Mohammed Mubin Mallick: On the Forefront of Robot Solutions and Services
Please tell us about your educational/professional background. Who inspired you to become a business leader? Would you like to mention some of the highlights from your journey? I, Mohammed Mubin Mallick, am the CEO and Founder of Kiran Smart company in Kuwait, Dubai, and India. I am an innovator of Humanoid Robot Services and the Founder of Mi-Robots Company registered in India. Holding a Master’s Degree MBA from Cardiff University, UK. I have several professional certificates under his name. It was one of the childhood incidents that inspired me to be an Entrepreneur and be a leader to help others not only in business but in their personal life as well. Every journey has good and bad highlights so let me start with bad highlights first because they helped me forge my path to success. During the journey, I lost my father, lost money, was cheated several times, failed myself many times, and sacrificed a lot in my personal life. But I flipped the coin and built trust. People started recognizing me. I excelled in business. I have loyal customers and employees. I am able to expand my business in India and Dubai (UAE). I have bagged many awards for being advanced in the robotics field. Today, I am recognized as one of the Top Influencers in the field of robotics. When was Kiran Smart established? What are the prominent services/solutions offered by the company? Kiran Smart was established in the year 2019. We have IT solutions and services but in the recent year during COVID-19, we have diversified to Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech, and Digital Transformation. Headquartered in Dubai, Kiran Smart is always different than its competitors offering because we always introduce advanced new technology and innovative product so that customers can be ahead and up to date with the latest technological solutions and services offered by us. Please brief us in detail about the current scenario of the business. How have the customer preferences changed over the years? The present scenario of business will vary from business to business. So if I share about my business then it is different than others as our core business is robotics services for different industries and the demand is increasing daily. Other than this we are also into IT solutions and services which is the ongoing business for us from past few years. Customer preferences keep changing from time to time as per the latest trends in the market and in terms of advanced technologies as well. So customers always prefer something innovative as well solve the problem. Previously, customers used to focus on resolving the issue but now the preferences have been widened in terms of innovation, technologies, quick services, and 24 hr availability. What are the unique challenges your company is currently facing? How have they affected your company? At present, we have one unique challenge which is Post Covid 19 recovery because this challenge is not only for us but it is for the whole world and it has affected every business. Financial-wise and work-wise it has affected our company but not to a very high extent as we have deployed the advanced technologies, especially robots to overcome these challenges. We were quite successful to overcome these challenges with our robots. What measures do you incorporate to ensure motivation and productivity within the workspace? How do you respond to criticism and disagreements? Our working style is like a family in our working environment. Also, our working times are flexible. We offer employees their preferred time to work where they can have much more productivity. So as a holistic situation it helps to remain motivated and also increases productivity. We always think in a positive way so whatever criticism or disagreement comes from our customers we always take it as tips or lessons for ourselves to improve it and develop it to be better in the future. Because we believe that everyone is not perfect and from mistakes only we can learn to be better and better in our services. What measures do you undertake to ensure optimum customer satisfaction? How much impact does the customer feedback have on the company’s strategies? It is very simple for us. We just listen to our customers carefully so that we can deliver the best solution as per the customer’s problems defined. Customer feedback is very important because it helps us to make a better strategy whether it is related to competition, market trends, customer demand, customer satisfaction, or employees’ services to customers. So for us, the feedback of customers is very important because it helps us to grow and develop. Are you planning to launch any new products/services or advancements to your existing offerings? If so, we would like to know about it. Yes, there are many but all of them are robots for different industries and verticals. We cannot disclose the information due to company policies.
