Cradle of Leadership An exclusive with Prof. Dr Uday Salunkhe, WeSchool Volume 2, Issue No. 11 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in
Baba N Kalyani,
CMD, Bharat Forge On the 4th industrial revolution
Meteoric Rise
Six Startup entrepreneurs tell their success story
Corporate Health
Is Yoga a must for corporate INDIA?
CII - Western Region 2nd EdgeFarm HR Case Study Writing Competition Finalists secondary category
Dynamic Duo: 35
Sheela and Kochouseph Chittilappilly
The power of goodness
August 1-15, 2016 / `50
2 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
feedback
Informative magazine
I recently got a chance to read your article Wheel of Love (Volume 2, Issue 7, dated June 1-15). It was well-written and contained sound, practical advice of the dynamic duo-Columbian Wheel of Death artiste, Jhean Carlos and Loose rope artiste Jenny Gautam. I will remember the article for years to come. I look forward to reading your next informative work. I have been an avid reader of every page of your magazine, especially the articles on health and literature. —Suresh Balakrishnan, Pune
Healthful benefits
I am thankful for the regular articles featured in the health column. I eagerly read the articles, and it has helped me understand what healthy living is. Following the tips given in the features and bringing it into my life does help me look and feel much better than before.
Recreating SSR’s glory I love reading the issues of Corporate Citizen with lot of interest and must say-quality has been improving by subsequent editions. Your 1-15 June 2016 edition carried the editorial by Dr (Col) A Balasubramanian on SSR (SS Rajendran), which I found very touching. I had stayed in Chennai for a year, several years ago and had heard about SSR. It was quite touching to read your editorial on SSR—your selfless efforts to recreate SSR’s glory by releasing his biography, was a lost opportunity. You surely have fulfilled the goal you set out to achieve with the magazine.
-Prem Singh, President - Global HR, WOCKHARDT
I am really changing my views on exercise, dieting, eating and living healthy. I have looked into my unhealthy habits and made some changes. Now I find it perfectly normal to think of myself first when it comes to health and overall physical well-being. —Rahul Taneja, Pune
Capturing the very essence of people’s role A must read cover story
I am an avid reader of Corporate Citizen. It is so commendable that the magazine focusses more on the ‘human side of business’ which makes it an interesting read. I look forward to reading more and more interesting pieces like the Dynamic Duo, which is one of my favourite columns among others. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the cover story (Dynamic Duo Vol.2, Issue No.9, 1 July-15) on Asha and Ramesh Mirakhur - The KashmirKerala Bond. I suggest you to come up with book reviews more often, maybe corporate related, or across genres. Also, please make it available at more and more book stalls. — Madhumita Singh, Pune
People play a very significant role in any activity, especially when it comes to ‘business.’ A unique business magazine, Corporate Citizen, tries to cover the very essence of people’s role in business. What differentiates the magazine from the others is the corporate people who are covered here. While they may not be a star personality or a celebrity, but they have achieved something or rather created a niche for themselves—which has made them stand apart from the rest of the crowd and hold an influential place in the society. In a way, the stories give the readers a strong message—we may not become famous, however we should still strive to achieve something in our lives. As Zig Ziglar, the well-known American author, salesman, and motivational speaker, puts it, ‘You don’t build a business-you build people and then people build the business.’ —Varsha Agarwal, Mumbai
Top posiTion
union power minisTer, piyush Goyal Talks on vision of enerGy-efficienT inDia June 1-15, 2016 / `50
Volume 2, Issue No. 7 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in
NHRD CEO paNEl DisCussiON
leadership imperative
iNtERviEw
Clifford Mohan pai GPHR, Associate Vice President, HR, Infosys BPO Ltd
Dynamic Duo: 31 Jhean Carlos and Jenny Gautam
Wheel of love lOvED aND MaRRiED tOO
uttara and Deepak on love and commitment
cii - western region 2nD edgefarmhr case study writing competition 1st runner-up secondary category
An informative magazine
I have been reading the Corporate Citizen Magazine since the very first issue and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Some of the sections like Cradle of Leadership, Dynamic Duo and Star Campus Placement make it a wonderful read. The stories of students’ journey from the campus to corporate world are told in a very different and narrative manner. Cradle of Leadership series features the top institutions of our country and gives us in-depth information about the institute and its director. I look forward to reading these sections all the time. Keep up the great work, team! —Ravi Krishnan, Bengaluru A unique business mag It is my pleasure to subscribe to such a wonderful magazine. I just wanted to drop you a note telling you how much I enjoy your magazine. My favourite is ‘Dynamic Duo’ and ‘Loved and Married Too’ columns that I enjoy the most. The mobile apps page, wherein you showcase the latest apps is something which is very informative. Off late the stories of Military to Management has not been featured. I would like to see many more in the forthcoming issues. I am sure many will agree with me in saying that Corporate Citizen is unique in many ways. Kudos to the CC team for their brilliant job. —Chetan Chavan, Pune August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 3
Bl
y
ing M ow
Ow
n
et
l CASE STUDY: 26 tru m
p
Gratitude, thy name is Karna
I
n the 15th June issue of Corporate Citizen, we published a guest editorial by noted corporate leader, Ganesh Natarajan, who himself lives by gratitude and that was the theme of his piece. It reminded me of a quote by John F Kennedy, which states, “as we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.’’ It also reminds me of the Mahabharata, an epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War between Pandavas and Kauravas, in which Karna, generally considered as an anti-hero, is a role model of what unconditional gratitude signifies. Karna, as we all know was brought up by a Charioteer couple belonging to a low caste and hence was termed as `Sutaputra’ (son of the lowly caste). He was humiliated and looked down upon by the society, particularly by the entire clan of Pandavas and great sages of those times. In reality, he was the son of Kunti, Queen of the Pandavas, who disowned him as soon as he was born (as she bore him by the mere wish of having a child of the Sun). She put him in a basket and set it off in the river. This was found by the Charioteer couple who adopted him as their son. He grew to be a great warrior than Arjuna, but no one acknowledged his talent, due to his caste. Duryodhana, the eldest son of the Kauravas,
“I am not fighting this war to gain anything. After Ganga putra Bheesma, I am the most unfortunate lone warrior in this battlefield. Fighting for nothing. He has his Pratigya and hence he is helpless. But I am not helpless. I can walk away from the war. But No, I won’t. I cannot leave my friend when he needs me the most. I know he is wrong but that has nothing to do with my gratitude’’ 4 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
was the only one who took a radical and unconventional approach towards Karna – loving and respecting him for his ability as a supreme warrior and an intellectual. He did not care from which lineage he came from. Duryodhana not only trusted him and took his advice at all times, but he elevated Karna to a King (Angharaj), on the basis of his exemplary abilities as a warrior. Karna, therefore stood by him all through his life, as a token of deep gratitude. In those times, the caste system was so overpowering that, although Karna was a greater warrior than Arjuna, he was denied tutorship by several sages like Dronacharya. He was also humiliated during the Swayawar of Draupadi, who reminded him of his lowly caste. When the Mahabharata War was to be waged, Krishna was worried that Karna, who possessed better skills than Arjuna, would ensure the defeat of the Pandavas. Krishna approaches Karna to tell him the truth about his lineage. Despite this revelation, Karna refuses to leave the side of Duryodhana. The following extract of the dialogue published in lonelyphilospher. com captures the essence, hence I am tempted to reproduce the excerpts: Krishna: Do you know that you are the eldest Kunti Putra. You deserve to be the king of Hastinapura. Come, join us. All the Pandavas will welcome you. Draupadi will become your queen, why are you fighting with Duryodhana? Karna: They are not my brothers. And I have no wish to become the king. Thank you for telling me that I am the eldest Kunti Putra, I have been searching this answer all my life. Krishna: Now that you know who you are, why don’t you join the camp of Dharma? Karna: With all due respect to you, who are you to define what my Dharma is? I am aware of
Illustration by Deepak Sankpal
my Dharma and I am doing it every single day. Krishna: And what is your Dharma, may I know? Karna: My Dharma is to protect my friend when he needs me the most. Krishna: Even at the cost of siding with a force which is doing Adharma towards hundreds of thousands of men? Do you know that your presence in the Kaurava camp ensures that Dharma has to fight harder for victory? Karna: The force has its own reasons, I have my own reasons. Where were you when Drona denied me to teach lessons because I do not belong to a royal family? Where was Dharma when I was not allowed to compete in the Swayamvar of Draupadi and I was insulted of being a person from lowly caste? Where was Dharma when I had to answer every single person how a suta putra became the king? Dharma or righteousness for that matter has never been my friend. I have only one friend and only one Dharma. It’s called Duryodhana. Krishna: Do you agree that Duryodhana is wrong and that he is the only one responsible for this war? Karna: I do. Krishna: What is your motivation for fighting this war? Pandavas have their reasons, Duryodhana has his, what is your reason? What will you gain from this war? Karna: I am not fighting this war to gain anything. After Ganga-putra Bheesma, I am the most unfortunate lone warrior in this battlefield.
“ Thus, there are two lessons to learn from the life of Karna. The most important being, one must show gratitude to those who have helped you or taken care of you. Parents, for example, are the ones who look after us and nurture us, unconditionally. Just how many of us are grateful to them? Sadly, not, very many ’’ Fighting for nothing. He has his Pratigya and hence he is helpless. But I am not helpless. I can walk away from the war. But No, I won’t. I cannot leave my friend when he needs me the most. I know he is wrong but that has nothing to do with my gratitude.’’ It is rare to find such sense of gratitude in today’s world. It is an era when most of us see our vested interests and switch loyalties accordingly. Of course, there is a flip side to Karna’s unflinching gratitude for Duryodhana. The renowned spiritual master, Sadhguru says in one of his writings, “…Because of his gratitude to Duryodhana, somewhere, he believed he must hate these five people (Pandavas). Though there was no hatred in his heart, he worked it up all the time and came out meaner than anyone. If Shakuni said one mean thing, he would say the next mean thing. And he wouldn’t stop there because he was always working up his hatred trying to prove his loyalty and be grateful for what Duryodhana had done for him. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that everything he was doing was wrong, but his loyalty was so strong that he
continued to do it. He was a wonderful guy but he continuously made mistakes. All our lives are like that – if we make one wrong choice, it takes ten years to recover, isn’t it? He never recovered because he made too many wrong turns.’’ Thus, there are two lessons to learn from the life of Karna. The most important being, one must show gratitude to those who have helped you or taken care of you. Parents, for example, are the ones who look after us and nurture us, unconditionally. Just how many of us are grateful to them? Sadly, not, very many. As for me, I am an ardent fan of Karna. I believe that friendship is not subjected to `ifs’ and `buts.’ And also, where can one find great men like Duryodhana? In this era, Krishnas can be seen everywhere.
Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian editor-in-chief August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 5
Contents 34
Cover story
Dynamic Duo 35
The Power of Goodness An in-depth and insightful interview with Kochouseph Chittilappilly, founder of the V-Guard empire and his wife Sheela, creator of the V-Star on what makes their marriage tick
9 COLLYWOOD
Chatpata Chatter from the Corporate World 13 MANAGE MONEY
Dr Anil Lamba on Leverage Analysis 14 WAX ELOQUENT Who said what and why 16 CORPORATE TRENDS Baba N Kalyani, CMD, Bharat Forge on the 4th industrial revolution 6 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Volume 2 Issue No. 11 August 1-15, 2016 www.corporatecitizen.in
19 OPINION ‘Coffee that will keep the Cauvery flowing’ by Sunita Narain 20 STARTup Success Six Startup entrepreneurs tell their success story
14
26
26 Cradle of Leadership An exclusive with Prof. Dr Uday Salunkhe, WeSchool 40 The Tax Man Cometh – 17 Be the change - by S K JHA, (IRS (retd) and former Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax) 42 CORPORATE COLUMN Own up Roles - by G. Udayakumar, CEO, CORE MIND
20
42
44 CII CASE STUDY CII – Western Region 2nd EdgeFarm - HR Case Study Writing Competition
40
50 STAR CAMPUS PLACEMENT Ananya Naidu on her first break 54 LOVED AND MARRIED TOO Shivangi and Saurabh on life-long commitment 56 BOLLYWOOD BIZ The Sport Biopic – A Remarkable Journey 58 CORPORATE HEALTH Is Yoga a must for corporate INDIA?
16
54
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 7
Editor-In-Chief Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian
60
62
Consulting Editor Vinita Deshmukh Assistant Editor Joe Williams Senior Business Writers Mahalakshmi Hariharan / Rajesh Rao Senior Sub-Editor Neeraj Varty Writers Delhi Bureau Pradeep Mathur / Sharmila Chand Bengaluru Bureau Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar Pune Bureau Suchismita Pai / Kalyani Sardesai / Namrata Gulati Sapra
60 PEARLS OF WISDOM Breathe out stress, breathe in joy by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 62 Mobile Apps The best accessories for your smartphone 66 Last Word The power of venture philanthropy - by Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, 5F World, Pune City Connect and Social Venture Partners, Pune
56
VP - Marketing & Sales M. Paul Anderson +919444405212 Manager Circulation Mansha Viradia +91 9765387072 North : Hemant Gupta +91 9582210930 South : Asaithambi G +91 9941555389 Circulation Officer Jaywant Patil +91 9923202560 Creative Direction Kiyan Gupta, The Purple Stroke
50
Be A Corporate Citizen
How do you like this issue of Corporate Citizen - The Cool Side of Business? Send in your views, news, suggestions and contributions to corporatecitizenwriters@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! 8 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Graphic Designer Shantanu Relekar On Cover Page Sheela and Kochouseph Chittilappilly Photographers Yusuf Khan, Ahmed Shaikh Website / Online Subscription www.corporatecitizen.in For Advertising, Marketing & Subscription queries Email: circulations@corporatecitizen.in (Corporate Citizen does not accept responsibility for returning unsolicited manuscripts and photographs. All unsolicited material should be accompanied by self-addressed envelopes and sufficient postage) Tel. (020) 69000677 / 69000672
collywood
People in the news
Sundaram returns to Sun Pharma, India
Satya Nadella on cancer research body After his marathon run in the corporate world, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has joined Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center‘s board of trustees, making the Seattle-based non-profit institute as his only outside board commitment. Nadella is one of five incoming board members announced by Fred Hutch, boosting the institute’s technology and cloud computing chops along with new board members Mike Clayville, an Amazon Web Services vice president. “It is very helpful to the Hutch’s leadership in innovation to have board members like Satya and Mike who deeply understand what is possible in applying computer and data science through cloud computing to finding cures,” said Fred Hutch board member Matt McIlwain, Madrona Venture Group managing director, in an email response to GeekWire about the appointments. Choosing the Seattle-based non-profit institute as his only outside board commitment, the tech giant’s top executive told the Fred Hutch News Service that he wanted to serve on the board of an organisation doing world-class work with world-class ambition in an area that is life changing and world changing. He also wanted to be able to learn from and contribute to the organisation, and he wanted it to be based in the Seattle region. The other new board members are Bryan White, founder of Sahsen Ventures LLC, Carl Behnke, president of REB Enterprises and Mark Fleischauer, chairman of JH Kelly Holdings. In addition, Fred Hutch appointed Christine Gregoire as its new board chair, elevating the former Washington state governor from her previous position of vice chair. She replaces Paula Reynolds, the former Safeco CEO, as Fred Hutch board chair.
Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd’s Kal Sundaram, who serves as the chief executive officer at the Israeli subsidiary of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, will step down by the end of this calendar year and will return to India to take up an executive position at Sun Pharma after the completion of his assignment at Taro at the end of 2016, according to a company statement. Kalyanasundaram Subramanian, known as Kal Sundaram, became CEO of Taro in April 2012. He had been Sun Pharma’s CEO since April 2010 and played a role in accelerating the company’s growth in India and other emerging markets. Sun Pharma acquired a controlling stake in Taro in 2010, marking the culmination of a three-and-a-half-year takeover battle. With over three decades of experience, Sundaram has been in the pharmaceutical industry, largely with GlaxoSmithKline Plc. (GSK), where he has held country, regional and global responsibilities. Sundaram left GSK India as its managing director. “I am grateful and privileged to be associated with Taro for the past four years as a board member and three years as CEO.
