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Faces of the CompanyCorporate Communication Manager plays a significant role in an organization, which involves overseeing the planning and

operations of the corporate communications team, creating a strong corporate, financial and market branding through aneffective advertising and sales promotion programmes, media and investor relations activities, and to identify and implementa sustainable CSR programme, among others. The image and relationships of the company with partners, competitors andconsumers rely heavily on the performance of the team and those in charge of doing Corporate Communication Manager jobs.VARIndia takes it as an honour to highlight these people who prefer to remain low profile, but make significant contributions

to the communications and public relations objectives of an organization.

Abhinaya Vedula, DGM, Corporate Communications & New Business Initiatives,SatNav Technologies

All of this year, Abhinaya has focussed on propagating SatGuide both in the eyes of the media as well as tocustomers in terms of its website and collateral that is out in the stores. SatGuide has gained tremendouscoverage all the year long. It is very important for all the material, all ads, all written communications that go outfrom her desk to be eye catchy as well as convey the message in as few words as possible. Corporate Communicationdepartment at SatNav Technology has been highly successful.

She conducts training in a fun manner discussing each person’s mannerisms, way they dress, way they interactboth internally and externally. Overall, she has received feedback that the training has been excellent, an eye-opener and yet really fun. In addition, she has run a month-long activity on Office Etiquette for all associates,which were basically simple Do’s and Don’ts in and around the office. This was also done in a light-heartedmanner with pictures portraying things that people do unconsciously but are generally not appreciated by all.These activities have tremendously changed the outlook of people and the company is portrayed in a professionalmanner by each and every associate.

Sandeep Sharma, Vice-President (India Operations), Kobian IndiaSandeep Sharma handpicked an aggressive sales team with a strong team building approach to ensure a

“Vertical Heirarchy” approach in the organization and to enable faster decisions and results. He has a proactive,analytical and futuristic approach. His major role includes forecasting a product life cycle to the internationalproduct team depending on the prevailing market forces and market conditions, branding and co- brandingstrategic planning and implementation across different product lines, distribution management with experiencedsales team and distribution channel and long- term relationship building with channel partners across India.

With a total experience of 18 years in the industry with channel marketing experience across India, he hasmarketed solutions as well as components strengthening channel relationship approach ensuring value add fromboth the vendor and the channel partner. He has distribution management experience of more than 10 years.He has worked with almost all the major component distributors across India. He has product managementexperience of more than five years. He has handled a vast range of products in Kobian itself. He always believedin long-term relationship building, which is mutually beneficial to both the organization and an individual.

Anjali Kakkar, Corporate Communications Manager, Avaya GlobalConnectAnjali has been with Avaya GlobalConnect for almost 6 years and brings over 10 years of worthy experience

to the desk encompassing PR, Branding and developing C-Level marketing programmes. She is spearheadingPublic Relations for Avaya GlobalConnect, Global Connect Australia and Avaya India. Under her able expertisein corporate communications, Avaya garnered tremendous mindshare as a leader and a vendor of choice incontact centers, IP telephony and unified communications market.

Her role in making Avaya synonymous to Customer Responsiveness has been exemplary. Anjali was thoroughlyinvolved in the various campaigns that Avaya launched, including the recent Contact Centre Tour across 14cities in the Asia-Pacific region. She helped position Avaya as an entity committed to go beyond customersatisfaction.

Anjali’s role in building Avaya as a brand in India speaks volumes. Not only has she been able to increaseawareness about Avaya but also bring to the fore the benefits of networking and business communicationsolutions. In this economic downturn, when companies are reducing costs while increasing efficiency, it is essential for them to look for prospectivevendors who can supplement their business growth. Anjali, by and large, has been able to make contributions by enhancing awareness in this regard.

