STAGing a Growth Scenario – A case study from the Mentorship Program
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With eight years of good growth behind it, test engineering company STAG Software found it self at a growth threshold, where it felt it needed some handholding to make the crossover. That’s where the NASSCOM mentorship programme for emerging companies came in. Read on to know how STAG benefitted
Established in 2000, STAG Software Private Limited, a test engineering method company, has grown substantially over the last few years. Headquartered in Bangalore, the company today has offices in Chennai, Tokyo and the U.S.A, Having established themselves in the Software Testing Services and Solutions market with their unique engineering-based approach, STAG found itself on the threshold of change once again, “As an organisation, we have always looked forward to change, through the NASSCOM Mentorship programme we felt it would be possible for us to grow and reach a new level of company maturity. We also wanted to know if we were doing things right,” says T.Ashok – Founder and CEO of STAG.
What were the challenges STAG faced before the Mentorship programme?
We were constantly asking ourselves if we were communicating right and if we needed to make changes in our marketing and sales approach to bag the larger contracts. We also wanted to focus on people management; we wanted our people to benefit from the overall company growth. Funding was another important area we wished to address; so far we had grown internally by recycling our internal funds now we wanted to learn how to access additional funding which would increase our growing ability.
What were your expectations of the programme?
We waited for a while before we undertook the NASSCOM mentorship programme as we wanted to meet the panel with an open mind, ready to accept feedback. We knew that they were not going to offer us an overnight magical solution, but wanted to be at a stage where we could receive feedback and implement it. As an individual, I did not go there with a mental list of things to tick off, I wanted to learn how to market the company better – how to evolve better synergy. I thought that the key people in our marketing team were ready to go through a metamorphosis.
How did NASSCOM go about the mentorship programme?
In the initial session, we were asked to present our company, so through a short presentation we took them through who we were, what our communication strategy was and what we perceived as a challenge. After that session we met once in six weeks and had around 5 meetings in all. I liked the fact that each person on the panel was highly qualified and had a specific area of expertise.
Our chief mentor also made it a point to visit our office and interact with our sales team as he wanted to assess the situation for himself instead of relying completely on our reports.
What kind of help did you get from the mentoring team?
We got concrete feedback from the mentoring team, they pointed out potential problem areas like ‘positioning and communicating’ for instance. During a pitch it took us 30 minutes to communicate our notions of testing technology. Through the mentorship programme they helped us rethink and sharpen our communication and one of their ideas was that we should create a crisp 1 minute pitch. Our communication method underwent a significant change after this session – we developed a short 3 minute pitch which has really helped us communicate effectively to a potential client.
The other area that needed immediate attention was sales. As our product is highly technical, they thought it would be best to include a technical person on the sales team. The panel also drew our attention to our sales approach and sales tracking which was still a little laid back. They wanted us to have a concrete achievable sales plan which would be rigorously executed.
So if I have to sum up our lessons we learnt, it would be to readjust technology to communicate better, to communicate in a more coherent fashion, to involve technical people in sales and to give sales more importance.
Has the strategy paid off?
Yes it definitely has, we achieved the objectives we set out with, especially communication.
How different was this experience as compared to a typical consulting enagagement ?
Here we worked with a panel of people where each individual had a strong focus area, so it was like working with multiple specialists. Though each session lasted only an hour, we made sure that we were there each time with homework done – because with a panel like this, you owe it to them,, more than yourself. With consultants, it is expensive and impossible to find the one person who is a 360 degree specialist.
What was the biggest benefit you saw?
It gave us clarity on how to communicate effectively and we changed our methodology to enable us to communicate in an easier, more coherent way.
Any particular advice they gave you that you would like to share?
We were told point blank, “If you can’t communicate crisply, you might just miss the bus.” We took their advice seriously.
How much of their advice did you actually implement?
We did accept all the feedback from the panel with an open mind. However, we disagreed on some inputs.
What changes would your like to see in the way the mentorship programme is run?
It would be nice to have a sounding board and forum even after the 6 month session- to give it continuity. There were times when I felt a disconnect. For a smaller company like us, it is hard to translate a lot of the theoretical aspects that were brought up.
Would you recommend this programme to others?
Wholeheartedly! But companies should be open to change, as this is not a molly cuddling pep up session but a frank, straightforward and honest dialogue from which any company can benefit and learn.
Contributed by Jayanti Bhattacharya, Prayag Consulting, for the Emerge newsletter.
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Good concise article – well written.