As India celebrates its 72nd Independence Day, Yahoo Lifestyle reached out to seven women to ask them what freedoms Indian women are still fighting for today.
Kamalika Bhattacharya, the CEO of QuoDeck believes women are more than a single dimension. She recently talked to Yahoo about why Indian women need freedom from being stereotyped
So why is Discomfort so essential for entrepreneurial success and how to embrace it?
Entrepreneurship has always been about seeking out the new, in uncharted waters. Across ages, be it explorers or individuals, who have made a mark in their chosen fields or Entrepreneurs who have sought to change the world, have stepped out of their comfort zones. In an age when comfort is the buzzword for consumers, Discomfort is the mantra with which Entrepreneurs need to live by. Discomfort is not about putting oneself in a tough spot. It is stepping out from what you know, to the unknown. Exploring new opportunities, new areas of interest and nurturing a vision. An Entrepreneur seeks of problems and makes solutions for those problems while tackling the new-world questions which arise with these solutions. And that is where discomfort stems from. From seeking the unknown, from seeing problems in a new lens and attempting new paths. So why is Discomfort so essential for entrepreneurial success and how to embrace it?
Embracing Change
Discomfort comes from a change in what you have been doing. Change requires moving forward by going beyond what is holding you. Be it a safety net of certainty, an appraisal plan or just comfort with your work. To make yourself the next success, you need to embrace change as an integral part of your life. Start small but stay steady. A little change, one day at a time can bring success your way.
Say Goodbye to the Comfort Zone
Comfort zones are places which we are used to. We know how they will behave in any given situation. Coming out of this comfort zone is very important for an individual, especially for entrepreneurial successes because that is the only time when your mind is open to new opportunities and solutions where none existed. Discomfort is not just a punchline here, it is a way of life.
Nurture the Unconventional
Great ideas come from unconventional thoughts. The first wheel came because someone wanted to break the convention of walking. Discomfort makes you explore ideas and solutions which are unconventional and gives you the ability to experiment with varied combinations. It is the one thing which makes you think beyond what you think are your limits.
Calculated Risks
Risk taking is second nature to an Entrepreneur. But that doesn’t mean that you dive head straight into it. Study the problem, understand it, appreciate its presence and then find the solutions. Its okay not to have the perfect solution in the first go. Every failed attempt brings you one step closer to success. You may not have all the cards in your favour but a calculated risk towards your goals can get you there a lot faster, along with all the learnings.
Growing with Discomfort
There is only one thing for you to do- Get Up, Get Out & Get Moving. This is what will let you grow, explore opportunities and get a closer understanding of the world around you. You will start seeing things, you never did before. Go ahead to seek the new, forge your tools, mark your own paths and try your hands at everything that you can. It is Discomfort which will test you to the limits and will give you the experience to set on the right path.
By Kamalika Bhattacharya, CEO & Co-Founder at QuoDeck
This article was first published on Entrepreneur India
Arijit Lahiri and Kamalika Bhattacharya, who spent over a decade in organisations like ABN Amro Bank and Intellecap, saw learning department heads begging, bullying and even bribing their learners to stick to their learning agenda.
So they put on their marketing hats to understand what would catch learners’ attention. “Game-based learning pretty much screamed itself up,” says Bhattacharya. Games allow for more engaging learning experiences while also making the learner behaviour more measurable and analysable. Today, their company, QuoDeck (earlier Ptotem), uses board games, murder mysteries and treasure hunts as learning methods, and these have been used by organisations like PepsiCo, Unilever, Aditya Birla Group and Tata Group.
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One of the most crucial functions in any organization is the Human Resources.
The HR function drives the organization, its culture, future growth possibilities and is also the first point of contact for prospective employees for the organization’s brand value.
It is interesting that HR teams witness an average 22 percent cost savings when they move to automated and digital solutions for process-jobs. There are other numbers which prove that an app backed HR function is much smoother, with transparent employee interactions.
