10 Jan

Creating a Powerful CxO Personal Brand, and its Corporate benefits

By TWB_ In Communication, Leadership, Strategic Marketing /   No Comments

A personal brand is not a new concept but for a CxO personal branding is not just about them, it is what it means to their companies. The value that your company derives from your personal brand may be the critical differentiator in a marketplace where companies compete for customers, investors, and employees.

How a CxO brand benefits your company

A powerful personal CxO brand can have tremendous corporate benefits because, 

  • A great CxO brand increases Company Credibility to customers: Credibility and trust have always played key roles in shaping business success but for a company, it is not easy to be seen as trustworthy — such a reputation is earned over years. However, if a high-level executive has a trustworthy, credible and believable personal brand, then their company is also seen as trustworthy, credible and believable. Anyone remembering Lee Iacocca being the face of Chrysler in its worst days knows that the trust to buy Chrysler came from him. Conversely, the loss of credibility of Travis Kalanick was leading to the loss of credibility of Uber.

 

  • A great CxO brand makes PR more Effective: Companies need all the competitive advantage they can get. A CxO’s distinct, authoritative personal brand gets easier traction than the company spokesperson. For instance, if your company needs facetime in front of the press it is easier to get a few columns in a magazine or for the magazine to profile the CxO, rather than for the magazine to profile the company. A CxO armed with a compelling personal brand — is the best pitch a company has — not just to customers but to media as well.

 

Building a powerful CxO brand

So it must be understood that both the CxO and the company are engaged in creating the CxO’s personal brand, right? Wrong. Corporate marketing and communication functions don’t always focus on individuals but rather on products and services and it is a big mistake — as we’ve seen above. Creating a powerful personal brand is also not trivial. It requires a deep dive into the individual’s attributes and competitive positioning to bring out the key differentiators, and regular communication to keep the brand relevant. It takes patience, time and smarts. Here are some attributes of a great CxO brand:

 

  • The CxO Brand is not a job description: Often, personal branding looks like a representation of one’s accomplishments and talent. Mostly it comes out as a job role, which it is not. When it is a job role it becomes interchangeable and dispensable. Some great personal branding can be seen in the case of Nandan Nilekani where he has become synonymous with character & predictable growth at Infosys to the point being brought back from retirement.

 

  • The CxO Brand is self-defined and rooted in real attributes: A CxO brand should be built around unique attributes and around the CxO’s personality. Is he/her a people person? Analytical? Brilliant? Insightful? To be effective CxOs need to have a rich, fully-realized concept of their own identity and the best way is to be genuine and authentic. People can see right through disingenuous communication and it is easy to manage an authentic personal brand on a daily basis.

 

  • The CxO Brand is not that of a Specialist: A deep dive into a specific domain is often boring for the employees you lead, interchangeable with another CxO and not inspiring. CxOs are generalists, they are multi-talented, multi-skilled, and open to many types of challenges. They stand out not because they do a few things well, but because they can do many things well.

 

  • The CxO brand should tell a story: If your personal brand isn’t telling a story there is nothing unique and personalized about it. You and your company are still vulnerable because you’re interchangeable. The most effective personal branding strategy is to build a true narrative around who you are, your life experiences and what you wish to influence.

 

  • The CxO brand has consistency and depth: Being consistent means to demonstrate consistency across your communication, gravitas, and appearance. Each of the aspects that your brand highlights have to be backed by tremendous depth of vision, knowledge, and content — consistently. Small inconsistencies can derail personal brand effectiveness.

 

  • A CxO personal brand is a lifelong project: A personal brand is a lifelong project that constantly evolves and changes. So be prepared to invest your time in the long run to build your brand.

Conclusion

A CxO personal brand can be a major force that works in favor of your company. Not enough companies know how to truly leverage the personal brands of their CxOs and not enough CxOs realize that a personal brand doesn’t just impact them at an individual level but impacts entire companies. It is imperative that the CxO take the time and effort to create a respected personal brand that bristles with authenticity and authority and is seen as an industry voice.

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_ CEO

Tech Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker & Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a BTech-MBA & CEO of the world leader in communications for technology businesses with a worldwide Fortune 500 customer base. Rakesh is a speaker on Leadership, Strategic Marketing, Strategic Communications, creating world-class bootstrapped Startups & resurgence in business. He lives with 800 rescued dogs, has no work-life balance and will not have it any other way! Rakesh has been featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies etc.

Want to create a powerful Personal CxO brand?