Digital Advertising: A New Era and a Business Necessity
Lauren Oakes spent her formative years in New York working for a digital analytics company, Nudge Analytics, which sparked her interest in the media industry. The broad learning palette in the fast-paced environment helped her keep excited. She needed a role that was constantly evolving and challenging at the same time. And what better industry could she fall for? There can’t be a better way to express yourself especially when you know your Why. Lauren understands the power of this new-age marketing method called Targeted Digital Marketing. No wonder why she celebrates being the CEO of Megaphone Marketing. The Inception and Uncertainty The Megaphone was established 10 years ago by Max Hertan with a mission to change the way traditional workplace functions. She always followed an entrepreneurial lifestyle by combining interests and striking a balance between brand marketing and performance. Though this may appear straightforward, Megaphone was created to help businesses grow while validating its business model. Discussing the current scenario of the media industry, customer preferences have been changing constantly especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. The uncertainties were confining but the Megaphone team reassessed their strategies with a positive outcome. They acted fast, pivoted all of their clients to an e-commerce offering. Their business currently stands with 70% e-commerce brands which are exactly where the stability in the industry has been. Along with this, the Company believes that digital marketing is the only reliable source of marketing amid the pandemic because the huge involvement of customers in businesses became the sudden norm. Propelling Wheels of Motivation Taking a broad view of marketing will benefit, Lauren supervises all four departments at Megaphone, i.e. Acquisitions, Sales, Accounts, and Hiring & Ops. Her focus is across the Sales and Hiring & Ops teams. She admits that hiring has the biggest impact on the growth of the Company because it demands the ability to hire consistent top performers. Like every penny counts, she has been involved in every interview to date. Lauren is proud of being a CEO at the age of 27, and she celebrates this personal achievement by focusing on maintaining the culture of Megaphone which is to continue staff enjoyment and retention. She is responsible for the 100% per year growth rate in 2020 and 2021. It’s magnificent! The devotion pushed her towards receiving Bronze in the global Stevie Awards for the Chief Happiness Officer in 2020. The celebration didn’t stop here when they won the Top Social Media Agency of the year in 2021. Personalization and Transparency Megaphone engages, not just sells. Since customers are the most important part of the process, the Company values individual customer feedback throughout the year. They understand what their clients value which helps them set minimums for delivery across the entire team. Note: Minimums are significantly more than their competitors, i.e. as accounts are analyzed and edited every day. New ads are made each week and each account is looked over by four different experts each month. Even the smallest clients have their head of strategy and head of accounts review them. Megaphone implements personalization correctly which helps it to grow business and assert happy clients. Authenticity matters at Megaphone. It upholds everyone within the company to a very high standard. At a time when customers are more empowered than ever before, being genuine is the only way to win their trust. With its product, Megaphone is inclined towards user-generated content to create a more genuine approach to marketing. People use a product or service based on real reviews which build confidence rather than a TV ad. Similarly, the same formula works for copywriting with genuine reviews and testimonials. Aiming for Future Scaling As Megaphone works on result-based, they are more into Google, Facebook, and Instagram advertisements. Slowly but effectively they are shifting to a constantly-evolving market. For example, after witnessing the growth of TikTok in 2021, it is included in their core offering. It’s clearly known that they will keep testing out new platforms and services as they arise, and put focus on the ones that generate. The more you learn and push yourself in the industry, the more you are going to grow and get out of it.
Winston Weber: Pioneering Organization Restructuring With Expert Consultants
Management refers to the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization. It is concerned with converting materials and labor into goods and services as efficiently as possible to maximize the profit of an organization. So does Winston and his team attempt to balance costs with revenue to achieve the highest net operating profit possible. Winston Weber, Founder and CEO of Winston Weber & Associates (WWA), a leader in management consultancy, creates a framework for managing the effect of new business processes, changes in organizational structure, or cultural changes within an enterprise. We at Fortunes Crown got into conversation with Mr. Weber to know more about the company and how it is helping the businesses and individuals as a whole. Would you like to mention some of the highlights from your journey? I am viewed by many in business as an icon with high expectations and leading-edge thinking. I introduced retailer/supplier partnering, now referred to as collaboration, to the industry in the late 1980s and Category Management to the U.S. in 1990. I introduced the new beyond Category Management business model Shopper-Centric Retailing in 2019 and the new Change Enablement Training in 2022. I love helping companies improve their competitive position in the marketplace, influencing the future of the grocery industry with new, highly productive concepts and upgrading company work environments that encourage open discussion and leading-edge thinking. Our clients view me as one who “says it as he sees it”. While many may think I may lead a life totally involved in business life, I should mention that in 2022 I am celebrating my 56year marriage to my wife Linda. My family is equally important to me. Please tell us about your educational/professional background. How was your life before WWA? After I graduated from Syracuse University in 1962, I spent my first 23 years working with leading consumer products companies including Colgate Palmolive, General Foods, Beechnut Baby Food, Sunshine Biscuits, The Drackett Products Company, Schering Plough and Atari. The first ten years were spent with two major companies, moving up quickly from Retail Salesman to Sales Supervisor, District Manager and Regional Manager Positions. These were excellent corporate experiences that taught me a lot, but I wanted more. I felt too limited and wanted corporate cultures that would enable me to drive change designed to improve the work environment and overall company performance. Leaving General Foods, I obtained my first Vice President Sales position in year eleven and for the next thirteen years, my titles included Vice President, Senior Vice President, Executive Vice President and President of Sales. During this period, I accomplished my objective of having the latitude to make changes designed to improve performance. In the first company I tested and expanded nationally a plan that eliminated expensive Baby Food Company shelf-stocking across the industry. At my next company, where we were losing money, I restructured the sales and distribution organizations from direct store to warehouse delivery. This immediately moved the company from a several million-dollar loss to several million-dollar profits. This move also helped us gain market share. At my next company, I was briefly Vice President Sales before being promoted to President of Sales. I made a number of