Wear multiple hats, to move up
Sandeep Ranade, Executive Director, Co-Lead West (Quantitative) and Head of Media, South Asia, Insights at Kantar, has been in research for over 26 years and has worked across both clients and market research agency sides. He is working with Kantar from 2012, in Kenya and India. Ranade has extensive experience in FMCG, telecom and media sectors. He has led change across locations to help clients build their brands and solve their critical business issues. In this series of “Learnings from corporate leadership” he talks about the industry he belongs to, various domains in research company, tips for freshers stepping into the corporate world and much more. Corporate Citizen brings you the excerpts.
Sandeep RanadeThe world is changing and moving on
We have been living with Covid, it has impacted every one of us and changed lot of things. While people are living on their lives and apart from all the happenings around us, there were two gentlemen who actually flew into space in their own rocket and not through NASA or ISRO. They are Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos-one flew in space on 11 July and the other on 20 July, this year. Their flights came on the anniversary of Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin becoming the first humans to walk on the moon, on July 20, 1969. So now we are talking about going beyond earth and these two persons have opened up space tourism, going forward. Yes, it is costly now, but till the time present management students step into corporate world, it may be a time your institute will say that the topper will win a trip to space, in Richard Branson’s spaceship. We will reach there-that’s how fast the world is changing. Yes, we are living with Covid, but the world moves on.
Around 37 years earlier from today, in the year 1984, Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, also went in space, through the joint space mission of Soviet Union-India. Then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, asked him, “How India looked from outer space?” His only answer was, “Sare Jahan Se Accha” - that was his one-line answer.
The idea I want to put forward giving these two instances is, “Live with what is happening-the world is changing and the world moves on”. So, you need to live with whatever is happening and it is a new beginning for you.
But, it is not stopping here-today there is a race, between the US and Russia, to shoot a movie in space. So, there are things happening beyond earth. If Covid comes to earth, you can go beyond earth and live. No need to worry, as the human race is progressing. Lot of people are talking about VUCA world and while you are starting your corporate journey in this VUCA world, what you need is to be flexible and open.
My journey from campus to corporate
Just to give a snapshot of my journey in the last 26 years-it started in 1995 and this is where I am today. I have changed companies and I have not been with one company and most of them are research companies. I have also done a stint in media planning and I have done stint in a company called Heinz India, which is today Zydus Kraft Heinz. I have been outside India for just three years, otherwise I have been all through India and worked across all market research agencies in India. In my journey, I spent two years in college, 1993–1995, in Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies (SIMS), in Pune. I am from the first two-year fulltime batch of SIMS and one of the first from the batch to hit the corporate world. Don’t underestimate the two years you spend in college, whether it is virtual or in college.
"You may write down your goal today that I want to start my own company in ten years-it may take twelve years. Everything is not under your control, but you have to put in your best effort and be open. You can’t win all battles. It is alright to win few battles, take few steps back, but finally get what you want."
Build your connections
It is not about being Harry Potter-important thing is having a few close friends, like you have in your life, in your school, in your college and also when you enter the corporate world. Today, my close friends are either heading businesses of their own or working in some company across the world, or have started their own agency. These connections are important and when you have these connections right from the start of your career, it helps you while you are going through your career journey. As the world is changing, you need to build your connections, communities, right from the start.
Some of you may have some work experience or might be fresh starters, but still when you join a company or start your own, the first few days or months, will be like the first year at Hogwarts school. Everything will look confusing, but you will sail through it. You just need to give time.
Small things matter
The second thing to remember is, basic and small things matter, everyone knows but we always forget them. Going back to Covid, what do you need? You only need a mask and sanitization, but people forget that. So, basics and small things matter-we end up forgetting them and that’s when we lose. You need to remember these small things on your journey.
Know your goal
First of all, you should know what do you want to do. Neither your professor or anyone from the industry can tell you that. If you have not done that please do it. I have worked with many leaders in these last 26 years and I can tell you, somewhere they have written down, either in their mind, in their mobile phone, laptop, or actually on a paper, what is the purpose and the goal they are following. Professional goals and your personal goals could be very different. And, it is not a line written on stone that it cannot change. The world changes, so it can evolve overtime. You can right now say, you want to be CEO of a company in 15 years. You might end up being CEO of a company on Mars, after 15 years. That’s the way world is moving and there is nothing wrong in that. So, you need to have a goal-people can only guide you-you set up the goal for yourself. You cannot achieve anything individually. You have to be a team player. You need to know why you are doing what you are doing or what do you want five or ten years from now.
