November Musings
Pondicherry is repose for the spirit. It is a pit-stop in the journey, offering a salve of calm,
sitting easily besides the clamour of noisy small town traffic and accumulated garbage.
The French Quarters on the Eastern side and the Tamil Quarters on the Western side
are separated by a double carriage-way. A distinctive promenade along the Bay of
Bengal is an interesting walk. Rocks and small benches make inviting seats for
contemplation at the waterfront. French colonial style buildings dot one side of the
promenade.
This area is the French quarter, with wider, tidier streets. Streets arranged crisscross
make reading the map very easy. It’s hard to tell local from tourist. Port towns are
melting pots and a cultural mishmash. One can play a game of trying to identify people
associated with the Ashram. Dressed in cottons and with poised composed expressions
and often in loose shorts, they go about riding bicycles or walking. Their lives appear
purposeful arranged in neat and orderly fashion, just like their streets. Their lives appear
well-arranged and disciplined. There is an unmistakable air of self-importance in the
movements of some as they go about like they hold some greater truth within them.
There is lightly veiled impatience and slight irritability in some, perhaps the stream of
visitors and tourists makes one live perpetually as if under scrutiny. Perhaps they are
higher in the administrative hierarchy at the particular unit of the Ashram.
The Ashram is not one structure but structures and units peppered about the French
quarter. They are distinguishable, grey-blue flat walled and solidly shaped with welldefined
lines. There are few ornamental flowering trees and vines. What one sees is
from the outside. The structures have tall gates and one may see an occasional
Ashramite going in or out on a two-wheeler or bicycle. A courtyard in the central area
with structures on 4 sides seems to be a pattern followed. The structures are mostly
single storeyed and might carry two symbols, the 6-pointed star, the emblem of Sri.
Aurobindo, and the 12-petalled lotus within a circle, symbol of the Mother.
We enter the Ashram ensconced within a small compound with an entrance and a few
flower beds with flowering gladioli bulbs and a cactus garden, and an unpretentious
walkway lead to the Samadhi. This is made sacred as the final resting places of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother and comprises two upraised structures decorated with a
‘rangoli’ made from flower petals. This place is the cusp of devotion, and all material and
spiritual purpose for the people who work and live here radiates from this nucleus. The
manner of offering prayer is unique. Sitting head bent between elbows that rest on the
tomb-like structure. The visitors appear to be in a deeply personal communion.
The Ashram book shop and reading room are the two places a first time visitor discovers
quickly. A friend who spent a month in the ashram as PhD scholar sent me a detailed list
of the 'must do' around the Ashram. The book shop opened up a glimpse in to the world
of the history of the life, work and philosophy of Sri. Aurobindo Ghosh. On display are his
life works as poet, philosopher, patriot and psychologist. The prolific writing, the breadth
and the depth of the learning and the wisdom is overwhelming.
Within a week of planning this trip to Pondicherry, I had interesting, spontaneous
interactions with two people influenced by and working with the lessons of Aurobindo.
These people just “happened”, a reconfirmation of previous experiences in synchroncity.
Priya Vaidya is an educationist, a doctorate in Philosophy who teaches Philosophy in
Mumbai. Her thesis is based on the application of Aurobindo’s principles to Education.
The second instance was a call from Margot Borden, a psychotherapist and brand
consultant who lives and works in Paris and the US. Margot is an interesting
Englishwoman, proficient in French and in Sanskrit. Margot is a research professional
and consultant and in her work applies Aurobindo’s principles and his theory of evolution
of the self to the way consumers engage with brands.
Both people independently directed me to places and books and to experiences I must
have in Pondicherry. Priya told me of simple, 'sattvik' Ashram meals, and of meditation
at the Samadhi and on rocks at the sea front. Margot informed me of Aurobindo’s theory
of the evolution of the spirit and introduced me to his psychology and ideas on the self in
the context of the physical, the vital, the mental, the supramental and the Divine. About
the self, the subself, and his epic poem Savitri. Giving me initial directions they have set
me off on a new journey of reading and study.
Researchers like us work in the realm of the consumers’ conscious self and the
unconscious ‘subself’. We attempt to study brands as animate entities with an essence
with an inner and outer world, the brand context, and the brand's aspirations and
constraints. We apply learnings from the social sciences sociology, psychology and
anthropology and marry these with our understanding of business.
In his book, Aurobindo writes about a Yogic psychology and provides a guide or system
of decoding the self. The book ‘Our Many Selves’ contains selections from the works of
Sri. Aurobindo and the Mother and is compiled by A. S Dalal. It provides us with two
constructs to study the human being, an entity inseparable from the universal being. The
first or the concentric system explains the human being via a series of rings consisting of
the outer being, the inner being, the inmost being, and the core or the psychic being.
Each of these stages has three constituents – the physical, vital and mental. Sri
Aurobindo goes on to explain the constituents of each of these selves. The second
system is the hierarchical system arranged like a staircase which indicates gradations or
planes for consciousness ranging from the lowest or the ‘inconscient’ to the highest,
‘Sachchidananda’. He indicates that the spiritual journey is one of an ever-evolving
consciousness whereby the self will traverse through each of these planes ultimately
resulting in realization of the highest Truth in this Lifetime.
In our work we apply constructs to study habits, attitudes, behaviours, and mindsets by
studying individuals and groups. We organize and interpret the responses and our
observations. It appears intuitively that an application of Aurobindo’s Yogic psychology
can offer a rich and interesting dimension on which to study the behaviour of consumers
and their interaction with brands. Margot is working in this space and it will be
interesting to learn from her and from our own readings. Thinking that is inclusive and
that seeks to integrate and synthesize different approaches to understand the purpose of
this world and of man can open doors with richer answers to problems of brands and
business, as as also of life. It is to honestly explore each facet of knowledge and seek to
apply it to ones understanding continuum helps one delve deeper into the psyche and to
understand, interpret and arrive at richer insights. It is an ongoing journey into the
discovery of the Truth.
I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa Soman
November 1, 2007
October Musings
Is work-life balance (WLB) a term used in the organizational context is the proverbial Holy Grail that employees and employers seek? As the HR function assumes greater strategic importance, their initiatives have an all-encompassing organizational impact on satisfaction and effectiveness. The challenge for organizations is to find out what the WLB needs are and how best to fulfill these. One hypothesis can be that great places to work are where employers are able to enable and deliver on providing greater work-life balance. I’d like “open-source” some questions and ask you, the reader to think and respond. Your views and experiences could trigger off ideas, more questions and answers and offer different perspectives.
