Dinesh Mishra - Career Growth is Driven by Real Individual Growth (AVP Xpressbees)

Career growth is driven by real individual growth. And real individual growth doesn’t happen simply by working hard and spending years gathering experience. As I said earlier, it requires to extract maximum out of the opportunity in our major learning phase to grow in our career.

Tell us about your background, journey and upbringing

 

I was born and brought up in Gadia, a small village in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha state, got education up to class 10th in Chintamani Vidyapitha which has been founded by my grandfather, Late Chintamani Mishra. Being born in a middle-class family and having four siblings. My father was into politics, I got good education and spent very good time with my brothers. Since childhood I was quite introvert, disciplined, spent reading books during leisure time and I was doing top in my school examination.

 

Post my schooling, I pursued my further education in science and had ambition to be a doctor but we human being only possess but God disposes, I failed to qualify and completed my graduation and later have done PGDM from Bhubaneswar. After my PGDM, I started my career in logistics and supply chain domain as a management trainee in Pune.

 

The journey was challenging as beginning of my career I along with my few MBA batch mate started a company named Universal Flower Service to cater flower needs in our day-to-day life. The model was inspiring in Bhubaneswar and widely accepted by people those who are staying in apartment.

We started membership to offer people for their daily flower requirement and slowly we expanded for big projects like taking orders for marriage party, decorations, bouquet services etc. But because of our inexperience we failed miserably by taking a big govt order or flower decoration of Kalinga Stadium. The investment was huge and we failed to collect the due from various govt department and later we have to wind up this business and I moved to start career in corporate world.

 

 

How did you rise to the highest echelons in your career?

 

I am presently working in one of the largest E commerce company as an AVP, Transportation but this success is not possible because of hard work or high IQ but it requires certain stimuli which precipitate your growth. I spent quality time in various organisations like Ashok Leyland, Linfox, Coldex, AVT, Snowman and Now in XpressBees Logistics.

The journey was challenging, learning things from mistakes, adding values in decision making process, team building etc. To achieve your goal, we need to sacrifice a lot and taking right decision in right time is equally important if we want to excel in our career.

 

When opportunity comes during our career, we have chosen right opportunity with the flow how the tough the decision may be. This requires lot of sacrifice to your personal life, settling in different cities with new people, new environment is always challenging.

I remember when I got an opportunity in Gwalior in one of leading cold chain company and I was in Pune in a MNC with very much work life balance, but the opportunity was lucrative and I made a decision to move, similarly I moved from Gwalior to Chennai then to Bangalore, Pune and to other cities and decision was tough and challenging.

 

Last year I lost my daughter in Pune who are fourteen years old. She was suffering from dengue and with our best efforts we could not be able to save her. I cannot describe my feeling and it was the world came to an end for me. I lost everything and never thought of coming out of such crisis when someone who is your world and left you so early. But you have certain responsibility which has to be performed as long as you are live and with this thought I again started to move ahead in my career.

 

 

What does your typical work day look like?

 

In current situation, where there are restrictions, we are driving our entire supply chain process remotely through operation is functioning as per govt. guidelines. As we focus on essential commodities and strategize to onboard more such clients to serve them during this crisis movement. Driving a large sales force, virtual meeting with major key accounts, planning, executions are my key areas. You have to meet your budget and change management is our key to success how challenging the situation may be.

 

It seems onboarding, even in 2021 is a long-drawn-out process behind the scenes. How do you envision this changing in the future?

 

Agreed, 2021 is again showing the same issues and being into logistics and supply chain, it requires how fast we can adapt to the situation and find out best possible way to provide solutions. E commerce companies are growing and consumer behaviours are shifting, earlier this was mostly in tier 1 cities but now we are observing major shift over in tier 2, 3 cities as well. As the competition grows, an omni-channel approach to delivering a unified and consistent customer experience is the new watchword.

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Several global companies have come out and thrown their support behind not needing a formal education. What is your opinion about this?

 

A formal education is not the only prerequisite, but it requires your on-job training and emphasizing skill development over the degrees or educational background.

 

I have seen many employees who are having formal education often fails to shape up their career but many without formal education excel well and reach out the best position with experience. 

 

What is the best piece of advice you would like to give to those who want to rise in their careers in the corporate world?

 

Career growth is driven by real individual growth. And real individual growth doesn’t happen simply by working hard and spending years gathering experience. As I said earlier, it requires to extract maximum out of the opportunity in our major learning phase to grow in our career.

 

I have seen many of us lost their job because of pandemic and my advice to them not to give up, keep on trying and I am sure they will get over from this difficult situation. We must put our best effort and have desire to learn.

 

How are things changing in your domain, what role will data and information play in the future?

 

The role of data and information plays vital role in our sector and AI and ML are going to play key roles for growth and decision-making process.

 

Which is your favourite book and why?

 

Catalyst by Chandra Mouli Venkatesan. This book is the real inspiration for them to soar high and long, to achieve great success and balanced life.

- Dinesh Mishra

Interviewed by - Rahul Kumar Gupta