Frontlist | An Interesting Conversation with Mr. Chander Shekhar

Frontlist | An Interesting Conversation with Mr. Chander Shekhar
on Feb 26, 2021

“The publishing industry has been really kind to me”, says Mr. Chander Shekhar, Founder CEO of Spring Time Software.

Tell us briefly about your work? We are a software company established in 2002, we have been building software products and services for the publishing and other industries. We have a team of around 20 people now. Working in the publishing industry since then, we have got multiple software products and solutions for the book trade. I am a commerce graduate in 1995 with an MBA. I worked with a German Company based in India in the beginning of my career, and now I am here. What technologies do you specialize in? We work on Microsoft technologies, Dot Net and few others. we work on Web, desktop and mobile technologies. What is the main ingredient for developing a good team? For me, it’s not just one. One of the main things is the WHY. Why is a person working? What is the motivation behind his work? We should provide growth and learning to the person. We had a guy in our team, he used to be the Tea guy serving all of us throughout the day. We encouraged and guided him and trained him to become a software support specialist. And now he takes care of many things. He serves the publishing industry, people call him, he answers all the questions. He also heads the IT Maintenance department. Next, we have another example of one of the office boys who is now being trained for social media-related activities. How do you plan, organize and prioritize your work? In the morning, when I wake up, after my yoga, meditation and morning rituals, I spend 20 minutes noting down the most important 3 things to be accomplished in the day, and then the focus is clear. And because of this, I am very clear about what I have to finish, I put all my distractions away and instruct people not to disturb and finish my work. Then I have a tool ‘TASK SHALA’ which is one of my products also, I use that tool to manage and organize the work. All the tasks of the team are shown on the SCRUM Board where everything is mentioned what has to be done, what is the progress, done or not. How has your experience of working in the publishing industry been? It has been really great. The publishing industry has been really kind to me. They have been instrumental in the growth of my products and my company. People have been really supportive that they have promoted and supported my products, thinking as their own product, and encouraged & pushed us to innovate and create one of the best products in the world for Book Trade. We have more than 900 customers from book trade in 12 countries. It has been a really great learning experience. Delhi Book Fair happened virtually this year, what is your take on that? That was an event organized so nicely by the organizers that we have to compliment that. We all were able to pull it out so nicely. It was such a challenging task to keep the interest alive on-screen so getting hold of so many people and staying for a long time was a challenge, but it was done great. I am a face-to-face person and I prefer a physical book fair but yes, due to COVID we experienced a virtual fair which was equally wonderful. So I think as now things are getting better, we would have both physical and virtual fair. I think now both will co-exist in the market. For More Interviews: An insightful session with Mr. Sunil Mehta