organizational changes including moving women and black Americans into management positions for the first time. Considering this was 40+ years ago, this was well ahead of when most companies made similar moves. While this was an excellent experience, and I would have stayed longer, I was approached by another company, Atari, with an employment package I could not resist. As Senior Vice President Sales, I was hired to bring in consumer products retail channel experience and to make major changes to the Sales Organization structure and business processes. This was accomplished. My final corporate experience was as President of the Schering Plough Sales Corporation, where similar changes were made. Briefly describe your company and the products or services you are offering. I decided it was now time to leave a single corporation where I could contribute to the growth of many companies and also contribute to driving change throughout the consumer products industry. This led to my decision to start Winston Weber & Associates, Inc. in 1985. My goal was to form a small “boutique” consulting firm with a global perspective that would provide leadership thinking with practical, implementable solutions to grocery retailers and consumer package goods companies. I wanted to employ a controlled growth strategy with an emphasis on providing more value and client return on investment than very large consulting firms staffed mostly by junior consultants, many with minimal business experience. This has been accomplished and maintained during our 36 years. Our senior consultants must have at least 30 years of business experience in general management, retail management, sales management, brand management, or supply chain management in the consumer products industry before joining WWA. I expect them to bring a unique blend of skills, expertise and a “real world” business perspective to each client assignment and are ideally suited to deal with companies trying to leverage leadership positions in the marketplace as well as turnaround situations. Importantly, whatever the situation, we have an in-depth appreciation for the need to focus on running the business while changing the business. This ensures the achievement of near-term performance targets while changing the business. More value and client return on investment mean an uncompromising emphasis on quality and trust, a “say it as we see it” approach and the ability to consistently exceed client expectations. These qualities and our dedication to providing leading-edge thinking with implementable solutions have helped us to achieve our goal…this is our reputation today. Going back to your early career decisions, tell us what factors influenced your decision to be an executive in the grocery industry. During my senior year in college, I spent a considerable amount of time interviewing every company that came on campus. Considering my degree is in the social sciences, I was very
Mohammed Mubin Mallick: On the Forefront of Robot Solutions and Services
Please tell us about your educational/professional background. Who inspired you to become a business leader? Would you like to mention some of the highlights from your journey? I, Mohammed Mubin Mallick, am the CEO and Founder of Kiran Smart company in Kuwait, Dubai, and India. I am an innovator of Humanoid Robot Services and the Founder of Mi-Robots Company registered in India. Holding a Master’s Degree MBA from Cardiff University, UK. I have several professional certificates under his name. It was one of the childhood incidents that inspired me to be an Entrepreneur and be a leader to help others not only in business but in their personal life as well. Every journey has good and bad highlights so let me start with bad highlights first because they helped me forge my path to success. During the journey, I lost my father, lost money, was cheated several times, failed myself many times, and sacrificed a lot in my personal life. But I flipped the coin and built trust. People started recognizing me. I excelled in business. I have loyal customers and employees. I am able to expand my business in India and Dubai (UAE). I have bagged many awards for being advanced in the robotics field. Today, I am recognized as one of the Top Influencers in the field of robotics. When was Kiran Smart established? What are the prominent services/solutions offered by the company? Kiran Smart was established in the year 2019. We have IT solutions and services but in the recent year during COVID-19, we have diversified to Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech, and Digital Transformation. Headquartered in Dubai, Kiran Smart is always different than its competitors offering because we always introduce advanced new technology and innovative product so that customers can be ahead and up to date with the latest technological solutions and services offered by us. Please brief us in detail about the current scenario of the business. How have the customer preferences changed over the years? The present scenario of business will vary from business to business. So if I share about my business then it is different than others as our core business is robotics services for different industries and the demand is increasing daily. Other than this we are also into IT solutions and services which is the ongoing business for us from past few years. Customer preferences keep changing from time to time as per the latest trends in the market and in terms of advanced technologies as well. So customers always prefer something innovative as well solve the problem. Previously, customers used to focus on resolving the issue but now the preferences have been widened in terms of innovation, technologies, quick services, and 24 hr availability. What are the unique challenges your company is currently facing? How have they affected your company? At present, we have one unique challenge which is Post Covid 19 recovery because this challenge is not only for us but it is for the whole world and it has affected every business. Financial-wise and work-wise it has affected our company but not to a very high extent as we have deployed the advanced technologies, especially robots to overcome these challenges. We were quite successful to overcome these challenges with our robots. What measures do you incorporate to ensure motivation and productivity within the workspace? How do you respond to criticism and disagreements? Our working style is like a family in our working environment. Also, our working times are flexible. We offer employees their preferred time to work where they can have much more productivity. So as a holistic situation it helps to remain motivated and also increases productivity. We always think in a positive way so whatever criticism or disagreement comes from our customers we always take it as tips or lessons for ourselves to improve it and develop it to be better in the future. Because we believe that everyone is not perfect and from mistakes only we can learn to be better and better in our services. What measures do you undertake to ensure optimum customer satisfaction? How much impact does the customer feedback have on the company’s strategies? It is very simple for us. We just listen to our customers carefully so that we can deliver the best solution as per the customer’s problems defined. Customer feedback is very important because it helps us to make a better strategy whether it is related to competition, market trends, customer demand, customer satisfaction, or employees’ services to customers. So for us, the feedback of customers is very important because it helps us to grow and develop. Are you planning to launch any new products/services or advancements to your existing offerings? If so, we would like to know about it. Yes, there are many but all of them are robots for different industries and verticals. We cannot disclose the information due to company policies.
