Hot Seat

“Creating new things motivates me”

Alok Bharadwaj

At Canon, Alok Bharadwaj enjoys his work and feels like an architect who designs and puts building blocks in place. For him, achievement means developing people, he tells Sneha Khanna.

There are people who count their success by awards, and there are others who count their achievements by developing people. Alok Bharadwaj, Vice-president of Canon India, is among the latter. Bharadwaj’s personal and professional dreams meet at Canon—seeing his company at the No 1 position in the market in all its product lines.

From being a topper in his academic life to being a top-notch professional at Canon was a long journey for him. He was born in a small town called Vrindavan in UP. Bharadwaj attributes his success to his family’s simple lifestyle. His father’s commitment to personal growth had encouraged him to work harder which resulted in his career success.

But the real inspiration comes from the man himself. “I am self motivated. Creating new accomplishments and being a part of that process is my biggest motivating factor. I am my own critic and like to enlarge my circle of influence by being a sponge. I am always looking to expand the circle, and that motivates me tremendously. Creating new things rather than managing the status quo gives me the motivation.”

One incident that changed Bharadwaj’s life was a simple micro-economics test at his MBA class. “Being an engineer, I had not read a single topic in economics. The class comprised a lot of students from humanities and economics. As I struggled to prepare, I consulted our professor who told me that the best way to learn anything is not to float but to undertake a deep dive and build strong foundation in understanding. I took it as a challenge, and to everyone’s surprise scored the highest.”

Being an engineer and an MBA gave Bharadwaj a chance to work with different firms like Voltas, Usha and Motorola, helping him to broaden his horizons in sales, management and relationship-building. “At Voltas, I picked up and mastered selling skills and relationship-building. In Usha International I sharpened my managerial and business management skills. Extensive travel to 366 towns in India gave me a deep insight into the dynamics of the Indian market. The profit-centric approach of the company brought high cost-consciousness. High discipline about time and deadlines shaped my habits. Motorola taught me leadership and the team-working approach. Diversified global experience filled the missing pieces in my knowledge. Working in a flat organisation helped me build multi-tasking skills.”

Bharadwaj contributed towards every organisation he worked with, starting from Voltas in 1985 (where he built a strong distribution channel) to building up a strong and committed sales team in Usha. At Motorola, he strategised strong channel focus in the organisation. But it was at Canon that he started enjoying his work the most. “I saw a plain canvas. I felt like an architect who designs and puts building blocks in place. Both sides of the brain were stretched—strategising and executing.”

At Canon, Bharadwaj’s biggest challenge was in building effective teams by converging the different forces of interpersonal relations, communication, understanding expectations and delivering. His current job of a ‘navigator’ at Canon is to constantly visualise the future for business growth, and mould teams into high-performing vehicles. But, according to him, his real achievement was developing people, inculcating new learning in them, enabling them to perform better, and making them stronger and more confident.

Apart from being a strict advocate of time management and teamwork, Bharadwaj believes in reviewing oneself from time to time and building one’s assets of knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours. His wife is a scientist and they are blessed with two children. While he enjoys wine-tasting and travelling to sea resorts and backwaters, what gives Bharadwaj a constant thrill is building strong brand equity, and organising large events and marketing programmes.