Current edition - Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management

Transcription

Vol # 2 Issue # 1
www.som.iitb.ac.in/live
Management comes alive !
A management and business magazine managed by the students of Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay
Face 2 ecaF
Mr. S Gopalkrishnan,
Founder and CEO
Infosys Technologies
Limited
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In-Focus:
Sustainable Business
Carbon Credit and Green IT
Mr. Raj Nair,
Founder,
Avalon Consulting
Mr. R Sriram,
Co-Founder,
Crossword Bookstores
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Event Coverage:
Avenues 2009
Between the cover
speak
Social Space
The JOSH Machine….29
Face to Face
S Gopalakrishnan-CEO and MD, Infosys
Technologies Ltd.….4
Book Essence
India Unbound….32
Raj Nair- Chairman, Avalon Consulting….7
R Sriram- Co-Founder, Crossword
Bookstores Limited….11
Start-up Story
Iken Solutions….34
Industry Speak
Markets, Recovery and the Road
Ahead….14
Carbon Credits: How big is your
footprint?....17
E-Garage….36
SOMthing Special
AVENUES 2009….37
Continuum 2009….40
Alumni Speak
SOM Achievers….43
50 things to do in a Lifetime….20
Creative Bend
Student Speak
The Indian Dreamz – Winner among
rats….44
My Dreams, My Life….46
Green IT Outsourcing….22
Green Supply Chain: Is going Green a costconscious decision? ….24
Business Quiz….47
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Next Generation Boom in Service
Industry….26
Biz Wits
L!VE
Management comes alive!
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E-mail: [email protected]
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Notice board
Website: www.som.iitb.ac.in/live
L!VE
Between the cover
Dear Readers,
speak
Greetings from Team L!VE !
Team L!VE
Deepak Gupta
Tarun Mathur
Varun Purohit
Design
Amey Kambli
Marketing team
Dishant Gupta
Web Master
Aditya Banerjee
We proudly present to you another edition of L!VE, a magazine by
which we try to create and share knowledge that will be valued by
whole of the management fraternity. With this issue, we continue
with our journey towards bringing forth the best in the world of
management.
This edition will feature tete-a-tete with those who have made the
difference. With this edition of L!VE, we bring you exclusive
interviews with famous personalities from varied industries. The
edition features our rendezvous with Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO
and MD of Infosys Technologies Ltd., Mr. Raj Nair, Chairman,
Avalon Consulting and Mr. R Sriram, Co-Founder of Crossword
Bookstores Limited. We hope you will enjoy reading their
experiences and success stories.
There was a time, when companies were just bothered about their
bottom line, but over the years the focus on environment has been
an integral part of company’s strategic DNA. Thus, companies
have started focusing on doing things which do not deteriorate the
planet or they have started doing it the “Green” way. We have
tried to contribute to this initiative by including articles on carbon
credits, Green Supply chain and Green IT to keep our readers
abreast with the “Green” developments in corporate corridors. We
believe that our readers will be the propagators of green
philosophies and thus these articles will increase your awareness
and help you contribute towards making a greener planet.
This edition also includes the coverage of Avenues 09, the annual
business festival of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay. The season also saw
four continuums at the campus. Continuums are a series of rolling
seminar series held annually at SJMSOM. We present the
highlights of continuums L!VE to you.
Hope you appreciate our endeavor to create and share quality
content. We will appreciate your participation in our efforts for the
same. Any feedbacks in this regard will be most welcome.
Live L!VE to the max !!
Tarun Mathur
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Editor
L!VE
Face to Face
Mr. S Gopalakrishnan
CEO and MD, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
S Gopalakrishnan (Kris to his colleagues) is one of the founders of Infosys Technologies Limited. As Chief
Executive Officer, he plays a key role in defining the company strategy and using technology and innovation
continuously to maintain its leadership in the industry. Kris previously served as Chief Operating Officer
(since April 2002), and as the President and Joint Managing Director (since August 2006). His
responsibilities included customer services, technology, investments and acquisitions.
Kris: I think what India needs to do is to make
sure that it continues the reform process and make
sure that companies remain competitive. We have
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to make sure that we still invest in education, that
is what has helped our people to participate in this
enormous growth which we have seen over the last
20-30 years in the global economy. We must open
our market for global companies. The reason is
that it will attract investments into the country, it
will bring in best practices, products and services
for our citizens and will create jobs and an
environment in which Indian companies can
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L!VE: India has been able to maintain a
considerable economic growth rate in spite of
the global meltdown. What do you suggest our
country should do to continue and improve this
growth?
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Kris is currently the Chairman of the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (IIITM),
Kerala, and Vice Chairman of the Board for Information Technology Education Standards (BITES). Kris is
the Vice Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Southern Regional Council. He is also a
member of ACM, IEEE and IEEE Computer Society. Kris holds a master's degree in Physics and Computer
Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
Face to Face
compete, gain confidence and go international.
Indian companies do have an advantage when it
comes to Indian markets as we understand the
market very well. Thus it enables them to compete
effectively and with that confidence they can
venture out and compete in global markets. So it is
very important to keep our markets open.
L!VE: We see that new business avenues are
coming up in countries like Philippines, Mexico
and are offering labor at competitive rates with
India. Do you see possible shift of competitive
advantage from India to these countries?
Kris: The data does not show that we are losing
competitive advantage. We are still cheaper by
years and thus created an industry. This shows
how industry, academic institutions and
government have all worked together in order to
create this industry. No other country has created
an industry of this scale in such a short time
through education. In fact, when you compare with
the developed countries, India is the only country
where the number of IT professionals has
significantly grown in the last 15 years. So scale,
maturity, the ecosystem that has been created by
the companies who are already here are few other
factors. Today you can find companies doing chip
design, product design, R&D, system software,
application software, business process outsourcing,
infrastructure management because the ecosystem
exists in India and it does not exist
anywhere else. Finally, we should
not become complacent, but we
should understand what created
this industry and make sure that all
those conditions are sustained or
may be even improved so that we
can not only maintain our
competitive position but also
strengthen it.
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about 300 to 500% compared to developed
markets. The advantage India has is the scale of
the industry and thus we would continue to grow.
When we look at other countries like Philippines,
Mexico, cost is only one factor; what has
Kris: We are looking at acquisitions. You do not
contributed to the growth of India
do acquisitions because something is cheap. You
is the scale and the maturity
do not do buy something because it is cheap,
of the companies present
you buy something because it makes
No other country has
here. We have been
strategic sense. You are confident that
doing this for much
created an industry of
you can integrate that entity; you feel
longer
and
the
this scale in such a
that it will add to your value proposition
investment
in
short time through
and to your clients. You do it for
education is a major
education.
strategic
positioning rather than because of
factor in our favor,
the fact that something is cheap. We are
wherein India has produced
looking at acquisitions; valuations being low make
almost 2 million IT professionals in the last 15
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L!VE:
There are
certain
companies whose valuation are
pretty low because of the
economic downturn. A cash rich
company like Infosys can
acquire these companies at very attractive
prices. So what kind of synergies does Infosys
look for before acquiring a company in case it
aims to grow inorganically?
Face to Face
it easier for us to justify the acquisition and reduce
the risk of acquisition. We are looking for
acquisition in the area of consulting, business
process outsourcing in regions where we have
little presence like Germany, France, and Japan.
L!VE: In the current times, a lot of companies
are focusing on innovation for driving their
growth. What kind of initiatives Infosys is
taking to foster the environment, which
supports innovation in the organization?
initiative. 53% of our revenue comes from services
and solution which were introduced in the last five
years.
L!VE: Infosys is known for ethics and is the
instigator of corporate governance in India. Do
you think that the Satyam debacle has somehow
hampered the face of India IT companies on the
whole as such? Also, what kind of steps should
India Inc. take to lay down sound corporate
governance throughout the industry?
Kris: It definitely has. Satyam was considered one
Kris: We are doing many things on the innovation
of the top software companies in India. But I feel
front. One is addition of new services –we
that it is temporary. People will realize that this
continue to add relevant services to our portfolio
incident is one of its kinds, and not a reflection of
so that we can cross sell these to our existing
the entire industry. And the way government has
clients thereby expanding our market. We are
stepped in to it quickly and replaced the board is
investing more and more into intellectual property
commendable. Now they are going through a
creation, solutions, tools and techniques which
process of transferring management control to
foster innovation. We have two sets of initiatives
another entity, I think that has also given
towards innovation- one is top down approach,
confidence to everyone that the regulatory
where we have specific departments dedicated for
environment is reasonably good in India
innovation, for example, we have a
because action has been taken quickly.
Software
Engineering
and
The government must also ensure that
Technology Labs (SET Labs)
they investigate and find out how it
It
has
given
confidence
which is a classical R&D setup.
happened, why it happened, who
to everyone that the
Every now and then they keep
are the guilty and make sure that
regulatory environment
coming up with new ideas, new
punishment is also given to the
is reasonably good in
innovation, new solution, etc.
guilty as that is also important to
India because action
Similarly, every business unit,
give
confidence. Things like this
has been taken quickly.
also known as business vertical,
happen everywhere – scams, frauds,
also has a small innovation group
etc happen everywhere. The important
which takes care of innovation within the
thing
here
is how quickly the system reacts to
vertical. This is the top-down part of innovation.
these kinds of incidents.
We have also created an environment for bottomL!VE: Sir, we thank you for your time and
valuable insights…….
Tarun Mathur
Deepak Gupta
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
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up innovation. For instance, let us say somebody
tries something new in a particular project; they
find a value out of this, then it can actually bubble
up to the organization, sometimes cutting across
hierarchy. The innovation will be presented to
management, if they find that it is a good idea, it
becomes a top down initiative, a corporate
L!VE
Face to Face
Mr. Raj Nair
Chairman, Avalon Consulting
Mr. Raj Nair is the founder of Avalon Consulting, which is amongst the largest non-foreign companies in its
field. As a strategy consultant, he had worked for companies in diverse industries in India, Europe, USA and
Middle East to help them develop strategies, align strategy with vision and manage strategy through balanced
scorecard implementation. Across his career, Raj has been known as a thought leader and pioneer in the use of
innovation to create competitive advantage. He is an active Charter member of TIE Mumbai and mentors
young entrepreneurs. He is an Engineering graduate from IIT Bombay and has done his MBA from IIM
Ahmedabad. He also holds a degree in General Law from Mumbai University.
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Raj: If you look back at the 70s, Indian companies
only copied things, there was no innovation. A
foreign product was brought here, reverse
engineered and then sold in the market, very often
at a poorer quality. On the other hand, the foreign
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L!VE: How do you see the role of innovation to
achieve global competitiveness? What role can
the government play to propagate innovation in
Indian companies to achieve economic growth?
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Avalon Consulting, setup in 1989, is an international management consulting firm that advises clients
across the world on strategy, business transformation and innovation. It is part of the 1000-people Avalon
Group which straddles the entire knowledge value chain. Apart from Avalon Consulting, the Group has two
other entities – Avalon Global Research, a global market research firm geared to do very quick, high-level (one
day) product, sector or country studies as well as full-fledged research exercises; and Ugam Solutions, a
leading provider of Marketing Analytics for global MR firms, management consultants and corporate.
Face to Face
L!VE
L!VE: Apple is one of the most innovative
companies. For the last 2-3 years, we have seen
that they have been coming up with newer
products and updated versions of newer
products very fast. So at times, the existing
customers may feel cheated. So, where should
the companies draw a line?
Raj: Most companies are very clear that every
product has a life and they have to bring the next
generation out, otherwise the market is denied
something new. Just because you have a particular
product does not mean that you hold back the next
product because it might eat into your first one.
Thus, there is a genuine expectation by the
customer that when a product goes from one
generation to the next generation, there should be a
possibility of using it. You can take the example of
Microsoft. When you buy MS Office 2007, you
can use the older one but vice versa is not true.
L!VE: If you look back at your career right
from the days of your college till now, what are
the things you feel that you missed as a student?
Raj: Fortunately, I do not have too many regrets.
Five years at IIT were absolutely fantastic. There
were all kinds of games. Academically, there were
so many opportunities. One could do well there
also. Those were highly fulfilling five years. If I
were to reborn, I would like to go through these
five years again exactly the same way, it was just
fantastic. IIM Ahmedabad again was a good thing.
I had a fellowship to go to US to do a Ph.D., but
then I did not take it up. Once you take a particular
step you should not look back. You have to look
forward and see what you can do because in every
point in life, there will be cross roads and you have
to take a decision where you want to go. Be clear
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What can the government do with innovation is
that it can stay out of the industry and innovation
will happen automatically. If you regulate
anything, you should know what to regulate. You
should regulate insurance so that fly-by-night
operators do not come in; they do not overprice,
and don‟t take too many risks, that is what an
effective regulation means. But if you regulate the
capacity, if you regulate the type of design then
there will be a problem. If the government does
not do anything on regulating technology and what
you can do, Indians are capable of inventing and
innovation. Another thing that is required is severe
competition because only competition makes you
realize the need to do something better.
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companies who had offices and factories here in
India allowed Indian engineers to make only slight
modifications and thus no change in design was
being carried out by Indian engineers. There was
no R&D taking place in India. R& D happened
only in the chemical laboratories and government
labs. In the name of R&D, the labs were only
carrying out testing. Since then, the Indian private
sector has come a long way. They have got the
competence now; they can make world class
products and quality is no more an issue now.
Today you can see that in areas like IT, financial
services, garments, gems and jewellery, there are
lot of innovative designs coming from India.
People have recognized that there is a lot of
untapped creativity in our country. I remember an
instance of the 80s when I, along with an outside
visitor, were visiting places, we saw some fantastic
art work of Indian artisans and then after looking
at a car in a factory he said “such a poor quality,
such a poor workmanship”. There was a big
conflict between what I saw in the people sector
and what I saw in the industry. I asked myself the
question where the gap is. Since liberalization, we
have seen that there has been a change in attitude
of people and we have started looking outwards.
As a result of that, private sector was the first to go
global. The Indian companies opened up their
minds as they were not chained anymore. They
started realizing that if they want to compete in the
international market, they have to come up with
something different. Creativity was always there in
India, for instance if we go back to designs of
jewellery and houses 400-500 years back, they
were impeccably aesthetic. It was largely killed in
the last 100 years; first under the British rule from
1860-1947 and then the worst was the license raj
from 1947-1991. After that it was completely a
different ball game.
