What’s it like to be in competition with yourself? 20 Great Answers with Rushenka Perera, VP of Marketing for SAP, ANZ

Rushenka Perera (00:02): 

I’ve had managers who ask a lot, but they actually don’t do the hard yards themselves. And I think that’s, if you’ve got a team, you’ve got to actually walk the talk and you’ve got to actually show that you can roll up your sleeves and get things done as well. 

I’ve had managers who are very politically motivated and that doesn’t work for me either, because as I said, I’d prefer to talk straight and that always can ruffle some feathers further up the chain. 

And then, I’ve also learnt some really good things from managers, particularly how to actually motivate your team, how to create a collaborative team, how to build that right culture so the whole team feels valued, and they feel like they’re part of something bigger. That I think is my most valuable lesson. 

Barrie Seppings (00:49): 

And welcome to Plugged In, Switched On, where we pull you into the conversations that matter in B2B tech marketing. I am your host, Barrie Seppings, and the quote you just heard was from Rushenka Perera. She’s the Vice President of Marketing for SAP in Australia and New Zealand. More from Rushenka in just a moment. 

You may be new to the pod. Let me show you around before we get to that conversation. We do three things here at Plugged In, Switched On. Firstly, we get some of the most interesting people in B2B tech marketing to tell us how and why they do what they do. Secondly, we do deep dive episodes into some of the more specialist areas of B2B tech marketing, things like ABM, partner marketing, video production, and so on. So, get up close and personal with some of the skills and what’s happening in those areas. 

And finally, we also pull back the curtain on how these teams and leaders operate. We look at their day-to-day, how they’re coping with hybrid and remote and developing high performance teams. You’re more than welcome to listen to those episodes and see if you can steal a few ideas for yourself. 

(01:56): 

Now we don’t try and do all three things in a single episode. That would be madness. We try and keep it a little bit focused. Today’s episode is an interview with the tech marketing leader, Rushenka Perera is the Vice President of Marketing for SAP Australia and New Zealand. We got her in to ask her the same 20 questions we ask all our guests, but we always get 20 really different really interesting answers. Let’s have a listen. 

(02:23): 

The first question is the elevator pitch. What is SAP selling and why would anybody pay good money for it? 

Rushenka Perera (02:30): 

The aim of SAP software is to provide a differentiation from your competition, to provide heightened employee experience, to provide a better customer experience, but basically to improve all of the processes that you have within your organization and make sure that you are going to really elevate your organization. 

Barrie Seppings (02:51): 

Is it technically part of like an ERP suite? Would you consider it ERP or is it? 

Rushenka Perera (02:59): 

So, ERP is one of the solutions that we offer. We have supply chain as part of the ERP, we’ve got procurement, we’ve got HR systems, CXX systems, business transformation process systems. Obviously, AI underpins all of that as well. So yeah, the whole kit and caboodle from a technology perspective. Upwards of 50 years, I think it’s 53 years now, and we are headquartered in Germany. 

We have around 1400 people in Australia and New Zealand. The whole company, we’re at about 110,000 employees and the company is pretty much credited with starting ERP. Enterprise Resource Planning definitely is where it started at, but obviously public cloud and cloud solutions are where it’s at now. 

Barrie Seppings (03:44): 

All right, question number two, is the superhero origin story. 

Rushenka, you’re the Vice President of Marketing. Is that something you grew up dreaming of? What did Rushenka in high school think she was going to do or what was she told she should go in to do? 

Rushenka Perera (03:59): 

I really wanted to be an archeologist. Indiana Jones was around at the time and I thought, “Oh great, I would like to be like Indiana Jones.” It’s a bit similar in that you’ve got your prize that you’re chasing in marketing and all these baddies after you as well, so it’s similar. But yes, an archeologist was what I wanted to be when I was growing up. 

(04:19): 

I did mass communication, which is obviously a defunct concept these days, but that was the thing at the time that all of the universities offered. And then it’s part of an arts degree. So, when I exited university, it was a recession, so looked around for a job and I got a job as a marketing assistant in what’s now Thomson Reuters, but at the time was the Law Book Company. So legal publishing, not a very exciting industry from my perspective. 

