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Executive Interviews: Interview with Harish Bijoor on Managing Troubled Times
March 2009 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Harish Bijoor
Harish Bijoor, CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

We run such programs for several corporates and over the last several years, the tangible benefit in a crisis is stupendous. This is both a peacetime and war-time initiative. For Satyam, this is war-time!

One of the biggest casualties of this crisis is business schools' placements. The students are a worried lot.What is your advice to all the students waiting for "mera number kab ayega?" Many have taken loans, while some have put their hands into their parents' hard earned life-time savings? And everything seems to go disarray. How should they go about steering themselves of such traumatic times?

I do believe this is an opportunity. It is time for students to get realistic as well. Time to say that the real market is different fromthe virtual one. Time to re-orient their careers into implementation-side jobs rather than conceptual-side jobs. Remember, if there are ten thinkers, 1,00,000 implemen-ters are needed. Management students must be willing to be imple-menters as well. My advise would be to reorient yourself from sectors. Move out of Investment Banking and look for actual jobs that cater to the wants and needs of people and not the desires and aspirations of people.

Time to get realistic about pay-scales as well. That is the ouch-factor of an economic slowdown.

And don�t worry. The bad times will move on and the good times will come. When they do, you will be a more solid entity as a worker than your predecessors were! You will be a recession-adjusted person for sure! More resilient! Tougher! Stronger! Bolder!

I do believe there are two kinds of brands and companies. Companies that cater to the needs and wants of people and companies that cater to the desires and aspirations of people. Focus on the first. The first is a solid company, the second is a hollow one. The first is a real company. The second is a virtual one. In tough times, work for the real company and not the virtual!

What are some of the key insights from your research and consulting work in building brands? What are the new marketing vistas? Do you think "Marketing is too important to be left to marketing people!" holds good today?
Absolutely. Marketing belongs to everybody. I do believe everyone in a corporate enterprise is a marketing person. Marketing if left to the designs of a marketing manager alone will deteriorate into a niche that finds less evangelism than it deserves.
New marketing will be all about peerto- peer marketing and the old model of top-down marketing is over for good.

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The interview was conducted by Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary, Consulting Editor, Effective Executive and Dean, IBSCDC, Hyderabad.

This interview was originally published in Effective Executive, IUP, March 2009.

Copyright © March 2009, IBSCDC No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or distributed, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or medium � electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise � without the permission of IBSCDC.

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Interview with Harish Bijoor on Managing Troubled Times