“people are our asset” is a term that's been said many times by many people. It's almost become a cliché phrase in most organizations. Those that take it seriously are the ones that set themselves apart. The rest live in a make-believe world in which the management of companies have bought into their own hype.

One of the greatest challenges facing agencies in India is the acute shortage of relevant talent. Thanks to a much wider range of options in career planning, fewer passionate people are joining the industry, and many more established veterans are gradually leaving the creative industry to join industries' corporate communication or marketing wings. Therefore, in a marketplace where “specialization” is the buzzword of the moment, agencies that can nurture and manage talent strategically are the ones that will be able to instill and maintain confidence with its customers and have the capacity to grow and succeed in the marketplace.

For an outfit like Dickenson, which specializes in corporate reporting and customer loyalty, this problem is particularly acute. Such services, which are more of a niche offering within a gamut of services offered by large Indian and global agencies, are at the heart of Dickenson's core competency and specialization, with unparalleled benchmarks in the Indian marketplace. As a result, “there isn't any ready-made pool of talent that the company can employ on a plug-and-play mode”, says Simi Saha. “Very little is taught on corporate reporting at colleges and most creative based courses are skewed towards the rudimentary of advertising and basic design, often lacking theoretical foundations for both.”

Obviously we require much more. It's not just about campaigns or branding, but more about taking the responsibility of understanding our customers acutely, and delivering on their mandate to communicate to a more diverse set of stakeholders, than just customers who buy their products or services. Not only must this be done with sensitivity in terms of a client's corporate culture and vision, but it must be delivered reliably year after year, even though the goal posts may shift periodically. Hence we require maturity, reliability, and continuity in our human resources. We understand that maturity comes through training and mentoring; reliability comes from good processes and quality control checks with our workflows; and continuity comes from long term employees (working with us for more that 2 years with the company) and the promoters' intimate involvement. As a result, the company has upped its emphasis on mentoring its people and in establishing robust processes and standards in its workflow.