Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul><li>As we come to the end of another challenging year, we look forward to next with with a lot of hope. </li><li>In our attempt to crystal-gaze into what 2022 has in store for the <keyword id="35666" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="advertising" source="Orion">advertising</keyword> and media business, we spoke to a few experts from the industry.</li><li>In today's feature, <keyword id="1193084" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rana-barua" source="Orion">Rana Barua</keyword>, Group CEO, Havas Group India, <keyword id="1627828" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="kartik-sharma" source="Orion">Kartik Sharma</keyword>, Group CEO, Omnicom Media Group - India, <keyword id="6269377" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="premjeet-sodhi" source="Orion">Premjeet Sodhi</keyword>, Chief Strategy Officer, <keyword id="5968693" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="wavemaker-india" source="Orion">Wavemaker India</keyword>, <keyword id="3364704" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sujata-dwibedy" source="Orion">Sujata Dwibedy</keyword>, Group Trading Director, Amplifi India, dentsu weigh in on trends and themes they feel will dominate the <keyword id="1743395" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="media-buying" source="Orion">media buying</keyword> and selling landscape in 2022.</li></ul>When the pandemic hit us in 2020, most organizations around the world were unprepared for the unprecedented event. While it took everybody by surprise, it brought about a lot of changes to the entire ecosystem. It also brought with it some important lessons. Leaders told us about the importance of agility, collaboration, flexibility and empathy. While the second wave this year hit the country harder than the first, businesses took the lessons they learnt from last year seriously, ensuring they were better equipped to deal with the impact of the pandemic on business. While the months of April and May this year were especially difficult for us and for businesses across India, the bounce-back has been a little quicker this time around, with most organizations already on a road to recovery. In the advertising world, the year was driven by digital media, specifically by social, search as well as video. GroupM’s recently released global end-of-year forecast revealed that there was a much faster expansion in the advertising industry than previously anticipated, driven primarily by growth in the US, UK, and China. The report also predicted that India, the UK, Brazil, Canada, Japan and China could grow between 6-8% annually, on average. Meanwhile, Magna in its report said Indian ad spends witnessed a 14% growth in 2021 and that it will grow by 14.5% in 2022. So, as this year comes to an end and we enter another year with hope, we spoke to leaders from advertising to understand what the year 2022 has in store for us and here is what they had to say: Rana Barua, Group CEO, Havas Group India <div type="image" title="Rana Barua, Group CEO, Havas Group India" msid="88302606" hostid="261"></div> Be Relevant, Be Meaningful 2021 was all about a steady recovery. And at Havas Group India, 3 things helped us to sustain the comeback – integration &amp; collaboration of our companies and over 1000 people, a sharply defined and relevant MX &amp; CX product strategy, and our many industry-first meaningful initiatives. We realised among all innovations, we needed to become even more flexible and relevant at the core. Marketers expect agencies to be genuine partners and dynamic about consumer understanding so that they can plan smarter. Our global Meaningful Brand study reveals if 75% of global brands disappear, no one would care. This is a reality that every marketer will face. The number of brands people used in the pre and the post covid world are not the same. So, driving relevance, being honest and creating meaningful brands will become even more critical. Understanding the Consumer Experience journey and dovetailing into a sharp meaningful Media Experience will be at the core of any integrated brand planning. And with the use of smart data and analytics the same will only become richer and sharper. And finally, meaningful storytelling (short, byte or long) that connects with the consumer, will make the brands relevant and an integral part of the journey. Kartik Sharma, Group CEO, Omnicom Media Group - India <div type="image" title="Kartik Sharma, Group CEO, Omnicom Media Group - India" msid="88302611" hostid="261"></div> 2022: Back to good old creativity, emotive storytelling Data Privacy has been a highlight of the industry for a while now. The pandemic has brought to the fore new challenges of living