Category: Blog

‘Connecting Business’ and ‘Sweet Potato Tec’ announce Joint venture to enhance their long-standing relationship  – 03rd August 2020, London, England.

Connecting Business Limited (‘CB’) and Sweet Potato Tec Limited (‘SPT’), are delighted to announce the establishment of a joint venture to further expand their long-standing working relationship with the aim of strengthening their combined resources to deliver scalable Salesforce.com CRM and associated technologies, to further support profitable revenue growth for clients and partners.

“The joint venture will leverage the outstanding Salesforce strategic advisory, process consulting and technical capabilities of ‘SPT’ and the considerable sales, operations and marketing expertise of ‘CB’.  We are very excited about this venture “, said Swami Bala of ‘SPT’.

‘SPT’ have a solid team of resources that cover the full suite of Salesforce.com capabilities as well as the ability to integrate all and any necessary third-party applications whether native and or via API.

“Together, we offer clients and partners a business focused approach that understands the end to end business process, sales and pipeline modelling, how to leverage big data and deploy targeted marketing campaigns”, said Lee Nightingale of ‘CB’.

We have the experience to explain the ‘what’s in it for me’ to all departments, ensuring the Strategy, People and Technology are all aligned – to enable optimal success.

Our aim is to work with scale-up organisations pushing fast growth and to sure up their existing position by streamlining processes across the organisation.

To learn more about the two companies, please visit:

http://connectingbusiness.co.uk and http://sweetpotatotec.com

For further information on either company or to speak to us about this joint venture, please call 0844 2720071 or email

[email protected] or [email protected]

In the age of rapid adoption of new tech tools, it becomes important for one to adapt and evolve during these times of change. The last 3 months had brought in the digital transformation what the industry was trying for the last couple of years. As per a Forbes article, already, 70% of companies had digital transformation in place or were working on one, but it seems most companies were not far enough along to make Covid-19 a non-issue.

I indeed wrote an article on COVID 19 and the digital transformation in my LinkedIn page. Now after 3 months, looking into various aspects of digital transformation and its impact of personal mastery, I felt to share my viewpoints on the same.

This blog will drive and address personal mastery and digital transformation in the following standpoints

1. Digital adoption in certain industries
2. Impact of employees towards the digital adoption
3. Personal mastery towards evolving digital economy

Let’s start with the most relatable industry to our reader, the Information Technology industry…

1. Information Technology

With sudden Work from Home (WFH), coming in to play, most of the organizations in IT industry were forced to adopt this. Being in IT, they have to showcase their adoption quicker than other industries. A cloud first company, i.e a product or a service provider company whose work is completely dependent on a cloud environment were quick to move. Followed by the other companies. However, the ones they swiftly moved are their communication and collaboration platforms.

This is where the initial hurdles started to come up. Though, Work from home, was quick to adopt, the challenge was effective time management and the new slang of the time “Zoom fatigue”. Being continuously online, either on video call or conference call, employees started to feel tiredness and they slowly started to realize the productivity was actually going down day by day. The Work from Home is a framework that needs to be adopted.

The below digital transformation image is a reference from Forbes article.

The simple reason is when an individual feels they have too much time in hand and they start to plan all ambitious task to do in the same time. It’s like one trying to learn a new course online like python development, then planning to learn about leadership, in parallel trying to learn so music instrument or anything do with their hobbies or passion. When these multiple things play along with the regular WFH model, one brain is constantly in a kind of elevated communication, while in actual there is no firm work that’s happening.
 
This is similar to have a buffet of variety of foods and really not knowing to enjoy the one that’s tasty. The simple reason is narrowing down one’s focus. Choose your stage, where you are in this transformation. Are you in visionary, or envision or execution stage?
 
 
 
  “The secret to genius is not genetics but daily ritual married with perseverance”
 
The best way to do, follow the theory of filtration. List down all your aspirations from certification to your hobbies. Then give a priority value say from 1-5 (1 be low impact value, while 5 be high impact value). Now, relate the activity, as how it would impact your near time future or your long-term goal.
 
Now, take only two, one for the near time future, one for long term goal. This shall enable you to focus and develop the skills in right direction.
 
 
2. Travel and tourism
 
This is an industry which got affected the most. Though, the industry runs online from ticket booking to hotel booking etc, what led to massive impact is the industry runs on an important factor called as experience. Though experience-based technology solutions like Virtual reality or Augmented reality are still evolving. This had an impact on the employees too. With sudden closure of certain business segments impacted the employees to a large extent. There were redundancies. This raises a question about how this industry can adapt as well as the employees.