Reema Sarin, AVP, Global Marketing and Corporate Communications, and Head of CSR,AppLabs

Reema Sarin heads the Global Marketing, Corporate Communications & Public Relations function for AppLabs.Reema played a major role in AppLabs’ re-branding activity, helped in reinforcing the company’s brand identity

with all the external and internal stakeholders globally. She is instrumental in taking the AppLabs’ brand tofurther heights of visibility and excellence in synergy with the company’s growth. She has’also single-handedlyevangelized the company’s move towards corporate social responsibility. The objectives of ACT are definedquarterly by Reema along with a team of employees who form the decision-making committee. In the past

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couple of years, great strides have been made towards integrating CSR into the core culture of the company under her leadership.

In her present position, Reema has helped AppLabs gain significant brand visibility as the “world’s largest independent testing and qualitymanagement company”. Reema has been working in the IT industry since 1997. Reema is very good at multi-tasking. She not only looks after theactivities related to Corporate Marketing, Public Relations and Industry Alliances at AppLabs, but she is also actively involved with AppLabsCharitable Trust, the CSR wing of AppLabs. She is also actively involved in Employee Engagement initiatives. She also heads the AppLabs FitnessClub. Reema teaches aerobics to over 150 registered members.”Over the years, Reema has established her position as a thought leader in themarketing space. She is a US-certified fitness trainer and consultant, an avid traveller, music lover and a reader.

Rashmi Dutta, Brand Marketing Manager – India, ViewSonic Technologies India Pvt. Ltd.Rashmi Dutta has an illustrious career spanning 8 years, which includes experience of both Sales and Marketing

Communications primarily from sectors like media and Information Technology. As the Brand Marketing Managerof ViewSonic‘s India operations, she is responsible for establishing India brand infrastructure for the displaygiant for all its existing and upcoming product lines.

Rashmi Dutta was instrumental in developing India brand strategy of ViewSonic to strengthen its position inthe market. She also worked closely with various Business Units of ViewSonic International Corporation withinthe Asia-Pacific region towards successful implementation of global communication plans and structures withinIndia. To ensure continuous and dynamic growth for ViewSonic in the country, she played an active role indeveloping a 360-degree marketing and communication strategy and successfully implemented it across onlineand offline media to address various audiences and geographies. She played a critical role in ensuring that thebrand is salient at all points in time in the consumer’s mind.

Shobha Vasudevan, Manager – Marcom & PR, Canon India Pvt. Ltd.Shobha has been with Canon for almost 71/2 years and brings over 12 years of worthy experience to the desk

encompassing PR, Branding and advertising. She is spearheading Public Relations and advertising for CanonIndia.

Shobha has played a pivotal role in building such a positive image of Canon in the country. It is with herconstant efforts that the company is able to effectively communicate its goal and promise of providing themasses with quality and superior products. Shobha has come up with some innovative marketing campaignsfrom time to time when Canon needed to penetrate in the tier II & III cities through regional media. Canon’scity-specific projects for its printer division like Aamchi Mumbai, Namma Bengaluru and Namma Chennai havebeen strategic and innovative initiatives to reach out to the regional markets, which have been Canon’s focus tocapture greater market share.

Shobha’s contribution in building Canon as a brand in India speaks volumes. The IT sector has constantly been evolving and she kept pace withthe developments. She has been successful in making Canon the strong brand in the highly dynamic and competitive marketplace.

Vinit Shangle, National Sales Manager, Simmtronics Semiconductors LtdVinit joined Simmtronics about a year back and the entire India operation has been revamped in this one

year. In this one year, he has managed to open 9 more offices in India, taking the strength of offices to 11 now.He has successfully implemented a sales model, wherein Simmtronics has made

“DISTRIBUTOR” a redundant community in their chain of operations, thus cutting down the margin ofone tier in the process. Vinit also launched almost six programmes for the partners in the last eight months.Some of them were”“HEAT THE BEAT – MAURITIUS STYLE”, “SIMMTRONICS GOLD HUNGAMA”and”“OLYMPIC MANIA 2008”. All these programmes created a lot of excitement in the partner communityand the company saw a quantum increase in its DBPs.