There are a number of questions around the comparative word “greater”. ‘What is “greater” WLB?’, ‘Is there a universal “great”?’, ‘Is the bottom-line, physical and emotional well-being for the employee?’, ‘Do employees have the maturity and an understanding to know what is “great” for them?’
The word “balance” is qualitative and open to interpretation. ‘What does “balance” mean for the individual?’, ‘Are organizations “balanced” in their ambitions and in the manner in which they drive and reward ambition?’, ‘Is imbalance absolute or is it relative?’, ‘Is is a one-off occurrence or is it sustained?’, ‘What happens when cyclical business activity and deliverable peaks when imbalance sets in?, ‘Can these be planned?’, ‘Should individuals and organizations focus on an “average” balance or is there an absolute balance?’, ‘What is the threshold for coping with sustained “imbalance”?, ‘How does imbalance manifest itself?’, ‘How does imbalance impact the individual and the organization?’
This raises questions of ownership of responsibility - individual vs. organizational. What is the role of the individual employee and his ability to influence and impact the change in policies for greater WLB? How do policies for leave, work and meal hours, and off-time work like celebrations, picnics impact WLB? How do initiatives pertaining to individual learning, enrichment impact WLB? What about inclusion of family in work-play activities? How does it enable balance and create a buffer for tolerance?
Is the seeking of equilibrium counter-intuitive and could ambition, passion, drive and quality get compromised? Do organizations and individuals get flabby, lackadaisical when they desire balance? Is there a gender-desirable balance where men and women want different things? The individual and organization may choose to be silent about the issues and problems but these will be manifest in employee burnout, attrition, health concerns, effectiveness and the quality of work-life. When organizational leadership is sensitized and seeks answers to these questions, it drives open discussion in degrees of candour.
The study can help in building an employee and organizational perspective on WLB creation and in identification of mindsets, attitudes and behaviors that support WLB. Employees can see through exercises that are genuinely solution seeking or those that offer mere lip service and are a tick-mark exercise?
Questions on how individual employees feel fulfilled and happy? What are our deeply held beliefs on work? What is our ego ideal - our childhood ambitions and role models and how do these shape how fulfilled we can be in our present role and job?
How does our alignment with who we are impact our sense of balance and fulfillment? What is the extent of compromise? What do life stage transitions do and how do these impact balance? How does organizational maturity and experience shape perspective on balance?
There could be some broader, context creation issues for Indian workplaces. What is the Indian work ethic and are there cultural constraints and differences and make some of us seek a greater “balance”, to be happier than do others? Does marriage bring stability or does it add to stresses. How can the spouse and family support greater WLB for both genders? How can commute be managed? How can on-site and off-site recreation help improve sense of well being?
A time math construct can help show a utilization of 168 hours of every person’s week. Time is a great leveler and all of us are endowed with the same. We sleep for 7 hours a day on an average and have about 119 waking hours to use them the way we like. If we include work done “off-line” i.e., commute and time spent on work done after hours at home and on weekends and holidays, we can arrive at the percentage waking time spent at work and we can deduce the time available for activities other than work.
“Work” is understood in the context of a place away from home where one spends time producing results, which are rewarded and recognized in monetary and non-monetary terms. Modern urban life has become one of increasing complexity with aggressive, innovative competition, and pressures for growth and individual drivers for work. “Life” comprises of roles, tasks and events that makes demands on the individual. At the crux is the individual’s personality; his ability to work under given work conditions, the extent of influence over ones time, and the financial and emotional returns one receives.
Can work-life balance an absolute or is it relative? Does it vary by gender? Does it vary for the same person by life-stage? How does it vary by profession, function, role, responsibility, and by level? What is the individual’s responsibility to achieving the balance? What are the lowest common denominators in understanding this dimension? What can organizations influence? How does the overall organizational culture influence coping. How does the home environment enable coping and balance?
Some roles and professions bring with them demands on time beyond “normal” sleep and waking hours. Some professions might be older – like doctors on call and policemen on beat. In many new age professions due to globalization like call centers and retail employees have a commitment to work different work hours and holidays, creating its own social need space. There is a compromise of private rest time when a customer service executive in the telecom sector might receive calls at home till 11 pm at night. A frontline sales executive could receive calls at midnight from restaurant/ bar owner customers for their business begins after 11 pm. Doctors doing emergency shift might be on call 24*7. A banking software support person might be on call through the night when one provides support across time zones. A TV actress might regularly get home from work after midnight.
Where customers, bosses and colleagues get an inordinate amount of access and win in time-prioritization, the family feels let down. It could be a harried mother calling to inform that the gas cylinder is over, or kids waiting for the executive birthday cake to be cut.
As organizations have diversity goals and want to recruit women, there is need to acknowledge the ground-level challenges of having women in the team. Enlightened leaders might believe that they view employees in a completely gender-neutral manner, but differences are real the expectations, responsibilities and obligations to the family are of a significantly higher order. Housekeeping, meals, children’s education, health, and social commitments are primarily the woman’s domain. The quality and type of support system, responsibilities and obligations, physical endurance constrains all make it easier to opt out than to cope. An “either-or” needs to be replaces with an ”and” where gender pulls need not be an apology and further perpetuate a sense of eroded self worth and guilt. More organizations are recognizing, supporting and celebrating diversity and offering support via flexi-time and work out of home solutions. There is a need for counseling and offering guidance in tools and techniques to create an environment that recognizes her pressures and supports her.
The starting point for organizations is to create consciousness, awareness and acknowledgement of the issues. This will help take an up-front, non-defensive and constructive stand in tabling problems and issues. Any resolution of a problem would begin with crating awareness of the issue and perspectives on the issues. There will be cases where employees what to prove and find their groove; cases where employee sees hard work and long hours as deferred pleasure and as an investment for at better future life; there will be cases where work is an escape and a “fix” given bad personal relationships. In some cases, work might be the place where social relationships blossom and one is amongst close friends.