in the digital age. And with that, having a foundational understanding of consumer privacy concerns and data protection is paramount. Data and technology are the new-age gold for the private sector across the globe. This bestows greater responsibility on leaders using it. Accountability for every concerned stakeholder and their personally identifiable information needs to be benchmarked. On the heels of data privacy bills being tabled in countries across the world, the time is nigh for companies to step up their guardrails on data and consumer privacy. Even with Google extending their deprecation timeline for third-party cookies to late 2023, the industry needs to start testing ways to reach and engage consumers across the open internet in a non-invasive manner. The big idea of 2022 is the one that'll be ideated on the back of good old creativity, emotive storytelling that humanizes brands - enabled by technology, and of course, one that respects the privacy of its audiences. Premjeet Sodhi, Chief Strategy Officer, Wavemaker India <div type="image" title="Premjeet Sodhi" msid="88302723" hostid="261"></div> Measurement of ROI as the True-North for 2022 We can’t talk enough of the changes that brands have experienced during the past Covid-affected years. Many of these changes are now at a tipping point and we will see change only accelerate in 2022. Metaverse is the flavour of the season and probably will have the highest share of conversations. However, the real work will be in the transformative shifts towards Ecom, D2C, <keyword id="623994" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="social-commerce" source="Orion">Social Commerce</keyword> and in managing media fragmentation. In this sea of ‘new’ in 2022, agencies will be at the helm working hand-in-hand with clients to work through the clutter of partners, formats, data providers, enrichment agencies and various other intermediaries for delivering on these initiatives. Novelty, excitement, and innovations will be aplenty but, objective measurement is what will be amiss. In such a scenario - measurement will be the most important theme for 2022. Each platform comes with its own activity metrics but, we need to bring in benchmarking for best practices, comparability across platforms &amp; impact on business. Marketers, figuratively speaking are at the cross-roads and they need a Compass to guide their media investment decisions. The marketers do not need to go after every new-shining media option but need to evaluate everything with ROI as the True-North. 2022 should be the year to define a clear measurement framework that will define expectations from each media intervention. It will lay-down the activity or output measures, the intermediate measures of behaviour/mindset and the business measures of footfalls/downloads/ sales/ subscriptions, etc. This needs both immediate campaign level measurements as well as broader attribution studies to derive the business impact of media investments. Outcome based Media Measurement Spends in the Industry are barely a decimal percentage of the media spends – does measurement not deserve more? What cannot be measured, will not be managed. Sujata Dwibedy, Group Trading Director, Amplifi India, dentsu <div type="image" title="Sujata Dwibedy" msid="88302719" hostid="261"></div> The year of ecommerce growth 2022 will be a sunrise year and we will see many new trends. However, we will definitely see further growth in double digits in the e-commerce space. We have already seen unprecedented growth in not only the retail e-commerce space but also many other aspects of e-commerce. The strength of smartphones and tablets is on a rise, which is also leading to the surge in e-commerce adoption, in addition to the softer aspects such as convenience and social distancing preferences post covid. If we were to contemplate on what could be working within the e-commerce ecosystem, here are a few pointers on what we may see. Firstly, customer’s satisfaction lies in the little things. So, we may see the ease of search leading to an increase in Voice Search. Diversity of payment methods, other than payment by credit card, bank transfer, mobile wallets, and others. There is a rising trend to make purchases in instalments too. We may see a surge in multichannel customer support. This will enable customers to reach the service center at any time and anywhere if they were to communicate. AI-assisted cross-selling and up-selling within seamless online purchases will be more preferred for personalised marketing and products. We have seen growth from Tier II towns and even the smaller markets. Growth in the metros comes from multiple platforms including D2Cs. With new e-commerce preferences and tools, this is likely to accelerate in the coming years.

