"No one said it would be easy......"

Back after a long hiatus....

Its been abt an year since I joined P&G from Gillette. Looking back, its been undoubtedly a really tough year. Integrating and adapting the Gillette value chain into that of P&G....shipment issues, import issues, deployment problems, people issues...topped by managing a plethora of marketing initiatives..... the list was endles. The challenges were immense esp for an inexperienced and young team comprising of Ani, Kal , TeeYuan and myself.

But it wasn't in vain...the Gillette business in India bounced back and kicked some serious a**! :) We outperformed and outshone our competition through the year. There was blood everywhere...(and i'm talkin abt the "tonite, we dine in hell!" type :) ) Nothing could have made us feel better...knowing that we played a major part in this rampage...

So perhaps it didnt come as a surprise,when about a month back, the India supply chain leader nominated the 4 of us for the annual P&G India supply chain excellence awards - for our work in stabilizing the Gillette value chain....along with 6 other nominations from the other traditional P&G business units (like laundry, haircare,etc) and corporate functions ( quality, logistics, operations, etc) -each for their superior contribution to improve service, cost, cash and quality.

The awards would be given away at the annual offsite, which would be attended by the india and multi business unit supply chain partners.The award would be based on the presentation given by each team on the work they did. The selection process was rigorous - Each presentation would be put to vote by the attendees, and also critically evaluated by the Leadership team. The combined score of highest votes and evaluation score would determine the winner.

We knew we had done a good job. But convincing our partners and the other nominess about this wasnt going to be an easy task. The Gillette business was new ...not everyone undertstood its complexity. During the last year, our team silently dealt with all the operational issues....Business was never impacted...and so no one really knew that there were quite a few sleepless nights a few ppl were spending to keep things working. Hence our work remained fairly invisible except to those who worked with us.

We knew we had to do 3 things in our presentation in order to atleast have a fighting chance:

1. Clearly explain the scale of the integration, the Gillete SC complexity and the business impact if things didnt work out.
2. Very simply explain the topline supply chain interventions we made in each quarter of the year in a CAR format (no data and numbers overkill)
3. Get creative in order to engage our audience - Audio visuals, humour and the like (and this i'm good at :) )

The presentation took us a week to create. Fortunately, we had a good flash presenatation, which I had helped develop for our team in singapore earlier this year. The concept fit in very well with our presentation. That gave us the much needed mind-blowing opening. The rest of the presentation was abt the work we did...all presented in movie format..with good background music, visuals and the like.

The real presentation-making actually started the evening before D-day. By the time we were done with the presentation...it was past midnight. We had to wake up the same morning at 5am to catch the bus to Aamby valley where the offsite would be held. After we finished, we decided to head for our homes and catch up on some much needed sleep. We figured that since we were fourth in the order of presentation, we would have some time to do the dry run the following day.

The following day...we reached Aamby valley around 11am. After the leadership's presentations, lunch commenced at around 1400. We were hoping to have a quick lunch and then spend the rest of the time practising. On telling one of the managers that we wanted to skip the first 3 presentations, in order to practice our prez...we were told we couldnt do that. At almost abt the same time, we were informed that we had go first as the original first team had some last minute issues due which their presentation had to be postponed.

We spent abt 15 mins doin a dry run...and then hit the stage. The AV started... and there was no lookin back after that. Having done endless dramas, movies spoofs, ad zaps, presentations etc on stage through my school and college days, I've come to recognise one thing -- I know when I've got the audience attention...I know precisely what the audience mood is...whether they are enjoying what are they are hearing and seeing....or not.

In this case, 5 minutes into the presentation....I knew we had the audience and we had them real good! Laughter, claps, smiles...this gave the 3 of us (TY's based in singapore and couldnt attend) the confidence to present even better.....as it usually happens.

The presentation ended.... all we heard was thunderous applause...and handshakes flying at us...
Kal and I had to head back to mumbai the same day. Ani stayed back for the rest of the 3 day offsite. The presentations continued through the rest of the day and the following day as well. There were some really good presentations and we were hoping to be atleast among the top 3. We were the underdogs really and the underdogs from the erstwhile Gillette company had managed to convince our partners that we did a good job. But whether the claps and handshakes would translate into votes....we didnt know. And frankly, it didnt matter as much. What mattered to us was that one year of work had got its fair share of voice and visibility.... and that was good enough.

The next night was the rewards night...... I was at home by 8...back from a tough day at work....we were having a serious import issue again. The rewards night would have started I thought to myself...and then promptly proceeded to eat dinner, browse the net and channel surf oblivious to everything else....i needed to take my mind off work......At about 10, as I was watchin TV, I get an sms from Ani ......

"We won first prize congrats! Will call later"

It took a few seconds...and then it hit... We had just been declared, in effect, the supply chain champions in P&G India for the year 06-07 !

The feeling has sunk in now. I lived in the moment for the rest of the night...Friday morning, the congratulations started pouring in. Friday afternoon, I was deeply embroiled into the import issue. Friday evening, I sat back and thought... 0708 is gonna be tougher...need to get moving.
And today, its back to business as usual.

I want to thank one person who coached and helped our young team through most of last year. Without his help, there's no way we would have made it - neither workwise nor emotionally. Girish Mittal has been the bedrock of this success and this recognition really goes to him. Girish was in a transition role in P&G and had left about 2 months ago to join as SC head for Guardian - a pharma retail chain. He's doing well there....and on telling him the good news, he was very happy for us.

All in all, a fantastic year.....

I'll sign off with this quote I came across....

"No one said it would be easy. They only told me it would be worth it..."