“Who run the world? Girls!” Beyonce said it best. Women’s Day Celebration 2025 is a standout event, enjoyed by all. The dress code theme for this year was Pink/Lavender attire for women and Green/Blue attire for men.

The office was lit up with confident smiles as our ladies showcased stylish outfits paired with matching accessories and shoes. Everyone put in tremendous effort to make this day special. From the start, we knew it would be a fun-filled, memorable occasion.

Dedicate a Song – Express Yourself

Employees had a chance to request their favorite songs on the jukebox/karaoke, dedicating them to their friends and family. The event felt like listening to a nostalgic playlist, bringing back cherished memories. As we grooved to the music, dedicating songs to our peers strengthened our sense of belonging. By the end of the day, all that mattered was relaxing and enjoying the moment—everything else fell into place.

Surprise Events

Speaking of relaxation, the team set up a mini salon on the second floor. Services included relaxing foot, neck, and shoulder massages to melt away stress. There was also a Mehendi corner for beautiful henna designs, a nail art station, and an eyebrow threading section—giving us the royal treatment we deserved. Laughter and chatter filled the air as everyone indulged in self-care.

Perficient Up Town

After the salon, it was time for some shopping! Retail therapy is a favorite for many, and with the rise of online shopping, we often forget the joy of experiencing products firsthand. To support women entrepreneurs, various stalls were set up, offering gorgeous sarees, dresses, handbags, accessories, and children’s clothing.

It was delightful to see men shopping for their families, while women tried on different accessories and debated their choices with friends. To beat the heat, refreshing tender coconut water was served—a thoughtful touch to keep everyone hydrated while celebrating.

Refreshing Snacks and Beverages

As the day came to a close, a delightful surprise awaited us on the ground floor. A traditional tea shop setup, complete with wooden benches, newspapers, and boiling kettles, created a cozy atmosphere. The spread included samosas, butter biscuits, and piping hot ginger tea (chai). A chat corner served delicious pani puri, an iconic Indian street snack. Enjoying these treats with colleagues made the experience even more special.

Conclusion

International Women’s Day (IWD), observed globally on March 8th, highlights the ongoing fight for gender equality. It fosters a sense of unity – and at Chennai Towers, the celebration went above and beyond the embodying of that spirit!

Adding to the excitement, Perficient was nominated for an EX-Impact Award in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) category – a testament to our commitment to creating an inclusive workplace.

Great day to write about women leaders than International Women’s Day. Women Leaders are my source of Inspiration and motivation. Women Empowerment plays a major role in Nation’s economy and upliftment. I am hereby blogging about the Leadership skills of Women and the women leaders who did inspire me and the most common traits possessed by these icons.

Wisdom Begins at home:

During 1970’s, Indian parents had a stereotypical mindset, they wanted only their sons to get educated and according to them, Girl child’s Ultimate aim in life is to get married and have a family and their education doesn’t matter.

In these last two decades, they have started sending girl kids to school after the awareness and importance of education happened in the family irrespective of their Gender (Gender biased)

“When a woman is Educated, the entire family is Educated”.

 Education helped them in securing a job and gave financial Independence to them and they have risen to greater heights with their skills and hard work.

Values of Perficient:

Diversity, collaboration and Inclusiveness are key values in Perficient. In workplace, Diversity is achieved by the management offering few positions specifically for Diversity Candidate and thereby encouraging women to restart their career after a break.

Women are Natural leaders and with ease they handle everything, be it our mom handling our home to our boss at Workplace and to the politicians who runs our government at powerful positions. The opportunities and equality we get at Perficient is immense.

The world Leaders/Icons whom I look up to:

 The more I learnt about the women leaders in the world are through their Biographies/ Autobiographies and I had a chance to read about Michelle Obama – The Becoming, Indra Nooyi, Malala Yosuf – I am Malala, Benazir Bhutto – Daughter of the East, Indra Gandhi, Priyanka Chopra – Unfinished – A memoir.

