Category: Cogzidel

Thanks Giving


I wanted to post this Blog during March 2 as that was supposed to be a devils day in my life 3 years back… I was on that day I was backstabbed by one of the person whom I most trusted in this world… It was that say that taught me lot of lessons;

  • Humans can always change in this World…
  • Day taught me the difference between Rich & Wealthy…
  • The day showed me what Depression is…
  • The day showed me true & fake faces around me…

Over all it was that one day which pushed me to the bottom morally, emotionally & financially… Itz been 3 long years and still I couldn’t believe I here & fighting… That one day has changed my Life for ever… After 3 years when I look back I’m more than happy for what has happened in my life… Today I’m more independent & pursuing my goals independently…

Though I was betrayed & backstabbed by a Human it is same Humans who stood by me & helped me to fight back… Without them I could have not proved what I’m today… All this was not possible without following people and I take this opportunity to Thank them for the amount of support they gave me during the time of need… So, these are the special ones to whom I owe a lot;

Major Karthik: Truly I totally gave up as I was morally & financially broke… I thought I couldn’t create an empire which I created all these years… I started looking for Jobs abroad… But it was this gentleman who changed everything… He said he has seen me as a Boos & he loved to seem me as a boss… He said what ever it is he will be with me & he even quit his job when he had dependent parents & a pregnant wife… The amount of confidence he had it on me gave me that much needed strength… He helped me raise my morals…

Then he was instrumental in helping me to form a core team… It was he who convinced Bala Subramaniam, Sathick & Senthil Guru to join Cogzidel… He played & is playing a vital role in my come back story…

Dear Major,

Thanks for standing by me during my troubled times & for continuing that support till date.. You are always special for me & I owe a  lot… Thanks for everything mate…

Regards,
Anand

Bala Murugan: He is someone who is totally opposite to me in terms of academics, character,  knowledge everything… I’ve known him only though my ex-friend who had let me down… Bala was head of finance of a ESPN company Cricinfo.com & itz been a 7 month association… After Major it was Bala who was ready to partner with me & like Major he was with me during my troubled times… When a person of such credentials wanted to join me when everyone have almost written me off was a big moral booster… I’ve nice nostalgic moments were I’ve travelled to Bangalore for many business meetings…

Bala you are one special person in my life & thanks for being with me…

Bala Krishnan: Both had a sore experience because of the same person in our life… Bala quit my previous company which I founded & he took up a good / stable Job in a reputed company… After all confrontations were over , after settling all legal battles & when I was ready to Start Cogzidel… I asked Bala if he can join my start-up… To be frank I was not expecting a positive response from him… But to my surprise he immediately agreed to join me… This was another moral boosting situation…

Bala I still remember my visits to your room where you got me lunch from Saravana Bhavan… And our meeting in Sri Krishna Sweets, Gandhi Nagar where you agreed to Join Cogzidel… Thanks for all the support you have given me Bala…

Boopathi: He was the fourth person to Join me… He was the man behind all the office of Cogzidel & he is another important person in my Life… He is a go getter & I got a lot of aggression from him… I got a lot a console because of him as he use to blast all my back stabbers… He helped us in build the much needed infrastructure for the company…

Boopathi do you remember our travel to Madurai where I showed you a dirty open space… The lunch at Major’s house & Dinner at Konar Kadai :)…

Sathick: I’ve never interacted with him though he worked for me in my previous company… One day Major called me to Bangalore to show me the Core team of Cogzidel Technologies… I saw this enthusiastic gentleman who was ready to join me… I must really thank him because of taking the risk or joining a startup & legal scare from the previous company… Even in Madurai he was with me when I was going thru the moments of loneliness…

Sathick do you remember when we travelled on a rainy day and went to a movie Crossing Tracks in PVR Cinemas?? Also I remember watching Laadam in Ambigai Cinemas & Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu in Mini Priya…

Venkat Ramanan: Next to Join us was Ramanan… He is silent, witty & comes with one liners n punches… I’m very much thankful for his dedication and for staying with us this long by having a flat salary all these years… He even lent his money when we were really struggling to make ends meet… Ramanan you are one special person whom I owe a lot & thanks for all the support you gave & continue giving… I prey god to help grow CCS to great heights where in I can pay back for all your unconditional help and support…