  • TWB_ is the voice of many Technolgy CxO and provides a detailed analysis of how to brand, provides long term content support and digital presence to these CxO’s.
  • TWB_ makes complex technical and business ideas of technology leaders across the world easily understood by their stakeholders. Over forty Fortune 500 technology majors in Information Technology, Defense & Aerospace, Engineering, Energy & Life Sciences in the US, India, Europe, Taiwan, China & Japan leverage TWB_ expertise.
  • Call  TWB_ Bangalore 96860 59020 | Houston (832)689-6456 | Tel Aviv +972.544.603.612 or mail shift@twb.in
  • Get more TWB_ insights on the TWB_ Blog | LinkedIn | Medium  | SlideShare
Read More
Internal Communication with TWB_ I www.twb.in
25 Dec

7 ways your enterprise communications will change in 2019

By TWB_ In Communication, HR Communication, Internal Communications, Strategic Marketing /   No Comments

Communication is fundamental for an enterprise and you use Marketing Communication, Corporate Communication and Internal Communication to influence customers, partners, employees, shareholders, governments etc. 2018 saw key communication trends emerge with cloud-based systems from chats to telephony, the advent of video in the mainstream and inflection point of influencers over brand ambassadors with exponential digital reach.

Based on our experience with customers, in enabling their enterprise communication strategies in 2018, this is our take on what will create the most impact for your communication in 2019.

Democratization of Enterprise Communication

The speed of change outside and inside an organization is simply too great for communication to be the sole responsibility of a few ‘designated’ communicators. 2019 will require everyone to be a competent communicator and respond quickly to information that flows up, down, and across traditional channels. Enterprise communication will democratize. 

AI & Emerging Technologies

AI-powered chatbots are already powering customer interactions and they are set to raise employee & partner experience too. 60% of business-to-business companies are likely to redesign their processes to accommodate and ensure human augmentation for scalability and precision. What is your strategy? [Request a copy of the TWB_ book on Leveraging AI in the Modern Technology Enterprise]

Unified customer journey

While the idea of a unified customer or employee journey has taken root the journey still has to be mapped out for most organizations. The communication needs at each touch point yet to be ascertained. Transactional touch points — from invoices to product packaging to salary slips — will emerge as the key places to focus communication on as businesses realize attention spans here are short but attention is highly focused.

Visual & Print Communication

Pictures speak a universal language and with the need to connect to global customers as well as employees visual communication will continue to be a key communication trend both within and outside the enterprise. Print will see an upswing as well — as organizations realize that their focusing on digital only inadvertently closes down a key touch point. Digital and print can work together – and it creates simpler communication for customers.

Outsourcing of Communication

Creating relevant personalized communications requires enterprises to process data & preferences and manage presence across channels. Most organizations just don’t have the expertise to manage all three and it is therefore not easy to deliver relevant and personalized communications that appeal to the breadth of your customers’ preferences and across different media. Outsourcing communications can bring in expertise on demand, reduce costs, and diversify channel strategy. [Read more: TWB_ as the outsource communications partner of the Fortune 500]

Improved Storytelling

Markets will get noisier & storytelling will be the major differentiator between businesses that get noticed and those that don’t. Businesses and brands that create human connections through the art of story will rise. [Read more by TWB_ : Great storytelling for business leadership: What makes listeners connect? ]

Global Teams are driving Internal Communications

Teams are becoming the basic unit of business as more companies move away from hierarchical organizations to functional teams. Teams are likely spread geographically and members have diverse cultures and communication styles. Importantly teams need to resolve conflicts on their own and work through complex issues to arrive at consent on a course of action. This requires people to communicate even more effectively.

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_ CEO

Tech Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker & Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a BTech-MBA & CEO of the world leader in communications for technology businesses with a worldwide Fortune 500 customer base. Rakesh is a speaker on Leadership, Strategic Marketing, Strategic Communications, creating world-class bootstrapped Startups & resurgence in business. He lives with 800 rescued dogs, has no work-life balance and will not have it any other way! Rakesh has been featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies etc.

Are you looking to create or improve how you communicate?

  • TWB_ makes complex technical and business ideas of technology leaders across the world easily understood by their stakeholders. Over forty Fortune 500 technology majors in Information Technology, Defense & Aerospace, Engineering, Energy & Life Sciences in the US, India, Europe, Taiwan, China & Japan leverage on TWB_
  • Call  TWB_ Bangalore 96860 59020 | Houston (832)689-6456 | Tel Aviv +972.544.603.612 or mail shift@twb.in
  • Get more TWB_ insights on the TWB_ Blog | LinkedIn | Medium  | SlideShare

 

Read More
Rakesh Shukla on Agile HR
21 Dec

Agile HR: Employee management by walking around

By TWB_ In HR Communication, Internal Communications, Leadership /   No Comments

Before talking about agile HR let’s circle back to earlier TWB_ writing on HR engagements — both on Internal communication and Employee focused communication.  It is clear that the role and expectation of the HR function is changing and so is the need and method of communication. But there are 2 major factors in understanding employee issues and engaging with them (a) A large part of the communication in an office is non-official and happens through informal channels – mostly not something HR participates in and in many cases discourages (b) In many organizations the relationship with HR itself is almost adversarial especially if communication and engagement has focussed not on problem-solving but management and policy messaging.

It turns out that the turn of the century theory of Management by Walking Around may be the solution for a 2020 problem – since it addresses both participation & opening informal channels, as well as creates an open empathetic approach to employee engagement.