I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa Soman
October 7, 2007
September Musings
It is synchronicity a coincidence of being & doing what one loves doing best, being a qualitative researcher and “people collector”. An avid collector of people and their stories, I met Sharon a smart 50 something last month. I make no prejudgments, just go with openness to see and find whatever they will share. I’ve collected her and she makes me want to keep her in my collection forever. She is a ‘leading edge’ traveler. Ahead of others of her ilk, a small window into her travelife is glimpse at an interesting travel sub-culture.
Most Indians love company when they travel. Doing solo is not very common given just how connected we as a people are. Students travel with friends, young couples travel with each other, families travel by themselves for quality time or with other families, so adults and kids can have each other company. It’s as much about discovering each other as it is about the places you visit. Empty nesters travel to be with their kids abroad or they travel with other empty nesters at the sundown of life to ‘finally live life’. One traveler told me that Australia is not a popular destination with Indians because we cannot see another human for over 5 miles of driving in the country side.
Sharon is different and her story is that of an ‘experience seeker’ as we call them in travel domain. One likens this kind of traveling to a stereotypical western traveler, slightly spaced out, unkempt, dressed in loose linen, trinkets, chappals, a rucksack on back and a travel book in hand. When I met Sharon, she was dressed in white, a handsome, statuesque 5’ 6” with an erect, regal mien, and short bobbed hair. A small smile ever-present on her fair, sharp-featured, a slightly lined face. Her kohl-lined eyes acquire a slightly far away look when she talks about places she has been to. She wears her years lightly and her olive skin makes her appear more Spanish than Indian. She has a faint Punjabi accent to her English as she speaks. She could have been one well preserved older woman you may have seen on your Mumbai Delhi flight.
Sharon takes travel very seriously, and one can see it’s her University. Sharon’s favourite country is Italy and a many times traveler to Europe, she visited the country yet again, 5 months ago. She begins her trip by consulting the Lonely Planet. The past interests her and she does an advance virtual exploration by reading up on the history of the place she is going to travel to. Rome to her is special because of its historical richness. ‘Rome is a place you need a whole lifetime to discover one city. The beauty is when you enter the city you can consult anyone there. Everyone speaks English’. Conversation with the locals helps Sharon get by.
She spent 19 nights in Italy and seeks to soak into the history and culture of the places she visits and from the people she meets. Sharon is a romantic and her experiences in Italy include ‘the place where Romeo & Juliet died, and where Cleopatra had her bath’. She travels off season so she can interact with the locals. ‘I like to know about their customs, behavior, mannerisms and their cuisine’
Sharon does two international trips each year and some domestic travel. She does a lot of still photography and sometimes films her travel. ‘I like to record everything’ she says. While her international air travel is pre-booked post planning, she does most of the booking when she reaches her destination. She picks up guide books from the airport to decide on places she wants to do and also finds her hotels only after reaching her first destination.
Her international travel is peppered with domestic impulse trips taken every now and then. Sharon may not be in Delhi when it rains! ‘I love to watch the Taj Mahal on a rainy day. I cannot plan and go there (in advance)…it may be sunny. The day it is raining, I will take off to Agra’. And most of us have only read about Taj on full moon night!
And what was the tipping point for Sharon? She smiles with a twinkle in her eyes. ‘I have the cutting preserved’ she says piquing our curiosity and the camera rolls. ‘Twenty years back, I had sent my children to school and I was going through the Femina. I usually go through the letters to the editor. The winning letter was only three lines. “We Indians have a habit of talking about the glorious past and planning about the future. We totally forget the present.” After reading these three lines, I immediately called my husband and said I want to go to France, Switzerland and London. Can you do the booking today? He said ‘have you gone mad? When you go to Chandigarh you pack 15 days ahead…. After that I haven’t looked back. I took my daughters – one was 9 and the other 7 – with me. From London I took the guided tour, of course it was the first time,I took a trip to France. But nobody speaks English in France, so I came back and took French lessons. Then I made the next trip’. I wonder if she was Sharan before she turned Sharon.
She surprises us all the way. The romantic in her mixes well with the pragmatic. She loves off-season trips – ‘less crowds and less expensive’ she smiles. She laments that when its crowded one sees more heads than places. ‘Any questions for directions, and its only one answer, I’m a tourist’. Planning is for the faint-hearted. Sharon reminisces about a European holiday. ‘We were in Venice. We had traveled by Eurail. Once we got down there, my daughter was looking after the luggage, I went to the main road and asked the hotel rates. Then I went to the by-lanes and checked the rates. On the net it said 150 Euros a night… but I found a place for 90 Euros a night’. You begin to see the pattern.
For Sharon religious tourism is ‘for knowledge sake’, quickly adding ‘I am not very religiously inclined’. She visits a place of religious significance for the history, the aesthetic, the cultural significance, and possibly a sense of transcendence. A Sikh by birth, she has visited Nanakna Saheb, a Sikh religious place in Pakistan. Lahore disappointed her. ‘It is like a mini Delhi. We have a Jama Masjid and Red Fort, they also have a Jama Masjid and a Red Fort. There is so much of similarity. They talk in Punjabi. If you close your eyes you feel are in Delhi’. Is it disdain for the over-familiar for the experience seeker in her? Sharon has been to Haridwar to see the aarti, once in 5 years. ‘It is fascinating” she says dreamily ‘I see the Lakshman jhoola and I come back’. She has been to Nizamuddin Dargah, Ajmer and Jama Masjid. ‘I saw Prophet Mohammed’s feet’ she says, showing off her treasure trove of experiences.
What about safety? And how important is that to her? ‘What about it’, she quips nonchalantly, ‘traveling abroad is safer than walking the streets of Delhi. I keep a pepper spray in my purse’. She recalls a scary experience when she has been stalked on a walk one late evening in Shimla. ‘I was walking on the Ridge road and people started following me. They were not locals, but tourists’. She ignores the countless experiences of being followed on Jan Path in Delhi. It’s as if this is a non-event in the context of what she might miss if she didn’t venture out by her self. ‘One discovers oneself through ones travel’ she remarks sagely.
Her daughters were only 14 when she sent them off alone on a holiday to Shimla. ‘They keep a pepper spray and an electric shocker’. She books them in a hotel and after that they are on their own. She relates stories of the girls’ recent trip to Bangkok and of their discoveries as they traveled through the red light district, shopping, doing night clubs. ‘No one even gave them a second look’ she smiles making her point. She is cool, non-judgmental and worldly wise. ‘Everything is so out there in the open’.
