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Job Wise - My first job experience
Even today, those values from my first job have stayed with me as a person (View Comments)
Unnati Narang
Posted On Thursday, July 08, 2010 at 12:46:04 PM
Tarun Arora, Head Marketing GCPL & Head Marketing & Sales, GHPL, shares his first job experience
I started working in June, 1995 with the Wipro consumer and lighting business. As a management trainee, I underwent training in sales followed by my first marketing assignment. It was my first time working in the industry. I earned a stipend of 7000-8000 per month. The best thing that I learnt at Wipro was to have an intact value system. The organisation followed integrity and respect in all its practices. It’s a lesson I have learnt for life.
Best lessons
Other than the sound value system, I also learnt the importance of putting in some more, some extra effort to make a huge difference. My work endowed upon me an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. Even today, those values from my first job have stayed with me as a person. Being fair to my team members, helping develop other people and investing my time into it are some practices I have derived from what I experienced in my first job.
Secondly, independence and a sense of empowerment were critical to my first job. There was high level of ownership for all your actions. It grooms one into a responsible professional. I worked with a lot of people from different backgrounds. I had my own space to try out new things, which added to the experience. I remained at Wipro for nine years, working as Brand Manager, Category Manager, Regional Manager, Area Manager and in other capacities.
Challenges
I particularly remember one assignment that I had in Uttar Pradesh (UP), as the Area Manager. The objective was to expand the distribution network for our products and build a network with the general merchants. I had to organise everything including hiring of salesmen, training and working out the system. I had just three people in my team. Usually such an assignment requires at least 20 people and takes a year, while we did it only in 3 months. It was extremely challenging but full of learning.
It is important to manage your people well and yet, not lose sight of the business. In this assignment, while working with my team, I had to ensure that the sales do not get affected much, due to the transition. Again, I worked on many such projects in exports, ecommerce, etc. Even though I have been in marketing of FMCG, yet different categories fundamentally have different requirements. Over time, I have learnt that you may try different products but the idea is to become a better marketer. My first job offered me a chance to broaden my perspectives.
Fond memories
I remember in my first job, I was handling a brand which was doing fairly well. But we wanted to step up our numbers to the threshold. I set a very high target for the brand and figured out a strategy to achieve it. It was an audacious step but it kept us motivated to grow the brand very quickly.
My experience of working with people was extremely rewarding in that job. As a regional manager in the North, which was our relatively smaller area, the team was expected to perform a task and I had to revitalise the team. Though a couple of people had high potential, they had not grown in their careers. I was able to work with them and motivate them. In two years, that team became a high performing, high energy team. One of my team members could even get promoted as regional manager with me.
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