Memorable first field trip for our new COO

Twenty-seven days ago I received a clear reminder that D.light is moving in the right direction – by hiring Mandeep Singh – a highly successful senior professional with a fascinating background – as our new COO. Bringing on board talented, Indian staff with experience in sales and rural marketing, is extremely difficult and even more time consuming.  But few things are as important to the future of a growing enterprise. I am really excited to have Mandeep help run operations in India, after over 25 years working for everyone from Kodak to rural marketing start-ups.

Keeping with D.light tradition (and policy!), we planned a trip to the field within Mandeep’s first month. He and I spent two days visiting with distributors, dealers, rural entrepreneurs – our company's primary "touch points" across India. Coming from an FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) background, Mandeep quickly recognized our growing open market sales infrastructure of distributors and dealers as similar to how the best companies began to move razors and batteries to every corner of India.  But, as usual, our most memorable moment came from one of our customers.

We travelled to the villages near Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh to visit Amit, one of our top rural entrepreneurs, who has sold 265 Nova lights in a matter of months. We entered a few villages that do not fit the typical demographics of our customers -  these richer villagers were owners of tractors, inverters (battery back-up for a home), and even solar water heaters. They were not the customer with no electricity that we are used to serving. Despite the supposed lack of need, every fourth home in this village had a Nova! 

When we asked around to understand why, one couple exclaimed “Aap to Bhagvan roop ho aur yeh light Bhagvan ki den he” (You are like a God and this product is like a gift from God). While we are not that good (yet), I was surprised to find our products useful and loved by customers who are quite rich by rural standards. They had recommended it to relatives coming from over 1500 km away because kerosene was still a high cost for portable light and after 10 months of useage they had not had any technical glitchs. One night, the husband recalled, the Nova even saved him from getting bit by a cobra!

There are few products sold in the rural market that are featured at the center of someone’s home, where important items for the entire family are kept. Despite their relative wealth, this family from Aligarh still found the Nova a precious investment and showed us how they kept it 20 feet from the entrance.  As a CEO, I spend a majority of my time solving problems and hearing about what is wrong – as I leave for a much needed vacation, it’s nice to remember the emotional connection our diverse customers have to our products.

The family from Aligarh