Mr. Manjit Dey Founder and CEO of DIFM 360 offer Facilities Management courses and certificate programs. His rich and varied experience comes from working within diversified industry sectors. He has around 25 years of Strategic Management and Operational experience into Corporate Real Estate Project & Facilities Management.

Prior to setting up and leading the industrial park operations for Ascendas Firstspace (CapitaLand, SG) and Embassy Industrial Parks, Manjit has been at leadership positions at brands such as Suzlon Infrastructures Ltd (Aspen & Synefra), Feedback Infra Services, Bharti Realty and has served clients such as Asian Development Bank, American Express, Agilent Technologies Airtel and Hewitt Associates to name a few.

Manjit comes with an entrepreneurial mindset, the ability to develop business across geographies and agility to prioritize operational needs from organizational standpoint– qualities that are attributed to his blend of being a strong and visionary operating leader. After having spent about 25 years in the corporate, he felt the need to take his acquired subject matter expertise and passion to uplift, upgrade and transform the blue collar workforce within the fraternity and to give them a space of respectability in the industry. The outcome envisaged was to bring about employability, economic prosperity and respect through teaching people. This gave birth to his new venture DIFM 360- the only e-learning platform into Facilities Management courses and certificate programs in India.

We all love our childhood days. Manjit loves the most those days of his childhood. He is from middle-class family of academicians and musicians from a small town called Shillong , the capital city of Meghalaya situated in the North Eastern part of the country Music came to him naturally right from his childhood given the environment that he grew up in. He has started his schooling from Irish Convent named St.Edmund’s School meticulously disciplined and graduated from National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar in Electronics and Communication engineering. As he said, those were the favorite days of his life like the summer of 69! He was a relatively bright student in school and college. Apart from being very good with academics, he was very good in sports as well. He has Athletics records in school till date,that is what has actually imbibed him along with being resilient to the challenges of life. . Manjit believes in carefree life and being extremely competitive.

“The best part of my childhood was actually you know living a Carefree life. I think that was what which always got me to excel. In whatever I got into, it is serving me. Today, it is giving me back its returns. When I feel that to achieve something in life you really need to be focused. You really need to be there. You really need to put in the hundred percent. You really need to develop that sense of faith and belief in yourself. I think that's what it is to practice in childhood. Coming from an academic background studies has always been important to us and I would say that the fighting Spirit and the resilience and the tenacity was built into us by a father who has, being one of the strongest person’s in our life and today when we are fighting through life and, we're trying to do something new out of the blues, so this is being the huge contribution”. Manjit Says.

If we look at Mr. Manjit today, we will be forced to think about how this man has been so perfect with the things. His diversified experience and the people who have contributed in his life made him “Mr. Perfect”. He has started his career with manufacturing company in Kankroli, Rajasthan where he got an opportunity to work with the top level management closely through the training period or as a mentor and mentee program. The program entailed just sitting in the GM’s cabin and watching closely how the GM conducted business. This program gave him brilliant insight as to how such senior level leaders took decisions? How was the day planned and spent? How organized are they? How do they deal with labor unions? How does production actually affect? Even after office hours he got an opportunity to interact with them.

After this experience he joined small company however had to move on after a year as the company was not doing well, it was the bad phase especially considering the fact that he had just got married and had to endure a situation which left him quite disheartened. He was somehow managing his limited funds to tide the period over. Under such a situation, one phone call changed his life. That call was from Partha Sarthi, the person who has introduced Manjit to the Facility Management Industry in 2002.Then he moved to Delhi and joined Asian Development Bank. Asian development Bank was at that point of time, going through a transition from the project stage to the operating stage, and he was the head of the transition. He has learnt many things in this period. He was the head of the Department, So right from strategizing the policy to implementing it and also seeing that it was effective in working in the right manner, was a new learning for him. Post this he joined Bharti Airtel which is the part of Airtel Group. He has served Bharti for approximately 5 years.

Communication skills helped him at high level to succeed further in life. After moving out from Feedback and he joined Suzlon Infrastructures as Business Head of SEZs.. This is where he has given allotted the additional roles of sales and marketing and project management along with his already existing responsibility of being the Head of Facilities Management department at a time. We can see Manjit is a person who always accepts challenges in a positive way. He has been putting 100% in his each role. For an example when he joined Suzlon, Suzlon was going through a challenging situation and the financial crunch was so much that to manage that company was the biggest learning experience of his life. He realized then that Cash-flow was king in managing a business and anyone who understood this aspect was good for life. He has played very crucial role in the demanding situation and was able to successfully manage both the companies entrusted to him with sheer grit and a Never Say Die attitude. He learning experience in Suzlon has been very enriching to mould him into this leader today.

It was the experience gained in Suzlon was really phenomenal because it shaped him to what he is today. One fine day while being employed with CapitaLand, he decided to answer his higher calling, leave his comfort zone and get into e-learning business for facilities management. DIFM360 is the brand which took birth and came into existence after giving thought to every aspect of his life experience. He decided to offer his expertise through DIFM36, an online portal for training people into Facilities Management, which is my core competency, which has been my bread and butter, and which is what he has excelled in for these last 25 years having done that where he did not look back. He put in his papers and within a period of two months, that moment was, in the month of October, I started DIFM360 to bridge the employability gap existing between the Industry and the Institutes.

Concept behind the DIFM is “I felt there was a lot of un-employability or unemployable people especially at the grass-root level, the blue collar workforce where people walked into facilities management by chance not by choice. I am a live example of that without having a background, I walked into Facilities Management. However, I learned my way up and this is the learning that I feel we need to share to make the industry more structured, more organized by “Transforming Facilities Management” from a “Career of Chance” to a “Career of Choice”!!

 Message to the generation:

“Apply yourself more than hundred percent. If you get that reward for that effort, it was destined. If you don't get the reward, never give up but give it another chance of not hundred percent ,give it two hundred percent. So keep going, keep learning. I would say, don't get stuck up in your comfort zone. Challenge your fears. People are all worried about having a salary at the end of the month, because they feel comfortable but sometimes you need to get out of the Fear Zone to challenge yourself and take a leap into the unknown”. Secondly, the biggest thing on this Earth is being Happy. Happiness starts with you. If you are happy within, then only you will be able to make other people happy. If you yourself are not happy, how can you bring happiness to the other people? Some way or the other, they will always be a void. So, first start with yourself, be happy. And I want to be as Happy as possible for the next you know, whatever years”.