Meghna Datta & Kamalika Gupta Kotru: The Dynamic Partnership Engaged in Fostering the Contemporary Aspects of the L&D Domain
Meghna Datta, Co-Founder
Kamalika Gupta Kotru, Co-Founder
"Being small and agile, we can align to the client’s roadmaps and are able to offer solutions both at strategic and operational levels"
Kamalika Gupta Kotru and Meghna Datta (Co-Founders, Intellection LC) have emerged as a team of highly prolific individuals who never shied away from the challenges they had to face as a couple of enthusiastic women leaders in the L&D Consultancy segment. Respected banking professionals who have over two decades of experience in Branch Banking, Relationship Selling, Product & Sales Force Management, and Content development & training with leading banks of India, Kamalika and Meghn are implementing their distinguished industry expertise at their brainchild Intellection LC a reputed consultancy firm offering knowledge consultancy, product and process strategies as well as customized learning solutions. Their experience in developing products, strategies and managing large businesses & teams, gives them the edge to ensure meaningful solutions for product/process/ people design & scale up. Moreover, the dynamic duo doesn't limit themselves to only strategic inputs but also remains committed to the execution and delivery to the clients' objectives.
Kamalika and Meghna engage in an insightful interaction with CEOInsights.
What were the major challenges you both have encountered while establishing yourself as women leaders in the LND segment? How did you overcome them?
Kamalika: The journey so far reveals our dedication and confidence, which is essential for any woman leader in the present era to succeed. We have had our share of the hard grind in our corporate journey, from running businesses, transactions, processes to executing complex change initiatives by virtue of our 20 year long experiences. When we started our consulting firm, the challenges were mostly around making our presence felt as well as managing the operational and administrative teething troubles. What has worked for us so far, it is the competency and the value that we bring to the table which reflects in the trust that the clients have in us.
Meghna: For me, the challenge has a lot to do with the mindset, and instead of seeing a challenge as a major hurdle, we started envisaging it as a minor speed bump. There have been a few ups and downs, but we've always been able to adapt ourselves and mold the scenario to our advantage. While we have nurtured our mindset to take challenges as opportunities to do some thing better and new, it is relevant that we enjoy it and, most importantly, learn from it. So, as long as we have our end goal in sight, we've been very clear about our priorities and means to get there.
Define Intellection LC as an organization and its current position in the market. What is your USP?
Kamalika: We aim to build a niche consulting firm specializing in a few sectors that need consulting and execution expertise in aspects of retail banking & distribution, sales process and structure implementation, product definition, business model and process governance.
We have been able to merge our business experience with our sound knowledge of the L&D space and cater to a range of players in the BFSI space. Our clients range from very large banks in the country to the new age smaller players and they all are at different stages of their life cycle and looking at continuous improvement on products processes or business models. Being small and agile, we can align to the client’s roadmaps and are able to offer solutions both at strategic and operational levels. The change that these organisations want to bring in then gets beautifully merged with the learning journey of the stakeholders.
Meghna: Rather than just designing solutions for our clients and then moving on, we also emphasize implementing the solutions. We track the changes to comprehend whether the solution or the delta shift brought about by it are favorable for the organization. The advantage that we bring to our clients is the close working engagement that we involve ourselves into which makes us an extended arm in the partnership, thus ensuring effective execution. We remain with our clients through the entire solution lifecycle and at Intellection LC, this is the USP that we bring forth. Hence most of our associations so far have been long term in nature.
How do you understand your client’s pain points, and what strategies do you adopt to address them intrinsically?
Kamalika: It works on multiple levels. Before starting a project, our approach is to do certain level of diagnostics, which includes the problem statement, the project scope the success parameters for the client, and so on. For any project that we get into, we remain concerned and transparent about our clients' needs. We then go for the next steps of aligning our projects with the client's requirements. If the engagement aims at driving a change,we address it through comprehensive design, structure, learning solutions and ensure that all stakeholders buy into the change for it to succeed.
We remain with our clients through the entire solution lifecycle, and at Intellection LC, this is the USP that we bring forth. Hence most of our associations so far have been long term in nature
Define Intellection LC as an organization and its current position in the market. What is your USP?
Kamalika: We aim to build a niche consulting firm specializing in a few sectors that need consulting and execution expertise in aspects of retail banking & distribution, sales process and structure implementation, product definition, business model and process governance.
We have been able to merge our business experience with our sound knowledge of the L&D space and cater to a range of players in the BFSI space. Our clients range from very large banks in the country to the new age smaller players and they all are at different stages of their life cycle and looking at continuous improvement on products processes or business models. Being small and agile, we can align to the client’s roadmaps and are able to offer solutions both at strategic and operational levels. The change that these organisations want to bring in then gets beautifully merged with the learning journey of the stakeholders.
