My name is Usha Gayathri Kavi. I
am currently working as a Manager in Oracle EBS Support Projects for TransSys
Solutions Private Limited in their India Development Centre based out in
Chennai. Upon the request from our professional colleague Sripriya, I would
like to share my short story with an intention that my story inspires some of
you who have sacrificed your careers due to family commitments and have
dedicated yourself for upbringing of your children where you feel that taking
up roles in the industry would impact your personal life.
There is a wrong notion that an
ERP job is an IT job. But for me it was not since by this time I had worked as
an end user in SAP and also learnt some of the implementation aspects. I
considered it more as a finance process and solution consulting job. I
personally feel that the role of functional consultant best suites a CA since
we already possess strong accounting knowledge and we are capable of quickly
adapting to any accounting system across the globe to understand and suggest
accounting solutions and processes in the interest of the customer's business.
When I share my experiences in later part of this blog, I am sure many of you
will be convinced with my outlook towards these kinds of roles.
I am basically from Hyderabad and
had relocated to Chennai after marriage. I qualified in the year 2004
immediately upon which I had taken up a core finance role with a leading print
media company for a year. In the course of my work in this company I had the
opportunity to work as an end user in SAP FI/CO. This role had inspired me to
understand and learn how an ERP is deployed in an organization. Out of this
interest I started to learn SAP Implementation in one of the institutes in
Hyderabad. By this time I had quit my first job and was unable to decide
whether I should continue in the industry or start my initial steps towards
practise. But I was aware that setting up a practise was not that easy where
you have to build everything from the scratch.
One day I got a call from a leading
software company in Hyderabad. They informed me that they got my number from a
friend of mine. They are looking from young qualified CAs to work for
functional consultant roles for an ERP Software. I thought I should give it a
try as this is the kind of opportunity that I was visualising and this was
something related to the interest. I went for the interview and was selected
along with 30 plus other qualified CAs. Though I was selected I was not sure as
to what ERP software they hired me for. I got my offer letter in hand and had a
very less time to accept the role. With the advice of many of my friends and
family members I accepted this role. When the training started only then I knew
that this was for Oracle and not SAP. I had no regret even it was not SAP since
I already started enjoying the Oracle Product in the course of structured
training that was given to us.
I worked in this company for more
than 3 years from 2006 to 2009 and acquired decent experience as a functional
consultant. Finally the time had come where I had to settle down in my personal
life. I got engaged in 2009. I had one or two offers in hand. But I chose to
spend time with my parents since I would be getting married very soon and have
to part from them. i got married and relocated to Chennai in early 2010. I had
kept my family life as a priority and this is the time I again thought if I
have to make arrangements to setup my practise. This dilemma continued until my
daughter was born in 2011. Then I decided to be a full time mother and enjoyed
the best time with my little one seeing her grow each day. Just after she
crossed her 2 year milestone, I happened to get in touch with a manager in my
previous job who had started his own company for Oracle proposed solutions that
has its Development Centre in Chennai. I asked him casually if he can give me
some role in his company that is flexible enough to manage my career and
personal life. He was kind enough to offer me such a role.
Today, I am working in TransSys
Solutions Private Limited as a support manager for some of their projects from
Chennai. My workplace is flexible. Sometimes it is in the office and sometimes
it is at the comfort of handling my kid along with the office work. The
flexibility of work place and timings has boosted my confidence to pursue my
career and reach greater heights. I was fortunate enough to have seniors in
office who have given me suitable opportunities by identifying my potential and
recognised me for my deliverables. One year in this company has shown me a path
that I can take up to reach greater heights in my career. Today I am contended
and there is just one feeling in my mind. I am proud to be a successful
professional and a caring mother.
No comments:
Post a Comment