I reached the meeting room just on time this morning and in fact the clients had arrived a minute before I did. We went ahead with our breakfast and then resumed our meetings. Buoyed by the confidence I received after the presentation on the previous day, the demo I had today was a cake-walk. The client did ask few questions and I must admit that I came back with good responses.
We then had a walk-thru around the campus this day as well. But this time, the clients came out with their cameras and it was time for a lot of photo-ops. We even had the mandatory team pictures taken at a couple of scenic places.
We wound up for the day by around 5 and were out on the road headed to the famous Golkonda Fort. I think what happened after that has already been chronicled by me here.
In effect, I missed learning about the Fort and also didn’t get the opportunity to roam around the ruins. Anyways, since it was late in the evening, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it, though the authorities had installed lights at many places in the ruins itself. But these lights were only for a cosmetic effect and I think I have one more trip pending just to see this Fort.
We had dinner at a really fancy restaurant that was attached to the Hotel where our clients were staying. The food was outstanding especially their desserts. We split for the day and I finally reached my room by 11.15 PM.
Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
Client and Hyderabad Visit - Day 1 - 20/Oct/08
Continuing my trend of waking up early on Monday mornings, I got up by 6.45 AM that day. Since I was going to get me regular filter coffee, I had to make do with the instant coffee that was available in the room. I then logged on to the Internet to check the morning newspaper of The Hindu. I took my time to get ready, but by 7.40, I was out of the room. We all then headed out to the office building where the meetings were arranged. After leaving our bags in the room, we then stepped out to receive the customers. By then, I was sporting my blazer and thankfully it still fit me (it was short even when it was first stitched 4 years ago). And I must admit this - the only thing that makes me look good is the blazer, but I think the blazer/coat-suit has the capacity to make anyone look good.
Anyways, the customers then came along in their car to the front of the building. We were introduced and I got a really knuckle breaking hand shake from the man. I don’t give a dead-fish hand-shake but this one was almost crunching the bones and I had to strain that extra bit to return the favor. The lady, however, gave a normal hand-shake. We then took them to the conference room and then we kinda started getting into the official portion of the visit. And a quick racial profiling - the guy is a Maratha who's settled in the US for almost 20 years and the lady is a red-headed Caucasian.
One of my senior managers gave a presentation about the organization and left the presentation about my unit to me! It was my first time presenting those slides to any customer. The only other time I'd even seen these slides was during a client visit in Jan '08, but my job then was to only click the buttons to move the slides while some other senior managers were doing the talking. So, when I had to start presenting these slides, I got a bit nervous and for the first couple of slides I couldn’t really do anything more than just read what was there. Luckily the senior manager was still around, so I deftly (or so I think) pointed to him and asked "Would you like to add some more?” I am sure he thought "Add? What did this guy say in the first place for me to add? I actually have to create not add." But he did bail me out for the first couple of slides and by the 4th-5th slide I regained my composure and was able to present a decent picture.
The rest of the day went quite peacefully with a good time spent on going around the campus. The campus at Hyderabad is quite a big one and needless to say, the two of them were really impressed. We ended the day around 4.15 PM and started the quasi-official part of the day. The plan was to take our clients to Charminar, but by the time we got there, the gates were closed. So we saw the monument from outside and spent the rest of the evening walking around the Chudi Bazaar (Bangle Market). There were quite a lot of small shops peddling bangles of various shapes, sizes, color, stones, artwork etc. All these were of course made of either glass or lacquer or glass or some metal and none were made of costly metals like Gold or Silver and none of the stones were actual precious or even semi-precious stones. And one had to bargain real hard otherwise we were bound to pay up some 4 times the actual cost.
We tried our hand at bargaining but failed miserably. While the language was not an issue - most of the shop-keepers spoke in Hindi and Urdu and my program manager's mother tongue was Hindi. So also the client. And I too could manage some amount of spoken Hindi though it may have sounded like Mehmood in Padosan! The real issue with bargaining was the very skill. And call me anything, but I think women are winners when it comes to bargaining. We were all given instructions to start at 25% of what the shopkeeper asks. But I found out that none of us could really ask that value. We men invariably started at 50%. And even on the odd occasion that we started at 25%, the shopkeeper simply refused to talk further and we too just walked away. I am sure women would have managed to keep the shopkeeper interested in the sale, but the only woman in our group at that time was a "Gori" - white lady - who didn’t speak Hindi. So that settled the matter and after an hour of walking around the bazaar we simply returned to the car.
We went out to some restaurant for dinner. Having stayed in AC the whole day, then being exposed to lot of dust at the bazaar and all this on a stomach that was rumbling with the food in the office, it was slowly getting into my head and I was not feeling too well. Even at the dinner table, I didn’t eat anything properly. We finally dropped off the clients at their hotel and when I returned to my room, it was after 11 PM. I still had some office work to do and I wound up the day after another 45 minutes or so.
Anyways, the customers then came along in their car to the front of the building. We were introduced and I got a really knuckle breaking hand shake from the man. I don’t give a dead-fish hand-shake but this one was almost crunching the bones and I had to strain that extra bit to return the favor. The lady, however, gave a normal hand-shake. We then took them to the conference room and then we kinda started getting into the official portion of the visit. And a quick racial profiling - the guy is a Maratha who's settled in the US for almost 20 years and the lady is a red-headed Caucasian.