Vinit is working towards the company’s vision of setting up 20 sales offices across India by March 2009,taking the company’s turnover to new heights. With the setting up of motherboard manufacturing facility inRoorkee which will be ready for production by January 2009, he is confident of selling 40–45K motherboardstaking Simmtronics in the top three motherboard companies in India. On the international front, he has been successful in launching sales ofmotherboards and graphic cards through Dubai, Singapore, Thailand and France offices. With 18 years of Sales / Marketing / Product / Channel/ Team Management experience, Vinit is Mathematic (Hons) Graduate from the University of Ajmer (Scholarship awardee) and Postgraduate inComputer Applications from IST, (affiliated to IMT, Ghaziabad) Delhi.

Kavita Nath, Marketing and Communications Manager, South Asia, LogitechKavita has been with Logitech for the past 7 years and has been instrumental in nurturing the growth of the

brand in India and now across South East Asia as well. During the last brand awareness survey done, Logitechreached the awareness level in the Indian market to 82 per cent. Her contribution to Logitech India has beenrecognized and the India team achieved a few awards for the best marketing campaigns in India. About 15months back, she took over the responsibility of handling marketing and communications for South East Asia,besides India. Under her active leadership, Logitech is now positioned as a digital lifestyle peripheral brand andnot just a mouse company.

Kavita has been instrumental in growing the peripherals market through the use of communications. Manyof the products introduced by Logitech have been in completely new product categories. The categories neededa huge push through marketing communications, especially by educating the consumer. Her expertise in marketingnot just new products but completely new technology that pushes a digital lifestyle has contributed to Logitech’s ability to grow the IT andconsumer lifestyle markets for its products. Following the international trends, Kavita has been quick to adapt to the retail scenario in India and hasdeployed resources to ensure Logitech’s visibility in the retail spaces, besides Consumer Electronic and IT channels.

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Milinda Banerjee, Liaison Representative, Buffalo Inc., IndiaThe role of Milinda Banerjee, Liaison Representative, Buffalo Inc., India, is to develop a wider market in

India for the products of the company and to achieve targets and goals of the company.Milinda Banerjee has made a notable contribution to the IT industry. Being associated with Inside Sales in

the Product Selling Group, HP, he developed and maintained thorough knowledge about the market, the companyand its services. Now, he is the Liaison Representative, Buffalo Inc., India with a vision to widen the customerbase for the innovative range of Buffalo products in India.

Rajiv Bhalla, Country Head– Marketing, NEC India Pvt. Ltd.In the short span of eight months, since being on the board of NEC India Pvt. Ltd., Rajiv has been responsible

for helping increase awareness, visibility, interest leading to increased footprint and sales for NEC Brand acrossCommercial Display, IT platforms, Telephony space. He has been responsible for leveraging Strategic Partnershipsand has helped NEC focus on the key segments like hospitality and education for further growth. A firmbeliever in Direct Marketing and Relationship Building, he has replaced outdated Mass Marketing tactics with atargeted consumer-centric approach. Rajiv has 17 years of marketing experience, having worked across consumerelectronics, liquor, and IT domains.

Prior to joining NEC, Rajiv spent over four years with Microsoft India as the Lead Marketing Manager forthe OEM Division. At Microsoft, he was instrumental for the India launch of Windows Vista. He has createda new category establishing the entertainment functionality of the PC through the successful launch of WindowsXP Media Center Edition PCs with OEM partners like HP, HCL and Sahara. During his time, the company hasgrown the share of Genuine at Retail by 18% points in one year. Similarly, the market for Genuine WindowsBased PCs grew by over 40% (PC Market growth rate 25%). He has worked with the education segment to helpintegrate IT in teaching and Learning Practices through establishment of IT Academy centers in the key statesand implementation of Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Initiative.

Govind Rammurthy,CEO & MD, MicroWorldGovind Rammurthy graduated from the VJTI Institute of Engineering with a degree in Computer Science.

After graduation, he had a brief stint with TELCO, one of the Fortune 100 companies in India, where he wasinvolved in the core team in managing the complete networking project of TELCO. Govind founded MicroWorldin 1993, and in the same year became the company’s CEO & Managing Director. Within a short span of 15years, he has taken MicroWorld to become one of the global companies with a partner network spread acrossthe world. Today, Govind is one of the most well-known and respected figures in India’s Information Technologysector.

