It’s hard to believe it is already March. Is it already too late to say Happy New Year?
This week, at our UGM, I plan not only to report on how we progressed since we last met, but also to revisit the fundamentals of Value, Purpose and Profit and how TOGETHER we can all look to reach our potentials.
For us at netsapiens, 2018 was a fast-paced year with continued improvements and additions to the team, our products and the way we interact with our clients and provide service in general. In fact, last year our corporation officially turned 16. When I think about 16, the first thing that comes to mind is getting a driver’s license! In California, at least, it means you can have a provisional driver’s license that lets you start driving ‘on your own’. In a way, it seems that netsapiens is now also definitely learning to drive on its own. So, what’s the next stage of the journey for us? I believe it is to take our newly found independence and continue our journey to a wider audience within this industry.
In 2018, we guided ourselves with the theme of truly listening to understand ourselves, our contexts, our clients, our industries and our roles. I believe we made significant progress in all these key areas. As I look forward to providing a retrospective of our 2018 journey at our annual UGM, I wanted to take the time to share some thoughts:
This year, we are again looking to set out a macro theme that will serve to align ALL stakeholders in the netsapiens community – my team, our clients, the industry and our partners. Thinking of the ever-changing landscape and the rapidly evolving marketplace that we all must compete in, the fundamental word that comes to mind is ‘TOGETHER’. If we can truly survive, compete, grow and thrive TOGETHER, I believe we can truly reach our collective potentials.
As netsapiens continues its march to become the de facto UC core platform provider to the non-Tier 1 service provider market, one may ask the following question: Why do we have to do this TOGETHER? After all, sometimes it seems that our macro social, political and economic environment is telling us to move toward a more fragmented and polarized world that covers all aspects of our day to day lives.
What is evident, I believe, is a lack of collective progress on all fronts because of the constant stalemate situations that exist around us and the resultant decline in our personal levels of satisfaction. Often, we see experts and pundits argue about the ‘best’ approach to addressing political (for the record, I am a registered nonpartisan), environmental, economic and social issues. Maybe before focusing on ‘winning’, we should really ask ourselves if we are all prepared to play the same game and push toward the same direction. I believe we need to step back and really ask ourselves that question. If it’s collective progress we are trying to establish, isn’t it obvious that we all should be involved in marching towards the results we want?
As we get ready to come together at netsapiens’ UGM, one thing is clear – to have at least some semblance of an aligned direction, a common ground needs to be found TOGETHER. The appropriate energy to solve problems needs to be applied in the right places. We must truly do it and not just say we will! I believe that coming TOGETHER will allow for the best possible outcomes.
When we look to grow our respective skill sets, capabilities and businesses, I believe we should collectively examine the following three related yet distinctly different components of our organizations: Value, Purpose and Profit. In some ways, you can also align these with the following three questions:
- What value am I providing by doing what I am doing?
- Why am I doing what am I doing?
- How am I going to fulfill the what and the why?
As simplistic as this may seem, it is often our inability to distill our hopes and dreams of progress into actionable categories that gets us stuck in looming clouds of analysis paralysis while we search for a non-existent silver bullet. Instead, we need to concentrate collectively on establishing organized game plans that can lead us to achieve our actionable goals. The three factors – Value, Purpose, Profit – are certainly not sequential or independent in nature, but rather key balancing forces that co-exist and must be looked at TOGETHER. This is how we can find the highest probability path forward to the progress we are all working toward individually, organizationally, industry-wide and ultimately worldwide. If you are Elon Musk, then, of course, you are thinking universe-wide.
I want to thank all of those that have been in some way, shape or form connected with our journey up until now, and I look forward to the adventure that remains ahead.
Sincerely,
Anand