Vimala: She joined my previous company when I was out of that company… When CCS was started she wanted to join us but she was really scared… But I don’t know how she finally got that courage to join us… I must say she is also as dedicated like Ramanan & a work-o-holic… She single handedly managed most of the accounting operation for more than a year… I’ve seen her traveling in hot sun in public transport to save cost, she had stayed long hours to complete her work, she digested abuses of some hard clients & she has even worked during holidays to finish the work… She even took half pay when we were having cash crunch & she lent her credit card to make settlements…

I know she is overcoming traumatic times these days & still I’ve never seen her out of work… She is one big inspiration in my life & she demands a Big role in CCS… I wish CCS grows quickly just to give it back to Vimala & Ramanan…

Senthil Guru: Again I’ve not interacted much with Senthil but like Sathick he was another pick by Major… He helped us build our first product CogzidelTemplates & Beatz… He joined us ignoring the legal consequences he has to face form his previous employer… Though he is not with Cogzidel today I’m grateful to him for being with me in time of need…

It is because of all these people I was able to make this come back & prove to the world that my first journey was not just a fluke but it is a experience for me to create History… I wish god gives me more opportunity to give back to these folks and be associated with them for ever…

Full Filling Day


Came to Madurai on a days trip which was just to put some signatures to avail a loan… There was some hiccups but things ended with a result which is what matters…

Reached Madurai & I was picked by Major… He gave me Road Trip CD to watch which both of us use to hunt for & finally he got thru it… And day started with Road Trip & then started the confusion part… An essential document required as a part of documentation… Then Bala promised to send it before 12 in the noon & he kept to his words…

By the time I signed and Jegan reached the bank; manager of the bank left for some field visit… I got down as the entire purpose of my travel would have become waste if the work was not completed on the same day… The reason is;

  • We wasted a lot of time because of a useless NBFC Sriram City Union… They prolonged our application with lots of crazy policies & finally they were not offering the loan amount which we needed…
  • We badly needed a Gen Set as we have 3 hours of scheduled power cut along with some sundry hours which is not scheduled…

Finally I got a call from Jegan by 4  o clock asking me to come to the Bank to finish the formalities… Then it was a 30 min documentation formality & I had to sign some 15 – 20 pages… Any I immediately got the Demand Draft in the name of the vendor…

I take this opportunity to thank my friend Laxman without whom this would not have happened because;

  • I didn’t have an account with the Bank.
  • No rapport with the Manager.
  • Gave no collateral.

It was only for Laxman’s face value and thanks a lot my friend for this timely help… I’ll definitely bring you pride dude :)… Also I must thank the Branch Manager for taking the risk & offering us this loan… Jegan for his constant follow-ups & co-ordination between Bank Manager & CCS and making this happen… Also must thank Bala Murugan for his efforts to prepare all documents requested by the Bank…

Yet another Birthday to Remember!!!!


As usual it was yet another Birthday to remember and thanks to all Cogzians… In fact first to wish for my birthday from Cogzians & Vimala was the first to call me… It was followed by Major Karthik & then my mom & sister wished me… From then on;

  • Got calls till 2 AM & it started pouring from 7 AM… I got up by 10 AM and started picking and reverting calls…
  • Then emails were pouring from midnight… Parallel task 1 is to reply to emails while talking…
  • Then it was pouring wishes in FaceBook… Parallel task 2 is to reply FB wishes while replying to emails & picking calls :)…
  • Then Got a call from Hotel Accord Metropolitan to wish me for my birthday… I asked them to book table for 12 people & my bad luck all tables were full… I got a bit nervous and upset because I asked all my folks not to carry lunch…
  • I asked Boopathi to book for some other star hotels for buffet & almost all star hotels were full with reservations :(…
  • Then I started to office by 12.30 PM & reached office by 1 PM… While driving I got the news that no hotel had free table including Green Park… Then I called a influential friend of mine & bang we got table in Green Park & that too with a discount with 30%…
  • After doing some small task we immediately started to Green Park… We were made to wait for 30 min to get the table…
  • In the mean time I found a friend of mine & invited me for a drink… After two shots to tequila I joined the team for lunch…
  • Before lunch I was asked to cut the cake & time to receive the gift by Team…
  • As usual it was time to pull down each other & time for showing our lighter side… Though we can’t blog about the fun we had… We spent almost 3 hours which ran in a jiffy…
  • To my surprise Bill I received was Rs.3600/- for a 10 member buffet…
  • Came back to office & gave home made cakes from Cakes Allure…
  • Then I went to Adambakkam office and must thank Aravind who made the moment special by putting my true age “22” :)…