Govind had set up MicroWorld in the year 1993 with a team of three engineers and indigenously developedan antivirus solution called Red-Armour. Govind has been involved in developing products for the securityindustry for more than 13 years and is a recognized software expert in the industry circles. He is the corearchitect for MWL technology, which is the world’s first real-time content scanner.

Ankesh Kumar, Head – Marketing & Communication, Emerson Network Power IndiaAnkesh’s main role at Emerson includes establishing marketing organization and implementing global

marketing programmes, as per regional specific requirements. He has been instrumental in marketing strategyand planning for the organization. He has set up various marketing programmes, web tools to help channelpartners and enterprise users to understand products and service in a much simpler way.

He is responsible for naming and branding of ITON Range of UPS System and planning entire launchactivities for the same. He has played a key role in Emerson marketing alliance with global players to offer end-to-end solution to the IT community.

Krishna PV, Marketing Manager, TANDBERGKrishna’s role at TANDBERG is to act as a bridge between the company and its stakeholders, including end-

users, channels who sell their solutions to the customer. He takes care of complete marketing and communication,Public Relations and Channel marketing and plays a very vital role in generating visibility to the brand and toproducts and solutions.

This vital role additionally involves driving of worldwide marketing plans of TANDBERG into India andimplementing them successfully. His role further involves studying specific verticals that are planning to investin a technology like video conferencing and ensure that he creates visibility around these verticals. He hasstrengthened the channel outreach and marketing programme, especially in the tier-II cities where the deploymentof video conferencing is growing at a faster pace.

Krishna has spent more than four years in Video Conferencing and Networking industry. He is the manbehind the launch of some of the key initiatives in the Video Conferencing industry in India. For instance, way back in 2005, he played a key rolein promoting video conferencing in verticals like education, tele-medicine and judicial area, as these were the key verticals which require VCdeployment across India. Furthermore, he helped promote Video Conferencing to the channel community by making them understand its importanceand why they should invest in a new technology like Video Conferencing, which was at that time new to the SI community and channel partnersacross India. He worked with some of the national-level players / distributors and helped them to launch this new category of business to theirchannel partners and create media presence.

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Navinder Singh Chahan,Manager Marketing – India, Panduit IndiaNavinder has made a good start by creating awareness of Panduit’s brand in the marketplace, and in building

the alliances’ relationships, and the enablement of partners. He has taken the leadership role in his marketingfunction establishing a solid platform for Panduit India. This was evident from the number of events, Panduitpresence in the media and Partner community programmes. Challenged to develop the Data communicationand Electrical Marketing plan which include the strategic/ tactical elements and the budget to effectively launchPanduit’s products, he spearheaded functions and lead in developing events and other activities targeted atdecision-makers/ influencers in high-priority vertical markets.

Navinder has been in the IT industry now for more than 10 year and has worked in various successfulorganizations. He has been instrumental in launching some of the biggest partner programmes throughout hiscareer, helping brands to reach out to uncharted territories of India, helping partners and brand come togetheron a common platform.

Garima Sinha,Manager – Corporate Communication, Ramco SystemsAt Ramco, Garima plays an active and crucial role within and outside the company. Externally, she provides

the strategic direction and makes the world aware about the organization’s vision, mission, capability and future.In other words, she acts as a brand custodian and a link between the Ramco and the external environment. Sheplays a significant role in managing PR and ensures the wider reach and visibility for the brand and aids demandgeneration. Internally, she acts as a key binding thread in the organization and unites businesses in one andbrings in the transparency which is the vital aspect of running a successful operation. One of the most crucialand important functionalities taken by Garima at Ramco is the dissemination of important news like orderwins, go-live and other happenings across 18 locations of Ramco spread in nine countries.