One of my senior managers gave a presentation about the organization and left the presentation about my unit to me! It was my first time presenting those slides to any customer. The only other time I'd even seen these slides was during a client visit in Jan '08, but my job then was to only click the buttons to move the slides while some other senior managers were doing the talking. So, when I had to start presenting these slides, I got a bit nervous and for the first couple of slides I couldn’t really do anything more than just read what was there. Luckily the senior manager was still around, so I deftly (or so I think) pointed to him and asked "Would you like to add some more?” I am sure he thought "Add? What did this guy say in the first place for me to add? I actually have to create not add." But he did bail me out for the first couple of slides and by the 4th-5th slide I regained my composure and was able to present a decent picture.
The rest of the day went quite peacefully with a good time spent on going around the campus. The campus at Hyderabad is quite a big one and needless to say, the two of them were really impressed. We ended the day around 4.15 PM and started the quasi-official part of the day. The plan was to take our clients to Charminar, but by the time we got there, the gates were closed. So we saw the monument from outside and spent the rest of the evening walking around the Chudi Bazaar (Bangle Market). There were quite a lot of small shops peddling bangles of various shapes, sizes, color, stones, artwork etc. All these were of course made of either glass or lacquer or glass or some metal and none were made of costly metals like Gold or Silver and none of the stones were actual precious or even semi-precious stones. And one had to bargain real hard otherwise we were bound to pay up some 4 times the actual cost.
We tried our hand at bargaining but failed miserably. While the language was not an issue - most of the shop-keepers spoke in Hindi and Urdu and my program manager's mother tongue was Hindi. So also the client. And I too could manage some amount of spoken Hindi though it may have sounded like Mehmood in Padosan! The real issue with bargaining was the very skill. And call me anything, but I think women are winners when it comes to bargaining. We were all given instructions to start at 25% of what the shopkeeper asks. But I found out that none of us could really ask that value. We men invariably started at 50%. And even on the odd occasion that we started at 25%, the shopkeeper simply refused to talk further and we too just walked away. I am sure women would have managed to keep the shopkeeper interested in the sale, but the only woman in our group at that time was a "Gori" - white lady - who didn’t speak Hindi. So that settled the matter and after an hour of walking around the bazaar we simply returned to the car.
We went out to some restaurant for dinner. Having stayed in AC the whole day, then being exposed to lot of dust at the bazaar and all this on a stomach that was rumbling with the food in the office, it was slowly getting into my head and I was not feeling too well. Even at the dinner table, I didn’t eat anything properly. We finally dropped off the clients at their hotel and when I returned to my room, it was after 11 PM. I still had some office work to do and I wound up the day after another 45 minutes or so.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Client visit
Last Tuesday, there was a client visit in the office. I was helping out in the preparation of one presentation, but the point to be noted was that I had to collate a couple of case studies from different teams and append it to the standard set of slides we have.
By virtue of having "worked" on that presentation, I was asked to be physically present when my bosses were going to run through the slides with the client.
The meeting was attended by few of my big bosses, the lowest ranked among them being in the 3rd level above me! So, I was designated to control the PPT on the laptop and the lowest ranked boss would do that actual talking. Our meeting started 5 minutes later than scheduled and when the biggest of my bosses(he reports to the Board of Directors) came into the meeting after 10 minutes, the conversation steered away from the PPT and got into a generic Q&A session.
And while anyone in the room (including me) could have answered the questions, etiquette demanded that only the bigger of the bosses reply. So there I was sitting idly with my fingers on the keyboard, moving my head towards the direction where a speech was happening, nodding my head in general to show a sign of solidarity with the speaker and also throwing in a half-smile or full-smile depending on whether the perceived-to-be-funny remark came from my bosses or from the client (he got the full-smile obviously).
It didn't deter me that no one was really looking in my direction. Perhaps the only guy who took note of my presence, was the one who was serving us coffee/tea.
Thankfully the charade got over quickly since we had to wrap up the session at a designated time. We bid goodbye and left the place. And since the meeting was in the branch closer to my home, I seized the opportunity of returning home early and was home by 6.15 PM.
By virtue of having "worked" on that presentation, I was asked to be physically present when my bosses were going to run through the slides with the client.
The meeting was attended by few of my big bosses, the lowest ranked among them being in the 3rd level above me! So, I was designated to control the PPT on the laptop and the lowest ranked boss would do that actual talking. Our meeting started 5 minutes later than scheduled and when the biggest of my bosses(he reports to the Board of Directors) came into the meeting after 10 minutes, the conversation steered away from the PPT and got into a generic Q&A session.
And while anyone in the room (including me) could have answered the questions, etiquette demanded that only the bigger of the bosses reply. So there I was sitting idly with my fingers on the keyboard, moving my head towards the direction where a speech was happening, nodding my head in general to show a sign of solidarity with the speaker and also throwing in a half-smile or full-smile depending on whether the perceived-to-be-funny remark came from my bosses or from the client (he got the full-smile obviously).
It didn't deter me that no one was really looking in my direction. Perhaps the only guy who took note of my presence, was the one who was serving us coffee/tea.
Thankfully the charade got over quickly since we had to wrap up the session at a designated time. We bid goodbye and left the place. And since the meeting was in the branch closer to my home, I seized the opportunity of returning home early and was home by 6.15 PM.
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