- Nilesh believes India is a market that has evolved to welcome new technologies and process to meet global standards.
- Nilesh’s greatest achievement lies in exuding his leadership to inspire his team members into extraordinary achievements
- Understanding customers business & building networking skills are crucial to be successful in today’s competitive market
Both Reels and Real are replete with a number of turnaround stories, be it the unswerving coach in the film ‘Chak De India’ and his incredible success with a bunch of also-rans or a once newly appointed captain of the Indian team who, in the true sense, made a ‘team’ out of mentally broken playing unit by instilling the hunger for a win. Off the limelight, the Indian manufacturing industry is blessed with many such heroes who through their extraordinary leadership staged a performance of equal significance only on different turfs. Nilesh Patel, Regional Sales Manager of North India and Gujarat at Renishaw, surely is one of those extraordinary leaders.
His colleagues take him in great earnest as one whose success with his otherwise nondescript sales team probably speaks volumes of his quality as a true leader. The senior leadership in Renishaw still finds it inspiring how Nilesh after taking charge of the North Indian operations, turned his team into the best performing sales team ever the probably has had. In an exclusive conversation with Machine Maker, Nilesh attributes his success to his journey of learning new traits of sales and unlearning it’s been-there-done-that ways.
Nilesh’ Extraordinary Journey with Renishaw
Nilesh started his journey with Renishaw in 2005 as a Resident Sales Engineer when the company was in its heyday of establishing direct operations in India with a minimal workforce. As Renishaw flagged off business from scratch, he played a crucial role in building a strong sales network and market presence of the company.
Gradually, he would pan out a mature OEM market in Gujarat. Later on, concurrent to Renishaw’s decision of setting up office units in Baroda, Nilesh single-handedly managed the formation of Renishaw’s Baroda team. In 2017, Patel’s flair for acquiescing talent and managing people yielded the additional responsibility of overseeing Renishaw’s Madhya Pradesh operations and later North India operations for growth and success. With his decade-old experience, Patel could assertively take the reins and resolve leadership and productive mayhem which was previously being detrimental to nurturing Renishaw’s business.
Out-of-the-Box Thinking
One of his out of the box strategies is selling Renishaw solutions as a concept rather than a run-of-the-mill product. “At Renishaw, we are involved with conceptual selling—a paradigm shift from selling products based on price evaluation. In conceptual selling, we need to brainstorm and make the products an indispensable part of our client’s manufacturing process. We make them aware of the technical benefits they can get by availing the technology in their production.”
Patel’s journey explains how in sales, networking skills are crucial to locate and build the geography. Since the traditional knocking-on-door-selling strategy is no longer viable, one needs to tap on the potential customers’ expansion and investment plans to create buyers. “This information can only be amassed when you have built a network. Once you have the information, you categorise the market according to their buying potential. I have adhered to this strategy for developing Renishaw’s market,” explains Nilesh. This has strategy has yielded excellent results as Nilesh explains how storming into a traditional market like Rajkot has been challenging and how Renishaw managed to have a stronghold today.
“Renishaw deals with a list of Metrology solutions across 8-10 verticals. The team annually sets a forecast for each vertical by focusing on the product line and market segment. Without indisputable skills for multitasking, it is difficult to assess the different segments,” he says.
Business in Pandemic Disrupted Market
In COVID-19, the liberty to travel and seek appointments has shrunk. It has restricted the scope for arranging seminars, events and workshops. Renishaw has gone entirely virtual for meetings and live product demonstration. Often, professionals are required to step out of the protective cocoon to make sure the customers are satisfied.
“At Renishaw, we do business with two types of customers—strategic and transitional. With strategic customers, the demand is more or less perpetual and we grow as their business expands and develops. We pivot our activities around these customers and travel the extra mile,” confirms Patel.
Future of Automation
The concept of implementing automation in the industry has undergone a sea change, and Renishaw has been always instrumental in re-shaping customers’ perspectives about automation. “We have helped customers with quality assurance of their automation to reduce operational costs and sans any manual interference in the system.”
While gauging automation in the Indian market, Patel emphasises how the growth opportunity is directly proportional to favourable government policies, such as digitisation and the ‘Make in India’ campaign. This line-up of decisions promotes new strategies for automation in India. Patel speaks favourably for India that has been emerging as the global hub, a prime focus and a reliable source for export to other countries.
“The Indian market has unlearned the traditional ways of doing business and encouraging technology that is flourishing in Japan or European countries to match up to global standards,” admits Patel.
Scaling Geographical Barriers
How Nilesh has managed the business irrespective of global barriers is simple to understand in his words. “I have always been able to overcome the challenges incorporating a humanist attitude, learn new things and adopt flexibility. These skills inculcate the insight within me to scale customers’ demands and probe into them. Once I have wrapped my head around the genesis of their needs, establishing a market becomes a little more plausible.”
To conquer the barriers, Patel introspects on the significance of chalking out relevant questions for customers and strengthen the relationship forged with them.
Setting Leadership Benchmark
Looking back on these 15 years of experience as a leader, Patel has come to value the power of building a genuine rapport with the company fraternity and earn respect instead of apathetically bossing around. “It takes an enormous amount of patience and capability of reading between the lines to evolve as a leader. I have built my team based on these principles. I am proud of my team where each member is eagerly contributing to organisational success,” Patel explains commenting on the Baroda and Gurgaon team.
“I have come across many leaders, and especially my senior, from whom I have learnt. My long journey with Renishaw is sprinkled with perspective travelling, practical examples and anecdotes from which I have learnt immensely.”
Today based out of Baroda, this ever-smiling leader successfully manages both roles as Renishaw’s Regional Sales Manager as well as a loving husband and a doting father in a family of three.
