Today’s communication landscape calls for a change in the way we engage with different stakeholders. Traditional approaches previously undertaken by companies and organisations are being challenged and somewhere we need to learn, to work as integrated teams. And this means our role as reputation managers needs to reflect knowledge within each of our strategies. We quiz our guest Rahul Sharma to understand how the lines between public policy and corporate communications are slowly merging, leading to a need to adopt an integrated approach.
Rahul Sharma is a Senior Director & Division Head (Public Affairs & Advocacy) with Genesis BCW

In communications, an understanding of policies and regulations is a must now

Rahul Sharma

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Ronaldo’s call for drinking water may have got the global beverage giant to lose 4 billion dollars as speculated or as the supporters argue, the dip may have been a trigger because of many other factors. But the point here is that given the star footballer’s well known fitness regime, super-disciplined diet and his displeasure over his son’s affinity for carbonated drinks, should the organisers been more careful? Or were they trying their luck to please a megabucks sponsor?

As communicators what are the lessons learnt from this incident – Is there a growing consciousness amongst celebrities with regards to what they wish to be associated with? We ask our guest Udita Dutta, Founder Director at Artsmith Concepts & Visions. 

This is the time when a brand also needs to let go of these archaic ways of brand placement thought processes

Udita Dutta

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Gone are the days when glossy ads for that soap or deodorant made us rush to the nearest store. With the consumer being in the driver’s seat – they do not like being told what to do or what to buy. Or even how to interact with brands.

This is partially because social media has completely disrupted the way brands connect with consumers, and also ushered in a totally new business model. Digital technologies enable consumers to experience brands in entirely new ways. Secondly, Consumers continue to feel one with brands which make them view every transaction they do as a reflection of them supporting their own existing value system.

So what do you do when it comes to highly commoditised items like soaps and other personal care products? We questioned Saheli Chatterjee, Senior Manager, Brand PR & Digital Content, Personal Care Products business division, ITC Limited, on the subject.

The expectation from a brand is no longer that they give only quality products.

Saheli Chatterjee

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The new IT rules have received some praise and much criticism, and their impact will start to become clearer as they are implemented. People have even argued that the government does not have the right to change the laws. Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter are challenging the new privacy policy.

In our attempt to safeguard our privacy and freedom of speech, are we missing the big picture? Is right to privacy above national interest? These are some of the questions we asked our guest, Pranjal Sharma.

Pranjal is an economic analyst, advisor and author of India Automated. He leads public discourse at global and national platforms including World Economic Forum. He guides projects on economic forecasting, business intelligence & public diplomacy to interpret policy impact on industry and society. And as most of us know, he spent more than two decades in print, internet and television media, mostly in leadership roles with focus on India’s economic engagement with the world.

You cannot have absolute sense of privacy in an open democratic society, absolute freedom of expression is also not allowed.

Pranjal Sharma

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The pandemic has brought a series of incidents where people went to the courts for medical management issues. Radha Radhakrishnan is joined with renowned Justice S. R. Bannurmath, Former Chief Justice of Kerala High Court, Former Chairman of Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission, to understand how the system is coping up with the pressure of activism.

He says that people are rushing to the courts because of their ultimate faith in the Judiciary. Justice is a Fundamental Right guaranteed to citizens. According to him, it is obligatory to understand how higher judiciary works, especially High court and Supreme Court in the light of judicial activism. The power of judicial activism is available to only superior courts, like High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution and Article 32 of the Constitution to the Supreme Court, no other courts can invoke this principle of or concept of judicial activism. He also talks about how the process of judicial activism started. In his conversation he explains Public Interest Litigation, Locus standi and Sou Motu Power. With the system being almost overburdened, almost a century is lost in litigating. The courts are working on this issue but owing to the problems in the pandemic, a small committee of a legal expert, retired judges can work it out together with the aim to reduce the burden of countless cases.

