Vijay Chander: Innovation-Driven Leadership
Entrepreneurs are experts in business strategy, macroeconomics, analytics, risk management, talent acquisition, retention, and whatnot. They master everything needed for business’s and employees’ growth. A fine example of such a versatile go-getter is Vijay Chander. Having worked as a business leader, Vijay was associated with global enterprises like Xerox and ICI -heading sales and strategy. He packages customer delight into each customer instance.
Vijay co-founded Plumb5 along with friends and worked as the first employee in the position of CEO. His business strategies are always aligned with the market’s evolution and he ensures having hands in both SMB & Enterprise Market. He is almost a superhuman in formulating strategies for utmost customer engagement. And, has been ahead of the curve in terms of technology. Acknowledging Vijay as one of the versatile entrepreneurs of 2021, CEO Insights had a chance to engage an exclusive interview with him. Below are the excerpts.
Give us a brief detail about your education and professional background before Plumb5.
I am a Mechanical Engineer from S.J.C.E. University of Mysore turned Sales & Marketing Professional with hard core belief in Data. He served at XEROX as a Lean Six Sigma pro and went back to college for MBA before starting up Plumb5 and constantly learning.
What inspired you to take-up entrepreneurship? What were the initial challenges that you faced?
I can solve the problem before it is even understood by many others. This feeling gave me the impetus to take up Entrepreneurship.
During the initial stages, the Platform that we built was questioned by many industry folks stating that it is too in-depth and this may not fly! There were not many platform players and the terminology called Marketing Automation, Martech- (Marketing Technology) was niche.
How has your extensive industry experience and vast business acumen helped you in your journey so far?
Vijay co-founded Plumb5 along with friends and worked as the first employee in the position of CEO. His business strategies are always aligned with the market’s evolution and he ensures having hands in both SMB & Enterprise Market. He is almost a superhuman in formulating strategies for utmost customer engagement. And, has been ahead of the curve in terms of technology. Acknowledging Vijay as one of the versatile entrepreneurs of 2021, CEO Insights had a chance to engage an exclusive interview with him. Below are the excerpts.
Give us a brief detail about your education and professional background before Plumb5.
I am a Mechanical Engineer from S.J.C.E. University of Mysore turned Sales & Marketing Professional with hard core belief in Data. He served at XEROX as a Lean Six Sigma pro and went back to college for MBA before starting up Plumb5 and constantly learning.
What inspired you to take-up entrepreneurship? What were the initial challenges that you faced?
I can solve the problem before it is even understood by many others. This feeling gave me the impetus to take up Entrepreneurship.
During the initial stages, the Platform that we built was questioned by many industry folks stating that it is too in-depth and this may not fly! There were not many platform players and the terminology called Marketing Automation, Martech- (Marketing Technology) was niche.
How has your extensive industry experience and vast business acumen helped you in your journey so far?
I must say if you are solving any problem today and if you don’t have the first-hand customer experience with the customer voice and a great team then you aren’t going where you wanted to go.
We captured the Voice of the Customer with direct interactions with Marketers during the Digital evolution stage, which made us realize that most businesses were missing out on the Key Data Metrics that Matter due to data silos in the Marketing processes. This helped us build what it takes to solve the problems we were fortunate to have indulged with the customers from day one and have brought our rich experience into play and it is exciting when I look back at the journey so far.
What are the marketing technologies you offer under Plumb5? Also, tell us what differentiates your company from others in the market.
We offer a robust Unified Marketing Automation Platform both in SaaS and On-Premise with the ability to capture the first-party data across all touch points starting from the web, mobile, social, e-com, POS, and the ability to render campaigns across channels.
The Science of understanding the complete customer behavior and journey of even an anonymous visitor and the art of engaging the visitor to achieve the marketing goal using Personalization at Scale is a unique area.