Face to Face
L!VE: Please share some of the challenges faced
by you and the learning extracted throughout
your professional career.
L!VE
L!VE: How do you see innovation in consulting
per se? How consulting can evolve by means of
innovation?
Raj: There are two things- one is we are strategic
consultant now. We can have innovation in
everything we do. So, if there are six ways people
know how to do a certain thing, we can come out
with a seventh way which is far better. This
happens in our consulting business, it happens in
our business research division and it happens in
our analytics division. One of the examples is our
analytics division. We do a lot of marketing
research analytics using software called Quantum.
There is a shortage of Quantum programmers all
around the world. As a result, they are in huge
demand and they do not stay for long. Guys after
eighteen months become good enough to do work
but by then, they have already picked someone
else who will provide them double the salary. We
were sitting and debating what to do? One bright
idea that came to us was to join with other
business and create a training program for SPSS
and Quantum resulting in increase of supply. If
supply goes beyond demand, problem will be
solved. But the reality of the situation was that
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Looking back, when I was in school I wanted to
become painter. I remember in 1973, R K Laxman
was retiring, there was an advertisement for his
successor and I applied. In the final round, he
interviewed me. It was such an honor to be
interviewed by him. For whatever reason, they
found that there is no single person in the country
who can be close to R K Laxman. Do I regret that
I did not get that job as cartoonist? At that time, I
felt bad, but I was also very happy that I could
spend one hour with him. He was more than a
cartoonist, he was a fantastic person. But again
there are no regrets. I plan to take up painting full
time after retiring. I can still do that.
Raj: In consulting, you learn something every day
i.e. the professional knowledge. One of the biggest
challenges you face while starting as an
entrepreneur is that you do not have enough
capital. I myself started with a thousand and five
hundred rupees. It is also a good thing because you
learn the value of money, you learn how not to
waste the money. You do not have crores and
crores to throw away and start, then you will
probably start it in a different way. So, challenge
was in getting capital, but today that‟s not a
challenge. One of the challenges today is getting
the right talent in the business. The learning is that
if you do not get the right talent, you are in deep
trouble. You can have the best ideas but you won‟t
be able to implement anything. You need to have a
team of excellent people. When you have a bunch
of excellent people, they in turn have the ability to
attract excellent people. If you create a community
of excellent people, every idea becomes easy to
implement. So, people and money are a challenge.
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why you want to go there and then you will be
able to make most of it. When I was at IIT, I had
decided I want to be an entrepreneur. I belonged to
a conservative family, not a business family. My
father was in government service. I did not know
all the aspects of business. As an engineer, you
know certain things, but you do not know a whole
lot of things which are required for business. So,
I decided to work for five to six years after
completion of education, so that I learn a few
things in order to have higher chances of success. I
also felt that if I stayed in the job for too long, I
might not have the guts to leave the job. There is a
point beyond which it‟s is too risky to take risk,
thus when I was 30, risk was manageable and I
had enough experience to understand what can
work and what cannot work. If you stay in a job
for too long, you know by reasoning that some
things never work and you become less risk
taking. If there is no risk, there is no reward. I feel
very happy that I quit my job at the age of 30.
Fortunately, wherever I went, I got good
colleagues whether it was in my job or when I
started on my own. So, today I have got about
1000 colleagues, all are really cool. It gives one
the freedom to think and do what next. You do not
get bogged down and just continue doing what you
are doing.
Face to Face
L!VE: How do you see role of niche consulting
companies like PRTM vis-a-vis global
consulting giants like McKinsey?
Raj: In today‟s competitive world, each and every
company has a role to play. PRTM, for instance is
into operations and process consulting and they are
good at that. I do not think that McKinsey would
want to do that and probably they don‟t have the
expertise. But if tomorrow, this becomes a very
large field, it will be no more a niche and
McKinsey would like to do that. In 80s and 90s,
McKinsey said that they will do only strategic
consulting, but today they do operation consulting
also. They are not doing that kind of things which
PRTM does. We were approached by an American
company which was into analytics of logistics.
They do only network optimization. They asked us
if we were willing to work with them. So, there
are levels and levels of niches. Tomorrow, the
thing will not be just about competing; we will
have someone who is on a wider spectrum, who
works in wide areas collaborating with someone
who is specialist in a particular field.
L!VE
Raj: We look for a certain combination of
academic capabilities or thinking capabilities - we
call it knowledge and skills. This is measured on
the y-axis. On x-axis, we measure how much of a
consulting personality does a person has. As a
consultant, you have to be hungry to understand
what the problem is. As a consultant, you should
be hungry to face a problem and not run away
from a problem. You should be the type who says,
“I like to face a challenge every other day”. There
is nothing wrong in being a person who would like
a challenge in the beginning and then try hard till
the end, even if he fails. There are just so many
personality types. If a personality type is that,
“Look, I do not feel unsettled not knowing that I
cannot predict what I am going to be doing next
week or I do not know which company I am going
to be working for or which problem I am going to
face”, then that is the kind of personality suitable
for consulting. Ability to communicate well,
ability to analyze, problem seeker and solver are
the personality traits we look for. We assess both
the personality and knowledge skills of a candidate
and if he is high on both, then we say the person is
perfect fit; at least one should be high and one
should be medium. We certainly want somebody
who understands different functional areasmarketing, finance. At the entry level, we do not
look for experts, but we look for people who have
a feel for marketing, have studied finance and can
interpret financial statements, have done
organizational behavior or human resource. When
there is a choice between getting somebody from
top twenty percent of the class and bottom twenty
of the class, you tend to go for the top.
L!VE: Sir, we thank you for your time and
valuable insights…..
Tarun Mathur
Deepak Gupta
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The other thing is innovation consulting itself. We
tied up with a company called Innovo which does
innovation consulting. It has created a process for
making companies more innovative. We are
working with them and we are doing some
assignments in innovation consulting. The
challenge is how can we innovate and create value.
You can do things differently, but if it doesn‟t
create value, it‟s of no use.
L!VE: You have such a vast experience in
consulting domain. Can you please throw some
light on the skill sets that aspirants, who want
to pursue a career in consulting, need to
acquire during the course of their academic
tenure?
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
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people only talk about it, but do not co-operate.
So, nothing happened for two years. Then
someone came up with an innovative idea that we
should look at the programming and see what is
more complex and what is less complex. We
decided to find a solution to get the not-socomplex part to be done automatically. We found
a solution whereby now we just feed the
application and out comes the 70-80 lines of code
automatically and that is 40% of our work. So now
we need people for 60% of the work only. That is
the way so many innovations are done in our
company.
Face to Face
Mr. R Sriram
Entrepreneur, Mentor, Consultant, Student
Sriram’s passion for books was serendipitous & led him to
establish bookstores across India - he started with Landmark in
1988, set up Walden in Hyderabad in 1990 & then the
Crossword chain. He co-founded Crossword with Ms. K. Anita
in 1992 & helped build it into India’s leading bookstore chain.
He arranged for the buyout of Crossword by the current owners
Shoppers’ Stop Ltd. in 2000 from the initial investor India Book
House Ltd.
After Crossword, he co-founded “Next Practice Retail” which
provides business design, incubation & consulting services for
consumer & retail businesses. He is President Elect of The
Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Mumbai, the global not-for-profit
organization that fosters entrepreneurship & is an Independent
Director on the Board of Camlin Ltd. He serves on the Board of
Advisors of Pratham Books, the non-profit that publishes affordable books for children in multiple Indian
languages, & SNEHA - the non-profit Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action for women &
children in urban slums.
Mr. Sriram: The trigger for Crossword was really
the experience I had at establishing Walden. When
I joined Landmark in 1988 in Chennai, it was just
a few months old at that time. I was part of the
team that helped establish that store. I was quite
popular with customers and many became friends,
some of whom I am in touch with even today. One
good customer however surprised me with a
proposal – he wanted me to come with him to
Hyderabad, where he was shifting, and set up a
bookshop like Landmark there. I realized that
while I had some experience in managing few
aspects of a book store, I had some or little
experience in setting up a book store. I realized
that while I had some capabilities and some
ability, I was not confident of doing it completely
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on my own. I thought that my colleagues at
Landmark might be able to work with me and
compliment me. This was the first lesson that I
learned about teams, what it actually takes to build
a good team. I realized it is all about first
understanding your abilities and limitations and
determining business requirements and then
finding out the right people who have the ability to
cover up your limitations. So I came up with two
people; one was Anita, whose husband now I am,
and the other was Sudarshan. Both of them
immediately agreed. We went to Hyderabad in
December 1989 and set up Walden in early 1990.
So, that experience was my first entrepreneurial
experience though I did not put in my money. It
was a huge learning opportunity because I had to
learn everything about setting up and running a
business. Thankfully, Walden was successful very
quickly and that gave me the confidence to ask
“what next” and gave me the inspiration of having
a chain of book stores of my own. I asked my
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L!VE: Talking about Crossword, it was a huge
beginning for you. You worked for Landmark
and co-founded Walden. What acted as a
trigger for you to establish Crossword?
11
He is a visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad, a guest lecturer at IIM Lucknow & various other business schools.
He advises, coaches and mentors individuals & firms, & is particularly interested in customer based
innovation, business strategy & incubation, entrepreneurship & next practices.
Face to Face
L!VE: You started your ventures Crossword at
a time when awareness about books was pretty
low. At the same time piracy and in the later
ages Internet became a huge threat. So, how did
you manage to bring your dream into reality?
Mr. Sriram: I realize that if you look at any
market, you can segment it on the basis on which
the customers are served: Served, Underserved
and Unserved. At Crossword, we used to ask
ourselves three questions: a) Whom to serve b)
What to offer to the customer c) How to deliver
the offering.
One big difference in our approach compared to
other book stores was that they were serving the
already served customers, but we decided to serve
the underserved and unserved customers. We
L!VE
Sriram Recommends
 India After Gandhi by
Ramachandra Guha
 It Happened in India by Kishore
Biyani with Dipayan Baishya
 A Life Less Ordinary by Baby
Halder
 In Spite of the Gods: The Strange
Rise of Modern India by Edward
Luce
 The Other Side of Silence: Voices
from the Partition of India by
Urvashi Butalia
 The Inner World: A Psychoanalytic Study of Childhood and
Society in India by Sudhir Kakar
 Disappearing Daughters: The
Tragedy of Female Foeticide by
Gita Aravamudan
 Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite
Country by Sudeep Chakravarti
Next question was: what to offer, do I offer just
books like most other people do? The value
proposition offered by the competitors was same at
lesser price. But people did not know which books
to buy; they even did not know why they should
spend money on books. So, we had to first educate
them and create awareness in them about the
benefits of books. We felt that we need to create
an environment that enables people to discover the
value that books can add to their lives. We realized
that we need to focus not only on the product that
we sell, but also on the outcomes that we want to
12
When we were doing this, we had the passion and
belief for chain of book store. I had the belief that
Indians needed books and this belief came from
the fact that we could see the benefit ourselves. I
am a college drop-out and I have been learning
throughout my life through books. I feel that
books are great source of knowledge though it
cannot substitute learning by doing. I have many
examples to justify this. When we started the
franchise business, we had no idea what the
franchise business was all about. Books helped me
a lot and I came up with the franchise model. I
gathered knowledge about this business through
books. I had access to books and I made full use of
that.
differentiated in the way we looked at our
customers. In our country, the number of served
customers is very small and if I try to serve the
same segment and even if I gain a major share of
the market, I would be commanding only a very
small size of market.
Page
investor Mr. Ram Prasad, but he was quiet content
with one book store. So, whenever I got time, I
travelled to different parts of the country to decide
where we would like to have other stores. I
understood that it was not a right decision to
approach banks if you don‟t have your own money
to invest because security was their prime concern.
The times were also very tough for entrepreneurs
in India. People were very pessimistic about the
book industry. We were pretty young at that time
and people in the industry were very different to us
and they did not have any hope that we will be
able to do it.
Face to Face
Mr. Sriram: All of them. Let me tell you this, will
you eat breakfast throughout the day or will you
have dinner throughout the day? It is the same
thing. These are all different roles I play through
the day. All of them are exciting, integrating,
interesting and I enjoy all of them. Being a student
is central to being a successful entrepreneur, a
consultant or a mentor. Being a mentor helps in
other things. Being an entrepreneur helps in
mentoring and consulting. All of them help each
other and I get to learn a lot by doing different
things.
L!VE: What is the idea behind starting Next
Practice Retail?
Mr. Sriram: After Crossword, I have helped in
building and managing various businesses for a
long time. I have always been involved with one
business at a time, but now I want to help in
adding value to many businesses. So, I got
together with my partners to start Next Practice
Retail. We are looking to incubate several
businesses and start a fund that will invest in all
these businesses. We are currently doing
consulting work in the consumer and retail space.
L!VE: When you look back at your journey,
what are some of the things that make you
proud and some of the things you think you
would like to achieve?
Mr. Sriram: I will quote Bernard Shaw “I dread
success. To have succeeded is have finished one‟s
business on earth.......I like a state of continual
becoming, with a goal in front and not behind”.
When I look back upon it, I have more knowledge
and experience now. I have read more books in the
last 20 years. What I am happy about is that I was
able to pursue my dream and we were able to build
a reading habit in a lot of young children. One area
I am very much interested in is social
entrepreneurship.
L!VE: What is the advice you would like to give
out to students who aspire to become the future
leaders and managers of the country?
Mr. Sriram: Use every opportunity to learn. Live
a life without regret. Enjoy life and have fun.
When you are a student, try to find out what you
are passionate about and what excites you the
most. The earlier in life you find this, the better it
is. Try and see if you would like to build your life
and career around it.
“Care more than others think wise, Risk more
than others think safe; Dream more than others
think practical, Expect more than others think
possible.” - Howard Schultz
I would also like to add a quote by Dr.
Venkataswami of Arvind Eye Care:
“Intelligence and capability are not enough.
There must be the joy of doing something
beautiful.”