1980s redux

In 1982, management consultants Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman proposed the concept in their book In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies. In the book, Peters and Waterman examined successful companies, realizing a common nominator for the most successful. They noticed that good managers tend to communicate a lot better with their team. And they do that in informal ways, like just hanging around in the office and chatting with their team, rather than having formal interaction sessions in their cabins or boardrooms. Sam Walton, for instance, was a great exponent of this practice. He idea gained further attention when William Hewlett and David Packard, the founders of Hewlett Packard, mentioned the theory to be part of the “HP Way”. Peters and Waterman noticed these managers were more aware of the operations and in general, had better ability to solve problems. Peters went on to write a book A Passion for Excellence in which he continued to assert the style as the core element of excellent leadership.

The emphasis is on the word walking as an unplanned movement within a workplace, rather than a plan where employees expect a visit from managers at more systematic, pre-approved or scheduled times.

The idea of this practice is to listen. You must also respond to ideas or problems voiced and take effective action about them. The expected benefit is that by random sampling of events or employee discussions, it is more likely to facilitate improvements to the morale, sense of organizational purpose, productivity and total quality management of the organization. This is compared to remaining in a specific office area and waiting for employees, or the delivery of status reports, to arrive there, as events warrant in the workplace.

The HR takeaway

While it applies to the business world in general, and indeed legendary CEOs from Steve Jobs to Jack Welch have been proponents of it, it has a special significance in HR of today’s tech environment. The core is a 3-step process:

  1. To have HR management walking around in an unstructured and unplanned manner amongst the employees with the objective to understand how they are performing, what is keeping them back, what policies enable them to do their best, which ones hinder performance and be the management’s 1st stop to better understand the issues, ideas, and concerns of the teams.
  2. Then formally collate this and share the findings with management – in a structured way and with recommendations on what will improve the on-the-ground situation. Remember this is not a ‘telling on employees’ session.
  3. Ensuring management can act on the findings and in time such that the employees establish correlation.

The HR Checklist of Management by Walking Around

  1. Time is unstructured, the purpose is not: Don’t aimlessly walk around saying ‘Hi’ — the key motivation is to strike up conversations directly related to the work and on personal issues. The focus is on learning from these spontaneous and non-planned interactions.
  2. Manage your day: It is easy to realize that the day is over – so you must create a system to engage on a regular basis.
  3. Don’t single out people or teams: Many a time there is direct organizational feedback on specific teams or people, but do not single them out. You must interact across teams. Remember you are not here to take stories back to management but to understand issues. Employees should not feel this is a management bait to get information about certain issues or people.
  4. Extroverted & Introverted: People are of all kinds. Some talk easily some don’t, but you can’t pick favorites in listening to opinions.
  5. Focus on learning about the employee and their opinion: Your objective is to gather information beneficial in making decisions and resolving problems. Make sure you have written down you insite immediately and are able to cross reference with other employees if the feedback is about a team or organization.
  6. Build employee confidence: As an HR leader, you must be good at reading subtle signs of people. Employees must trust you and the interaction must be honest with you.
  7. Communicate the company’s values: Use the interaction to strengthen the employee’s understanding of the company’s values and vision.
  8. Understand people personally: People respond to work on what is happening in their private lives. So you also want to understand personal lives, to strengthen employee motivation.
  9. Be willing to act: If a team member needs urgent help, you must be willing to lead by example and provide support on the spot. The method has a sense of urgency to it and it isn’t about “looking into it”, but getting problems fixed quickly. Remember in business and in HR, people buy people.
  10. Don’t overstep your time: The nature of the style can cause a disturbance, as you are effectively stepping in on someone’s scheduled workday to take time to talk about things in an unorganized manner. If you do it too often, the subordinates’ ability to perform at work might suffer.
  11. Seek neutral spaces: Ensure that the conversations take place in neutral spaces (outside of your office) and in a relaxed environment. Over lunch is a good example or while the other person is getting a cup of coffee.
  12. Maintain a positive body language: Remember you are putting yourself and the other person in an unexpected situation. First, you need to relax. If you are casual about the situation and you treat it as an opportunity to have a chat and not a formal conversation, you can make the situation less daunting.
  13. Focus on positive recognition: You don’t want to come across as an inquisitor walking around interrogating people. One way is to positively recognize the employee as well as others who are role models in the organization. If you encourage people with positive feedback, give credit for the ideas you hear and share the success stories with everyone, you strengthen subordinates’ motivation to work hard and to share their concerns and ideas.
  14. Don’t do it because you feel obliged to:  If you are not the sort of person who can easily engage – this probably won’t work very well.
  15. Gauging the level of trust: If people don’t trust you they will think that you’re interfering or spying. Gauge the level of trust and engagement style of the employee as you engage. For instance, a team member may be happy to engage within earshot of other employees while another may not or it may be about discussing personal issues or talking about the relationship to management.
  16. Never sell people out: Even if the information shared with you is critical of policy or management, it is NOT your job to quote the employee back. Maintaining complete confidentiality is critical to any further engagement.
  17. Listen, don’t critique or argue: Give them your undivided attention. Listen and observe more than you talk. When you talk, be open and truthful. If you don’t know the answer to someone’s question, find it out afterward and follow up. If you can’t share something, say so. Speaking half-truths can break down trust. Even if you are challenged hold back from retorting. This is about them, not you.
  18. Don’t bring an entourage: This approach works best as a sequence of one-on-one conversations. Bringing aides or assistants with you will probably kill the discussion before it starts.