(04:48): 

So, I did stay there for a little while and then I went on to McGraw Hill, which is educational publishing, but that was a very small part of my career. And then I made the switch to Solution 6, which is accounting software, which no longer exists by the way. You feel really old when all the companies you’ve worked for actually no longer exists or they’ve been acquired. And so yes, I have been in IT marketing for around 25 years. 

Barrie Seppings (05:12): 

What’s the appeal with technology marketing? 

Rushenka Perera (05:15): 

Yeah. Once I got into it, I really enjoyed it. I mean, I did set out to find an industry which I thought was more hip and happening than legal publishing. And so definitely the IT industry is one which is always changing and you’re at the forefront of whatever the new innovation is. So I really enjoy that bit, but it is a bit of a constant roller coaster because there’s so many changes that the organizations, particularly larger organizations, tend to shape-shift constantly. 

Barrie Seppings (05:48): 

All right, question three, I do this for free. Which particular part of the job or task do you just naturally enjoy and find yourself gravitating towards? 

Rushenka Perera (05:57): 

The idea piece. So my team probably cringe every time I say, “Oh, I’ve got another idea.” But some of those we’ve actually implemented and they’ve been really good ideas, really delivered for us in terms of not only ROI, but in terms of other metrics that we’ve assigned against them. Most recent one was we just launched something called Trending Chats, which is sort of a hybrid between a podcast and also some sort of interactive sort of webcast. 

(06:29): 

So the idea was people don’t have the ability to interact with the people who are speaking on a webinar or a podcast after they’ve given it some thought. And if they do have that chance, they’ve got to listen for 30 minutes or whatever it is. So the trending chats is a three-minute takeaway. It gives you three ideas that come out from that particular chat, and then you have the ability to talk to the person who’s spoken, ask them the questions as well. 

Barrie Seppings (06:55): 

And who do you think has possibly the worst job in B2B marketing or the job you wouldn’t want to do full time? 

Rushenka Perera (07:03): 

Yeah, I don’t know if that’s the worst job, but I’m not a salesperson, so somebody who’s doing one of my telemarketers is probably not the role that I would want to do ’cause, as you probably gathered, monotony is not for me and I feel that that would be quite monotonous. And also, I’m not great at being pushy, so I’m better at, and I always tell the truth, so I’m very much into being authentic and being straight up. So that’s probably not going to work for me very well. 

Barrie Seppings (07:35): 

All right, question four, control, alt, delete. What’s the one career move or moment you wish you could go back and undo? In that moment perhaps you realized, “Oh, I’m learning a valuable lesson here.” 

Rushenka Perera (07:46): 

So when I was in my early 20s after I finished in publishing, I was wooed by a very good salesperson and recruited to run a new marketing consultancy and head it up and get it started. And that was obviously not going to work out because it was all, he was a very good salesperson and I learned to ask the right questions. I learned to do my homework better and to clarify the role. But as a young 20-year something year old, that was a valuable lesson to learn. 

Barrie Seppings (08:23): 

So it just wasn’t the job as advertised or there wasn’t the support there. What was wrong when you showed up? 

Rushenka Perera (08:28): 

There wasn’t the resource that was promised, there wasn’t the money that was available to actually get something like that off the ground. 

Barrie Seppings (08:37): 

All right, question five, shout out. Who have you learned the most from in your career? 

Rushenka Perera (08:41): 

Things that I’ve learned are both negative and positive. I’ve had managers who ask a lot, but they actually don’t do the hard yards themselves. And I think that’s, if you’ve got a team, you’ve got to actually walk the talk and you’ve got to actually show that you can roll up your sleeves and get things done as well. 

(08:58): 

I’ve had managers who are very politically motivated and that doesn’t work for me either because as I said, I’d prefer to talk straight. And that always can ruffle some feathers further up the chain. 

(09:11): 

And then, I’ve also learnt some really good things from managers, particularly how to actually motivate your team, how to create a collaborative team, how to build that right culture so the whole team feels valued and they feel like they’re part of something bigger. So that I think is my most valuable lesson. 