Conclusion:

The most common traits among all these women and What made them a Great Leader/Icon are their Humble upbringing, education, usage of opportunities Resilience, perseverance, Partner’s and family support and the thirst to achieve their goals.

The Perficient towers kick started January 2025 with Celebration of the festival Pongal celebrated on the Day 1 of Tamil Month Thai with the announcement for the following competitions. Rangoli Competition: Form a team of 5 to 8 members and showcase your creativity by crafting beautiful rangoli designs. Pongal Cooking Competition: Form a team of 5 to 10 members and display your culinary talents by preparing mouth-watering Pongal dishes.

Employees can participate in any one of the competitions. As I was interested in coloring and presentation to the judges, I saw this as an opportunity to give a try at competitions after almost a decade and enrolled to Participate in Rangoli competition to be held on 9th Jan 2025.

Team Pongolo Pongal:

Gayathri Narayanan is the lead for our Rangoli team “Pongalo Pongal”. At that time, she was the only person whom I know of in prior as she hosted Enable JIRA training when I joined Perficient. We were a team of 7. Gayathri, Nagapriya sundaramoorthy, Smitha Dutt, Kavitha mani, Sathya roopa Ganesan, Tamilarasi Manickam and me. The Theme given for the Rangoli is “Harvesting”. We had a quick teams meeting a day prior to the competition.

Ideas and Preparation:

Each team member pitched in their ideas for the rangoli. Team decided to incorporate latest technologies such as Drip irrigation, solar panels to power up the pumps and drones for fertilizer and seeds sowing and did our research for the inter cropping system used in kongu regions of Tamilnadu, India and incorporated it in our art and resourced small pots, few stencils, additional colors for representation of the traditional Pongal in our Rangoli. We informed HCM team regarding the colors and Quantity needed for the competition.

On the Day of the competition:

Colleagues were dressed up in ethnic wears. We were assigned a floor and the area where the Rangoli has to be made. I arrived early to collect the Materials from The HCM Team. Time allotted was 1 hour. Priya and Gayathri did the sketches. Roopa had a deployment on the day of the competition, but she managed to join us. Kavitha did the Tamil letterings. we made a small representation of the actual Pongal. Smitha, Tamilarasi and me did the coloring and I managed to do the scripting and the explanation of our theme to the judges, Kapildev Munusamy and Rahul Thombre and we quoted Thiru Kural

உழுதுண்டு வாழ்வாரே வாழ்வார்மற் றெல்லாம்
தொழுதுண்டு பின்செல் பவர்.

which explains to “They alone live who live by agriculture; all others lead a cringing, dependent life” which emphasizes the importance of Farmers. This event brought out the artistic side of the techies. The preparation and the execution of the competition was so fun and informative. We were one of the winners and were awarded gift vouchers.

The Real win- Conclusion:

The Team “Pongalo Pongal” formed only by the interest of colleagues across various floors/projects, and we networked outside our projects and had a chance to learn from each one of us who met only on the day of competition, but co- ordinated, worked on our strengths and finally won the competition. The networking and the friendship we achieved from the competition is the Real win.

It’s a need of the hour and the topic of discussion – How to stay safe online. Promptly, Cybersecurity Awareness session was hosted by WIT, India. The speaker of the day is Sanjana Rathi, Cyber security specialist. She shared her wisdom on Cybercrimes, preventive measures and practical solutions to the problems.
In this blog the victim is called Mr. David and Scamster/Predator is called Goliath.

The mobile number magic
We tend to be free with our Phone number and basic details and while billing in a hotel, service provider, coupons for Free raffles, we tend to share the number for free without thinking much on the consequences. There are no proper policies with the application to guard our data and hence it gets leaked to the predators who are waiting for an opportunity to prey on us.