Tonya Winders: Regulating Health, Life and Balance
Joseph Rothstein: Passionate About Assisting His Clients In Growing And Scaling Their Businesses
The media industry has been rapidly changing since the dawn of the internet. Over the past couple of years, media platforms are dynamically influencing the business world such as advertising on Instagram. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has driven many businesses towards getting online to step their game up. The prey to this unwelcomed circumstance is the older generation businesses that have been holding off from providing their clients with functional and enjoyable user experiences. The pandemic has forced businesses to go digital; in-person meetings and traditional ways of being seen have been waved earlier for good. Joseph Rothstein, the Founder & CEO of Social Media 55, had sensed it all more than a decade ago. In the age of information, Joseph was a bit skeptical about the old implication methods of marketing. With a vision to be the best provider in the media industry, he began his entrepreneurial journey. In 2014, he founded Social Media 55 with the passion to impart brand exposure and visibility to businesses in need. The Day With Positivity Joseph radiates positivity and true enjoyment of his work. He spends most of the day working alongside VP of Operations Benjamin Ohayon, who has been a driving force for their customer success. Where Joseph as CEO is responsible for strategy and direction functioning closely with the team for successful campaigns, Benjamin is a true leader every CEO requires. Joseph oversees his graphic designers, SEO team, and content developers, and works alongside the web development team. From Wireless to Digital Joseph, after a decade of working in telecommunications and servicing corporate accounts, was fascinated by marketing. He realized that he wasn’t being challenged working in the wireless cellular phone industry, and plunged into digital marketing about 10 years back. He began developing an e-commerce website for a luxury fragrance company “JIVAGO Brands.” Soon the brand started getting great traffic from the new website and mandated him to manage the social media platforms. He enjoyed working in the field so much that he decided to offer the same services to many businesses. Joseph gained enough experience for a startup, Social Media 55, to deliver services like social media management paid and organic, website design & development, SEO, PPC, and everything in between. “I’ve also been known for answering our 1-800 number after hours,” he says. Recognition as Leader Social Media 55 has been recognized as an exemplary leader multiple times. The agency has been awarded over 20+ awards in Social Media Management, SEO, PPC, Digital Marketing, B2B Services, Top Web Design Agency 2019, 2020, and 2021 by GoodFirm, Clutch, Agency Spotter, Upcity, and more. They offer businesses innovative solutions that deliver the right type of audience to clients in the most effective strategies possible. Joseph and the team believe in transparency and hence, everyone plays a key role in making Social Media 55 successful. Such commitment allows them to pay close attention to the client’s feedback and in making sure the client is fully satisfied. The Close Connection Social Media 55 provides solutions that are customized to address the specific needs of the clients. From executives to associates and team members take a personalized approach and spend time working one-on-one with the clients to ensure they are meeting all of their marks. Everyone wants to help each other be successful, thus they ensure close communications with their clients throughout their mandate. They listen to their client’s feedback closely so as to fine-tune their formula and deliver a superior service. Team members continue to evolve, to best meet the needs of clients. Their focus on integrity is at the forefront of what they stand for as a company and an agency. They carry a concrete reputation for providing honest and excellent quality work. They delve their heart and soul into each and every project they take on. The Challenges and the Opportunities No matter how many challenges you overcome, the new ones will find their way. COVID-19 affected the company in many ways but the easiest decision the company made was to keep everyone safe. The quickest agreement was to go remote immediately, which was not difficult for them as they were used to a hybrid work/home balance already. During the initial pandemic, they were busy working on their legacy accounts and noticed website traffic and leads had drastically dropped almost to a halt. After one month of crickets, the phones and the website exploded. The pandemic waves have eaten enough industries and collapsed the GDPs of major economic countries. However, months after businesses got their feet stronger, as they were scrambling to get online, Social Media 55 was working long hours to meet the high demand. There is a difference between surviving and thriving when it comes to adopting new technologies such as 5G. It is no longer hidden that the advent of 5G will revolutionize almost every business in the world. From the Internet of Things (IoT) to science, communications to design, the 5th generation technology projects the next human evolution. For instance, Metaverse from Mark Zuckerberg with the help of 5G will allow users to interact with anything, anyone in the 3D world. The technology will bring exponential growth to social media platforms and marketing more skin-friendly. Our files and needs are getting bigger and used by more and more each day, it’s no question that 5G will help manage all that data. Joseph has plans to elevate its marketing hierarchy by acquiring/developing a digital social media calendar management software that will support all the major platforms. Seek Out What You Desire Joseph’s message to aspiring business leaders is to get a job at almost any position in an agency and learn how the business operates. Pick apart what makes the business tick and find a way to bring added value to that company by taking initiative and improving something. Take that experience and attempt to move up the ranks and locking down a position you feel is more in line with your goals. If you