Barrie Seppings (09:32): 

And speaking of your team, how big is your team and how’s it constructed at the moment? 

Rushenka Perera (09:37): 

So we’ve got 18 at the moment, but that includes some interns and some contractors. So, we actually go to market a number of ways. SAP you either double or triple hatch in your roles in marketing, so it could be industry, you could be persona based, you could be geography focused. So that’s all one person doing all the three of those roles. So there are a team of fantastic marketing managers who do cut across all of those three ways to splice going to market. And then we’ve got operations and partner marketing and events and sponsorships and then all of the other support that we have from our coordinators and interns. 

(10:30): 

I’m a believer in actually structuring the team, particularly in a B2B IT organization where marketing really needs to be aligned very heavily with sales to make sure that you’re aligned with the key stakeholders. So I do actually make sure that each of the people in my team who are responsible for carrying a sales type bag or pipeline build are aligned to a salesperson or a sales manager so that there is actually buy-in from both sides, they become like a trusted advisor to that salesperson and also therefore get a lot more traction in terms of making sure that whatever leads that are produced are actually followed up on and the pipeline is therefore created. 

Barrie Seppings (11:18): 

I wanted to ask you also about the interns that you mentioned. Is that a standard program that SAP runs or it’s just something you have in your team? 

Rushenka Perera (11:26): 

Yeah, I’ve got a mixture. So, I’ve got four at the moment. They’re all part-time, three or four days a week. I don’t understand how these young people actually do university full-time and do four days a week in a very busy marketing organization, but hats off to them. 

(11:45): 

I’ve got two who are permanent in marketing interns. Then I’ve got another two who are part of STAR program. So the STAR program actually rotates the interns through SAP into different departments, but one of those STARs actually has decided that she loves marketing, so she’s already been with us for a rotation and she’s just signed up for another rotation and then she’s said that she’d like to stay with us for the rest of the year. So I’m very happy about that. 

Barrie Seppings (12:14): 

Yeah. Do you get a lot of joy from bringing up the next generation and being able to be a leader to people who are just starting out? 

Rushenka Perera (12:22): 

Absolutely. Yeah. I really, I do thrive on that. I love listening to the young ideas, seeing the enthusiasm and just having a laugh with them as well in terms of their point of view versus mine. It’s really refreshing to have that young blood and I really think it’s great. 

(12:42): 

And I’d like to create pathways for them. So there have been around, I’ve had a lot more than these in terms of interns, but I’ve had seven young people who I’ve recruited over my time here at SAP who have gone on to further roles in SAP. And that has been something that I’ve really pushed to do because there’s no point having someone come in as an intern and then not having the future for them in the organization. So really pushed hard to make sure, even if it’s a contracting role, if that’s all we can offer, but something that they can then build on their knowledge and actually start to form their career. 

Barrie Seppings (13:22): 

Question six, the only constant is marketing cliches. How do you keep up with change? How do you continually lean into it? As you said, you’ve been doing this for quite some time. How do you keep curious? How do you keep excited? 

Rushenka Perera (13:37): 

I actually quite like change. The frustration comes from the timeline it takes people to catch up and then to just start to execute. With tech, there’s always a change announced and then you say, “Oh God, I’ve seen that before. That happened five years ago.” Then we were reverting back to what it was five years previously. But I’ve been around long enough to see that cycle go round and round. So that is frustrating for me in that there hasn’t been a learning from what has happened previously. 

So I don’t like the change just because people want to change. And that’s usually when a new leader comes in and they decide, “Well, I’m going to change back to have this focus” rather than the other one, just because they’re a new leader. I don’t believe in that. I think you need to look at what actually has worked in the past. 

(14:30): 

And perhaps things have changed where you do need to shake things up a little bit, but there needs to be some work around that to make sure that that’s the right change. 

And then the other thing is, don’t just change constantly. If you do make a change, you need to allow time for it to take. So changing every year or every two years is too fast. You’re not allowing people to actually get the traction. So it needs to be something that’s put in place for in my mind at least five years or so before you can actually make an assessment. 