Call forwarding scam:
Mr. David was approached by Goliath asking him to dial few numbers and at that time David was unaware, call forwarding would be activated in his mobile and his data would be stolen, As the call forwarding is activated in his mobile and Goliath used WhatsApp for Business installed newly in his phone and messaged his contacts asking for money. Few people got scammed and others reached out to this Mr. Dávid and only then he was aware he and his friends were under cyberattack.

Cyber security:
“Cyber security is about being aware and takes lots of practice to stay safe from Scammers”.
There are lot of challenges in the digital era. We tend to agree to Application license without going through the documentation granting them access for our personal data such as Contacts, Photos, location and much more.

Types of Cyberthreats:
Cyber threats are classified majorly into four categories.
• Malware
• Phishing
• Ransomware
• DDos attacks

Phishing:
Goliath uses social engineering tactics to send you link, we are prompted to download link/ respond to a mail or pay our utility bills using the link. Once we click it by mistake, we would be routed to a fake website asking us for our bank details and we would be scammed.

Voice cloning/Face cloning in Ransomware:
Cyber Crime tools using AI, Metaverse – predators use Voice cloning/Face cloning asking for money transfer. A businessman’s secretary was asked by a man pretending to be his boss asking for money transfer through voice call. The secretary was vigilant and as the ransomware amount was huge. He did reach out to his boss and found out it was a fake Request. If at all he wasn’t careful, they would have got scammed.

Data Hygiene:
      Data Hygiene is important while we look out to buy new electronic devices and haul away the older ones. Some of the suggestions to be practiced are,

• Get a phone/system from a credible source.
• For Important data, have cloud storage and backup.
• Reg the Disposal of the data regarding the resell of phone, degaussing of data must be done to erase/dispose the data in the Mobiles/Systems.
• Cyber criminals make use of E-waste from foreign nations. They look in for the Recycle bin of the systems for data.
• Always be cautious and verify before taking a step for transaction.

UPI Fraud:
• RBI regulations – on the first transaction, Report the crime on time by calling 1093 (Cybercrime helpline) – 4 hours within the incident and contacted the bank to freeze the account. Report to the ombudsman. It’s likely the bank has to refund the amount.
                     “Scamsters fuel on the fear of the Victim to prey on them”

Digital Arrest:
The recent day scam is as follows, At midnight, Mr. David got a call from Goliath impersonating that he is a Customs officer calling to say that Mr. David has sent a Package which contains a Illegal item distant nation. The call gets connected to the Police Commissioner where they asked Mr. David is enquired on video call and team member of Goliath’s impersonate as police commissioner with the whole setup uniform and background and prey on the fear of David.

Mr. David is asked to Withdraw a huge amount of money from the bank. The bank employees found Mr. David acting weird and trying to close a huge amount of his savings in short notice. Meanwhile Goliath’s team would stay on call while Mr. David was at the bank. After multiple counselling by Banker and his trustworthy nature, David agreed that he was victimized and hence the scam is avoided.

Cyber security measures at Perficient:
ISMS awareness month is celebrated every year with various interesting games in order to educate and make us aware on the Domain spooking, different threats and solutions, Various mails been shared to us regarding the Do’s and Don’ts of using Perficient email and password management.

Conclusion:
With the advancement in AI, metaverse and Technology, Team of Goliaths comes up with various scams. They even use books like How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carenidge in order to trick people in liking them and to eventually scam them. We cannot eradicate cybercrimes completely. The best thing we can do is be aware of the ongoing scams and follow the safe practices in daily life. Staying cautious and vigilant and best practices will save us from cybercrime.

        It’s the time of the year again. Perficient celebrates the International Yoga Day that happens every year on 21st June. This year we had Gesture yoga and Face Yoga session by Ms. Kalpana Rajasekran, who is a Yoga trainer with 14+ years of experience specializing in Therapeutic Yoga sessions to cure diverse health conditions. This session happened over online where the employees from India attended it Live and had a great refreshing and knowledgeable session.

Agenda
The agenda for this hour-long session was to understand the mudras and how to use them in a proper way and to know the health benefits of the mudras and how to practice the face yoga forever glowing and clear skin.