Trends 2022: Advertising experts tell us what to expect from 2022

<ul><li>While Durga Puja/Navratri is here, this year, the festivites are subdued.</li><li>Brands are therefore excercising caution in where and how much they spend in the next few days.</li><li>However, things are gradually improving and there are signs of recovery, experts tell us.</li></ul><keyword id="6357908" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="durga-puja">Durga Puja</keyword> or <keyword id="48284" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="navratri">Navratri</keyword> is one of the biggest festivals in India and every year the festival is marked by marketers pouring in big monies during the nine days of festivity. Actually the festival is so big in states like West Bengal that streets of cities like Kolkata usually become one big advertising canvas. However, things are different this year. With coronavirus still going nowhere, people are cautious. While every year, the streets become adorned by ads and hoardings from brands from all kinds of industries, because this is the best way to grab people’s attentions, this year, even during the festival, advertisers have been cautious. For the ad and marketing industry which saw a huge dip in investments during the first few months of the lockdown, a lot of hope had been resting on the festive season. However, this year there will hardly be a celebration. Just yesterday, the Calcutta High Court also directed all Durga puja pandals in the state to be turned into 'no-entry zones'. Many pandals in the city are barring physical entry of devotees and making the entire experience virtual. Even in other cities, people are planning to give the festivities a skip. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his address to the nation advised people to exercise caution while going out during the festival. So what does this mean for advertisers? Will they get a bang out of their buck if they advertiser this year? Explaining how things are going to be different this year, <keyword id="3364704" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sujata-Dwibedy">Sujata Dwibedy</keyword>, Group Trading Director, Amplifi India, dentsu international said, “Durga Puja in the east and Navratri in the west, are two of the grandest of all festivals, The festival marks the start of the auspicious period. Dussehra is followed by Kali Puja/Diwali/Laxmi Puja and Bhai Dooj. People shop a lot. The purchase of household durables, cars, bikes, home renovations, capital expenditures in businesses are seen in this period. A lot of business-led decisions are also made around this time. However, this year would be different as people would not step out like before, but they would be hooked on to the media to get a glimpse of the Goddess. So, the media/channel who can give them the best experience would score over the others.” Every year, categories like FMCG, apparel, auto, e-commerce and consumer durables become the biggest spenders during the festive season. But have these brands come ahead and advertised this year? <keyword id="8330648" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sidharth-Parashar">Sidharth Parashar</keyword>, President – Investments and Pricing, GroupM India said, “With demand picking up in Aug-Sep, key categories like Ecommerce, FMCG, Telecom, Durables, Auto and certain segments within BFSI are expected see increased ad spends this festive season. FMCG saw recovery in Jul-Sep quarter, driven by essentials like health-hygiene products and immunity boosting food products. Brands in these categories coupled with discretionary like skin &amp; personal care products are likely to see an uptick in consumer spending and therefore in ad spending too. Consumer durables and Retail are expected to benefit from the govt.’s LTC cash voucher and festival advance schemes, which would lead to increased spending from government employees on products like apparels, laptops, smart phones, consumer durables, home appliances, fitness, jewellery, beauty &amp; personal care during this festive. For Ecommerce sector, RedSeer estimates this festive to surpass a GMV of U$D 7Bn. driven by a surge in shoppers from Tier-II towns, considerable discounts available and financing options being easily accessible to consumers. Large players like Amazon and Flipkart are scaling up their supply chain vendors, fulfillment centres and higher manpower for delivery, in order to meet surge in demand and are spending heavily on TV, digital &amp; Print.” While people might give pandal-hopping a skip this year, they have also started spending money. At this point, people are on the lookout for a change, for something positive and this has led to a visible shift in consumer sentiments in the past few months, Dwivedy added, “We are seeing that market sentiments have improved over the past few months. A surge in online purchases has been witnessed through the various platforms. Indian consumers have started embracing the new normal, and consumption of products is back. There are multiple new categories of products, new convenience food products, health, hygiene-related – all have been accepted and are being tried out. In the last few days, the malls have also opened with new offerings from the shops. Many are offering home delivery, video selections and are even ready to send people