December 2015

I enjoy traveling and meeting people. An agriculture based company provided me just the opportunity and exposure that I love.

Meeting Farmers, gathering insights to carry out grass root communications to promote best practices in agriculture is something that I really enjoy. Furthermore since I bring in HR principals into my communications model, I look at processes too and provide my advice because it also has a bearing on communications.

When the company changed its name and wanted a new logo developed, I worked closely with many of its managers to articulate the value proposition, brand architecture, etc. Once my brief was agreed upon I sourced four different parties to present logo designs. Since the new approach had to be kept under the wraps and from the competitors getting to know about the new plans, me working with Designer in North America worked fine. I had to stay up in the night or wake up early morning for skype calls because of the time differences. The final product (Logo design and brand guideline manual) was brilliant.

Website for Bio-Organic Food Store in the Middle East – Working online for people whom you don’t meet face to face is in fact can be very easy. When one produces good work, it doesn’t need selling.

One of associates working in Colombo was one link in the chain. He was working for another person in the Middle East whose Client was a Bio-Organic Food Outlet. My job was to come up with a concept and write content copy the website. This was one of the smoothest and easiest jobs that I had undertaken. When a concept and copy is spot on – it will do its own selling.

The Divisions of a large company were working in Silos. Each one on his own with very little team mindset. I was called in to carry out an internal communication campaign to bring all together as one team.

“What exactly do you do in the case of internal communications” the prospective Client asked me. After a 45 minute presentation, I was signed up for a 4 month project. I came up with a concept and internal communication strategy for the client. Internal research was carried out to understand the goals and aspirations of the staff and how they relate to each other. Internal communication lines and processes were studied. I came up with a campaign strategy called “Bright Ideas” and I asked for a cross functional team to implement same. The Managing Director asked me to work with the Operational level – Mid level managers. They came up with a programme where staff got engaged in finding answers to all operational and management issues. The Operational Team bonded. They helped to build bridges. The teams started to work together.

My associates in Middle East could not see eye to eye with my other local partner. Managing relations between the team members became a more or less a full time job.

The Philosophy of Avanke` is such that team constructs are based on value addition as well as emotional intelligence and adaptability of each team member. So I brought in another expert to the table which worked very well for the next two projects. We carried out a retail audit for a mobile operator and impact assessment on training programnmes that are sponsored by a semi government organization in the Middle East.

Client in the Middle East, Consultants in Colombo and Analyst in USA… Precision coordination was required to deliver desired results. Working with different cultural traits and on different time zones was quite challenging.

A Company engaged in HR training, Change Management and Process Re-engineering based in the Middle East ventured out to undertake market research. The Company engaged me to work on the bid proposals for research tenders. We tried some, were short listed but failed to clinch the deal. Then the first job came our way. We won the first research tender -A public opinion survey on marketing communications conducted by a semi government organization. With an excellent Project Management Team on ground with my limited experience and knowledge of the market we pulled it off very well.

The next couple of jobs that came our way (An impact assessments, customer satisfaction surveys etc.) required greater expertise. That is when we decided to bring in Consultants and Experts with similar values and principals. I worked as the qualitative expert and I brought in another renowned and experienced team from Colombo who undertook the quantitative research area. Our analyst was based in the US and when he was up others were sleeping… dealing with different work cultures had its own difficulties. Despite frequent stepping on toes, the work that was finally done met our Client’s satisfaction. I found the work quite enriching and I became a frequent visitor to the Middle East.

Working with a Not for Profit research organization broadened my scope. I got the opportunity to get involved in social research.

My Father together with few others had started a civil society initiative and development research center 40 years ago. Right throughout my youth all I heard at home was about his work. I was living and breathing all the civil society activity that took place in the country and development research that his Institute was engaged in. After I started my own Consultancy Avanke`Marcom, I had more time to get involved with my father’s work and received better exposure on island wide research work.