Viraj Karla an Independent Media Consultant

CG Today : Arindam Chaudhuri, founder of the Planman Group - you trained with him for his annual Pan-India workshops. How would you describe Professor Chaudhuri?

Viraj : Prof. Chaudhuri is one of the better leaders and motivators ever. His views and vision for the country are thought provoking, inspiring and at times blatantly true yet unheard of. He works more hours than most people yet manages to strike a fine balance between work and family. It is an honor and a pleasure to have had the opportunity to know him and work with him.

CG Today : Working in the area of media was your game when you were Manager of Media Services at Perfect Relations from 1997-1999. Did you learn things here that would prove to be useful in your future positions?

Viraj : As India’s leading PR firm in the 90s Perfect Relations provided me with responsibilities and opportunities that made it the perfect training ground for me. It is the work catharsis at Perfect that confirmed my belief that my career will be chiseled around media, marketing & communication. The environment & culture at Perfect stimulated me to discover my strengths and provided me ample opportunity to set ambitious goals and achieve them. And I worked with some great people!

CG Today : Currently you are training, facilitating, and consulting as an independent marketing consultant. Give us some examples of recent projects with which you have been connected.

Viraj : It has been less than a quarter that I ventured out on my own. In this time I have put-together a team of hand-picked executives who specialize in media, client-servicing, content-development, learning & development, research and marketing consulting. It is a lean outfit at this stage but very driven and focused. Coming February we will ramp-up to the next level. By February we’ll also have a very senior consultant with experience in countries like UAE, Netherlands, France & UK will come-on board as a partner.

The NDAs signed with clients will hold me back from disclosing their names but to give you some idea:

On the consulting front there are currently three projects on board – the first is for a Spanish brand that we are customizing an India Entry Strategy for; the second project is for a South-Asia based animation & media studio & institute that is seeking alliances in India and the third one is for an island-nation that we are promoting with a very niche B-to-B Indian audience for investment, leisure and trade opportunities.

As a corporate trainer I am associated with one of Asia’s leading training & learning enterprises. I deliver behavioral & soft-skills training modules with their corporate clients. Plus I have my own set of clients that have empanelled me for designing and delivering training modules that range from leadership, communication skills, presentation skills, team-building, cross-cultural-skills, stress-management, negotiation skills to life skills.

Also, I am a visiting / guest faculty with some premier B-schools in Delhi NCR like BLSIM, IIPM, etc where I interact with students on topics like Effective, Communication, Leadership, Employability and Interview skills.

CG Today : Another of your consulting areas of expertise is End-to End Services. Could you describe what that would include for an entertainment industry client?

Viraj : Just like a full-blown animation studio should be able to provide it’s client script-to-screen capabilities, meaning all the way from pre-production, production to post-production; similarly the service portfolio or the partnering bandwidth that we boast-off is that for a production house, studio and/or institute in animation, media and/or entertainment we can advice and support our client at every stage. From research, feasibility, funding, legalities, projections, talent-acquisition to marketing and communication planning we can work hand-in-glove with our client.

As an animation school you may want to increase your batch size or get international alliances, as a production house you might be looking for the best voice-talent, as a movie-producer you could be looking at international film-festival lobbying, as a studio you could be looking at raising funds or finding JV for your film or for your film you maybe looking for a sponsor to do in-film branding or you may want to promote and do PR of your soon to be released content… all of these cases fall under the purview of challenges that we provide strategic solutions for.

CG Today : What is Market Entry Management and Strategy, especially as it relates to the entertainment field?

Viraj : Market Entry Strategy for a foreign entity wanting to set-up base in India can be challenging. Feasibility study, customer profiling, target audience analysis, potential JV-partners, legalities & compliance's, feasible location to talent acquisition are all priority elements and we help our client bridge this gap in the process of their entry into the Indian market. We follow all of the above with marketing communication strategy for this new entity.

We offer these services also to Indian companies seeking help in setting-up base in Singapore, Europe and or USA. With very strong partnering that we have put in place with our experienced counterparts in all these regions we make life easier and more secure for an Indian entity venturing out.

CG Today : You have done training for heads of businesses in soft-skills, or "EQ" (Emotional Intelligence Quotient). How important are soft-skills and behavioral science in a person’s ability to be successful in a business organization?

Viraj : In today’s highly competitive work environments and markets soft-skills in a lot of job-types are almost becoming hard-skills. These are skills without which your employee will not be able to perform up to the mark; hence, it is imperative for all companies to provide Soft-skills & behavioral training to all its employees. How any employee interacts and communicates with your external as well as internal customer will define your brand / organization’s success. More often than otherwise the difference between a good and a successful manager is in their understanding and utilization of soft-skills.

A winning smile, a firm handshake, the right shirt, an engaging presentation, assertive voice modulation and articulation could become the reasons that make one executive more successful than the other. And the exciting thing about behavioral training is that if imparted rightly it is easy to adopt.

Similarly some managers are natural leaders while others need to be trained in the art of leading teams and motivating teams.

CG Today : Having taught cross-cultural skills to corporate heads, have you seen these skills being over-looked often as countries are partnering more and more with one another?

Viraj : Very often cross-cultural skills are overlooked. For a business-head of a company that will develop clients overseas and for managers who will lead teams that will have members from other countries, it is very important that they are well-trained for cross-cultural situations. In order to win the confidence and respect of external/internal client from another country it is important to display empathy and understanding of their cultures.

For example with your American client you will ideally not want to say ‘let’s celebrate’ on 9/11. With a French client in France on Friday afternoon even as a tea-totaler you would not want to say ‘all people who drink in the day are alcoholics’. With your colleague from Manchester you would not want to say ‘Football sucks’. While on the escalator leading out of the London Underground the last thing you would want is for your Londoner colleague to tell you that ‘you cant stand in the middle, you need to stand on one side, the right side, so that the passengers in a hurry can easily pass you from the left’. It is this conscious knowledge of simple nuances and etiquettes that make you a winner in cross-cultural situations.

Today a cross-cultural understanding is needed even within the confines of your country. A day after the rape of a North-Easterner in Delhi, a manager from Delhi will look like a fool when he stands with his team in Gangtok and in order to convince them to move to Delhi says ‘Delhi is one of the safest cities to live-in’.

CG Today : You list International Networking as one of your specialties, in your bio. What are the steps in attempting interaction between businesses from different countries?

Viraj : As a point of liaison between two clients from different countries one needs to ensure that you only take-on projects that you can deliver. Hence a complete understanding of your client’s expectations and objectives is of prime importance. Matching expectations, solutions as well as cultures is finally how international networking on behalf of clients becomes successful. Needless to say that there are at least a dozen potential client queries I receive every week. But it is only 1 or 2 out of these that I react positively to. All others I know are cases where I cannot create win-win situations for one reason or the other. When I take on a project I deliver.

CG Today : Thank you for being with us and best of luck in your new independent consulting endeavors.

Viraj : Thank you very much.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Viraj Kalra - Independent Consultant,

New Delhi, India.

e-mail : This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------