Data Compliance -GDPR, POPI compliant platform makes it a strong global enterprise product. Not to forget that we can onboard a customer in 15 minutes to 24 hrs for
We captured the Voice of the Customer with direct interactions with Marketers during the Digital evolution stage, which made us realize that most businesses were missing out on the Key Data Metrics that Matter due to data silos in the Marketing processes. This helped us build what it takes to solve the problems we were fortunate to have indulged with the customers from day one and have brought our rich experience into play and it is exciting when I look back at the journey so far.
Vijay follows the principle of continuous improvement and has ensured a great customer mix as a strategy to uncover the overwhelming opportunities in the market place
What are the marketing technologies you offer under Plumb5? Also, tell us what differentiates your company from others in the market.
We offer a robust Unified Marketing Automation Platform both in SaaS and On-Premise with the ability to capture the first-party data across all touch points starting from the web, mobile, social, e-com, POS, and the ability to render campaigns across channels.
The Science of understanding the complete customer behavior and journey of even an anonymous visitor and the art of engaging the visitor to achieve the marketing goal using Personalization at Scale is a unique area.
Data Compliance -GDPR, POPI compliant platform makes it a strong global enterprise product. Not to forget that we can onboard a customer in 15 minutes to 24 hrs for
SaaS and 3 days to 30 days for an Enterprise (On-Premise Version). Plumb5 is made for All SMB & Large Enterprises.
In your professional journey so far, which are the milestones that bestowed you utmost satisfaction?
A successful stint at XEROX as an Employee and getting certified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and starting up a venture by choice and overcoming the challenges to stay has been the first milestone of my professional journey. When we went live with SaaS and On-Premise as our offering and the acceptance by the customers. When we reached our first 100 customers and then the next 100. Felt like scoring centuries in a cricket match.
The goal that we have set is not very far from achieving and that is very promising and that makes us feel good.
How do you update yourself with the latest technologies and industry trends?
Necessity is the mother of all inventions, the Internet is the medium and my discussions with my co-founder Raju, our CTO, my team members, and some of my friends help me keep abreast with tech and the industry trends are again from the leading Tech portals and the customer interactions. The very fact that technology helps makes me learn about it voluntarily.
Mention the awards and recognition you have received in your journey.
Happy Paying customers, happy team members, affiliate marketers who list us, institutions that reach us to train students as interns, and companies like you who found us, shortlist us with accreditations are the awards and recognitions that we have received.
Vijay Chander, Co-founder, Plumb5
Leader’s thoughts :
The possibility was never statuesque, if you believe in it you will do it, “Belief system works” This is how the entrepreneurial journey has been at Decisive. We have done only what we believed in and went around in a very unconventional way as a bootstrapped organization and have been celebrating the successes and learnings from the failures.
In your professional journey so far, which are the milestones that bestowed you utmost satisfaction?
A successful stint at XEROX as an Employee and getting certified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and starting up a venture by choice and overcoming the challenges to stay has been the first milestone of my professional journey. When we went live with SaaS and On-Premise as our offering and the acceptance by the customers. When we reached our first 100 customers and then the next 100. Felt like scoring centuries in a cricket match.
The goal that we have set is not very far from achieving and that is very promising and that makes us feel good.
How do you update yourself with the latest technologies and industry trends?
Necessity is the mother of all inventions, the Internet is the medium and my discussions with my co-founder Raju, our CTO, my team members, and some of my friends help me keep abreast with tech and the industry trends are again from the leading Tech portals and the customer interactions. The very fact that technology helps makes me learn about it voluntarily.
Mention the awards and recognition you have received in your journey.
Happy Paying customers, happy team members, affiliate marketers who list us, institutions that reach us to train students as interns, and companies like you who found us, shortlist us with accreditations are the awards and recognitions that we have received.
Vijay Chander, Co-founder, Plumb5
Leader’s thoughts :
The possibility was never statuesque, if you believe in it you will do it, “Belief system works” This is how the entrepreneurial journey has been at Decisive. We have done only what we believed in and went around in a very unconventional way as a bootstrapped organization and have been celebrating the successes and learnings from the failures.