I wish you all such joy. Make a difference.
L!VE: Sir, we thank you for your time and
valuable insights…….
Tarun Mathur
Deepak Gupta
13
L!VE: R. Sriram: an Entrepreneur, Mentor,
Consultant, Student, which role you enjoy the
most? Talking specifically of retail domain,
what did you enjoy more an entrepreneur
earlier or a consultant now?
Our basic purpose is to actually create value, not
just provide advice.
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
L!VE
Page
serve. People use books for information,
knowledge, entertainment and enlightenment. We
decided that we will not design a book store; we
will design a store that will inform, provide
knowledge, entertain and enlighten. We enabled
people to sit and browse and this browsing
experience created very successful converts out of
people who never read books. We offered not only
more, but different for the same price as we were
not competing on the price. At Crossword, we
offered a taste for books and provided a value
proposition that was distinctive and met a real
need. We differentiated on who to serve, what to
offer and how to deliver and fortunately for us,
whatever we did met a real need.
Industry Speak
Markets, Recovery and the Road Ahead
It seems like the global financial markets have adopted the T20 format before anyone else and the
players seem to be enjoying themselves. The ferocious rise came at a time when the doomsayers had
virtually written the world off.
L!VE
WPI
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
-5.00%
18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38
ALL COMMODITIES
PRIMARY ARTICLES
MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS
FOOD ARTICLES
FOOD PRODUCTS
territory, statistical reasons were the real cause for
it to be there rather than any decrease in prices of
essential commodities. Even if the Index for
inflation remains at its current level, we could see
inflation crossing 5% by the end of this year. Now,
the rise in this inflation shall be seen coupled with
the credit growth, which is a measure of increasing
investment and demand. What needs to be
evaluated objectively is the type of this inflation –
Demand Pull or Cost Push.
Given the economic scenario in the last year and
the rampant credit crisis, it increasingly looks like
cost push inflation. Though the Government
14
For the better part of this year statistical inflation
has been negative or sub 1%, well below RBI‟s
comfort level. This gave the authorities ample
opportunity to flex their arms and stimulate the
economy. However, the real situation is far from
being complacent about. As is evident in the graph
below, though the inflation was in negative
Page
Among the major markets across globe, India has
been the best performing market. From levels of
8000 odd to current 17000, it has been quite a
journey for Sensex. Reasons for this
outperformance are as many as their prophets.
Many attribute it to domestic demand,
demographics, sound financial system, favorable
political environment and what not. But can we
quantitatively and qualitatively justify a more than
100% returns in a matter of six month? My
concerns are not about the extent of rise but the
velocity with which it has been achieved. Could it
be the case of too much too soon? The jury is still
out and we may find out sooner than later. The
road ahead looks exciting and in my opinion it is
going to be a fun filled bumpy ride rather than a
smooth sailing one. Exuberance can drive the
market in either direction to an extent not
anticipated but we must not forget that asset prices
are a claim on future earnings and future earnings
in turn are driven by a variety of socio - economic
factors. In my belief - Inflation, Credit Growth and
Exchange Rate, if analyzed empirically tell us a lot
about the state of affairs.
Industry Speak
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
Inflation
One cannot undermine the effects of carry trade
due to interest rate differentials. If the global risk
aversion continues, rising inflation and
expectations of higher interest rate could
incentivize investors to cash in on interest rate
differential causing massive inflows in India. With
most of the Government borrowing already
complete, this liquidity will most likely find its
way to other soft assets. With this, risks of heating
up of Indian economy and yet another bubble will
be profound.
The domestic demand in India has been quite
impressive and is evident in auto sales, telecom
Moreover looking at the components of inflation
subscriber additions and cement sales. But it is for
one can say convincingly that it is the case of
all to see if this is sustainable? Moreover, if
supply side constraints rather than assets
we look at the fortunes of each
chasing fewer goods.
industry, the rosy picture that
The credit growth in current fiscal
The recent rise in Indian
these numbers depict may
has been at best muted well
become
distorted.
For
Rupee against the
below RBI‟s target growth rate
example, each new mobile
Dollar can be attributed
of 20%. This is in line with low
subscriber adds to already
mainly to Risk Aversion
business activity and capital
falling
ARPU levels of telecom
in global markets
expenditure, and is in stark contrast
companies. Massive capacity
with changing fortunes of stock markets.
addition by cement companies comes
Indian companies have raised over 12 Billion USD
on-stream in year 2010 and has already resulted in
through various equity and equity convertible tools
drop in cement prices across certain regions. Auto
in first six months of FY10. Most of this capital
industry may bear double brunt of higher interest
has been raised to deleverage the balance sheets
rates and rising commodity prices, if the recovery
rather than for investments. To me, this is a clear
sustains.
signal of the faith corporate India has in the
All the discussed data and indicators point towards
sustainability of growth and availability of capital.
the direction we are heading. And that is a regime
This whole exercise of raising capital at an
of higher interest rates, which will, if not de-rail,
alarming pace looks rather opportunistic.
considerably slow down the recovery and the
The recent rise in Indian Rupee against the Dollar
growth.
can be attributed mainly to Risk Aversion in global
The underlying assumption here is that the global
markets. This has many implications for the Indian
economy recovers at a decent pace or in the worst
economy. On one hand it lowers our humungous
case scenario doesn‟t deteriorates. If we are to
import bill, but on other it reduces our export
witness another slump in global economy, the
competitiveness. To an extent, if the reduction in
dynamics of the game may change completely and
imports is greater than the reduction in exports, it
we may well face consequences.
adds fillip to our GDP numbers, which is statistical
L!VE
15
Inflation
in nature. In reality, there is a trade-off between
the savings due to strengthened Rupee and distress
in export oriented industries causing wide-spread
job losses.
Page
injected ample liquidity in the system with
measures like farm - loan waiver, pay revision on
the recommendations of sixth pay commission,
lower interest rates and several sops in taxes and
duties, it cannot be concluded that all this liquidity
found its way in the market causing price rise.
Industry Speak
Given this backdrop, it is hard for one to see
sustained rise in the Indian Markets. Undoubtedly,
market has a habit of humbling most, but time and
again it has been proven that irrational exuberance
cannot last forever.
stock markets. Majority of this investment has
happened when Dollar was pretty strong against
Rupee. An appreciation in Rupee now incentivizes
fleeing from these assets as for every Rupee sold
they get more Dollars.
Not to be missed is the fact that in 2009, FII‟s have
poured in greater than 12 Billion USD in Indian
Author
A Techie turned Entrepreneur and Private Equity Analyst, Saket Mundra currently
works with RAIM Advisors Private Limited. In his role, he covers macro trends and
in depth analysis of emerging companies for Private Equity Investments.
Simultaneously he runs his own Investment Advisory venture - Genesis Financials
in Delhi and is a freelance writer at seekingalpha.com.
Answers to Biz Wits
1. Stella Artois (STELLA is 'star' in Latin)
2. All of these are dual listed companies with one of the base countries being UK.
3. Alienware
4. Mercedes Benz
5. The connect is Harry Potter. The first picture is of Hermione Baddeley, an Academy Award
winning English actress, the second picture is of Ronald Reagan and the third picture is of
Prince Harry. Harry, Ron and Hermione are the three protagonists of the Harry Potter franchise.
6. Ministry of Sound (MoS)
7. Azim Premji (Wipro). He has stakes in these three retailers: Shoppers Stop, Koutons and
Subhiksha.
8. All of these are recent acquisitions of TCS.
9. Jeeves of Ask.com
10. Yatra.com, all three have a stake in it.
11. Cisco
12. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of Special Olympics.
13. Clio, the Greek Muse of history. The Clio Awards are named after this goddess, given to reward
15. Lance Armstrong
L!VE
Page
14. Back to Basics, Back to College.
16
creative excellence in advertising and design.
Industry speak
Carbon-Credits
How big is your foot-print?
Pradeep Kumar Gouda
N Rajashekar
Carbon credits came into existence because of increasing concern for environment across the world.
National and international emission trading mechanisms have come into existence to cap the total
annual emission on an industrial scale and let the market assign a monetary value to any shortfall
through trading. Credits can be exchanged between organizations at a price and are bought and sold
in international markets at the current market price. The mechanism has been finalized in the Kyoto
Protocol (an agreement between 170 countries) and market mechanics were established through
Marrakesh Accords. The Kyoto Protocol allocated caps or quotas on the maximum amount of CO2
emission for developed and developing countries. These are converted into credits and businesses in a
country that have not used up their quotas can trade that unused quota with businesses that are
about to exceed their quota as credits.
The Kyoto protocol allows for three types of
reductions in carbon emissions:
to countries with capped emissions. Carbon is now
racked and traded like any other commodity. This
is known as the "carbon market."
Joint Implementation
A developed country can sponsor a greenhouse
reduction project in another country where cost of
setting such a project is much lower. Such projects
can earn saleable certified emission reduction
(carbon) credits. The CDM projects happen in
countries without a reduction commitment. An
example of a CDM project will be a rural
electrification project using solar panels or the
installation of more energy-efficient boilers.
Emissions trading: Under the Kyoto protocol,
countries with surplus credits can sell these credits
L!VE
Carbon Credits and Global Scenario:
With the increasing ratification of Kyoto Protocol
(KP) by countries and rising social accountability
of polluting industries in the developed nations,
the carbon emissions trading is likely to emerge as
a multibillion-dollar market in global emissions
trading. The size of the global carbon trading
market has reached to around USD 118 billion and
17
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
Exchanges have been established to provide for
carbon markets. Currently there are at least seven
exchanges trading in carbon allowances: the
Chicago Climate Exchange, European Climate
Exchange, Nord Pool, PowerNext, The Green
Exchange, Multi Commodity Exchange and
National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange.
Carbon prices are normally quoted in Euros per
tonne of carbon dioxide or its equivalent (CO2e).
There are provisions for other greenhouse gases to
be traded too.
Page
A developed country where emission reductions
cost higher will set up a greenhouse reduction
project in another country to earn credits. In case
of the JI projects, both countries must have a
reduction commitment under the Kyoto Protocol.
Industry speak
the size of project based market (CDM&JI)
increased to USD 18.02 billion from USD 13.5
billion. This market is expected to increase
significantly as projects in 68 supplier countries
are increasing and these projects offer to reduce
2,500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent
(MtCO2e) through over 3,000 projects.
China was the world leader in CDM supply with a
73% market share in terms of 2007 transacted
volume. Brazil and India, with 6% market share
each, transacted the highest volumes after China,
with Africa following with 5% of the market.
Compared to their position in the CDM pipeline,
India and Brazil have a relatively low market share
of transactions. Russia (36%) and Ukraine (33%)
are the key suppliers in JI market. Bulgaria, Poland
and Romania, the other key players, together
supplied 24%.
Drivers of Carbon credit prices
Factors that drive carbon prices are much more
complicated than traditional commodity markets,
which are typically governed by supply and
demand. These market forces certainly play an
important role in carbon pricing.
European Union hosts the most advanced carbon
market under Emissions Trading Scheme (EU
ETS) built on the Kyoto mechanisms in 2005. The
scheme covers nearly half of the region‟s
emissions – regulating 11,000 installations and
6,500 entities across various industries. The
scheme regulates the carbon emissions in the
region, facilitates the trade of the carbon credits
among the members and imposes a financial
penalty on those who don‟t meet the target.
As the market for carbon emerged as the product
of a new legal framework, the regulatory
environment became one of the most important
drivers of price. By altering the legal limits on
emissions,
governments
and
international
regulators have the ultimate influence on demand
for carbon credits. By lowering emission caps,
regulators can increase demand and tighten supply
by reducing the number of parties with credits
available to trade. On the other hand providing
caps that are too generous can dampen demand
and result in an oversupply of credits that can
depress prices.
Other price drivers are penalty rates/carbon tax,
energy prices, economic growth rates, marginal
abatement costs, voluntary market activity, supply
of CERs from CDM activity etc.
Buyers and sellers
L!VE
Page
India is ranked as the second largest seller of
carbon credits in the global market last year as per
World Bank. Its share is only 6%, as compared
with China‟s gigantic 73%, but it is expected to
reach 15-35% by 2012. By 2012, India‟s earnings
are estimated to jump to USD 3.6 billion. The
price of an Indian carbon credit works out to about
18
Carbon Credits and India
European buyers dominated the CDM and JI
market for compliance and at the close of 2007,
their market share reached almost 90%. Private
companies have been the most active buyers, with
79% of volume transacted. UK is the largest buyer
with a share of 59%, Japan and Baltic countries
bought 11% each and the rest of the carbon credits
were bought by other European nations.
Industry speak
14 -16 Euros and the price is expected to rise if
new international regulations come into play.
India now has 930 carbon credit projects in the
pipeline, which promises to increase India‟s share
in CDM market. Out of a total of 1,047 projects
registered by the CDM Executive Board till May
2008, about 32 percent are registered in India
alone - highest among all other "green"
conscious nations.
other include lot size of 500 CERs (which is
internationally acceptable), tick size of 20 paise
and has position limit.
Concerns
World over, procedural inefficiencies and
regulatory delays have strained the delivery of
CERs from CDM projects on schedule.
Designated Operating Entities which
certify the CDM projects have
The main sources of
their hands full with many
carbon credits in India
CDM projects resulting in an
increase in the time taken for
are biomass projects,
registration.
Projects
are
small hydro projects
currently taking an average of
and wind power
1-2
years to be issued from the
projects.
time they enter the pipeline.
NCDEX and Carbon credits
NCDEX is the first exchange in any of the
developing countries of the world to launch UN
issued carbon credit (CER) futures contract on its
platform. The intention matching contract is
different from the compulsory delivery contracts
floated on European exchanges. The intention
matching contract will provide an OTC kind of
arrangement to the buyers and sellers‟ for physical
delivery of CERs. Exchange will match specific
delivery requirements of the buyers and sellers for
guaranteed deliverable CERs.
NCDEX CER contract is traded under symbol
“CERNCDEX”. The features of contract among
L!VE
Future Outlook
Despite few concerns, the outlook of carbon
credits remains strong owing to active
participation of European Union, rising
fuel/energy prices, increase in the number of
developed countries ratifying Kyoto Protocol etc.