Advantages of Mudra

  Mudra means gesture and it balances the five elements of our body. Mudras can be practiced while doing our daily activities like walking, sitting, and standing or lying down. It relives all the blockages in Chakras and Nadis. The health benefits of mudras are immense. It can cure from headache to heart problems.

Types of Mudras and how to practice them
     Trainer is highly professional, and she made us all feel at home. She clearly explained the poses of each gesture and Number of repetitions that needs to be practiced in order to get the maximum benefits out of the gesture. The health benefits ranges from gesture to improve oxygen level in brain, clarity of thoughts and increase vision power and there are gestures to even relives knee pain. Arthritics and stiffness of muscles. Learning about the benefits made us go in awe as have a sedentary lifestyle and a desk job. On practicing these gestures, we can overcome all our minor ailments and conditions can be fixed at the first stage.

Face Yoga
      In Today’s world, we tend to spend on skin care, makeup and to look presentable. Kalpana challenged us stating practicing face yoga is an affordable option for the facial wellness. Face yoga is a combination of Acupressure, massage and breathing. There are techniques designed to relieve and rejuvenate the facial muscles.

Advantages of face yoga
It reduces dark circles as we focus massaging on the 5 acupressure points around the eyes also helps in reducing double chin and face fat providing a clear skin from pimples and wrinkles.

Conclusion
As yoga is an ancient practice from India, WIT India takes a great pride in making it reach each one of the employees for a healthy life and to destress from the work. Gesture and face yoga are incredibly awesome ways to bring harmony in the body and keeps us forever young and healthy.

PS : Attaching the PPT : mudras and face yoga (1) 

The much-awaited Annual day Celebrations happened at Perficient @ The Chennai towers. The day kickstarted with a Photoshoot and a Grand food carnival at the Chennai Towers and followed by a Movie Day out. I would like to start with a little disclaimer, this blog covers my point of view at the Annual day.

Planning for the day

The planning committee did some exclusive groundwork in terms of arrangements, food and transport for the event. In the start of the month, Surveys carried out to cater to the choice of the employees regarding their food and movie preferences. Appreciate the HCM team who reached out individual employees to confirm their presence on the day of outing.

Annual Day – 9^th December 2024

As I walked into office, All I could see is not a usual day at workplace, it looked so festive like a close family event. while the facility team doing the decors themed Red and Gold. The first thing that caught my eye is the huge Tents made for shade to save us from scorching heat and huge aluminum pots & pans that were kept ready to cook food. That’s when I know this food carnival is going to be humungous and feels special like a feast arranged at our own family event.

Photoshoot at the Terrace

Perficient Chennai gleamed with all the decorations and team photos were captured. Kudos to the HCM coordinators who made sure all the teams’ pictures are captured. Just like icing on the cake, it’s time for the big picture, all the 400+ employees marched to floor Ten aka terrace. That was really a life size picture captured by the drones covering all of us along with the Perficient hoarding. We definitely stood tall with the dose of Vitamin D and heart full of laughter while we pose, and it was wonderfully captured by the team of photographers.

Food carnival

All the raw materials were sourced from the best places and in fact all the foods that were served are homemade. We had live counters serving us every variety of Dosas possible. Each one of the volunteers took great effort making sure everyone was well fed. The arrangements made for the entire event was incredible. The Goodness of the food reflected in the happy faces of the employees. My Favorite among the buffet was hot steaming Biryani and Gujarati dessert Jalebi and did not mind going for it again. This event was a great way to network with other team people and as the saying goes “Good Food brought all of us closer as a community”.

Movie Day out

Transport arrangements are made, and we travelled to the cinemas. 2 screens were booked exclusively for Perficient Chennai employees. We had a gala time enjoying the movie with the colleagues. The day ended with the drop back to Chennai towers. However, everyone secretly wished this day never ends.

