Article: Top 25 Best Workplaces in Asia: Eureka Forbes

Life @ Work

Top 25 Best Workplaces in Asia: Eureka Forbes

The management of Eureka Forbes believes in being accessible to any member of the company
Top 25 Best Workplaces in Asia: Eureka Forbes
 

Rank: 18

 

Headquarters: Mumbai, No. of employees: 10,000, Executive Vice Chairman: Suresh L Goklaney

 

Eureka Forbes, a leading consumer durables company, was formed as a joint venture between the Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s Forbes & Company Ltd. based in Mumbai, and Electrolux of Sweden in 1982. It has built a network of 15,000 dealers across over 1,800 cities and towns across India. Marzin R. Shroff, CEO Direct Sales and VP-Marketing, Eureka Forbes Ltd., says, “We look at ourselves as being in the people business. People are our business and our business is people.”

The management believes in being accessible to any member of the company. Hence, they launched an initiative called Phone-A-Friend through which any Eurochamp on the field can directly connect with a member of the Senior Management Team, whenever he finds himself in a challenging situation, especially at a customer's place. In case he finds he is unable to answer a particularly difficult question or handle a tricky objection, he can immediately call up the Phone-a-Friend number and speak to a designated internal expert. This forum is also used for field Eurochamps to provide feedback from customers, which then forms the basis of future product / service improvements.

The company also has a Young Leader Development program where the company identifies young talent and gives them opportunity to grow.

Talking about the four fundamental principles on which Eureka Forbes is built, Shroff said, “When we started off in 1982, we were a direct sales company and therefore people became our core focus. We have four tenents on the basis of which we work: Earnings, Learnings, Pride and Fun. Anything we do for our people is based around these four tenets. Earnings refers to the compensation the employees earn, learnings refer to the training and development and various career modules. Pride is very important in our work as it is a very tough job. Fun is also equally important as everyone, including me has a very high revenue target. Even the HR has a revenue target.”

The company has looked at diversity & inclusion in a holistic manner. They set up EuroAble, a customer call center, fully manned by the physically challenged. This center was started in April 2011 with 30 employees. Today the EuroAble team has grown to 80. While the center is based in Mumbai, the employees handle calls coming in from various parts of the country. The premises are specially customized to suit the needs of the physically challenged. They are all on the company's payroll and are treated on par with all other employees, including having stiff performance targets! The plan is to launch a similar call center in Bangalore in the coming year.

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Topics: Life @ Work, #AsiasBestWorkplaces2015, #BestPractices

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