Barrie Seppings (15:04): 

Question seven, here’s to your health. You’re in a job that’s in high demand, it’s a high stress job, it’s a fairly cerebral kind of job. What do you do to keep yourself both body and mind healthy and to sustain the kind of energy and focus that you’re going to need? 

Rushenka Perera (15:23): 

So I’m the mother of two boys who are very active. Well, they’re not actually boys, they’re young men now. So I keep up with them. So I actually play soccer too myself. They play rugby. But we are a very active family, so we’re always outside. 

And then I also have a Labrador, which keeps me busy in terms of walking. I love the walking. And I think the thing to do, and I always tell the team is I understand your priorities. Your priorities is not … Your priority is always going to be your family or it’s not going to be your work, right? So prioritize family, that’s fine, that’s okay. If that’s what’s your motivation, then that’s what you need to do. 

(16:09): 

So if your child is having their graduation ceremony, then go ahead, go to the graduation ceremony, but carve out that time that you might’ve lost if you need to and make up the time. But if you are very efficient and you do all of the projects you need to do in half the time that it takes or has been allocated, well then that’s good too. 

(16:30): 

So I think it’s having the flexibility to decide how you actually work out your day. I think that keeps me mentally healthy. And then also I’m heavily into flowers and candles. So, if I am feeling a little bit like I need some pep up, I light a candle and I have flowers next to me when I’m working from home. 

Barrie Seppings (16:54): 

Question eight, unique snowflakes. Now every market or segment or territory likes to think that there are a unique market to be addressed, and in a way kind of they are and kind of they aren’t. But have you come across a segment or a type of audience or somebody that you feel when you’re marketing to them, you really do need to take time to understand them and address them a little bit differently? 

Rushenka Perera (17:16): 

Yeah, absolutely. I think that applies to every target segment to a different extent. So even if you’re looking geographically, Queenslanders are different in terms of the way they approach things to the way that people in New South Wales or Victoria might. WA is definitely different. New Zealand is extremely different. That’s just geographically. 

And then from an industry perspective, SAP is really strong from an industry perspective. So we differentiate ourselves in terms of our know-how from an industry perspective. 

And every single industry has its own nuances. And I think you’d be very naive not to actually make sure that you are understanding that industry and marketing accordingly. 

Barrie Seppings (17:57): 

Who’s the industry or the segment that you think if you went to them with something generic would 100% not fly? You’ve really got to tune that in. 

Rushenka Perera (18:06): 

Public sector. 

Barrie Seppings (18:07): 

Yeah, okay. 

Rushenka Perera (18:08): 

Yeah. Public sector’s a large industry for SAP. They trust us with their core solutions and obviously it’s focused on citizen outcomes and therefore and also their budgeting et cetera is very different to what you see in other industries. So, I would say that they would be the one who you definitely can’t go with a generic tagline or messaging. 

Barrie Seppings (18:38): 

Question nine, green with envy. I think you’ll like this question being an ideal person. What’s the campaign or event or idea or launch that you’ve seen, and you went, “Oh, I wish I’d done that. That’s really good”? 

Rushenka Perera (18:51): 

Well, first of all, I’d love to have the budgets of some of my B2C counterparts because we don’t get those kinds of budgets in B2B, but I do do a fair bit of judging for marketing awards and a lot of those are B2C campaigns that are put in front of me. Most of them are. And my question’s always, what’s the ROI? How much was it? It’s a fantastic campaign, but how much did you spend to get this return? And one of the ones that I saw in my judging, it’s public so I can talk about it, is the Tuvalu campaign. So that was an actual island where the digital nation was created for not a lot of money and it got huge exposure and I think helped to achieve the objectives that it set out to achieve, so. 

Barrie Seppings (19:38): 

You’re a busy person. How do you carve out time to be a judge on marketing awards and you’re looking after interns, you’re doing all these things above and beyond a pretty significant job? 

Rushenka Perera (19:47): 

At nighttime. 

