2014-Marketing, Marketing, Marketing...

Dear Skiers

It gives me immense joy to address you on the threshold of the new year 2014. In advance, I and the family would like to wish each of you and your families a very Happy and Joyful year.

As we are just a few hours from the new year I can exclaim, PHEW! Thank God the year is over. Unfortunately, the year for business in general reached its abyss and engulfed most companies including many of our client in all sorts of crisis. Government inaction, corruption, appreciation of the dollar, spiralling inflation, interest rates and unemployment have taken a very heavy toll on business and pushed the economy to sluggishness with all corporate now waiting in anticipation for the general elections. This had its own rub off and implications on Bluesky and immensely slowed things down. However I am quite optimistic of the year ahead and genuinely believe that things would improve…fingers crossed

Keeping this in mind we need to adequately prepare and equip ourselves for the road ahead. But before we go into next year and delve into its finer elements lets look back and see how we did last year in relative comparison to the theme that we had envisaged at the start. Please refer to trail mail. 2013 year was punctuated with Repair, Revitalize and Reposition especially in the areas of Sales and Marketing, Internal HR and Talent Acquisition.

Internal HR had seen considerable traction with Leha taking the responsibility for it initially and later handed it over to Jagpreet. Both have done a fine job to take this a level up and the most remarkable achievement of HR was to hire some quality Managerial talent like Trunali, Neha, Swati and recently, Sreeja. I also believe that internal HR has now been able to build a reasonable pipeline of candidates with a high velocity of candidates showing interest in Bluesky. Another commendable initiative that has taken roots in Bluesky is our communication systems whether through the blog, skype, whatsapp, Kanban etc. The use of drop box effectively has also been a step in that direction and one thing I must commend all skiers is their ability to change on a dime and embrace new technologies. Well done Jagpreet and Leha for these initiatives and keep pushing the envelope on DIGITIZATION. We must always be ahead in this game.

Another game changing initiative which is truly sterling and exemplary is the revitalization of Recruitment. While initially we struggled a lot on getting this fixed we have now found a new method of recruitment by changing the rules of the Game. We have outsourced our recruitment and through this mechanism have closed more than 8-9 positions in last 4 months and has yielded a very high return on investment. Literally our costs are extremely low while the return is excessively high. Moreover the success has been across the client cross section with delivery from more than 4-5 consultants. However these are early days and I do hope this sustains in 2014

On the Marketing side it has been mixed and there is nothing to rant and rave of our efforts. Yes we did get the Microsoft Boss Award and got some PR coverage but the bigger achievement has been in us enrolling a franchisee for Gujarat. The name of the partner is INTOS and we are in the process of getting the partner activated. Bluecherry has seen some traction on marketing and I am confident to see greater success in this product offering as it gets revised to Revision 3.0. Efforts on Linked In, Facebook, SMB blog have been heartening and subtly enhances the marketing experience. However on the whole we didn’t do well in this area and we need to reorient ourselves on this aspect.

Introduction of the automated Program Tracker and Maturity on bluebuddy has improved our client delivery and with the introduction of Allonhr, I believe the repositioning of Bluesky shall be complete. Strategic quarterly reviews with clients and even our own quarterly reviews are a positive step towards impeccable Execution. I am also quite excited to see the levels of collaboration that have dramatically incremented in the company.

The biggest disappointment for 2013 was in us not being able to host the BCL for 2013 because of the recession and economic conditions faced by clients.

Next year-2014 would be exclusively dedicated to aggressive Sales and Marketing and with Rajni rearing to take on the responsibility, I hope to see Bluesky differently at the end of 2014. I wish her all the best..I would be designing a blue print to tame this bull and ensure that we attain success in this eluding challenge. Trust me there will be no bigger and singular initiative than Marketing, Marketing and Marketing in 2014. Each members support and alignment in this direction is what I sincerely request.

Lastly, special appreciation to all the contributors and one can’t miss Dipti in the list who has fervently lead the operations team and created many delightful experiences. Special thanks to Trunali for being a great support and architect of allonhr and also the process initiatives. Her managing the Red Chillies Entertainment account is also highly appreciable. Neha-the TAT on the block is also a great new revelation that brings strength to the BS-team. Her stabilizing ETC is indeed heartening... Leha deserves her own recognition for being the fire diffuser and initially handling HR splendidly and later process. Her saving the Phonetics account is also a remarkable achievement. I have already appreciated Jagpreet above and another individual that has made a remarkable difference has been Supriya who has managed to ensure a smooth and trouble free payroll process month on month.

Seema, Milind, Vijay thanks for your continuous loyalty and dedication. Best wishes to Swati, Sreeja and Sraboni and do hope you would be the movers and shakers in the present year.

All the best guys and lets make Bluesky rock in 2014