My achievement during the year 2008

MY BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT IN THE YEAR: 2008

 

 

The year 2008 has been very eventful year for me. Prior to joining Pearson on 5^th November, 2007, I was working with a well known German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp, as the Head of Indirect Taxation, managing taxation matters of 28 states in India. I earned much kudos from CFO for single-handedly managing the indirect taxation matters to the satisfaction of all. When I got the offer from Pearson as Manager-Finance, my previous organization’s CFO, Managing Director, Zonal Finance Controllers and concerned Advocates / Consultants wished me wholeheartedly for a bright future in my next assignment in Pearson.

 

Perhaps, their blessings inspired me in making some worthwhile achievements during my tenure with Pearson. In my initial few days at Pearson, I was learning the dynamics of business, its accounting policies, reporting standards as well as pulses of other departments. Slowly, I came to terms with the system as the rigors of Chartered Accountancy profession helped me in understanding any system, whatever be its complexities. I was told by VP-Finance and other senior colleagues that 3D P&L reporting had been long overdue after I joined here. This is a three dimensional Profit & Loss Account analyzing profits / losses for our three divisions, e.g. Higher Education, Professional & Trade and School. I was given the stiff target of developing the 3D P&L in a fortnight.

 

This has been the operation from the scratch. First, I had to understand the accounting codes, profit centres as well as the P&L groupings being followed in TMS. Basically, it was an exercise on accounting concepts and policies tailor-made for a publishing industry. The fact that I had no prior experience in publishing industry, made my task even for difficult. But, my self determination to achieve something, which, I knew, would be highly beneficial to the company, propelled me to contribute towards attaining new heights of company’s financial analysis.

 

Amongst other jobs, I involved myself throughout day and night, whether at office or home, in developing the well sought-after report. It took all of my skills so far accumulated over my 14 years’ professional experience in the fields of accountancy, finance as well as computer applications to make it operational.

 

I earned praise from my seniors and colleagues, but these adulations were nothing when a thought came to my mind that I had done something very good towards organizational goals. I am not exaggerating the fact that throughout my career, I never looked upon my career as a priority, rather, I felt enlightened at the benefit derived by the organizations from my work. May be, this was considered as weakness by some, for not becoming ambitious. But, I don’t care. Becoming ambitious only does not fetch me any peace of mind. Rather, I want to move up the ladder as a member of the team. I feel proud as a member of a brilliant finance team of Pearson Education, India especially after this achievement.

 

 

Regards,

 

Sujiban Ghosh

 

Yes!!!!we did it again

 

 

Every year in the month of December almost all of us ask each other this question “did you get your numbers ?” New joinees often scratch their heads puzzled thinking what “numbers” these people are talking about! We rush in during the day and after the office hours as well, scribbling the orders from the customers on each and every piece of paper we see around, checking the inventory, running up and down the stairs towards Customer Service and manufacturing for the titles in demand. Orders come in from each and every possible mode of communication like phone, fax, e-mail and even on sms .Its   really fun to read them and many a times I feel them referring to some intelligence department for decoding like KnG 1-8 # 200 or Dark O Brown 3/200 (if you are wondering what is this? it refers to one of our prominent authors Mr. Derek O’ Brien whose name our distributors fail to pronounce despite their best efforts).

 

Some times I wonder how the maximum sales numbers we did earlier in our monthly budget few years ago are now being achieved in a single day by our go getter sales team .Yes we can!!

 

Well, this year again we did our budget in style well before the day of closing on 24th itself and I celebrated Christmas partying all night with the friends, just now I got confirmation from my colleagues that the party is going to continue over the weekend .

In all it was a great financial year. On behalf of School Division I would like to thank each and every department, our customers, authors and vendors for their continuous cooperation and support for making things happen. 

 

Prashant Rathore

 

   

Just the other day, my friends/colleagues and I were discussing how our lives have changed significantly after the thing called "recession" hit the market. Right from spaces in newspaper columns, magazines, and journals, it affected the subject and content of every conversation floating around. Everything going wrong could now be tagged as being a result of this demonic thing. To put it very simply, I could fathom that one needed to be careful about a few more things in life. It took a little more than brushing up my high-school economics to understand the whole phenomenon. But everywhere I went, from marketplaces to restaurants to bookshops to coffee shops, people suddenly seemed to have discovered a lot of common things to talk about. Different people came up with different reasons, causes and theories, and I continued absorbing them along, retaining what I liked to believe, and discarding those that did not sound romantic enough. Of course, the story of this man about to get married, losing his job in the United States due to this villainous occurrence, and his wedding getting postponed appeared to me to be extremely romantic (I think all sense of romanticism comes with a sense of loss, and so pardon me if I sound heartless and cruel here)! So here were exciting times - people losing jobs, losing money, losing people they would love to be with, and I think these were the times people actually felt grateful and started valuing factors we usually take for granted.

