small Wins matter so much?
Thinkers360
April 05, 2024

One of the bigger challenges that we face while embarking on projects is our self-doubt because of which we hold ourselves back from even attempting many of them. If we break these bigger challenges into multiple smaller challenges these small wins would then propel us towards the bigger goal.

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Tags: Leadership, Management, Mental Health

Mindset Shift: Product Sales vs Service Sales
Thinkers360
March 10, 2024

Product companies sell tangible goods, which customers can see, touch, and feel. This allows for demonstrations and physical product trials. Service companies sell intangible offerings, such as expertise, solutions, or experiences, making it crucial to conveying value through communications.

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Tags: Leadership, Management, Sales

Big Data – The Real Benefits
Thinkers360
February 25, 2024

With the way technology has taken over everything that we do, so also is everything being captured at some data source continuously. Whatever we do on the smartphone or on our laptops are captured, the cars we drive are tech enabled and capture a lot of information.

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Tags: Big Data, Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation

Finding the Creneau to get the right positioning
Thinkers360
February 18, 2024

Finding a Creneau or gap to position your products and offerings to appeal to the customers is critical to success .. read on to learn more...

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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Marketing

Order, Disorder, Reorder
Thinkers360
January 20, 2024

Considering that the opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya is just a couple of days away if you look at Ramayana you will find this constant play of Order, Disorder and Reorder being played out consistently. The same is true in all scriptures of all faiths.

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Tags: Health and Wellness, Social

Differentiate ...Like McDonalds does...
Thinkers360
December 10, 2023

Companies like McDonalds who are great at differentiation are able to also extract a much higher price for their products and services which is based on a much higher perceived value of these products and services.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Sales

Bridigital Nation
Thinkers360
November 29, 2023

Today’s article is based on some of my learnings from the book Bridigital Nation written by N Chandrasekharan and Roopa Purushothaman where I could relate many of the learnings in the book to my own experiences some of which are listed below.

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Tags: Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation, Emerging Technology

Trust the Heart of Sales Negotiations
Thinkers360
November 21, 2023

A sales process can be broadly considered as consisting of three steps.
1. Connecting
2. Educating
3. Engaging
There are also three things that needs to be focused on to ensure that the above three steps are done effectively: Physics of the sale, Chemistry of the Sale and Maths of the Sale.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Leadership, Sales

Sales Funnels and Buyer Personas
Thinkers360
November 08, 2023

What differentiates great salespeople is the capability to identify the successful leads very early during the prospective stage so that they are able to give their time and energy to the ones which are most likely to be concluded to a business deal.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Customer Loyalty, Sales

Accelerate Growth with Stretch Goals!
Thinkers360
October 25, 2023

In normal times we look at 20% growth annually and are satisfied with the growth achieved. The percentage growth can change based on industry to industry and on the present position that the industry is in presently. Stretch goals are when you radically shift the goal post to a different level.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Management

Maximizing Productivity - Insights from Top Leaders
Thinkers360
October 17, 2023

In today's fast-paced world, the pursuit of productivity has become a universal goal. Whether you are a business professional aiming to excel in your career or a sportsperson striving for peak performance, the challenges of productivity are a common thread that binds us all.

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Tags: Coaching, Leadership, Management

AI vs HI - How will the future play out?
Thinkers360
October 06, 2023

Today am exploring the various reasons why though at present as an overall package AI is nowhere near the capabilities of human intelligence there are individual sectors where AI has scored over Human intelligence (HI) and how these factors can help AI to go ahead in several sectors.

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Tags: AI, Digital Disruption, Emerging Technology

Can AI truly emulate the Human Brain?
Thinkers360
September 24, 2023

In a world marked by an unceasing surge in technological progress, artificial intelligence (AI) reigns supreme. Within the expansive realm of AI research, emulating the human brain looms as an intriguing frontier.

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Tags: Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation, Emerging Technology

Cracking the Code of Disruption
Thinkers360
September 09, 2023

Have always been fascinated by Disruption - A few articles about some incredible disruptions that have influenced me greatly

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Tags: Digital Disruption, Innovation, Open Innovation

Mastering Concentration - The Key to Enhanced Productivity
Thinkers360
September 01, 2023

One of the biggest challenges in today’s world is to overcome the nonstop distractions that keep coming at you particularly through your smart phones. It's also interesting that we are always told to concentrate on what we are doing but never given the tools to do so...read on for some useful tips.

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Tags: Coaching, Creativity, Leadership

Relentless - ISRO's Journey to Chandrayaan 3
Thinkers360
August 26, 2023

For someone who grew up in Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) were not distant entities; they were an integral part of our lives...

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Tags: Culture, Innovation, Leadership

What separates Good from Great Leaders
Thinkers360
August 19, 2023

We all aspire to be part of great teams and to lead great teams. But great teams are
also made up of individuals who would be brilliant at something but would also be
very difficult to handle in something else

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Tags: Change Management, Leadership, Management

Change-Metamorphosis-like-the-birth-of-a-butterfly
Thinkers360
August 14, 2023

Changes in organizations and even with the self follows a very similar pattern as the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly. Read on to find out more...

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Tags: Business Strategy, Change Management, Leadership

Do we stunt our potential to become bonsai reflections of our true capabilities?
Thinkers360
July 29, 2023

Do we stunt our potential to become bonsai reflections of our true capabilities?

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Tags: HR, Leadership, Management

Yes and No. Are these two extremes as we make ourselves to believe
Thinkers360
June 24, 2023

There would be several instances in all the movies that we watch where we have to decide between a Yes and a No which is also a reflection what happens in our daily lives.But are these two extremes as we make ourselves to believe?

 

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Tags: Leadership, Management, Mental Health

How your Product appeals to key decision makers in the Human Body.
Thinkers360
June 18, 2023

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology all successful businesses appeal to either one of the three areas of the body:
• Your Brain
• Your Heart
• Your Reproductive Organs
Read on to understand this further...

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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Management

Choking under Pressure – Why does this happen at the most crucial moments of our life.
Thinkers360
June 04, 2023

This event which happens in some of the most crucial events in our life when we were fully prepared to give our best and struggle when at the point of delivery is called choking. This happens to every one of us at different points and different stages and situations.

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Tags: Change Management, Leadership, Management

The Power of Storytelling
Thinkers360
May 13, 2023

From time immortal ... Storytelling has been a tool that has helped by bringing in the desired authenticity and building trust.

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Tags: Change Management, Culture, Leadership

Labelling - Another Technique to Successful Negotiations
Thinkers360
April 16, 2023

The technique by which we are able to employ our tactical empathy by recognizing and then verbalizing the predictable emotions of the situation at hand and then respectfully repeated back the emotion back to the other person is what is called as Labelling.

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Tags: Change Management, Leadership, Management

Work Pressure: How does it really affect our performance?
Thinkers360
April 08, 2023

As humans we have built in tools to handle several or most of these pressures and the people whom we see being successful in some of these pressure situations are probably able to utilize these tools more effectively than some of us.

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Tags: Leadership, Management

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