Srinivas Uppaluri grew up in Hyderabad with dreams of becoming a cricketer. After pursuing the sport till junior level, he changed tack and studied accounting, which led him to positions at Price Waterhouse Coopers and Andersen Business Consulting.
By 2002, he had moved to Bengaluru to join Infosys, where he was the global head of marketing when he decided to move on in 2009 to do independent consulting and coaching.
A lot of that industry knowledge has now found its way to the pages of Switch: Sales Transformation for Strategic Advantage , a book he has penned with the intention of debunking the notions that good sales results are best achieved with intrusive, cut-throat methods. With Switch , Uppaluri advocates a customer-centric strategy, and peppers his insights into short fictional stories with a takeaway appended to them.
“Writing was always at the back of my mind. The consulting house I worked with used to publish books and I wanted to contribute, but the long working hours meant I never got the time. Now, I have more time and also work with smaller organisations than I was used to which face more struggle, so there is a need to share more,” says Uppaluri.
Another reason he cites is that there is not enough being done to educate students about the service industry, and he wanted to give students the opportunity to understand concepts better.
As for choosing a narrative format, Uppaluri says he drew some inspiration from Deepak Chopra's Golf For Enlightenment , which uses a similar style to keep readers engaged.
“Every story may not be relevant to everyone,” Uppaluri explains, “the short story format allows for you to choose the ones that are helpful to you. It also enables readers to read one relevant section, and then go implement it immediately.”
He says that the things he has written about are strategies he has seen work successfully first hand.
That said, he has taken stories from friends and contacts, and spoken to people in various industries to base some of his stories on those industries, to make them more accessible to a wider audience from varied backgrounds.
Having worked for years in the service industry, he has an interesting take on the change brought about by the startup revolution. “In terms of innovation, ideas and addressing need, startups have done a phenomenal job, but they need to help customers put these concepts to full use.
When you introduce a technology, there is a domino effect, where processes, people and industries have to change, and the forward thinking required to implement such change management is what startups are not always able to do, but some of the big companies do this extremely well.”
Uppaluri says he enjoyed his experience writing Switch and hopes to get back to writing more in the near future, perhaps on the roles organisations can play in forging leaders.
Switch will be officially launched on June 15 at TERI Auditorium 4th Main Road, Domlur II Stage at 6 pm.
The book will be available in hardcover and Kindle formats in India at launch.