home with multiple samples for trials. Home delivery of groceries, foods and other products is preferred. Implying that the emotions have revived, the consumption has begun, however, the mode of consumption is new.” This positive sentiment has led to a month-on-month increase in spends since July across categories. “TV has been almost at the same levels as the previous year. Print, on the other hand, is kind of catching up but it will still take some more time in top metros. Nevertheless, Tier II towns are tracking better. Radio has also picked up. OOH and Cinema that have been worst hit this year should see some relief in this quarter,” she explained. While Television has steadily been seeing an increase in ad spends over the past few months, mediums like Radio and OOH that had suffered a lot during the lockdown are hoping to see some recovery. These are both mediums that see a lot of spends during the festive season in normal years. So how are things this year? Abraham Thomas, CEO, Reliance Broadcast Network Limited said, “The festive season is considered the 5th quarter in India, an auspicious time, for businesses across industries, that contributes 40-45% of sales. Marketers certainly leverage this opportunity with ad volumes showcasing a significant surge. Clearly the most trusted and credible media, this lockdown has helped radio being reimagined amongst the audiences with the overall listenership of medium growing by 30%. The surge in listenership across different TG’s have driven ad volumes across Males, Females, the young and older targeted brands. We have witnessed a rise of 24% in Ad Volumes in week 33 with consistent growth in Ad volume from Aug’20 where average Ad volume surged by 4.8 times as compared to April. With the staggered unlocking of the economy, Radio with its ‘mass local reach’, trusted influencers and digital amplification have witnessed a sharp recovery with certain categories booming more than the others.” However, things aren’t all that great in the outdoor medium and Noomi Mehta, Chairman &amp; MD, Selvel One paints a not-so-rosy picture. He said, “Right now we are at 50% in terms of business when compared to a normal year, and if you compare puja-to-puja, we would be at less than 40% this year. It is true that people are venturing out now and there is an opportunity for brands but they are very cautious.” Every year, especially during Navratri/Durga Puja, brands from segments like FMCG, consumer durables etc go all out and make a lot of noise. “But this year, only those forced to advertise are advertising. For instance, auto brands that are launching new offerings are advertising and currently they are out top advertisers. Every year, we see financial institutes, paint companies, e-commerce platforms and apparel brands also invest in festive but that hasn’t happened this year,” he shared. Despite the fact that brands are cautious in spending, data points towards many cities almost coming to a state of normalcy. Shared <keyword id="2406965" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Atul-Shrivastava">Atul Shrivastava</keyword>, CEO, <keyword id="2911687" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Laqshya-Media-Group">Laqshya Media Group</keyword>, “As far as traffic on the roads is concerned, per data generated through SHARP, Laqshya’s traffic metrics platform, traffic in Kolkata is currently 89-92% of normal times and it is increasing every day. Long traffic jams are also back. So, we see that situation is coming back to normal, aided by the festive season.” However, Shrivastava had something positive to share. He pointed towards signs of recovery, even in terms of ad spends. “Even in the current situation, we are seeing brands in the jewellery, textiles, retail, garments, footwear and the automobile sectors spending their pent-up OOH budgets. FMCG brands are also advertising in OOH media, especially for sanitizing products. OTT platforms and entertainment channels are also investing in OOH media to promote new shows and programs. Hence, even if we do not see 100% spend by clients as compared to last year, current spends are around 60-65%.” On what the rest of the year will look like, Arnab Samanta, Head of Marketing, Graphixstory said, “With the nation gradually ‘unlocking’ itself and with IPL happening around the festive season, the markets are much positive of a revival in the second half of the year. Brands will be spending 1.5 times digitally more than the usual plan of action. The advertising spend will be increased, thoughtful engaging ad campaigns and tech innovations like augmented reality will be introduced to create massive engagement with the target audience. The higher ad spends for various brands will be distributed on a different mix of categories and channels compared to last year, depending on consumer trends and shopping pattern. Digital businesses will now make the way for a sharper trajectory.” While things have still not picked up as much as the ad industry had hoped, the number of new coronavirus infections dropped below 50,000 for the first time in nearly three months in India yesterday. So here’s hoping that things will keep getting better gradually and we will have a better and safer Diwali, one that also brings relief to the industry.

Durga Puja and Navratri is finally here, but are advertisers excited?

