Technology has been the major differentiator in our lives over the past few decades. It is often said that the world revolves around technology; however, Sanjay Soni (Founder and Chief Knowledge Director at Incredible Design) believes that the world moves on to what we do with technology. “Technology is simply a brush in the hands of a painter, a spindle in the hands of the weaver, or a chisel in the hands of a sculptor,” he asserts. With Incredible design, Sanjay focuses on leveraging the most advanced technologies and their nuances to using them in problem-solving.
Something they hadn’t seen before….
Incredible Design’s roots date back to 1988 when as an architect trainee, Sanjay got an opportunity to be the assistant designer at the Festival of India closing ceremony in Russia. Though it was in contrast with the education Sanjay was pursuing, he was exposed to what design can really do. He observed how design transforms spaces, how it affects people, and what impact it has on people who watch these spaces.
Back in India, he realized the need to do better than what everyone else was doing, for which he had to break the mold of industry standards. It took him 20 years of learning, observing, and self-motivation to establish Incredible Design in 2009, formally. Along with his perseverance, he was driven by the clients’ demands as well. “I can vividly quote a client who said – ‘can you show me something which I haven’t seen before.’ Nothing else could be more motivating than this statement,” asserts Sanjay.
How astonishing is Incredible Design?
Sanjay founded Incredible Design with an aim to create experiential programs that provide clients with an opportunity to transform their little known product into a strong brand. Its primary clients are tourism destinations that strive to market themselves globally. For the clients, the company provides AR/VR based experiences, QR based response systems, its own CRM based solutions to manage RSVPs, and image recognition based mobile apps. These solutions are offered to the clients as a part of complete onsite or offsite experiences.
As the Founder and Chief Knowledge Director, Sanjay keeps himself and his team on the path that he chose, where innovations, high service standards, commitment, honesty, design thinking, and problem-solving are milestones to keep walking and achieving much more. He adds, “I think my main role is to be discontented enough to be content in what we deliver, to keep my team inspired and challenged to deliver better and keep the spirit of ‘compete with self.”
We Chose to Keep the Hope Alive….
Due to the pandemic, Incredible Design’s primary client, viz. the travel and tourism industry was the hardest hit among all the sectors. The pandemic brought the company operations to a standstill in terms of physical projects as its work includes design for trade shows and meetings along with marketing and PR for tourism destinations and businesses. However, the company remained optimistic throughout the crisis. “The lockdown gave us an opportunity to slow down, sit back, and introspect what we were doing,” said Sanjay.
Under Sanjay’s leadership, the company recruited new staff, empowered them with rented laptops, gave them tasks to deliver from home, and analyzed each of its clients separately. It helped most of its clients get used to the power of online meetings, work from home, upgrade their systems, and renew and strengthen relationships.
Moreover, the company created few new business verticals and collaborated with the New Tourism Foundation—where senior professionals from the tourism industry have come together to form a think tank for the development of tourism with various models such as mentorship, research collation, brainstorming sessions, etc. Incredible design has curated, designed and executed their new project—Tourism Students Festival, an experiential online event as an interface between the tourism industry, academicians, and students across all verticals of tourism.
Complementing the Need for Customized Solutions
“Lockdown forced me to think what we want out of our lives, how we can contribute to the lives of people around us, and be content within ourselves,” says Sanjay. Recognizing the increasing need for customized solutions, Sanjay, with Incredible Design has decided to venture into the space of wellness and spiritual brand building as a collaborative effort, a marketplace for unique destination merchandise, AR and VR based meeting solutions, and branding support solutions for businesses wanting to reinvent and repackage themselves. The company is planning to launch products that help build user-centric specific communities.
It has been a highly rewarding journey….
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, left a huge influence on Sanjay and led him to introspect about why people do what they do, and why don’t they do what they are supposed to do. Choosing to design and build, he came to working with brand architecture and could control the creation from seed to fruit. Looking back at his career, Sanjay believes that it has really been a highly rewarding journey as an entrepreneur. Repeat clientele is our biggest reward.
Sanjay believes in continually working towards greater self-actualization. Thus, he consciously chooses to work on a project every year in his lean period, where he challenges himself and his team to work on something different. These projects are based on parameters such as innovation, challenge, out-of-the-box, inspiring, beyond our realm, with a scope to learn. “One such was when we worked on 100 years celebration of Satyagraha, where I had a chance to team up with noted historians, philosophers, administrators, and others to build an exhibition around Mahatma Gandhi’s journey of Satyagraha,” he added.
Read Full Issue: The 10 Most Disruptive Tech Entrepreneurs to Look for in 2020