Barrie Seppings (19:48): 

Rushenka, when’s the last time you slept? 

Rushenka Perera (19:57): 

No. I also have a great team and also delegation I think is really important from an empowerment. One thing that I’m really big on is making sure that the team understand that they have my full authority to do whatever they need to do. So they only really involve me where there’s an issue or whether they think that they would like my advice on something. 

(20:26): 

One thing I do have to push them is to try and get my advice on more things because they’re like, “Oh, you’re too busy.” I’m like, “No, I’m not too busy. I can help you.” 

Barrie Seppings (20:33): 

All right, question 10, that really gets my goat. What’s the one thing in this industry, and we can talk about B2B tech or we can talk about marketing or a combination of both. What’s one thing in this industry that’s gone on for far too long and you think needs fixing? 

Rushenka Perera (20:52): 

I might go get fired after this one, but basically I think from a B2B marketing perspective, assigning an ROI is great, but the ROI always doesn’t have to be a result of pipeline. And this attribution to pipeline, trying to put some sort of digital advertising campaign against pipeline, you can do different levers as part of that to actually produce pipeline, but not every single aspect or every single tactic is going to be producing pipeline. It will in the long term, obviously bring you an inbound and it will result in more leads, but you can’t assign a pipeline figure which is going to be realized in the short term. That’s I think something that people need to realize. 

(21:45): 

Unfortunately, it’s not just sales people who are looking for those pipeline attribution, but there are marketing people who are pushing that bandwagon to say that we must get pipeline out of every single thing. And I don’t think that’s right. Pipeline will come in some instances. So maybe we need to look at the short-term versus long-term impact of pipeline. 

Barrie Seppings (22:06): 

Question 11, truth serum. You’ve worked with a lot of agencies over the years. What’s the one question you’d ask an agency if you knew they had to tell you the truth? 

Rushenka Perera (22:19): 

So I know it’s not easy working with clients, so I think I’d probably ask what drives you crazy about working with us? Because they’re always going to say, “Oh no, it’s fine, it’s fine.” 

Barrie Seppings (22:19): 

I can assure you- 

Rushenka Perera (22:27): 

I know it’s not fine. 

Barrie Seppings (22:30): 

No, I can assure you Rushenka, it’s absolutely fine. Isn’t that right, Tim? Tim, you’re listening to it now. Yeah, it’s totally fine. 

Rushenka Perera (22:37): 

And yes. So obviously there’s difficulties working with clients as well, I understand that from an agency perspective, but for us to understand what that is would be helpful. And sometimes I instinctively know some of the timelines that we have. Sometimes I’m unrealistic, for instance, I’m sure that’s lots of agency folk will say that. Clients will come and say, “Well, I wanted this yesterday,” which is totally unrealistic. 

Barrie Seppings (23:06): 

That’s a really considerate answer. You’re worried about what’s annoying the agency. There’s not many marketers who are like that, like, “Hang on, I’m paying your bills. I don’t care if you’re annoyed or not.” Why are you concerned if client behavior is annoying the agency? 

Rushenka Perera (23:22): 

Because you’re going to get a better outcome if the agency is invested in the client. And also, if there’s a rapport between the agency and the client, you’re also going to get a better outcome. You also get favors done. 

Barrie Seppings (23:39): 

I’ll tell you the truth. That is the truth. Yeah, absolutely. You do work a little bit harder for people that you like, even though. See, like children, all my children are favorites. A couple of them are more favorite. Yeah, that’s totally the truth. I’m not supposed to answer the truth serum question on this podcast Rushenka, but you’ve tricked me into doing it. 

(23:59): 

Question 12, better together. You just touched on it before about giving your team autonomy, but how are you making that call to know when you should step back and let somebody do the thing or step in and say, “Right, I’m going to do this on my own, ’cause it’s just going to be faster and better”? 

