Happy New Year

 

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I take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones peace and prosperity in the New Year.

 

JJJJJ

 

from

Amit Chauhan

Lets per say assume, we all want to reach the un-flagged, virgin land with twigs around, gliding in an ocean-full of water, swinging on the branches of larger than life trees, cuddling serenity, surrounded by every imaginable being in flesh and blood – from red ants to havoc creating whales to meek looking sloth to ferocious spider monkeys. It’s just a matter of calling names and they’ll come forth to make sure that their being is acknowledged. There is no ship, no boat and no coast guard to help you, guide you or to get to the shore. How would you go about it???

 

Halt! This view is from the other side of the grass.

 

Come back to the real world!

 

We took you for a ride for a second. Give it a third thought and see if you can find similarities between the two worlds…

 

If you have scratched your brains enough, here goes the allegory:

 

1. The unflagged beach is the territory we aim to be the masters of.
2. Twigs are the resources we ought to capitalize on.
3. Wretched and not so wretched beings are apparently the people you collide with, on your way up and down, adding to your bagful of pleasant and not so pleasant experiences.

 

Of what we know, Pearson India started off amidst such grounds, where it had to fathom the unconquered realms, capitalize upon its strengths, crush the competitors and hoist the flag of victory. Pearson has been there. Seen it. Done that. Inevitably, it is still is in the process of raising the bar since it knows that the law of success dances to the tune of ‘Survival of the fittest’. Since no one beats the law, Pearson has sprinkled the seeds of concrete and obviously this concrete is its people – the Pearsonites!!! Today each one of us proudly associate ourselves as not merely a part of Pearson but also being a part of the molecular unit (respective departments) of Grand-pa firm!!!

 

To define this molecular unit - a team, we find it appropriate to quote the thought proposed by Gestalt school of Psychology: “There are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole.”

 

As a department we too sketched our aspirations and believe we have much more to achieve! Rights & Contracts department after coming to the forefront, took up the task of solving the puzzle when it came to the accomplishing the task of remitting royalty. We recovered lump some licenses from the US and UK. Do we call it an achievement? Well, there was more to follow.

 

Through the medium of book fair, rights were sold. Pearson India books reached Nigeria and China too. In fact it is through this that various international organizations that were aware of the mighty stature of Pearson US, UK came to know about Pearson India and its books!

 

Never before was there a permissions desk but this too was set up in May ’08. We work closely with the editors to work on permissions and lubricate the process of book development.

 

Further to it, living up to its name and educating millions, Pearson continues to penetrate in the Indian soil as well. Another major task of translation has been taken as a challenge by us. We are aiming on bringing out substantial number of translated texts not just for generating revenue but because our aim is also to make those books accessible which can work wonders by crossing the barriers of language.

 

With the arrival of winters, the mood was set to work upon author satisfaction. The author satisfaction survey was circulated and Pearson’s first ever author and distributor meet was organized across the four metropolitans. It was a successful event with praise earned from the authors and distributors. Unfortunately, towards the end, Chennai flight was clipped due to fog but our colleagues handled the meet with ease.

 

Teaming up and streamlining our goals has been quite a task. We are glad that we are living up to the vision we had eyed and are taking baby steps to reach the finish line, where another race lies ahead of us! With a warm heart we thank all those who’ve been supportive and encouraging throughout!

 

To pour a final food for thought, our post doesn’t categorically fit into this week’s theme – My Achievement. We feel that the spirit with which we worked was exploited to the best partly because we are a team! That we think is an achievement in itself!

 

Until next post, we sign off and wish everyone a Superbiful year ahead!

 

Regards,

Team Rights & Contracts

My Biggest Achievement for Year 2008

My biggest achievement this year was to realize USD 42720/- which were nearly 24 months old and it was an uphill task when I was assigned with the role of entire foreign collections. Even though the amount is not too much in the currency terms but pitching with foreign customers were difficult as they were grossly clumsy in terms of managing it as from India it is quite difficult to convince them through e-mails without meeting them face to face and able to make them understand the statement and reconciling them to their satisfaction. There were no representative till late 2007.

After persistent mails & phone calls to every customer be it Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Maldives, I was able to win their hearts and minds and then only make them convinced of the age old debts which were realized this year. I want personally thank Pooja Gaur, Mukesh Khandelwal, Jawad Tareen, Naval Shukla and last but not the least Suresh Gupta for the efforts & cooperation they have extended to me to realize the amount without which it would have been a distant dream for me.

Regards

Kuntal Kar

Pearson Education

Ph No. +91 11 43030225

Fax No. +91 11 22146071 

 

My biggest achievement this year

It's a hard topic that Jonaki has set for us for this week. For many of us, there have been so many achievements, on both the professional and personal side. It's tough to highlight any single one as the biggest achievement. What was yours, Jonaki?

I am merely the sponsor of the prizes, not the judge, so I thought I'd pitch in and try to answer. I also have lots of time on hand, as I sit at Delhi airport waiting for the fog to lift. Yesterday a bunch of us were trying to get to Chennai, and we sat in the aircraft for 5 hours before we aborted our trip. With naïve optimism or utter stupidity, I am trying it again, this time trying to get to Bombay.

Actually there is one project I had hoped to close within the year, which might have qualified, but I couldn't close it in time.

So for me, if I have to sum up my achievements for the year in a single sentence, it would probably be : I didn't mess it up! This was my first year as a CEO, in a new company and a new industry. In retrospect, the chances of making big errors (of either omission or commission) were huge. But I think we had a good year. We performed well, we have set ourselves up for continued success, and we had fun.

Thank you, everyone at Pearson, for helping me (and us) get to where we did. Having such a great team makes my life so much easier.

We are blessed to be working in an economy and an industry that has so much potential. I know that 2009 will be even better for all of us, and I hope that you all have a wonderful start to the New Year, surrounded by people you love.

Enjoy yourselves, and see you back at work on the 5th.

Vivek Govil
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