How the Age of the Second Brain Can Destroy the First?
How many of you are harry potter fans? In the story, Dumbledore had a magical vessel he used to store and review memories. It was called the pencil. This is obviously a fictional story set in a school of magic. But today we have something like this in the real world, it’s called the second brain. The second brain is a digital brain that can be used to document every piece of information, every experience, every thought, and every learning. You can access all of this whenever and wherever you want. What does a second brain look like? Nothing too sci-fi or magical, a second brain looks like a word document backed up in the cloud. How much does it cost? Most second brains are free and some cost as little as $8 a month. The second brain has been developed on the hypothesis that a human brain is meant to have ideas not to store those ideas. So the second brain can do the job of storing. It will store everything from your thoughts to your screenshots, your grocery list, your notes, photos, passwords, reminders, and all other things you can think of. How does this work? The second brain works through apps like Notion, Evernote, One Note, Obsidian, and Mem, all of them work in the same way. They expect every bit of information you come across, everything that you think your brain cannot hold. Shopping lists, quotes, or reminders, you don’t even have to type them down, you can simply voice record and send. If you are reading something interesting online for instance you can email the relevant paragraphs to your second brain. If you have a fleeting thought you can make a quick note of it. Basically, every time you come across something that grabs your attention you log, in whatever form. Screenshots, photos, excel sheets, slides from a PowerPoint presentation, lines from an e-book, excerpts from online articles, and then you can access all this information whenever you want. Say years later you want to write an essay or prepare an address on federalism. All you need to do is go to your second brain and type in the keywords, everything that you uploaded on the topic will be in front of you. If you’ve uploaded a grocery list you can retrieve it the next time you go shopping. Advocates of the second brain say the system helps in knowledge management, it increases creativity and the theory is pretty interesting. It’s almost like having your own little library in the cloud. So is this the future? Well more like the present, believe it or not, all of us already have a second brain. All the apps that we use double up as a second brain. You know the ones that remind you to drink water or to stretch at home. Even breathe, apps tell you to stand up and breathe. They remind you to buy bread on the way back home. Apps remind you what you are doing 10 years back in the month of June. Gigabyte after gigabyte of content from your life is spread across these apps. Do you remember what was the storage capacity of the first iPhone? 16 gigabytes (GB)! Today, an iPhone’s memory can be expanded up to 1TB, that’s one terabyte full of information from your day-to-day life. What second brain apps do is replace all these apps with one, a notepad that doubles up as your library, your gallery, your reminder, your password keeper, your bookmark, your logbook, basically everything. It’s all cataloged! Some apps take it a step up they use time and location data to remind you of information/memories that you may have uploaded but forgotten. For instance, you go to a restaurant, the app will tell you that you came here 3 years back and this is what you ordered, this is who you came with and this is what you thought of the experience back then, obviously provided you’ve logged all of that. But who does that, who documents so much information from their daily life? Actually, most of us do! We are continuously uploading stories, we are tweeting every fleeting thought, and blogging experience. Second brain app stores this content. Quick question. Can’t we store the same information offline? Of course, we can. We can keep notes, we can keep files. Previously, we had a filing cabinet. Once upon a time, every office would have such cabinets but filing and then searching for that file takes a lot of time. A digital brain is more convenient. But do we really need one? Some of us can barely handle one brain. Jokes apart, science disagrees with the very high hypothesis of the second brain. It says our brain can store information, in fact, it can store 2.5 petabytes of information. It’s enough to store 3 million hours of TV shows. You have to leave the TV running for 300 years to use up all that brain space. In other words, we don’t have to worry about running out of brain space in our lifetime. So why do we need a second brain at all? These apps handicap us. They make us unnecessarily dependent on technology. Today, at least 20 million people are using a second brain. Some are leaning on them for making life decisions. There is a very interesting story in an article. Annie, a 27-year-old in New York City began taking notes on her dating life. For Annie, the notion love tracker functions almost like an alternate memory which, once or twice, helped her clarify the amorphous gut feeling she was experiencing. “Once, after a first date I remember thinking this guy is so much fun but he seems really immature,” Annie says. Then on the third date with him, she was enjoying herself but began to feel a bit uneasy like “something was eating at me that I could not put a finger on,” she said. So she went home