<ul><li>While the ad industry has a lot of womentoday, many drop out by the time they reach mid-management levels, primarily due to the lack of flexible hours, or the flexibility to work from home.</li><li>The women leaders we spoke to believe organizations need to prioritize training more women, to prepare them for leadership roles, and this should be a part of the company’s culture.</li><li>There is also a need to relook at the way employee’s performances are evaluated, coming up with newer ways of assessing talent in a time where the way of doing business has seen a complete overhaul.</li></ul> In late 2019, a report by Credit Suisse stated that women’s representation in boardrooms in India increased only by 4.3% between 2014 and 2019. The report further stated that the current female representation on boards is only 15.2% which invariably led to dialogues around the conspicuous lack of women leaders in the upper rungs of the corporate world. Having said that, the world of advertising, marketing and media is one industry that has seen a lot of women in roles of leadership. While we are still far from an equal man-woman ratio in the industry, it is heartening to see more and more women take the top spots. Conversations with most women leaders from the industry led us to believe that this is an industry that welcomes women to be a part of the workforce. However, it is during their mid-career levels that a lot of women drop out of the workforce, leading to a dip in women who take up higher positions. We reached out to some of the most influential women in the industry currently, to gauge what are the reasons for these drop-outs, and what needs to be done, as an industry as well at individual organizational levels, to ensure that women are retained, and even if they drop-out, are encouraged to rejoin the workforce. We received an overwhelming response to our queries from across the sector from women who made some really compelling points. These women who feel passionately about the subject laid their hearts bare, telling us ways they think the industry can evolve, to become more inclusive. Here are some of the most prominent voices. Building a culture of inclusivity It is often noticed that while a lot of women are joining the workforce, many of them take the decision of quitting once they decide to get married or decide to have children. Many find it difficult to come back, due to the lack of flexible working hours at their workplaces, or even due to a certain amount of judgment where people look at them a little differently after they come back from a long break. Most of the women leaders we spoke to believe that the work culture needs to evolve a little, to make way for such women, giving them the flexibility that many of them need, once they start a family. <keyword id="4356726" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="srija-chatterjee">Srija Chatterjee</keyword>, Managing Director, Publicis Worldwide, India shared that while a few corporates have started giving some assistance to women, the ad industry hasn’t yet started doing that actively. “As an industry, we have woken up to women leaders and we are trying to make things happen for women, to make sure that they don't jump off from the workforce. However, there's still a long way to go. The biggest reason women stop working is when they get into that life stage of having children. A lot of corporates are today providing strong support, through office crèches or flexi-timing options. That has not yet happened in our industry. From a business perspective, the size of our agencies might not be that big, which makes implementing this a bit of a challenge. But the more and more we get into a group structure, and offices become more centralized, it will enable organizations to look at shared resources to help women pursue their passion. This is something that could be done, but has not been done yet.” A lot of times, there is also a lot of judgement involved when women come back to work after a long break. Delving deeper into the need for a change in attitude, Pallavi Chakravarti, Executive Creative Director, Taproot Dentsu said, “You’ve been out of the scene way too long - you can’t expect the salary that you do after the kind of leave you’ve taken - but won’t your attention be divided now?” These are just some of the things women hear when they are seeking to make their way back into the workforce, post a long gap. Of course, this is not a blanket statement - times are changing, mindsets are changing, as are corporate policies. But if companies truly want to be gender-neutral then statements and questions like the ones I’ve cited above would never be heard again. Additionally, flexible working hours, working from home, working on time-bound projects are all steps that more and more organisations can adopt to ensure equal opportunities. And when I say equal, I mean that these options should be made available to both men and women. Shedding some light on how OLX is working on retaining some of its women, Sapna Arora, Chief Marketing Officer, OLX India said, “Setting the right example of favourable work culture much suited to women, not just in terms of facilities and infrastructure, but also in terms of broadening our thinking within an organization across various levels, is the key to inspire women working population to join the workforce and perform better. OLX, as an organization, is working on taking baby steps in creating empowering workplace for women. A couple of years ago, we at OLX embarked on a journey to evaluate the gender diversity ratio and actively worked to encourage more women in roles such as data scientists, engineers, front line sales and more. This is a conscious choice we have made under our global diversity