Listen and learn
The next thing is always listen first and then ask the right questions. Every interaction is important, so listen and learn, and be open to feedback. People will give feedbacks, especially when you freshly start working, you will get feedback from every kind of person. So, you need to be open-if you are close to feedbacks, it will hamper you. Be like a sponge in your initial years, absorb everything that is happening around you.
"The biggest thing is the ability to anticipate change. When the world is changing, you need to know when to change and do what. Changing job, or your entire approach, attitude, entire setup-change is not easy. Anticipating change helps you to move forward."
Anticipate change
The biggest thing is the ability to anticipate change. When the world is changing, you need to know when to change and do what. Not just changing the job, but may be changing your entire approach, your attitude, your entire setup. Change is not easy. Anticipating change helps you to move forward.
Follow the right people
Another important thing when you get on to your journey and it starts from college itself is, follow the right people. It has nothing to do with the company-you need to follow the right people and right mentors and that is going to help you. You may learn right things from very competitive and ambitious bosses. You will also get bosses who are very idealistic, very focused, perfectionists, on what they are doing and they may expect the same from their subordinates and their team. There will be bosses who will not tell you how to play the game you are in-they will push you to do everything. You will hate them, but they want you to learn. So, you will meet all kinds of people, bosses and peers. You will have to work with them and pick the right things from them, in your journey. You have to absorb, you have to observe and you have to listen. Unless you pick up the right things from these people in your life, you won’t move forward.
Changing is not easy
You may write down your goal today that I want to start my own company in ten years-it may take twelve years. Don’t worry-everything is not under your control, but you have to put in your best effort and be open. You can work for a company and after 2-3 years you can go back to your own company. You can’t win all battles. It is alright to win few battles, take few steps back, but finally get what you want.
Make a conscious effort to change
You will think that change is very easy, but no it is not. You have to put an effort to change. Whether you changing your company, whether you are changing your career, it won’t be easy. You will have to put a conscious effort. In today’s world when everything is changing, you may have to learn a few courses online, to become more eligible for the job you want.
Your networks always come to your aid
Whether it is your friends, colleagues, bosses, professors, everyone will be helpful at some point of time. You can also be helpful to them, it is not one way.
Don’t think short-term
Always think about short-term and long-term. Yes, I need to survive today, but what is it that I need to do in the long term.
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war
The time you are spending in college, is the time that you sweat in peace, because when you join a company, it is going to be war every day. While in college, you get time to prepare for the exam. Once you start your corporate career, every day is an exam. Every day my boss speaks to me or he/she is evaluating me, for the next level or for the year down the line. Every interaction is getting evaluated. You will have to be hundred per cent prepared always.
I started my talk saying, July was an important month. It was also a month when lot of companies came with IPOs in the stock market. One of the biggest IPOs we saw in the month of July was Zomato. So, 14 July, their IPO opened and the tweet they posted on Twitter was “Mereko to aisa dhak dhak horela hai.” When I also talk to five hundred or thousand people, even I will come with fear. There is nothing wrong in having fear, but it is about how to manage fear and take on big things. Go out of your comfort zone and try something new.
"We are a research company and what do we do? We understand people and we inspire growth. What we do is to help our clients understand what people think, what is going in their mind before buying a product or going for a service.
My industry
I started my career in market research-I didn’t know what market research was, then in 1995. But then, I have made my career in market research. The industry I am talking about is, “Data is the new oil”, but that oil is not useful till you refine it. So, data needs to be refined to be useful. People give names to this industry. They call it market research, consumer insight, and now it has come to data analytics, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning-everything is part of this industry.
What people are looking at today
I could be working in a global company and heading their India team, but I have bosses sitting in Europe or the US. Or I can be an Indian company, which has opened offices all across the world. So, I will be a global boss of everyone working in the US, Africa, Europe or Australia. What are they looking at? Evidence based decisions. There could be many decisions you take for your brand, for your company-where people are taking very evidence based decisions. Other thing is, people want to know, so they want to be either predictive to be ahead of the competition to succeed or be prescriptive, like tell me steps I have to take to succeed. So, people are expecting either one of them to happen. At least somebody, a consultant or market research company comes and tells me that this is the path to your success, or predict this is the future, so I can do my strategy to succeed. It is very difficult and that’s where the world is going.
What does my company do?
Our company is part of a global network, which is called WPP, it is one of the largest advertising network globally. But, sixty percent of our company is owned by a venture capitalist fund called Bain Capital. So, iwe are owned by a venture capital fund-basically it’s a bigger advertising conglomerate that we are part of.
Yes, we are a research company and what do we do? We understand people and we inspire growth. What we do is to help our clients understand what people think, what is going in their mind before buying a product or going for a service. How do they feel, may be after using a product or after reading whatever is happening on social media? How do they shop? After pandemic are people buying groceries online? Will it continue or will they go back to kirana stores to buy? We need to do our strategies accordingly and we help our clients to get answers to all these questions.