How is this Agile HR?

It is an effective strategy to remove the ‘management bubble’ and allow the company to have a realistic idea of what is going on. Feedback on problems and ideas is instant, resulting in faster actions. It can also enhance operational efficiency and improve employee morale and motivation. Thus creating a better understanding of the correct operational decisions that must be made.

Conclusion

Management by Walking Around can be an effective and practical way to keep up with what’s happening within your team and your organization. It can dramatically change the speed at which you gather information, the issues that impact the organization, the trust that you’ll build and the speed with which the organization can respond. It is simple to execute, does not cost anything and is a great way to build an open culture and keep the company vision in front. As people feel listened to they feel more a part of the organization and valued and employees who feel valued don’t leave.

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_ CEO

Tech Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker & Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a BTech-MBA & CEO of the world leader in communications for technology businesses with a worldwide Fortune 500 customer base. Rakesh is a speaker on Leadership, Strategic Marketing, Strategic Communications, creating world-class bootstrapped Startups & resurgence in business. He lives with 800 rescued dogs, has no work-life balance and will not have it any other way! Rakesh has been featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies etc.

Are you looking to create or improve how HR Communicates?

Read More
Diversity in Leadership I TWB_
19 Dec

Diversity in Leadership starts with Inclusion at all levels

By TWB_ In HR Communication, Internal Communications, Leadership /   No Comments

Companies across India are looking at how to have Diversity at the Leadership level – and mostly they refer to lack of women in management. But diversity is not only about female and male, gay or straight, Hindu, Muslim, or Christian, young or old. It is about the diversity of individuals, ideators and executors, great communicators and less so, introverts and extroverts, controlling type and people type as well.

Having Diversity does not ensure inclusion. Diversity and Inclusion are nearly not the same things. Diversity by itself does not make people feel they belong — inclusion does. Diversity by itself does not accommodate differences of opinions — inclusion does. Diversity helps build inclusion by bringing in diverse viewpoints and creating an atmosphere in which people feel valued and have the same opportunities as others. Being an inclusive organization — where people focus on building common ground incorporating a range of views — rather than focus on differences can be a very powerful growth strategy.

Diversity is not a set of affirmative actions imposed on the organization — it is an output of the culture of the organization. Without adequate diversity being a lone female employee in a consistently all-male leadership team or being part of a minority where the leadership team converses in a regional language is common across the Indian tech industry. For an individual caught in that situation, it is difficult to feel motivated. 

This McKinsey study shows a significant relationship between a diverse leadership team and better financial performance. The top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to outperform the industry average compared to companies in the bottom quartile. For ethnic diversity, that number jumps to 35%.

If the data proving that diverse organizations are more productive is not enough the cautionary tales from movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp should provide the impetus for tech companies to address diversity in their organizations.

What does diversity do?

Diversity at the leadership level is a consequence of hiring people who bring new perspectives to management meetings. Diversity is good because,

  • It gives you a larger pool of ideas: Diverse leadership teams have a larger pool of experience and points of view to draw from, which can help with finding solutions to problems and generating new ideas.
  • It increases staff retention and motivation: Seeing people ‘like them’ in positions of power is very inspiring for employees to stay longer in the organization and strive for promotions themselves
  • It gives you a larger talent pool to choose from: Diverse organizations find it easier to attract great and have a larger talent pool to choose from.
  • Makes for better business linkages: People from different groups and backgrounds often bring unique connections with them, which can lead to more networking opportunities for your company.
  • Makes for better Communication: Diverse companies are less likely to create tone-deaf and sometimes offensive communication than if they had a more varied group of decision-makers.

Lack of diversity stems from bias

People are hired on the premise that they can perform on the job and technical evaluations are pretty accurate. However, most organizational problems stem from a different place — that people don’t get along with other people. Biases in hiring and working together are the greatest bottlenecks. Families, friends, peers, education, religion, ambition etc influences how we see the world, and ourselves. These biases also shape our perceptions of what people are capable of.

A lecture on diversity will not erase these biases. Diversity is deeply related to culture and culture is difficult to change. If it must then it must first change at the top.  Developing diversity involves a cultural change and requires workshops, identifying and creating role models but most of all it involves a commitment by the organization’s leadership.

Building Diversity

The first step towards building diversity is actively seeking diverse people and seeking information from this diverse group. People from diverse backgrounds need to be seen as key variables in the process of problem-solving and decision making. Building diversity across an organization can only happen if there is an atmosphere where they can express their views without fear of repercussion. They can approach colleagues and manager for help and will not be viewed as weak if they do.