and inclusion programme which seeks to improve the gender ratio across STEM and leadership roles.” Talking about the need to prioritize diversity in leadership, Emrana Sheikh, Enterprise HR Head for India and South Asia – Johnson &amp; Johnson said, “Today, companies are increasingly equating their C-suite diversity to competitive advantage for their businesses – and rightly so, it leads to robust dialogue, richer decisions and the empathy to design good, and human-centered solutions. For organizations looking for a paradigm shift in their work cultures, C-suite diversity sets an example for the rest of the team. At the basic level, it can be a source of inspiration that resonates down to the front-line staff. This is only possible when diversity in the leadership is prioritized and its long-term implementation is ensured at all levels through intentionality and focused talent management. Internal platforms such as Diversity &amp; Inclusion Council and Employee Resource Groups further drive culture strategies from a variety of lenses, championing inclusivity as a collective goal across levels. An inclusive culture transcends barriers, bias and bureaucracy, and makes the employees truly feel that they belong. All around, women are a critical mass of consumers, influencers, stakeholders and communities. Hence, reflection of the same in organizations is a business imperative.” Sharing a similar sentiment, Neena Dasgupta, CEO and Director, Zirca Digital Solutions added, “Organizations need to ensure that women in the workplace are respected and recognized.For women to thrive in the workplace, organizations need to ensure an environment that is rooted in equal opportunity and a culture that is geared to assist women achieve their goals.” Sharing some tips on a few things that can be done at the organization level to help women continue to be a part of an organization, Ayesha Ghosh, General Manager, Taproot Dentsu added, “Younger women need to see older women in positions of influence. Flexible working hours and working from home might be a challenge in an industry that’s made a virtue of unreasonable working hours but we ought to be non-negotiable about starting early, cutting idle chatter, short lunch breaks and everything else that helps finish work early so that parents (and everyone else, really!) get to spend some time with their families. Ingraining fundamental values will go a much longer way than making token gestures. Enforcing paternity leave, for instance, so that the onus of child-rearing is not on the mother alone. When a parent, regardless of gender is expected to manage time such that they are responsible for their work as well as for their families, everyone will automatically spend less time on idle chatter and work a lot more efficiently.” An organization's culture also needs to have empathy at its foundation, shared Oindrila Roy, Head of Strategy, India, Essence, to make a difference. "As with any type of workforce integration, empathy should be the edifice on which workplaces are designed to integrate and retain both women and men more seamlessly. For women, it starts with stepping into her shoes, evaluating challenges from her point of view and arriving at solutions which are conducive. For example, an online survey conducted by JobsForHer found that 38% of women do not return to the workforce after giving birth, due to the lack of good day care for children. If that is the challenge, companies need to think of solving this problem innovatively - can the organisation collaborate with a nanny service provider to avail reliable childcare options to its employees? Reassured and empowered parents are likely to stay in the workforce longer." Modifying existing performance benchmarks Rubeena Singh, CEO, iProspect India believes that there is a need to relook at the performance benchmarks on which employees are evaluated. “In the middle years, I often see that we are trying to evaluate people on certain benchmarks. The criteria for these performance indicators have been put in place years ago when it was a largely male-dominated workforce. Things like 8 hours of work, or work in office, or if you want a senior position, you should have worked in different geographies etc. But sometimes, for women, it becomes very difficult to be mobile and move to different parts of the country, especially once they get married. As an industry, we really need to re-evaluate the criteria. We should look for quality now, if people are curious, if they are team-players, how innovative and out-of-the-box can they think. If these changes are brought about, a lot of women will find it easier to catch up from where they left, even if they are coming back after a long break.” Treating both men and women as equals at the workplace A lot of women leaders feel that there is an immediate need to start looking at both men and women as equals in the workspace and not differentiate on the basis of gender. Lara Balsara Wajifdar, Executive Director at Madison World said, “We need to look at women leaders as leaders first and not as women leaders. Don’t differentiate us on the basis of our gender, but differentiate us on the basis of our work! Our industry is always hungry for good talent and if the talent is good, the agency will always accommodate personal requests as long as the work is not affected.” Many also feel the starting point is to start a conversation, where both the genders are treated as equal participants. “<keyword id="6372584" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="gender-equality">Gender equality</keyword> is not just a women’s issue, it’s a human rights issue – that extends to all realms, including the workplace. To encourage equality across all lines of command in the workplace