Judiciary is not to govern the state, it is the duty of the government

Justice S.R. Bannurmath

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This episode features Shereen Bhan – Managing Editor, CNBC-TV18. She shares her views on a lot of issues related to the media in the current circumstances. She says that mainstream media needs a lot of introspection the real needs of the viewer have just been ignored, have been forgotten. they're not servicing the viewer, or the consumer. And I think that poses an existential issue and an existential threat for the business per se. She sees a bright spot in the regional content and how people are doing exceptional work independently without the backing of a giant media house. They are doing a lot of good work in terms of just bringing you stories from the ground. She also highlights the fact that pandemic has brought a lot of radical changes in the functioning of a news organisation. They have discovered the art of news collection with bare minimum resources.

Pandemic has helped us relearn that you can do a lot with a lean team.

Shereen Bhan

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Zoom back a year – we saw a collapse of many businesses across sectors. Memories are still raw.

The communications industry had its fair share of setbacks. Small businesses got the brunt of it – some on the brink of closure. As we try to pivot back, we felt it was time to speak to someone who had lived the situation and then bounced back.

Drawing from her dynamic experience working with her family-owned company MPIL Steel Structures Ltd, Priyanka Gupta Zielinski, shares some valuable lessons. So if you are someone with your own set up or are planning to don the entrepreneurial hat, this is the episode for you.

Priyanka is a Director with MPIL Steel Structures Ltd and author of ‘The Ultimate Family Business Survival Guide’

We never hear success stories of small businesses. These are the businesses that actually persist against all odds.

Priyanka Gupta Zielinski

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In this episode of Mrigashira, we tune in to the larger discussions around a strong environmental, social, and governance (ESG) proposition. The narrative to create value for companies and their shareholders has never been more integral than now for any business. Economist Milton Friedman wrote half a century ago that “It may well be in the long-run interest of a corporation, to devote resources to providing amenities to [its] community or to improving its government. That may make it easier to attract desirable employees, it may reduce the wage bill . . . or have other worthwhile effects.”

Since shareholders and stakeholders do not compete in a zero-sum game. Building a strong connection with broad elements of society creates value and builds resilience into the business model.

ESG is not just CSR, it's not just sustainability, it's not just governance, it's not just good practices. It's everything.

Trigya Singh

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Founder and CEO of Abhijit Bhaduri and Associates, Abhijit speaks in detail on the issue of generalists versus specialists in the communications industry. He says that we are going to live in a hybrid world and you will find that along the continuum, it's going to be a continuum. See you will never find that there is just one answer to a question that it's always going to be a year or somewhere on that spectrum. He explains that in general, you're a communications person, from a specialist lens, if you look at it, then you are looking at you know let's say, I'm a digital marketer, versus let’s say I am a social media influencer, it's pretty much the same at a broader level, the context are different.

Growing people is a great way to create new business models.

Abhjit Bhaduri

Careers in a HYBRID World – Perspective from Abhijit Bhaduri

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An engineer by education and with diversified experience in leading global IT companies, our guest in this episode is Sarika Naik, Chief Marketing Officer & Chairperson, Diversity – India, Capgemini. She says that COVID-19 has completely changed the way communication happens in large organisations. She adds that COVID started in early 2020, and we are still in the throes of the same virus attack, the challenges that we faced last year and the challenges that face us today, there is a dramatic difference between them. The biggest challenge is to ensure that employees feel closer to the organisation despite a prolonged work from home phase. She also underlines the importance of new initiatives such as a policy on domestic abuse which her organisation recently launched. This won’t have been possible if pandemic hadn’t happened. Not only has the importance of communication increased, employees are consuming this communication with a lot more interest in a lot more detail. We believe that today, those organizations that are communicating very transparently, openly are the ones where the employee engagement and the employee performances have not taken a beating.

The first focus was get employees to safety, enable work from home, make sure that business continuity happens.

Sarika Naik

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Amith Prabhu has redefined the way professionals in the communications industry used to communicate with each other. Thanks to his ideas and commitment to the cause, the industry has a structured mechanism to celebrate its existence. His brainchild PRAXIS has grown from strength to strength over the years. He reveals that for events like PRAXIS, it is now more important to get speakers beyond the world of corporate communication and public relations as the focus shifts from media attention to larger issue of reputation management.

