CEO Insights India

Acknowledging and simultaneously being comfortable with the fact that they don't have all the answers, the objectives of the leaders should be building a team with diverse expertise and which encourages a symbiotic system for the team as well as the leaders to learn from each other. Creating an environment wherein people across hierarchies and functions can debate freely and come-up with the right solutions, leaders should encourage their team to ‘listen' to customers coherently. A well articulated committed team player who excels in translating the organization 's vision and strategies into tangible results on a consistent basis, Palash Nandy CEO of Numeric drives the company to become more customer centric and continually improve efficiency in its operations. Building a strong culture of progress and responsibility amongst his colleagues at Numeric, while aligning the whole organization towards the stated objectives, he seeks to consolidate Numeric's leadership position by launching new products targeting new market segments and leading the transformation of the organization.

Below is an excerpt of Palash's interview with CEO Insights.

Post pandemic, what were the challenges encountered by you as a business leader? How did you overcome those challenges?
Numeric was not only able to resist the challenges of the COVID, but also emerged as the least affected brand within the UPS industry in terms of both revenue and profitability. With a flexible and novel business scenario, we started addressing the opportunities offered by the segments and moved quickly to design solutions (from product to delivery) that the 'New Normal' demanded. We were able to reopen

our manufacturing unit within two weeks of the lockdown to service the essential segments Healthcare, Banks, Telecom and more. We also developed products that were just ‘Plug & Play', which ensured that we emerged as the largest brand within this segment. Close to 40,000 man hours were devoted to virtual training as a part of L&D. Apart from fast-tracking a lot of digital transformation projects during the lockdown, we implemented a large CRM project during the lockdown to modernize our service operations, which were one of the largest CRM projects in India.

How would you define Numeric as an organization and its position in the market? What is the USP that your organization offers to its clients?
With vast experience of more than three decades in the UPS industry, Numeric has envisioned and relentlessly strived to offer reliable power quality solutions to its customers. With solutions from supporting a desktop PC to a large MW range mission critical applications, Numeric is amongst the top three UPS companies in India. We have an active installation base of over one million active UPS across market segments. With two world class manufacturing units located in Chennai and Sinnar, we are poised to meet the diverse needs of our customers. We provide 24x7 customer support through a wide and robust service and support system, which provides power continuity, uptime and productivity of our customer's businesses. Numeric provides complete solutions in UPS across Line Interactive, 1-Phase, 3-Phase and Modular UPSs, where global expertise and local knowledge make us a truly GLOCAL company.

Joined as a Sales Executive in 1990, you have grown through the ranks to become the CEO of Numeric. Tell us about the milestones of your journey with Numeric.
After completing my graduation, I joined a company called MDS Switchgear Limited in Kolkata in 1990 as a Sales Trainee. In November 1996, MDS was acquired by Legrand, and under the new Legrand management, I worked as an area manager. I soon got the interesting opportunity to move to Mumbai as a product marketing manager when Legrand was setting

up its marketing department in India. While working in this role, I was asked if I could take-up the Marcom responsibility, and soon, I was the only one with sales, product marketing as well as Marcom experience, which paved my path to become the head of the marketing department.

I was offered a chance to work at Legrand's headquarters in Paris in 2013, where I was responsible for identifying business opportunities and risks. I was always interested in building something new, which is why I chose to come back to India and took-up this assignment with Numeric in July 2016.

Tell us your roles and responsibilities within the organization.How are you assisting Numeric to gear up for the future?
Through fastest revenue growth and strong profitability growth, I have been building strong leadership positions across segments: BFSI, Infra, IT, ITeS, Data Center, Healthcare, Education, Modern Retail and more. I am also highly engaged in researching on how technology can solve the pain points of customers, and promoting constant revamp of the product portfolio based on the outputs. Going forward, I continue to enable digital transformation across three pillars Customer Experience, Operational Excellence and Employee Experience.

Palash Nandy, CEO, Numeric
After completing ICSE from Boys' High School, Palash moved to Kolkata for his ISC from St. Thomas Boys' School. He completed his B.Sc with honors in mathematics from Vivekananda College, Kolkata. With a team of around 1800 professionals working at Numeric, Palash has been a guiding force for his team and led them to generate business value for clients through reliable, cost effective and consistent high quality products and solutions.

Recent Awards:
•CEO Of The Year 2020-2021-Indian Achievers Forum Feb 2021 in recognition of outstanding professional achievement & contribution in nation building
•The Economic Times Prestigious Brands 2020-21
•Tamil Nadu Brand Leadership Awards,2020