Smart, sassy and funny, Sharon is like her travel stories, unexpected, irreverent and hugely interesting. She is preparing at the moment for Istanbul and is headed for Turkey soon, and wouldn’t I just love to be the fly on her wall? Not surprisingly like she plans her long distance travel, she has her future all planned out. And of course it’s all around travel. ‘When my daughters are married, what I have planned with my husband, once we are very old, our medicals and all are looked after, then we have a house in Vasant Vihar, we will give it to the bank. They do a reverse mortgage and till I don’t die, I will splurge’. A very different thought indeed, is it not?
That travel is serious business for Sharon as she advises other travel aspirants - ‘Make a short goal, achieve it, celebrate the achievement and then decide on a new goal. And that leads to the successful traveling’, she says. And on my question on her dream vacation she says, ‘a dream vacation it to be in a place where you get a good companion who helps me discover myself’. Despite so many interpretations, I’d like to believe this is her invite to me to travel with her. And I’d love to be the participant- ethnographer on board her next flight.
Perhaps Conde Nast or the National Geographic ought to do a travel story on her. A recent survey published in the Conde Nast, the most prestigious leisure & travel magazine in the US voted India as the most popular destination. Topographical variety, cultural richness, and affordability are the three attributes where India scored above all countries, followed funnily of course by Italy! Sharon must be smiling.
India is rich in the variety of people, language, culture and sub-cultures. It would need so many more lifetimes of being Indian to discover the many facets to our people. In this decade we Indians have become people in rapid incessant flow – evolving, discovering new aspirations and finding access to our dreams. Thanks to my job I work with my ear close to the heart of these exciting times getting as close to the skin as it can really get. As researcher-collector-chronicler, getting paid to find insights through people and their stories is being paid for your hobby.
I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa Soman
September 9, 2007
August Musings
We embarked on a large innovation project in February ’07 and kick-started the activity with an ethnographic study of Indian cooking in over 60 homes in Delhi, Mumbai,Chennai, and in Kolkata. Then there were a series of qualitative research studies for insights, ideas, concepts and product formats as part of this project. Not one of the over 300 consumers we met in the course of the last six months of working on this innovation project is Muslim.
Our research design in Mumbai city and suburbs ensured a locational and community spread. Maharashtrians, UPites, Gujaratis, Punjabis, and Sindhis were helping build our understanding of their cuisine and importantly the role of the particular dish in their life. Our logic - we don’t need to study Muslims because this study is about a daily vegetarian food item.
Two decades of studying a people, class, across geographies allows one to develop perspective. Our understanding and
naturally our clients’ understanding of this community is poor. What we know is via acquaintances, friends and relatives. But
this is merely personal experiential understanding, not consumer understanding via research as we know it. To make matters
worse, our view is likely to be class-blinkered and media colored. None of my friends or family wears the burqa! My aunt,
Vidula is Sunni Muslim,but the women in Uncle Iqbal’s family in Belgaum don’t wear one either.
Consumers need to be studied by life stage and living standards and we need to scope their study against a context to make it
bite sized. So we launched Project Naqab in Mumbai to study the Muslim consumer. To begin with, the client is the reader of
my column on shopper behaviour in a daily. We decided to keep it very narrow focused to her life and her shopping context. We
met consumers and listened to their stories…
Abida, 32, is a mother of two and wife of an officer in the Indian Railways. She came to Mumbai ten years ago from small town
Andhra Pradesh after marriage. When she steps outside the railway colony gate, Abida dons the burqa with a face veil and
turns anonymous, creating a wall between her and everyone else. Abida is fiercely ambitious and wants to do well for her
family. She wanted to do her MBA but didn’t study past her graduation. She fuels her husband’s ambition and wants him to do
well in his career. She is the custodian of what’s inside her home – the food, her children’s health, their education and
even the family’s religious practice. She has pushed her husband, Hussain, into wearing a beard as per their religious
mandate, and nudges him into practicing regular namaaz.
Abida adapts when it suits her and her family, and finds it more appropriate to not wear the burqa is the colony when
children go down to play. ‘Its only women and children at that time and the men come by 7:30’, she explains’. She doesn’t
wear the burqa when she has to go to the school Open Day and for the Annual Day. It’s the namelessness and the facelessness
that detracts from the way her children will be perceived perhaps. She needs to become accessible then, to interact with
other mothers, and to enable the teacher tag the children into the correct context of their social class.
Hussain indulges Abida, and is sometimes at loggerheads with her more conservative ways. ‘My mother-in-law in AP doesn’t like
it that I wear the burqa’. She and my younger sister-in-law don’t wear it. But I will need to answer for myself and how I
lived on Judgment Day’. Hussain and her family just let her be. He admires her drive and her smartness. Abida has become an
Amway dealer and finds ways by which they can start earning more and improve their life. Hussain takes care of all matters
outside the house. And this includes shopping. Abida has blind faith in his shopping acumen though she finds him wasteful and
extravagant at times. ‘He knows what you get where and he can even advise his friends who belong to Bombay’, she adds with a
smile. Hussain is the bargain-hunter shopper in Abida’s family. He tries to get home on time from office on Wednesdays so he
can shop for bargains at the ‘Wednesday Bazaar’ at a food supermarket in City Central Mall.
Hussain is the willing and visible grocery shopper, while Abida is the ‘shadow shopper’. Going along with Hussain just means
she has to keep an eye on their children who are aged 6 and 9 and not on concentrate on products or on deals. She doesn’t
enjoy going to the mall as it means the pain of having to baby-sit. ‘It will have to wait till the children are older’, she
says. Hussain on the other hand enjoys his role of ‘hunter – provider’. He is drawn to piles of produce and to large shopping
carts. He especially likes seeing crossed out prices and the ‘day’s special bargains’. The shopping makes him feel smart and
in control. Bargain hunting is a way of bringing home what they need at a good price. Abida laughs with a tinge of worry for
Hussain will also buy ‘rich’ things. Many a times it’s wasteful and they don’t really need three bottles of ketchup. Clearly
Hussain likes to spend and Abida is cautious. Abida’s shopping for top ups is primarily over the telephone from the
neighbourhood grocer. This she does every once in a while and especially when Hussain hasn’t managed the Wednesday ‘catch’.