Rushenka Perera (24:14): 

And then no one’s ever going to get it right, and I don’t get it right all the time, either. I’ll step on someone’s toes sometimes. But I generally let people go and do their own thing until a point where I feel like they’re going down a rabbit hole, then I step in or … 

I think the important thing is not weighing you on every decision and also recognizing your limitations. I’m not great in terms of looking at things and saying that’s great from a brand perspective or that’s not. So there are other people who are much better at that and colors and textures and all that kind of stuff. So I always put my hand up and go, “I don’t know. You guys make a decision.” 

(25:00): 

And for a lot of marketers, that’s sort of like the cool stuff that they want to make a decision on, the look and feel of things. And it doesn’t worry me to be honest, as long as it’s distinctive and it’s creating the impact that we need. 

Barrie Seppings (25:15): 

Question 13, change your mind. 

What is a long held belief or conventional wisdom about marketing that you no longer hold? 

Rushenka Perera (25:26): 

When I was younger, I think it was all about the creative piece of marketing. When you’re at university, for instance, all of the case studies always B2C, and it’s all about how people are having fun on a beach or whatever it is and how great that is. When you’re in B2B marketing, you understand that creative is important, but now I’m really all about the data and love the creative and the innovative piece as I said before, but that also needs to deliver. And in B2B marketing, we are held accountable in terms of what we are delivering from a demand generation perspective. 

(26:04): 

So I think data is something that was very underplayed when I was younger and is something that in my mind now is of utmost importance from a marketing perspective. 

Barrie Seppings (26:16): 

Yeah. Is that something you’re impressing upon the interns, the young cubs that are coming through, you’re trying to steer them in the right direction? 

Rushenka Perera (26:22): 

Yeah. And also I’m trying to get them to understand things like if they’re doing a lead upload that they are actually doing something that is one of the most important jobs from that perspective. 

Barrie Seppings (26:34): 

Question 14, put your money where your mouth is. In terms of effectiveness and ROI, what surprised you over the last 6 to 12 months of stuff that’s working better than expected and also some stuff that you’re like, “Nah, this is starting to tank. We’re going to pull back from it”? 

Rushenka Perera (26:51): 

We’ve been ramping up our executive engagement and our buying center marketing, which is great, and that’s really what we need to do in terms of the number of decision makers that have increased from a B2B buying decision perspective. What we are not seeing as much effectiveness on is content syndication, HQL delivery. So there’s been a proliferation of vendors in the market and I feel that it’s sort of quite fragmented now that piece. 

Barrie Seppings (27:22): 

Question 15, overhyped, underrated. What buzzword or concept do you think is getting too much airplay recently? 

Rushenka Perera (27:35): 

Well, I don’t think it’s getting too much airplay, but it’s AI, is everywhere, but it’s really something that I think we really should be looking at from a marketing perspective and leveraging. I mean, we obviously leverage it quite heavily here already from SAP. And particularly when I talked about the data aspect before, AI has a great deal that it can do for us from a marketing perspective for data in terms of an analysis. Obviously, all of that needs to be verified by someone who’s human, but it can take away a lot of the tasks, lead uploads hopefully. So, the interns don’t have to do it. Well, AI can do it at one point, but obviously someone’s going to have an eye over it anyway before anything gets put up into the system. 

Barrie Seppings (28:22): 

And do you think there’s something old-fashioned, an old tactic or an old philosophy or something that’s kind of ready for a comeback or something that you think is worth championing as we head off into this glittering AI future? 

Rushenka Perera (28:34): 

Direct marketing is something that sort of comes backwards and forwards I think in marketing. So I think would’ve been around nine years ago, I did a direct marketing campaign and it was really successful because everyone had shied away from doing it for a while. And then we did some here at SAP in the first few years as well, which did really well. Covid kind of put an end to it because everyone started working from home and we didn’t have people’s home addresses, et cetera. So that could be something that could work. And we have tried some direct marketing activities recently, which do work fairly well for us as well. So yeah, that’s probably something that’s a little bit underrated in B2B marketing. 

Barrie Seppings (29:26): 

Question 16, the supermodel question. Linda Evangelista very famously once said she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. That probably needs to be adjusted for inflation. What figure do you get out of bed for? Or why do you get out of bed in the morning, Rushenka? What’s your motivation? 