The emission norms are expected to become even
more stringent post 2012 when next stage of
carbon reduction targets is to be announced by
regulatory bodies. The increase in the demand for
carbon credits would thus multiply the size of
carbon credit market. Also, this would bring in
greater opportunities to CDM CER suppliers like
India, China, Brazil etc. Above all, the carbon
credits would contribute to the noble cause of
providing cleaner and greener environment to the
future.
19
The main sources of carbon credits in India are
biomass projects, small hydro projects (less than
15 MW in size) and wind power projects along
with some energy efficiency improvement
projects. These comprise nearly 55% of Indian
carbon credits. Some of the projects are Torrent
Power (which switched to natural gas recently),
Suzlon's land bank projects, Suryachakra Group's
four biomass projects, Godavari Power and Ispat
gas projects.
As far as situation in India is concerned, in
spite of being preferred by most companies in the
UK, Germany, Japan and Denmark, India is still
not counted among the top three carbon credit
nations because of its project rejection rate, which
is as high as 50%. Such high rejection rate is due
to a shortfall in project performances,
changes/clarifications in the methodology.
Page
India is not obliged to cut
emissions,
as
its
energy
consumption is relatively low.
Also, India has an advantage in
the global carbon market because
the investments required are
relatively small due to lower input
costs. The biggest buyers of Indian
carbon credits are European countries followed by
Japan, Australia and Canada.
Alumni speak
Things to do in a Lifetime
The train of thoughts that I just mentioned set me
pursuing the idea of setting up goals and obstacles
which would serve as milestones where I can reach
and sit for a while and raise a toast to Life. I did
some thinking and ad hoc research and put
together this idea which I am about to present.
This idea, like any MBA case study, is not
L!VE
Well, here's what my research says - "Put up the
List of 50 Things that you would like to do your
lifetime. This indicative list should
serve as a reference where you can
look up and celebrate Life." Petty little
concept it might seem. Wait till you sit
yourself down to make one. Life is too
big a play to simply sit down one night
and write the script! Why 50 things and
how can they be Life defining? My
own observations, dear ladies and
gentlemen, follow.
So, why 50? I looked through the number of
entries that various such lists have. 10s n 20s seem
too little to capture a serious list of want- to-dos
for a lifetime. If it reaches into the hundreds, you
end up putting petty little things like 'visiting my
old school'. A good experience by itself, but not
Life defining. Most people, when they seriously
put themselves to the task of drafting the list, end
up listing 30-35 such goals. You might find
something bigger and higher to do tomorrow –
'you never know what the tide might bring'.
Replacing existing goals time and again takes off
the sanctity of such a list. So, with some blanks to
fill up sometime later, 50 seems to be a good
number. Also it is being assumed that you are
mature enough to understand where you are riding
your Life to and don‟t put in fantasies like 'getting
into the national cricket team' (that is, if you are
not already in a position to). Even if you end up
20
Here's the nightmare – the rat race for
a lifetime for a 10% increase in
package per annum, a penthouse
apartment, a car, imported furniture,
40" TV and holidays with kids in
tow! A thought so scary that I had to
purify my soul with the holy spirit
that St. Jack Daniel hath bequeathed
unto us mortals. The sudden sense of
'goal-lessness' is perhaps the mid Life crisis I have
been mocking at all along. Life becomes
predictable and dreams too small. The walls that
we have been pushing all our lives so start
dissolving that we are left groping for a hold. The
walls here do not signify just the obstacles but the
mysterious glories that they veil. What lies
beyond! No, this article is not about
disillusionment, but about the journey that such
thoughts set me on. This piece is my „research‟ on
the ambitions and passions of Life.
absolutely original. All I have tried to put in is
'Value Addition' and some 'Analytical Reasoning'.
At least I have been honest enough not to say that
this analysis is according to, "the research of the
renowned Dr Forrester of Krug Institute of
Psychological Research who studied 345 subjects
under controlled conditions for 7 years". MBA
tricks don‟t always work!
Page
Making decisions about Life was pretty simple till
about a year back. Parents decided to send me to
school; not that they had much of an option. End
of school and fought for a graduate college. Mid
way through graduation and the job battle started.
A few months into the job and I was convinced
that I am being paid peanuts and MBA preps
started. Once into a b-school, the job battle repeats
all over once again. A pretty simple journey till
this point of time - very few options for the straitjacketed common guy. And this brings me to this
point of crisis. What Next!
Alumni speak
Let's start with the what-not-to-puts. My personal
opinion is to avoid direct financial reference
points. Like 'have Rs 1 crore in my bank' or 'a Rs
50 lakh portfolio' kinds. You will probably end up
losing out a lot on Life by keeping direct financial
goals. You might keep materialistic goals like
'owning a Ferrari' - more fun than just
accumulating the money that it costs. Ferrari may
or may not come, you can always consider the
proposition of buying a Maruti 800 and taking it to
DC Design. A financially linked goal may be like
'own a sea facing pent house'. See how cleverly we
can avoid saying 'sea-facing-ok, but-where' to keep
the goals realistic and ourselves happy. The list
should not make us desperate. My opinion is to try
to avoid relationship related goals. Someone else's
whims might leave your Life unfulfilled.
We have already talked about the first kind of
things to put on your list – the financially linked
ones. Let‟s call them 'Acquisitions – the things to
get'. There are things like „scaling the Himalayas‟
or „flying a plane‟ which, though monetarily
linked, are more about the feeling of it. Flying a
plane seemed a bit farfetched until I ventured out
and learnt that cost of amateur flying courses range
from Rs 15,000 to Rs 6 lakhs. Basic alertness of
body and mind is enough. Let us call these things
as „Experiences – the things to feel‟. Sailing on
the sea on a lone yacht, backpacking the
countryside, an African Safari – these would be
the things under „Experiences‟. Money is the last
constrain that comes to your mind when you think
of these.
There is another category in things-to-do - „The
inexpressible‟. Things which are so close to our
heart or so ambitious or so time-will-tell kinds that
we are afraid of putting it in words or writing. Lest
we fail! If you don‟t want to, then don‟t put it in
words, just let the feeling hang on one of the blank
entries in your list. Or express it in words that are
indicative. Like „coffee on 8‟ is something that
only I can understand. It encompasses the whole
gamut of experience-achievement feel that I can‟t
otherwise express in words. Here‟s one of my
most favorite to-do things – „Throw a dart at the
map and travel where it lands‟. Heard it from
someone and decided that this is one thing I gotta
do in life.
A little on the timing of the goals. Milestones are
like those oases where you rest and celebrate after
a fulfilling distance. Distance out your goals so
that they are well separated and well achievable on
the time spectrum. Some things you can do this
year, some in five, some after retirement! Don‟t
worry about the safe keeping of the list; if you are
passionate enough, it will slowly creep into your
heart anyway.
Well folks, this is what I could put together with
my current state of research. This is my report on
how to bring back the „small-town-school-boy‟
who was jaded by the sands of time. The „smalltown-school-boy‟ who stares at comics and high
rises with equal awe – „What lies beyond‟. „GIVE
ME SOME SUNSHINE. GIVE ME SOME RAIN.
GIVE ME ANOTHER CHANCE. I WANNA
GROW UP ONCE AGAIN …‟
Ankur Hazarika
21
The list is absolutely personal. You might frame it
and hang it up in your living room. Or you might
put it in a password protected document and put
that in a pen drive and put that in an old sock and
stuff that in the remotest corner of your closet. Or
you might simply put in on the brain drive. If you
allow me the poetic license, I have mine tattooed
in black on my heart.
„Experiences‟ are like the sea waves that come
onto you and leave you with that exhilarating
feeling. The next is about making the waves.
That‟s „Achievements – the things to do‟. These
go somewhat like „starting my own company‟, or
„writing a song‟ or „getting a PhD‟. A healthy mix
of all might be what you want. What might be an
experience for you could be an achievement for
me.
M.Mgmt. 09, SJMSOM
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Page
filling 10-20 serious goals on your first few weeks,
you are doing well.
Student speak
Green IT Outsourcing
Over the years it has been proved that man made greenhouse gas emissions have been the major
contributors to the global warming. Enterprises, government and society at large have turned more
environment conscious and are taking necessary corrective measure to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions. Different companies are taking different approaches in green computing like algorithmic
efficiency, virtualization, terminal servers, power management, storage and recycling depending on
the cost involved and benefits accrued out of it.
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Adoption of the green IT by organization
can either be attributed to escalating
energy costs or ecological altruism, but
whatever the reasons are, it is benefitting the
environment for sure. The global business
landscape is characterized by two entities:
suppliers, popularly known as vendors in IT
parlance and buyers, termed as clients. Vendors
and clients are coming together to create
sustainable value, wherein the clients benefit by
reduction in cost and vendors benefit by creating
an altogether new revenue stream.
IT data centers are the focal point for bringing real
contributions to the financial and ethical bottom
line of the organization as data centers are
responsible for major chunk of the energy cost of
the organization. Increasing energy cost, growth in
22
Go green- A phrase which can be heard from
almost all the CEOs across the globe and being
green has been at the top of their agenda for some
time now and surely is here to stay. Green IT, in a
perfect layman terms, is practice of using
computing resources efficiently. Green IT touches
the practice of designing, manufacturing, using
and recycling the computer systems like
servers, and subsystems such as monitor
and printers. In a recessionary
environment when the customers have
limited money at their disposal, it is
natural to demand higher value for every
penny spent. Thus companies can only reduce
cost to maintain their competitive advantage in the
market. Just as seed sprouts and stretch towards
the sun, the green IT movement has grown and has
pushed northward in the past few years. While
green computing helps guard the planet, the
underlying goal is not much deep down in earth, it
saves money thereby provides company with the
cost advantage. Early adopters of computers are
aware of the “Energy Star” campaign, which
stands as the first concrete step taken forward to
promote and recognize energy efficient monitors.
The campaign resulted in worldwide adoption of
sleep mode in consumer electronics, post which
the term “Green computing” was coined. Many
governmental and industrial agencies have
continued implementing standards and regulations
to encourage green computing. Contrary to the
popular belief, green computing is a pretty old
practice and was conceptualized back in 1960s
with the IBM mainframe operating system, but the
concept
saw
the
implementation
and
commercialization stage only in 1990s fox x86
compatible computers.
Page
Green IT = Efficient IT
Student speak
Concept of green is a major decision making factor
in the vendor selection process for IT outsourcing
by organizations. Thus, technology vendors
globally are rebranding themselves wherein they
brand their services and products as socially and
environmentally responsible, which provides them
a distinguishing factor in the longer run. Vendors
who have actually implemented green IT solutions
for their clients are enjoying considerable financial
L!VE
US and European outsourcing buyers are
becoming more and more aware of green issues
and are driving their vendors to add more
sustainability value to their organization. On this
ground, the Indian vendors have been able to put a
strong foot forward and are thus making an
exceptional progress. Major challenge in the
current landscape is paucity of measurable goals in
place to evaluate the effectiveness of vendor‟s
progress in the space of green IT. With the
development of green IT, it needs to be evolved to
check effectiveness.
“Greenwashing” is the practice of hyping ecofriendly product or service features that are
dubious at best. It has become a commonplace in
the industry and hence stands as a threat in global
implementation of green IT. Outsourcing buyers
who have dealt with the sustainability programs
and systems extensively are able to spot a fake
claim but those new to the business can easily fall
prey to bogus suppliers. To overcome this, a lot of
third party validators are coming up to sail the new
companies through. Generally, the green IT system
runs on honor basis wherein lots of practices are
performed offshore and are attested to by the
outsourcing supplier and even if they have not
been performed, lack of compliance is difficult to
identify. Gamuts of standards are at an
evolutionary stage and will definitely help in
future pursuit of the industry. As of now, only due
diligence and upfront can help organization to get
rid of “Greenwashing”. Every year an agency
named “Black Book” comes out with top 20 green
innovative IT vendors. In the year 2009, Patni
Computers Services is at the top of the list
followed by CSC, Oracle, IBM Global and HCL at
the respective positions. Top 20 IT vendors
include seven vendors from India, which is a clear
testimony to the fact that Indian IT vendors are not
just concerned about the environment, but they are
also the ones leading the change.
Varun Purohit
23
Majority of companies feel that by merely
installing latest in green computing machines will
guarantee an overall reduction in energy
consumption; unfortunately they are wrong. The
onus of providing sustainable advantage by means
of green IT installation lies on the shoulders of the
vendor, who must engage actively with the client
for delivering value. Vendor in this case must
work closely with the client to tackle issues across
the value chain rather than just concentrating on
the data centers. Necessary measures must be
taken up for increasing awareness externally as
well internally.
returns and not to mention a strong brand value for
being environment and society conscious.
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
Page
computational requirements and the problems
associated with capacity expansion with regards to
space, power & cooling will drive business case
supporting technology modernization- with green
IT becoming an important factor in total cost of
ownership. This astronomical cost will drive the
best practices related to green IT in the
organizations. Thus for green IT to gain
momentum, each organization must have a
forward looking perspective along with fully
integrated processes to implement the same in
their organization, thereby creating business and
social value. Green IT implementation must not
only be restricted to the walls of the board room
but it must percolate down to the each and every
essential component of organization. A green IT
strategy must encompass organizational, client and
individual needs. Starting from strategic aspect
like using infrastructure-as-a-service popularly
called as cloud computing to implementing
practices like e-commerce, e-administration,
telecommuting
and
work-from-home,
organizations can positively impact the
environment.
Student speak
Green Supply Chain
Is going green a cost-consious decision?