Tehseen’s is another story. The young 27 year-old is a bright English teacher in a fancy South Mumbai school. She lives in a
joint family with her in-laws, her husband’s older brother and his wife and her husband in a very community dominated
neighbourhood. She is 7 months pregnant with their first child. Tehseen is part of a large group of friends who party every
Saturday and is part of a kitty that meets every month. She wears salwar kameez to school but wears the ‘rida’ the two-piece
dress with a top and a billowy skirt and a scarf held up with a brooch. She wears the ‘rida’ to the mosque and to religious
and social events. She wears a skirt or pants and her beneath her ‘rida’.
Tehseen’s father-in-law buys groceries and vegetables in the neighbourhood market. He visited the supermarket at a central
Mumbai mall, and came home complaining that only sugar was cheap. Tehseen’s visit to the mall is an occasional indulgence. ‘I
am not a big time shopper’, she says. Sometimes it is more an outing because you hang around, eat out, window shop and shop
for clothes. ‘I hate just asking them to show clothes and then not buy’, she says. She likes to take close friends or cousins
along. ‘You want someone to tell you that you are making the right choice especially when you are going to spend so much’,
she says. This Sunday she was surprised that her favourite shop for ridas had opened their outlet in the mall! Going along
further, she and her friends found that the legendary ‘topi’ maker store famous for their embroidered topis was also in this
mall. She made a note that she would ask Fareed her husband to join her next Sunday so they could buy the embroidered caps
they needed to buy for her father-in-law.
‘Our women are more educated and liberated’, says Tehseen, ‘but I know my friend Hasina whose husband is in the merchant
navy. She never went out of the house. Now she visits this mall, brings the children to McDonald’s. There are other people
like her and the mall security makes her feel safe when she come alone with her children’.
The mall in this community has begun finally speaking to the community. The shift in perspective has meant more opportunities
for the mall via relevant and relatable stores to connect with the community. From men seeking bargains buys who visit the
supermarket once or twice a month, from being an occasional escape into indulgence for a nephew who wants a treat in the
gaming zone, it’s become a more justifiably meaningful trip for more members in each family. By bringing under one roof
stores where she can shop for lingerie, burqas, topis, ‘thaals’ and mithai, it’s a piecing together of the community-need
jigsaw. By serves in many ways and with many more things, very specific but hidden needs are ways to connect. Every mall that
finds the true community connect by looking beyond the veil and can observe, understanding and truly service the “us” will
reap a multiplier of benefits.
Project Naqab is a mere beginning with learnings that are real and actionable. Unlike what we assumed, Tehseen carries that
daily vegetarian staple to lunch in her tiffin everyday. She eats non-vegetarian food with the family in the evenings, but
claims she loves her vegetarian food that she carried to school in her tiffin. Are we missing her cohort completely when as
we work on the specific food innovation project? Quite likely we are and more. Brand innovations in food, personal wash,
nappies and feminine care, media habits, healthcare needs, work-life balance understanding, store format innovations and
understanding the 60+ cohort…for every client and every project, the deliberate exclusion of a community behind the veil over
our eyes as clients and researchers. We are the veiled and we miss out when we begin to think ‘us & they’.
I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa Soman
Monsoon Musings
Our profession presents continuous opportunities to work with new, never before domains and challenges. It’s a profession where learning is a way of life and a critical survival tool. Peter Senge’s landmark book, ‘The Fifth Discipline’ is an enlightened, inspiring and insightful book. It teaches how organization learning can give organizations their edge and can serve as an effective blueprint relevant for learning needs of all organizations. Senge writes, ‘as the world becomes more interconnected and business becomes more complex and dynamic, work must become more “learningful”.
In most organizational templates, work is a means to an end and is a primary means to earn money and position. Daniel Yankelovich called it an “instrumental” view of work. In today’s world most of the money one needs for a week one earns in the first few days, creates an organizational challenge and an opportunity to fill meaning to the rest of the week in unique ways where higher aspirations are being fulfilled. This brings us to the argument of the “sacred” view where people seek the intrinsic benefits of work. The Lumière opportunity is about fulfilling the intrinsic need of the individual for self-expression, continuous discovery of one individuals’ potential and pushing the bounds on possibilities. In this sense, Lumière aspires to be a ‘learning enterprise’ rather than a research firm.
More people have lauded Lumière as a ‘great team’, and a group of people who have come together in a unique and even extraordinary way. People in the team have trusted one another, complemented one another’s strengths and compensated for weaknesses, all with the common goal of delivering the highest value to the client on the project within the committed timeline. For several team members the conventional workplace is not a feasible option. But when a work place provides an opportunity to learn, work, it makes team members ‘learning entrepreneurs’ who come to recognize the ‘intrinsic’ benefits of work, of which money earned is one outcome. This makes for the Lumière magic
While the exhilaration of a presentation that went well is one part of the win, what makes work play, is the high of discussion, the resultant flashes of inspiration, the discovery of insights, and the richly visible collective intelligence that is significantly greater than the sum of the intellects of individual team members.
I will use ‘The Fifth Discipline’ framework to explain how learning at work takes place at Lumière:
Systems Thinking: The systems approach is a thinking framework that allows one to see the full patterns or the ‘whole’ clearer, rather than seeing parts of a whole. Applying systems thinking to a client’s problem allows one to see the context in its entirety. Client organizations vary in their levels of openness of sharing. Where there is mutual trust, deep sharing takes place between client and agency and it allows for sharpness in problem identification and definition. The longer the association with a business and a brand, the deeper is the level of awareness and understanding.
To illustrate, a research project is usually as good as the quality of the briefing. A good briefing takes place against the backdrop of trust and mutuality. The starting point here is that the agency will understand and can help refine the thought process. It is infinitely more productive than a top-down dialogue of the ‘4 focus groups needed’ approach. Discussion, active, deep listening, and empathy for the situation and context are behaviours that help the creativity thrive. A briefing discussion helps bring up different viewpoints that deepen perception. The systems thinking worldview is extremely intuitive and the entire project delivery process looks at the entire ‘system’ of data in a holistic manner as a continuum rather than in a fragmented way. Understanding of the body of knowledge that went before, learning and discussing assumptions, action standards and ‘what-if’ scenarios all helps category widens perspective and inter-linkages with seemingly unrelated observations. This increases the possibility for insightful interpretation and recommendations.