She is helping the IT industry in building awareness on SaaS as an alternative means of delivering andaccessing an application which offers tremendous benefits to the Indian customers and SMBs in particular.Recently, the initiative of Garima in building industry-academia relation≠ ship to empower students for the corporate world by signing MoUs withuniversity has strengthened the bonding between students and IT industry. She has also been instrumental in creating awareness about IT and itsbenefits specifically in the ERP field in the tier-III cities and SMB clusters. IT as a tool for growth has been strongly spoken and demonstratedthrough seminars, exhibitions, press interactions in industrial clusters for their collective growth and transformation.

Nirmalya Biswas, Marketing Manager, Brother International IndiaMarketing Communication as a function involves communicating with the internal and external environment.

It plays a pivotal role in portraying the image of the Brand to the outside world, which enables the customer tocreate a perception whether positive or negative. Nirmalya has been successful in creating a perception of theBrother being a “growing” and”“modern” brand in the IT market (a qualitative research conducted in 2007-2008). The global presence of the Brand has also helped Brother in achieving the goals. Within a short stint inthe country since its operations commenced, he has managed to reach out to a wide range of customers indifferent segments of the society.

In a short span of two years’ time, Brother has managed to capture 2.3% of the Inkjet Multi-functionmarket, 4.5% of the Laser Multi-Function Centre Market (Source: IDC). With the limited resources and thehuge task to be achieved, Nirmalya has done a considerably fair job. The Marcom department along with othershas been supporting sales and shouldering the responsibility for taking the task head on. Finally, it is the Marcomdepartment which is the face of the organization.

Norbert Jacobsen, Managing Director, SOCOMEC UPS IndiaNorbert Jacobsen is the key person to transform the company’s strategies for Socomec’s greater penetration

in the Indian market with the best-in-class products. He took the initiative to launch 8–60kVA UPS into thechannel market with IGBT-based machines which is today’s “Green Power” UPS system. Under his leadership,Socomec India has set up offices in 14 cities with complete Sales and Service support across India. The biggestchallenge is to penetrate into a huge country like India with presence in the B & C class cities and he hasachieved this by tying up with Redington India Pvt. Ltd. Now, RIL is Socomec’s distribution partner for Indiaand will give a better reach in the market.

Jacobsen’s contribution to the IT industry is promoting “Green Power” UPS systems with the help of IGBT-based machines. These are the UPS systems which are having maximum efficiency and minimum losses. In theIT industry, the most important thing is”“Business Critical Continuity” and he has launched new UPS systemswith IGBT technology for the support of the business-critical continuity and keeps the networks ON. He has given the vision to the industry byexplaining how UPS systems can reduce the OPEX of the IT industry by saving energy and saving environmentwith the concept of “Green UPS”.

Lucy Wang, Marketing and Sales Director, Nanopoint Technology IncLucy is responsible for creating more business and market share in Asia-Pacific for Nanopoint brands. She

has an experience of 15 years in the IT from ODM/OEM to the clone brand market. She is responsible forbringing the OEM/ODM concept to brand business to minimize the gap with distributors as the family.

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L. K. Pathak ,Chief Manager, Corporate Communication, CyberoamL. K. Pathak has linked corporate communication strategy with the organizational goals very effectively, the

most challenging of which has been to ensure maximum visibility for Cyberoam in the security market, creatingmore brand equity among the end-users and Channel partners. He has managed to create a lot of curiosityaround identity-based security solution, customers’ perception and their willingness to listen to Cyberoam whichhas helped to achieve real competitive advantage.

His most vital contribution to the IT industry has been to create a positive mindset for UTM. He has createdawareness around Cyber Terrorism / Security, vulnerability of the WiFi network at hotspots and other locationshas been very significant. He has made a special effort in creating awareness about the Insider threat – measuresto counter the threat within the organization, and making the security industry aware of the importance ofIdentity as the most important paradigm of Internet security that needs attention. The Cyberoam USP has beenits identity-based solution that helps the console to effectively control user’s behaviour and provide protectionagainst all user targeted and internal threats. The very idea of stretching security to the next level till useridentity was a new concept until Cyberoam came on the scene, especially in an industry that traditionally takesthe security trail only till the IP address of a machine.

