CEO Insights India

With the changing business scenario, leaders should go beyond the norms to break stereo types and create new paths for others to follow while handholding the needy to lift from dirt to sky.Especially, in a thriving city like Bangalore where several startups are booming, the need for such leaders is more now than ever. While the pandemic has broken every business' backbone, all the businesses are in need of assistance to stand on their feet again. The proper treatment can be provided only by an expert who can look beyond the reports to predict the uncertainties and turn the business profitable.

Speaking of such Bangalore-based leaders who can transform business with their experience, expertise, and industry knowledge, mentioning Gajanan Hegdekatte is worthwhile. The leader himself possesses a different and wider set of skills with a far greater emphasis on adaptability and the ability to embrace understandingand responding to complexity. His cross-industrial knowledge coupled with technical skills gives him an edge in capabilities to understand various business sectors, processes, teams, products, and services.

He comes with nearly two decades of experience in one of the most renowned organizations, Asian Paints, to spending another eight years in Luxury Retail, having dynamically led Sales Function and as CEO of organizations. Having also completed the CEO Leadership Program from ISB, he is one of the most versatile and enterprising leaders of the Industry. Today,he is driving operational excellence across organizations and gearing businesses from loss to profits. Recognizing his ability to make a positive difference in terms of both profits and people, CEO Insights engages an exclusive conversation with Gajanan.

Take us through a brief tour of your educational and professional journey before Four Quarters.
After completing engineering, I

pursued PGDM from NIS division of NIIT and MBA from Bhavans College.In 1994, I got an opportunity to join Asian Paints.

Though the journey began as a frontline worker, in 16 years with Asian Paints, there was tremendous learning and growth curve. Leadership has been my innate personality since childhood. Along with this, my perseverance to excel helped me grow in the organization to higher appellations. Later, I worked with Jubilant Motor Works and the Mercedes Benz dealership by Akshaya Motors. The 25+ years of my corporate journey helped me grow from a mid-level employer to a director, vice president, CEO, and entrepreneur.

What promoted your journey as an entrepreneur?
While enjoying challenging tasks, increasing revenues & market shares, establishing a network, streamlining workflow, and creating a collaborative environment to enhance profitability with innovation, I could notice that mid and small businesses find it hard to scale and questioned myself why can't I help small businesses grow with all the skills I possess? That is how I started with Management consulting.

My connections with the budding brands are not superficial. I have almost become part of my client's business. This intense level of attachment made me realize that it is hard to deal with several clients of different industries all alone. I decided to venture into an organization and provide the same level of attention to our clients with a troop of experienced and skilled market leaders.

Give a gist of you and your business's competency. What is the focus of Four Quarters?
We are a team of experts, carrying expertise in different business aspects that intertwine and run the four quarters for every organization, within every industry. We don't focus on annual success but quarterly growth. Our forte is to turn loss-making units into profitable ones, enhance the actual ROI(top-line and

bottom-line) and bring an exponential increase in revenues and profit margins.

We work as if tomorrow never comes! Our system is modeled to save time, money, and energy and become an integral part of their business.

What was the impact of pandemic on the design and manufacturing market of electronics? How did Thinksemi Infotech cope up with it?
Due to sales impact in this industry, inventory had piled up. We tackled the pandemic by converting challenges to business opportunity by shifting our focus from automotive industry to Covid related products ventilations, pulse oximeter, covid id cards, temperature monitors etc.

What pinpoints of an organization do you broadly look at while offering services? How do you forecast the uncertainty any brand could face?
We do our best to identify the transaction and operational issues that hinder our growth and re-engineer our growth strategy to remain competitive in the market.

We focus on identifying threats, problems, and various factors that continue to have a positiveand negative impact on our business. At the same time, try to optimize the positive and avoid negative impacts.

We usually rely on market intelligence, market research, media, various tools, and sources, etc. However, many a time we still falter, we still fail to see the obvious, we still fail to believe in or have a vision of what the future beholds for us, in relevance to the industry or for the industry itself.

Gajanan Hegdekatte, Founder & CEO, FourQuarters
Far-sighted leader, Gajanan is proficient at analyzing market trends, Business & Resources Optimization to provide critical inputs for business development initiatives. He possesses Visionary& exemplary leadership in building a Culture of Operational Excellence and a sense of Entrepreneurship in the organization.

A Personality that Inspires
•Fearless Attitude to take Risk
•Treating Clients businesses like his own
•Loves meeting new people and uses the power of networking to the max
•Keen Listener, Strongly believes that if we are not upgrading with the technology, we will be left behind