The buzz: ?India has high growth potential.? Question: How to unleash it? Answer: We need large numbers of skilled working class people who are sensitive craftsman, almost like connoisseurs.
Example: German craftsmanship in the acoustic piano, with intricate mechanical handwork and painstaking attention to detail, has always been rated among the world?s best. Losing everything in World War II, Japanese oriental culture challenged centuries-old German reputation in perfecting the acoustic piano. This proves that dramatic transformation can happen when there?s determination to excel. Stealing German thunder, Japan?s Yamaha has become the new benchmark. Even famous jazz-rock star Sir Elton John and classical maestros use Yamaha on stage today.
Frontline, hands-on workers are the real delivery persons in manufacturing or service industries. They are the artillery for activation. I can never think of any strategy for my clients if I cannot visualize its effect in activation. From my practical working and learning in the field I can confidently say that every business in India is poised to achieve 30% to 35% growth right away if frontline activation is effective. These people need to be trained on discipline, ownership, passion at work, craftsmanship and communication skills as appropriate to the industry they are working in.
Here?s what passion in one?s work can achieve. Gourango Kaku (uncle), a neighbour in the refugee colony I spent my childhood in, was a carpenter in the British railway workshop nearby. The British work culture had three skill classifications, high, medium and low skilled workers. Using his high carpentry skills he made me a hand-push toy that worked on the mechanical principles of the steam railway wheel movement. He crafted a wheel system on two joints, one to hold the long handle to the wheel and the other a moving mechanism in another part of the hand. This was my most valuable plaything, and more ingenious in its functioning than the sophisticated toys my parents had no means to buy.
Activation school: Corporate houses employ engineer-MBAs, so everyone aspires for an MBA degree. Hundreds of B schools, copying Western formulae, have sprung up, but industry?s big pain area is lack of skilled frontline business activation professionals. No postgraduate course practically trains for activation in India?s specific market conditions, nor is there any benchmark of this competence.
My grandmother told me an inspiring story of my great grandfather who had basic education and became an eminent activation professional. He?d literally absconded from our zamindar family home in Dhaka to build his career in Burma in early 20th century. Over fifty years later, by coincidence, I too adventured into Paris at age 19 with just $ 8 to spend, and without knowing a soul in France. My great grandfather returned home with fame and the prestigious title of ?Rai Saheb? awarded by the British Crown George V, for his excellent activation craftsmanship. He had helped the British army make and execute the master plan of the strategic Stilwell (Burma) Road. This proved invaluable for sending supplies to beleaguered China to resist Japanese invasion during World War II. In my profession, I?ve always prioritised activation as the most vital aspect to step into the future.
India?s dire need is for ?A Schools? (A=Activation). In a flourishing liberalised economy, businesses in private, public or MNC sectors require huge number of activation professionals to interface the market and customers. Three prominent areas, basic HR, marketing-sales and retail, face a dearth in quality and number of such professionals.
Activation in basic HR: The last mile connect to the end customer always lies with the floor staff that put the product together. Delivery from an engineering manufacturing factory could have scratches on the product or defects in the production convoy in spite of the factory being state-of-the-art. But the staff remains untrained in customer expectation from that product.
Basic HR professionals need to create passion on their industry among shopfloor employees. Training on end customer sensitivity, shopfloor discipline, high level hygiene and civic sense, and stringent adherence to corporate processes, values, vision and goals has to verify the degree of absorption the floor staff has undergone. Rushing headlong into implementation before absorbing the content is ineffective.
Activation in marketing-sales: In India, 70 to 80% of the market is unscanned with no available market data. The wholesaler decides on the brands and sells them to small traditional retail outlets. Large companies that believe in rural penetration apply no science to exploit this potential. Only theoretical boardroom marketing cannot run businesses. Marketing activation staff has to reach unscanned markets to understand these areas are not homogenous. Business transactions are cost centric and pragmatic, cultural nuances are high, emotive factors non-expressive, infrastructure problems aplenty, and the brand?s visibility, proximity and availability vital at the point of purchase. Sophisticated engineer-MBAs are averse to this type of physical action. Activation graduates with hands-on marketing-sales training are required.
Activation in retail: Everything starts from shopper focus. Front end sales persons must be trained to befriend shoppers, understand their body language and customise to increase their purchase act. The backend personnel should emphasize on stringent sourcing and quality control to sustain the value of the merchandize.
Defects: Often sales people at sophisticated fashion retails do not have the skill to address high, medium or low value customers, and get intimidated by them. If the merchandise price is not written, they don?t know what the price is.
If you are drooling over a high tech futuristic car, the showroom salesman will rarely have the knowledge or vocabulary to explain its tech functions. Servicing such a car can be a nightmare; your perfectly functioning music speaker may not work after the garage run.
The mobile phone market is booming, but do frontline sales people keep up with the rapidly changing next version technology? So service after sales can be disastrous, obliging you to buy a new handset as they cannot estimate the time required to repair your old one. White and brown goods very often turn out defective after home delivery. Worse still, service inferiority makes you question why you took on this unnecessary tension of purchase.
How many times have insurance or banking tele-marketing persons disturbed you, either changing your gender or calling you by another name? Without basic activation training, these companies are merely negating their goodwill with potential consumers. Defects come from untrained frontline people. Billion-peopled India needs thousands of high caliber, two-year residential ?A Schools.? Simple graduates can be trained to become high skilled activation professionals for interacting with the market?s unpredictability.
?A Schools? can increase the skill of the masses. Training this level of people will make our country?s base very solid as they can contribute tremendously to high, sustaining GDP growth.
Shombit Sengupta is an international Creative Business Strategy consultant to top management. Reach http://www.shininguniverse.com/I<>