I must thank Bala Murugan, Boopathi, Ramanan, Sowmya, Soniya, Patrick, Sangeetha, Suganthi & Brigadeesh for making the day special… I really missed Vimala (first person who wished me :)) & Dhanalakshmi… Here are some snaps of the special moment;

Greatest Embarrassment


Looking at the amount of response I got from SMS’ing my friends about a Job Opening… I thought it would be nice if I can keep sending SMS to friends so that they can help me in closing those requirement… Yesterday I again SMS’ed all my friends about an Opening in Business Development… The requirement was for Female Candidates & a typo has cause real embarrassment because I SMS’ed the requirement to my clients, business associates other than my friends, relatives & associates (at-least I can explain them)…

Here is the message I sent & the typo is marked in red;

Cogzidel Job Opening

Profile : Business Development
Experience : Fresher
Qualification : MBA
Requirements;
1.) Good Communication Skills & fluency in English.
2.) Good attitude to learn & ability to work indecently & with teams.
Location : Chennai
Gender : Female
Salary : Rs.8000/- PM

Pls pass me if you have any reference or help me by passing it to your friends. Resumes can be emailed to anand@cogzidel.com

Actually what I meant was Independently & not indecently… So, my lessons from this experience is;

  • Never send messages without proof reading…
  • Never send a message when am in half sleep…
  • Never trust spell checker blindly…

Power of Friends Network & Technology


There were several openings which were getting delayed… Particularly Admin Assistant profile was very challenging because we were trying to close this opening for 3+ months now… Over a point our Admin Manager was getting too busy with work and he was often overloaded with work… it was time that we had to find an assistant for him to work effectively…

When I was thinking on the reason for slow progress on all opening I wanted to try different process to;

  • Close the openings for smooth functioning…
  • Create a methodology for HR – Recruitment Process…

Of that I wanted to try the power of networking and I tried posting it on FaceBook, Blog and other social networking forums… Unfortunately I didn’t get the response and later I found our the reason that my posts got buried under numerous messages that gets listed on the wall…

The I wanted to give a try by sending an SMS to all friends about the requirement… With the help BlackBerry I was able to shoot (SMS) the content to all my friends… Also I did this around 3 AM when I was about to crash… To my surprise when I got up in the morning i already got 3 reference from my friends… Also in the subsequent days I started getting calls from a lot of people…

I must thank my friends because they forwarded the message to their friend list even if they didn’t have any reference… Finally we closed the long pending requirement for Admin Assistant…

So here is the SMS text sent to my friends;

Cogzidel Job Opening

Profile : Admin Assistant
Experience : Fresher
Qualification : Not Particular
Requirements;
1.) Reading & Writing knowledge on Tamil & English.
2.) A two wheeler. Conveyance will be provided.
Location : Chennai
Gender : Male
Salary : Rs.8000/- PM

Pls pass me if you have any reference or help me by passing it to your friends. Resumes can be emailed to anand@cogzidel.com

Wonder Day at CCS


After a very long time I’ve seen CCS office this calm… Most of the folks were in clients office, no client visits and no meetings… Though this is not an encouraging sign & I don’t wish such environment… It is nice to be like that once a while where in we find time to shake hands with colleagues, spend some personal time with them & plans for productive things…

It was like good old starting days where we goto office work for hours only to find that we have worked for 8 continues hours… Like wise I realized that it was 8 o clock in the night and was in no mood to leave the office because of the productivity in the work & the peaceful environment…

Again it was nice to drop Bala at his home and returned back home with lot of Job Satisfaction…

Openings at Cogzidel Technologies Chennai


Requirement #1: Business Development Executive

Job Description:

  • Selling IT services to the US market.
  • Maintaining the good relationship with the existing clients.
  • Finding New Business Opportunities (NBO) in the US Market.
  • Scheduling appointments to the Sales Manager and the Sales head
  • Reporting to the Sales Head.
  • Aggressive, Energetic,Enthusiastic and Self Starter.