To help with that, these are the six must have apps which every HR professional should have:
One of the most primary functions for HR is the employee on-boarding process. Once the employee joins the organization, there is paperwork and one-to-one sessions required with the HR teams to help set the employee into the system & the job role. Workbright makes this process simpler by taking it online & doing it even before the employee has joined the organization. Workbright helps with all the process functions of the on-boarding journey and can also be made to have primary sessions for the employee-to-be on what to expect in the new role. Once joined, the employee already has an exposure to his role, saving up on time-costs for the HR team as well.
Human Resources lead the Learning and Development functions for any organization. Very important everywhere, conventional learning mechanisms involve a set theory which needs to be read over and tested for a score. This has become a mundane process and generally, employees treat it as just another test which they forget about later. QuoDeck solves this problem by making games out of the tests required. Instead of repeating what was read, QuoDeck turns the entire session into a game where people win points, can compete within teams or outside of teams, etc. This helps take the learning process in the right spirit as the retention and participation levels are much higher.
Hiring today is an online process and taking up the game notches is LinkedIn. A social media platform where professionals have well-crafted profiles detailing all their achievements is the perfect way for HR functions and recruiters to know more about prospective candidates. The chat & mail features also help both sides reach out to each other and have a meaningful conversation before they decide on functional meetings. For the HR functions, LinkedIn is an indispensable tool which helps them know a prospect better before they take the next steps. LinkedIn works better than so many other ‘job’ apps because it is about building meaningful careers with the right fitment and not just getting a job.
Hiring is a very chance-based process. Despite all possible checks & attempts, there is a gut factor which comes into play. At times one lets go of great assets, or at times brings on-board undeserving candidates. In either case, it is a mistake which is realized late and costs the organization dear in terms of intra-relationships and any other means. WorkStyle helps the HR teams because it comes with testing an employee’s personality traits. Technical skill-sets help do a job, but personality traits make an employee gel with the teams and contribute for both personal & organization growth. WorkStyle comes here with a variety of models and tests helping the HR team to take an informed decision.
Human Resources work on two ends of the spectrum- the procedure-oriented and the emotional and human-oriented. The processes and formalities-based systems take up a lot of time, leaving them with limited scope to help employees with the ‘Human’ aspect of their profiles. Zenefits helps here by taking up all the roles of employee records, hierarchy structures, payroll management and any other function which can be done via a procedure. This leaves the HR team to devote time for better employee engagement, interactions and developing the general work culture of the organization.
An organization is an ecosystem with its own sub-groups, job descriptions, work titles, assignments, line & cross-line reporting, etc. In such a world it is the HR’s responsibility that all communication channels are open for employees so that impromptu groupings can be made, everybody in a group knows about updates happening simultaneously and much more. Yammer makes it possible to engage in fruitful intra-office and inter-office conversations and coordinate for better personal relationships. For the HR team, Yammer is helpful as it comes with a dashboard with features for tracking, recording and maintaining effective communication channels.
This article was first published on Business Standard
Both share great insights on life as an entrepreneur. The setbacks, the fun, building a team. Getting out of the comfort zone. Management styles, Quitting corporate life after 15 years and how they first met! So please enjoy the show.
To listen to the Podcast.
Most startups work towards the one thing which matters most – Survival. In the crucial early years, startups are consumed by solving critical challenges like getting their product/service off the ground, creating differentiation with consumers, hiring the right team and raising capital. Most times this leaves no bandwidth for anything else and lower order priorities like training usually take a backseat – and, rightly so. Most startups can do without structured learning for a very long time, and instead, driving a culture of ‘figuring it out’ and self-learning can help teams remain cutting-edge and current. However, if you are a particular type of startup, then learning is actually quite critical to the success of your business model.
1. Startups with large field forces
Startups that depend on a large field force to either sell or deliver their product/service to customers, need them to be knowledgeable and be skilled at selling. But, with large field forces come issues such as high attrition and the need for training their replacements faster. As a startup, balanced on the thin edge of efficient capital consumption and delivering a world-class brand experience to customers, these costs can prove very dear.
