|
Hot Seat
A journey fulfilled
L V Sastry, Associate Director, Xerox Global Services,
shares with Kusum Makhija the momentous events of his career.
L V Sastry |
For someone, who has spent 14 prime years of his life in an
organisation, and has evolved from being a sales representative to an Associate
Director, the journey should be fulfilling. L V Sastry has indeed come a long
way. “The bottomline is you need to love your work,” he believes.
As the Associate Director for Xerox Global Services business group for India,
Sastry is responsible for both Global Services strategy design and deployment.
This includes development of Global Services business strategies in areas of
office services, production services and document management solutions for critical
document processes in large and major customers across India. The scope comprises
developing markets, including market size and definition, coverage strategies,
identification of customer needs, and specific development and implementation
of document solutions and marketing programmes for the target market.
Sastry leads a team of over 400 document management professionals, including
the off-roll associates and consultants. “The first time when I got a big
deal—selling 30 photocopiers to one of the government departments in Hyderabad,
I remember the MD calling me personally and congratulating. The case study on
that deal was shared with the entire organisation, globally. Instances like
these act as huge driving force to excel in your profession. It was like a success
model which got replicated in other parts of the country and met success there
too,” reminisces Sastry.
With a master’s degree in business administration from
the Manchester School of Business, UK, Sastry has over 17 years of work experience
in document management and office automation industry. He joined Xerox in 1991
and has since then worked in several managerial positions in field customer
operations and central marketing organisation. He has experience in major account
selling, regional sales management, branch operations management, product development
and marketing, business promotion and customer engagement marketing programmes.
He turned the fortunes of the Vizag branch which was doing a meagre turnover
of Rs 2.5–3 crore and was about to be closed down by the company, into
a profitable venture (Rs 20 crore business division).
“Being in a sales and marketing job, there are challenges that you come
across quite often. Such situations have kept me alive and kicking,” states
Sastry.
The Global Services division of Xerox focusses on providing end-to-end solutions
for companies all over the world and not just in India. It was set up two years
ago in India. The challenges when the services division was formed were immense
as it was difficult to convince customers to value services and make them pay
for it. “Initially it was difficult for us to convince customers to see
the value we bring to the table with our services, but now we have a fair share
of customers who understand business needs and importance of productivity,”
points out Sastry.
Being in a demanding career, Sastry must have faced many challenges but his
determination to do better has helped him pull through difficult times. “While
there have been a lot of changes especially with the Indian subsidiary in the
last four to five years, Xerox fundamentally is a good organisation to work
with. It is highly process driven and has a record of producing the best management
within the company.”
An avid golf player, Sastry spends his free time playing
or rather learning, as he puts it. What started as a hobby for him is slowly
turning into a passion. “I want to write a book on golf someday, something
like a ‘beginners guide to playing golf’ for people like me who are
fascinated by the game,” he chuckles. The passion and perseverance needed
for golf are reflected in the way he works and the way he has evolved over the
years.
kusum@expresscomputeronline.com
|