L!VE
Page
parameters i.e. environmental objectives begin to
Green Supply Chain can be defined as "the
integrate into the overall framework of
process of using environmentally friendly inputs
organization‟s objectives.
and transforming these inputs through change
agents - whose byproducts can improve or be
To achieve this, companies have started extending
recycled within the existing environment”.
their competitiveness by:
Traditionally, the supply chain includes activities
associated with raw material acquisition to
 Reducing the obsolescence and waste by using
manufacturing to final product delivery.
enhanced material management practices
Companies make a constant effort to improve their
 Increasing the top-line by converting wastes
supply chain performance by forging partnership
into by-products by using innovative and costwith suppliers, logistics partners, distributors and
effective measures
customers. However, owing to recent changing
 Recovering the valuable material by using
environmental requirements, which has started
effective reverse logistics
affecting manufacturing operations, attention has
 Minimizing the waste and use of chemical and
started shifting towards designing supply chain
other solvents by forging partnerships with
strategy with environment management i.e.
service providers
designing a Green Supply chain. The challenge is
co-existence of protection of industrial interests
From the examples mentioned above, we can say
and environment protection against the popular
that companies can make substantial costbelief that being environmentally
saving by extending their supply
friendly increases costs. Thus, this
chains to include environment
cost
factor
hinders
the
The challenge is comanagement contrary to popular
restructuring of basic supply
existence of protection
belief of increased cost. But,
chain
to
inculcate
the
of industrial interests
financial
gains
or
cost
environmental concerns of
and
environment
associated
with
ignoring
the
waste elimination and resource
protection
environmental aspects are not
minimization.
Typically
reflected
into account books because
organizations measure their overall
of typical accounting practices used, where
performance by segregating environmental
there is no method to apportion these costs
performance from financial performance. But as
separately. Thus, it becomes difficult for supply
organizations start evolving, they start talking
chain managers to achieve the overall objective of
about integrated performance on both the
24
Supply chain managers all across the Globe are grappling with the question- Green & lean or only
lean. Is it high time that companies should change the way in which they manage their supply chain?
Student speak
implement
solutions.
and
monitor
your
improvement
Within this framework, Supply chain managers
have to strive for innovation in purchasing, storage
With all this background, it becomes easy to
understand that there is a need to design supply
chain with overall objective of making it green and
sustainable. We all are becoming well aware of
environmental
change.
Discussions
on
environmental change are now not only limited to
and material handling, material recovery and
bigger forums like “UN Conference” but has
product buy-back. For instance, General Motors
become part and parcel of day to day activities. All
has started using re-usable pallets among other
of us are becoming well aware of the fact that we
initiatives. Kodak‟s logistics system currently
are not only facing climate problems but also are
recovers 70% of the cameras sold to consumers.
dealing with a resource depletion issue. Thus, it is
Till now, over 200 million FunSaver cameras
high time that organizations should also
have been returned to Kodak facilities.
shift their focus from improving their
Kodak reduces operating costs by
Green can not
bottom line at all costs to creating
recycling or reusing 77-86% of each
only be profitable,
value through sustainable practices.
camera‟s materials. Thus, major
but the right thing
accomplishment
is in developing a
Thus, the question remains is “how a
to do.
system for overcoming the financial
company can design a Green Supply
and nonfinancial barriers which limits
Chain”. The United States Environmental
this process. Another simple way to enhance
Protection Agency (EPA) has provided
resource utilization is ensure full truck load. 3M
outstanding guidelines for systematic approach to
has developed an innovative system to install
implementing a Green Supply Chain. It's a four
adjustable decks in trucks. Placing pallets on two
step decision making process. The first step is to
levels allowed one 3M facility to reduce the
identify environmental costs within your process
number of daily truckloads by 40 percent and
or facility. The next step is to determine
allowed them to save $110,000 per year.
opportunities which would yield significant cost
savings and reduce environmental impact. The
Another approach that can be used is life cycle
third step is to calculate the benefits of your
accounting approach which helps in highlighting
proposed alternatives. The last step is to decide,
L!VE
25
 The first step is to identify
environmental costs within your
process or facility.
 The next step is to determine
opportunities which would yield
significant cost savings and
reduce environmental impact.
 The third step is to calculate the
benefits of your proposed
alternatives.
 The last step is to decide,
implement and monitor your
improvement solutions.
Page
integrating supply chain with environmental
aspects. Some of the companies have now started
using environmental accounting to take these costs
into account. The best examples for this can be
companies like General Electric (GE), Toyota
Motors, American Airlines cargo, Maersk Line.
These companies have started using environmental
accounting - a process that evaluates the
effectiveness of environmental activities from the
perspective of cost. GE has a program called
"Ecomagination”
where they are focused on
growing
their
revenue
stream
from
environmentally friendly products to the tune of 20
billion dollars by 2010. Another example to drive
home the point of environmental accounting can
be General Motors (GM) which reduced its
disposal costs by $12 million by establishing a
reusable container program with its suppliers.
Student speak
the indirect costs created by a variety of activities
including product buy-back. Thus, effective
environmental management results in the
avoidance of various costs which lead to effective
reduction in product life-cycle costs. For example,
we can use life cycle concept for determining
inventory cost. Traditionally, we use only
inventory ordering and holding cost while
determining total inventory costs and economic
order quantity. Inclusion of waste disposal cost
will help in providing life-cycle inventory cost,
thus will lead to effective decision making in
designing the supply chain.
Thus, managers can simultaneously improve both
the financial and environmental performance of
their supply chain systems. What it will require, is
the extension of the traditional supply chain for
establishment and implementation of new
performance measurement systems. These new
measurement systems will help in evaluating
environmentally conscious implementation plans,
based on continuous improvement which will
enable organizations to be competitive while
achieving sustainable processes. Thus, in future,
companies need to move to sustainable supply
chain. As the harsh reality remains that we need to
change what we are doing in order to ensure that
future generations will have resources to use in
their lifetime. The benefit of implementing a green
supply chain is that we can improve the
profitability of our company and help the
environment. All of this will help us in realizing
that “Green can not only be profitable, but the
right thing to do.”
Deepak Gupta
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
Next Generation Boom in
Service Industry
centers of information technology are no longer
the big metros, but low cost centers like
Bhubaneswar,
Jaipur,
Trivandrum
and
Chandigarh.
Page
Welcome to the next generation of expansion in
the software service industry. The software
industry of Bangalore, Mumbai and Gurgaon is
now moving deeper into the country. The new
26
Working in one of India’s leading software services exporters, what will be your reaction if you were
to be transferred to Belapur? Confused! You shouldn’t be, if these are any indications of the times to
come. Welcome to the next generation of expansion in the software service industry. The software
industry of Bangalore, Mumbai and Gurgaon is now moving deeper into the country.
L!VE
Student speak
All major outsourcing companies have scouted out
new locations, away from the hustling bustling
metropolitans to locales such as Kochi, Baroda and
An additional impact of the gradual shift towards
Coimbatore etc. These include companies like
Tier II cities has been the entry of many
Wipro,
Infosys
Technologies
and
smaller service providers, especially
Cognizant Technology Solutions.
the ones catering to niche sectors
Kochi and Coimbatore are
like high-end data analysis. The
coming
up
as
feasible
The rise of latent talent
Tier II and Tier III cities make
alternatives to Bangalore and
and potential in the
the entry level costs of these
Chennai in south, while Pune
smaller cities is not
companies substantially less
has already cemented its
under
any
sort
of
and
are
fostering
the
place in the outsourcing
doubt;
it
is
just
the
entrepreneurship ventures of
pantheons because of its
many technology specialists.
close proximity to Mumbai
timing of the event that
The presence of sufficient talent
and its rich educational system,
is debatable.
pool
in these cities helps these
providing close to 1,00,000
firms by reducing their attrition rates
graduates every year, acting as an
and hence, cutting their training and
essential resource pool for the companies.
recruitment costs, further promoting the cause of
Another reason associated to moving to Tier II
the Tier II cities.
cities is the low cost of transportation involved in
However, all is not well with the migration plans
the cities, because of their small geographical
of these companies. The primary concern of all the
stretches and comparatively low count of vehicles
companies is the infrastructure related issues that
compared to outsourcing hubs. The average
generally accompany the Tier II cities. The doubt
employee starting out in the service industry is a
that whether the smaller cities will be able to rise
college graduate, who mainly relies on public
over the infrastructure handicap and dicey
transport for commutation to the workplace. As an
connectivity, to actually make the small city boom
unwritten rule, the companies have decided to
happen still looms large in the minds of the senior
include transportation costs as part of the
management of these companies. It is estimated
compensation packages, providing for company
that 30% of the workforce of all leading IT/ITES
buses and cabs, which again hit the operating
companies is going to be based in these Tier II and
margins of the companies. Though the outsourcing
Tier III cities. Hence the onus is on the respective
industry has funneled in loads of money into the
L!VE
27
metropolitan cities, the infrastructure development
has been unable to maintain pace with the rapid
growth and the lack of development in transport
facilities is not helping the cause of these cities.
Page
Unsurprisingly, the high cost of operation in the
metros coupled with the high rates of attrition
prevalent among the leading companies has made
them look other places for a better option. The Tier
II cities have a distinct advantage in this regard for
many companies. The reported cost differential is
around 10 percent for non-voice based services
and higher for voice based services create a huge
margin of operational profits for the firms. Also,
thanks to the large population of the country and
increasingly effective education system, the
number of university graduates coming from these
cities is enough to take care of the major
manpower requirements for the companies.
Student speak
public bodies to develop the amenities in these
places to provide for the large workforce.
Another major impact of this relocation to smaller
centers in the country will be a more symmetric
distribution of the outsourcing pie between the
Another area of concern for the companies is
large hubs and the fast catching up wannabes. The
bringing quality talent, especially the senior
recent years had seen a skew in favor of the
management and experienced middle management
metros, with the retail and real estate boom in the
employees, to these smaller cities. Obviously the
city projecting them as the face of modern India.
promise of better work-life balance is not a
These recent developments will
good enough reason for these executives
enable the smaller players in this
to relocate to these new locations and
field to develop their own
Another area of
hence, companies might be forced
identity in this market and
concern for the
to offer relocation bonuses or other
present a more representative
companies is
such perks to facilitate the shift of
picture of modern India.
work force to the new places. Also,
bringing quality
Signs to this effect are already
an interesting trend that has been
talent
visible with an increase in
observed in the recent recruits is that,
spending by real estate players and
they do not want to leave the glitz and
the entry of retailing giants like
glamour accompanying a metropolitan city for
Reliance and Big Bazaar in these cities. The
relocation to some nondescript city offering little
development of these new consumption centers is
or no life after office hours or during weekends.
also good for related sectors of manufacturing and
allied services, giving them further impetus for
growth.
However, none of this is going to happen in near
future. The challenges are still clear for all of us to
see. Firstly, the infrastructure needs a great
impetus from the government. It is heartening to
see projects like the Golden Quadrilateral being
visualized because they will improve connectivity
of the smaller cities with the outsourcing hubs.
Also, the telecom revolution in the country should
help ensure that the network and data connectivity
is maintained at requisite levels for the companies
to show confidence in these cities. Finally, the
public amenities need to be improved to attract the
skilled labor into these cities rather than switching
jobs in the major cities themselves. The rise of
latent talent and potential in the smaller cities is
not under any sort of doubt; it is just the timing of
the event that is debatable. The sooner it happens,
the better it is.
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28
NA Parasuram
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
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Social Cause
The JOSH Machine
JOSH is a non-funded organization, formed with the resolution of not accepting any formal/foreign
funding for the work it aims to do. JOSH (Joint Operation for Social Help) was conceived as an idea,
a movement, a philosophy, and a way of life. With a small meeting at a house in Delhi, the idea was
conceptualized and promoted by three young professionals, on 16th of July, 2006. They felt the need
to create a network among various youth forums and to promote co-operation and co-ordination
among them for the purpose of obtaining better efficiency in operations. They also felt that there must
be sensitivity in the society, especially among the younger generation, on various issues of
governance and a public opinion must be developed for the same.
“Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us renders some service or another. If we cultivate
the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger and
it will make not only for our own happiness but that of world at large.”-Mahatma Gandhi
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Campaigns
JOSH has chosen campaigning as one of its tool to
create awareness and engage large number of
youth together for one cause. The various
campaigns undertaken are:
Transparent
DU:
A
Campaign
for
Transparency and Accountability in Delhi
University (an ongoing campaign): This
campaign was initiated by JOSH under the banner
of Youth Task Force (YTF) in Delhi University.
29
The objective is to create a network of youth with
special focus on the underprivileged ones, in
building their capacity so that they can form and
express their opinions and participate in
governance at different levels. JOSH recognizes
Right to Information (RTI) as one of the most
important tool towards establishing transparency
and accountability in democratic governance. It
strives towards empowering the youth with the
knowledge of RTI and encourages them to use it
inclaiming their democratic rights. The process of
using RTI, by itself has an empowering effect
amongst most youth. It gives them the
encouragement to question the establishment and
fight for their rights as empowered and responsible
citizens. The following have been the main line of
activities to achieve the above mentioned
objectives:
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This is the inspiration that drives the initiatives
like JOSH for the welfare of society. The aim of
the organization is to develop a platform to
provide the youth with an opportunity to express
their views and to attain higher levels of activism
in various walks of life. It is the endeavor of JOSH
to help the youth in playing a responsible and
effective role for development of a society, where
they will come together for continuous self
development and become responsible citizens.
JOSH aims to address larger issues of justice and
inequality by involving youth from different strata
of the society into meaningful activities.
Social Cause
The main aim of the campaign is to mobilize,
engage and motivate students to proactively
participate in the governance of their colleges and
the University.