Personal Mastery: Personal mastery is to be interpreted as an acceptable level of skill and proficiency. Every profession and especially the profession of research provide opportunities to gain personal mastery. Most of us enjoy a good conversation, we are innately curious, like to be intellectually stimulated, like to get to know people, and like a juicy story, especially if it’s a mystery. Learning to refine these skills, to add to it skills like deep listening, patience, perseverance, objectivity, clear thinking, all continually feeds in to the desire to become a life-long learner. It is possible to get skilled and proficient at these with diligent self observation and comparing the final deliverable with ones own deliverable at a given point in time.
At Lumière monetary wins are short-term rewards for achieving small milestones of projects worked on. What are more important and significant are the long-term intrinsic rewards of intellect that is being sharpened, and a personality that is being more empathetic, objective, patient, and perceptive. Team-playing, learning, and teaching are all rewarded creating a virtuous cycle of achieving personal mastery. The assumption here is that people inherently want to do their best. When they are treated fairly, are rewarded, given opportunities to learn, and have fun at play, in a strictly apolitical and transparent workplace, they not only give their commitment, but bring in passion, excitement, energy and spirit to the work-place. There is a reciprocal commitment that arises between individual learning and organizational learning.
Mental Models: ‘Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations… that influence how we understand the world and take action’. The work processes of Lumière of transparency and holding up ones work for scrutiny via the rigour of reviews at each stage of work, whether it be open team mails that put us up for scrutiny allow for a continual turning of the mirror inwards. It helps unearth our internal pictures to the organization and helps bring about “learningful conversations” where team members expose their thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of others.
Building Shared Vision: A shared vision is an inspiration that binds people in an organization together. To quote Senge, ‘the practice of shared vision …of pictures of the future…foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance’. A genuine shared vision is one where people excel and learn not because they want to. Every team member is deeply aware of the personal and professional transformational experience of working at Lumière. Having seen and appreciated its value they become deep believers in the model and its far-reaching impact.
Each team member has at some stage experienced deepening perspectives from the discovery of ‘meta worlds’ or worlds beyond the realms of their understanding. They have experienced joy and even exhilaration at the opportunity to reclaim capabilities that remained unfulfilled and underutilized. To some, Lumière has given feet, to others, wings, and for yet others, wider skies and new flight patterns to discover and learn. In that, Lumière is a veritable flying school. “Butterflies and flight” are common motifs here. Recognition that it’s normal for everyone at every work-life stage to get butterflies, and that everyone can fly with effort and practice. The shared vision at Lumière is very real.
Team Learning: A Lumiere observer likened us to a football team with extraordinary capacities for coordination without overt leadership and micro-directing. A football team is a self-motivated intelligent and synchronized unit with complete alignment to the objective of ‘winning the goal’ or in our case, completing a project task, giving to it the excellence limited only by an individuals best. We recognize that an individual’s best can be continually bettered with coaching, encouragement, inputs and opportunities to make mistakes. Everyone gets an opportunity to coach and everyone is continually learning. There is no condemnation at Lumière and we make an individual team members success, everyone’s business.
At Lumière, the team is engineered to win. We don’t compete against anyone but own work in our last project. No one sits on our laurels and no defensiveness or blaming is allowed. Each individual contributing team member actively and honestly brings her best skills to the table. Learning from each project experience and from one another, the learning is ploughed back every fortnight to create the ‘learning mulch’ for a fertile work-playground where richer yields can be reaped. Team meetings are a place to reap as much as to sow and to celebrate the common wonder of seeing that a little inspiration and the right attitude can go a very long way.
Lumière is at best a pilot learning experiment being hitherto too small for serious business thought, study or contemplation. To keep growing and achieve critical mass, touch significantly more lives and business and keep the Lumière team work practices alive, active and robust is the challenge. The happy dream for this unconventional and vibrant work place is the continual creation of significant value and a win-win for businesses, team members and their families and for society at large.
I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa Soman
Mumbai July 8, 2007
April Musings
The call of Varanasi has been strident at times, and a low persistent one at others. This piece will do no justice and the incomplete, unfinished sense will prevail. The sense is the same for every seeker, unfinished incompleteness that the city fulfils briefly. It is a resting place, a base camp of sorts for an onward journey. I recently visited a fabulous exhibition of the paintings of Yashwant Shirwadkar at Jahangir Art Gallery. The theme was ‘Benaras’ and the pull became strident once more. Shirwadkar spends a month on the river and captures the ghats at different times of the day. He photographs, makes sketches and goes back year after year for more.
The city, the visitors to the ghats, the look of the ghats changes and the artist brings back his current impressions and paints different paintings. The season and time of the day are other variables. My work as a researcher is not unlike that of artist Shirwadkar. I tell stories of what I see and hear, and share these with my clients, building a kaleidoscopic picture, a mosaic based on discussions with consumers.
I heard the call with my first visit in 1999. It was a most fortuitous occurrence, a research that didn’t happen due to some unforeseen circumstances. And I got introduced to the river and the city like a tourist. It was a deep-dive into the sights, sounds and experiences that left me feeling heady, heavy, and overwhelmed. It was a medley, a sense of spiritualism, mixed-up mythology and history; awareness of my existence, mortality and destiny; and above all a great curiosity to get under the skin of the city and its people. Subsequently a friend, with whom I share the Varanasi pull, gifted me with a wonderful CD titled ‘Soundwalk’ an audio guide to the first time traveler to Varanasi.
Varanasi is eternal and ephemeral all at the same time. It is made up of evolved spiritualism and mysticism combined with an intensely physical experience that assails every sense. Age-old educational institutions and trading institutions juxtaposed, traditional handicrafts with modern-day multipliers, Varanasi is as much about life’s endings as it is about beginnings. It is a city where black and white doesn’t blur into a gray.
I came here first to study the banal and the very ‘this worldly’. It was a study of consumers in the context of their oral care habits, by exposing them to product formats and concepts. In talking with these housewives, their refinement, education, openness of mind, ability to think and to articulate, came as a big surprise. These women might not have traveled much in physical terms, but they were exposed to thoughts and ideas. There was in them a maturity, wisdom and an ability to articulate, that a poet might attribute perhaps to the holy polluted water that flows and the muggy air over the city.
