Company: i-flex solutions limited, Mumbai, India

Company Division/Group: i-flex solutions

Company Description: i-flex is India's first globally successful software firm. i-flex has concieved and sold FLEXCUBE, a banking software to 240 banks in 100 countries . With 7000 employees spread across 3 subs in Singapore, NYC and Amsterdam i-flex is the epitome of innovation and has won many awards and accolades in Asia

Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories

Nomination Sub Category: Best Corporate Communicator

Nomination Title: Sunil Robert, Director of Corporate Communications

   1. Tell the story about what this nominee achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Brief: Position i-flex as a technology pioneer and occupy a position of leadership in Indian IT dominated by majors as opposed to the prevalent perception of  a niche, start up company. Challenge: In a crowded scenario how to create differentiation when all of them had a similar offering and value proposition. 

Strategy: Position i-flex as India’s first and only successful product player with global success.

Results: Within a short span i-flex was one of the hottest tech story in India and some parts of Asia. Financial Times, BBC, CNBC Europe, Forbes and

Businessweek highlighted i-flex’s success last year.

Covered by Economist, TIME, BW, WSJ, FEER and other leading pubs. Won a slew of awards including Businessweek “Star of Asia” Outstanding PR global campaign conceived and implemented with measurable success. Created and instituted Awards Management, Campus Relations and Corporate Affairs at i-flex with significant results. i-flex solutions - an unknown company in European & American media was shown in good light without hiring a PR agency. The odds were against us, a medium sized Indian firm clamouring for attention in the British and US financial media, just like thousands of hopeful firms. The strategy had to be different, and implementation had to be fool-proof.

After an in-house audit ( Read my own googling profiling competitors, market leaders, commentators on Indian industry) we established a wish-list that we aspired to reach out with our narrative. Call it old-fashioned, if you will but I methodically reached out to almost everyone who cared to pick the phone call or return my voice message. The strategy was simply offering a better insight into their own previous understanding by suggesting an alternate

story. If they thought Indian IT was all about better programmers at cheaper rates, we suggested the innovation path pursued by i-flex. If they thought Big players were hot tech firms, we flipped their notion and said Big is not necessarily innovation. Small is beautiful too, we proposed.

Our Senior Management commitment to the cause was unflinching to say the least. They realized that if the world had to know our success story, the only way was to narrate it to anyone who cared to listen.  Evangelistic fervor is a phrase that may sum up our Communication efforts.

As a result we succeeded in reaching out to our lofty goal. At least the relevant business media knows that i-flex is a star in its own firmament.  Internal communications received a fillip as a result galvanizing our 7000 odd employees instilling in them a sense of pride and delight. Our investor relations were positively impacted because our investors were reinforced with the belief that they picked a winner. Our governmental and corporate affairs

improved substantially along with our industry body engagement because all these disciplines tied nicely with our global visibility.  Our spokespeople

took center-stage as we showcased our case studies with exuberance. Today we are also supported an industry body forum nurturing smaller Indian firms on building and selling global products.

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, http://www.youraddress.com:

https://registration.ft.com/registration/barrier?referer=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rajesh+hukku+in+FT&location=http%3A//news.ft.com/cms/s/b36d37f4-0bb8-11d9-8318-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=5542f4ba-2bcc-11d8-81c6-0820abe49a01.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4071369.stm

http://www.hoffman.com/inthenews/articles/prweek_jul1904.pdf

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about this nominee:

Sunil Robert is Director -Corporate Communications and has over 15 years of experience in Advertising and Corporate Communications. For the past five years, he was responsible for Corporate and Investor PR, Internal communication,Corporate relations, Campus affairs and other supportive roles at i-flex. With two Masters degrees, an MBA and an MCJ he takes special pride in new projects and launches. Establishing the "Made in India" brands globally for i-flex has been an immensely satisfying experience for him. Competing against stiff competition his role in i-flex winning globally acclaimed awards like BusinessWeek Star of Asia, TIME's tech gurus and India's first ever award for innovation in IT gave him unparalleled 'high'