We’ll have to find newer ways to do something smarter in the future.

Amith Prabhu

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The ongoing pandemic has forced people to re-think their financial planning and at a time like this a lot of companies in the financial sector are finding it very challenging to engage with their customers. This episode features Srikala Bhashyam, founder of RS Consultants, who talks about the need of an effective communication strategy. She says that a lot of people stopped SIPs, and whatever money they had, they wanted to keep it in their bank account fearing that their family should not suffer. Knee-jerk reactions happened for the first few months. This pandemic has changed the game completely. So now, all industry, whether it is media, communication, IT everybody knows that they can lose a job, and they can be without income. So that is a big change, and everybody’s kind of waking up. Another important aspect to this whole issue is that women have to take the initiative now because even in this era of feminism and equalities somehow women don’t pay so much attention to managing money.

Even in this era of feminism and equalities somehow women don’t pay so much attention to managing money.

Srikala Bhashyam

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It is very important for a communicator working in the agriculture industry to learn and use simplified messages while communicating. The farmers are embracing technology and using digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp. With growing social media, farmers are keenly looking at learning various methods to make their farm produce better, basically more output per hectare. Interestingly, they have started using social media to educate themselves about the tools and techniques. The farmers are also communicating through the relevant apps also which talk about smart agriculture. They’re not just following their own traditional manners, but are also strongly looking at learning various methods of how to make their farm produce better, educating themselves about the latest tools and techniques. The transparent communication between the brands and consumers builds trust and creates a healthy relationship.

The farmers want to see the benefits, but they are still the traditional kind. So, the influencers are providing the great balance of the friendly neighbourhood trust builder. Two things – responsible communication and proactive communication; the engagement in the industry has been a lot more, not just with people who are directly related to the farm enterprise, but everybody who wants to talk about food – there’s a lot of knowledge and a lot of interest.

Anytime we shut the door on any conversation and dialogue, that is where the problem arises.

Bhavna Imran

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MIT’s study a few years back found that the speed at which false news spreads is several times higher than the debunk news or the fact-finding of that news. This study now suggests that if you show people the fact check later, there is a better chance of revising their views than probably showing them the label before. It is a fascinating point.

Not many people go beyond the headline or the paragraph before they share it with others. Let us not forget it’s been only a decade that we have figured out how much misinformation badly influences our daily lives. You could be a complete nobody. But you may have attained some form of influencer status on some platform, and you have started reaching the people directly. And this engagement is good for the bottom line of the media.

Unless you pay for something, and you’re paying for it through your hard-earned money, you will not value it. 

Jency Jacob

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One of the key issues today both in India and the global arena is the steady erosion of people’s trust in governments, businesses, NGO’s, media – institutions by in large. This has become far more evident during the pandemic era and now as we tussle to step out of the pandemic. The 21^st Annual Edelman trust barometer declares information Bankruptcy at the core. We see a trend towards higher mistrust towards all information sources be it traditional media, social media, search engines, owned media. The spokesperson is under scrutiny. The report also brings to fore the personal and persistent fears of people in the world and in India.

I think we’ve been facing a mounting trust deficit for a very long period of time.

Vikram Chandra

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Networking is considered as one of the most important tools to acquire new business and build new engagements for long-term and short-term goals. A lot of professionals have used the art of networking to their advantage yet there are many who are still not adept at that. This episode features two women Preeti Prayag and Meera Raghunandan, co-founders of Mentoring Matters who have been driving a lot of initiatives to help women professionals network effectively. Meera says that the things like networking and mentoring, all of that seems to be a little extra for the women and they don’t seem to focus on that as much as men seem to take a very long-term view of their career. Preeti feels that its more to do with the way women plan things – when they are younger, they feel that they have to spend more of their personal time on this so these things become less of priority but in reality, that’s not so it just can become a habit as you practice day to day basis and start coming very naturally.