Conclusion 

Congratulations to the management, staff and employees, volunteers for making this event so successful. Everyone made this day so memorable. As part of cultural connections ERG, Onam 2023 and Diwali 2024 was grand, but this annual day 2024 was multifold grandeur and Magnificent. As I always write, looking forward for much more celebrations at Perficient Chennai. Cheers!!!!

Just as we place importance on physical health, we have come a long way in recognizing the importance of mental health as well. Nowadays, people are addressing their mental health concerns by seeking help from professionals like psychiatrists and psychologists. When diagnosed with a mental health condition, individuals are encouraged to take medication, rest, and recover with the support of family and friends. Seeking help for mental health is no longer a taboo. Anxiety, stress, and depression are real challenges—but so are their solutions.

Since we spend a third of our day at work, it’s vital to have a supportive environment there as well. Here are some practices to help maintain mental well-being in the workplace.

Communication

Open communication is key. If you feel comfortable, share your concerns with your supervisor or manager—especially if you are undergoing treatment or need additional accommodations. By helping them understand the seriousness of your condition, you can work together to develop a plan such as incorporating rest days, adjusting schedules for appointments, setting realistic deadlines, and more.

Staying Busy

As the saying goes, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” Staying engaged at work is essential for mental well-being. You can:

• Schedule regular one-on-one meetings with your supervisor.
• Participate in Employment Resource Group (ERG) activities.
• Network with teammates to learn about their strategies and approaches.
• Join town halls, global meetings, recreational events, or celebrations in the office.
• These activities not only keep you busy but also foster a sense of community.

Journaling

Journaling can be a powerful tool for tracking your mood and reflecting on current habits. Even small changes such as tweaking your diet, workout, reading, or journaling routine, can make a big difference in your mood every day. By tracking these changes, you can more easily see the correlation to your emotions.

Self-Help

Be kind to yourself. On tough days when you feel like staying in bed, gather all your strength, get dressed, and show up at work. Sometimes, the simple act of being around people—seeing their smiles and feeling their positive energy—can lift your spirits and reignite hope.

LiveWell Wellness Challenge

At Perficiemt, we are fortunate to have a supportive work environment with friendly and empathetic mentors and team members. rograms like Buddy Connect ensure smooth onboarding for new hires, and initiatives like the LiveWell Wellness Challenge in October encourage us to focus on daily activities such as mindfulness, reading, solving puzzles, prayer, and spending time outdoors. These small steps collectively contribute to our overall mental well-being.

In Conclusion

Prioritizing mental health is just as important as physical health, and workplaces play a crucial role in fostering overall well-being. By maintaining open communication, staying engaged, adopting reflective practices like journaling, and practicing self-care, employees can navigate challenges more effectively. Together, we can continue to break the stigma around mental health and build a culture of compassion, resilience, and growth.

What could describe a successful town hall like this – “A town hall like never before.”

This is an ultimate town hall held on 12th June 2024 at Perficient Towers, Chennai. It was engaging and informative, and this two-hour town hall felt like minutes. It had all the Elements: Information, Leadership updates, Entertainment, and Engagement. The event kicked off with a live traditional dance performance by our colleague Divya Murali, followed by a welcome address.

Anurag Shivhare, Head of Nagpur GDC, joined us online and delivered about the new logos added to the client list of Perficient this year and gave pretty good insight on the profitability that was brought to Perficient.

The Nagpur team gave a few more energetic dance performances, the Chennai team played a few melodious vocals and instruments. Perficient’s Excellence award winners were Honored, which was very inspiring.

Sumantra Nandi delivered a powerful message about our global practices. Our Admin Team wonderfully organized the event, which included live performances, online speeches, and recorded performances. All these were delivered live in Chennai towers and broadcast to our colleagues in Nagpur, Pune, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.

Our leader, Michael Zucker, joined us in delivering security practices at Perficient, which is good practice regarding client confidentiality. It was indeed practical.