The two day convention was held to discuss and
focus on the crucial role the youth can play in
strengthening Democracy through the use of Right
to Information on issues of social importance. The
convention witnessed sessions on role of youth in
Presently, the youth group has taken up the issue
democracy and politics, along with workshops on
of functioning of the different college
various concerns like negative impact of
canteens and libraries. The students
globalization, gender, communal
are using the Right to Information
politics, agriculture, state of Dalits
JOSH has chosen
Act to access records, documents
and Adivasis, budget analysis,
campaigning as one of
and raise questions on issues like
Human
Rights,
Right
to
its tool to create
maintenance of hygiene in the
Information, National Rural
awareness and engage
canteen, condition of work of the
Employment Guarantee Act,
large number of youth
canteen workers, food quality,
Education
and
Employment.
together for one cause
criteria of ascertaining price of food
These workshops were facilitated by
etc. Similar questions are being raised
eminent resource persons like, Jean
on the functioning of libraries. Also, YTF
Dreze, the MKSS team ( Aruna Roy, Nikhil
took on the irregularities in process of internal
Dey, Shankar Singh and others), Vrinda Grover,
assessment in DU. After consistent struggle on the
Aseem Srivastava, Amit Kanwar, Jogendra Bhagat
matter, DU has been forced to set up a sub
and others. Shri Sandeep Dikshit, Member of
committee to review the internal assessment
Parliament, was present on the occasion and
system.
shared his views on the state of affairs of present
Indian politics and the opportunities for the youth
Youth Task Force (YTF): Youth Task Force was
to get involved.
initiated with students of IIT Delhi and now
National Youth Convention on Democracy and
„It‟s the Question of Your Answers‟ Campaign:
Right to Information: The first National Youth
JOSH launched this campaign in different colleges
Convention on Right to Information and
of Universities of Delhi on 9th of September,
Democracy was held on the 11th and 12th of
2006. Ms. Kiran Bedi and Magsaysay Award
January, 2008 in Beawar, Rajasthan. The
winner, Arvind Kejriwal were also
convention was attended by over
present on the event. Under this
1,000 young participants from both
JOSH has been
campaign, students filed more than
rural and urban areas of 11 states
encouraging
400 RTI applications asking for
across the country. The convention
students of different
copies of their evaluated answer
was organized by NCPRI, along
colleges to organize
sheets.
with JOSH and other organizations
themselves in
from Rajasthan like the MKSS, the
JOSH Groups
committed groups
Jaipur based RTI support group, and
JOSH has been encouraging students of
citizens groups in Beawar, including the
different colleges to organize themselves in
daily local newspaper Nirantar.
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30
Anti-RTI Amendment Campaign: JOSH and the
famous music band Euphoria staged a protest
against the proposed amendment of the RTI Act, at
Jantar Mantar on the 7th of August, 2006. Veteran
RTI activists Aruna Roy, Dr. Sandeep Pandey and
Arvind Kejriwal also participated in the protest
along with more than 2,000 students and activists.
Page
students from other engineering colleges and
universities of Delhi are also joining this
movement. Till now, YTF has filed around more
than 50 RTIs for inspection of files and gather
information about work of Public Work
Department (PWD) in Delhi, of budgetary worth
Rs. 430 crores.
Social Cause
committed groups. Till now, four such groups
have been formed in different colleges namely,
Janki Devi Memorial College, Faculty of Law
(Delhi University), Lady Sri Ram College and
Jamia Milia Islamia University. JOSH is also
supporting such existing groups in different
colleges.
BDVS Jehanabad, SAUPAN Jabalpur, CARE
Ranchi, Lok Jagriti Kendra.
Training on right to information:
This NGO provides training to different groups to
create awareness about RTI and its increased
efficient use.
A) Trainings students in Universities and
Schools: JOSH has conducted Right to
Information (RTI) trainings in different colleges of
Delhi and other States. In Delhi, JOSH has reached
all the four universities, namely Delhi University,
Jamia Milia Islamia University, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, Indraprastha University and AMITY
University. JOSH has also conducted trainings in
selected rural schools of Uttar Pradesh and Andhra
Pradesh.
B) Trainings NGOs and Networks: JOSH has
been imparting training to NGO‟s and different
networks about RTI. JOSH has conducted training
for Oxfam Kolkata, YWCA Delhi, PAIRVI Delhi,
The activities mentioned above are some of the
important initiatives that have been taken up by
JOSH so far in its small but glorifying career. It
promises a bright future ahead for the youth of our
country & reinforces the belief that the country can
have a transformed future only if the youth is
proactive in knowing and understanding its
responsibility.
Website: www.josh4india.org
Saurabh Kaushik
I Year, IIM Kozhikode
Quote-unquote
"Question the unquestionable.” - Ratan Tata
“A clear conscience is the softest pillow in the world." - NR Narayan Murthy
“Walking down the beaten path is for beaten men." - Subhash Chandra
“Progress is often equal to the difference between mind and mindset.” - NR Narayan Murthy
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“When you lose, do not lose the lesson.” - Azim Premji
31
"When your back is against the wall, you think beyond your normal boundaries."- K V Kamath
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Book essence
`
INDIA
UNBOUND
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The book, India Unbound, is a potpourri of
dedicated to Marwaris which the author thinks
memoirs, economic analysis, social investigation,
were the founding fathers of entrepreneurial spirit
political scrutiny and managerial outlook which
of our country, though the fact is absolutely true,
paints a wide canvas for a reader to understand
but not being highlighted by many authors. This
India. The book starts with criticism and finally
clearly shows how entrenched author‟s thought are
ends with optimism thus giving the reader a lot
about the growth trajectory of our country and its
more confidence and positivity in the outlook. The
contributors. In terms of structuring, the author has
author takes a walk down the memory lane when
divided the book in three major parts depending on
he talks about the life in days of “British Raj” and
the era. As per the author, the era post
the role of Indian intelligentsia in those
independence till Chinese war was a spring
days. Mr. Das has divided the whole
of hope and the whole country was
book into three eras which stand
very enthusiastic about Pandit
The
book
gives
the
as a testimony of India‟s
Nehru‟s socialism. Book portrays
perspective
of
each
journey post independence and
a very panoramic picture of India
post liberalization. The book
at that time starting from the
and every Indian
starts its journey way back in
mindset of Indians about learning
citizen
1880‟s wherein the author throws
English, smells of the bazaars i.e.
the light on the fact that the seeds of
the early days of Indian entrepreneurs.
entrepreneurship in our country were sown
The book gives the perspective of each and
long back and the Indian entrepreneurs had a lot of
every Indian citizen by stating that every Indian
potential to turn the economy around. One
was fond of market but due to prevalent thought of
important fact about the book is a chapter
Nehruvian socialism money making was
32
Mr. Gurcharan Das is a stellar name in the intellectual community of our country.
He is a passionate writer and satiates his hunger by means of regular columns and
books. He is a graduate in Politics and Philosophy from Harvard University post
which he tasted the real India during his tenure in Richardson Hindustan Limited.
He has been instrumental in launching “Vicks” as a brand in India. Continuing his
successful journey in the corporate world, Mr. Das became the MD of P&G
Worldwide in Strategic planning in later years of his career. He is a regular
columnist in TOI and guest columnist for WSJ, FT and Newsweek.
Book essence
- BUSINESS WEEK
Owing to the events and happenings in the post
independence era, the Indian economy suffered a
lot and the author connotes that era as the lost
generation as there were huge restrictions
imposed on the industries and a free environment
was
just
an
imagination.
Enthusiastic
entrepreneurs were not allowed to set up their
factories and manufacturing plants. 17 important
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Due to political heavyweights and bureaucracy
prevailing in the Indian economy, the water
crossed the comfortable level and the declining
forex reserves actually forced the erstwhile
political stalwarts to adopt the policy of
Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization
i.e. LPG which as per the author was the Golden
summer of 1991. This actually transformed India
from a labor intensive to a knowledge intensive
economy. The basic perception of other countries
regarding India changed drastically and there were
major changes in the mindset of Indian citizens.
This actually spearheaded the growth phase by
bolstering the entrepreneurial spirit by providing
conducive environment for business. This, the
authors terms as “Baniasation” of Indian
economy. Throughout the book, the author has
shown strong confidence in the entrepreneurial
abilities of us Indians and he feels that we have a
huge potential to take our country to new heights,
the question is when, how and where to unleash. If
one wishes to take a deep dive in the history of
economic growth of India and is interested in
generating a gamut of insights, this is the book to
look for. All in all, it is a book full of criticism,
hope and optimism. Since Mr. Das has seen both
the pre as well as post independence era, he draws
a comparative picture throughout the book. The
book has received numerous comments and
appreciation form world renowned personality and
doyens of the media and publishing landscape.
Varun Purohit
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
33
“One of the most readable and insightful
books to appear on India’s tortuous
economic path in its 54 years since
shaking off British rule… India Unbound
excels when Das describes his and other
industrialists’ maddening experiences
under the so-called License Raj, when
any product launch or expansion needed
state approval… Das is exuberant about
what is happening today… While the
book is hopeful, he also makes it clear
throughout that India, Internet or no,
still has lots of work to do before its
renaissance is secure.”
private corporations were not allowed to take off,
119 proposals made by Tatas were rejected, Birlas
were not allowed to set up factories and Ambanis
and Bajajs were charged for overproduction. Since
he started his career with a MNC working in India,
he is quite familiar with the way business is being
done in India and the way Indians do business. Mr.
Das actually put these as reasons for reduced
foreign exchange reserves. Down the line, this was
the last nail in the coffin for the license raj in
India.
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considered to be an evil. The book is full of short
fables and instances which makes the book very
interesting and simply “unputdownable”. To
substantiate this fact, an example of Lahore‟s
market is cited which actually draws a very
beautiful picture of the bazaars at that point in
time. The rise of Nehruvian socialism and its evils
thereafter are associated to the impression which
Soviet Union had on our country. All the pitfalls
like inefficient organizations, corruption, trade
restriction and non conducive environment for
business are attributed to the concept of socialism
and supported by lot many examples and
instances.
Start-up story
iKen Solutions is one step ahead of Business
intelligence techniques and is a software product
and solution company providing tools and
solutions to develop knowledge-based business
applications and decision support systems based
on or enhanced with integrated AI techniques
across verticals. iKen Solutions has built a novel
approach to deliver the digital content to mobile
customers by applying several Artificial
Intelligence (Al) techniques and methodologies. It
is an IIT Bombay research spin off and is a
software product company specialized in
intelligent business systems backed by hybrid AI
(Artificial Intelligence) techniques (expert system,
case-based reasoning, neural networks and genetic
algorithms). iKen has two major products in their
arsenal, one is “Mooga” which works on mobile
platform, and the other is “iKen Studio” which is
the core product of iKen solutions.
who is an Associate Professor in Shailesh J Mehta
School of Management, IIT Bombay. “Instead of
using only one technique of either neural networks
or case-based reasoning or genetic algorithms, I
focused on integrating all these technologies to
solve a problem more effectively because there are
shortcomings in each technique when you are
solving a problem based on them individually”, he
said. Hence, his research used a Hybrid intelligent
system and his work was supported by an initial
funding of five lakhs rupees. Going forward, he
hired enthusiastic developers to convert his idea
into a commercial proposition and participated in a
lot of business plan competitions to get the desired
exposure and visibility. Though he was
participating in the competitions, he was a lone
hero to push his company forward and thus was in
a desperate need of enthusiastic partners.
Fortunately, the idea was bestowed with lot of
supporters, but all were asking for a huge stake in
the company.
Finally, he met Sanjeev
Chachondia, an ex-alumnus of SJMSOM, IIT
Bombay and they started the company in 2005
with a focus on Banking and Finance. SINE, the
incubator at IIT Bombay for technology startups,
incubated iKen solutions and provided them a loan
of 12 lakh rupees. This was a great recognition and
support for the company and worked as a launch
pad for iKen. BPCL, Dena Bank and L&T were
among the first clients of the company. They
started commercializing in seven to eight months
from incubation. Unfortunately, Sanjay quit the
company as he was not able to devote his time and
subsequently left.
The Start
Strengthening the spine
The idea of this product hatched out of the
research subject of its founder Prof R.M Sonar
During their course as a technology startup, iKen
was developing a mobile application which was an
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The technology took a huge leap in the future
when innovators started talking about Artificial
Intelligence and its applications and further
implications on business as well as normal life.
Researchers all across the globe are burning the
midnight oil and by generating strong turbulence
in their own neural networks, they are coming up
with products which make the life of business as
well as normal human being easy. Researchers and
entrepreneurs are trying their best to imitate
intelligence in computers. Currently, business
analytics and business intelligence are penetrating
the psyche of companies and they are using BI
techniques to help them in serving customers.
34
iKen Solutions
Start-up story
IKEN Products
Mooga is a comprehensive Consumer 3.0
analytics framework for N=1 personalized
experiences. It acts like a backbone for all
personalization and recommendations
across different types of verticals
(online/mobile/ipTV/DTH/Retail/BFSI,etc)
Funding, Challenges and Vision
iKen is currently based out of SINE, the incubator
at IIT Bombay which has fostered the spirit of
entrepreneurship by incubating technology startups
in their early stage. iKen is trying for US$4 million
as a funding for their business to scale new
heights. The company is in constant conversation
with venture capital firms. iKen is planning to
move out of SINE once furnished with the funding
and Prof Sonar will be engaged full time with the
company as every investor wants a full
commitment from the team and management in
this case. He feels that down the line, domain
expertise will be required greatly. The software
which iKen has created is a core framework but
when it comes to application, domain expertise
plays a crucial role. Even if the company plans to
develop new specific applications going forward,
domain expertise will be required a great deal.
iKen is trying to associate itself with the COIN
(Co-innovation network) initiative of TCS wherein
they collaborate with startups. iKen has put down
a very pragmatic vision for the next five years.
“We want to build a company which is worth at
least $200 million in the next five years in
valuation terms with revenues of at least $40
million over the same period” said Prof Sonar. As
known, IIT culture fosters the spirit of
entrepreneurship and this benefited iKen in their
pursuit of excellence. Entrepreneurship is a dream
which is realized more easily when one has a lot of
like-minded people walking and talking about it
and IIT has that all, not just SINE, it has this in
students, faculty and in each and every individual
associated with IIT.
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iKen Studio is a completely web-based
development environment to develop and
deploy applications, knowledge-based
decision support systems, websites and BI
(Business Intelligence) applications backed
by or enhanced with artificial intelligence
(AI) techniques especially integrated
architectures of expert system and casebased reasoning. It is one of the first
complete Online Web-based Development
Frameworks to develop and deploy
Decision Support Systems, Knowledgebased systems, Web-sites and Applications
backed by Expert System, Case-Based
Reasoning and Hybrid AI Technologies.
The current CEO of iKen, Mr. Siddharth Goyal is
a result of this merger and was formerly the CEO
of Cellent Technologies. Post merger, iKen is
operating with seven partners including Prof
Sonar, wherein four partners are from their Latin
American joint venture. They were able to fetch
Sony BMG as their client and testing for other
client like Moviestar is currently going on.