It is the right time for women professionals to focus on mentoring and coaching.

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Mrigashira celebrates the spirit of womanhood by deep diving into issues pertaining to women, including biases at the policy level, key gaps and steps required to bridge the same. Dr. Deepa Sethi, Mou Chakravorty, Priya Bendre, will be sharing their understanding and wisdom with Charu Raizada.

Unlike most other professions, women already form a very large part of the workforce in communications and other creative professions – 34 percent compared to a national average of 14 percent. However, the challenge before this industry is the high dropout rate. The ratio drops to just 11 percent at senior management positions, and a mere 3 percent in boardrooms.

Mrigashira explores the key gaps associated with women traversing the leadership ladder

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Mrigashira celebrates the spirit of womanhood by deep diving into issues pertaining to women, including biases at the policy level, key gaps and steps required to bridge the same. Dr. Deepa Sethi, Mou Chakravorty, Priya Bendre, will be sharing their understanding and wisdom with Charu Raizada.

Unlike most other professions, women already form a very large part of the workforce in communications and other creative professions – 34 percent compared to a national average of 14 percent. However, the challenge before this industry is the high dropout rate. The ratio drops to just 11 percent at senior management positions, and a mere 3 percent in boardrooms.

Mrigashira explores the key gaps associated with women traversing the leadership ladder

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The toys and games industry got more than its fair share of attention when the government underlined the need to promote local toys. As we look forward this week to the virtual ‘India Toy Fair 2021’, Mrigashira decided to find out a little more about this industry. Our guest in this episode of Mrigashira is Bhavesh Somaya, he talks about how toys and games have helped Bring Home The Fun for families, parents, young adults; reviving the ‘value of indoor play’.

It's a great time to be a part of the Indian toy industry.

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Anjana Menon – one of the most celebrated business editors in India joins us in this very special episode to talk about twitter controversy. To add a little perspective, recently twitter decided to bring some changes in its labelling policy drawing ire of the government. Anjana says that it's very hard for any establishment anywhere in the world to control each and every one of those voices, Twitter itself has grown largely as an unregulated platform. There is no regulation over whether it's Twitter or Facebook, the rules that apply to a lot of other traditional media channels don't really apply to them. It is imperative that you should have some sort of, regulation, but that should ideally follow some broad principles – principle of transparency and fairness and uniform rules. There must be a due process that's followed. So, when there is regulation, that regulation mustn’t be arbitrary. This may be challenging since the whole world so polarized now that there is a space for a balanced view whether it's the U S where you have Republicans versus the Democrats pro Trump versus anti-Trump or in Britain where we have seen fierce competition to own the narrative between those advocating Brexit versus, non-Brexit.

How do you make sure that it's only going to be a balanced voice? I think that's where the big challenge is.

Anjana Menon

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This episode features students of Commits College in Bangalore who expressed their views on the Myntra logo controversy. There were divergent views but it was heartening to see young minds expressing themselves freely. Some of them felt that most of the Indian population may not have even noticed the resemblance with the supposedly naked women on the Myntra logo and the whole controversy was blown out of proportion. There were others who wondered how a smaller brand would have reacted to this issue? A group of students highlighted the importance of diversity and inclusivity policies and programs so, in a marketing team or in your branding team, it is so important to have a diverse community, who can actually give you a various different perception to avoid such controversies. Overall, it turned to be a deeply engaging chat with some of the brightest young minds which are going to shape the industry in future.

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The CEO’s credibility is at an all-time low and this calls for a shift in attitude by businesses, as they are expected to fill the void left by the government. Trust is something that must be earned. It is not something that today’s business leaders can take for granted, because both internal workforces and external publics are increasingly cynical. Hence, communications today deserves to be a core function of an organization. It is time the CEO uses it to the company’s best advantage.

To discuss more on the subject, our guest today is Paarul Chand, co-author of ‘A Question of Trust’.

Packed with data and valuable insights from global corporate communications leaders, this book is a go-to for CEOs and business leaders looking to consolidate their brands and cultivate trust.

