In last episode, we heard how SCIKEY leadership faced every challenge boldly and stabilized their operations inspite of significant business loss and kept their revenue growing. Their operations stabilized, SCIKEY platform was rolled out and global business increased. Finally they received the much needed funds as debt from bank that cleared the stage for next level growth for SCIKEY. The crisis in SCIKEY became an opportunity with Alok finding the leaders within his ranks and getting ready for the growth and success with the rich experience they had over last more than three years.
COVID raged unabated. The business scene that was very uncertain initially, stabilized after few months. Everyone was working from home and businesses also learned to operate remotely across the world. Any kind of travel was restricted, therefore meetings shifted from physical to virtual and started becoming a habit for every business for good.
The rainy season was in full swing in Pune. Working from home, Alok was more relaxed and reflecting how these four years had shaped up their company and their approach towards everything. He wanted to take some key decisions soon, and this reflection would help him take the right and informed decisions.
Before SRKay, starting a new company appeared very easy to him. He was Managing Director of a large company that gave him a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of high capability under any situation. Immediately after starting SRKay, he realized that the skills and capabilities that worked well in an established company are very different to those needed in a startup. Most of his executives and managers underperformed in a startup ecosystem. The reason he found was mainly linked to their attitude and skills of a large corporate that did not align to a startup ecosystem. Some of the decisions that failed were made from the old school of thoughts. Long discussions but very slow decision making and low accountability that is in general a hallmark of large corporate was initially inherited in SRKay. But, it took some time and expense before that could be corrected.
Alok reflected that one of the key reasons of the crisis was initial lack of focus in the business they had planned to create. Pressure for revenue ended up tempting Alok in acquiring business that were completely misaligned to his vision of SCIKEY. This stressed out his team and confused them as well in the beginning of his business. Probably keeping the focus intact on their core vision might have given them lower revenue initially, but would have certainly helped in reducing unnecessary overheads and given them growth sooner. He realized, it took him more than one year to get back to the right focus.
Previous episode: The story of SCIKEY – Covid business impact & the time of satisfaction
All episode: The story of SCIKEY