 

I was having a conversation with a friend on the phone right after his appraisal got over. He sounded quite satisfied, if not positively happy. Later I realized that all the satisfaction came from the very fact he had not lost his job, even though there was not even a paisa raise in his salary. So here was one man, satisfied and devoid of greed, just because of this thing called "recession". Well, had any other person, deconstructing this so-called "evil" phenomenon, stumbled upon its spiritual benefits? I wonder.

 

So under these given circumstances (validated with a mail from the CEO declaring the fact that a raise in salary would only be a rare thing, and that all of us should be cooperative in these times of recession), we were given another choice to think of a place we could fix up for our NSM in 2009. Incidentally, my friends/colleagues and I were discussing once more what an ideal place for our NSM would be. Of course, just as everything is related to everything else, we could not keep away "recession" from our discussion for too long. We know how we ought to be thrifty and considerate, and we kept coming up with ideas. Somewhere close by - one wise suggestion - as it saves travel cost. So what would be the places close by? Manali, Ranthanbhore, Rishikesh, Lakshmanjhula, Dehradoon, Mussoorie, Sariska, Corbett, Jaipur, Shimla, Nainital, Bhimtal, Chail, Ranikhet, Alwar, Manesar, Gurgaon.and we realized that the list gradually was closing down to places around and almost inside Delhi. So once we did include areas we visit almost regularly in our list, we became more accommodative. Places in Delhi are not a bad idea at all. After all, so many people do come to visit this city as well. In a lesson learnt a few paragraphs earlier, we ought to be less greedy and not take things for granted. And what better way - just because we work in Delhi and meet each other regularly on the other side of the Yamuna does not necessarily mean Yamuna loses its charm. After all, so many poets have scripted love songs and poems on the lovely banks of the Yamuna (which, I realized seemed no broader than a canal only after I came to Delhi)! What about Patparganj Industrial Area? There is a river, a canal, villages, and houses made of clay, there are cows (in abundance), and often donkeys and elephants - all things that we completely disregard, but might have found fascinating had we seen them in a place much farther away from our place of work. And besides, we have our office here, which I am sure we will miss once it shifts to Noida (or so as I hear)! And now, with the new cafeteria and coffee machines, new flat-screen desktops, the office looks pretty attractive! And finally, the good thing about an NSM right here, in our office, would also mean saving travel cost at a time when we do take expenses seriously. And I wonder what it would feel like to stay over nights after nights (for almost a week, during the NSM) at a place where we come to work everyday. If not anything else, we would have spent enough time in our 482 FIE Patparganj office, by the time NSM gets over, to not miss it any more once we shift to some other workplace we would soon learn to call our own.

                                                                                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NSM 09

Dear Jonaki,

It is a wonderful contest and I want to congratulate you for such a wonderful thinking to start such type of issues for which generally we discuss among each other but couldn’t get our result, but might be possible now we could get a recognition for our thoughts so as you have given very latest issue on which now days our colleagues are murmuring with each other.

First of all I want to concentrate my discussion about the issue that our meeting should held outside of India or within India!

NSM 09--------Our NSM 09 should held outside of India like BANKOK,MAURITUS  because we get a chance to go outside with our colleagues to discuss further planning and issues for best of our Family(company) once in a year so generally this tour is Sales Meeting cum Tour with our colleagues so I have various reasons for our NSM outside of INDIA:

*As Publishing Industry is very small industry so generally our distributors and our competitors discuss about these meetings and if we come from outside of India we proudly reply to our distributors, suppliers and competitors about our NSM and it make us very proud that we are in Brand and we are best in this industry so it enhances our Moral as well as motivate the young and new joiners that they have joined best publishing company among all publishing companies.

So our NSM should be Sales meeting as well as memorable Tour for everyone.   

PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE!

REGARDS

RAJESH MISHRA

(PEARSON EDUCATION HIGHER EDUCATION)

09838502347 (UTTAR PRADESH)