Importance of Sales Training for Success in Consultative Sales Process
Being a Sales or Marketing man is one thing and becoming a Sales Manager and managing a sales team is a totally different game. At one point or the other in your career, you will move up the hierarchy and become a sales manager. As a Sales and Marketing manager you will make direct sales […]
Factors Influencing Retention Ratio In Reinsurance
In the previous article, we have already studied what retention is and why it is important for many insurances as well as reinsurance companies. We are now also aware of the fact that some insurance companies tend to retain more risks on their balance sheet whereas there are others who pass on more risks from […]
Continuous Improvement and Business Process Re-Engineering
Polar opposite to the concept of Business Process Re-Engineering is the concept of continuous improvement. It was developed by the Japanese after World War-2. Whilst BPR relies on radical change, lean management relies on small incremental change. It stems from Japanese term called “Kaizen” which means small improvement. The concept relies on successive small improvements […]
The Latvian Crisis: A Short History
Latvia is a small country nestles in Eastern Europe. Nothing from this country seemed remarkable to the global financial world before November 2008. After 2008, Latvia became a different story altogether. This small nation was also suffering from the crisis that rocked the world in 2008. The people lost billions of dollars, and some of […]
Role of the Media in Championing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
The articles till now have focused on how corporations need to embrace CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) as a business imperative. The emphasis mostly was on how there are business needs to adopt CSR and it is high time the corporations became socially conscious. In this article, we look at the role of the Media in […]
A recurrent theme among the leaders and the potential leaders is about how to succeed in a low and slow growth economy. With job opportunities diminishing and pay hikes being lesser, there is a need for leaders and aspiring leaders to upgrade their skills and be valuable to their employers.
In other words, unless leaders make themselves indispensable to their employers, they are likely to be hit when the company downsizes and ignored for promotions or not given the expected salary hikes.
Indeed, as more and more companies value the contributions more than seniority or the fact that the employee has been loyal to them, there is a clear case for employees to stay in the hunt by investing in themselves and by ensuring that their skills are much sought after.
To take an example, employees in the tech sector can invest in soft skills like people management, communication, and leadership whereas those in the manufacturing sector can invest in learning technical skills in the field of IT.
What this means is that cross-functional skills need to be acquired and by investing in these skills, the employees would be at an advantage over their peers.
Further, by upgrading their skill set and portfolio they would be adding a vital aspect of completeness and versatility that is to do with finding alternative employment in case they need to switch jobs.
Many leaders started with a particular sector, then honed in their skills in another sector, and finally, emerged as leaders in a third sector. The clear lesson here is that one needs to reinvent themselves at every stage and ensure that they are in the cutting edge fields, which places a premium on these skills.
Apart from this, the fact that leaders need to be broad based in their skill portfolio and be ambidextrous where they can manage different aspects of management is another indication for them to learn new skills at every stage. Indeed, in a slow growth economy, the best way to stay relevant is to invest in oneself and ensure that one is ahead of the others in the pack.
A classic example of how leaders reinvent themselves is Azim Premji of Wipro who started out in a business that does not have anything to do with IT, then diversified the company to embrace the technological revolution, and is now one of the richest persons in the country. This is a clear indication that leaders should be prepared for every turn in life and must not be stuck in a time warp.
The example of other leaders like Steve Jobs who though continued with the digital space nonetheless could anticipate which way the wind was blowing and hence, become a success in the emerging mobile space.
Finally, by investing in oneself, leaders can also help others by example and by association where the mutual learning’s from each other helps to broaden the skill set as well as expand on one’s capabilities.
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