Sales & Marketing - Reaching Targets !

I was off this blog for sometime and people have requested me for more. And here ..I am. Hope to write more often.
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There was this employee of ours who would come to office, check mails and do whatever and then leave the office by 10 AM to meet customers / prospective customers. We were so glad that, we are seeing a sales guy who is never in office. There was some problem and he resigned.

And we forgot about him. Then the Accounts department said there are some Invoices raised by him against a customer are outstanding. The next guy followed up with that company with the Invoice reference. That company reverted saying that they never did any work with us ! On checking, we found the Invoices raised by him were there in our office itself !

You understood the modus operandi?

To show the boss that he achieved the targets, he would produce fake Invoices and ask accounts to bill and he would personally deliver. Boss was happy that there are some invoices raised and money will come one day .

Genius. I must say :-) The weasel abides. hmmm

Productivity Awards

Productivity award is a way to motivate employees and I noticed many aiming to get awards now and then. People used to apply and try to get as many Productivity awards as possible as they find their way into the HR records. I looked stupid as I never applied and the awards are given to those only who project themselves/ apply for the award.

As a Manager, I realized, even if you are not interested, you need to project your colleagues as innovative ones. Hence, even if only one person does the good work, we add two or three names to that to make it appear as a team work!

As a challenge I started filing for Productivity awards and covered many of my colleagues so that they can get benefited too! I received around 14 and then stopped applying.

I did not enjoy doing just for the sake of doing ....and I stopped applying for awards ! There shall be a some other way for the Management to identify the hard workers and recognize their efforts, instead of asking them to project themselves.

Purchase(d) officer

As a Material Planning person, our work was to identify the material requirement, generate the Purchase Indent, co-ordinate with Material Management department, ensure that the good material reaches the Holding stores and then issue the material to the production.

I used to raise a purchase indents for Current Transformers and Voltage transformers and send to the concerned Purchase Officer. This Purchase Officer sends the Purchase Enquiry to the known suppliers and their offers are forwarded to me for getting them technically cleared. And we used to request for the dimensional drawings wherever the offer looks technically suitable and price wise reasonable. Then the Purchase Officer would get the required drawings from the suppliers.
Once, when I walked into the Materials Management department, my friend, this purchase officer, called me and gave me the file for my clearance. I cleared and asked for the drawings. To my surprise, he took out a set of drawings from his storage rack, got them photo copied and filed in the Enquiry file and asked me to comment on the file. As that drawing was relevant, I cleared the same.

When I enquired this strange enthusiasm to clear the enquiry and release the PO on a supplier, I was told that our friend’s way of PO release! He has a new ‘payment term’ –innovative--- ‘Purchase Order release on Payment’ ; you pay the margin against the Purchase Order value to this ‘Purchased Officer’ and take the Purchase Order !

Actually we can never prove these! If they are not true, consider them fiction and don’t file a case on me!

Innovations in Corruption

Personally I like this the most. Innovation and co-operation from all!! Certain numbers of Current coils are required for production. We issue say 10,000 numbers and it is an acceptable fact that some may not work during the final testing though it was OK in the goods inwards testing. These non-working coils are set aside in pallet in the shop floor. Additional coils are issued to production. The suppliers collect these, rectify and return back. Intension is good and practice was good till some people ‘liked’ the system to exploit. Good coils were placed in the pallet by the employee claiming them to be not working, which were collected by the supplier for rework. He would then return back some non working coils and some working coils as replacement. The supplier would supply the good coils he collected ( as non working coils from shopfloor) as new lot against the Purchase order and get paid for that as well!

Innovations in Corruption

There is another interesting case where the store keepers of the customers demand money when thousands of Energy meters were delivered. If not paid, they may ‘show’ hundreds of glass covers broken in the consignment. As a policy company can not pay bribes. So a third party is identified to ‘fix’ the damaged meters at site. The third party visits the site, ‘checks the damage’ (negotiate with store keeper) and ‘replaces the broken glass windows’ (really??) at the site and claims the bill, which is paid by the company for the ‘service’!

Innovations in Corruption ... contd

And I realize that many are innovative in cheating the system. Here a few, that I came across.

The supplies to a particular product used to be in great volumes and the suppliers would need a fork lift in the goods inwards area to deliver from the truck. Typically we provide the services of the fork lift. The ‘strict’ and ‘idealistic’ suppliers may have to wait for the fork lift operators to go and fetch the forklift and it takes time as they are busy. Even if the fork lift operator is available, suddenly the pallets are not available!! And the guys at that level are so innovative; the ‘resourceful’ supplier gets the fork lift and the pallets immediately. The guys share the money then and there! When this was cracked, they started entering code words in their pocket books and then ‘manage’ outside the premises. And the forklift would start, again only for the 'resourceful' suppliers who would pay. Else the forklift does not start !! Can we do something? The suppliers were requested to bring to the notice of management if they face these issues and I was told that it stopped altogether now.

Innovations in Corruption

Corruption is a great topic. One can write many volumes on this. While I was giving a lecture, one fresh Engineer Trainee was bold enough to as if it is true that Material Management function allows people to earn some ‘extra’ !
I smiled and told them this story.
There was this corrupt employee in the treasury of a King's court. Every body complained that he makes money illegally. King transferred him to Maintenance. Again people complained that he is making money. King got annoyed and posted him to just ring the bells every hour in the night shift. The work is only from 6 PM to 6 AM.
Again people complained that he is making money! King got frustrated and asked him the trick. our man requested for granting pardon and reminded that the King had two wives. And the King understood.
If you don’t know how to see the opportunity, here is the key:
King used to stay with one wife till 12 Midnight and goes to the second after midnight. Our man went to the first wife and told that he will ring bells slowly 12 midnight bell will be rung at 2 AM. She gave him the money. He went to the second wife and told her the reverse that he will ring 12 midnight bell at 11 PM itself so that King will come early.
... and he did not deviate from the actual timing !!
Moral of the story is, the people who want to cheat the system get innovative and you take time to understand their modus operand.