Discover how Jyoti Chopra changed her career path from teacher to strategic partner
Where did you start in your career?
One of my favourite quotes is;
“Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.”- Joyce Meyer
With this thought in mind, soon after my post-graduation I started my career as an educator. After spending around seven years with children, I realized that this profession was much more rewarding than I’d originally thought. Kids teach you the most. The daily challenges of an educator to build trustworthy relationships with Students, along with the continuous delivery of quality, engaging content is good enough to keep you on your toes. For me, I enjoyed my teaching profession, and I tried my best to remain a learner always, along with helping others learn with me.
So you were a teacher. Can you explain the steps that changed your career path?
From there, I moved to the corporate world to explore new possibilities to enhance my own skills. I joined a Geneva-based Semiconductor company in India as an IT -Training and Resource Manager. I spent eleven years in my first corporate job. My roles and responsibilities evolved over time from the Training Manager to Lead Engineer in the Service Management Office (SMO). In my new role, I was exposed to ITSM and contributed to implement IT Service Management processes and practices and to perform Service Health Reviews across the organization. Along with the contribution in the IT process alignment, I continued with my passion of being an educator by joining the ‘Digital Unify’, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Project as the Associate Trainer and trained thousands of students, as well as more than 150 trainers on the Digital Literacy Project - who themselves, now train the community in India, Philippines, Nepal, Malaysia and many other countries. I believe, “Once an educator, always an educator.”
Subsequently, I embarked upon the experience of Digital Empowerment with a Consumer/Retail organization offering high-quality FMCG products to around 2,000,000 customers based in pan-India. The need at the time was to support their existing Franchisee based sales and marketing system with an efficient eCommerce platform and to expand from one warehouse to multiple warehouses in India. The goal was to ensure that emerging technologies and new organisational competencies supported the company’s key strategies for further growth. I have no words to adequately describe my sense of gratitude to the management for putting me at the helm of Digital Transformation and Change Management at the company. I must say,
"Digital transformation is a journey for the entire company.
It's no longer just a marketing transformation, it's about both business and people transformation."
Staying focused on strategy
During my journey, I learnt how to remain focused on developing a strategy based on integrating ‘digital’ into all aspects of our business, from channels and processes and data to the operating model, incentives, and work culture. Along with my role of Business Analyst and Change Manager, I took the initiative to set up the Corporate Social Responsibility arm with the inception of the Digital Literacy Project ‘Digitalya’. With the help of volunteer trainers, we trained more than 200,000 Students across India over a period of just 2 years.
In the image below, I am co-facilitating a TaUB gamification workshop with Suresh GP who was my BRM trainer
Can you share some details about your training experience?
During one of my interactions with Suresh GP, the Managing Director at Taub Solutions, he gave me an opportunity to be his co-facilitator for a Gamification workshop. Suresh GP is well known in the field of IT Service Management, Business Relationship Management, IT Governance, Project & Program Management and Cybersecurity. I call him my ITSM Guru (Mentor). During our meeting Suresh introduced me to the world of Business Relationship Management (BRM). My whole mindset and the approach of looking at things differently, evolved further when I gained exposure to the Business Relationship Management Professional Role.
After being mentored by Suresh, and going on to become certified in the role of Business Relationship Manager, I helped to establish the BRM role at my organization. I was nervous before my certification exam, but the entire process for examination by APMG was actually very smooth and the team was really helpful in guiding me through the steps. The BRMP training by experts helped me to not only understand and implement but also derive results at my organization with this new role.
With the commitment from management and all stakeholders, we were able to obtain the value of its ability to “build a bridge between the Business and the Provider (IT, HR, Finance, etc.), rationalize and shape demand, open transparency, identify emerging opportunities, and realize business value.”
Why do we need Business Relationship Management (BRM)?
BRM seeks to maintain a productive relationship with the business; it recognises the needs of current and future customers and ensures that adequate services are established to satisfy those needs. In other words, in order to ensure that the customer's needs are captured, recognised and inherent in all goods and services from the very beginning, BRM serves as a bridge between IT and the organisation at the strategic part of the service lifecycle.
BRM looks beyond following the Service Level Agreement and addresses things that are not always calculated, such as customer satisfaction, suggestions for improvements or incidents that cause the organisation the most pain.
How has your BRM training helped in your role?
Within just two years of the continuous efforts by the team and support from the board members, we were able to hive off the IT Start-up from an FMCG Company. With the shift in mindset, we have been able to drive value and revenue from the same group of people who were considered to be the ‘cost centre’ for the organization. I must say, it was everyone’s contribution that made this possible and the commitment from top management was crucial to maintain the forward momentum. The Business-IT Convergence mastered through the BRM is not only critical but also a necessity to fuel competitive innovation and agility as an organization.
With the BRM skills and trusted team, I was able to break the silos and solos within various departments in the organization. My learning not only helped the organization become relationship centered in all aspects but also empowered individual employees to look outside their box.
As a side hustle, I am mentoring students and various subject experts, in their journey of launching their Podcasts and creating their brand presence in the digital world. That’s my favourite time during weekends, when I witness new rising stars with amplified voices. Let me re-iterate, ‘Once an Educator, always an Educator’
Personally, the journey from being an Educator to a Business Relationship Manager helped me to become a life-long learner with the moto to Learn, Apply and Share with others.
Life and business is all about you, the people around you, and your relationships with them.
