Creating a Beehive of Success
The 10 Most Inspiring Business Women Making a Difference, 2021
As a child she always wanted to something different in her
life; something unique that you’d be remembered for. She struggled with
reading, writing, and expressing herself when she was a kid, yet she conquered
her mental blocks and rose above her challenges. She spent over a decade
working at various driving positions and gained appreciation for her work.
Following this, she chose the oblivious path of starting her own company.
Amidst all the struggles and doubts, she established a named for her and shouldered
her company towards success. Meet Monica
Gupta, a leading businesswoman who has gained excellence through her
unwavering attitude and relentless hard work.
The Initial Years
Monica was born in a family of doctors, with her elder
sibling being a doctor as well. She was a dyslexic child who struggled with her
studies. However, her life started to change when she learnt meditation, the
art of empowering self by connecting with the supreme soul or in other words
started talking to god the almighty father.
She says “I had a deep realization that I am the energy
within who is driving this costume, I am the eternal, immortal, and
imperishable being of pure and positive energy. This really helped me
overcoming my mental blocks and my concentration started improving
tremendously. They say it’s all in your mind, and hence a non-performer slowly
started performing, because no more I had any mental blocks. I had a creative
and logical bent of the mind which I started putting in my studies and later in
my profession.”
Soon her hard work was replaced with smart and consistent
work, which lead to the natural progression of her career, one leading to
another. For the next decade or so, she worked across in the industry at
various driving positions delivering solutions and services to her customers
successfully by innovating and out-smarting every time her own set standards. “Clients
had developed a liking and appreciation for my work and they started moving
with us wherever I moved in the industry,” she recalls.
The Big Decision
She was having a fruitful career as an employee, however,
her goals and aspirations were big. The time had come to take a call, on
whether to keep working for someone or to work for her own self and establish a
company where people actually enjoy working.
“It was tough decision to make because position and power
was something that I had always enjoyed but the bigger learning and attainment
was in letting it go and creating a new drawing all together on a fresh
canvas.”
The Inception
On 17th December, 2008, Interactive Bees was
formed! A company which strives to make a difference. It offered a complete
range of brand communication solutions to its customers. A group of
professionals who are passionate about their work, came together from either
traditional or digital media and were totally game for delivering integrated solutions
to the customers.
Interactive Bees is a complete brand communication agency,
providing all sorts of marketing communication solutions for its clients. From
Offline (Brand identity creation, Communication style and design creation,
print designs, Films) to BTL (events, designs, etc.) to Digital Marketing (own
media to earned media to bought media).
Speaking about interacting and engaging with her team,
Monica mentions “I enjoy spending quality time with my people interacting and
empowering them and also deliver talks on stress-management, self-management,
work life balance, easy meditation for busy professionals, digital
detoxification etc., with various groups in the society at large whenever
possible. I firmly believe that where ever your attention goes the energy
flows, wherever the energy goes the life grows and hence for me it started
working positively.”
The Hard Way of Learning
Speaking about challenges during her journey as a leader,
Monica exclaims “Well I have always learnt the things the hard way, but then
the process has made me strong every time and helped me shape my future much
better.”
For Monica, her biggest strength lies in her approach of
taking every problem as a stepping stone in her life and, according to her, it
really proved to teach her lot and help her become a better person.
She transformed her inability to communicate into creative
expressions, which she then extrapolated professionally in marketing
communication.
“So the lesson I had learnt growing up is that, “There
really isn’t any mountain, that’s too high to scale” all you need to have is
the zeal and enthusiasm,” a sound advice indeed.
The Success
“Vision has to be straight and focused then the success
comes automatically to you, that’s what I experienced. We have been around for
a decade now, our efforts are getting recognized and appreciated, as is evident
by the many awards that have been coming our way.”
The company won the title of ‘India 5000 Best MSME Awards
2017’, for its quality excellence and the ‘Red Herring Top 100 Award for Asia’s
most exciting companies’ for providing disrupting solutions in the industry and
gaining substantive traction in 2016. Interactive Bees’ was also listed in the
“Top 10 Best Startups in Website Development Companies in India” by
Silicon India Magazine and “Consultants of the Year 2016: Digital
Marketing,” by Industry decision makers at CIO Review Magazine.
Most recently, two of its digital campaigns got recognized
by the industry and the company won; Drivers of Digital Awards 2018, for a Special
Mention for Content in a Video Marketing Campaign and Outstanding Campaign of
the Month by 91 Mobiles.
However, what truly makes Monica happy is when she,
alongside her company, can bring about a positive change in the lives of people
and the organizations associated with it. “When I see that our customers become
a spokesperson for us, the whole effort gets repaid and is the most satisfying.
At the end of the day, that’s what really makes me think that I am playing my
role well and mission is thus accomplished.”
The Future Ahead
“We have been around for 10 years, growing and evolving the
whole while, though slow but sturdy, we are here to stay and will make it big
and unique in the corporate world. I vision Interactive Bees as an agency of
choice for the brands. I want to keep it an exciting workplace, a beehive that
is buzzing with novel ideas every day. Managing stress in the corporate world
is quite a challenge. I want IBees to maintain this equilibrium where there is
just enough stress that pushes us to expand our boundaries to allow each person
to perform their best, not that its required, but because they are all performers
willfully. A place where they want to be in everyday, an organization with a
difference!”
Personally, Monica, believes in celebrating life and for
that one has to have a heart full of love, peace and joy for everyone, the one
who is pure and un-affected by the ups and downs of the society, each day
moving towards empowering herself and her team mentally as that’s the need of the
hour – to face these turbulent times strongly!
“I donot like when youngsters are unable to perform,
succumbing under the situations and finding an easy escape of quitting the job!
Powerful personalities who can think and deliver in all kinds of situations; is
my vision of them and that’s how I see Interactive Bees, the company with a
difference,” concludes Monica.