Prakash Chembai delivered his speech about EQT’s recent acquisition of Perficient. His speech cracked us up and kept the enthusiasm in the air as we came to the end of the event.

This event brought all of us together. It is Indeed “Crafting Tomorrow, Together.”

“If a single person does not have food, then we will destroy the entire World.” – Poet Bharathier

There is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone on the planet. Yet as many as 783 million people still go hungry. Hunger is one of the burning issues in this world and as a step to address it, “Perficient Giving – Employee Resource Group” have come up with an Initiative “Hunger Action Month” for the Second time in a row. HAM September 2023 came as a wonderful opportunity to bring out the King karna (he is known for his charitable Nature) in each one of us. 
Everyone thinks of donating food/contributing for the same but, in this fast-paced life, there was no proper channeling or opportunity to contribute in-person. HAM came as a blessing not only to the RAMAKRISHNA MISSION ASHRAMA, Chennai but also to GDC Chennai colleagues who purchased the items listed (the brands mentioned) in the email and placed them in the designated boxes in Chennai towers and OMR office.
Monthly grocery is still a dream to many people. We are so amazed to see fellow colleagues getting the grocery to office and its overflowing and we have exceeded the ask. As a team, people have brought groceries, and this enhanced the teamwork and brought the colleagues together. The amount of happiness it brought in each one of us is surreal.
On Sep 29th, the donated Groceries are handed over to the RAMAKRISHNA MISSION ASHRAMA.
No one has ever become Poor from Giving and Big applause to people who donated and restored the faith in Humanity!

          A Reason to celebrate is again here – Cultural Connections ERG Chennai arranged for the Onam celebrations 2023 at Chennai Towers. A lot of planning and hardship went into making these celebrations colorful, fun filled and to have an everlasting impact in our memories for life. Preparations started a day before Onam – Right from drawing a silhouette of the Poo Kolam – A traditional design drawn with flowers to welcome the King Mahabali who visits his people on this day and decorating the reception areas of Chennai Towers began as well.
         On the day of Onam, Chennai colleagues Almost everyone took interest and dressed up in ethnic wears and looked their best and showed up enthusiastically to the office for the celebrations. Many employees pitched in and helped in preparing the flowers for Poo Kolam – Must agree it’s a back breaking job but the result was breathtaking and was vibrant which instantly put a smile on all our faces and wondered how meticulously efforts were put in to make it happen. A celebration incomplete without lip smacking food – so, Traditional sweets Ada Payasam and Kerala’s delight “Banana chips” were served as specials along with the lunch. Group pictures were taken, and team’s photoshoot happened in the reception area following the protocols and policies of Perficient.
          These celebrations at work provided us a chance to learn and experience different cultures and keeps us grounded sticking to our roots and appreciate our traditional values and diversity of the people.

On a gloomy Tuesday morning, when the city is slowly recovering from previous night’s monsoon rains, bunch of Perficient employees marched amongst the city traffic and reached office just to attend the wonderful yoga session organized before working on their deliverables for the day.
Yes, its International Day of Yoga – June 21st 2023 and the session was arranged by our energetic GDC Chennai HR team and our Yoga instructor for the day is Ms. Sathya who have 13 years of Yoga training practice. When the clock stroked 11 AM, Registered Perficientians walked in with Mats, towels at Chennai towers, all set to learn and practice breathing exercises. The session started with a Ice breaker where employees dumb sharded their names so that the rest of the people could guess it. This eased up the situation and we familiarized ourselves with the co participants. First half of the session was a guided breathing exercise which involved us to breathe mindfully, and we learnt multiple forms of breathing with vibrant sounds and that improved our mental clarity and release of stress and brining in sense of calmness to mind and body.
The second half of the session started with a little task that made us to realize our level of flexibility and it was followed by stretches with breathing as main principle. The session came to an end, and we made up our minds that we would practice these breathing techniques as we reminded ourselves that practicing breathing everyday could keep us alive, stress free, relaxed, calm, composed and much more!!