Manju Mastakar: An Extensive Investment Solution Provider For Wealth-Creation
After working as a stock advisor in a brokerage firm in the economic hub city of Mumbai, Manju moved to Bangalore to dive in as a wealth manager. Investing and gaining experience for more than 20 years in the investment industry, the sub-prime crisis of 2008 left her no choice but to quit the corporate job. The event triggered her to start a venture, Armstrong. Taking her passion as her business, Manju started working from home, meeting clients and advising them on investments. She has worked and developed solutions for clients of all sizes and played an instrumental role in choosing the right mutual fund. We at Fortunes Crown got into conversation with Manju Mastakar, Managing Director of Armstrong Capital & Financial Services Pvt. Ltd., to know more about the company and how it is helping the businesses and individuals as a whole. Below are the highlights of the interview: Describe your professional journey as an inspiring business professional. Any time that someone takes a risk and launches their own business there is always some foundational reason behind it. Though it was challenging at the beginning to switch from busy office life to working in a home environment, slowly but effectively working from home became the business norm. Initially, I thought of it as a stop-gap arrangement and that when the financial markets stabilize, I would get back into corporate life once again, but that never happened. First I established myself as a freelancer, and I was not shy about it at all. It wasn’t hard for me to say that I don’t have an office and I currently work out of the home. After I was almost 8-9 months into the entrepreneurial journey and had generated some cash flow, I took up a workstation in a business center. After a few more months, I hired my first employee, who in the past worked as a secretary. When you are on your own as a one-person army, it’s very important to delegate non-productive things. Slowly as business GREW, I started hiring people 1 by 1. In a year I would only add 1-2 resources. I worked on a very lean structure so that I could survive through the first 2 years of the entrepreneurial journey. What products and/or services do you offer? Armstrong offers services in the form of Financial Planning & Investment Advisory. We analyze the client’s past investments, understand his liabilities, and discuss their preferences with them. Further, we take a judgmental call on their risk appetite and then offer solutions. We call it the execution plan. We discuss the plan with the client, involving them in the decision-making process of choosing the right mutual fund. The primary motive behind starting Armstrong and continuing it was the unencouraging way wealth management is dealt with conventionally. More of upselling the product. I felt it was necessary to build up the relationship, understand the needs and then offer a solution. We have one plan and one perspective throughout the wealth creation journey. Till today Armstrong does not sell products. We identify requirements and sell solutions. Our core competency is that we work with integrity, keeping in mind that we need to build a long-term relationships. How do you set yourself apart from those already in the industry? We have always had a customer-centric approach – well, all companies say the same but how they put it to practice differs. So for us, when we say customer-centric, it means that there is no over-the-counter solution provided. All relationships begin by keeping in mind the long-term objective, and a financial plan tailored to their needs. We focus a lot on research we do bottom-up research on the funds and the stocks that they pick. We have various filterers based on analytical and various other parameters and the funds that pass through form a part of our white list. We then construct model portfolios for different categories of investors. Our wealth-building process is an iterative one, supported by many plans that evaluate the performance over a period of time. Every client is different, and we have an individualistic approach when offering them solutions. We conceive customized financial plans for each client, considering their life goals, their commitments, their dreams and their savings. We do not create returns, the appreciation is created by the markets we only create the discipline in the investor to save and invest at regular intervals. The first thing I do is protect wealth, the second thing we do is manage risk and then that last preference is past performance. My focus is my Vision, my focus is on my customer’s satisfaction, his long-term wealth creation and protection. This differentiates us from the rest of the industry. Talent Retaining and Hiring have been a challenge for all industries? How are you managing this aspect? In Armstrong Capital we generally hire freshers, I find freshers to be like a jigsaw puzzle and after every conversation with them add on to a piece and for more than 2 years is when the puzzle transforms into a full picture. I feel every individual has a unique characteristic that has to be utilized as a skill for the organization. A team is a unique collage of many individualistic characteristics someone can be like a lion who begins the project with full trust and power and doesn’t relax till the task is completed, someone may be like a crane with high levels of concentration who can strike at the right place with the right force. Someone maybe like a donkey who never refuses any work, some may be like cocks who can give a wake-up call. It’s the leaders’ ability to assemble them as a team and then orchestrate them. They then realize that they are dependent on one another and stick on as a team for a long time, making magic make history. What motivates you to keep going? What attracts me to this profession is intellectual stimulation, the people I work with,
