CMO Axis: Building a 'Startup Aligned' Team Date:   Saturday , April 05, 2014 Let\'s face it. Not everyone can work in a startup. Startups demand tremendous investments in time, commitment and a strong will from their employees. Specially in the growth stage, everyone is expected to chip in across roles and functions, even at the cost of being pushed out of their comfort zone. CMO Axis has been creating a distinct work culture where people are picked, trained and aligned for a startup environment. Right from flexible role definitions to providing them with a challenging and entrepreneurial work culture, the company pushes employees to their professional and creative limits. A non structured environment allows for work flexibility, a healthy leeway for making mistakes and good doses of work and fun. Since its inception in 2008, CMO Axis has redefined the marketing landscape in India. The pioneers of MPO or \'marketing process outsourcing\' services, the company partners with enterprises as an extended arm of their organization delivering measurable, high impact, and cost efficient marketing services. While providing an innovative service has great advantages, it also comes with its fair share of challenges. For one, as a niche, evolving industry, there is a dearth of readily available talent. The Chennai based firm with a national operations footprint, seeks employees who demonstrate an aptitude in marketing, with the capacity for critical thinking and problem solving. More importantly, CMO Axis looks for talent with an entrepreneurial vision who can thrive in an unstructured environment and find creative solutions to problems. As a part of its efforts to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem, the company has recently launched a three month entrepreneur internship program that enables B-School marketing graduates to become independent marketing advisors for small businesses. Students are given practical training in a MPO environment that covers various aspects of marketing & strategic and operational interventions. \"We are organizing various workshops for students in different schools & colleges to generate an entrepreneur ecosystem, where students are not only trained to become marketers but also to become marketing entrepreneurs. This is something very unique that has helped us nurture a pool for marketing outsourcing,\" added Pramod Harith, Co - Founder & Director, CMO Axis. Furthermore, the firm also runs an employee business referral program that encourages employees to align themselves with business goals, get equipped with necessary skills that empower them to tal about the business and identify opportunity for growth. The MPO also believes in maintaining a nurturing environment and has a structured mentorship program where senior leaders are mandated to mentor to atleast one person in their team. CMO Axis creates opportunities for employees to really transform or disrupt the space they operate in. It constructs several innovative business opportunities within the organization, like CMO1 that delivers pay per use marketing solutions or leadsAXiS that delivers demand generation solutions hands these over to intrapreneur teams to build and grow this into independent business opportunities. As a result, employees contribute not just to grow the organization, but also to enrich their personal roles & share the larger vision of redefining and transforming the marketing landscape.