The Diversity Checklist

  • Leadership commitment: The first step is having leaders within the organization become visibly involved in programs affecting organizational culture change and articulating policies that govern diversity. To do so, you must display leadership that eradicates oppression of all forms. 
  • Having a Diversity and Inclusion strategy is not enough: Having a strategy has no meaning if it is not reflected in who the company hires and promotes. It only when the CEO downwards the organization realizes that to be the best they need to embrace diversity there is has a higher probability of being really inclusive, including right at the top.
  • Hiring from a range of backgrounds: Hire people who can bring new perspectives to your management meetings and relate personally with a wide range of your employees. But making culture more inclusive the first stop is the leadership team. Employees will always notice who you promote into positions of power.
  • ‘Diversity quotas’ are a double-edged sword: When you set ‘diversity quotas’ for your organizational and leadership teams, ensure that you are not dismissing good people for the sake of diversity. You don’t need a checklist of genders, ethnicity, religions, abilities and sexual orientations to promote talent you need caliber.
  • Building high-performance teams: Moving your workforce from larger organizations to teams that use the full potential of every individual is a great idea. Teams focused on objectives are forced to accept others for what they are.

Conclusion

Diversity is not just diversity in race, religion, sex, age but it is what makes an organization succeed — and typically that requires men & women, introverts & extroverts, controllers & thinkers, dreamers & doers, organizers & team members to reach the organizational goals.  

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_ CEO

Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker & Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a BTech-MBA & CEO of the world leader in communications for technology businesses with a worldwide Fortune 500 customer base. Rakesh is a speaker on Leadership, Strategic Marketing, Strategic Communications, creating world-class bootstrapped Startups & resurgence in business. He lives with 800 rescued dogs, has no work-life balance and will not have it any other way! Rakesh has been featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies etc.

Are you looking to create or improve how HR Communicates?

Read More
Worlds best whitepapers come from TWB_
20 Aug

How to write & publish the best whitepapers in the world?

By TWB_ In Strategic Marketing /   No Comments

Writing whitepapers is a pain, isn’t it? Your best brains — who should be writing them just don’t have the inclination. Besides even with the best ideas it requires methodical authoring and weeks of research, editing, layout design to make a top quality whitepaper. It is a system that has to work flawlessly several times a month!

Why write whitepapers at all?

Complex technical ideas that you wish to communicate to architects and CTO’s can’t really be communicated any other way. Whitepapers are a key part of the ‘deep content’ that customers look for to understand your take on a technology they are considering. Whitepapers are an essential tool in establishing credibility and generating leads.

How to author & publish the world’s best whitepapers?

You need to address several challenges – which department will author the paper? For instance, the marketing department may not always understand the deep tech. Or the product engineering may not be best to author in the first place because of language and representation? Then who will ensure research and cross-reference and the layouts and editing are of the highest quality?

It so happens that we have the process of creating the best whitepapers. So much so that chances are the whitepapers that your team downloaded for your choice of technology partners, servers, software, cloud computing infrastructure, security pretty much any large decision — came from TWB_. We write the best whitepapers for the Fortune 500 & for startups.

TWB_ is the Agency for Technology Brands

Looking for a Strategic Marketing partner to create market wins?

  • TWB_ is the world leader in creating & publishing ‘deep content’ – that is Whitepapers, Position papers, and tech evangelism;  ‘engaging content’ – that is blogs, social media posts, explainer videos etc (1-2 minute); and training on how to. TWB_ is the leader in communicating technology. Any Technology. Any audience. Any platform.
  • Strategic Marketing, Branding & Positioning from TWB_ helps Fortune500 and startups win in the marketplace. Call  TWB_ Bangalore 96860 59020 | Houston (832)689-6456 | Tel Aviv +972.544.603.612 or mail shift@twb.in
  • Get more TWB_ insights on the TWB_ Blog | LinkedIn | Medium  | SlideShare
Read More
TWB_ increases adoption of leading consumer electronics brands I www.twb.in
09 Apr

Winning the consumer electronics competition: Showcasing Innovation & Increasing Adoption

By TWB_ In Product Strategy, Strategic Marketing /   No Comments

Consumer Electronics, devices and appliances, is a hyper-competitive market with razor thin margins (3-5% other than for Apple and handful of other leaders), fast growth and an increasingly low barrier to entry. The global market will be $1.5 trillion by 2024 (Global Market Insights, 2017) with growth at 3% on a 10 yr average for the US, but explosive in China, India, Japan and South Korea with India itself expected to grow at 16.8% (TBRC, 2017).

Factors fuelling consumer electronics innovation :

  1. Connected devices/ IoT adoption: Standalone devices are now increasingly connected on Wi-Fi, NFC, and Bluetooth. Devices and appliances have more sensors, more computing, and software that allows them to exchange and collect data and make decisions.
  2. Device Convergence: Increased computing, connectivity & miniaturization is causing great overlap of capabilities. Mobile phones continuing to subsume digital cameras, camcorders and standalone GPS navigation systems for instance.
  3. Smarter devices: Higher computing and connectivity allows more local and cloud-based computing. TVs and cars are not just ‘smart’ they’re connected — it reflects with 48.5% of televisions shipped globally in 2017 were smart TVs (IHS, 2017).
  4. Design: Product design has become the centerpiece of customer experience that includes design, materials and finish and this will continue to accelerate.
  5. Energy efficiency: As the computing demand on the device grows and so does power consumption devices require to be more energy efficient, have better management and better batteries.
  6. Device fidelity: Screen resolutions are increasing on small and large format devices to 4K, 8K, and higher resolution. Sound needs to be produced from much smaller device footprints with adequate fidelity.