The most recent visit took place 6 months ago. It was a little more broad-based this time. I was there to study girls between the ages of 13 and 24; to understand their routine, the high points, pain points and their drivers. I spoke with some ‘experts’ that made up of an educationist who influences the intangible and a dressmaker, who moulds and fashions visible aspirations of attire. Studying cross-current influences, changes in family social structures, the construct of relationships, and changes around them helped me get a little under their skin.
The young girls appear to have a strong modern context that sits comfortably with the traditional. They are aware, aspiring, ambitious, and want to improve their lot and to live an ‘achchi zindagi, a good life’. This ‘good life’ means happiness for their parents and family, being financially independent, and being in a comfortable marriage. Love and romance are usually experienced under wraps, covertly through friends’ experiences, most of which are not happy. I heard tales of experimentation, making mistakes, feeling sorry for oneself, feeling misunderstood, guilty, and sadness, a sense of feeling ‘used’, and the huge emotional drain of keeping everyone in the family in the dark
The women in Varanasi are more educated, and they read and write much more their counterparts in other cities. They are more comfortable with expression, using poetry and keeping a daily diary. The 13 – 16 year olds enjoy traditional arts as much as they enjoy using Paint on the computer. There is a higher emotional sensitivity and a heightened sense of perceptiveness in the 19 – 24 year old. This leads to greater dialogue and expression, and avenues to experience and to feel fulfilled
The pretty dressmaker I spoke with chose to move back to Varanasi and live with her parents and maintain a long-distance marriage. Her daughter who is 11 converses with me in English, attired in a neat and smart skirt and blouse. The dressmaker has a small workshop at home and she needs to spend time looking at patterns on TV. She goes for a brisk morning walk every morning and is very conscious of staying trim. She walks down the lane that leads to Dasashwamedh Ghat browsing through the clothes and mannequins, absorbing styles and patterns. Her clientele makes specific demands and clothes have to have slimmer silhouettes, innovative backlines, interesting embroidery and cuts and blouses with more daring necklines. Everyone is moving ahead and on the treadmill of being modern and keeping with the times.
The city is changing at a blurring pace. Young girls today are training themselves for a career. The educationist I spoke with told me tales of parents who support their children’s ambitions. Curricular and co-curricular experiences are about giving the young girl an edge to help her succeed anywhere. The accent is on the flowering of individual talents, not restricted to academic achievements alone. Coaching classes are an enabler for socialization, celebrating birthday parties and picnics, as much as they are for exploring fashion and food, forging friendships, for building confidence and experiencing dreams and life. Mass media is the great leveler of experiences, and the male head of the household is no longer the ubiquitous patriarch. In the present-day knowledge economy, power and control come from being well-informed, in keeping with the times. Young people are getting a natural edge in familial relationships owing to being well-informed.
Varanasi as nucleus and magnet has enabled the flourishing of a confluence of cultures, attracting travelers from different worlds, with their unique and multifarious needs. It is both an enabler to settle as much as a launch-pad to move on, in real and in metaphysical terms. A unique city unlike another and this researcher’s favourite puzzle!
I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on
deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa
May 1, 2007
March Musings
‘Beware the Ides of March’ - A Wikipedia reference will yield this – In the Roman calendar, the Ides of March was a term used to denote 15 March. The term is still used in a colloquial sense for centuries afterwards to denote the middle of the month. In modern times, the term is best known because of Julius Caesar assassination on the Ides of March in 44 BC. The term has come to be used as a metaphor for impending doom.
The Ides of March for us began with dismal playing performance and finally the early exit of the Indian cricket team from the World Cup. A mob mentality was reflected in our newspapers when tremendous public ire came to the fore. On the day of Gudi Padwa or Ugadi, a daily newspaper in Mumbai showed women in traditional Maharashtrian ceremonial attire wielding cricket bats, a grin on faces, with a headline that read ‘we will beat you up…we can play better cricket’.
The burning of effigies, black humour sms texts and derogatory internet images, all point to the rising of ‘Wotan’ an ancient God of storm and frenzy and dual musings. Carl Jung wrote of in his ‘Essays on Contemporary Events’ referring to the Germanic literature that gave birth to Wotan that ‘Wotan is the unleasher of passions and the lust of battle. Wotan symbolizes the mass psychology in the collective consciousness of a people that shows up ‘primitivity, violence and cruelty’. Carl Jung studied contemporary events that led to the rise of Nazism. It is what erupts in us when negative passions run high. We have seen the cascading situations that went totally out of hand in Mumbai and in Gujarat not many years ago. A multitude of reasons can be attributed to our failure with no one above blame, but importantly media can play a very critical role in lending voice and expression to fury. A picture is worth a thousand words, and what images did we see and what headlines did we read?
We were aware of the impending doom in the World Cup. Every channel and publication worth its salt waxed eloquent about the talents or lack thereof our individual players. This was juxtaposed with writings on our dismal team dynamic, the politicization of the selection process, absentee leadership and a flagrant flouting of the authority and respect for the coach. In each of these and more lay the seeds of our failure. Passions run high in cricket and its fans along with the ability to morph unendingly, depending on whether we win or lose. Cricket is ‘religion’, ‘binder of the Indian fabric’, ‘an anthem’, ‘a symbol of national pride’ when we anticipate winning, and when we lose, it transforms into a ‘just a game’ and at worst, ‘a medium for advertising and endorsements’, along with the baying for the blood of our players whom we want to flay. Public perception swings between two dualities of the players being either gods to be adored or demons to be hated and despised. The reality is that they are human, somewhere in between.
The Ides of March brought doom also in the tragic and shocking form of Bob Woolmer’s death. The mystery shrouding the event, the needle of suspicion that left a whole team tainted stands testimony to the fact that cricket is a big stakes game. The price to be paid could be life. Many players in turn will face humiliation, even ostracism, a need to explain and justify to themselves and to people around them, and will need to cope, and recover to play again.
As researchers we observe and interact with human subjects in their socio-cultural milieu. We study words and language, behaviour, and body language, with the intent to unearth emotions. Some times the subject is aware of and shares, at others she is aware of her emotions but cannot share them, and at other times she is unaware and unconscious of these emotions that are deep down in the realm of the unconscious. In a democratic culture, popular media is both a reflection as well as a mirror. It creates and refines our sensibilities and plays a role in defining our character as a people, especially in case of young people whose world view is getting formed. A study of media is a tool to unlock our cultural consciousness as well as of our unconscious.