Rushenka Perera (29:42): 

I wish I got paid $10,000 a day. That’d be awesome. You know a marketing job that does that? Let me know. But basically I do love my job, as I’ve said, and my motivation is the team, so obviously I need to be front and center and to show motivation, otherwise they’re not going to show the motivation if I’m not. So it’s really about me fronting up and doing what I said I was going to do or elevating them in the organization or in the broader marketing community or whichever area it is. 

(30:23): 

But my motivation is I am fairly competitive, but not competitive in a sense with other people. I actually set myself some goals and I have quite high expectations of the goals that I need to achieve for myself. And so then trying to achieve those is what gets me motivated. 

Barrie Seppings (30:41): 

Question 17, this ain’t happening. What’s the most unexpected or unusual situation you’ve found yourself in thanks to work or thanks to your job? 

Rushenka Perera (30:52): 

I used to travel a fair bit and we had an offsite meeting in Shenzhen and I got severely sick from food poisoning and I couldn’t attend the executive offsite even though I’d flown there to attend it. And then I was so sick I had to have the hotel staff come in and look after me and- 

Barrie Seppings (31:10): 

Oh, that’s horrible. 

Rushenka Perera (31:15): 

Yeah. As a result of having to do marketing across Asia Pacific, that’s kind of what happens. 

Barrie Seppings (31:21): 

Everybody thinks, “Oh, it must be so great, you get to jet around,” but it’s pretty draining, right, when you’re on the run. What’s been the downsides for you when you’ve been in those kind of roles on those work schedules? 

Rushenka Perera (31:33): 

Yeah, it’s time away from the family. So I think the most, I used to be very good. I used to try and get back so I was at least back for the weekend, but I think maybe twice in my career I’ve had to spend the weekend away from the family where we’ve got multiple stops. So Singapore to Seoul to Tokyo to somewhere in India for example. So that’s definitely the downside, but great upside, love working across Asia Pacific, Japan, meeting all of the different people, understanding all of the different nuances into culture, getting insights into how different marketing tactics work in different markets. I think really valuable lessons in also how to deal with people and to be empathetic in terms of how people deal in particular cultures. 

Barrie Seppings (32:29): 

Question18, home alone. What was the pandemic and the lockdown experience like for you and how has that changed the way you work now or live and work and that work-life balance? 

Rushenka Perera (32:43): 

Yeah, it really didn’t change. SAP has a pledge to flex policy, so very flexible in terms of working from home, also time of day working, et cetera. So that’s never been really an issue from my perspective. So when the pandemic happened, the team adjusted very easily ’cause it was no different to what we’d always done. Marketing I think is very project-based, and so it’s easy to make sure that people are doing the right thing, even if they’re not in the office and not the case for some other roles, for example, sales, right? 

Rushenka Perera (33:20): 

The only real change for me that was challenging was having the kids there at the same time as me working from home, whereas they’re not there now, and then they expect me to make them a hot lunch as well, which is not something that I had been accustomed to doing. So, yeah, that was interesting. 

Barrie Seppings (33:37): 

That’s wild. And so I suspect you taught them in pretty short order how to find their way around the kitchen. 

Rushenka Perera (33:43): 

Well, at first I actually started doing things like making something in the nighttime that they could then have, so like a soup or a risotto or something. And then I thought, “Why am I doing this? Why am I killing myself doing this? They can have a sandwich, same as if they’re going to school.” 

Barrie Seppings (33:58): 

Question 19, all of me. 

Barrie Seppings (34:02): 

Plenty of businesses, especially big businesses, say they want their staff to bring their whole self to work. Is that true for … Well, let’s start with SAP. Is that true in the company that you’re in now? How diverse and open and welcoming have you found the culture within SAP? 

Rushenka Perera (34:20): 

I would say SAP has been the best culture that I’ve worked in over my career. They’re very family oriented. So there’s an expectation that you bring your whole self to something that you’re doing, but not your whole self to work, right? Because there’s a recognition that you’ve got other things outside of work which are more important to you perhaps. Perhaps your motivation for work is to put food on the table for your family, right? 

