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 By:
Ali Vazirabadi
Taraneh Derak:
It is all about Customer Service Relations
After I graduated from San Francisco State University in Computer
Science, I worked as a programmer for a couple of months. I was
miserable, said Taraneh Derak, who is now the CEO and co-founder
of Yubéé in Santa Clara, California. Yubéé
was founded in the summer of 1999, by Taraneh Derak, Essi Fahimi,
and Rajib Akhter.
Derak's sociable attitude and desire to solve people's problems
was the fuel that lead her into the exciting part of technology,
called Customer Relation Management (CRM). Although, the idea of
customer support and management is not new, embedding and using
technologies like Internet, Java, and relational databases with
smart workflow rules are new and costly.
What makes the use of technology more challenging in making a good
CRM? Like cooking, simply knowing the recipe out of a cookbook doesn't
guarantee a good meal. Similarly, years of experience, along with
a good team in place, increase the chance of a successful CRM implementation.
Derak's experience has always geared around customer support and
the need to solve their problems. "I went into training and
fell in love with the idea of working with people," said Derak.
After years of work experience in customer support field together
with the creation of Yubéé, it gave Derak enough confidence
to post this message on Yubéé web site:
" As veterans in building customer services organizations,
we witnessed the pain of implementing traditional customer services
software. Yubéé's vision is not only to eliminate
these pain points, but also create a new standard in delivering
ROI [Return On Investment] to businesses. It is highly gratifying
to see this vision turn into reality. Our customers have brought
their service operations online with our applications in one to
five days".
In 1992, while Derak was expecting her first child, she could not
let time go by waiting at home. That year, she learned about a new
operating system made by Novel. She asked her husband to bring all
the nine thick manuals of Novel LNM Operating System home, as her
leisure reading materials.
Learning about Novel technology, in addition to her training in
Business Information and Computer System, lead Derak to Gupta Corporation
in Menlo Park, California, as a Servers Product Manager. Gupta Corporation
was in application development and deployment software for client-server
applications, along with relational database and application development.
Within less than three years work at Gupta, Derak earned three promotions.
She left Gupta, and joined with Worldwide Products as a senior manager.
Derak worked for two other companies before she founded Yubéé.
The first one was Edify Corporation of Santa Clara, where she was
the Director of Worldwide Technical Support. The Second company
was Marimba of Mountain View, California.
Derak also has recommendations for women in workplace, like:
Women have advantage in management, by being multi-task oriented.
"We have to capitalize on this strength", said Derak.
To women interested in management: "I always say it is an advantage
to be a woman, and you are equal, and if you qualify for a management
position, then go for it".
The
following is a list of Derak's
recommendations for professional success:
- Be a team player and open-minded.
- Try to learn as much as possible.
- Look for mentor(s) within your work environment.
- Try to help each other as much as possible.
- Follow your dreams.
 Damghani's
Wireless Connection:
Here, There, Everywhere!
Throughout the story of Alice in Wonderland, Alice
faced many changing characters that added
to her confusion. The 44-year-old Yamin Damghani, who was the Director
of Strategic Alliance at Airprime based in Santa Clara, California,
equates dealing with Iranian government related projects to Alice's
experience in Wonderland. "The issue is mostly about regulations,
there is no warning. In the private sector this is not an issue,”
said Damghani.
Damghani's impression could be the result of his personal experience,
while working on a project in Iran. He was part of a development
team to install intelligent water leakage monitoring system for
the government-run water Department. According to Damghani and United
Nation confirmation, about 30% of the water in Iran is lost, due
to various water leakages in the network.
What impressed Damghani, while working in Iran? He found project
teams in various groups to be much more supportive of each other.
He acknowledges territorial issues of projects to be more common
and challenging in the U.S. Damghani was also impressed with a head
of Mechanical Engineering department, who was a woman. According
to Damghani, it was very  comfortable
and professional working condition, where other engineers reported
to a well-qualified and competent woman.
Damghani is impressed about Iranians' thirst in high tech products.
He categorizes Iranians into "early adopters" type of
people. "I was amazed to see $700 Nokia phones people were
carrying", said Damghani. Nevertheless, he does not believe
that the revolutionary 3G wireless technology would be needed for
Iran, in the near term. He notes European telecommunication companies
have incurred large debt in the technology, with no hopeful sign
of return on
investment.
A high school graduate of Alborz in Tehran, Damghani got his undergraduate
degree in Iran and his Engineering M.S. from University of Louisville
in Kentucky. One of the recent companies Damghani worked for was
Qualcomm in San Diego, California. This is the company best known
for pioneering Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology,
which is now used in wireless networks and handsets all over the
world. While at Qualcomm, Damghani was the Product Manager to bring
pdQ™™ Smartphone into market. This product was a combination
of a wireless phone integrated with a Palm III.
Key
factors in success, according to Damghani:
- Having common sense.
- Define your goals. By knowing your goals, execute accordingly.
"Nothing is more important than execution," said Damghani.
- Teamwork is needed as much as possible. Acknowledge your team's
contribution.
- For those looking for management position: Support projects in
a way that your interest and project goals are all 100% aligned.
"The challenge comes when the interest of individuals and project
goals do not merge", said Damghani.
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