What do suppliers do to increase innovation

Suppliers increasingly rely on a range of factors to increase innovation,

  1. Product Design Outsourcing: Product development and even product design is moving to Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) partners. This allows to accelerate launch schedules, outsource logistics complexity, in addition to reducing overall costs and shift from fixed to variable cost. For instance Product Design, part of the specialized design services market will be $157 billion in 2020 (TBRC, 2017)
  2. Virtual Reality in Manufacturing: Digital design, simulation, and integration is the virtual reality technology in electronic manufacturing and is allowing for faster prototyping and release.
  3. Automation: Robotics and automation are increasing plant efficiency and productivity and this reflects in 1.2 million industrial robots that BCG expects to be deployed by 2025 (BCG, 2016).

TWB_ makes their innovation stands out 

World’s leading high fidelity audio amplifiers, set-top boxes, streaming content publishers, laptops and mobile & camera brands rely on TWB_ to stay ahead. TWB_ helps them brand, position, communicate, engage and makes their customers adopt their technology faster.

Want your innovation to stand out?

 

Read More
Purpose and Meaning in Work I Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive and Founder, TWB_
02 Jan

Finding Purpose and Meaning in Work: Growth and Transformation in the Leadership

By TWB_ In Communication, Corporate Training, Leadership /  7 No Comments

Dreading work is common. That’s why weekends were invented. Ah, it’s the weekend! Oh, it’s Monday!! Or you have a new assignment or a new boss or a restructuring is going on or maybe you’re simply bored in your role. And you ask yourself the question: Why am I doing this? Does my work have any meaning?

The quest for “meaning at work” impacts every job productivity and retention metric. Consider this:

  • A survey of 12,000 employees across companies and industries found 50% lacked meaning and significance at work (see The Energy Project).
  • Employees who derive meaning from their work are 3 times as likely to stay with their organizations, have 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and 1.4 times more engagement with the company.
  • “Meaning at Work” impacts longevity and productivity positively more than other ‘job satisfiers’ including:
    • Learning and growth
    • Connection to a company’s mission, and
    • Work-life balance!

So what can companies do to make their employees feel that their work has meaning? The short-term answer seems to be — making employees feel happy. Terms of employment, lavish cafeterias are all answers to that question — make employees happy. However, this ‘happiness’ is temporary. The other is to make jobs more creative, less monotonous and facilitate a sense of meaning with a career path. But they are still answers to different questions. A more significant one is to give the job meaning and purpose. So what then in meaningful work? 

What is the meaning of “meaning”?

Happiness isn’t the only ingredient to a life well-lived. Sometimes it’s not even a criteria. On the other hand ‘meaning’ is what causes people to go into unknown territories, motivates to do things out of the ordinary and causes personal growth and long-term satisfaction.

The trick is there is no one meaning of “meaning”. While it is important for each of us, it is also different for each of us. In the corporate context, one way to define meaning is through its negation: while companies are rarely good at finding “meaning” poor leadership is connected to a loss of meaning very quickly! There is a lot of research which shows meaning at work can be enhanced if employees have an opportunity to realistically reflect on their work & their contribution in the company and their respective lives. A few steps that are known to enhance this are (a) a culture of ethics (b) keeping high moral standards (c) executing on social responsibility that employees can support.

 

What can management do to give meaning to work?

The following steps allow management to engage with employees in a way that they find work life more meaningful:

  1. Discuss the meaning of the organization & their contribution to it: When employees understand the purpose of the organization and the positive impact it has on business and communities it allows them to be a part of something meaningful. This works best when employees have a clear view of the company’s goals, values and vision and plans for the future. Management should explain how every role impacts the greater organization. When employees see how their work contributes to that big picture it enhances their sense of meaning and purpose.
  2. Culture and community: Management should help their employees feel connected to communities or other employees that are impacted by the company’s products or services, so they understand clearly who it is that they are helping.
  3. Create a purpose: What is the difference between these 2 mission statements (a)“To be the most successful computer company in the world” and (b) “To be the most successful computer company for the world”? They point to a major meaning trap. When you say ‘for’, meaning comes from the impact of our work on others. People aren’t inspired by what they do, they are when they know they matter to others.

 

As an employee what can you do to give your work meaning?

