'One of the most under-rated skills required in a workplace is awareness': NBA's Rajesh Sethi

A series to end the decade - part nineteen

whatsapp 0 whatsapp 0 Facebook 0 Tweet 0 linkedin 0

'One of the most under-rated skills required in a workplace is awareness': NBA's Rajesh Sethi

Campaign India's countdown to the end of the decade will feature leading names from the marketing and communications fraternity. We ask senior executives from the advertising, marketing and media fraternity about the last 10 years and the year to come.

Here's what Rajesh Sethi, managing director, NBA India, had to say:

One piece of work created in the last decade that you wish you had created/worked on?

A platform like Flipkart, to my mind, could have been anyone’s story. The vision and courage to create an e-commerce platform is what was needed and I feel I missed riding the e-commerce wave of the last decade. It always had a huge economic value opportunity, addressing the unmet needs of the evolving consumer through a value delivery system. It was a sitting duck idea, with the growing mobile penetration. I don’t even remember how many times I discussed similar ideas with my friends and colleagues. Even the last mile delivery business got birth through e-commerce movement.

If hindsight is 20/20, what is the one thing that you could have done differently in the last decade?

In retrospect, I feel I should have placed a big bet on consumer-facing digital platforms when I had access to the content that could have given us a first-mover advantage in the space. As a leader, my larger focus was driving content consumption through conventional platforms and thereby creating a sustainable business.

One skill that you would want to pick up in 2020 and why?

One of the most under-rated skills required in a workplace is awareness. For the year 2020, my aim to is to increase awareness across all my stakeholders, internal and external, at individual and team level. Through awareness, I would like to sharpen my understanding about the brand I work with, and find ways to help me implement and amplify the vision I have for my target audience. It is important that all stakeholders involved, upcoming talent and fans are made aware that NBA has laid foundations for basketball as a sport to create economic value creation for India, and a career option too.