Startup founders typically, expect field force managers to teach incoming employees on-the-job or through 1-2 day-long classroom sessions, to equip them with all the knowledge regarding the product/service, its differentiation, processes, and skills related to selling and issue handling. That can be a lot to absorb in such a short time span! However, what startups don’t realize is that the willingness to commit this time to train may differ from manager to manager as may the ability to train, resulting in a lopsided field force where some are trained to deliver better than others. And one of the fastest ways to kill a brand is inconsistent brand experience with customers.
Such startups can benefit enormously from having structured learning and onboarding programs, that incoming field force is mandatorily required to go through in their initial few days. With advancing learning technology, such structured programs are now delivered with ease through mobile devices with micro-learning that is consumed on-the-go. Ultimately, the cost of such a program is offset by the benefits of consistency of brand experience resulting in growth and scale.
2. Startups who run an ecosystem
Service-driven startups like cab hailing apps, e-commerce apps, delivery and logistics enterprises, etc. thrive on very specific yet highly competitive ecosystems. Features such as one-day delivery, pick-up & drop services, returns, and home trial add enormous pressures on logistics teams in startups. Conversely, the differentiating factor is not always the product/service itself, but the quality of hospitality and customer care provided, which is actually delivered by the ecosystem.
Compared to the previous type of startup, the need for training this ecosystem comes from two fronts – Process and Brand Experience. Ecosystem partners deal with both major stakeholders involved – with the startup (seller) and the customer (buyer). Understanding processes which may include critical aspects like authentication, cash handling, timely delivery and pickup, returns etc. is imperative for ecosystem partners. And every partner of this ecosystem doubles up as a brand ambassador, therefore they need to understand the brand experience they are supposed to deliver.
If such an ecosystem is at the center of a startup’s business model, then founders need to ensure that the ecosystem represents and communicates the brand experience founders have envisaged. This, however, cannot be done quickly and is a long-term process. Startups need to analyze the role of each partner, design training programs accordingly and ensure the same is communicated to them on a regular basis.
3. Startups with complex product/service offerings
Startups with complex product/service offerings such as technology products, fin-tech or medical tech have a unique requirement. Their offering is typically based on a thorough understanding of the domain and the issues with existing products/services, which can be sometimes fairly complex subject matter. Not only historical context, it is important for such companies to keep abreast of the advances and latest developments in their domain. Sometimes, the requirement can be as simple as knowing new regulations in the industry that affect your product/service.
As such startups grow and hire, whether it is sales and marketing, product development, Operations or HR, translating this context and understanding is important and needs to be done continually. Such startups would benefit from building up a repository of knowledge that is available for reference or learning as needed.
By Kamalika Bhattacharya, CEO & Co-Founder at QuoDeck
This article was first published on BWDisrupt
QuoDeck is a SaaS product catering to the enterprise learning market. The basic concept of the product is using interactivity and games to engage enterprise learners and use that to capture data, which in turn gets used to improve the learner experience and effectiveness. The product allows enterprises to quickly create and deploy learning platforms, which are mobile learning oriented with a big data backend to capture click-stream real-time data. Once deployed, the captured data streams are processed to provide effectiveness insights such as learner profiling, content quality assessments, training needs identification, etc.
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Corporate training is considered to be an essential business enabler. But are companies doing enough to keep their employees engaged during such training programmes? The seriousness with which companies usually go about such training in order to get maximum bang for their buck may make such programmes boring and tedious for the employees thus rendering them ineffective.
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Tiring of being on the opposite side from what I always considered to be the more exciting side of things – the entrepreneur’s- I founded QuoDeck along with my husband in 2010. Today QuoDeck is one of the top products in this space with over 62,000 learners from 20+ companies using QuoDeck to learn. Globally, it is used by over 500 creators from 40 countries to create game-based mobile learning.
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At HUL, an app created by Mumbai based QuoDeck (previously Ptotem) acts as a ready reckoner for their sales persons. “Basic training for bringing a sales person on board is provided in the app. We have evaluation points and an assessment is done after which a certification is offered,” Sikdar said.
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QuoDeck Speak 