Tale of Three Cities

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.