Reference: Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Being an experience driven industry, the first and foremost is preparing themselves for an online as well as virtual presence. The business should upgrade or redevelop their portal or website which can give them more of content driven (dynamic /video contents) rather than static content. Use the social media platforms to share your uniqueness.

   “Don’t go with mass, then you would be one among the other social presence.”

Start to build a unique virtual experience of certain portfolio of your business. Release those experiences, through some ecommerce platforms as an experience, rather than as content share.

The above can be one of the evolution components for the travel and tourism industry. The employees depending upon their role can become experience ambassadors. Let’s assume a hotel receptionist can better explain customer handling of different nationalities, how effectively he or she manages. They can use the online platform, to build content, share those contents as well as work as experience ambassadors on the free lance platforms. The most important this is knowing – What you want to do?

Probably, an airhostess who got laid off, during this period, can look at building an experience portfolio. They can start of use social media for sharing their content, collaborate with their colleagues together, start a podcast, blogging platforms or email list.

  “The best investment you will ever make is investing in your best self.” – Robin Sharma

In both the above scenario’s within IT as well as Travel and tourism, personal mastery is about the discipline of focusing one’s vision and continuously evolving. It’s about perseverance with patience towards one’s goal.

Agilan is someone whom I respect a lot, because he has this unassuming personality but has a wealth of knowledge about wide ranging topics. He’s a vivid reader and has the uncanny knack of focusing on the right things which makes him happy. It’s only right to post a picture of him in his full PPE kit while serving in the intensive care unit to treat COVID patients. This blog has a lot of learnings; prioritising tasks, empowering people, handling failures, celebrating successes – Enjoy reading and learning.

Over to Agilan now….

Remember, this is a 3 part blog series, you can find the introduction here

LEADING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE – A FRONTLINE EXPERIENCE

We are living through a pandemic that has claimed nearly 400,000 lives so far and is continuing to wreak its devastation around the world.This global outbreak has changed our lives profoundly affecting everything from international travel to meeting your next door neighbour for a cup of tea and a chat. It is the worst health, social and economic crisis the world has seen in decades.

I am a Consultant in intensive care medicine working at an NHS hospital just outside London and led my department in preparing for this pandemic and managing the surge of patients affected by COVID19. I would like to share some of my experiences. In any hospital, you will find the sickest patients in its intensive care department. These patients usually have one or more organ system failure and will be treated with life support measures including ventilators and dialysis machines in an effort to keep them alive giving them a chance to recover. It is a small but highly specialised area of the hospital run by a team of ICU staff whose skills take years to acquire.

As the pandemic started moving across the world, it became obvious that the UK was not going to be spared. We were facing an extreme situation where the intensive care facilities were going to be completely overwhelmed. When a healthcare system runs out of intensive care capacity, patients who otherwise would have survived will die because they cannot be provided with the treatment that they need.

Looking at the data from Italy and Spain, it was clear that we were less than 2 weeks from the peak of the pandemic. Intensive care capacity had to be expanded by at least five fold and perhaps even more which was completely unprecedented. The pandemic preparation had multitudinous workstreams. The hospital stopped all the non-emergency work to focus on COVID. Entire wards were cleared to make space and create the foot print for the expanded intensive care. Oxygen supply pipes were upgraded so that they could cope with the huge number of patients requiring large quantities of it. Ventilators and other equipment were ordered and alternatives were procured and commissioned. Huge effort was put into getting hold of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) in an extremely crowded marketplace.

Top of the list for me was to create an vastly expanded intensive care team with the right skills and structure so that we could save as many lives as possible. We had to set this up in a matter of days. The oil tanker travelling at speed had to be turned around. And turn around it did. Literally on a sixpence. Due to the coordinated efforts from the whole team, intensive care facilities were created for COVID patients up to five times the usual number in our ICU.

In normal circumstances, the ICU team is a group of close knit individuals who have forged their relationships over many years. The new team is going to be made of disparate individuals from various parts of the hospital, all coming together towards the common goal of saving the lives of the worst affected patients. Understandably, there was a lot of fear and anxiety among staff who are going to be on the coalface treating patients affected by a hitherto unknown, highly contagious and potentially fatal disease.

They had to walk into the battle head on while the rest of the country was being asked to physically take themselves away from society by the imposed lockdown. Many of them were in the older age group or health conditions themselves which made them vulnerable to dying from the virus. They also feared for the safety of their families, worried that they might take the virus home.

Every minute of every day, there were bad news stories in the media reporting the escalating death rates and individual tragedies. As the pandemic progressed and we started admitting people into the intensive care unit at an alarming rate. These were some of the sickest patients we have ever managed. Inevitably, several staff members and their loved ones were also taken ill with COVID and had a terrible time recovering from it. We had to witness the death of one of our beloved colleagues after a long fight.

But the sense of duty and the resolve to fight for our patients was strong throughout. I truly applaud every single member of the team for their devotion to the cause and their selflessness. Such an amazing team has to be supported and protected so that they can do their jobs safely. We trained those who required additional training to work in the ICU. They were provided support, supervision and feedback which made the new staff not only safe but also empowered to deliver care in an environment that could otherwise have been alien and intimidating. Clearly, it is not possible to provide all the intensive care skills and expertise with an ultrashort training. But it was incredible to see how much transferable skills were available within the organisation and with the right support how quickly people can adapt.

If I have to look for a silver lining, it must be that the extraordinary circumstances have shattered a lot of bureaucratic barriers that tend to hold people back and impede progress. I experienced the team spirit and solidarity getting stronger through this crisis.The team had countless instances of heartbreak. After losing several patients to the virus, we discharged our first patient from the ICU only to find out that he died unexpectedly the next day. It was a moment of profound shock. But the team grieved together and supported each other and continued to care for the other patients.

We also celebrated our successes together. Every patient discharged was applauded on their way out by the whole team which were incredibly uplifting moments. The appreciation and support from the public was wonderful. NHS workers suddenly found themselves to be everyone’s heroes and deservedly so. There was a tsunami of messages and cards which decorated the corridors of the hospital reminding you of all the people rooting for you. There were donations of PPE, hand creams and food appreciating all the hard work that the healthcare workers were doing.

Our core value of compassion shines brightly as we work through this terrible virus. We know that there is a lot more that we could and a lot more that we could have done better. But the commitment and compassion from this team has made a difference in a lot of people’s lives and will continue to do so.

Let’s begin this blog with a true story about my next author, in his own words below.

“I (Vernon) remember when I met my would-be-in-laws to ask their daughters hand in marriage. The first question my mother in law asked was about my academic qualification. When I told her about my profession, she said and I quote “you don’t have a degree”. I responded by saying that I earn so much and she never believed I could earn that much without a degree. Being from a town which had so many Seafarers, she did not know anything about my profession. Till date, I make fun of her for that.”

This story is special, because it breaks so many stereotypes. Doctors and Engineers were the norm in the 1990s, especially in the Indian societies. And here was Vernon telling a story about a completely different profession to his mother in law. More importantly, he was explaining himself to his mother in law which doesn’t happen often in a patriarchal society of the 90s – must admit things have changed since though.

Anyway, without further ado – let me introduce you to Capt. Vernon Fernando – Master Mariner – Seaman, and below is his blog for this week, and the picture was taken by him too 🙂

Remember, this is a 3 part blog series, you can find the introduction here.

I (Vernon) knew what I wanted to do with my life at an early age of 15. When I was in class 10, I started to make slow strides towards that goal. For an average student like me competing with peers who had completely different goals was tough many a times, but my resolve was strong. You can imagine I was the only one in my class of 50 who wanted to be a Seafarer. Most of my friends were learning hard to get into mainstream professions like engineering and medicine.

Fast forward to now – If I look at the present situation, India is ranked 5^th in providing sailors of various ranks to the Maritime fraternity. I can say with utmost sincerity that Indian Sailors are considered to be among the best out there. The sad part is that Merchant Navy as a career is largely misunderstood among most of the Indians even now, who are also not aware of the strong heritage India has towards it. That didn’t deter me then, and it doesn’t deter me now.

My short sailing career has spanned across two decades, and even after these years this career never fails to amaze me every single day. I can proudly say that I have reached the top of the pyramid on a ship, since my humble beginnings two decades ago. I totally agree that it is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was my passion.Like any other profession , hard work and dedication are required. But, this is a big BUT, the challenges faced are next to none.

Uncertainties play a major part. I sometimes even think that the Murphy’s law was made by a sailor, because it explains in a simple way of what can happen on a ship on an hourly basis. As an example, one of my team members broke his ulna when we were 10 hours from the nearest land. I was the medical officer the, and gave him a painkiller injection and dressed his wound. The captain had to take a decision to divert the ship to the nearest land. These kind of uncertainties are a regular thing on the ship, and we get used to responding to it.

For anyone reading this blog, I would strongly recommend to devise your own ways to tackle uncertainties. There is no one answer to tackle uncertainty, but you need to learn from experience, listen carefully and figure it out yourself on what suits you. Once you have done that, learn to be persistent and get on with your life.

There are other aspects in my seafarer life which gives me immense pleasure and often a lot of time to introspect. Standing on the bridge wings and staring into the open endless sea, gives you a perspective of life, about how tiny you are – sailing through this blue monster. A gaze into a starry night can take away all your worries at that moment. Sea also teaches you one of life’s most important lesson. Take nothing for granted.

It’s more profound in this COVID crisis situation.The tiny moments in our lives which we often take for granted, must be lived and enjoyed. Spend quality time with your family and friends, cherish even the small things which life has given you, because nothing is small or immaterial. This becomes evident and crystal clear, when you are at sea and surrounded by the vast and endless blueness. And this is my other biggest learning and I apply it every day in my life.

I will end my blog with some words from the chief guest of my passing out ceremony told – something which I still remember and cherish. He said, “Son – if someone asks you about what you do, you tell them –

I am a Part Navigator, an Astronomer, an Engineer, a Trained Medicare provider, a Naval Architect, a Meteorologist, a Fire Fighter, a Rescuer, a Heavy Machinery Operator and not but least,

I AM A SEAMAN…I AM VERNON FERNANDO!

Some people are gifted with certain things, and some need to put in the extra effort to get there.

At the outset, let me introduce you to this bunch, who put in a lot of effort and successfully manage a lot of uncertainties – be it treating COVID patients, Entrepreneurship in this tough time or literally steering a ship! We will talk about these gentlemen a bit more later in the blog.

Dr. Agilan Kaliappan, MBBS FRCA FFICM EDIC

Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine, Basildon and Thurrock University hospital NHS trust

Bharathy Venuprakash – Entrepreneur and Thought Leader

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpbvp/

Capt. Vernon Fernando – Master Mariner – Seaman

Let’s get to the topic!

In the nature vs nurture debate, I am NOW a firm believer of the nurture corner. In fact, I am a prime example of it. I wasn’t a good listener and had a poor attention span right from my early days. –  was glued to the television in my young age, come to think of it, I was addicted to the Dopamine rewards which were handed out to me by different programmes on the TV.I rode my luck into getting decent marks in my secondary school, which led to me to the Mechanical Engineering degree. I stuttered my way through the degree and got the customary graduate role in a Big Information Technology company. I somehow then managed to find a set of successive decent jobs, moved to the UK and “settled down”.

All this time, in my life, there was a constant voice in my head – saying you’re not doing justice to your potential. I tried to get rid of the voice for the last 25 years, and I wasn’t able to. I signed up for various self development courses, to see if the voice goes away. It didn’t go, and I was back to square one all the time.Mind you, I was earning good money and had lost my bad temper which I had during my young age. Life was OK, but the voice persisted. One day, while on the phone with my dad he said the exact words to me. The Penny dropped! It was my dad’s voice which was in my head all along my life, and what he said was true. I was wired to do well in certain areas, but didn’t do well. What was I missing?

I got curious and started looking for the missing piece of the puzzle. They were actually missing pieces of the puzzle. In my search again, I wasn’t getting anywhere, and was frustrated. I started running every other day primarily to lose weight, but also to think in the walks back from my run. During one of those runs, I remembered about signing up for a course about a year ago. The course seem to be for kids going to college or universities. Here I was, possibly going through my mid-life crisis trying to do this course. I had my doubts and thought I am too big for this course. Boy – wasn’t I proved wrong big time?

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

I started to learn, think and listen better after this course, and was able to retain the knowledge well. I started talking to more people with an intent to listen. This course was turning out to be a game changer and it was free of cost – well you need to pay to get certified! I finished my course in a span of 2-3 weeks, and was armed with some new powerful mental tools. I signed up for another course, to use the newly acquired tools and the results were amazing.

As cliched as it might be, life long learning is a real thing, and everyone needs to pursue it. Although I was wired to do well in certain areas, I didn’t pursue the life long learning, retaining the knowledge and applying. We will cover the part about how to identify what you’re wired to do well in a different blog. For now, I am convinced that Nurture is in the lead. This may change if we find ways to edit our genes better to learn things at quick speed, like Neo or Trinity in the film – The Matrix.

With this mind, I thought I should take the next journey to learn from the world. Whilst we hear from a number of people on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, I thought of listening to different perspectives from different sets of people whom I admire. Here’s where Agilan, Bharathy and Vernon come into the picture. They are thinkers, strong people and have been breaking the stereotypes for a long time. Now, why should I be selfish and contain all the pearls of wisdom to me!

I requested these gents to contribute to a three part series about life lessons, how to handle crisis and how a small change can make big difference in your life. Let’s learn from them in the coming weeks. I certainly am looking forward to it, hope you’re too!