What do people share? We can track what is happening on social media. Voting and viewing is what they watch on the screens like TV, laptop or mobilephone. So, we do everything in terms of understanding people. And how do we then use it? We combine it with technology that is available, to help our clients grow their brands and that’s when we grow. If we give an input to help a client grow their brand, that’s when we grow, that’s when we get our money.
Google and Facebook are our competitors they get the data of what their consumers or their users are doing. Google knows what I did, that’s why they start serving me with ads accordingly, and similarly Facebook knows. But, we also partner with them. So, they are our competitors but they are also partners and we try and understand consumer’s perceptions, behavior and so on.
For example, China is very different-there is no Google or Facebook in China. People do a lot online and they do a lot of shopping online, on Alibaba. Now Alibaba knows what they are shopping, like Amazon knows. Now we have a large online panel in China. There is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a protocol to be followed. Like Google cannot use my data in a wrong way. So, there are GDPR protocols to be followed. So, we and Alibaba, following GDPR protocols, actually merge or match our data sets-our online panel versus Alibaba knowings. Once it is matched I can start serving surveys, or I can trap that person as to what he/she is doing and Alibaba also knows, what he/she is shopping. And, imagine the kind of insights that you can take back to your clients, who are selling their products on Alibaba. So, we partner with Alibaba and help the people who are selling on Alibaba to understand their consumers, either predict or be prescriptive in telling them how they can win. So, that’s how we work and that’s how we help our clients to grow their brands.
Kantar in India
We are one of the oldest research companies in India, completing 50 years just recently. Among many divisions we have in our company in India, “Insights” is one of the big division that I am part of and in that I am part of the “Quantitative Unit”. In this Quantitative Unit, I am joint head of the West Zone. But, our company also has come to a level where we have divided into six domains and I head the media domain for South Asia, which is an additional role. So, as you move up the ladder, you have to wear multiple hats.
"I have made my career in market research. The industry I am talking about is, “Data is the new oil”, but that oil is not useful till you refine it. So, data needs to be refined to be useful.They call it market research, consumer insight, and now it has come to data analytics, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning-everything is part of this industry."
The domains in short:
Brand
In brand we help people to understand, the customers you are targeting to visit for example Mercedes-Benz or Hyundai or Tata car showrooms. What are your consumers thinking of your brand versus other brands in the car market? How is your brand being perceived by the people, whom you are targeting? Is it stronger or is it not stronger? Is the perception as per what you are advertising and wanting to tell people, or they are perceiving you very differently? It helps them build their brand strategy.
Media
Media is all about whatever you are spending on media. Why should I sponsor Olympics? Why should I pay money on IPL? Should I not advertise somewhere else? So, media tells you, is the money you are putting in helping you get back the bang on your buck in terms of your growth-it’s called ROI. We tell people is your media effective and what is the ROI on your media.
Creatives
Again the question, am I creating the ad for YouTube, Facebook, TV, outdoor, Radio? Can I test the ad before it goes on air, so that the people can tell me, if they are understanding it? If they don’t understand, do they know how much does it cost to shoot an ad? So, you are spending crores of money in making the ad, and if people don’t understand, you are blowing more crores putting it on media. You are getting nothing on your brand. Whether you start your own business or you are a marketing manager in a bigger company, you need to know whether your creatives work or not. We do a lot of testing before they go on air.
Commerce
Commerce is all about shoppers. The moment of purchase-people can think a lot about you, but they know other similar products. When the shopper is right at the moment of purchase, what can change his/her decisions.
Innovation
A company always needs to come up with more and more innovative products. They can’t just sell on product all over. Now again you can research a concept or a product, before you launch it in the market. It’s all about testing your idea with the end consumers, before you actually put money to produce that idea.
Satisfaction
You have used my product, are you satisfied. When I do that research, I can understand what I need to change in my service or in my product, so that you can continue buying it.
What would you want to do in the market research industry?
There are four different parts in the market research, that you can take. It takes time but like me you can head a business unit or you could be the India managing director, which I am not. Or you could become a domain expert, like I did media domain. Or you could be brand domain expert, shopper expert, as you evolve. Or you can start your own market research agency. Or there are people I have seen, who started with me but after 3-4 years of understanding market research, they jumped and joined company like Maruti Suzuki or Facebook or Google, to become the custodian of insights because that company works with research agencies and they want to have someone who knows research.
So, you can find different ways to reach your goal, there is not always a straight path. And, you need to know what is your goal.