The first thing to remember is that purpose is built, not found. Working with a sense of purpose requires thoughtfulness and practice. Here are some things you can do to find meaning at work:

  1. Become conscious that other people matter: If you have meaningful relationships at work you will find more meaning at work. A Gallup study found that the most engaged workers report having a best friend at work. Those reporting higher meaning are not necessarily those who are doing more, but those who have more meaningful relationships.
  2. Build social experiences: Purpose can be found in the simple things that connect colleagues. Sincerely asking a colleague how they are because you are genuinely interested not because it is small talk, will give meaning to both of you!
  3. Find what fuels you: ‘Meaning’ is not a vague idea it is tangible and you must look for it for yourself. If you value contribution find out how you can contribute to a group, or a customer or a community. If you value humour do you make colleagues, and customers smile?
  4. Don’t invest everything at work: Work gives meaning your life but it is only 1 of 4 parts that do —  faith, family, and community are the others. Life’s’ portfolio is a balance between these 4 things — faith in something bigger than each of us, your family that you nurture, your community that you impact, and success through meaningful work that creates value. Learn to focus on each in turn.
  5. Write a personal statement: One way to create more meaning is to define your purpose by making a personal declaration of purpose. It is a simple, succinct, jargon-free, and expressive. A statement about how you decide to live each and every day. For instance “I’ll always give my children the best opportunities they need”. Just stating it gives your life purpose even though nothing else in your job has changed. Now you know it has mean because it drives a purpose.

Purpose isn’t magic. It is something we must create. The fact is most of us don’t work for fun. For the most part, we work to earn money and to pay bills. Work in itself is a meaningful act of service — parents often work hard for their children, some work to support ageing parents. Focussing on what brings meaning to them will create meaning in your own life. With the right approach all jobs are meaningful.

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_

Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a 1996 MBA graduate and 1993 BTech. Rakesh Shukla is the Founder & CEO of TWB_ which is the partner for technology & business content for Fortune 500 leaders worldwide. A motivational speaker he speaks on creating success from professional and personal failure. He divides time between his 2 homes in Bangalore and is called the ‘dog-father’ for being papa to the 750 rescued dogs that live with him at the VOSD Dog Sanctuary. Rakesh has featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies, and at TEDx talks.

 

 

Are you looking to create teams and employees with purpose?

Read More
Storytelling for Business - by Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive and Founder, TWB_
30 Dec

Great storytelling for business leadership: What makes listeners connect?

By TWB_ In Communication, Corporate Training, Leadership /  10 No Comments

How many of your management team are true leaders — those who can inspire the organization, set a vision, teach important lessons, define culture and explain what the organization. Of those who are, how many are great communicators? Turns out some of the leadership and all of the communication are learnt skills. The easiest and the most powerful communication skill is telling great stories or ‘storytelling’.

Storytelling is critical for management and leadership because very often nothing else works. Graphs will leave listeners untouched. Conversation and dialogue can be too didactic. But the same listener can be moved with a great story. Storytelling in the business context translates abstract numbers into compelling statements of a leader’s goals —  by drawing the listener(s) into the story. Though business cases are made of hard numbers, stories make them spring to life because storytelling can show causal relationships. The question, therefore, is not about telling or not but rather to tell them unwittingly and clumsily or intelligently and skillfully. Storytelling can be learned by anyone who wants to be a leader — CXOs, Senior and Middle management.

Why is storytelling important?

In a  meeting or a talk in a short time-span, a leader can communicate maybe only 1 or 2 powerful ideas. Storytelling, however, allows for multi-layered complex ideas to be told since they are not sequential but interwoven. It is this association that and sharing of complex ideas that can allow leaders to – spark change, transmitting values, share knowledge and lead people into the future.

Leaders establish credibility through telling stories. The audience can feel and respond immediately and deeply. Stories can communicate complex ideas, break status quo, generate interaction & transformation. Rather than merely advocating and counter-advocating positions through constructed and business focussed meetings, talks, emails and other such communication a  story, especially a personal one, breaks through the acceptance barrier. Communication becomes empowering – even as the leader comes across as more vulnerable – yet someone who is still a leader because (s)he has persevered.  

Why is storytelling so powerful?

Storytelling draws in the listener and draws on the active, participation of individuals as against conventional management focuses on lifeless elements  – mission statements,  strategies, processes, budgets and assets. Stories make people discover a degree of coherence that is otherwise very difficult to achieve — something that has been an underlying principle of psychotherapy.

When a listener hears a story that touches him or her they feel their lives have a meaning.  This feeling eventually vaporises and the listener inevitably falls back into an everyday pattern — but with the difference that a radical shift in their lives have taken place and their motivation and behavior are primed for change.

What makes a good story and a good story-teller?

First and foremost the story needs to be personal and it needs to imply values. People make deep associations with leaders that have the courage to tell a strong personal story, and where the story implies certain values. The second is that the audience associates with people with a ‘consistent’ self‐image. For a leader, it is important to have a clear view of a personal life‐story that is aligned that is the thrust what you want the audience to see.

The leader tells a story to show people who they are. Their identity as an individual doesn’t lie in their roles, it is in the one‐of‐a‐kind person they have become as a result of the experiences they’ve had. The leader must tell stories interactively and model it on a conversation — that creates a relationship between the leader and the listener that is symmetrical — such that the listener could speak next. It is this feeling with the listener of being in an open conversation that the leader is vulnerable that the listener is drawn ‘into’ the story.