Sanjeev Verma, General Manager, Corporate Communications, Moser BaerSanjeev’s major role includes putting systems and processes in place that make for more efficient

communication with the external world and also with employees and managing the company’s image andreputation. He is the principal spokesperson for the Moser Baer group (optical media, solar energy, entertainmentand consumer electronics) and responsible for building the Moser Baer brand.

Rohit Biddappa, Senior Marketing Manager, PTC, IndiaA communications manager broadly plays two important roles: The first role is at the tactical level: Marketing

essentially follows the AIDA model, i.e first creating awareness about the offerings in the market, then movingon to creating genuine interest among the people and then increase the desire to evaluate the product, hencelaying a ground for the sales team to engage the desire into action. The second is more at the strategic level.Educating the VARs on the company’s positioning is one of the key tasks performed by the marketing managers.Communicating PTC’s value proposition and brand attributes and positioning with the VARs to foster a jointmarketing relationship is a fundamental part of Rohit’s job role.

In general, PTC marketing has been trying to educate SMBs and large manufacturing concerns on how aholistic approach to product development technology and processes can result in higher organizational efficiency,productivity, growth and profitability, especially in these difficult times.

Vivek Dutt Saxena, Marketing Manager, Gigabyte, IndiaIt is very vital for a company to be innovative/creative in promoting their ideas/products to the market to

remain niche in themselves. Vivek is an initiator in bringing new models as per New Platform. He believes inmore and more interaction with the customers/dealers, which definitely helps Gigabyte. Under his leadership,Gigabyte has done more than 80 dealer meets in the A, B, C and D class cities, road shows, campus events, Poweruser seminars, etc. in this financial year and many are still in the pipeline.

His major role includes more exposure to products via media and their coverage in the IT magazine, websiteto attract more eyes and focus on visibility by having a presence in all the major IT hubs in the city/country,i.e. Brand Building.

Shalini Kaul, Marketing Communications Manager, EMC – India & SAARCAs the central controller of an array of communications functions in EMC, Shalini is responsible for the

creation and supervision of a communications programme that conveys the company’s unique value propositionas a one-stop shop for all information infrastructure requirements. As EMC liaison customers, partners andmembers of the media/analyst community, Shalini plays an important role in the corporate branding and public relations strategy at EMC. Shalinihas a very challenging role at EMC partly because of the numerous products company offers and partly due to the aggressive growth phase itsgoing through.

Samsung appoints SES as National Distributor

Samsung Electronics hasappointed SES as its

national distributor for hard drives,in India. This tie up is done with theobjective of making the productmore accessible across the country,leveraging off the well knownstrength that SES holds in upcountry markets and metros.

Through this agreementSamsung aims to create a strongnational distribution network whichwill allow the company to supportan extensive reseller network. In fact,

the agreement with SEScomplements the distributionstrategy of Samsung and alsoensures wider reach in the country.SES also provides 5 years warrantyand counter replacement on harddrives.

“We will strive to offercompetitive prices and fasterdelivery of products. With thisagreement we will expand ourproduct range and further enhanceour market reputation. We are quiteexcited about Samsung’s HDD

business and confident of taking itto new heights,” informed JacquesRoux, Director SES Technologies.

As one of the leading distributionhouses SES has a very strongmaterial handling and stockingfacilities with 57 warehouses acrossthe country all linked via an ERPsystem, and with a motivated salesteam, ready to drive the business forSamsung. Most branch officesfurther have satellite sales locationsattached, further enhancing SES’sprominent reach. With an effective

pre and post sales support facility,that distinguishes SES from itscompetitors, the business prospectsacross all spectra can be addressedeffectively. Contrary to the norm,SES has a very strong presenceacross the length and breadth of thecountry and the company is presentin A, B, C and D class of cities. Infact, with an unequaled Metro –Non Metro business ratio of 40:60,SES is indeed aligned to takedistribution to further and wider, forSamsung than what has ever beenseen before.

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