and have more women leaders, we need more men to be equal participants in the conversation around gender equality. Having the male workforce as partners can bring empowerment and equal respect among all genders. Global change-making initiatives like the UN’s ‘He for She’ Movement, of which I am a strong advocate, have been setting strong examples for people of all genders to take bold steps in solidarity and are working towards a gender-equal world,” said <keyword id="235731" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nadia-Chauhan">Nadia Chauhan</keyword>, JMD &amp; CMO, Parle Agro. Pointing out to some things that need to be done at an organizational level, Rishika Lulla Singh, CEO Eros Digital at Eros International said, “There needs to be a cultural shift and change at workplaces to eradicate gender inequality and retain women employees. It is about time that companies consider deserving women for higher level positions and evaluate their performance sans bias. If there are more women leaders out there at the top positions, it gives a sense of confidence to the global sisterhood with strong role models. It is essential that companies organize mentorship programs to break the stereotype of what a man and a woman can or should do. There are several ways to retain a woman employee at work, but we also need to encourage more women to join the workforce. Equal pay, ensuring all voices are heard and feeling valued, creating safe work environment, etc. are all the least we can do.” Pooja Jauhari, CEO, The Glitch put it rather succinctly in her three-point recommendation on how to retain women. She said, “Firstly, treat your entire talent base with gender blindness. Best person for the job. Without over-thinking their family, marital, ‘emotional’ status. Just get the right person for the job. Secondly, allow your talent to align personal and professional goals and build a support system for them to come back to the same position at work after a break (marriage| child birth) and lastly, stop saying a certain gender matters more, prove by example by showing gender balance across functions.” Training young employees to think of themselves as leaders There is also a need for seniors to build an environment of motivating young women while also making them aware of their potential as future managers, shared Sujata Dwibedy, Group Trading Director, Ampilifi India. She said, “This question is asked to mostly senior women but ideally, both senior men, women and the entire team should be equally responsible to motivate the young, efficient women. The entire organisation gains if they can train and then retain competent women leading up to a management role. It is critical to show them advancement opportunities and their growth path. Policies might have to be tweaked but if it benefits all, it should not matter. Building an inclusive workplace, an organisational environment that values diversity not just for the sake of appearances but for the competitive edge that comes with access to multiple perspectives would make a difference.” There are a lot of internal barriers that women have to cross and training them to believe in themselves could help in ensuring they make it to the top. <keyword id="346168" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lulu-Raghavan">Lulu Raghavan</keyword>, Managing Director, Landor Associates said, “Even before thinking of getting more women leaders, we have to think of how we can create a better working place holistically. Secondly, you have to ensure that women at the top, doing good work get the visibility. It starts with the leadership, company philosophy and culture. You’ve got to find them and put them on the top because deserving women do exist. You can’t give us an excuse that there aren’t any women relevant for the top positions. A lot of training has to be done with women themselves; there are a few external barriers such as company policies, work environment, how other people behave towards you, and there are internal factors, which we women have set up through the years. It is the lack of self-confidence, self-doubt and imposter syndrome. We women have to be trained to be leaders. It should be different from the overall management chain because it is decades of social conditioning that companies have to break when women join them. “ Anita Kotwani, Senior Vice President, New Business, Mindshare added, “The industry needs to first acknowledge that Woman leaders can deliver as well as their male counterparts for senior-level roles. The grooming required should be done for the role and not the gender. If that happens you will see the necessary shift with more woman leaders leading the mantle.” Sharing her optimism about the future where she envisions more and more women to be on the top, Kranti Gada, COO Shemaroo Entertainment said, “A few years ago, I participated in a program called ‘Tanmatra’ organized by IIM Bangalore, to help develop and groom fellow women counterparts for about 9 months and the stories I heard about the differences in opportunities shocked me a little. I was happy to be at Shemaroo, where we have seen women in key roles leading from the front and managing the core business with ease and expertise. While the ratio of women is a little skewed in the industry, the gender gap is narrowing, and we will see more women taking charge in future in every field.”

You Searched For "sujata dwibedy" and got 3 results

Trends 2022: Advertising experts tell us what to expect from 2022

Samarpita Banerjee

Durga Puja and Navratri is finally here, but are advertisers excited?

Samarpita Banerjee

Making the industry more gender-inclusive: Women leaders show us the way

Samarpita Banerjee

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides