At Darwinbox, we like to be ahead of the curve. We do it by analyzing the needs of our users, understanding the market demands, and keeping up with the ever-evolving technology. It is how we have garnered a massive user base of over 1 million users around the world, and it is also how we made our way into the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
We owe this success to our team and our extraordinary leaders. Even in times of adversity, they have led from the front and scaled new heights. Rudraditya Bhattacharya, Director for Sales and Partnerships, South Asia, is one such leader.
We sat down with Rudro, as he is fondly called, to have a chat about the digital transformation of HR and how the sales teams are having to catch up with the trends to readily fulfill the emerging user needs. He has some great insight on how effective sales strategies delve into the most atomic needs of the users and how exactly tapping into that hemisphere can bring about the biggest successful ventures.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
Darwinbox: How have you seen the appetite for HR tech change in the Indian enterprise landscape post the global pandemic?
Rudraditya: The Indian enterprise HR tech landscape was already at the cusp of an inflection point with more and more organizations adopting technology to redefine their employee strategy.
There is something called a hype curve or the hype cycle that shows which products are riding the wave of the customer's buying cycle. The global pandemic has done two things:
Employee Experience is one such sub-verse of products that got bumped up in the hype curve primarily due to the pandemic.
Darwinbox: While each customer’s use case of HRMS is unique, where have you seen the most traction for Darwinbox’s HCM suite?
Rudraditya: The need for HRMS is the same for every organization. Mostly, it revolves around getting a master system for storing and managing the records of all employees. However, the extent of complexity, depth, and breadth of the product is the ultimate deciding factor on what kind of product will be the right fit for an org. Darwinbox, at its core, is an enterprise-focused platform and that is where we see most of the traction. Through Darwinbox, we have added quite a lot of value to organizations that show traits like these:
Darwinbox: Tell us some Darwinbox customer-win stories that stand out for you.
Rudraditya: In our very first year, Delhivery happened to us. It was super surreal and even today sometimes we find ourselves wondering if we would have trusted Darwinbox if we were in their shoes.
Here's a little piece of trivia: the entire pitch to them was done on either a piece of paper or with whiteboards.
They truly were the anchor that we needed. They believed in the design of the product and trusted in our story. The rest, as they say, is history.
We always believed that our competitors are the international leading HRMS platforms. Very early on, we used to compete for accounts and managed to win against them, but the sweet victories were made up of the instances where we replaced them for the first time.
The most notable accounts that we managed to win were Emcure Pharma, Dr. Reddy's Lab, Arvind Group, Allcargo Logistics, Kotak Life Insurance, Tokopedia, Paytm, and Myntra. And every one of them was the replacement of one major international bestselling platform.
Apart from that, there are more accounts that continue to be significant and memorable for our team includes the likes of JSW, Vedanta, JG Summit Group in the Philippines, and Indorama in Indonesia. All of these are really what cemented Darwinbox's rank among popular global conglomerates.
Darwinbox: What have your 10+ years of experience in Sales taught you about the key ingredients for a successful sale?
Rudraditya: Being in sales is no different from being a teller at the bank. It is a person who attends to you and gives you money at the counter. All that the bank teller and the salesperson are trying to do is give you something you need.
For either to be successful at their professions, they need to know what the customer is looking for – coins, notes, and/or what denominations. They must pay attention to things like “is the customer filling in the right details?” or in our sales lingo, “is the need being documented?”
To draw this parallel, and to envision what you need for a successful sale, you must put yourself in the shoes of a bank teller. Let me simplify it for you, here is what you need:
It is imperative for a good salesperson to see the sale to the very end, that is what ensures that the customer will be satisfied and come back to you for their future needs.
Darwinbox: You have been awarded ‘The Economic Times Young Leader 2016’ title. What is the one thing that young leaders of today need to: Learn, Unlearn and Relearn?
Rudraditya: The journey of my career has definitely been a huge learning curve. And, if I were to give a headstart to the young leaders out there, I'd say that they must:
If you want to hear more from people working in various areas, check this space for our full collection of interviews.