An India Navy officer, multi-faceted professional – An asset to corporates

This article is an effort to introduce - Indian Navy officer to Head Honchos of corporate world, who often ask me what does an officer do in the navy, how do we know he can be good to civil/corporate management. This write up is an attempt to introduce true capabilities of a naval officer, so that corporate world knows their true asset values to multifacet organisations, am writing this having served more than two decades in the Indian Navy and Seven years in Corporate career. Visit my articles on website.

Cdr Sanjeev Krishna Deshpande, I.N, Retd 1 Stories

Wednesday August 16, 2017 , 3 min Read

INS Vindhyagiri

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister, had rightly said,” To be secure on Land, we must be Supreme at Sea”. This famous quote always remind us that we are primarily a Maritime Nation. A strong navy is an important element of every Maritime Nation. Having quoted this, intent of a professional to serve in indian navy is apparent with the capabilities desired in him. The ship, if defined in short is a platform which has weapons, sensors,Power generation, Propulsion, stores, victualling,medical, sewage treatment, Evaporators,aviation, fuel storage,Fire fighting mechanism, and men who drive it. In a sense its a floating township fortified, with all governed by an officer at helm of affairs.

These naval officers are well trained to man a ship and maintain morale and motivation of crew under all circumstances – like stress of war, prolonged deployments, man management including diplomatic engagements at foreign ports.

An Officer – is a true sales man with good knowledge of product and is not dependent on seasons to sell. He has to at an average manage 100- 400 men apart from the technical responsibilities of keeping the ship going and intended target accomplishment. Targets can’t be missed or else you will be missed for ever. So they are natural target achievers by nature.

An officer is also an good marketing professional, as it’s about planning. Planning is second nature to him as from planning a sortie to achieving the aim, is all about meticulous planning in minute details until the last mile. As it’s said in war there is no runners up, hence a plan in corporate may fail and can be redone, however for an officer a plan has no scope to fail.

Branding of our poweress is the true deterrence to desist the enemy from actually engaging with us in a war whilst maintaining our fear in the minds of the enemy. An officer is trained to breathe branding, as to conquer an enemy by deterrence is an art of war, akin to branding a corporate product in a way that competitors feel no scope to introduce their, or customers are made to believe, buy this or nothing else is worth.

An officer is an expert HR professional as he has the responsibilities of looking after leave, pay , morale, motivation and team spirit of his men onboard under all conditions,including transfers in case ashore billet. More over in case of casualty onboard the complete formalities of documentation, disposal and pension. More over in case of breach of discipline onboard , he has statutory powers to award punishments.

An all rounder is the right word for a naval officer because apart from above mentioned responsibilities he also dons the hats of :-

a. Judge whilst in the jury of court martial.

b. Becomes a trainer when ashore at training establishment.

c. First aid expert when onboard a ship which does not have a doctor.

d. Damage control and firefighting specialist at sea, if need arises due to incidents.

e. Final technical authority for optimum exploitation of sensors, weapons, machinery at Sea.

f. Auditing of financials for accounts onboard.

Needless to say an officer has high integrity and morale fibre. He is a man with high efficiency, durability and is a gentleman to the core