Our second guest is another debutant author, a Communication and Public Relations expert, Ritu Bararia. Her book “Little Joys of communication’ is a compilation of articles – written based on her own knowledge and learnings as a corporate leader. The book talks about the traditional PR and communication practices that existed when Ritu started her career almost 2 decades back and how the practices transformed and evolved over a period of time and why it is essential to implement a mix of both.

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It’s not easy nowadays to earn consumers’ trust as a brand. Many mistakes and failed campaigns have created a level of distrust that needs further effort to be improved. It’s not impossible though to build trust with your consumers. All you need is the genuine interest in what your consumers expect from you. In this episode of Mrigashira, our first guest is brand guru and strategist Harish Bijoor, Founder of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

If you want people to stop killing elephants, you don't just catch the poachers, you also educate people not to buy ivory says Subhash Kamath, Chairperson Advertising standards council of India (ASCI). Our second guest on this episode was in conversation with Charu Raizada to talk about ASCI’s role and how he has been working relentlessly with his team, since coming in office, earlier last year to bring about new guidelines.

It reinvigorated the world of marketing once again.

Harish Bijoor

ASCI processes are becoming much faster, more responsive, more interactive.

Subhash Kamath

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PRCAI – Public Relations Consultants Association of India is now all set to play a more decisive role under the leadership of Atul Sharma – the newly elected President of the body. He says that the ongoing pandemic turned out to be an excellent opportunity for the industry to collaborate and find solutions for one another. He further adds that industry came together as a team, shared learnings and gave a voice to the narrative. We did things in a very coordinated and in a very, very streamlined fashion. But this time around, industry looked inwards, was more inclusive, tried to find answers of what were the problems that were plaguing it and that changed the game.

We found counsel from diverse issues. So, I think the learning piece was something which we, which really, we progressed pretty well and considering people had to just log into a machine that worked very well.

Our purpose and our mission at PRCAI is completely focused on making the whole industry professional, ethical and prosperous.

Atul Sharma

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Emkay Global Financial Services report indicates improving recovery for Alcohol companies –  growth in premium spirits and faster recovery in beer since trade reopened post-pandemic. This certainly is good news for the industry as the economic shock of the pandemic on the alcobev industry was tremendous. While sales are looking up, catering for events and large gatherings is unlikely to look up for a while.

The government needed to take a far more pragmatic view during the lockdown, they should have allowed alcobev outlets to function.

Samar Singh Sheikhwat

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Start-ups often struggle to determine the right timing to execute their marketing strategy. Digital marketing, as an important element of their brand building, gets even more complex because of its complex and fast paced nature. Sanjay O S, Lead, Digital Marketing, BYJU’s simplifies it to us in a conversation with Radha Radhakrishnan.

It is important for an entrepreneur venturing in digital marketing to understand the category the business will enter. A lot of content is available on Google, Facebook and YouTube to start with. According to Sanjay, the creation of a website is essential for the business because consumers these days tend to search for the products, they consider for purchase online and it is important for a brand to be discoverable. He further explains a thin line difference between data information that is used for user experience with his consent and the user’s data getting monetized for the benefit of the app which collected user’s data as a part of the terms and conditions.

When he started off with digital marketing, it was on a smaller scale with much more risk-taking opportunities, they were still exploring the consumer needs doing experiments and wanted to ensure that the message of the product reaches the consumer and satisfies them, as back then people were not so flexible spending money with a fulfilled trust in the brand. TV had a big impact on BYJU’s sales through its campaigns which were effectively measured by collecting data analytics for example the number of google searches, app installs etc.

It is very important for a business to be discoverable.

Sanjay O S

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India beyond metropolitan cities is now the new focus area for brands across the spectrum. There are companies that have created a niche for themselves in regional media communication. Our guests are seasoned experts from the hinterland and include Alice Gurum, CEO of Media Pulse PR; Shailesh Goyal, Director, Simulations Public Affairs and Shishir Somani, CEO of Archer communications.