Types of storytelling

  • Style: The leader should tell the story as if it were being told to a single individual. The story should be kept simple, focused and clear with no alternate points of view. 
  • Don’t argue the truth: The leader should offer listeners an unobstructed view of the truth and listeners will see it and recognize it for what it is — that any reasonable person would have to agree.
  • Practice ease: Only 7% of the meaning of a communication came from the content of the words spoken 93% comes from nonverbal communication. The leader should seem spontaneous. They should choose the shape of the story and stick to it. Practice ease. 

Points of action

The story needs to have an end in mind — what do you want the listener to do when the story is over? These could include:

  • Sparking action: The story describes how a successful change was implemented in the past, but allows listeners to imagine how it might work in their situation. Communicating who they are – provides audience‐engaging drama and reveals some strength and vulnerability from the leaders past.
  • Transmitting values: The leader uses believable characters and situations and ensures the story is consistent about values and actions.  This feels familiar to the audience and will prompt discussion about why they can’t follow the same values/ action too!
  • Sharing knowledge: Leaders focus on problems and shows, in some detail, how they were corrected and why the solution worked and solicits alternative – and possibly better – solutions.
  • Leading people into the future: The leader evokes the future they want to create without providing excessive detail that will prove to be wrong.

No matter how compelling the numbers of sheets, charts or infographics if they require people to act in unfamiliar ways that is unlikely to happen. But effective storytelling often does. Storytelling can inspire people to act in unfamiliar ways. And remember storytelling not only gets the message across effectively, its incremental cost is zero. 

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_

Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a 1996 MBA graduate and 1993 BTech. Rakesh Shukla is the Founder & CEO of TWB_ which is the partner for technology & business content for Fortune 500 leaders worldwide. A motivational speaker he speaks on creating success from professional and personal failure. He divides time between his 2 homes in Bangalore and is called the ‘dog-father’ for being papa to the 750 rescued dogs that live with him at the VOSD Dog Sanctuary. Rakesh has featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies, and at TEDx talks.

 

 

Are you looking to create or improve how your leaders communicate?

Read More
26 Jun

MarketingShift_

By TWB_ In Strategic Marketing /  2 No Comments

TWB_ makes your technology stand out.

TWB_ is the Strategic + Creative + Technology Agency for the Fortune 500 & startups alike.

TWB_ provides the strategic Marketing support that fast moving tech leaders need. Positioning. Branding. Analytics. Digital. Reports.

What Next?

 

 

Read More
TWB_ (formerly TWB) is the world leader in Technology Content and the Strategic + Creative + Technology Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in
22 Jun

Competitive Intelligence is fuelling the explosion of an Indian major into a ₹ 100,000 crore/ $16 Billion behemoth

By TWB_ In Strategic Marketing /  4 No Comments

When a ₹ 10,000 crore Indian major, the darling of stock markets, decides to become a ₹ 100,000 crore/ $16 Billion organisation this commitment to shareholders comes with a lot of gravitas. This TWB_ customer operates in a market where each category has organic growth, strong incumbents.  The customer has the cash flow and the access to capital but how do you grow the market and innovate at an explosive pace? Innovation technological and business is a vector and TWB_ is helping in the disruption.

The customer operates in a hyper competitive market. How do you grow the market and innovate at an explosive pace? With a little contribution from TWB_ of course!

The customer turns to TWB_ because TWB_ bring the intersect of Strategy + Creativity + Technology:

  • The customer requires reams of competitive intelligence to figure which markets to attack and how.

TWB_ pours through millions of pages of present data & legacy information and creates actionable reports to map out the competition, geographical penetration and dashboards to easily access this before drilling down. One of the hundreds of such artefacts can be seen here (partially shared since this is now dated).

  • The customer requires a way to access its own IP portfolio!

The customer is not only a strong R&D company with a large IP portfolio – but is so large and so old it is not digitised and there is no longer a complete view of it! TWB_ starts digitising and making this discoverable bringing it into a Content Management System

  • The customer requires better market presence since the really deep technical understanding is not visible to consumers without high-quality articulation of this thinking.

TWB_ addresses with continuous training interventions within TWB_ Corporate Certifications designed to allow them to do create world-class scientific research reports using TWB_ GRAPE™ 

Competitive Intelligence provides competitive advantage

TWB_ maps out competitive landscapes and provides strategic and tactical intelligence to enterprises on competitors. TWB_ helps enterprises stay three moves ahead of the competition, reduce business uncertainty, and take more strategic decisions. TWB_ services include

  • Competitor analysis
  • Brand-specific intelligence
  • Company monitoring
  • Cost competitiveness best practices
  • Preventive strategies for competitive shocks
  • Strategic performance benchmarking

10 yrs ago when a large South Korean mobile brand was planning to enter India, they’re turned to us to make out the competitive technological landscape too.

TWB_ is Strategy + Creativity + Technology. Want your business to stand out?

Read More