Work for the social cause with countless remuneration !! - Recensione dipendente - Institutional Sales Manager presso Driptech

I joined Driptech with three reasons; 1) practice my engineering skill, 2) apply Design Thinking/ Lean Startup process to solve real-world problems, and 3) learn more about social entrepreneurship. I got them all while I was at the company. On top of that, being in startup environment, I got to do many different things, which to me, it's a really valuable experience. Seeing Driptech growing from a single-digit number of employees to renting out a huge facility in India, it's unbelievable. Driptech has gone through several phases. But I'm sure its mission/vision hasn't changed.

At a high level, Driptech's business model is really challenging. Economy of scale is key, for profitability and social impact. In order to scale to that level, it needs tremendous resources. At the same time, if the Mother Nature isn't on its side, that's going to be rough. (Driptech mainly sells drip tapes which are generally used in dry season only.) To add more complexity, at a startup, there's no existing process/system. Employees need to learn and build it, which could be frustrating/confusing sometimes. That said, it's not a generic company that someone can just clock-in, clock-out and wait to climb up a corporate ladder.

My prime focus during my tenure here was to suggest and implement improvements in Driptech's Sales Operations, including improving dealer appointment and management and Sales Officer Productivity. The experience was extremely challenging considering local language barriers and the need to collaboratively work with people across functions to create, understand and analyse data and identify development opportunities. I would attribute my successful tenure at Driptech to the people, their team spirit and their constant willingness to guide others. Easy accessibility to the senior management allowed me to get feedback on my ideas real-time as well as get constant mentoring from them, which indeed is one of the biggest take aways from my experience here.

I often witnessed reluctance from the ground force in accepting productive changes/ suggestions in the traditional system. I believe if we can strengthen the connect between the Head Office and the field force by getting greater buy in from the ASMs through trainings and regular company meetings, we will definitely witness significant improvements in response from the ground force. Improving opportunities for the Sales officers might be good idea to keep them motivated and make them more responsive to new ideas.