Digitization has brought with it blurring of cross border boundaries. Small towns have become a driving force for ecommerce companies, OTT platforms, FMCG, telecom and more. Yet in the COVID world, brands and companies have been reticent in communicating with their stakeholders in these cities. We at Mrigashira spoke to communication experts, working closely with brands in tier one and two cities to find out if small towns are the future of PR in 2021.

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Piali Dasgupta is the head of communications for Columbia Pacific Communities – India's largest senior living community operators. It is a part of the Seattle based Columbia Pacific Management. She talks about the exciting opportunities that a very special and untapped sector such as senior community living offers to communications professionals. There are a lot of scope for creativity and need to change the narrative around senior community living which has moved beyond old age homes. She says that changing perceptions happen with a net change in narrative, and how do we change that and that's where our marketing efforts come into play. Our creative efforts come into play, what we do as a brand comes into play, a brand marketing comes into play, there is obviously a huge role that PR plays as well.

How do you make advertising less of an interruption and intrusion and more of a narrative, by using tools like storytelling, is what we do.

Piali Dasgupta

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Metro Cash & Carry India has championed the cause of kirana modernization and digitalization in India. There efforts have led to a spike in Kirana sales by up to 50 per cent. In this episode of Mrigashira, Charu Raizada was in conversation with to know more about how Metro Cash & Carry India has been an enabler in making the ‘Kiranas’ self-reliant and what it takes to communicate for a B2B retail brand.

Communication needs to be much sharper, much more real time to our stakeholders.

Reshma Nandy

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Climate crisis is real and it requires a collective effort from the governments, public and common people to ensure that no more damage is done to the earth. For corporate, it is even a bigger responsibility and therefore sustainability is no more a fancy word but a commitment that they have to fulfil.

Recently Vedanta was recognized by Dow Jones Sustainability Index for its contributions towards a sustainable tomorrow. In less than an year Vedanta’s commitment has improved its rankings to 12 from 21. As the world moves towards embracing climate conscious organizations, companies are forced to rethink about managing their climate related business risks and management strategies.

Lot of the work that we currently engage is focused on improving the efficacy of our processes.

Gaurav Sarup

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The aviation industry not just in India, but the world over came to a standstill, as the pandemic spread its wings earlier this year. As per the Airport Authority of India, the aviation industry reported a 92% fall in revenue. Despite the odds, indigo rose up to the challenge and upped its market share from 48% to 55.5% (Source: recent DGC Airport).

It was not about flight safety, but became a question of health safety.

C Leekha

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Minol heads corporate communications, CSR and business operations for Purvankara, one of the well- known reality companies in South India. At Purvankara she takes pride in how she has made Corporate communication function on responsibility for revenue and profits. She says that the role of communications is very important in business growth since it really handholds the business and management and, and constantly remind them that while it maybe not fully tangible, the value that communication that to the entire business ecosystem is absolutely great. The advent of social media and the value of tangible results that it produces gives us a great opportunity to and tell the management that we deserve a seat at the table. We should have a seat at the table because the organization needs us more now. One of the big things is we need to really start understanding that as communications professionals are the brand custodians, reputation manager and also the first line of defence, which makes their role all the more important.

Communication is probably one of the only functions that is going to be able to humanize the organization.

Minol Ajekar

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In this episode, Madhavan Narayanan speaks on a range of topics from the state of journalism in India, to government's decision to regulate digital news media and OTT. One of his most interesting observations is how media has evolved over the years. He says that earlier because of various restrictions on costs, you know, the only the educated people could work for the media. Yeah, because it was all about a certain section of well-heeled media, middle class talking to each other, using the newspapers or TV panels as a medium, and the cost of technology in order to own a newspaper or a TV channel about 30-40 years ago, you need to have big capital, prime real estate, location, absolutely. All that is gone. Now, you can now sit in a corner of Amaravati and run a TV channel all over the world, if you want on our YouTube channel. And digital technologies have dramatically lowered the cost of entry. And this is for the broadcasters or people who want to share their opinions. Today I'm doing with my smartphone. I mean, I have 200,000 plus followers on Twitter. So, my follower count is more than the circulation of some new leading newspapers,

You no longer find news, news finds you.