Gagan Arora: From Transforming the Industry to Building an Empire
Gagan, is a first-generation software entrepreneur, a tenacious leader, and a tech evangelist who has successfully built himself as a well-known brand name in the industry. He is Boston University Certified and the seven-time recipient of the BEST CEO award. He is the Chairman of the Foreign Investors Council’s Delhi Chapter and the Director-Global Education for the Asian Arab Chamber of Commerce, servicing 52 countries. Mr. Gagan Arora, Founder and CEO of Vertex Group, is a pioneer in providing aided sales and marketing services to BPOs, BPMs, IT solution providers, and financial and accountancy firms. What’s the inspiration behind Vertex Group? Would you like to mention some of the highlights from your journey? I have spearheaded Vertex Group‘s expansion into six countries in just five years, earning numerous honors including “World’s Greatest Leaders 2021-22”, 40 UNDER 40, and Asia’s Youngest Entrepreneur by Asia One, which was highlighted on CNBC and ET Now. I have also been named as one of India’s Top 100 Influencers by GMI and Forbes two times in a row. I am usually inspired when the utterly impossible becomes possible by embracing the challenge with a never-say-die mindset, no matter how difficult things grow. My desire to prove myself has driven me to build the best work environment possible, expand, and spread our message around the world. If I hear a story from someone who has overcome the odds, worked hard, focused, fulfilled on their word, and has been relentless in changing the world to make it a better place, I feel unbelievably inspired and uplifted. Three words that describe my entrepreneurial journey are Upward, Learning, and Evolving. Since the inception of my journey as an entrepreneur, I have been upward with the challenges coming my way considering my setbacks and failures as new learnings that allowed me to evolve and create a bigger picture of my vision. Deprived of any financial or psychological support, although my circumstances were homeless my vision was not. I had a crystal-clear vision of setting a trend of innovation and technology by using the best of my day-to-day business knowledge. To give wings to my passion I took a leap of faith and left my job, sacrificed the comfort of a monthly salary and perks, and invested money to achieve one true dream. Success to me came in the form of waves that had highs and lows but my keen determination to not settle for anything less kept me going despite a few initial failures. With a strong vision and the will to transform the industry, I laid the pillars of my dream in a small garage in Florida with a team of two, and have since, expanded my footprints across seven countries with a powerful workforce of over 1500+ people. Now, as a President of the Group and a leader, I have taken all of my experience and learnings to make a huge impact, growing my current company from 2 employees to more than 1500, with international offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Philippines, Nepal, Middle East, and Africa. Please brief us in detail about the current scenario of the business. How have the customer preferences changed over the years? With the increasing demand for technology, India’s IT solutions sector has the potential to become the world’s next space center. Advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and others have shrunk the distance between the virtual and real worlds, resulting in an interoperable platform between Information Technology (IT) and actual physical activities. Over and above past human-machine interactions, machine-machine real-time communication is now conceivable. With the rise in processing capability of the chips, visualization and simulation tools have advanced significantly. A wide range of complicated, customized, and modular goods can be designed and immediately conveyed to the machines that will follow. Thus, embedded systems, factories, and workers link via the Internet of Things to collaborate in a cyber-physical environment. Society is rapidly moving from analog processes to digitalized technologies which have opened new ways for businesses to improve and evolve together with their customers. Also, it offers the possibility to link the worldwide economy and build a network in which every business can find its place. Your smartphone is a perfect example of digital transformation. It allows you to use different digital services like socialmedia, which are yet an example of digital transformation because they have changed our way of communicating with each other. Big dataor machine learningare other examples that are especially relevant for businesses that want to learn more about their customers. They offer completely new perspectives on your customers’ behavior that you can use to grow your business. With digital transformation businesses are taking an important step toward getting to know customers better.Pen and paper are outdated. Today you can collect important information via smart applications that offer endless possibilities. Customers’ expectations have changed, thus traditional marketing channels like PR and distribution are starting to lose their impact. Social media is critical for both marketing your items and communicating with your customers. Customer care is now available not only by phone and email but also through social media. As a result, customers have come to expect significantly faster responses to their inquiries. It would not be inaccurate to argue that digital transformation serves as a vehicle for taking your company to the next level. What are the unique challenges your company is currently facing? How have they affected your company? With the changing business environment, no industry is immune to unknown difficulties. The Covid-19 pandemic has built a new reality that is complex, ambiguous, and full of possibilities. Uncertainty regarding the future is one of the most pressing issues we face today. The unprecedented waves of Covid-19 have had a negative impact on employees’ physical and emotional well-being, as they are constantly threatened by the loss that pandemic uncertainties could have on them and their families, thereby hurting employee productivity. The work-from-home culture necessitated that corporate culture is built in