Qualification :

  • B.Sc , BCA, MBA, MCA, B.Tech

Experience :

  • Minimum 6 months of experience in an out bound or cold calling environment.
  • Willing to work in night shift.
  • Excellent communication skills.

Requirement #2 : .net Developers

Job Description:

  • Good Analytical Skills.
  • Problem Solving ability.
  • Self-motivated & ability to work with teams.
  • Handling clients.
  • Good understanding of requirement.

Qualification :

  • B.Sc , BCA, MBA, MCA, B.Tec

Experience :

  • 1 – 2 years of experience in .net programming.
  • Excellent communication skills.

If you are interested of have any reference please forward the resumes to soniya@cogzidel.com.

Carol Celebrations @ CCS


I’d like to start everything after thanking Partick & Sonia for their wonderful initiative… Yep they were the people behind the idea of Celebrating Christmas Carol in office… This celebration was helpful;

  • for new cogzians to gel well with others and this was a wonderful ice-breaker…
  • for people working from home to get bonded with rest of the stack…
  • as it was wonderful stress breaker…

Didn’t know the extra curricular talents of Patrick & Sonia… Patrick rocked playing guitar, keyboard & parallel singing… Sonia was the lead singer and she had wonderful voice…

It was around 3.30PM for everyone to get gathered at office… We started the event after Cutting the X’mas cake and the honors were done by our CFO… Then immediately were were given copies of songs to be sung and for next half an hour it was full of songs;

  • Starting with my favorite “Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ was born on Christmas day” from Boney M.
  • Then a devotional tamil folk song.
  • Then Jingle Bells.
  • Then 2 more tamil devotional songs.
  • And finally it was my turn to join the chorus

I wish you a merry christmas
I wish you a merry christmas
I wish you a merry christmas
from the bottom of my heart

Then it was time for playing some games where we were asked to rotate a multiply wrapped cover and every layer will have a mock task to be performed or a gift… Only three were lucky Bala (CFO) got a Dairy Milk, Bhuvaneshwari got a Kit-Kat & the biggest lucky person is Suganthi who got a Fiema De Wills soap and Shampoo…

Then it was time for team games and there were three teams… I was lucky to be in Suganthi’s team and she lead from the front and we won the game comprehensively…

Overall it was a wonderful evening and a day to remember for every… These are some of the moments of the day;

  • Vimala’s prank was always to target Bala CFO…
  • Ramanan’s excitement to help the opponent to gain points…
  • Dhanalakshmi singing Surangani…
  • Suganthi involvement & passion… She went to the extreme of threatening others…

Let me leave you with some exciting pictures;

Table Tennis at Cogzidel Technologies


For a long time we have been planning to add more indoor games at office… Even I’ve tweeted about it and got some ideas… After Carrom & Chess we have added Table Tennis… It was nice playing TT after a while and expecting more activities from recreation committee…

Here are some moments;

Progressive Week


This week has been highly satisfying for both Cogzidel Technologies & Cogzidel Consultancy Services. After two years of existence and after a lot of thinking. We have finally decided to go aggressive on Sales front.

Fortunately we got two responsible people for each company to Handle our new Sales Initiative. I’m happy because both have thirst to learn & experiment. Both of them possess great energy and mainly they are contributing ideas rather than following our orders blindly.

Right now we are preparing all necessary things like Preparing Presentation, Generating Leads, Forming Sales Team et more. Hope these folks will carry the momentum and take Cogzidel to great heights.

Now it is time for me to work with these folks and speed up the process.