Industry:

Information Technology

Retail 

Shopping Malls

Manufacturing 

Function:

Training – Trainer certified by the Huthwaite Research Group and NIS-Sparta, India

Strategy

Marketing

Brand positioning

Distribution

People skills Learning Pvt Ltd 

October 1997 – present

Founder & Managing Director

Set up People skills in October 1997 with a clear goal of having two basic verticals 

– Training

- Retail Consulting

Due to extensive industry experience in both these areas, a number of retail organisations involved People Skills in various consulting activities. 

Soft Skills Training

Having an experience in soft skills training from over 16 years. Conducting extensive soft skills training programs in India for IBM, Honeywell, Sonata software, Wipro, Robert Bosch, Arvind Brands, Madura Garments and many others 

Training Programs

conducted

• Leadership Skills
• Team Building
• Management Development Program
• Attitude & Behaviour
• Communication Skills
• Cross Culture
• Presentation skills
• Role Transition
• Managing Change
• Time Management
• Interviewing Skills
• Personal effectiveness
• Customer Service
• Supervisory Skills
• Stress Management
• Retail Management
• Direct Selling Skills
• Channel Management
• Creativity

Retail Consulting

Conducted a market survey for Madura Garments, a leading menswear brand in India for increasing their presence in the country by opening new stores in strategic locations across India. A comprehensive study was undertaken regarding market potential in various cities and a feasibility report was presented to the company. Madura Garments opened new stores over a period of the next 3 years based on the feasibility report prepared by People Skills.


Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) wanted to set up supermarkets within the petrol bunks under the name “In & Out”. They invited many consulting firms to give them a feasible proposal and its presentation. People skills bagged the contract in the face of stiff competition for the entire 3 year project under the B.O.T scheme. In this project, petrol bunks were identified as sites for these stores based on market analysis. A product mix was created consisting of grocery, housekeeping products, toiletries, cosmetics, confectionary, stationery, fresh fruits & vegetables etc. Staff were hired and trained for the job. The back-end operation was set up and fine tuned for managing inventory & stock. Suppliers were identified and tied up with. People Skills then managed these stores in Bangalore for a period of three years and then transferred them back to BPCL.


Undertook a Visual Merchandising – Design & Execution project for Levi Strauss India across all their stores in India for a period of 2 years. This involved hiring qualified Visual Merchandisers and evolving thematic VM concepts according to the fashion seasons. These were uniformly executed across all Levi’s stores in the country including small towns. This was an extremely labour oriented project with structured journey plans for all the merchandisers. Constant monitoring was the key to the success of this assignment


People Skills has evolved the concept of REL – Retail Excellence Level for Arvind Brands Ltd in India for their ‘Megamart’ chain of formal and casual menswear. The concept of REL was mooted to monitor the performance of all the stores as well as the Corporate office in terms of certain parameters which was decided on after a lot of deliberation. The entire audit was divided into several parts such as that relating to business and its returns, inventory levels, maximising profitability ratios, customer service, customer relationship management, housekeeping & ambience, job analysis and delivery and much more. This resulted in the business increasing by an average of 30% across all stores. It also resulted in more effective stock rotation and a marked reduction in the inventory carried at all the stores. 


Odyssey – a leading retail chain for book and music – retained People Skills for providing them end to end solutions for their retail business. This included preparing exhaustive manuals for all their retail functions, formulating specific job descriptions with the duties and responsibilities, compensation package, setting up a 360 degree appraisal system, inventory management system, visual merchandising guidelines and the implementation of all these systems with constant training and monitoring.


People Skills is associated with one of the biggest shopping malls in Bangalore – The Forum Mall- right from its inception. It is a turn key project wherein the operations manual was designed and customised, key positions were identified for the smooth running of the mall, compensation packages were fixed, appraisal systems were put in place, recruitment was done for more than 200 employees at all levels and the staff were thoroughly trained in all aspects of mall management.


P.N Rao & Sons – almost a century old exclusive suit makers for men – has retained People Skills for completely revamping the brand image by changing with the times. Accordingly, a new and exclusive look was given right from the change in logo and image building strategies were implemented within and outside the store, thereby increasing the turnover by 20%. 

NIS Sparta 

1994 – 1997

Head of Corporate Training, Southern Region, India

• The role involved bringing in the prior work experience in designing training programs on soft skills for organizations across industry spectrum. It also involved working on client assignments in the field of strategy and process improvement within the retail industry, manufacturing and IT industry in India.
• Was involved in formulating new product launch strategy for McDowell’s India in association with Arthur Anderson and was highly appreciated and commended by the client organization

Onida Televisions  

1990 – 1994

Sales Manager 

• The role involved increasing the sale across the entire southern region.
• The sales and reporting systems were formulated and implemented successfully
• The focus was on developing up-country markets for Onida white goods, which increased by 60%.
• Was given the task of reviving the Black & White Television sales in Karnataka state. In less than 12 months achieved break-even in the state and set the tone for the company’s expansion strategy.

Asian Paints India Limited

1987 - 1990

Sales Executive

• Was selected by the company directly from the campus after MBA.
• Was given specific area targets for selling paints
• Was recognised and promoted by the company for consistently achieving the given targets
• Streamlined the credit given to the dealers and hence increased the profitability for the organization

EDUCATION

Qualifications:

MBA – Marketing, University of Bangalore, India

Bachelor of Science – University of Bangalore, India

Other skills:

Certified Trainer on SPIN by Huthwaite Research Group, UK

Certified Soft Skills Trainer by NIS-Sparta Limited, India