Mohammed Mubin Mallick: On the Forefront of Robot Solutions and Services
Please tell us about your educational/professional background. Who inspired you to become a business leader? Would you like to mention some of the highlights from your journey? I, Mohammed Mubin Mallick, am the CEO and Founder of Kiran Smart company in Kuwait, Dubai, and India. I am an innovator of Humanoid Robot Services and the Founder of Mi-Robots Company registered in India. Holding a Master’s Degree MBA from Cardiff University, UK. I have several professional certificates under his name. It was one of the childhood incidents that inspired me to be an Entrepreneur and be a leader to help others not only in business but in their personal life as well. Every journey has good and bad highlights so let me start with bad highlights first because they helped me forge my path to success. During the journey, I lost my father, lost money, was cheated several times, failed myself many times, and sacrificed a lot in my personal life. But I flipped the coin and built trust. People started recognizing me. I excelled in business. I have loyal customers and employees. I am able to expand my business in India and Dubai (UAE). I have bagged many awards for being advanced in the robotics field. Today, I am recognized as one of the Top Influencers in the field of robotics. When was Kiran Smart established? What are the prominent services/solutions offered by the company? Kiran Smart was established in the year 2019. We have IT solutions and services but in the recent year during COVID-19, we have diversified to Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech, and Digital Transformation. Headquartered in Dubai, Kiran Smart is always different than its competitors offering because we always introduce advanced new technology and innovative product so that customers can be ahead and up to date with the latest technological solutions and services offered by us. Please brief us in detail about the current scenario of the business. How have the customer preferences changed over the years? The present scenario of business will vary from business to business. So if I share about my business then it is different than others as our core business is robotics services for different industries and the demand is increasing daily. Other than this we are also into IT solutions and services which is the ongoing business for us from past few years. Customer preferences keep changing from time to time as per the latest trends in the market and in terms of advanced technologies as well. So customers always prefer something innovative as well solve the problem. Previously, customers used to focus on resolving the issue but now the preferences have been widened in terms of innovation, technologies, quick services, and 24 hr availability. What are the unique challenges your company is currently facing? How have they affected your company? At present, we have one unique challenge which is Post Covid 19 recovery because this challenge is not only for us but it is for the whole world and it has affected every business. Financial-wise and work-wise it has affected our company but not to a very high extent as we have deployed the advanced technologies, especially robots to overcome these challenges. We were quite successful to overcome these challenges with our robots. What measures do you incorporate to ensure motivation and productivity within the workspace? How do you respond to criticism and disagreements? Our working style is like a family in our working environment. Also, our working times are flexible. We offer employees their preferred time to work where they can have much more productivity. So as a holistic situation it helps to remain motivated and also increases productivity. We always think in a positive way so whatever criticism or disagreement comes from our customers we always take it as tips or lessons for ourselves to improve it and develop it to be better in the future. Because we believe that everyone is not perfect and from mistakes only we can learn to be better and better in our services. What measures do you undertake to ensure optimum customer satisfaction? How much impact does the customer feedback have on the company’s strategies? It is very simple for us. We just listen to our customers carefully so that we can deliver the best solution as per the customer’s problems defined. Customer feedback is very important because it helps us to make a better strategy whether it is related to competition, market trends, customer demand, customer satisfaction, or employees’ services to customers. So for us, the feedback of customers is very important because it helps us to grow and develop. Are you planning to launch any new products/services or advancements to your existing offerings? If so, we would like to know about it. Yes, there are many but all of them are robots for different industries and verticals. We cannot disclose the information due to company policies.