35
extreme personalization on mobile for a company,
Cellent technologies. The application was
designed to show the right content to the right user
at the right time. Cellent was investing about 45
lakhs during a span of 18 months in that
application. After consulting the bigwigs in the
entrepreneurial sector, iKen merged with Cellent
technologies thereby adding one more product
“Mooga” in their product list. “Mooga” is a
product in the mobile space and hence gave a
strong footing to Iken in the growing telecom
space.
L!VE
Start-up story
Entrepreneurship-Garage
Entrepreneurship-Garage (E-Garage) is a collaboration of E-Cell, SINE and SJMSOM, IIT
Bombay.
E-Garage has been initiated with following
objectives in mind:
To improve Technological Conversion Rate
To nurture ideas from the Campus
To Hatch Businesses from the Campus
To provide platform for interaction and
experience sharing
The collaboration has been dubbed as „E-Garage‟,
inspired from the entrepreneurial story of Silicon
Valley of San Francisco, USA. The young
entrepreneurs hatched and nurtured their ideas in
their backyard garages with the sheer passion and
patience of an entrepreneur. Sooner, the valley
evolved as a bed of entrepreneurial experiment and
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experiences, churning out many of today‟s
behemoths like General Electric, Hewlett-Packard,
and Apple Computer. As the name speaks for
itself, it‟s an initiative to create an Indian “Root
28” preferably dubbed as “Powai Lake bay”.
E-Garage is an invite based community; its
members are people who are highly involved in
entrepreneurial space in the campus. E-Garage will
identify all these small pockets of people in and
around the campus working in their garages and
bring them on a common platform to share their
ideas and to get help from one-another. E-Garage
is aiming to identify the viable ideas and to
provide them the initial necessary guidance,
mentoring and funding from different channels,
and finally, the successful start-ups to be incubated
into SINE. The faculties associated with E-garage
are Prof. Karuna Jain, Head of Department,
SJMSOM, Prof. Anand Kusre, SJMSOM, Prof.
Amarnath PI SINE, Head SINE, and Ms. Poyni
Bhatt, CAO SINE. The club has a member count
of 75 as of now.
36
This collaboration has been envisaged by many,
for many years and finally it was to be this year
that it has culminated into reality. It has been
conceptualized with the aim of making the campus
thriving with entrepreneurial initiatives and
activities which could change the face of
tomorrow‟s India.
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Somthing special
AVENUES 2009
People Planet Profit
AVENUES 2009, organized by SJMSOM, IIT Bombay on 31st Oct-1st Nov was an exciting bouquet
of events, games, seminars, and much more. The event was graced by luminaries like Mr. Ness
Wadia, Mr. Rahul Bose, Mr. Prahlad Kakkar, Mr. Ajit Balakrishnan, Mr. M. Damodaran,
Mr. Pramod Chaudhari and others. The event also saw participation from students of more than
150 B-Schools across India as well as leading corporate houses and working professionals.
Avenues 2009, annual business festival of
Shailesh J Mehta School Of Management, IIT
Bombay was inaugurated by Mr. Ajit
Balakrishnan, founder and CEO, rediff.com and
Prof. Karuna Jain, Head, SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.
Chaudhuri who spoke on the theme of Avenues“People, Planet and Profit”. He spoke about the
triple bottom line principle which considers that
besides economic aspects, businesses should look
toward the environmental and social aspects to
ensure true sustainability. He spoke about climate
change, the green house effect and other
environmental issues that the world is now facing.
He also spoke about the poverty that certain social
classes face and that, if nothing is done about this,
the world would not be able to prosper, or even
sustain itself.
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AVENUES 2009 had a wonderful time in store for
everyone on the evening of 31st Oct when Mr.
Prahlad Kakkar, the Ad-Guru, addressed a
packed auditorium. The event got off to a great
start and Mr. Kakkar had the entire audience
laughing with humorous anecdotes taken from his
own experiences.
Mr. Kakkar used various
incidents in his life to explain the principles by
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He further went on to say that to ensure India is
able to catch up with the rest of the world, we need
to begin by improving our broadband rates and
penetration through policies such as network
neutrality which removes restrictions on sites,
attaching equipments. He said that it is time for the
government to take a hand in this. The
infrastructure must be improved first, and then
begins the wait for the demand to pick up. The
next speech of ALANKAR, was by Mr. Pramod
37
As part of the lecture series, ALANKAR, Mr.
Balakrishnan addressed the audience on the digital
revolution and the threats and opportunities it
represents for India.
Somthing special
AVENUES 2009 saw the launch of the HR event
– “HRiday”. The event witnessed a participation
of more than 100 teams across the best B-schools
in India. OPERA, the operations club of
SJMSOM conducted YOJNA- a case study based
Operations event.
Mudra, the flagship Finance Event of Avenues
2009, was structured as a combination of equity
analysis and live commodity trading. The idea
behind the event was to test the participant's
portfolio
management
skills
and
their
understanding of various asset classes. The event
was sponsored by LIC India.
The event was conducted in three phases. The task
for the first phase was to prepare equity analysis
reports. The second phase was commodity trading
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team was provided with
crore. The third phase was
round in which the 5
to present their research
After being immensely successful at Stanford,
MIT and AVENUES 08, Imagine it! Project was
back at Avenues 2009- bigger and stronger in a bid
to cultivate imagination. It featured global
creativity challenges and multi-platform media
content, including the Imagine It!® „Documentary
Film Series‟. The event saw participation from
educational institutes well as heavy corporate
participation from industry giants.
Avenues 2009 also hosted events like Navonmesh
– The Entrepreneurship Challenge, Ashwamedh –
The Championship Event, Akshayakreeti – The
Indestructible Creation, which was the flagship
marketing event and Harit – The IT event. Apart
from these events, there were several events like
Online Treasure Hunt and on-the-spot events
which were part of Avenues 2009.
AVENUES 2009 was also graced by the presence
of Mr. Ness Wadia, who was the distinguished
judge at the flagship consulting event
SAMVAAD, held at the SJMSOM. Mr. Wadia,
interacted with the students and enthralled
38
Mr. Kakkar then went on to speak of the issue of
global climate change and how it affects unrelated
victims even more than perpetrators. He illustrated
the devastating effects of climate change, such as
the destruction of marine life and the possible
submerging of coral islands. He said that the issue
of climate change should be solved by every
nation resolving to clean up its own house first and
then seeking responsible behavior from others.
round in which each
starting capital of Rs 1
a report presentation
shortlisted teams had
reports.
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which he lived. He said that for most people, the
greatest motivation in their lives is fear and that
fears have to be confronted, not shelved away. Mr.
Kakkar illustrated this by describing his first
diving experience, when the great fear of the open
ocean forced him to confront all his other, smaller
fears.
Somthing special
Pragyaan, the Business Quiz at Avenues 2009
was an event which had huge expectations to meet.
The arrival of the quiz master made the
atmosphere inside the auditorium euphoric as he is
the well known, Mr. Avinash Mudaliar, the CEO
of 3XUS.There were around 100 teams which
participated in the preliminary round. Teams were
represented from both the corporate, such as IBM,
Sun, Deutsche Bank, TCS as well as colleges like
IIMs, SP Jain, etc. The event was sponsored by
Union Bank of India.
AVENUES 2009 was a scintillating event on the
first of November. The evening saw two truly
great speakers and an overflowing auditorium.
First, Mr. M. Damodaran, former SEBI chief,
gave an insightful talk about regulation and his
views on this. He said that as long as fear and
greed define human conduct, there will always be
a need for an external body to list what is fair and
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Mr. Damodaran spoke of the situation in America
and how the present methods to combat the
recession might not really be helpful in the long
run. He spoke of India‟s own method to use
regulation to solve problems and said that this
could not really work. After all, if a crime is
committed, one punishes the criminal; one doesn‟t
rewrite the law. This principle should also apply in
the financial world for instance, in the case of
scams and frauds.
Mr. Damodaran was followed by Mr. Rahul Bose,
the well known actor and social activist. Mr.
Bose conducted a very interactive and thought
provoking session which was truly very enriching
for the students. He spoke about how to be 100%
happy. First, we should find out who we are, by
finding out the values that we hold dear. Next one
should determine what it is that we are born to do
and then find a way to do it. Then, we should take
away or reduce the things that make us unhappy
by giving our time, skill or money but not to such
an extent that it hurts. Finally, he said, if we have
the capacity for it, then we should act like the
lightning conductor of pain. No matter what the
world has in store for us, we should be ready for it
and should be able to take it. The event concluded
with thunderous applause for both the speakers.
Avenues 2009 saw participation from more than
50 colleges and 5000 students from across the
country.
39
Mr. Wadia, took very keen interest in the
overall proceedings and asked pertinent and
challenging questions to all the participants.
His feedback and comments were invaluable
for all the participants.
unfair, right and wrong and this is what makes up
a regulator.
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everyone with his very real take on Corporate
Social Responsibility and the lack of it in the
Indian Corporate domain. He also addressed
current issues of social development and the need
for public private partnership in various fields.
Somthing special
CONTINUUM 2009
Continuum is a rolling seminar series that is organized every year, by the students of SJMSOM, IIT
Bombay. Each Continuum brings together eminent speakers from the industry as well as academia. Each of
these seminars focuses on issues and challenges faced by a specific management function and aims at drawing
insights from the knowledge and experience of the speakers. The seminars are well attended by delegates from
different organizations, the distinguished alumni of SJMSOM and students from various B-Schools across
India. The Continuum series also features various competitions among students like case study contests,
paper presentations and business games.
The next speaker Mr. Naveen Gupta, Head, Private
Bank Treasury, Standard Chartered Bank spoke
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The thematic talks were accompanied by a panel
discussion moderated by Anil Nair, a Business
Journalist and Executive Editor with United
Business Media. The panelists were Mr. Ajay
Garg, Managing Director and CEO, Equirus
Capital; Mr. Nirakar Pradhan, Chief Investment
Officer, Future Generali; Mr. Prachetas Raikar,
Head, Global Banking Risk, HSBC and Mr.
Abhijit Phadnis, Former Director, Head Finance
Administration and Operations, Credit Suisse First
Boston (I). The discussion was focused on the
Next step forward for the Financial Sector in
India. The panelists spoke on an array of topics
ranging from microfinance to the realty sector. The
discussion was engaging and insightful and the
students benefited immensely from the interactive
40
The theme for this edition of Finance Continuum,
organized by Finesse, the finance club of
SJMSOM, was “Changing Global Financial
Landscape: Opportunities and challenges for
India”. The event was graced by eminent speakers
from all segments of the financial industry,
culminating in a day of wholesome knowledge for
the finance enthusiast. The keynote address was
delivered by Mr. Anup Bagchi, Executive
Director, ICICI Securities. His talk was centered
on the key takeaways from the global financial
crisis. He stressed upon the need to identify and
track the lead indicators to any crisis rather than
focusing on the lag indicators. He discussed about
the impact that consumption and saving behavior
have on the entire economy. He said that
developments in the real economy and the
financial markets point to a period of moderation.
Mr. Somak Ghosh, Group President-Corporate
Finance and Development Banking, Yes Bank
spoke about Inclusive Finance and converting
challenges into opportunities. He stressed on the
need for market based solutions catering to
„bottom of the pyramid‟. He spoke about the need
to provide a conducive investment environment in
the businesses of Healthcare, Education, Financial
Services and Retail & Logistics.
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Finance Continuum
about the opportunities to innovate, introspect and
invent, which are the outcomes of the global
financial crisis. He stressed on the importance of
Risk Frameworks and the need for a paradigm
shift towards realism. He underlined few of the
challenges facing India like uncertain consumption
patterns, and the problems in keeping up
infrastructure spending. Mr. Anant Rao, Dy Head,
Derivatives, SBI Cap Securities conducted a
workshop on Equity Derivates. He gave a very
enlightening talk on the derivatives market in
India. Mr. Ananda Bhoumik, Senior Director,
Fitch Ratings talked about the risk perspective of
the challenges and opportunities for India in the
changing global financial landscape. He discussed
in detail the impact of the volatility in asset prices
on the financial domain as a whole.
Somthing special
The theme for the Marketing Continuum 2009,
hosted by Marktrix, the marketing club of
SJMSOM, was “New Age Marketing - Challenges
and Strategies”. The keynote address was
delivered by Mr. Paritosh Joshi, President, Star
India Pvt. Ltd. His talk was centered on New Age
Marketing theories and practices. He spoke about
the shift of companies towards customer
empowerment and co-creation. He stressed that
around 40 percent of new product innovations now
come from the customer and he also spoke about
the benefits of crowd-sourcing.
The next talk was delivered by Dr. (Mrs) Pragnya
Ram, Group Executive President, Corporate
Communication, Aditya Birla Group. She took up
the example of the Aditya Birla Group as a case
for Image Identity and Reputation Management.
She shared some enlightening insights on the
criticality of communications and the universe of
brand delivery. The next speaker was Mr.
Sudhanshu Vats, Vice President, Hindustan
Unilever Ltd who spoke about Holistic Brand
building. He focused his talk on the fact that
brands have to stand for value, benefit society and
provide meaning to the consumer. He stressed on
the importance of doing well by doing good.
Ms Darshana Bhatt, Marketing Head, Loop
Telecom spoke about new age marketing mantras
and the significance of Customer Relationship
Management. She took up interesting examples
from different sectors to highlight changing
consumer preferences and the role of social media
marketing in the making and managing of brands.
Mr. K V Sridhar - National Creative Director, Leo
Burnett India held a very interactive session for the
students on New age media and Advertising
wherein he highlighted the changing rules of
advertising and the new media available to reach
L!VE
Operations Continuum
OPERA, the operations Club of SJMSOM
presented the Operations Continuum 2009 on the
theme, “Innovation in supply chain management:
An answer to uncertainty”. The keynote address
was delivered by one of the distinguished alumnus
of SJMSOM, Mr. Sanjeev Chachondia, Ex-CEO
of Loop Mobile, who gave a panoramic view of
the telecom sector in India including challenges in
the current scenario and strategies for future
growth. The people aspect of supply chain
management was elaborated upon by Dr. Anant
Mahale, Country Manager, i2 technologies
wherein he talked about the importance of human
capital in attaining excellence in supply chain
operations. Mr. VGS Mani, Country logistics
Manager, Nokia took things forward by touching
upon the 3Ps i.e. Products, Process and People and
he delivered an exciting talk on the impact of these
three factors on the overall supply chain, putting
the Mobile Handset Industry in focus. Next in
proceedings was the talk by Mr. P.S. Easwaran,
Director, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private
Limited, on managing Supply chains in volatile
times by going back to basics. He emphasized on
revisiting supply chain strategies and operations in
difficult times through the case study approach.
The post lunch session started with insights on
collaborations and the role of IT in achieving the
same. Mr. Sukanta Padhy, Head-Supply chain,
Cummins (I) Ltd, lucidly explained how
41
Marketing Continuum
out to the entire spectrum of consumers. His talk
was made more interesting by videos and movie
clips on the conjunction of the internet with
advertising. An interesting talk on Social Media
Analytics was conducted by Mr. Niteen Bhagwat,
Executive Director and CEO, Cogito Consulting.
He discussed how blogs and consumer generated
media are becoming a genuine source of
information. He spoke about the relevance of new
age advertising channels and the methods
employed by brands to exploit these new avenues.
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Q&A session, in which each speaker provided
insights from his area own area of expertise.
Somthing special
HR Continuum was held on the theme “Managing
talent for Strategic advantage” wherein an array
of eminent speakers expounded on the theme in
the context of their individual domains of
expertise. The keynote speaker for the day was Mr.
Yogi Sriram, Executive VP, Corporate HR and
Personnel, L&T Ltd. He provided an insight into
what is different and what remains the same in the
changing economy while competing for talent. It
was followed by a highly interactive session by
Ms. Somna Singh, Head HR,Wholesale Banking
Division, Standard Chartered Bank. She discussed
the challenges faced by the HR departments in the
industry today in terms of rethinking employee
engagement and managing motivation to enhance
productivity.
This was followed by a panel discussion with
esteemed luminaries, each representing a different
sector and hence providing a varied perspective to
the topic for the discussion "Human resource: The
key to success in dynamic times”. The discussion
was moderated by Mr. Sangram Tambe, Director,
L!VE
The panel discussion was followed by a very
riveting session by Mr. Rajeev Dubey, President HR, After-Market & Corporate Services,
Mahindra & Mahindra. He provided an interesting
perspective how to unleash the human potential.
He talked about how trust, belief, inspiration and
vision can help leaders and managers tap their
employees‟ potential to the maximum. Dr. Asit
Mohapatra, Director HR-Textiles at Raymond Ltd
was the next speaker for the day. He spoke on
management of talent during recession. He
provided an insight into challenges faced by HR
professionals including evolving communication
strategies and issues in motivating and engaging
employees. The last session of the day was
conducted by Ms. Hastha Sivaramankrishnan,
CEO, MaFoi Global Search Services Limited &
Director of MaFoi Management Consulting
Service Limited on the very crucial topic of
„Importance of succession planning: key to
grooming leaders‟.
All the dignitaries gave very interesting talks
embellished with real-life examples, which kept
the audience engaged and involved through the
presentations. All the talks were followed by
interactive Question & Answer sessions wherein
the students got an opportunity to pose pertinent
questions to the speakers. On the whole, the
continuums proved to be a power-pack of
knowledge with the industry leaders providing
ample information to whet the appetite of the
students.
42
HR Continuum
Group Human Resources, Piramal Enterprises
Ltd. The panel included Ms Somna Singh of
Standard Chartered bank, Mr. Sanjay Mathur,
Director, Human Resources, Petroleum division of
Reliance Industries, Ms Ritu Anand - Deputy Head
Global HR & Talent Management TCS and Mr.
Rajesh Ramanathan, Vice president- „People &
Talent‟ at Cadbury India. The panel saw
opportunities in the current turmoil for both the
organizations and employees to learn share and
grow. The panel agreed on the availability of
better performance management processes and
better learning opportunities for an employee.
Page
collaborations can be used for achieving
competitive advantage and he briefly touched upon
the future of industry collaborations in supply
chain operations.
The next speaker, Mr. Pankaj Gupta, General
Manager, Supply Chain Operations, HUL
elaborated on the role of Supply chain in attaining
competitive advantage and the talk was
substantiated by a gamut of real life case studies
featuring products across the various categories of
HUL. The last session of the day was conducted
by Mr. Deepak Chibba, Executive VP, Mahindra
and Mahindra who spoke very eloquently about
the challenges that exist on a real time basis when
working in a global framework. He provided a
holistic perspective on the global supply chain,
covering topics ranging from global sourcing to
softer issues like leadership and vision.
Somthing special
SOM Achievers
Name of the Event
Organizers
Cerebrations 2009
NUS, Singapore
Reckitt Benckiser Marketing
Case Study Competition
Reckitt Benckiser &
MDI, Gurgaon
Water Shed
DoMS, IIT Madras
XLRI - Prometheus "The Fin god"
Kumbhaka
Out2b, Ignisense
Genesis'09
National Youth Leader Contest
Bravura
Marketing Competition
Team Members Position
Anant Kumar
Ankush Grover
Ashutosh Mishra
Pallavi Kheria
Ashutosh Mishra
Pallavi Kheria
Gunjan Tigga
Sonal Girdhar
Amit Bansal
Pramit Joshi
XLRI
Rahul Suri
Vasant Mugada
Great Lakes institute of Ajit U R
Management
Tony Mathew
Kunal Deep
SIIB, Pune
Parsuram NA
Sachin Manchanda
Deepak Gupta
SRCC,Delhi
Manoj Gupta
Tarun mathur
Deepak Gupta
IIM Indore
Sachin Manchanda
Akshay Srivastava
SRCC-GBO Delhi
Migom Doley
Rajat Jain
Akshay Srivastava
SIMSR, KJ Somaiya
Migom Doley
Rajat Jain
Theme of the Competition
Global Runners up
Global Business Plan Competition
Winner
Marketing Case Study on Harpic
Winner
Business Strategy Formulation
Second Prize
Flagship Finance event of Ensemble 2009
Winner
Operations Strategy Game
Winner
Launch of a New Product which is available
outside India
winner
A National Level Competition on Social
Entrepreneurship
Runners up
A National Level Competition
Winner
Paper Presentation
Winner
IIM Lucknow-Manfest
Madhavi R
Runners up
Manfest 09-Annual Business Conclave of
IIML
Akshaya
SIMS,PUNE
Deepak Gupta
Manoj Gupta
Tarun Mathur
Varun Purohit
Winner
National Level Business Conference
Ideaz
Pan IIT Event
Sivasubramanian
Second Prize
Business Plan competition of IIT Bombay
The Next CEO
Google Inc.
Strategikon, Ensemble 2009
XLRI Jamshedpur
EMINENCE FMS Fiesta'08
FMS Delhi
SBI Bank on Us
MICA, Ahmedabad
Amarnath De
Vishesh Sarangal
International
Semifinalists
Winners
Mergers & Acquisitions Event
Winner
Second Prize
The Branch Audit event
Page
43
Google Online Marketing
Challenge
Amit Trivedi
Dishant Gupta
Pramit Joshi
Rahul Suri
Nawneet Sinha
Pallavi Kheria
Parag Bansal
Avinav
Nachiket K
L!VE
Creative bend
Winner among rats
L!VE
The first day is when they make you feel like a
king. They tell you that how after coming to this
training camp, you will mine gold pretty soon. In
the evening, the beaming alumni in their Armani
tuxes address the juniors on making it big and how
to slog through these two years.
Rat talks to the mouse sitting next to him asking
what is he vying to specialize in. “Finance”, pat
comes the reply, “that is what MBA is right ?”. Rat
smiles on finding his “team member”, one of the
many jargons he will learn to use in each and
every conversation of his during his stay here.
How his balance sheet is affected and the top line
of his savings vanish only time will tell, for now,
44
The Indian economy was booming,
thanks to the ever burgeoning services
sector, and the jobs were available by
the tonne. Just walk in and join, and if
you are an MBA, the truck loads of
cash is just what the doctors ordered. The
“average” salaries of B-schools were experiencing
a tsunami and the “highest” was much in demand.
Three months passed by and Rat arrived at the
institute to rub shoulders with to be “who‟s who”
of the industry and make it big in this gold rush.
The global economy has started to sway and the
creaks could be heard but with our prime minister
of Smt. Sonia Gandhi speaking differently who
would trust his/her own inner voice.
Page
It is the March of 2007, the results are out and Rat
is extremely happy. He‟s got admit from a
prestigious MBA institute of the country. His
parents are happier for their only son, and the only
capable person on this planet, has lived up to their
expectations and possibly image in the society.
Now the mommy can cow the aunty next door for
millennia at ends and possibly fish out few girls
for the holy “arranged” matrimony of his
Excellency. The dad has his moustache
handlebar‟ed‟ or may be imperial‟ed‟ for the
occasion. There are celebrations all around and
congratulatory calls are all but stopping.
Rat has resigned from the job and the
position he held for the last two years
after clearing another milestone of his
life, engineering. The job was well
paying, but the B-school rankings
published by various media houses
were even more attractive. Grass is
always greener on the other side of the
fence they say and here it was
absolutely true.
Creative bend
its efficient and optimized use of the resources to
come out with the most feasible solution to all the
problems of the universe that matters. Things are
hectic and Rat runs the routine to keep up with the
gruel and grind that he has chosen.
Teachers/Preachers come in and address the
class on various topics necessary for the
business leaders of tomorrow. The pre-readings,
quizzes, assignments, projects, presentations and
submissions are what come following. Days pass
and Rat takes all this in keeping with the final goal
of his. Placement day and all the seniors are placed
in a jiffy. Multiple offers for the confused, a job
for everyone, and the promise of MBA well
delivered. The average salary had to rise and the
highest was to go up. The companies fought to
keep the “best” talent and the talent, the “best”
offers. A perfect example for supply demand
mismatch. Rat sees all this and is happy. One year
down the line this will be him refusing job offers.
clouds of time cast their shadow and Rat starts to
wonder what will happen. His juniors join and the
same ceremonial welcome is accorded to them.
Another happy lot has arrived. Months pass by
and “Summers” for his juniors arrive and, as
they are, a precursor to the placement season,
watched and analyzed very carefully. The heat is
felt and the best colleges reporting failure in
securing good offers do no good to our Rat who
suddenly feels cheated.
Any ways there is still time for the final
placements and Soniaji‟s secretary, oh sorry, the
PM or FM, leave it, says things are grim but
nothing to worry. The elections are far off and
there is still enough room to mess up with the
economy. Placement season approaches, in a few
months course will be completed and Rat will have
to vacate the “cozy” hostel. Companies come and
companies go. Some take one some take two. The
always happy always playing Rat tries his athletic
skills in the interviews but the offers refuse him.
Days turn to weeks and weeks to months (further
transformation not possible for only 2 months are
left, so year is not an option), Rat finally gets an
offer that he “willingly” accepts. Though not
elated, he is happy for he will not starve and
some day things will change.
As for the mouse, he was busy with certifications
and calculations all through and, as last reported,
was found buried in the ruins of Lehman
Brothers and the Merrill Lynch. The secretary
to the party president a.k.a PM a.k.a FM was last
reported heading to some place for a heart surgery
and the situation was none the less unreported
Anant Pratap Srivastava
L!VE
Page
The economic scenario is changing for the
worse but some Oxford and Harvard educated
economists still feel that the heavily dependent
India is still insulated. Anyways, now the dark
45
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
Creative bend
My Dreams, My Life
Dreams , Dreams and Dreams,
Create a lot of ecstasy;
I am living with the dream,
I am dreaming with the dream;
I tried to catch it in the darkness ,
Only to find the beauty of the night
Though the light of the day, make me cry!
But Dreamers never say die!
I know it… I have to try and try
Trying definitely makes failures to shy,
This is only where true success lie
When I hit the bulls eye, could only see the sky
I kept on looking to sky, only to find clouds sly
They show many colors all the while
Amazing to see them both shine and cry,
When it cries, we the people feel happy and high
Is this what will happen all my life?
The day and nights will follow the colors of the sky!
Will it be just another day or moments of life
With all these questions, my mind tend to flit
Have I lived the dream or got another dream to dream ?
Yet another dream!
Deepak Gupta
Page
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
46
Dreaming of a day, when I will fly through them…..
L!VE
Biz wits
1. The first recorded history of the company is in
1366, when records of taxes exist on Leuven's Den
Horen Brewery, a brewery that is still in existence
today. In 1708, Sebastian became the master
brewer at Den Horen, and gave his name to the
brewery in 1717. In 1926, the company was
launched initially as a seasonal beer especially for
the Christmas holiday market. It was first sold in
Canada and the brand became available year round
and, apart from the duration of the World War II,
has been produced ever since. The name, logo and
the color associated with it are all inspired from
the Christmas season. Identify the company/brand.
4. Identify the company by its print
advertisement?
5. Connect:
2. Connect these companies:
6. Identify the logo below. The company name has
Page
47
3. Identify the company?
been licensed for use on a range of lifestyle
products including electronic goods sold by Alba
(including MP3 players, home audio systems,
DVD players, DAB radio players and in-car
entertainment systems), mobile handsets, festival
camping gear, vodka, clothing, luggage products
and fragrance products.
L!VE
Biz wits
7. Connect:
12. Identify the lady and the organization?
8. Connect these companies?
13. Identify this goddess from Greek mythology.




How is she connected to the Business world?
Phoenix Global Solutions
Pearl Group
TKS-Teknosoft
Citi Global Services Limited
9. Identify the mascot?
14. With the dotcom bubble, the terms B2B and
B2C, which usually stand for Business to Business
and Business to Consumer, have been given new
interpretations. What are they?
15. Connect these to a living legend:
10. Connect:
Even though the company‟s current
headquarters is in San Jose, California, this
company was founded in San Francisco, California
in 1984 and took the letters of the name of this city
for the company name. The company logo also has
the stylized Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco.
Identify the Company?
11.
Raghavendra Lingamallu
Answers on pg 16
L!VE
Page
48
M.Mgmt. 10, SJMSOM
Management comes alive !
[email protected]
ww w
www.som.iitb.ac.in/live

Current edition - Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management

Transcription

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