Meghna: Rather than just designing solutions for our clients and then moving on, we also emphasize implementing the solutions. We track the changes to comprehend whether the solution or the delta shift brought about by it are favorable for the organization. The advantage that we bring to our clients is the close working engagement that we involve ourselves into which makes us an extended arm in the partnership, thus ensuring effective execution. We remain with our clients through the entire solution lifecycle and at Intellection LC, this is the USP that we bring forth. Hence most of our associations so far have been long term in nature.
How do you understand your client’s pain points, and what strategies do you adopt to address them intrinsically?
Kamalika: It works on multiple levels. Before starting a project, our approach is to do certain level of diagnostics, which includes the problem statement, the project scope the success parameters for the client, and so on. For any project that we get into, we remain concerned and transparent about our clients' needs. We then go for the next steps of aligning our projects with the client's requirements. If the engagement aims at driving a change,we address it through comprehensive design, structure, learning solutions and ensure that all stakeholders buy into the change for it to succeed.
Meghna: We try to address the said and unsaid needs of our clients. We don't start working on the solutions until we have an indepth understanding of our client's needs and organizational objectives. Taking a 360 approach in terms of diagnostics, we meet their key stakeholder like business heads, branch heads, relationship managers, as well as customers to get a fair understanding of the challenges they face. Then as per our observations, we give them apt solutions.
Can you talk about the changing roles of L&D consultants and how technology is inter vening across the L&D operations?
Kamalika: We've been lucky to work with organizations, which are thought leaders in the learning and development space. This exposure helped us learn from a holistic point of view and not just acquire skills. We have also experienced that learning has to be absolutely in sync with business and business realities. Hence, our mix of competencies in business consulting and learning makes sense to clients today.
Another change we see is giving self-paced learning options to people who are very busy at work. So, instead of calling them into a particular session, you're giving people the freedom to learn, and this is the reality of the world that we are in today. There is a lot of material and content that needs to be created, which helps the participants to learn something at their convenience. So different formats of e-Learning from simulations to bite sized micro learning are all evolving and catering to different stages of the learning journey. Technology and circumstances have both enabled adaption to this new way of learning.
Meghna: Technology has done a lot for the L&D space, and it's become easier to disseminate knowledge.Not only do you have varied manners in which you can disseminate the knowledge to a large group, but also you have the option of flexibility, customization of the end-user and more, which were earlier unavailable. Secondly, due to the ongoing tech developments, the impact of the training can be measured much faster which we use to modify or customize our solutions to drive the right results in the L&D space.
Meghna Datta, Co-Founder, Intellection LC
Meghna holds indepth experience in conceptualizing, launching, and running successful High Networth programs at multiple levels Affluent, HNI as well as super HNI. Her expertise in designing and running other successful products and business lines for Banks helps her create relevant business structures, whether at a microscale or macro, that are efficient and profitable in the long run.
Kamalika Gupta Kotru, Co-Founder, Intellection LC
An entrepreneur in Consulting and L&D, Kamalika is a career banker with over 20 years of industry experience with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. As the Co-Founder of Intellection LC, Kamalika is building a company that provides consultancy services on the sales process, customer life cycle management customer engagement and effective learning.
Can you talk about the changing roles of L&D consultants and how technology is inter vening across the L&D operations?
Kamalika: We've been lucky to work with organizations, which are thought leaders in the learning and development space. This exposure helped us learn from a holistic point of view and not just acquire skills. We have also experienced that learning has to be absolutely in sync with business and business realities. Hence, our mix of competencies in business consulting and learning makes sense to clients today.
Another change we see is giving self-paced learning options to people who are very busy at work. So, instead of calling them into a particular session, you're giving people the freedom to learn, and this is the reality of the world that we are in today. There is a lot of material and content that needs to be created, which helps the participants to learn something at their convenience. So different formats of e-Learning from simulations to bite sized micro learning are all evolving and catering to different stages of the learning journey. Technology and circumstances have both enabled adaption to this new way of learning.
Meghna: Technology has done a lot for the L&D space, and it's become easier to disseminate knowledge.Not only do you have varied manners in which you can disseminate the knowledge to a large group, but also you have the option of flexibility, customization of the end-user and more, which were earlier unavailable. Secondly, due to the ongoing tech developments, the impact of the training can be measured much faster which we use to modify or customize our solutions to drive the right results in the L&D space.
Meghna Datta, Co-Founder, Intellection LC
Meghna holds indepth experience in conceptualizing, launching, and running successful High Networth programs at multiple levels Affluent, HNI as well as super HNI. Her expertise in designing and running other successful products and business lines for Banks helps her create relevant business structures, whether at a microscale or macro, that are efficient and profitable in the long run.
Kamalika Gupta Kotru, Co-Founder, Intellection LC
An entrepreneur in Consulting and L&D, Kamalika is a career banker with over 20 years of industry experience with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. As the Co-Founder of Intellection LC, Kamalika is building a company that provides consultancy services on the sales process, customer life cycle management customer engagement and effective learning.