(34:48): 

SAP is German, as I said before, very practical in terms of the way that we actually run things in SAP. And definitely a need for people to be focused when they’re at work, but that’s different from bringing your whole self all the time because your whole self is never going to be just a work self. It’s comprised of different parts of you. And I’d say that’s the same for me as well. If I have a task that I need to focus on, then that gets 100% of my focus from a work perspective, but my whole self is never going to be just focused on work. It’s different parts of me. 

Barrie Seppings (35:35): 

How would you say that Rushenka at home is different from the Rushenka that we get to see at work? What do you like when you’re kind of off the leash and on your own time? 

Rushenka Perera (35:43): 

I have been told that when I’m focused at home, I have no idea what else is going on and then they’ll come and say, “Okay, I fed the dog,” and then I’ll go out and then I’ll finish my call and then I’ll ring them and say, “Has anyone fed the dog?” And said, “We told you we fed the dog.” And I’m like, ” Oh, I wasn’t focused on what you were saying. I was focused on the call.” My sons will probably tell you that I’m always bossing them around at home, but that’s not true at work. I know you can ask my team. I’m sure that they wouldn’t say that. 

Barrie Seppings (36:16): 

Question 20, secret weapon. Rushenka, do you have a secret weapon in your career? And if you do, will you tell us what it is? 

Rushenka Perera (36:23): 

I was going to say my Labrador calms me, but no, seriously, if you ask my team, they’ll say that I am focused on making sure that I have everything in little compartments, and my inbox never has more than about 20 emails at a time, and they think I have OCD. Personally I think what my superpower is is really coming up with new ideas, and as I said before, my team is stressed out a little bit ’cause I just throw out new ideas left, right and center. But, yeah, I enjoy that piece. That’s the most exciting piece for me. 

(37:08): 

And also seeing them come to life I think is amazing. And when the team actually buy in, that’s also something for me as well, ’cause it’s not like I’m forcing them to do, take on an idea just ’cause it came out of my head. It’s validating that it’s going to work and then they do all the hard yards in terms of executions. 

Barrie Seppings (37:30): 

That was 20 questions, the interview game we play with all our B2B tech marketing leaders who come on as guests on the Plugged-In, Switched-On podcast. Those answers came from Rushenka Perera, the Vice President of Marketing for SAP Australia and New Zealand. Before I let Rushenka go, I did ask her to name her desert island movie. 

Rushenka Perera (37:56): 

Oh, Love Actually. Oh, I love it. It makes me cry. It makes me laugh. And you can watch it in little segments, I suppose, little movies, and then you could play more than one movie over and over. 

Barrie Seppings (38:12): 

It does seem to be a popular one.  

Now, before we unplug for this episode, I just wanted to give you a quick update from the Splendid Group, which is the B2B pure-play tech marketing agency where we produce this podcast. And when I say where, it’s not really anywhere in particular. We are 100% remote, global, and distributed.  

If you would like to find out why that is the case and how well it’s working for us and our clients, I do encourage you to go and hunt for season two episode one where I interviewed Tim Sands, our MD and founder, and Tina Semple, our Client Services Director for Australia, New Zealand, about how the agency started, why it started 100% remote, and what are the advantages for both the staff and the clients that we are very happy to work with. 

(39:03): 

I have been Barrie Seppings. I’m the Executive Creative Director at Splendid Group, your host for the Plugged-In, Switched-On podcast, and I was talking with Rushenka Perera, the Vice President of Marketing for SAP Australia, New Zealand. 

Hit Subscribe in your podcast distribution channel of choice, and you’ll hear us again automatically next month. Please hit Like, hit Subscribe, leave us a comment and get in touch. Tell us who you’d like us to talk to next month on the podcast, especially if it’s you. Maybe you’d like to come on and answer our 20 questions. Thank you for having us in your ears. We’ll see you again soon. 

Plugged-In, Switched On is generated by Splendid Group. Thanks to our executive producers, Ruth Holt and Anna Isabella Canta.