Madhavan Narayanan

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Debdatta Das is the head of content strategy, digital CNBC TV18 and winner of LinkedIn content 50, India. Debdatta is a content marketing specialist. In this episode she speaks about emerging trends in digital content consumption, and monetization. She says that digitization was the way forward, but it was, it was a slow-moving process. What COVID did was that it snowballed what five years of digitization would look like into a month, and then the whole thing started rolling, in terms of consumption. In addition to this a lot of social media platforms, a lot of digital news platforms, a  lot of television have also gone through a kind of a transformation and giving special attention to veracity of the news, which is going to become a major area of concern in days to come.

Suddenly advertising has become all about ROI.

Debdatta Das

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WICCI is a body – for the women and by the woman. It is the only body which focuses on women empowerment and women enablement. There are 150 sectors represented today in WICCI.

There are four main activities or mandates for the Council. One is ensuring that we have a good number of networking events where women can participate. In most cases, networking events are paid events. Second, most women in our sector don't have easy access to mentorship, and they need this. So, having mentoring programs is essential. The third area is up-skilling. We are actively going in that direction to equip and enable women, particularly those who are returning after a break. The fourth area is client roundtables, to talk about best practices within this industry and how women can reach the top and how they can progress in their career.

Communication is an industry with a significant percentage of the younger population. Many are under 35 years of age. These are people who come with a lot of enthusiasm, energy, drive, and ideas. They can experiment, think outside the box and experiment outside the box.

There is much talent over there that's looking for guidance, looking for direction and looking to move up. And the very fact that all these bodies have existed and yet the number of women progressing to leadership positions is dismal which indicates that there is room for doing a lot more.

There are many bright women around us who have smashed the proverbial glass ceiling to create an identity for themselves. Their hard work, perseverance, and ability to stay afloat despite unfavourable circumstances have made all the difference. However, the fight continues…

Its important for women to not just stay in their careers but also rise.

Kavita Lakhani

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The episode features Dr. Karthik Nagendra, a serial entrepreneur who has two decades of experience across strategy, marketing, operations and HR. He says customer loyalty is becoming thinner by the day. Brands, particularly the b2b ones, will be able to capture better market share if they harness the power of thought leadership. HE further elaborates that content, strategy and content marketing itself is an emerging area. Thought Leadership is a culture and it's a mindset. It requires long term sustained efforts before you actually start seeing tangible outcomes of your efforts.

Thought Leadership is a culture. It is a mindset.

Karthik Nagendra

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Public Relations is one of the most stressed professions and stress can also lead to mental health issues. Nikhil Dey, one of the most respected leaders in the communications industry, speaks on the steps agencies are handling mental health issues and stress particularly. He highlights the need to remove stigma attached to mental health issues. He feels that anybody who opens up and has the courage and the comfort to talk about it is going to be one more drop in that ocean. One more person who unmute themselves. One more person who says, Yes, I'm part of the solution, rather than trying to say that, no, this may happen to others, but I'm okay. And it's not always about, it's like different days, you have different situations, some days, you can be in a place where you're really on top of the world. And you don't have to be always in the in that hollow or in that trap in order to evangelize it. But if you care enough about the topic, and if you've seen how, it has helped you bounce back, then even on the day, when you're on top, you can be a flag bearer for this topic to get more and more people comfortable expressing themselves unmuting themselves taking that step.

Don't bottle it up, don't hold it in, find a way to find a solution is the message.

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Karthik Srinivasan, communication strategy consultant, social media expert and award-winning blogger shares his views on social media has helped struggling road side food vendors during pandemic. He says that this is something that transcended from being only remaining with an online platform or a few online platforms to offline action. There was offline action. So, people took action consciously offline, which means they have to leave their house, they have to take their device with them, wear a mask, go out on the road and do something about it, instead of just sitting at home and saying I like I play type a comment or ha or whatever it is, it is very easy to do, clicking on things and saying a few very easy to do a dime a dozen all over the place. But to get them out and do something is a big deal.

Positivity spreading like wildfire is good for everybody.

Karthik Srinivasan

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Our guest in this episode is legendary R Sridhar, Speaker, Ideation Facilitator, Executive Coach and Author. He tells us the importance of ideation and innovation in challenging times. And what people in our sector can do to ideate better. He says that it's absolutely imperative that we start looking for new ways of doing things, new ways of serving customers, new ways of keeping in touch, new ways to demonstrate that we care. So, everybody's in terms of business, everybody's under pressure, the customer is under pressure.

He further explains that you have to understand your customer, understand his point, and I have to be able to go with a new idea that actually solve this problem, or help him, you know, actually seize new opportunities.

The core value is delivering value through new ideas.

R Sridhar

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Two years ago, Google had introduced voice search in nine Indian languages on Google Assistant. Today, Hindi is the second most used assistant language globally after English we know the language diversity in our country. But what role can Indian language play online. Has Indian language finally found its voice online? In this episode B G Mahesh – pioneer of digital technologies in Indian languages answers all these questions. He also shares his insights on key issues such as Indian language technology itself has moved online, I mean, whether it is by way of search, for example, or whether it is by way of translation or now the voice-based services, how much has it changed?

The innovation will actually come in the Indian language according to me.

B G Mahesh

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Indrajit Gupta is a business journalist and editor with more than two decades of experience. He is now the Co-Founder and Director at Founding Fuel. As one of the few successful media entrepreneurs in the country, he talks about how his journalistic experience helped him become a successful media entrepreneur. He feels that quality is always more important than quantity to ensure long lasting success. At the same time, there is a need to constantly evolve with time instead of being a passive entity which is stuck to old formulas for ages.

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This episode also features Ashwani Singla, Founding Managing Partner, Astrum – Reputation Advisory, to talk to us on new advertising code in conversation with Radha Radhakrishnan. Ashwani stressed upon the need to do necessary checks and balances by the celebrities before they take up any endorsement project. He also maintains that it may not be possible for celebrities to figure out how a product will perform over a period of time but due diligence should be done irrespective of this fact.

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As head of communications at Amazon India, Minari Shah handles one of the largest communications teams in the country. In this episode she opens up on how the business has changed in a post COVID-19 era. She elaborates further on innovative steps that Amazon has taken to ensure communications remains meaningful for all stakeholders. Though she admits that work from home has diminished boundary between professional and personal life, she also feels that this is how we are going to be working for a long time now.

The massive preparations that have gone into ensuring total customer satisfaction has taught her a lot – specially keeping the team morale high against all odds. She also highlights the importance of empathy while dealing with team members at a time when everyone is fighting a battle in their personal life.

Human mind when pushed will innovate and find a way out.

Minari Shah

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ASCI – Advertising Standard Council of India opted to hire a PR agency for the first time. What prompted this body to look out for a communication agency? We spoke to Jaideep Shergill of Pitchfork Partners, the agency which got the mandate, to get more insights into this development.

This episode also has an interesting conversation with Sonali Madbhavi, Communication Head, Quikr India on her fetish for sarees and how saree helped her create a unique identity for herself at the workplace.

Anshul Sushil of Wizikey talks about how technology is helping brands to penetrate deeper into the regional media. He also shares why visibility is a key requirement for all the brands.

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The first episode of this series turned out to be a special one with great insights from some of the top industry veterans like Vikram Chandra, Melissa Arulappan and Harish Bijoor.

In this exclusive chat Vikram shares his perspective on how digital consumption of news is going to bring in the much-needed democratisation of news. He also explains how he is using artificial intelligence to empower the audience.

Melissa Arulappan – a noted leader in the communications industry shares her views on providing a level playing field to women employees in the industry.

A brand expert like Harish Bijoor also shares some interesting observations on Dhoni choosing a new age platform like Instagram to announce his retirement. 

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