It will be interesting to study how other nations have coped with failures and losses where a game is accorded status of religion. Being a player of the game brings riches, adulation and fame. Is there a preparation for losing? What is the possibility of face saving that the self allows itself? What is the sense of personal responsibility and team responsibility that the loser feels? Are there lessons we can learn as a people, as a business, as a team, and as individuals, of what not to be and what not to do? Does failure split and success bind? Do we as a people want only to identify with winning and are our coping mechanisms for failure only about vicious anger and its imbalanced and faulty expression? Can we revisit ourselves with renewed hope and in the words of Theodore Roosevelt ‘Dare Mighty Things’?
 I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa
(2nd April 2007)
February Musings
Lumière is a virtual organization that we founded 10 years ago, primarily as a work opportunity for women professionals who weren’t strictly willing or able to work in a conventional workplace. Does this sound like a social cause? We believe it’s a business cause and a human cause. There are lots of bright professionals out there who might want to get into a work environment that respects them for their ability to work full- flexi. Lumiere is a way of doing business, and for us a way of life/ work. It’s not part-time, and it’s not a compromise.
Over time we’ve become an eclectic multi-disciplinary team, and some smart work practices and good sense in selecting, training, empowering and rewarding them, thereby working with them to becoming good and some even exemplary qualitative market researchers.
The discipline of qualitative research is as much an art as it is a science. We build on people, and help them hone their skills in communicating, developing ways of seeing, connecting, inferring and making meaning, using their own unique perceptions, with the objective of bringing insight to business problems. Yet another abiding philosophy we live by, is that everything we do today ought to be a leg up on what we did yesterday. We drive ourselves hard – really hard.
At Lumière, we’ve discovered that everyone loves stretch, independence, being nice, and feeling respected and valued. We believe in treating our clients, our field partners, our respondents and in fact each other - with respect, concern, and empathy. And we love doing research and solving business problems. We are all in our projects together, as one extended team, trying to do our best for the project. A virtual business model is not sustainable without a tremendous sense of personal leadership and ownership of the client, and business problem.
Over the years, the team size of qualitative researchers and analysts as well as of industry and domain experts has grown. We are now looking to expand and offer the opportunity to a larger audience. The Lumière Way, with its deep underlying belief in the limitless potential of the individual provides a unique way of balancing work and life. It builds on individual strengths, inputs very highly into team members and helps them grow personally and professionally.
In 2004, the Lumière model was studied by a leading multinational as a case study for exemplary team work practices. They studied our team processes, observed us as we worked and played. This curiosity and appreciation by some shared and external appreciation gave us further confidence that we were doing a lot of things right.
In February 2007, came an unusual request from the head of a large Indian retail giant which read, ‘we are inspired by Lumière and would like for our HR team to study your organization’. They sent across their HR team to study how they might attract and engage with women professionals seeking flexi, project-based work.
As modern urban life gets more stressful and demanding, personal economic independence grows, more work place opportunities open up, more people would want to become ‘consulting partners’ to an organization. At Lumière our employee turnover is lower than 5% and our doors never close for exiting employees, who are encouraged to go out there, but come back whenever they feel the need for greater need for flexibility increases.
The challenge for us as we grow is to attract women professionals who will make Lumière a career option of choice. It’s an invite to explore this playground of infinite possibilities, even as you take time off to smell the roses.
I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa
January Musings
Have a wonderful 2007. New Year is a time for fresh beginnings and nothing fosters a sense of freshness, more than a great holiday. It's good to be back after a whole 9 days of being on leave. The holiday was refreshing with quality family time. We enjoyed KL and Singapore . I'd like to share a few lessons that Singapore taught me.
A significant take away is the ‘Merlion' the ‘mascsot' of the country, which is an impossible creature with the head of the lion and the body of the fish. It symbolizes the spirit of the country – ‘achieving the impossible against all odds'. It's a powerful affirmation to begin the year with. I have a small silver book mark pinned up on my soft board to remind me of my affirmation and these 10 lessons I put down for myself:
- Transformation: Just like Singapore transformed itself from a mish mash slum a mere 30 years ago to a state of the art country, its possible to focus on ones own evolution and eventual transformation to a magical next level of possibilities.
- Foresight: Singapore plans 25 years into the future year on year – to develop a clear vision and a perspective on where one wants to be in the next one year as well as a 10 year plan on life.
- Positivism: Singapore media communicates the positive – there is an acknowledgment and sharing of positive news – to decide to be aggressively positive in ones thought so positive actions can emerge.
- Determination: Singapore 's transformation is a result of persistence and determination to achieve its goals and mission – to imbibe this as part of ones DNA
- Energy: There is a strong under current of energy that is a result of clarity of purpose and determination – to supply ones with a limitless supply of energy which comes from doing well what one enjoys doing.
- Cleanliness: There is ruthlessness in the execution of cleanliness – to keep ones self clean in thought and deed and eliminate unnecessary clutter that results in energy leaks in ones system.
- Discipline: The country is disciplined and orderly – to discipline oneself in work and in leisure so one may achieve a balance in life.
- Integration: Singapore is an ethnic ‘salad' where the sauce of the values touches each of the peoples of the country while allowing them to ‘taste' the retained ethnic flavour – the lesson is when one imbibes and assimilates new learnings, to do it while being oneself, being happy and comfortable in ones own skin.
- Celebration: Singapore celebrates individual achievement, success, material progression and getting ahead – to celebrate every win to further propel oneself with energy and the excitement that comes from winning.
- Governance: Singapore is governed by a benevolent dictatorship – to be a benevolent dictator unto oneself ensuring that we are kind yet unyielding to ourselves lest we succumb and forget our dreams and the true selves we were meant to be.
I am sharing these lessons in great humility as Singapore was as humbling as it was inspiring. From my own perception and oft quoted refrain that Singapore would be insipid and antiseptic, and Hong Kong is so vibrant and alive, I found myself surprising chastened by this experience. May you have great adventure and excitement the year through and while you are going through it, do share notes on your inspiration and where you got your lessons from. I look forward to your your views and comments to this piece on deepa.soman@lumieresolutions.com
Best,
Deepa
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