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 9
collywood Flipkart legal chief Rajinder Sharma quits Flipkart’s legal head Rajinder Sharma who has not even completed a year’s (10 months) tenure has called it quits. “The company has already communicated to its top managers that Sharma is leaving the company,” a person familiar with the development said. Flipkart confirmed the development without giving any specific details. Sharma, who was reporting to Flipkart CEO Binny Bansal, had joined the Bengaluru-based company last year. Sharma, who has earlier worked with Samsung, Reliance ADAG, JSW Group and Tata Group, said he has yet to finalise his next move as a professional. Sharma’s exit comes at a time when Flipkart has to tackle new regulations governing online marketplaces. When Sharma had come on board following the exit of general counsel Srivals Kumar, Flipkart had said he will be responsible for handling legal compliances and regulatory issues, comprising of ‘corporate secretarial practices, contract management, litigation management, compliance management and protection of intellectual property rights of all the group companies’.
Hase to head Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group IoT biz Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group has roped in Juergen Hase as the Group CEO for its IoT Business . Hase has worked with the global telecommunications industry for more than 25 years and executed new businesses in different global markets. Hase has been the director-IoT/M2M with Ooredoo at the Group level, based in Qatar, responsible for implementing the IoT business for Ooredoo in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia in multiple vertical segments such as Automotive, Telematics, Smart Cities, Healthcare, Insurance, and
Energy. He has also served as the Vice President of the M2M Competence Center at Deutsche Telekom (DT) for over a decade. As one of the founders, he helped DT develop this unit as one of the leading global players in the field of IoT, Reliance Group said in a statement. Reliance Communications (RCom), a Reliance Group company, has already announced an IoT partnership with Jasper (which was subsequently acquired by Cisco), and various IoT solutions have been jointly piloted in India over the past few months in preparation for the commercial launch.
Raman, director technical of SAIL Raman took over as the as director (Technical), SAIL, subsequent to the superannuation of S S Mohanty. He has earlier held key positions of Executive Director, Salem Steel Plant and Executive Director-In-Charge (Operations) at SAIL before being elevated to the position of Director of SAIL, Sindri. Raman joined SAIL in 1979 at Bokaro Steel Plant and has had an eventful career at various SAIL units and plants. He has been instrumental in making RMHP a model unit of Bokaro Steel Plant with zero breakdown. Under his dynamic leadership the Salem Steel Plant completed the installation of its third Sendzimir cold rolling mill. His tenure at Salem was marked by new records in production, development of new products in tune with market requirements and winning of several awards, said a SAIL statement. With rich and vast experience in steel making, knowledge in the area of designing and engineering, and technical expertise, Raman has handled many important portfolios in SAIL’s Centre for Engineering and Technology (CET), Ranchi and also at Research & Development Centre for Iron & Steel, Ranchi.
10 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Reshaping at Microsoft after Turner’s exit There has been a major reshaping in the Microsoft Corp. as Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella wants to keep the company on track, after the company’s senior executive, long-time Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner opted for a better opening. Instead of naming a new COO, Nadella appointed two executives to take up the sales responsibilities and report to him. Jean-Philippe Courtois will be in charge of global sales, marketing and operations spanning Microsoft’s 13 business areas, Nadella said in a note to employees. Judson Althoff will lead the worldwide commercial business, including government and small and medium-sized businesses. Courtois, a 32-year Microsoft veteran, is a long-time international sales executive at Microsoft, having run both Microsoft International and Microsoft EMEA previously. Althoff previously ran Microsoft North America and is a former Oracle Corp. executive. Other executives already reporting to Nadella will take on parts of Turner’s job, with Chris Capossela leading worldwide marketing, Kurt DelBene leading IT and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood taking over the sales and marketing team’s finance group, which had been separate.
Rajinikanth to help stop open defecation Rajinikanth is back in the news, this time in the political arena as Puducherry’s new Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi wants to bring an end to open defecation and wants the super star to promote and support this cause. Terming this as one of the biggest challenges, Bedi opined that open defecation by people who build their homes without giving space for toilets was the main problem that the administration wished to tackle. “Friends, this is why I asked for the most famous artiste of our times,
Rajinikanth, to be the brand ambassador of the cause of Swachh Puducherry. I felt with his message, several will build toilets on their own, others with government assistance. It will hasten a behavioural change, vital for putting this on the fast track,” she said. She writes that though enough funds were being released by the Centre under the Swachh Bharat Movement, implementation and sustaining the projects were tough. Bedi points out that large scale system and infrastructure are required to build toilets.
Karunas quits Nadigar Sangam, joins hands with Amma Karunas, the actor turned MLA has quit Nadigar Sangam as the vice-president. After his success in the Nadigar Sangam elections, Karunas met TN CM Jayalalithaa and pledged his support to AIADMK on behalf of the Mukkulathor Pullippadai group. Following this, he was offered a seat in the Thiruvadanai constituency belonging to Ramanathapuram district from where he won the elections with a huge margin. Talking about his movie career, he said, “I am awaiting the release of Santhanam’s Dhilluku Dhuddu this week. I have completed shooting for Dhanush’s political satire, Kodi. Also, doing an important role in DhanushVetrimaran’s much-awaited Vada Chennai.”
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 11
collywood Vivek Srivatsa drives into Tata Motors In what could be termed as a senior level auto industry movement, former Maruti Suzuki executive, Vivek Srivatsa joined Tata Motors as head of marketing for its passenger vehicle business. Srivatsa, a former product group head (marketing) at the country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki opted for Tata Motors, the country's sixth largest passenger vehicle company. Confirming the move, a Tata Motors spokesperson stated that Srivatsa joins in the place of Delna Avari (former marketing head) who quit the company in April to start her own venture. In his immediate past assignment, Srivatsa was the marketing director (Middle East) for French car maker Renault and based out of Dubai. He spent about a year
in that position. Before his Dubai stint at Renault, he was the head of marketing for the French car maker's India operations between December 2010 and April 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. Srivatsa had quit Maruti in December 2010 after spending over three years in functions like marketing, brand promotion and product development. Before
Srivatsa, another senior Maruti executive S N Burman had moved to Tata Motors. In October last year, Burman joined Tata Motors as vice president (sales). He was vice president (sales) for commercial channel, pre-owned car business, rural and institutional sales at Maruti. Tata Motors is facing the challenge of growing its share in the domestic passenger vehicle market. It has slipped from fifth position during January-June 2015 to sixth now. Its several launches including re-launch of the Nano in May last year have not helped volumes. Models like Zest, Bolt and Nano continue to decline. The company's latest hatchback Tiago that was launched in April this year is doing about 3,000 units a month.
Samson David’s ‘cloudburst’ at Infosys?
Samson David, Infosys Ltd’s head of cloud, infrastructure and security unit has resigned, a setback for chief executive officer Vishal Sikka, who earlier this year entrusted David with the additional responsibility of heading artificial intelligence platform, Mana. David will join Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Co. as senior
vice-president, enterprise services delivery, and will report to Mike Nefkens, executive vice-president of HPE Enterprise Services, said a spokesman for HPE. Samson’s exit comes at a time when Infosys is betting on Mana to help the company win new outsourcing deals from customers as Indian IT firms, including Tata Consul-
12 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
tancy Services Ltd and Wipro Ltd, battle for supremacy in monetizing their AI platforms. Last year, TCS launched Ignio, while Wipro unveiled its Holmes platform. “Samson was tasked with building out Mana, Infosys’s automation framework, which is critical for Vishal’s key strategic pillars of automation and artificial intelligence. Infosys continues to struggle with the narrative around Mana; thus, executive departures are unlikely to help with short-term remedies,” said Thomas Reuner, managing director of IT outsourcing research at HfS Research. Infosys is still to appoint a successor to David. Infosys, which is in the early stage of a turnaround, has seen a string of senior leaders leaving the firm despite the company’s overall attrition coming down.
India Today beams India’s first News Quiz show India Today Television announced the launch of its News Quiz Show- NEWS WIZ, the show to be hosted by the eminent journalist, anchor and author Rajdeep Sardesai, and designed by the renowned Indian television producer-director Siddhartha Basu of Kaun Banega Crorepati and Dus ka Dum fame. A one-of-its-kind show, News Wiz will see participation from students across the country from classes IX till XII. From an extensive list of 1500, 60 schools were shortlisted through an online test. The list was further trimmed to 27 schools who will participate in the 13 episode series featuring three teams consisting of two participants in each episode. To make the format of the show more fascinating, the teams will be provided with a phone-in helpline where they can seek help on their answers from a journalist of the concerned field. The quiz show also has a Web Guide station where one team member can look up the answers and assist the other team member who will be attempting the question in the allotted time. Celebrities and news makers from all walks of life took part. Compiled by Joe Williams joe78662@gmail.com
manage money Dr Anil Lamba
Leverage Analysis Leverage refers to an exponential impact on the bottom line due to a certain change in the top line. In the previous issue we had begun a discussion on Leverage Analysis. We had seen that Leverage denotes a disproportionate impact on the bottom line due to a certain change in the top line. And also that Leverages are caused by the presence of fixed costs in the costing structure.
Two sides of the coin
The advantage of having high leverage is that when sales increase, profit increases at a disproportionate rate. Even a slight increase in sales will result in a substantial increase in profit. However, there are two chief disadvantages of having high leverage: Since, as pointed out earlier, leverage is caused by the presence of fixed costs (higher the fixed costs, higher the leverage), break-even point is achieved later. Leverage works both ways. If profit increases at a disproportionately fast pace due to a certain increase in sales, profit will also decline at an equally fast pace if sales decrease. As you can see, this is a double-edged tool.
What is a leverage multiple?
When sales increased from 25,000 to 50,000 in the example we saw earlier, and profit instead of merely doubling from 5,000 to 10,000, increased by three times to 20,000, who do you expect would be the most surprised of all? In my experience, it’s usually the people who are running the show themselves, the owners and the CEOs! So much so that at times they start doubting the accuracy of the accounts, and even question the accountant about how the profit has increased so dramatically. These owners and CEOs not only should not have been surprised, but they should have been expecting this very thing to happen. How would they have known that if sales increased by 100 percent, profit would increase by 300 percent? They would have known if they had been aware of the leverage multiple applicable in their case. If the leverage multiple worked out to 3, they would know that a onetime impact on the top line would result in a three-time impact on the bottom line. I will soon tell you how to calculate the leverage multiple.
Why is it important to know the leverage multiple?
Knowing the leverage multiple can help in two ways: • It can help you predict profits. Since the multiple indicates the number of times the bottom line will be impacted, on account of a certain change in the top line, you can look at the change in sales compared to a previous period and estimate the profit. • There will be times when you will feel the need to put an organization on a risk-scale. Calculating the leverage multiple can help you do this. Maybe you meet a customer who can place a large order with your firm but demands an excessively long credit period. You don’t want to say “no” and lose sizeable business. At the same time if you say “yes” and the client eventually cannot pay, you may end up losing substantial sums of money.
If the offer comes from a low-risk customer, you may go ahead. If the customer falls into a high-risk category, you may want to decline. A look at the leverage multiple of the customer can help you make this decision. Or perhaps you are a banker evaluating a proposal from a potential borrower. Calculating the leverage multiple and understanding the borrowers’ risk profile will help you to decide whether to lend or not. Similarly, as an entrepreneur, knowing the leverage multiple will guide you on your borrowing strategy.
How to calculate the leverage multiple
Since leverage is caused by the presence of fixed costs in the costing structure, and since, as we have now seen, there are two types of fixed costs, it follows that there are two types of leverages too. These are Operating Leverages and Financial Leverages. Let us now see how to work out the multiplier factor for each of these. Consider the following profit statement: Sales
100
Less Variable Cost
20
= Contribution
80
Less Operation Fixed Costs (OFC)
60
= Profit Before Interest and Tax (PBIT)
20
Less Interest (FFC - Financial Fixed Cost)
16
= Profit Profit Before Tax (PBT)
4
As Operating Leverage is caused by the presence of Operating Fixed Costs, the formula to calculate the Operating Leverage Multiple is very simple. Just take the figure appearing before OFC and divide it by the figure after: Operrating Leverage = C = 80 = 4 PBIT 20 Similarly, Financial Leverage is caused by financial fixed costs and the formula is: Financial Leverage = PBIT = 20 = 5 PBT 4 The Combined Leverage can be calculated as either Operating Leverage x Financial Leverage, which is 4 x 5 = 20, or as: Combined Leverage = C = 80 = 20 PBT 4 In the next issue, I will discuss what these multiples indicate. (to be continued) Dr Anil Lamba is a practising chartered accountant, financial literacy activist and an international corporate trainer. He is the author of the bestselling book ‘Romancing the Balance Sheet’. He can be contacted at anil@lamconschool.com August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 13
wax eloquent
shaping tomorrow’s India
Take a look at what our corporate leaders have to say about recent trends and their experiences in the business world
To deliver global products
“If you focus on results, one does not tend to learn. Unless you start learning, how can you make worldclass products in India? You need a certain level of depth if you want to deliver global products. That is why we don’t have too many global products from India. We are more a valuefor-money kind of country.”
Selfie culture impacting impulse buys
“The ‘selfie culture’ is making consumers spend more on their phones rather than on fast-moving consumer products, which are discretionary.”
Srivats Ram, MD, Wheels India Ltd
Suresh Narayanan,
Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com
managing director, Nestle India Courtesy: Economic Times
Digital transformation
“Today, the Indian economy is going through a digital transformation and multiple factors like robust growth of mobile, government’s thrust on Digital India, large and fast growing broadband penetration etc. are all contributing to this transformation. We see a significant amount of opportunity to contribute to the digital transformation, whether it’ on the design, content, data or document management.” Kulmeet Bawa, MD, South Asia, Adobe Systems Courtesy: Financial Express
Great ideas need to take lead
“Creativity and ideas influence every walk of life. For any industry to thrive innovations are important and great ideas need to be allowed to take lead. Infusion of great ideas, being innovative and being radical, brings in excitement to every aspect of the work.” Prashant Kumar, CEO, South Asia, Mindshare
Courtesy: Business Standard
14 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Survival of the fittest
“When the market explodes, new players come in bringing low-quality products. This happens initially and after the dust settles down, a few survive. Only those companies who concentrate on brand, distribution and quality survive for a longer period.”
Anil Rai Gupta, CMD, Havells Courtesy: http://www.businesstoday.in/
Everybody has the spark
“We threw a broad challenge to employees where they can focus on three main areas: industry, technology and delivery. Everybody has the spark and we need to just ignite. We want more ideas to come and want people to fail fast.”
Raghavan Iyer, lead-Innovation Council, Accenture India and MDTechnology, Accenture and Avanade Global Delivery Network
Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com
Opportunities for collaboration
“At the end of the day, we have to do what we have to do and that should not change because of entry and exits of other players. If at all, it only opens opportunities for collaboration. Who would you rather collaborate with? Someone you already know or someone totally new?” Kunal Bahl, CEO, Snapdeal
Courtesy: www.livemint.com
Digitally empowered
“I don’t see why Digital India and Make in India should not become a success too. We are in the age where technology is the backbone for efficiency, productivity and cost-savings. That is the only path forward and I am confident on implementation of these projects.” Anwar Shirpurwala,
executive director, Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT)
Courtesy: http://www.cio.in/ ceo-interviews/mait-collaborating-towards-success-make-india-digital-india-anwar-shirpurwala
Automating repetitive tasks
Partnership for the future
“What we are trying to build now is a ‘partnership for the future’—activity supporting major programmes that are shaping tomorrow’s India. Reflecting the positive trend of the Indian economy, the 30 top French companies are expected to invest around 8 billion euros over the five coming years. This clearly shows how much faith we repose in India’s future.” Alexandre Ziegler, Ambassador of France to India Courtesy: Times of India
“There are so many repetitive tasks that you do everyday at work. Our goal is to automate these tasks and give back your precious time to focus on your core skill set. Today Artificial Intelligence is getting very good at outperforming humans in very specific subtasks.” Deepti Yenireddy, cofounder, Skedool
Cinema is both art and business
Courtesy: Economic Times
Art is very difficult business, and cinema is both art and business. You just cannot say that it is all art, and vice-versa. So that way, one has to give space for another and you should be sensible enough to think of both angles. No one wants to make films to be bankrupt.” SS Rajamouli, filmmaker
Courtesy: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/
Help digitise young entrepreneurs
“Digitisation will transform the way the next 3 billion people (internet users) will work, live, play, and learn. We have an unprecedented opportunity to digitise the next three billion people in one-third the time it took to connect the first three billion.”
CEO’s activism
Getting involved in potentially controversial social issues, not directly related to the bottom line, is not part of the CEO’s job description. But the concept of corporate neutrality may be getting outdated. Policymakers do pay attention to what business leaders think. CEOs are respected because they understand the economy, lead large organisations, and make difficult decisions every day.” Aaron Chatterji,
Associate Professor, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University Courtesy: Economic Times
Amit Phadnis, President, engineering and India site leader, Cisco Courtesy: Financial Express
Bring as much digital culture
“My experience in digital made me realize how fast the medium is growing and its impact on the company, as a whole. One of the things I have been doing to keep this ship going is to bring as much digital culture in the agency—across every practice, office and individual.” Kunal Jeswani, CEO, Ogilvy India, Courtesy: http://www.adageindia.in/
HR going through a revolution
“Human resources (HR) is going through a revolution in the sense that employees are increasingly seen as consumers and not passive recipients of HR programmes. They will be more involved in the process.” Shatrunjay Krishna, director (rewards, talent and communication), Willis Towers Watson India Courtesy: www.livemint.com
Homegrown e-commerce players
Copycat models are going to fail. Any company that relies heavily on advertising will die. A product which has the ability to go by word-of-mouth, will win always. Take for instance Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali. Soon, it will beat players like Hindustan Unilever. Mahesh Murthy, co-founder, Seedfund
Courtesy: Financial Express
Compiled by Rajesh Rao rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 15
Corporate Trends
Bharat Forge is ready for the 4th industrial revolution Industry 4.0 can be defined as the next phase in the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector, where machines and IT systems, along with other components in the value chain will be connected to create a fully integrated, automated and optimised manufacturing system
The year gone by did not witness any significant surge in global activity. The macro picture is still evolving; industries and governments across the world are carefully calibrating strategies to avoid unpredictable headwinds and seek new growth avenues. In advanced economies the recovery was modest during the year and largely uneven. The US economy was supported by relatively easy financial conditions with strengthening housing and labour markets. In the Euro area, robust private consumption was propped up by lower oil prices and quantitative easing. On the other hand, the re-balancing of the Chinese economy, low commodity prices and geopolitical tensions in West Asia continued to weigh on growth prospects of emerging market and developing economies. India remains one of the most attractive economies of the world with a 7.6 percent growth. Amid a challenging global scenario, India remains one of the most attractive economies of the world with a 7.6 percent growth. During the year, the government has been successful on many fronts including sticking to fiscal deficit target and achiev16 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
ing significantly lower current account deficit supported by lower crude oil prices. There are other positives as well. Forex reserves are at an all-time high, investor confidence is robust and the government’s Make in India initiative has been hugely successful in encouraging domestic entrepreneurship and attracting FDI. The global automotive sector, whose fortunes are closely linked with the performance of the global economy, witnessed mixed fortunes during the year. Passenger vehicles globally grew across most major geographies while, the commercial vehicle sector was particularly weak in the Americas and China while robust volumes were recorded in Europe and India. The Indian auto industry stood out with all segments barring tractors delivering positive growth volumes. The key drivers for the market included replacement demand, pickup in infrastructure related activities, record low fuel prices, declining interest rates and healthy economic growth.
Financial performance
Our financial performance was again impacted by the volatility in the macro environment. On a standalone basis, our total revenue declined by 5.3 percent, driven by continued weakness in the industrial sector across both,
as well as winning new contracts. Over the past few years, the external demand environment has been the biggest impediment to your Company’s growth. Two years of strong growth (FY 2014/FY 2015) was followed by a sluggish demand environment due to volatility in the end-markets. FY 2016 performance was a resultant of the same.
87% growth in PV export in FY 2016
Following are the key transformation areas of the business over the next few years. The overarching theme is increasing penetration with existing customers and sectors, foraying into new sectors and enhancing product portfolio. All of this will be achieved by leveraging our innovation, metallurgical and technology capabilities to develop products which will address problems faced by our customers related to performance, light weighting or emissions. Increase product portfolio in commercial vehicle segment: We have developed a range of new products in the commercial vehicle segment and secured orders for the same from our existing customers both in the domestic and international markets which will aid in contributing to the top-line from FY 2018. We have started journey in areas of connected en-
We have started the journey in areas of connected enterprise, big data, mobility, augmented reality (human-machine interface) and additive manufacturing domestic and international markets and unexpected slowdown in the North American Class 8 truck market. Despite top-line challenges, EBITDA margins expanded by 110 bps driven by focus on cost control and supported by benign commodity prices. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet; and we will be a net cash positive company in the next two years. We have focused on creating an efficient cost structure, and will continue to rationalise costs in order to improve competitiveness. We continue to put more thrust on operational efficiency, accelerating new product development and new customer acquisition.
Business highlights
FY 2016 was a challenging year because of headwinds in the form of a global slowdown which impacted three of our key exports verticals; North American Class 8 truck markets, Oil and Gas, Metal and Mining and allied commodity sector. These three verticals will continue to pose a challenge to growth in FY 2017. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet; and we will be a net cash positive company in the next two years. The passenger vehicle segment, one of our key focus areas, performed extremely well in FY 2016 and the export revenues from this segment registered a growth of 87 percent. We have also made progress in our aerospace and rail verticals with supply of products for existing contracts
terprise, big data, mobility, augmented reality (human-machine interface) and additive manufacturing. Enhance presence in passenger vehicle segment: The structural shift in PV segment globally is giving us tremendous opportunity to build out this vertical into a US$100+ million over the next 2-3 years. This will be driven by new product development, increase in market share and a simultaneous product portfolio expansion. Increase presence in transportation sector: With the focus on railways being a key cornerstone of our new business diversification, we expect revenues per locomotive to grow substantially in the coming years. Grow aerospace business: The progress made in the past three years in terms of winning new customers and developing products “first time right” using the asset light model is a statement to our technological capabilities. Over the next few years, the aerospace business will evolve into one of the fastest growing vertical largely driven by customer traction, product expansion and enhanced value addition. Make in India: Your company, with its full scope of products supplied into the global markets is excited about the prospects of the industrial sector in India. This increasing product portfolio coupled with the Government initiative puts us in a sweet spot to capture this opportunity. Key focus sectors for the company will
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 17
Corporate Trends be supply of components and sub-systems into mining, transportation, aerospace and the defence sector. We are targeting import substitution across all verticals and have built upon our extensive knowledge to deliver solutions across these different verticals. Your Company has started making initial breakthrough with development orders with existing as well as new customers in India. Our Make in India strategy is well on its way. Developing the above new businesses/products does not happen quickly, but your Company has the unique ability to do this on its own. We can develop new products, improve processes and enhance the product portfolio by using our asset light model which will eventually help in improving the return ratios. We are benefiting from the focus on new technologies and innovation created through in-house R&D. This has resulted in higher productivity, increased cash flows and consequent debt reduction. We are confident that the derisked business model would take the company back on the growth track very soon. Businesses that can survive the shifting dynamics of global economies and industries will be the ones that
big data, mobility, augmented reality (human-machine interface) and additive manufacturing. We aim to apply this initiative across the entire value chain and create a cohesive manufacturing ecosystem. We see substantial potential of Industry 4.0 in helping us improve efficiency and increase productivity, thereby reducing costs and increasing our competitiveness. Industry 4.0 has a strong potential to change the way factories work and it presents tremendous opportunities for innovative manufacturers like us.
Talent and teamwork
The collective capabilities of our people have taken us far; and we will continue to invest in developing our team to sharpen their capabilities and introduce industry-leading practices. We are now encouraging more people from our team to take up fundamental research and get Ph D degrees. Our tie-ups with leading academic institutions such as BITS-Pilani, IIT Mumbai and Warwick University will also continue offering employees an opportunity to enhance their educational achievements, while working.
Industry 4.0 has a strong potential to change the way factories work and it presents tremendous opportunities for innovative manufacturers like us can create enduring stakeholder value. Since inception, Bharat Forge has seen and adapted to big change; and will continue to recalibrate strategies and product mix, not just to embrace change, but to lead change. There is a structural shift in the manufacturing space globally driven by focus on emission control, light weighting, asset light model, and so on... We, at Bharat Forge, are aligning our innovation strategy and product mix in accordance with that shift. We are reinventing ourselves as a global engineering company with a deeper presence across varied sectors.
Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 can be defined as the next phase in the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector where machines and IT systems along with other components in the value chain will be connected to create a fully integrated, automated and optimised manufacturing system. This will help increase manufacturing productivity, improve efficiency, shift economics and foster industrial growth – ultimately changing the competitive landscape of all the companies. Industry 4.0 has a strong potential to change the way factories work and it presents tremendous opportunities for innovative manufacturers like us. The Company is preparing to take advantage of this opportunity and trying to create our own ecosystem of a digital organization. We have started this journey in areas of connected enterprise, 18 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
CC
tadka
Unique ability
The essence of Bharat Forge is the unique ability to create value from the intersection of horizontal capabilities with vertical expertise. Our horizontal capabilities comprise size (giving us efficiency of scale) and diversity (which reduces risk in a volatile world); while our vertical expertise includes deep domain knowledge, experience and insight. This uniqueness has brought us to where we are today; and will take us to the next harbour of opportunities. As we expand our presence across sectors, our vision is clear. We are strengthening India’s economic backbone, enhancing national capabilities and ensuring a bigger global imprint–for the country and for ourselves. Your Company had set certain targets to be achieved by FY 2018 which are on track. However, the global volatility has resulted in the doubling of top-line target to be pushed out from the initial milestone. I would like to finish off this year’s letter with a famous quote of Zig Ziglar “When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal. You do not change your decision to get there.” This truly epitomizes the philosophy and culture of your Company.
(This has been culled from this year’s Annual Report of Bharat Forge. This piece is a message to shareholders by Baba N Kalyani, Chairman and Managing Director)
Most Indians “happywala” at work The 11th EdenredIpsos Barometer on employee well-being adjudged that Indian employees are the most positive about their well-being among their peers globally. According to the survey, India, Mexico, Brazil and Chile, scored the highest for all parameters The survey was conducted in January 2016 on 14,400 employees globally
Opinion Sunita Narain
Director General of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and the Editor of Down To Earth magazine. She is an environmentalist who pushes for changes in policies, practices and mind-set
Coffee that will keep
the Cauvery flowing
It is time we thought long and deep about the origins of our rivers. Their birth is our life
T
he Cauvery evokes strong emotions. It brings angry people to the streets; chief ministers fast demanding its water. And why not? This water brings life to millions. From mega cities like Bengaluru to industries and farmers across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and even Puducherry and Kerala, all want a share of its water. Where is this water coming from? Kodagu, formerly known as Coorg, is the region in the Western Ghats where the river originates. This land of forest, coffee, spices and paddy brings some 50 percent of the river’s water. What I learnt on my recent travel to Kodagu tells me that it is time we thought long and deep about the origins of our rivers. Their birth is our life. This region provides us a mosaic of nature’s best. Here, unlike in many other parts of the world, natural landscapes are made productive by human intervention. The extensive coffee, pepper and paddy plantations improve recharge and keep the river alive. The question environmental activists are asking is whether this will change as new developments creep into this bit of paradise. But the question I am asking is different: what is the development model that will work in this ecological hot spot—a way in which we value the river but can develop and grow to meet new aspirations and challenges? One major change that was pointed out to me was the switch towards “sun coffee”. Let me explain. In this region coffee is traditionally grown in shade. The best coffee plantations are those with 30 to 50 percent shade. Trees are grown between coffee plants to provide shade. On these trees, spices like pepper are grown. This brings farmers extra income. But this practice
of “shade coffee” cannot compete with “sun coffee”, where no trees are grown and all the land is used for plantation. I learnt from coffee planters in Kodagu that while “sun coffee” farmers can get up to 1.5 tonnes of coffee per acre (0.4 hectare), “shade coffee” productivity is lower—some 0.75 to one tonne per acre. The productivity of organic coffee is even less at 0.5 tonne per acre. The premium paid for organic coffee does not make up for the difference, so farmers are switching to “sun coffee”. The delicate mosaic of coffee and trees is breaking apart. But “sun coffee” is not the only reason. Our lack of appreciation of this natural-human system also brings disruption. When I was in Kodagu I chanced upon a newspaper article about a strict warning from the forest department to the plantation owners that they would not get permission for trimming or felling trees for the next four months of monsoons—a time when they need it most. Why? Because the forest department is short-staffed and will be busy planting trees. Instead of recognising and rewarding a system that plants trees, this forest-style red tape is clearly the worst disincentive. Then the forest department says the permission can be given if the tree is exotic—mainly silver oak—but not if it is indigenous. So, what would you do as a farmer? Another opportunity to build nature’s wealth is lost. This is not all the disruption. Farmers, particularly lowland paddy growers, are finding it more lucrative to sell their land for housing and tourism projects that are fast taking over in the region. The ideal balance for the Cauvery’s birth is to keep the mosaic of forests and coffee at 30 percent each, and paddy at least 15 percent. Then there is the matter of other development projects from roads to railways.
The best coffee plantations are those with 30 to 50 percent shade. Trees are grown between coffee plants to provide shade
All disturb this balance. Farmers’ troubles are exacerbated by the success of forest and wildlife conservation. All across the region, I also heard of how elephant attacks were making workers flee and lands unproductive. So, what can work? Environmentalists suggest a payment for ecosystem services Kodagu provides. In other words, farmers would be paid for maintaining the mosaic that keeps the river alive. This would create the economic incentive for the forest-coffee-paddy mosaic to thrive. I agree. This clearly is one way ahead. In addition, steps must be taken to improve the productivity of this mosaic itself. This is where tourism can play an important (and not destructive) role. If well-managed and regulated, tourism can work within this mosaic and add to farmers’ income. It means deliberately promoting homestead and nature-friendly tourism, which does not pollute or degrade the environment. Instead it builds on its intrinsic beauty and adds to our knowledge of nature. This becomes even more important in the age of climate change, which is bringing extreme heat and other weather variations to the region. Coffee is particularly touchy about extreme heat. This year, Vietnam’s coffee productivity is down by 30 percent because of extreme heat and drought. This is where “shade coffee” will survive. That’s why this biodiversity-rich “shade coffee” should be promoted and indeed celebrated. So next time you smell your coffee, think of this shade—the trees, the spices, the butterflies, birds, bees, honey and all the other biodiversity. It will keep the Cauvery flowing. August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 19
startup success
My Startup Success Story India has become a natural destination for startups-providing basis for innovative entrepreneurs, to launch their disruptive ventures and help change the world. They are being discovered by investors and equally appreciated by customers. Among them who have now turned into seasoned entrepreneurs in this innovation race, were seen speaking about their success stories, their innovative disruption and adaptive strategies, at a recently held global summit “JITO Connect 2016� organised by Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO), in Pune. The big names included Kunal Shah, founder and CEO, FreeCharge; Suhas Gopinath, founder, CEO and chairman, Globals Inc; Greg Moran, co-founder and CEO, Zoomcar; Rupal Yogendra, co-founder and COO, Stayzilla; Rahul Narvekar, founder and CEO, Indianroots and Dr A Velumani, founder and CEO, Thyrocare. Corporate Citizen brings to you the inside story of what these successful entrepreneurs have in common and their meteoric rise, along with their powerful advices. By Rajesh Rao
20 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Rahul Narvekar
founder and CEO, Indianroots
Be emotionally attached to your business
I
am 43 years old and truly believe that I am a very lucky person in life. I am from a generation, which I call as the constant mind-set generation. For us the defining philosophy was always constants. Throughout my childhood and my growing up years, it was a very different economy from what it is today. I come from a very humble background, my father use to work in a factory called Oriental Rubber Tubes, in Bhandup, Mumbai. One fine day the factory just shut down because of labour issues and it never opened again. So, from being a kind of richest family in a Mumbai chawl, we went to become the poorest family in the chawl. I studied in a school called Sardarni
pics: Shantanu relekar
Dr A Velumani,
founder and CEO, Thyrocare
Success through disruption
Pratap Singh Janata Vidyalaya, in Bhandup. Luckily, every time I had problem in life, I always would come out much better. For instance, for some reasons the kids in my chawl stopped talking to me and because of that I developed the habit of reading. I would go to the local raddiwala and read all the English magazines, which is why my English speaking was better in the school—which has also helped me a lot, later in my work-life. I took up many small jobs. My first job was working as a ward boy in Dhanvantari Hospital in Mulund, Mumbai. In the night shift I would mop the hospital floor. I didn’t enjoy it, but it would pay me ₹1200 per month. That was the first job in my life and I have had an interesting journey, since then. I am born and brought up as a Mumbai boy. I have made door-to-door sales, wrote scripts, produced TV soap operas for very short period, had setup interactive music channel ‘Channel Oxygen” in 1999, in Mumbai. Thereafter, I moved to Delhi and started again from scratch. In the year 2000, I started working for a company called ANSAL API, a shopping mall in Delhi. Worked for various small companies and then set up FashionandYou. com—in those early days of e-commerce. In fact when I quit my job at DLF Retail Developers and started FashionandYou, the news spread in the market that I have lost my job and I am sitting at home and selling clothes on the Internet. In 2009, when we setup FashionandYou, we were just seven people working and selling high end luxury brands at a discount. In October 2010 we raised funds from an investor and that is the time I suddenly became an entrepreneur. Thereafter we raised more funds but subsequently I exited from FashionandYou. Since January 2013, I am working as the founder CEO of Indianroots, an NDTV ethnic retail venture. What I have learned? In life or in business, your business plan has some value but execution matters the most. Secondly, don’t get into a business because it looks good at that point of time. Look at what excites you, look at where your passion is. Have jazbat (emotions) and be emotionally attached with your business, that’s the only thing you need today to succeed in the business. With jazbat everything else will come to you, people will chase you to give money, people will help you write business plans. Other thing you need is the ability to stay on. I have done five ventures in life and one thing I have learnt- when you have a plan, you start business and life happens and things don’t go as per plan—have the ability to stay on and change according to market conditions—if you are able to change, adapt and stay on, then you will become successful again and again.
M
y parents were landless farmers, for whom education was not important. It was a family where there was no income and four children to look after. How to go to school-that was a challenge. I believed in my strength of learning and knew that if one studies they know the true value of life and money. After my graduation, I failed in 50 job interviews, because everybody was asking for work experience, which I didn’t have. Because I failed in 50 interviews, today in my company I have 750 employees for whom I am the first employer. I finally got a job in a company in Coimbatore, of `150 rupees salary per month. I wanted to collect `1,000 and get married, but fortunately the company closed down. Then I came to Mumbai, because I got a government job, in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). I did my MSc and PhD, while working at BARC. But, then I resigned—that time you needed real guts to give up a government job. And I took that decision without deciding with my wife. I thought, if you discuss you just can’t decide. I invested ` 2 lakh from my Provident Fund amount to start my own business (Thyrocare)—in return I got `2,000 crore. When I came into this business, I used air cargo, email and barcoding system very effectively. When the entire world was charging `400/500 for one Thyroid Test, I decided to charge only `100. This decision also I took by myself and didn’t ask anyone. Subsequently, when I was doing PET Scan, when entire country was charging `25,000, I decided to do it at `10,000 only. You must have courage to take decisions, then only you are successful in business. I don’t think anybody at that time thought about creating a brand around a gland. The timing of the business was correct. The style in which it was done was right. The courage with which it was launched, was enough. The concept, created an impact. If you want to succeed in life then focus and have stamina, to surpass hurdles. In my business there is no competition. There are only two kinds of people- one without seeing the competition, is scared of the competition. And the other one says
I don’t have competition, it doesn’t exist. You can live in an environment where there is competition—it all depends on how you choose what you want to do. I did numerical pathology, while others did pathology. Others did pathology, I did biochemistry. Others focused on diseases, I focused on disorders. Others focused on sick care, I focused on preventive care. Their patients are in hospital and my patients are in homes and offices. There patients are horizontal and my patients are vertical. I have 99 percent of the market, they have only one percent of the market, because at any given time only one percent of the people are sick. I have no competition and they have competition. Anyone who is successful, has disrupted
something. If one has disrupted two things, then he/she is very powerful. First is price distribution—in business area you can take profits from the customer or you can take profit from the vendor. Many people only take profit from the customer and are unable to take it from the vendor. Squeeze the vendor and spare the customer—it is an honourable business. When I got into business, all the specimen went by road in the same city. I started using air cargo and first time specimen started flying. My competitors work day time and we work in the night and we are successful. We are present in thousand cities, have 600 staff strength and 98 percent of them are freshers. I started my business in a 200 square feet vintage garage, in 1996. Today I own 2,00,000 sq ft of space, comprising of two plush buildings in Mumbai. So, these are all the disruption I brought. Without disruption you can’t bring in anything new. One day my daughter asked me-are you very rich and I answered I am. Then she asked-what are you going to do with so much money. That’s when I thought, I will give back to the society. But, my daughter said that I am a fool to loot from the patients and give it to the society. That same day, I brought the test cost down from two dollars to one dollar. Business is all about pricing it low and still making a margin.
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 21
startup success Rupal Yogendra,
founder and COO, Stayzilla
Tapping alternate accommodation spaces
I
feel success is a very farfetched word. For me this is our journey and we are still embarking on it. Especially our goal has always been to take care of the supply crunch in India of hotel accommodation and living spaces. Stayzilla is a market place for rooms. What we sell is basically hotel rooms online, but we have also pivoted towards selling home stays in private properties, because of the crunch in supply that we have been seeing recently. We have about 30,000 properties across 4000 cities and towns in India and we have been known for our wide coverage. Stayzilla per say is a platform were people can come and post their empty spaces, rooms, extra house or anything, so that we can sell ‘stays’ to our travellers and guests on short term basis—it is mostly like how we sell hotel rooms. We have rooms in every zilla (district) in India, which is why we call it Stayzilla. I come from a Marwari Jain family and hailing from a business family it was typical that I would become an entrepreneur someday. But I aspired to become a software engineer. I really wanted to work for a big software company and fly overseas, but it so happened that after I completed my engineering, I did small jobs for six months and then worked in Infosys for a very short while. I was inspired by the story of Narayana Murthy story and Infosys. Then came Yogendra Vasupal (Yogi)in my life-my husband and CEO of the 22 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
We came together and started looking through different markets and ideas. Then we came across accommodation and felt that it had lot of potential. It was an unorganised market then and we found it very interesting. So, we just went ahead and in 2005 we co-founded our company Inasra, which was later rebranded to Stayzilla in the year 2010. Yogi created the website and I was responsible for convincing hoteliers and property owners, and bring them on Stayzilla. It needed lot of perseverance—I had very small team of just six people, six mobile phones, working in a small room inside our house. That time hotels were not really willing to come online, so it took a lot of perseverance to bring them on board. But we somehow managed to bring them online, started getting into transactions and got into business. It so happened that, when customers started checking in, we started receiving complaints. They started calling us that the hotelier has no rooms available and he does not recognise Stayzilla. We realised that hoteliers do not recognise the brand and that’s why they are not holding rooms for our customers. Initially we didn’t have enough funds to go ahead and make a brand. But, we came up with an innovative idea. We started reminding hoteliers that the customers are going to check in, so they would be able to arrange a flash check-in for the cus-
There are advantages of co-founding business with friends—they will be there to back you during difficult times and see that you don’t give up. Although when you have friends as co-founders of business, you need to make sure that you have very clear professional outlook. Have to allow them to experiment, even when you know that they are wrong—something that we really try hard to do for each other company. Stayzilla was co-founded by Yogi, Sachit Singhi and me—all college friends. Sachit is the CFO of the company. However, we all had gone our own separate ways after our engineering education, but then something happened and we all got together to start Stayzilla. Yogi had approached us to join him to start out an online marketplace for stays. Yogi has his own interesting story of how he started. He was a college dropout. When Sachit and I were doing our fourth year of engineering, Yogi was freelancing—creating websites for companies and also was an Amazon.com affiliate. He was earning over ₹one lakh per month, which was big money for youngster to earn back in 2005. But he felt that he was not creating any value and always wanted to do something else, like venture into a potential market.
tomer. This way we started passing customer's preferences to the hotel, before they got there, which has really helped our customers in a big way. There are advantages of co-founding business with friends—they will be there to back you during difficult times and see that you don’t give up. Although when you have friends as co-founders of business, you need to make sure that you have very clear professional outlook. Have to allow them to experiment, even when we know that they are wrong—something that we really try hard to do for each other. Another daunting thing for us was to see that our responsibilities are sorted out and get ourselves into the structure, and we did that very smartly. We understand our strengths and weaknesses.
Kunal Shah,
founder and CEO, FreeCharge
Creating multi-crore company from zero
T
here are few things that I have observed about we Indians. The first thing is that we tend to live lot of our life for other people and not for ourselves. The decisions we take in terms of education or business we do, are usually influenced a lot by what other people think about us. When I started online prepaid recharge business, FreeCharge, things that I heard washow can it be something valuable. But, ultimately market was so huge for us that we had the opportunity of doing it and we were really keen on doing it. I am a 35-year-old, who wanted to create a company from zero to nearly ₹3000 crore in five year time—it is possible in today’s time. Second thing is that we have a huge trust deficit problem with each other. We cannot trust each other a lot and that’s a huge problem. Examples of not trusting each other are - when we do a transaction we ask for a Demand Draft but don’t believe in cheque; when we leave our car for servicing we remove all the petrol and hand it over; when we get the bill in a restaurant we check the total ten times, even when the bill computer generated. These are called trust deficit behaviours and there are hundred such things that we do every day—which makes commerce slow and not trustworthy. I think, India has massive opportunity, if it can somehow figure out the way to trust. Branding is a combination of quality product, trustworthy product, reliability, showing and demonstrating trust, and these are few things you have to do in your businesses. If you create a culture where nobody can be trusted, you will not be able to create a brand. Brand happens when you trust first and then expect trust from others later. In IT companies it is very common for people to take job offers and not join the company. So, what we did in our company—with the offer letter itself we would give them a MacBook laptop.
When we did it first time, our HR person told us, what if they don’t come back—which is a classic Indian behaviour. I said to him that it comes at much cheaper cost to have a person who is so unethical to leave before, than having such a person come inside and then manage the company. It’s an example of how you can create trust by demonstrating trust and how people will then do amazing things for you. Another thing that I have observed is that we are not very honest with each other when it comes to feedback. It’s a very Indian thing. Anytime somebody wants to start a business, we will ask questions to friends and family—which in my opinion is the worst thing to do. Never ask friends and family-how do you find this idea? Because friends and family will always tell something that will not hurt you. We all don’t mean everything that we say. Honest people will give a frank feedback and those are the people, whom you should be asking question to and not the people who will just morally support you and take you in wrong direction. Another observation is—in communities how people treat technology. I have seen that in India every house now has a chief technology officer,
who is teaching technology to the whole house. He has also become the chief motivator of the house, who is also deciding how to buy things, because he can access technology, do better research, go online and find better prices and so on. I believe that lot of companies and the products they design are not suitable to youth's liking. They find your websites, services, interiors of your shops, not very appealing. You have to appeal to the youngsters now because you are already influencing the family’s purchasing members. These 10-15 year olds are seeing the same trends that teenagers in US and Dubai are seeing. You have to be sure that you are making a product that is global standard and not Indian standard. Indian standard is not a proud thing unfortunately, so far. So, we have to ensure that we create products and services for youth to be proud about. Last thing I want to say is-India’s favourite sport is not cricket but jumping to conclusions. India love’s to jump to conclusions. There are hundred reasons why we win and hundred reasons why we lose. Don’t jump to conclusions—when you jump to conclusion you will not build a strong insight or strong instinct. People who jump to conclusion usually always fall into their own traps.
India’s favourite sport is not cricket but jumping to conclusions. India love’s to jump to conclusions. There are hundred reasons why we win and hundred reasons why we lose. Don’t jump to conclusions—when you jump to conclusion you will not build a strong insight or strong instinct. People who jump to conclusion usually always fall into their own traps August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 23
startup success
Greg Moran,
co-founder and CEO, Zoomcar
Business model to make cities liveable
E
ntrepreneurship in India is really exciting. I have seen it for so long in US, where Indian entrepreneurs come and venture into businesses and now I am trying to do the reverse as an American, and I am having an absolute blast. I lived as an undergraduate in US and studied international relations and finance. I always knew that market here in India was really exciting, with great opportunities. I had lot of friends from India in those early days. My career has always been about what I can do for environment—if we look at it from existential perspective, India is a great example. If we are not building businesses in the right way, without thinking about the environment and scaling with the city’s growth, then we are really at a loss and major trouble. I initially had a background work-
ing in wind energy and solar energy space, which I thought will bring me opportunities in India. But the challenge was that those businesses in India are very much government regulated top to bottom and very tough to actually build from the ground up. We wanted to do something new scale that was technology enabled and not worry about government—where we could ourselves drive and build. We wanted to tackle some of the problems of transportation in the big cities because we knew that the infrastructural woes really need to be addressed by private sector businesses. One of the idea we settled on was virtual ownership of an asset-in this case the car, a vehicle. We knew that by combining the very low initial rates in really dense cities, we were going to get half the combination. That’s when we thought about starting a self-drive car rent-
We have so many touch points with the customer. The customers are in many ways, putting all their trust and life in our hands. When they rent out our cars we have to make sure that everything is completely immaculate and working. The customers are incredibly demanding. You always have to anticipate the customer’s needs and have to just concentrate on reaching out to your customer and having a continuous feedback 24 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
al service, which could actually accommodate customer’s needs of travelling without having to own a car. Which would lower consumption, and there is no need to have millions of cars on the road. When we started in India, we had many challenges in the initial days. First thing is about building a chain and including people in the company. This is so important…you really need to achieve—it is first and foremost and that is really everything. Even at entry level we wanted everyone fully aligned to the mission and vision of the company. One really had to understand, why we are doing what we are doing and why we are building. It is important they are attached to the company mission and vision. I would actually tell them that we are going to go out, we are going to make cities a lot more liveable through our business model. People you hire especially in your early days, have to really tune into the vision and mission. It is not something were you are working in a 9 to 5 job. When you are working in a startup, it’s a 24x7 job. You need to attract people who are ready to put in that extra effort. The second major point to me that was really valuable is to make sure that the whole team, no matter who it is—whether they are engineers or marketing people, they have to understand the reason why of the business. The importance of understanding ‘why’ is very fundamental because if you don’t know-for example if you are an engineer and you don’t understand what you are coding and building or if you are marketer and you don’t understand the mission, then you are not going to do be very good at your job. It’s something even in our earlier days, we always made sure that everyone in the team understands why we are doing something, what was the business object, what was the business vision. Make sure that people understand the business logic and reasons why, behind something. This for me is the biggest learning. There are too many touch points with the customer in our business and it’s so fundamental that you have to be in the shoes of the customer day-in day-out. The customers are in many ways, putting all of their trust and life in our hands. When they rent out our cars we have to make sure that everything is completely immaculate and working. As you can imagine the customers are incredibly demanding. No matter what the business, you always have to anticipate the customer’s needs and have to just concentrate on reaching out to your customer and having a continuous feedback from them. What we learnt is that the consumer here, when you show them empathy and consistency, you have a very loyal customer. Having loyal customers is what drives your business and that’s what enables to continue having loyal customers. It is going to reduce your marketing cost and have very positive reinforcement.
Suhas Gopinath,
founder, CEO and chairman, Globals Inc
Believe in your idea
W
hen I started my company at the age of 14 years, I was growing up in a middle class family were entrepreneurship was considered as sin. You can’t walk to your parents and say- “I like to be like Mark Zuckerberg”. The only thing important for my family was that your success is always benchmarked with your academic scores. For them all that mattered was how much will I score in exams. In my school I was an average student in my academics. My school-day friends had access to home computers but I didn’t have one. First time when I went to a cyber café with my brother, I was completely fascinated by the world of the Internet. I felt that with Internet the opportunity is enormous and if I sit at the cyber café, I could explore the world and could have access to all the information and data. That’s exactly when I released that having a ₹15 rs pocket money every month I couldn't afford to surf the net every day at the cyber café. The only way I can do it was to have a deal with the shop owner—I asked him if I could offer to open the shop and take care of the customers, when he shuts down the shop from 1pm to 4 pm for lunch break, in exchange of me using the internet for
free He agreed to that and it was my first business deal, with what I started off my entrepreneural journey. My first lie to my mother was that I have joined National Cadet Corp (NCC) classes in the school and I will always come home late. When I failed in mathematics exam and my teacher informed my mother, her reaction was that it’s not the mistake of her son alone but it’s the mistake of the school because they made him enroll in the NCC classes. That’s when my teacher realised that all this while I was lying to my mother that I joined NCC, when I was actually in the cyber café. I started off with making websites for American
companies. But they didn’t accept me very seriously, because they felt that I was still 14 years old and I didn’t even have a moustache. They were feeling a bit insecure with a school kid who is not so experienced. They started to link my skill sets to my age, which I felt was a very unfair way to access your skills. That’s when I felt that I need a job and the only way is keep sending CVs to these companies for work opportunities. At the same time I felt that to be your own boss, you have to be on the other side and start my own company. When you ask friends and families you get positive responses and also get some negative responses. My family was completely against, me starting a company. They felt that I am not from business family and didn’t know how business is run-how would I do it. My father was working in Indian Armed Forces as a scientist, so me doing business was least expected. It was extremely hard in those initial days, when you don’t have family support and you are very young. You can’t even open a bank account on your own and for starting a company you are completely dependent
The only common thing that matters for an entrepreneur sitting here or there in US, is perseverance and fire in the belly. As far as you have the perseverance and you know your vision that this is exactly what you want to execute and stay simply focused, you can easily achieve what you want. I built my own portal, www. coolhindustan.com, at the age of 14 years. I incorporated my company Globals Inc., the same year on someone like the internet shop owner or somebody in the US. I decided to have a company in US. The only common thing that matters for an entrepreneur sitting here or there in US, is perseverance and fire in the belly. As far as you have the perseverance and you know your vision that this is exactly what you want to execute and stay simply focused, you can easily achieve what you want. I built my own portal, www.coolhindustan. com, at the age of 14 years. I incorporated my company Globals Inc., the same year. I always realised that organisations need to innovate, when they are at the peak of their success. I have seen most organisations when they have already failed, they want to do the shift. When you are already on the shift and your engine is not working, it is very hard to pivot your direction. It’s more important when you are at saturation point and you are offering an industry that’s disruptive, to pivot. I would like to highlight that there is abundant amount of capital that’s available, only thing that matters is a strong idea and fire in the belly to execute that idea. If you can’t believe in your idea, you can’t execute the idea. rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 25
Cradle of Leadership
we
Prof. Dr Uday Salunkhe,
Group Director, Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research, Mumbai and Bengaluru (WeSchool)
The Power of
Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research, or WeSchool as it is better known, is a crucible of innovation: Be it the innovative and ear-to-the ground approach to new course programs, tie-ups with industries, government and non-government bodies and global institute-toinstitute alliances, the initiatives have been forward-looking and path-breaking. At the helm of these initiatives is Group Director Prof. Dr Uday Salunkhe who believes in spearheading progress, hands-on
26 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
P
By Mahalakshmi Hariharan
rin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research (WeSchool) features among one of the best business schools in India. The institute is run by a charitable trust, Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali, Pune, which has numerous educational institutions all across the state of Maharashtra. Established in 1977, WeSchool was first among management institutes to offer Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) in new areas such as Retail, Business Design & Innovation, Rural Management, Healthcare Management, and E-business. WeSchool has received an approval for Post Graduate Diploma programs in much needed areas like Media &Entertainment and Business Analytics this year. One of the notable achievements of the institute is the autonomous status that it got recently. With this autonomy, the institution gets enhanced agility for starting and structuring its programs designing course curricula as per industry requirements, make the training more ‘learner-centric’ and planning internships. Expanding its wings, WeSchool, Bengaluru was established in 2008 at Electronic City Phase–1 where three full-time courses such as PGDM, PGDM – E-Biz and PGDM-Business Design & Innovation were introduced. WeSchool has pioneered programs such as Business Design and Innovation, E-business, Retail, Healthcare, Rural Management, and initiated several partnerships with industry and international universities. In 2015, WeSchool received the ‘AICTE-CII Best industry-linked management institute’ award. It also received the ‘Best Institute of the Year’ award from the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India (ASSOCHAM) in 2016. In the light of its achievements, Corporate Citizen caught up with the dynamic Group Director of the Institute, Prof. Dr Uday Salunkhe, who took us in and out through the institute, highlighting the achievements, various courses, alumni, and faculty while also throwing light on management education in today’s times and giving a vision for the institute.
Take us through the history of the prestigious WeSchool.
‘With this autonomy, the institution gets enhanced agility for structuring its programs, designing the course curricula as per industry requirements and planning internships. It strengthens our efforts to provide skill based education that will facilitate job creation by aligning training and skilling in sync with the industry needs’
A lot of water has flown under the bridge since the point we started way back in 1977 in a small campus of around 7, 500 square feet in Sion, Mumbai. Today we stand as a brand—globally reputed, with two state-of-the art campuses in Mumbai and Bengaluru. In terms of programs too, the years have seen manifold growth. We have matched our steps with the dynamics of the fast paced world of business, not only to configure programs that meet the talent requirements of the industry but also to make sure that we create future thought leaders who are well versed with the implications of their moves. Our programs are heavily oversubscribed. We have world leaders in their respective spaces heading the programs...and not to miss out, the strong industry connect. The industry is equally engaged in shaping the content and ensuring effective delivery of the same on the field training. We have programs in Design Thinking, Healthcare, E Biz, Entrepreneurship, Media, Business Analytics, Retail and lot more. We have held hands with the best of institutes across the world and our students have been holding positions at some of the best companies across the globe. It is a great feeling to see your initiatives and recommendations being implemented by policymakers and business owners to unknot some of the issues. Our alumni include business-owners with operations across continents and professionals in leading positions of VPs, strategists, and country heads at well-known corporate houses, home and abroad. Established in 1977, under the aegis of the Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali, WeSchool is a well-ranked business school in the country. Initially, Welingkar offered programs like MMS, PGDM, and MHRDM. Around 19992000, we felt the need to reinvent management education. Subsequently, responding to the needs of the times, we introduced programmes in E-Biz, August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 27
Cradle of Leadership
➊ Prof. Dr Uday Salunkhe with Shri Venkaiah Naidu Union Minister of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation at the Smart City conference at WeSchool ➋ WeSchool receives the Best Management Institute of the Year at the hands of the doyen of Indian industry, Shri Ratan Tata ➌ AICTE-CII National Award for Best Industry linked institute received at the hands of Dr Anil Sahasrabuddhe, Chairman,AICTE
Retail, Business Design and Family Managed Business. The decision was well considered and discussed not only with academics but also with industry stalwarts. Today we are an internationally reputed B-school. Our flagship PGDM programs offer full-time/part-time programs/university affiliated degrees, distance education programs, corporate training programs and has a full-fledged research centre. In 2000, we relocated from the humble space of 7500 sq feet in Sion to the present 1, 10,000 sq feet state-of-the-art infrastructure in the heart of Matunga. A beautifully built vertical campus, it was designed after studying the portals of well reputed international business schools. Obviously, we were on a trajectory of growth and development, and there was no looking back. The Bengaluru campus happened in 2008. It is known for its strong student-academics-industry connect. In the process, we challenged conventions, collaborated with corporates, government and NGOs; designed innovative programs that answered the challenges of the times and created new paradigms in management education. WeSchool is the brand name of the institute. The rationale behind the name is We (versus I) that has immense potential and power.
Take us through the background of your students?
➊
➋
WeSchool enjoys a diversity of students with respect to their graduation and the sectors represented, among them, with work experience. Almost 55 percent of applicants who opt for WeSchool’s PGDM programs are from engineering/technology background, and almost 50 percent of them come with work experience. We also have applicants from Health/Medical /Para-medical, Legal/Hotel Management backgrounds, along with the ones coming from various streams of Humanities. Business own-
➌
28 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
ers and entrepreneurs are also part of the student community at WeSchool. WeSchool has a holistic selection process ensuring a very healthy male: female ratio among students. Balanced almost 50:50, WeSchool’s diversity quotient, be it gender, geography, graduation or work experience is what enriches its ecosystem.
That’s interesting! So which are the different courses run by the institute? Our flagship programs include the two year, full-time, MMS affiliated to the University of Mumbai and the AICTE approved PGDM (with Marketing/Finance/Operations/HR specialization), PGDM- Business Design, E-Biz, Retail, Rural Management (Emerging Economies) and Healthcare. Besides these, we have the PGP–Entrepreneurship Management, a very popular program among business owners for expansion and scaling up their operations. It has seen business owners successfully applying the classroom learning to their businesses.
Do you also run distance learning programs for working professionals?
Yes. Welingkar’s hybrid programs are quite well-regarded. They are a well-deliberated blend of technology and live interactions which provide a holistic experience to the students, with appropriate study material in the shape of books and CDs. Parallely, it arranges for virtual classroom lectures, industry visits, video library and placement support. Apart from this, experiential learning workshops are conducted and technology is used to the extent possible, to remain in constant touch with the students of WeSchool. It has been one of the top-ranked distance learning programs for years, going by the rankings by different publications. It has all the flexibility of distance learning, integrated with well-planned modules of team activities wherein the students engage in outbound activities learning self -knowledge, tenacity, team dynamics, stress management and creativity leadership via experiential learning.
You recently got an autonomous status. Please tell us more about it.
It is a moment of pride, and may be a step towards being a private university. With this autonomy, the institution gets enhanced agility for structuring its programs, designing the course curricula as per industry requirements and planning internships. The status comes after a thorough audit and review by State as well as UGC appointed committees. The University of Mumbai grants autonomy based on the parameters of excellence in academic performances, capability of self-governance and enhancement in the quality of education. We have the distinction of being the first self-financed, non-minority management institute in Mumbai. It strengthens our efforts to provide skill based education that will facilitate job creation by aligning training and skilling in sync with the industry needs. Autonomy gives us more elbow room to scale up our efforts in the context of skilling for nation building. Also, it appropriates us with greater agility in realising the bigger goals of education. Definitely it will bring in scalability (for quality education) and encourage us to bring in unique pedagogical development and practice into our programs. Employability, responsibility and contributing to social and national cause and promot-
with MIT, USA. We are one of the first B-schools to have an INNOWE – Innovation Lab which works on the innovative ideas for students, testing them for their feasibility and chiseling them into sustainable business propositions and mentoring them till they take off. We have had many successful ventures that have taken roots on the Welingkar campus. For over 720 students, we get around 150 to 200 companies. To name a few – Infosys, Capgemini, ICICI, Mahindra Logistics, Dell, Deloitte, Crisil, IBM, KPMG, Trident, Siemens, HDFC, Axis Bank, Abbott, Deutsche Bank, Ernst and Young, Godrej, Morgan Stanley, Saint Gobain, Tata Motors and others. There are a few international placements and many international internships. Average packages are in the range of `7.5-8.5 lakh per annum, with the highest being `21.5 lakh p.a. ➊ ➊ Students at WeSchool ➋ Boardroom ➌ IT Lab at WeSchool
➋
Tell us about your alumni…
A topic close to my heart—as we see the culmination of our efforts in our students seated in responsible positions across the globe. We have business owners, entrepreneurs and position holders in the corporate world. They hold positions like VPs, strategic advisors, country heads, businesses that have gone multinational, and co- founders of companies like Paytm, Babyoye.com, iKheti and many more. To share a few names, I would say Ridham Desai-MD & Head of India Research, Morgan Stanley; Tito Aby Idicula –he co-founded a programming hub which is currently being mentored and programmed by Google; Ronak Gandhi -VP, HSBC; Jaymin Shah- Country Head- Scott Sports; Sanjay Nadkarini- Founder and ex CEO- Babyoye.com and Shailaz Nag- co founder, PayU India.
Tell us about your awards/rankings.
➌
ing entrepreneurship are other key areas of focus.
Do you have 100 percent placements? Which are the companies that absorb your students?
Placements have been nearly cent percent except for a growing trend of students who take the entrepreneurial path, and we are happy to see the trend gaining momentum and vehemently support the same. The number is growing. I believe one of the yardsticks—going by the nature of things unfolding—to judge a B-school will be the number of entrepreneurs it has given to the society. It is so logical and called for, too. In times when we are talking of ‘Make in India,’ job creation and skilling, it is befitting to groom entrepreneurs who create wealth and employment for the nation.. and don’t discount the services they create in the process. WeSchool’s venture-mentoring cell takes care to nurture new ideas and businesses. It runs in collaboration
We challenged conventions, collaborated with corporates, government and NGOs, designed innovative programs that answered the challenges of the times and created new paradigms in management education
The CII-AICTE National award for the ‘Best Management Institute for Industry Institute Linkage,’ 2015, was awarded to WeSchool. We also received the ‘Best Innovative Institute’ Award at the ASSOCHAM’s 9th Higher Education Summit, National Excellence Awards at the hands of Union HRD Minister of State, Prof. Dr. Ram Shankar Katheria, this year. Among the recently published rankings by Business Magazines, Business India, in its National B-School survey, 2015, ranked WeSchool as 11th among B-schools from all over India and 6th in the Private B-schools category. More recently, out of the 500 B-schools, we have usually been coming in the top 15 or 20. These lists include IIMs as well. Region wise, we usually come in the top ten. Outlook Money recently came out with their inaugural report on the best finance B-schools named ‘Best MBA Finance Rankings 2016’. WeSchool was ranked ‘No. 1’ for Placements and ‘No.9’ in the top 25 Finance Specialists and 8th amongst the top ten in metro cities. The study was conducted across 300 institutes and universities that offer MBA in Finance.
What is the criteria/eligibility for students to get into WeSchool?
WeSchool conducts its admissions once a year for its PGDMs. Applications are invited for about 720 seats and we get around 15000 applications. Students should have completed their graduation with 50 percent marks and have taken the CAT/CMET/XMAT/MAH-CET to be eligible for the selection process. WeSchool calls shortlisted students for a Personal Interview, and Group August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 29
Cradle of Leadership
➊
We have matched our steps with the dynamics of the fast paced world of business, not only to configure programs that meet the talent requirements of the industry but also to make sure that we create future thought leaders who are well versed with the implications of their moves
➋
Activity as part of the selection process. WeSchool also has a Psychometric Test and awards marks for work experience and academic performance as part of the overall evaluation. The emphasis is to evaluate students holistically and select them on basis of merit.
Take us through the faculty.
WeSchool has been able to attract some of the best talent in the teaching fraternity. We have 91 core faculty with 133 visiting and 98 guest faculty. Most of the professors have rich and distinguished experience in their respective areas. Many of them are on advisory boards of well-known industrial bodies at national and international levels. They are also invited to lecture students at institutes of repute, both nationally and internationally. We are always looking for talented faculty considering our increasing scope of domain expertise and research interests.
How do you promote a vibrant work culture?
The WeSchool culture is an ecosystem that encourages and inspires innovation, design thinking and an outcome oriented mindset with a collaborative approach. WeSchool values diversity and bringing in a multi-stakeholder perspective to all its initiatives. Enriched with persons of academic and industry experience, students from various parts of the country and the globe, a balanced gender ratio, WeSchool is a cauldron of experiments and new ways. WeSchool culture encourages shunning the arrogant approach of management thinking that relies on the ‘self’ to solve problems and adopt the ‘we’ culture, where we openly embrace newer sources of learning, people from various walks and strata of society, and willingly learn and unlearn. The underlying fabric is to develop the Self, Organization and Society as an integral unit and hence the work culture encourages practices that delve in-depth and makes sustainable and systemic transformation a reality. ‘We’ is the new ‘I’.
Do you also run International Student Exchange programmes?
We value international exposure and there are initiatives which streamline this. We have around 18 global collaborations with countries like France, Sweden, Germany and Denmark. A significant part of these include exchange of students, faculty and joint research among other clauses. 30 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Working on different projects and assignments, also at times results in their stints at universities abroad, like working on the Indo Sweden Innovation Accelerator initiative in the space of renewables. Experts from Sweden Energy Agency and Malardalen University were so impressed by the thoughts of the team that they invited the team over to Sweden to study the space further. Another similar instance, I recall ,is when we were hosting ICSID (International Council of Society of Industrial Designers) in a multinational team…working on the challenges of any growing metro with the theme–Humanizing a Metropolis. Two of our students were invited over to the Carleton University to further explore how design can impact our everyday lives more emphatically. WeSchool students and faculty also benefit from the Linnaeus Palme Scholarship with Malardalen University (MDH), Sweden, which allows the exchange of students and faculty from WeSchool and MDH. WeSchool has also been offering ‘Destination India’ for a few years now, wherein the focus is to showcase India—its corporate world, society and culture. Students ranging from MBAs to doctoral and post-doctoral levels from leading universities such as Euromed, France and Shanghai, Pepperdine University, USA, Temple University, USA and several others have taken up this program.
How about your alliances with international & domestic universities?
We have a presence in terms of academic collaborations across the globe with countries such as Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Israel. This translates into student faculty exchange, joint projects and research and other opportunities of working together. We have collaborations with leading institutions such as the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL), Harvard Business School, Stanford D School, IDEO, Rotman School. WeSchool offers an extensive global exposure to its students through its rich international partnerships with world class universities viz. Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), Malardalen University and Jonkoping International Business School (Sweden), Otto Friedrich Universitat, Audencia Nantes and IESEG School of Management (France), among others. The most recent was with three hi-tech Israeli universities namely Tel-Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of Negev, and IDC Her-
zliya. Most, rather, all the collaborations bring along mutual academic exchange of students and faculty, joint research, training, academic programs and projects. WeSchool partnered with Malardalen University, Sweden to offer the India Sweden Innovation Accelerator (ISIA) program, a platform for Swedish companies to work with academia, to develop business strategies relevant to Indian markets, where our students went to Sweden.
➌
➊&➋ Design Lab —MAKERSPACE at WeSchool ➌&➍ Recreation facilities for students at the WeSchool
As one of the leading management institutes, how do you see competition from other B-schools?
Competition is always good. WeSchool, has over the years, almost always, taken the untrodden path and created new spaces and only enlarged the pie rather than focussing on getting a bigger share of the existing pie. A case in point: we are proud of the ‘Design’ thinking approach we inculcated at WeSchool way back in 2007 when the concept was ➍ relatively new even globally, for many. Today, Harvard is talking about the need to integrate design thinking and immersive learning as part of its pedagogical approach. We believe in collaboration and competitiveness rather than focusing on competition. If we make meaningful change in the lives of our students, industry and society, we will remain relevant, irrespective of what others do.
How do you groom your students? Tell us about your internship and leadership development programs.
We see internships as snapshots of real life. Most of the times, rather invariably, students work on live challenges drawn from the corporate, government and NGOs...and now also startups. Over the last five years, WeSchool, has been offering the Global Citizen Leader Program - The Global Citizen Leader, a six-month module on leadership that forms an integral part of all PGDM programs. This runs in collaboration with the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL), USA. CCL trains Fortune 500 companies globally on developing leadership. So far, over 440 students have worked on live challenges drawn from the corporate and government. They study the space closely, meet the stakeholders and craft feasible and sustainable solutions. In the process they are mentored by experts from the industry and faculty, along with interventions from leadership ex-
perts. The program involves working on live challenges in the various domains that WeSchool provides, such as Retail, Rural management, Healthcare management, E-business and in the functional spaces such as marketing, finance, human resources and operations, offered by the two-year full-time management program. The Global Citizen Leader program enables students to become mini-entrepreneurs and CEOs of the challenge they work on, providing an exposure out of the boardroom, and bringing indirect engagement and work in the market. The Global Citizen Leader has to remain focused on the Triple Bottom Line, by not just planning optimum utilization of resources, but also by being conscious of the fact that he will be able to achieve self-team-organizational goals only by collaborating with the multi-ethnic teams of stakeholders located in different geo-political-cultural arenas across the globe. Some of the corporates they have worked with are McDonald’s, Tata Motors, Mahindra Finance, Shopoholix, Godrej Innovations, Raymond’s, TRRAIN, Maxwell and Hinduja Hospitals apart from startups and government departments. In ELCITA (Electronic City Industry and Transport Authority), Bengaluru, they worked on the traffic front, which is a huge issue in that ecosystem. A few of their recommendations were picked up by the authorities concerned. Internships draw out the best in them. It gives them an insight on how things work.
There are various reports that talk about your participation in different Government, social and corporate projects. In the light of this, take us through some of the intiatives taken by the Institute.
Gone are the days when academia had an exclusively theoretical approach. It has become more experiential now, and another transformational change is that now profits share centre stage with the planet and the people. The social relevance of one’s actions is equally crucial. Business has to be well aligned with national aspirations. Adhering to the same thought process, our students and faculty have been working on various social and civic issues like cleanliness, sanitation, soil health, crime detection, water scarcity, immunization, child mortality, supply chain for farm produce to help farmers and so on. We believe the right education will usher in the needed change. It will first impact the self, then the organization and ultimately the society at large. WeSchool has been consistently involved in several important initiatives such as the fare fixation committee of the Mumbai Metropolitan Development Authority (MMRDA), to come up with an acceptable solution for daily commuters of the Mumbai Metro, and with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM ) for conducting the cleanliness audit of ‘G’ ward, the findings of which were submitted to the MCGM for implementing /improving the levels of cleanliness in other wards. The most recent survey was in collaboration with the National Academy of Customs, Excise & Narcotics (NACEN)-Mumbai and Mumbai Airport Customs, to conduct a survey of ‘passenger satisfaction’ levels of the Customs clearance process at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) in Mumbai.
What are the changes that took place after you took over as the Director in 2000?
◆ In 2007, WeSchool’s initiative to partner with one of the August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 31
Cradle of Leadership
world’s most innovative companies–IDEO, to organize a workshop on Design for Indian corporates became the starting point of initiating the design thinking culture, not only in the management curricula of WeSchool but also in India. We also initiated the PGDM –Business Design program. This two year, full-time, AICTE approved PGDM (Business Design) program attempts to inculcate its learning into ‘future businesses’. ‘Design thinking’ is a unique concept introduced in each of our PGDM programs –Retail, E-biz, Healthcare and Rural Management (Emerging economies), that sets our students on the path of creativity and innovation, as we believe in nurturing thought leaders and practitioners. ◆ In 2008, WeSchool earned the distinction of being the first B-school in the country to have set up INNOWE–the Innovation lab at Mumbai and later Prototype lab at Bengaluru campus, where students from various backgrounds can work and interact with interdisciplinary teams on innovative ideas and assignments that will evolve into prototypes of scalable business plans. We also collaborated with leading institutions such as Stanford D School, IDEO, Rotman School, to create opportunities to learn and be inspired by national and thought leaders from across the world, and business leaders, spiritual leaders, designers, entrepreneurs, start-ups, heads of villages from rural India and persons 32 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
We are working towards inclusive growth through the talent that we groom. Academic excellence is a given. We want to be known as the doers. When our students move into roles where they make a difference to the society and light up lives, we feel happy. That is the manifestation of our excellence. It is already happening. We want the trend to grow further
from various walks of life ◆ In 2011, ‘Mash-Up’, an annual global forum was created at WeSchool to bring together creators of great ideas, entrepreneurs and consultants from across the globe to give a boost to the spirit of entrepreneurship ◆ In 2012, D-MAGICS (Design for Management in Corporates and Society)–an emphatic display of innovative products & services created by our students became a regular platform to showcase business ideas to the society and corporate world. ◆ In 2013, we collaborated with the world renowned Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL), USA, to deliver the Global Citizen Leader programme which focuses on bringing about transformation through innovation, leadership and inclusiveness. ◆ In 2014, MIT Media Lab, USA and WeSchool collaborated to organize the ‘Design Innovation Workshop’. With over 100 prototypes and 380 participants, India’s biggest ‘Design Innovation Workshop’ concluded at WeSchool successfully. ◆ The ‘2014 Interdesign Mumbai’ workshop saw a collaboration of WeSchool with International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), and its experts hailing from over 40 member countries as we discussed, debated and deciphered the issues before any growing metropolis, on the theme, Humanizing a Metropolis ◆ In 2014, we also started the ‘India Sweden Innovation Accelerator’ with Swedish Energy Agency, Business Sweden and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII)–Green Business Centre, with WeSchool and Mälardalen University, (Sweden) as academic partners ◆ In 2014, Maker Space and Venture Mentoring cell was set up, in collaboration with MIT, USA ◆ In 2015, ‘ReDx-Redesigning Diagnostics’ by the Camera Culture Group, MIT Media Lab, USA with IIT-B, Hinduja National Hospital and WeSchool took shape. Affordable healthcare diagnostics will no longer be a distant dream, it will soon be a reality, going by the go-to-market prototypes showcased at the grand finale of ReDx ◆ In 2015, WeSchool collaborated with MIT Media Lab, USA on Kumbhathon started as an initiative to find solutions for Kumbha Mela but became the testing ground for various projects to convert Nasik into a Smart City and align with the national agenda of Digital India. The themes and solutions that have emerged from here as DIGITAL NASIK are to emerge as customer centric business opportunities that will also facilitate governance. ◆ In 2015, WeSchool was awarded with an Autonomous Status for all its University Programs ◆ In 2016, ReDx-Redesigning Diagnostics 2016’–The finale of the second stage of the journey that began with ‘ReDx-Redesigning Diagnostics 2015’ presented by the Camera Culture Group, MIT Media Lab, USA and WeSchool concluded in an ‘Open House’ at WeSchool campus ◆ In July 2016, ‘Med4Dev India-Israel Affordable Healthcare Hackathon’ takes place parallel in 4 locations for 3 days in, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. With WeSchool’s partnership with Tel Aviv University to develop bridges between the Indian and Israeli innovation ecosystems, the Healthcare Hackathon is a step forward in its collaboration with the University’s Pears Program for Global Innovation.
What is your vision for the Institute?
We aim to nurture thought leaders and practitioners who are inspired souls when it comes to taking on challenges anywhere across the globe. They will be ingenious, innovative and conscientious, contributing significantly, not only to the corporate but to the society and nation. Thus we are working towards inclusive growth through the talent that we groom. Academic excellence is a given. We want to be known as the doers. When our students move into roles where they make a difference to the society and light up lives, we feel happy. That is the manifestation of our excellence. It is already happening. We want the trend to grow further. We have been working on initiatives that are well in sync with national aspirations. It feels good to see ourselves fueling the engines of growth and development. Recently, one of our alumni had his start-up on the programming hub, selected by Google. It would be mentored and financed by Google. It was one of six start-ups out of India. Currently, he is working on the same at London. It is our mission to nurture corporate excellence through well trained managerial talent along with being a supporting platform for start-ups and aspiring entrepreneurs. We wish more and more successful ventures roll out of our campuses, more of social innovations come from our fraternity. Our students are already working on some of the grappling issues of the times and are at various stages of completion.
How has the quality of MBA changed over the years?
➊ India Sweden Innovation Accelerator – Working towards green enery solutions with Sweden ➋ International participants at WeSchool for ‘Destination India’ Program
➊
Yes, it has changed in its orientation. It has become more practical and socially relevant. Modern education should play an active role in solving social challenges and nation building. It sounds too academic, but a number of good social breakthroughs and innovations have been coming out of management institutes. With the fast paced technological advances, a new world of opportunities and consequently emerging disciplines have unfolded. This includes e-commerce, data analytics and more. Even traditional areas have to be seen in the perspective of the new ecosystem where technology plays a crucial enabler. Another new trend is of collaborations. And it is logical too…why to reinvent the wheel? Why not pool in our resources and gain out of each other’s strengths? It is good to have the best of the brains working together on issues which need attention on a war footing. Also, there is a huge premium on entrepreneurial ventures which was not the trend few years ago.
Take us through your career.
After acquiring a degree in a mechanical engineering with a management degree in ‘Operations’ and a doctorate in ‘Turnaround Strategies’, I naturally opted for a corporate career. My 17 years of experience in academia coupled with industry experience of over 11 years has helped steer WeSchool to great heights by pioneering unique academic programs, partnerships with universities and organizations across the globe. My areas of interest lay in developing community leadership and bringing about social change using academic leadership, social innovation and entrepreneurship through public and private partnerships. After joining WeSchool as a faculty in 1995, I started benchmarking it with the best of the institutes in management education across the country including IIMs, and soon after I started looking at ASEAN countries, Europe and finally USA. Finally, when I found an opportunity to go to Harvard as a visiting fellow in the doctoral program, I spent time in Wharton, NY Stern and other such institutes. I started wondering if I could create a business school like these in India. I engaged myself in a program on ‘Teacher as a Leader and Leader as a Teacher’, by Prof. Harry Davidson at the University of Chicago. That was the turning point for me. It taught me that if a teacher has to be a leader then he has to play multiple roles. He cannot be just a teacher, he needs to be different when he is with colleagues and he has to be different on campus with alumni. It is so important to be able to play these different roles. In March 2000, when I took over as Director of Welingkar, the blueprint of the expansion plan was always there in my mind, thanks to these global exposures. I was very clear that instead of waiting for Welingkar to create a future for me, I must create a future for Welingkar.
Lastly, what is your philosophy in life?
➋
Education can play a significant role in designing the future of our society and nation. Be the change you want to be. Hard work, discipline, work ethics and focus are the wonder elements that pave the road that leads to success. Failures should not deter your ambition. I strongly believe that an interdisciplinary approach is far more effective as it brings the best of minds to the table. Follow your instincts, but have discretion, and a fair judgment of your potential, which in turn would help you turn your dreams to reality. Mahalakshmi.H@corporatecitizen.in August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 33
Cover Story Dynamic Duo: 35
Sheela and Kochouseph Chittilappilly
The power of goodness From voltage stabilisers to pumps, motors, water heaters, amusement parks and resorts to garments and lingerie, organ donation to writing and painting, even standing up for human rights over those of stray canine, Kochouseph Chittilappilly, founder of the V-Guard empire and wife Sheela, creator of the V-Star line have given wings to businesses and inclinations, turning them into worthwhile pursuits. At the heart of these ventures is a man who wanted to earn a four-figure income every month, and a woman who didn’t want to sit idle. Corporate Citizen checks out what makes this couple tick
Most of V-Star’s units are run by nuns, inside the convents, who work to provide employment to jobless women in remote areas. Because of this, there is no political interference, and production is no problem
T
34 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
By Sekhar Seshan
he Kochi-based V-Guard group has grown in a little under four decades to an almost ₹2,000-crore giant. When Kochouseph Thomas Chittilappilly set up his small company in 1977 to manufacture voltage stabilisers – the first of which he carried on his scooter to deliver to the buyer - he hardly dreamt that it would grow over the years to encompass a diversified product range that includes pumps and motors, electric and solar water heaters, wiring cables, uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems and ceiling fans – as well as amusement parks and a resort! But business boomed, and V-Guard is today the largest-selling stabiliser brand in India, with more than 500 distributors, 3,000 dealers, 20,000 retailers and a network of service centres across India. This infrastructure also looks after the sales and service of the pumps, water heaters – both electric and solar – and electrical cables, for which there is a plant at Coimbatore, just across the border in
Tamil Nadu. The company has a market share of 20 percent in the Indian UPS segment, 15 per cent in pumps, 12 percent in water heaters and 7 per cent in cables.
Steady power to heady rides
Chittilappilly’s first amusement park in Kochi, Veegaland, has in less than two decades metamorphosed into the ₹181.87 crore Wonderla Holidays Ltd, which is one of the largest operators of amusement parks in India. In March 2012, it also set up a resort adjacent to its Bengaluru amusement park, under the brand name ‘Wonderla Resort’. Wonderla’s amusement parks offer a wide range of water and land based attractions catering to all age groups, with dozens of water-based and landbased attractions at its three parks. Today, the founder has taken a backseat from the business, which his two sons look after, and is more of a writer, philanthropist and humanist. Elder son Arun runs the group’s
August August 1-15, 1-15, 2016 2016 // Corporate Corporate Citizen Citizen // 35 35
Cover Story amusement park and resort business, Wonderla, while his brother Mithun is the incumbent Managing Director of the parent company, V-Guard. His wife Sheela, after being a quiet housewife and mother for two decades, got into business, too – but she set up on her own rather than joining Chittilappilly’s V-Guard Industries. Her V-Star Creations makes innerwear for both men and women. Amusement parks were a totally unrelated diversification for the electronics manufacturer, who decided in 1997 to launch his dream project “to create a monument of my own” as he writes in his book Practical Wisdom. “I would like to be remembered by the coming generations as a man who always thought differently,” he says. And he did think differently: for the first amusement park in Kochi, he didn’t take on an established designer who had specialised in such projects, even though he was investing `42 crore in it – instead, he hired an unknown young mechanical engineer, Joseph John, to design and build it. “I took him to see some amusement parks around the world to get an idea of what we wanted to set up,” he says. “But our maiden Veega Land (its original name, which he has retained for the real estate development company of the group, Veegaland Developers) project, laid out on a 10-hectare property, is the best in every respect: quality, architectural beauty and landscaping, as well as cleanliness and service!” Not surprisingly, he has retained the services of Joseph John for both the subsequent Wonderla parks, in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Man of many parts
While the founder Chairman and Managing Director of V-Guard is a recipient of the Rashtriya Samman award from the Government of India for
When his factories were shut down due to a workers’ strike, Chittilappilly introduced a new business model of total product outsourcing, coupled with in-house quality control
being among the highest tax-payers, he was also adjudged the Millennium Businessman of Kerala, Tourism Man of the Year and TMA Manager of the Year in 2000, and the ATTOI Tourism Man of the Year and Newsmaker of the Year awards from leading Malayalam newspaper Malayala Manorama, in 2011. In addition, he has founded the K. Chittilappilly Foundation, a non-profit organisation to engaged in charitable and philanthropic activities, and is the Chairman of the Stray Dog Free movement, under which banner he has criticised legislation forbidding the killing of stray dogs and advocated government action to address the ‘menace’ in his home state of Kerala. He became an author, too: after his first book, Practical Wisdom in 2005, which is an account of practical management techniques he has derived from his personal experiences, he went on to make it a trilogy with Practical Wisdom 1: In Real Life and Management in2010 and Practical Wisdom 2: In Real Life and Management two years later. In between, he published his autobiography in Malayalam, Ormakkilivathil (Down Memory Lane) in 2011 which had the foreword written by the renowned Malayalam writer, T. Padmanabhan. Kochouseph Chittilappilly, born at Parappur in Thrissur in 1950, had his early schooling at the local church school, then graduated from Christ College, Irinjalakuda and earned a Masters degree in Physics from St. Thomas College, Thrissur. In 1973, he got his first – and only – job, as a supervisor at Telics, a Thiruvananthapuram-based electronics company manufacturing voltage stabilisers and emergency lamps. The company was not doing well. “My future was doubtful,” he says. So, four years later, he set up V-Guard Industries at Thrissur, with a capital of ₹ one lakh which he borrowed from his agriculturist father. “When my longing to become a scientist couldn’t find a way forward, at the age of 27 the industrialist in me took shape,” he says in a Facebook post. “My ambition was to earn ₹1,000 a month instead of the ₹800 I was getting as salary at my job,” he explains. But that modest ambition grew with the company, which went from its initial two employees to 700 people in 30 years. “In the very first year, we tripled production from hardly 50 stabilisers a month to 150,” he recalls. “We made steady progress, spreading out from central Kerala to the entire state, then expanded our marketing network into the neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. From stabilisers for refrigerators, we began making them for air-conditioners and television sets, too.” Labour problems in his home state in the 1980s prompted a movement in production that followed his marketing, to a chain of small units all over the southern states. When his factories were shut down due to a workers’ strike, Chittilappilly introduced a new business model of total product outsourcing, coupled with in-house quality control.
Using time and talent
Sheela Chittilappilly, for her part, decided after her two sons were grown up and studying in the tenth and eighth standards, that she “shouldn’t waste my time in the kitchen” but do something useful. “One of my biggest qualities is that I am a woman who wants to work hard – I was the 11th child and lost my father when I was 15, so I matured very early and learned to take on responsibilities – I had to go on my own for my college admission,” she says. “Then I took on the responsibility of supporting myself and my mother at a young age.” Sheela believes strongly that every woman should have her own income. “That gives freedom, decision making ability and respect,” she explains. “Women’s empowerment can come only from economic freedom. I have seen the problems that my mother faced after my father died, and I didn’t want to be like that – depending on someone for everything.” So as soon as her sons were ready to fly on their own, Sheela didn’t want to waste time – even though she didn’t need to do anything because she already had a house, a car and all the comforts anyone can want. “My husband also supported me, despite knowing the challenges I would have to face,” she adds. She began by working in her husband’s business – but “electronics was Greek to me!” she laughs. 36 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Thomas Chittilappilly Trust, a charitable venture named after his father, runs two institutions—an old age home where elderly people are housed and provided with sustenance and medical care, and Shantimandiram, a home for destitute children where they are provided with shelter, education and food
Being a home science graduate, she enrolled for and completed a oneyear certificate course in garment making and embroidery, and launched her own company in 1995 to make a range of branded salwar-kameez sets. “I also had experience of stitching clothes for myself as well as my cousins and nieces,” she points out. “I have been very creative since I was a girl, I used to make my own dolls – and I stitched my own skirt and blouse when I was in the seventh standard. I also learnt about fabrics and their quality, because my father had a shop selling textiles. And there was a tailor there, so I got the basics of stitching from him.”
New niche line
Her business grew, and in 2002 she expanded – not outward, but inward into lingerie, beginning with brassieres. “There were many teething problems – but ultimately, the shopkeepers were very happy with our dealing, unlike others who often delayed supplies. So penetrating the market was easy, even though we introduced it at a premium price; and our product was welcomed by the women for whom it was meant – after all, I am a woman and can do my own R&D! People also had great trust in our brand, for both quality and the fact that when we say ‘100 percent cotton’ that is what they get.” This ensured a good market for panties, which she launched in 2005; and Vanessa became the largest selling brand in Kerala. This success prompted a move into men’s innerwear in 2008, under the brand name Valera – but it was this very factor that made the going tough for the new product. While there is a lot of competition from national and international brands, the fact that V-Star had the tag of being a “women’s brand” put off many men. But she persisted, and won through. She however got out of the first business, of outerwear. “It is a good market, though there was a lot of competition from Mumbai,” she explains. “But
I found it very difficult to get skilled workers here for hand embroidery and such work – I had to bring them from Mumbai, which was very expensive, and I couldn’t compete. An additional problem I discovered was women in different parts of the state want different styles: Kozhikode, Kottayam, Kochi – all want variations of colours and sleeve lengths, from sleeveless to full sleeves. It wasn’t worth it to make so many different versions of the same design!” But she has got into printed leggings and T-shirts for women, as well as polo shirts, track pants and T-shirts for men. The bra business continues to be the biggie: Vanessa now has three exclusive outlets which opened in Kochi last year. There is also one in Thissur. Similar stores are coming up in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode. “Having our own showrooms boosts the visibility of our brand,” Sheela says. “We have 85 types of bras, but any normal dealer stocks only a maximum of 20 of these – usually, they have only about five. In our shop, we obviously keep all 85. We also export 15-20 percent of our production to Gulf markets, mainly for Malayali customers who have had exposure to our brand. We also started marketing in Tamil Nadu and Kerala two years ago.” “We have 17 manufacturing units in Kerala, with 50 to 60 women and girls working in each,” she explains. “That’s a total of about 1,000 female employees. Most of our units are run by nuns, inside the convents, who work to provide employment to jobless women in remote areas. Because of this, there is no political interference, and production is no problem. If not for this, it would be very difficult to run the operation, because no Malayali wants to go far from his or her home. Otherwise, all the tailors are from Bihar or Kolkata. We also have a good design centre in Tiruppur, where we do part of our production of the men’s innerwear and other knitted garments, too.” With all four members of the family handling four divergent businesses – Chittilappilly himself now concentrates on Veegaland Developers – Sheela says she needed to grow very aggressively. “My competition is not only from other brands, but at home where we meet every evening!” she grins. She had set herself a target of ₹100 crore for this year, but V-Star Creations will achieve only 90 percent of this as the market is rather dull thanks to the depression in the prices of rubber, which is Kerala’s main cash crop. “But we have still grown 30 percent: that is very good!” she adds on a positive note.
Yearn to learn
Even when she is not working, she never sits idle: “I want to learn and do so many things!” she says. “I begin my day with one hour of exercise every morning. This gives me a lot of energy at my age: I am 62 years old. Then I make the coffee and do the cooking, so we don’t keep a full-time servant in the house. My exercise, housework and business keep me so energised that I never get tired. So I don’t lie down in the afternoon, but do some painting.” Her informal ‘studio’, filled with finished and work-in-progress canvases, an easel and paint, is on the landing at the top of the staircase in their large bungalow, Chittilappilly House. “I was a sports girl – I played hockey for my University,” she explains. “I was busy looking after my family till 2000, but August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 37
Cover Story now I live as I did 30 years ago.” Except, she adds, that 30 years ago she couldn’t have talked so confidently to strangers, or given an interview to the media. “A routine like mine helps self-development, personality improvement and confidence. And, of course, economic independence is very important, too.” While Sheela continued to blossom and grow as a home-maker, businessperson and artist, her husband’s business kept growing, too. “Though we have introduced eight or nine different products, voltage stabilisers are still the main one, accounting for 20-22 percent of V-Guard’s turnover,” Chittilappilly says. “The Indian reality is that power fluctuations are so high that people still don’t want to take a chance on their expensive equipment getting damaged. But the growth level is not so high, the turnover has increased by only about 10 per cent.”
Another new venture
Having “slowly withdrawn from the mainstream business” and handed over the reins of his two entrepreneurial babies to his sons Arun and Mithun, Kochouseph Chittilappilly is now what he calls a “back-seat observer”. He obviously got bored with this comparative inactivity – in 2013, he set up Veegaland Developers as another unrelated diversification. “I look after it,” he says. “We have two or three projects in and around Kochi, building 180 residential apartments as well as 11 premium apartments of 8,500 sq ft each, covering an entire floor of the building – which will have a rooftop swimming pool, health club and Jacuzzi, all covered.” How does he think things have changed under the new governments in the state and at the centre, with the latter’s accent on making things easier for entrepreneurs to start up their own businesses? “Things are different from the earlier days, when private entrepreneurship and making profits were considered dirty,” he says. “There are so many successful examples today.” On the other hand, he says he has always believed that it is up to every entrepreneur to struggle for himself or herself and not look for government support: “Spoon feeding will only make you a spoilt child!” he laughs. His wife, however, does not share his positive view of the present situation: “We have heard these things many times. The question is, how far will they materialise?” she feels. “The biggest problem in Kerala is infrastructure. That needs a lot of improvement – look at our roads, for example: one rain, and everything goes away, like chapatti atta! There are no footpaths for pedestrians; and our cities are full of garbage...” Side by side with his business, Chittilappilly has kept up a stream of philanthropic and humanitarian activities, setting up the eponymous K. Chittilappilly Foundation in Kochi to take care of not only his work in various fields in India, but also to oversee the activities of Thomas Chittilappilly Trust, another charitable venture which is named after his father. This runs two institutions - an old age home where elderly people are housed and provided with sustenance and medical care, and Shantimandiram, a home for destitute children where they are provided with shelter, education and food. The institutions are managed by the Sisters of Nirmala Province, a provincialate of Catholic nuns located at Kolazhy in his home town Thrissur.
had to donate an organ himself or herself. Chittilappilly led from the front, becoming the first depositor with the Kidney Federation of India (KFI), and is now closely associated with the movement. The man himself is quite blase about all this. “What inspired me was a book by Sarat Chandra, which dealt with kidney transplant,” he says modestly. “A distant relative - my daughter-in-law Priya’s mother - had a kidney problem, and I had watched what happened from a distance: the struggle, the agents, the money being spent, and so on. I had never thought of my kidneys till then, but I got involved. I started joking with my family members about why I couldn’t donate a kidney, I was still a healthy person. Then my own experience as a donor, my thoughts about why and how I did it, and the reaction from my own family and the public at large...” Another inspiration was the example of Father Davis Chiramel, parish priest at the St Francis Xavier Church in a village near Chittilappilly’s home town Thrissur, who donated his kidney to a non-Christian who needed one desperately. He didn’t give a thought to the fact that, at age 59, he was 11 years older than the priest. He got himself checked medically, and found that he was in good health – a precondition for a donor. He went to meet Fr Davis, who told him about the 49-year-old truck driver, Joy Ulahannan. Another check showed that he was a good match – and the rest is, as they say, history. His wife was, of course, against the operation: “I was scared!” she says in retrospect. “Actually, his sisters and other family members were even more concerned than I was. But he is very adamant and strong, he won’t listen to anyone once he has made a decision.” But that, she adds, is the essence of a successful marriage: “You must never try to change the other person, because you can’t do it. A good relationship is all about adjustment and sharing.”
You must never try to change the other person, because you can’t do it. A good relationship is all about adjustment and sharing
Promoting organ donation
The Foundation has also instituted an organ donation award to recognise people who come forward to donate their organs and to promote organ donation. It also offers awards for families which donate the organs of their brain-dead relatives. The awards, ranging from ₹one lakh to ₹five lakh, total ₹37 lakh every year. Chittilappilly himself donated one of his kidneys in 2011, to a truck driver who was a total stranger. He started an organ donor chain, where one of the family members of the recipient 38 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
The three generations
Personal philosophies
Their personal philosophies of life and living do not exactly match, but they don’t differ too much, either. “Live happily, doing the best you can for your fellow passengers in this world,” Sheela says. “Be positive – because everything is possible, there is nothing that you cannot do.” Her husband, for his part, believes similarly that “human beings have a lot of talent and ability”, which they only need to develop. “It is up to you to decide for yourself up to what level you want to grow,” he adds. “There is no meaning in blaming others or complaining.” Chittilappilly is happy with the effect his organ donation movement has had so far. “Awareness has increased manifold in Kerala,” he points out. “Earlier, even close relatives were hesitant to donate organs to family members who desperately needed a transplant. Actually, many people – even educated people – don’t know today, too.” Beyond his home state, awareness has surely grown since October 2015, when Reader’s Digest magazine carried a lead story headlined The Priest and the Industrialist, detailing what Fr Davis and Chittilappilly have done.
Human safety over stray dog rights
Stray dogs are a problem everyone has faced, and controlling them has always been a vexed problem with some people wanting them exterminated and others advocating a humane approach like vaccinating and neutering them. Chittilappilly is the chairman of the Stray Dog Free movement, which advocates strong action, including the amendment of legislation forbidding the killing of these dogs. The movement has pointed to the danger of rabies. Chittilappilly has staged hunger strikes to protest this legislation, and what he says is the government’s failure to address the issue. “The government’s actions amount to valuing stray dogs over human lives and property,” he says. He has encouraged citizens to not only bring pressure on the government to amend these laws, but even to kill stray dogs themselves despite the ensuing fine. Setting an example himself, he has been arrested under laws preventing cruelty to animals after tying four stray dogs in front of a police station. The movement favours government plans to cull stray dogs, which prompted an international campaign to “Boycott Kerala Tourism”. With members and opponents of the Stray Dog Free movement arguing and making allegations against one another, the issue continues to hang fire. In one of his regular Facebook posts, Chittilappilly has “a humble note to the dog lovers who are pained by my fb posts on stray dogs...” Clarifying that
For a good cause
We read news about domestic animals bitten to death by stray dogs on a daily basis. I wonder why animal lovers don’t care about their welfare as well he personally has nothing against dogs, he says: “My first preference goes to the safety and wellbeing of my fellow human beings. That’s because I’ve seen in person as well as through media some of the most gruesome incidents narrated by victims of dog attacks.” According to the available data on the net, he points out to his detractors, more than 27,800 people had sought treatment for dog bite in various government hospitals in Kerala alone in 2013 and `10 crore had been spent on treatment. Eleven had died. At another forum, he quoted World Health Organisation statistics that 55,000 people die around the world every year owing to rabies. “Asian and African countries top the list and a good number of victims are from India, especially children,” he said. “Children, women, two-wheeler commuters, etc. are constantly attacked by stray dogs. We read news about domestic animals bitten to death by stray dogs on a daily basis. I wonder why animal lovers don’t care about their welfare as well. Officials with the Kochi Corporation admit that they receive over 100 complaints related to stray dog menace on a daily basis... Therefore, let me reiterate, I choose to love human beings more than stray dogs.”
Die in dignity
Going nostalgic
He also feels very strongly about ‘leaving the world with dignity’. In another post, he says: “When death is imminent and obvious in case of terminal illness or failure of your body systems, I feel it is a forced cruelty to prolong life through artificial methods like ventilators, painful surgeries, bringing along with it financial and emotional burden to your near and dear. Hence I have approached the judiciary for legal sanction for a natural death.” Back at business, Chittilappilly exhibited his concern for the environment when he asked the architects building V-Guard’s new corporate office to use every possible method of minimising any damaging impact on the earth. “We now have the finest cross-ventilation, solar power, water treatment and more,” he says proudly of the new 12-storeyed structure which was designed with the prime objective of creating an environment–friendly building, using green building principles from concept to commissioning. And so the V-Guard empire, created by a man who wanted to earn a fourfigure income every month, and the V-Star business, started by a woman who doesn’t want to ever sit idle, march on shoulder to shoulder, just as their founders do. sekharseshan@gmail.com August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 39
The Tax Man Cometh-14
Be the change
by S K Jha
(IRS (retd) and former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax)
Let we Indians build a new and powerful India with scientific research and innovations. Innovations create a dividing line between rich and poor nation. Income Tax Act provides incentives for research but in many cases, the provisions are misused for personnel gain
Unlike the regular tax desk which is manned by a tax officer whose job is to levy tax on you, this desk is manned by a non-serving tax officer who wishes to share his experience of 35 years in the tax department, while, discussing tax provisions. It is advantageous to know how the tax department thinks and acts when, as said by Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing is certain except death and taxes”
C
hange is one of man’s most mysterious creations. The factors that operate to cause it came into play when man produced his first tool. With it he changed the world forever to make tomorrow better than today. Steve Jobs once said, “Innovations distinguished between a leader and a follower,” The saying of Steve Jobs is also true for nations being categorised as developed or poor country. It was innovation which brought about industrial revolution in the 18th century in today’s developed countries, which changed the lives of their people and added to their income. Industrial revolution is the name given to the movement in which machines changed the people’s way of life as well as their methods of manufacture, and enriched a part of the world. India was a British Colony and was not a part of the movement. India became independent in 1947, but she was born a poor nation and one major cause was non industrialisation. One of the solutions to resolve this problem was scientific research, and innovations followed by industrialisation. But this required substantial resources which the state alone could not have provided. The private sector had to be made stake holder, and for this the Income Tax Act was used as a tool to give incentives through tax rebates for scientific research.
Tax rebate to fund research
Section 35 of the Income Tax Act, through its sub-sections, provides a detailed scheme for seeking tax benefit on expenditure incurred by a tax payer on scientific research either directly, or indirectly by contributing to approved scientific entities, universities or science institutes. Contribution to scientific research through an approved 40 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
body will entitle the tax payer to claim deduction of 100 percent to 175 percent of the contribution, depending on the facts and sub sections of section 35 of the Act which apply. The tax payer can claim deduction even on capital expenditure incurred by him to acquire assets for scientific research connected to his business except for expenditure on land. The Finance Act 2016 has brought some amendments applicable from April 1, 2018, where deductions in specified cases have been brought down to 100 percent. The income of the approved research association will be exempt from Tax U/S 10 (21) of the Act subject to some conditions if the income is applied by the approved association on scientific research. In a nutshell, the Income Tax Act which is perceived as legislation for collecting tax goes a step forward to promote scientific research in the country and in the process loses some tax revenue. The tax rebate is an incentive given to the private sector to be a partner in fuel-
ling research and innovation and raise our country to the status of a developing country. It is desirable to have a status check on this issue. As per the report given in the Parliament by the government, the loss of tax revenue due to provision u/s 35 for promoting scientific research in FY 2010-11 was ₹4,685 crore. However, we did not see much by way of significant innovation that could help the economy. The number of research papers brought out in 2013 in our country was 90,000 as against 3,10,000 published research papers in China that year. India has only 2,00,000 full time researchers which comes to four researchers per 10,000 labour force as against 18 researchers per 10,000 labour force in China, and seven researchers per 10,000 labour force in Brazil. Investment in the country’s research and development is 0.88 percent of GDP of which 0.65 percent is contributed by the public sector. While investment by the public sector is compa-
rable with such investment in other developing countries, the 0.23 percent of GDP investment by the private sector in R & D is much too low when our country gives one of the highest tax rebates on R & D in the world. This is a matter of grave concern for us.
See how they go!
Next, in the process of this status check-up, I give some instances of how donations, resulting in weighted deduction for donors, travel on the ground. In one case that was investigated, it was found that a well known company in Maharashtra had given a huge donation of ₹10 crore about 15 years back to an association connected with the promoters of the donor company. The donee was supposed to construct a research laboratory equipped with modern apparatus. The donee invested the donation money in buying land but there was no activity or even an indication for doing any research. Meanwhile, the donor had claimed weighted deduction against the donation given in the year of donation against its income and reduced its tax liability considerably. A significant amount of tax revenue was lost, but there was no scientific research. This matter was under wraps for more than five years until a whistle blower made a complaint and the matter got investigated. The authority who had certified and approved the donee association for doing scientific research was raided for corruption. The donor company accepted its mistake and paid tax and penalty. Another case pertained to a leading hospital of the country. The facts were indeed startling. The hospital was run by a public charitable trust. Because of its well-known stature, the hospital got big donations from leading companies to build a medical research centre. Indeed, construction work was undertaken using the donation money, but it was not for the medical research centre, but for an annex of the hospital. The new construction was designed as a hospital, and instead of installing any research equipment, the rooms were furnished with beds for patients coming for treatment. The hospital Trust was asked to explain, as the donation money had gone to add to the capacity of the existing hospital and not for research. I was myself making the enquiry and took a physical round of the alleged medical research centre and found that there was no laboratory for research or library, no topics taken for research. The only answer given was that the treatment of patients could be considered as a process of research, as medical data could be used for scientists or researchers. The hospital Trust failed to give any evidence of research. A hospital is meant for treatment, and patients are not guinea pigs. Suitable action as per provisions of the Income Tax Act was taken against the Trust.
Laundry, not Lab
In yet another case, the department found, on analysis of Income Tax Returns of some leading companies of the country, a common feature in their returns. They all had claimed weighted deduction against donations made for scientific research, but the donee was the same. The department conducted a search against the approved scientific association as it was felt there was too much of a coincidence. The hunch of the department was proved correct. The association was not doing any research. The only activity of the association was book keeping and money laundering. The donee association used to return the cash to the promoters of the donor companies after deducting commission against the donation received
is the application of scientific knowledge. We need science to ensure food security, to create better irrigation facility, for disaster warning, for industrial growth and for advancement in many such areas. Our population is increasing and we require more energy, more manufacturing activity with the latest technical knowhow, and more alternate sources of energy like solar energy. We are constrained to depend upon imported know how which may not be very suitable for us as we require technology which should be labour intensive and not cost intensive. On introspection, we find that we Indians are very intelligent and hard working. Our people are at the helm of top companies of the world and are part of top precision research at NASA and other leading research institutes. But in our country, we have not done very well except in some patches like in the service industry and in the field of space research. We remain the biggest importers of arms and we cannot manufacture good quality guns. The incentive provided in the Income Tax Act has not really attracted much research, and as seen, such provisions have also been misused.
‘While investment by the public sector is comparable with such investment in other developing countries, the 0.23 percent of GDP investment by the private sector in R & D is much too low when our country gives one of the highest tax rebates on R & D in the world’ by them by cheque for scientific research. The donor companies benefited as their tax liability got reduced by the weighted deduction against the bogus donation, while the promoters of those companies got windfall profit which remained their concealed income. Everybody benefited at the cost of scientific research and tax revenue. The donors accepted their willful design and paid tax and penalty. These are some bad instances, but we also have good people in the society. It is the intention that matters, and there is nothing wrong in the provision of the law giving incentives in the form of tax rebate. One good example is that of a research centre at Phaltan in Satara district of Maharashtra. The main person behind the research is an alumni of IIT Kanpur who later did his doctorate from a leading university in the United States. He could have been gainfully employed in some blue chip company in the US, but he came back and settled in a village doing research in alternate sources of energy. His wife is also engaged full time in the activities of this charitable trust. His work has been nationally and internationally appreciated. His Trust gets donations for scientific research which goes entirely for research.
Science & technology are essential
Science and technology are essential for the growth and security of the nation. Development at any phase is always linked with technology, and technology happens when there is advancement in science. Hence science, technology and development are dependent on each other. Basically, science is the study of knowledge and technology
The right way forward
What should we do? First and foremost, we have to improve the quality of education, particularly science education. Our universities should give more emphasis to research and our examination system should be changed to award marks for innovative creativity rather than for the capacity to mug. The recent mission of the government of India, ‘Start-ups India, Stand up India’ is in the right direction. Youngsters are encouraged to be innovative and to monetize new ideas by becoming entrepreneurs. During the first three years of the start-up there will be no income tax, no capital gains tax. A government of India corpus will provide seed money. Angel investors will be encouraged. As Peter Drucker said, “If you want something new you have to stop doing something old”. Let we Indians build a new India with innovation.
CC
tadka IIP for May surprises at 1.2%, CPI for June flat at 5.77% The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for May surprised on the upside coming in at 1.2 percent against a decline of -0.8 percent in April. This figure is the best figure since February 2016. Out of the last six months, four months have seen a contraction. Consumer nondurables have been declining for the seventh consecutive month.
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 41
corporate life G Udayakumar
CEO, CORE MIND
Own up Roles! The joy of learning, growing, helping others grow and ultimately contributing to the organisation that you work for-engages you, transforms you, grows you and adds self-esteem. You would realise that by taking on true ownership, you provide scope to assimilate joy at work–so why wait further? Embrace ownership, as a companion at work and thereby for life!
O
ne of the banes and therefore challenges that I encounter in my work, are employees lacking ownership of work roles. When disinterest, indifference, frustration, de-motivation and apathy prevails, resultant outcomes aren’t healthy for the individuals, teams, organisations and also in the larger sense, for other stakeholders, including ultimate service recipients and customers. Quite ironically, in my experience such employees exist at all levels, in most organisations that I’ve collaborated. Interesting pattern is, none of them wishes to acknowledge that the problem lies at their doorstep. Therefore instead of moving into externalisation and blame framing others— which happen to be a favourite pastime—take the bull by the horns by internalisation. While several studies—including the one done by Gallup—pins down the responsibilities on immediate superiors for creating a working culture of ownership, amongst those who report to them (I do by and large subscribe to this evidence).
I for one would also like to take a different stance out here-to turn it around the head and raise pertinent questions to the “Employee, In You!” Here is a sample set of questions: l How much are you in love with the role/profile? l What do you love about the job? l Are there aspects at work that you relish? l What are determinants at work that give you fulfillment? l Do you have clarity of purpose of your role? l Are you connected with the mission of the company? l Are you aware of the contributions that you are making to larger goals of the organisation? l Do you derive pride in what you do? l What value have you added to yourself and 42 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
others at work, in recent months? l What is that you have significantly learned on the job, in recent months? l How passionate are you about all features of the job, including the routine tasks? l How do you self-recognize yourself, for accomplishments? If in all authenticity, you are able to reflect and provide responses to the above questions that satisfy your conscience, then obviously you are on an ideal wicket. If not, you ought to amend your story, going forward. More the gap between current reality and desired levels, with respect to any or all of the above questions, it would clearly indicate how much distant are you from ownership in practice and what is the extra mile, that you need to travel. Here are a few worthy recommendations that you may wish to consider, to enhance ownership at work: l Be fully involved and focused in everything that you do l Observe role models and emulate l Experiment pilot initiatives and build on the tempo and success l Proactively take on additional responsibilities voluntarily and not only when they are assigned to you l Convert half opportunities into full, for growth to happen on the fly l Upgrade competences by learning the craft for tomorrow and today l Generate as many learning and teaching moments l Mentor and coach others informally, even though you may not be in formal or designated roles, to do so l Connect all that you do to the big picture and derive meaning
When disinterest, indifference, frustration, demotivation and apathy prevails-resultant outcomes aren’t healthy for the individuals, teams, organisations and also in the larger sense, for other stakeholders, including ultimate service recipients and customers Set up learning sessions with those who are more proficient than you l Resolve problems which go beyond the scope of the allocated role, to evolve l Claim your share of responsibility of failures and setbacks of peers and juniors and offer help l Welcome feedback from seniors, peers and juniors constantly and act on it l Lighten your senior’s load l Radiate love and passion, in every facet of the job and role Well, the joy of learning, growing, helping others grow and ultimately contributing to the organisation that you work for—engages you, transforms you, grows you and adds selfesteem. You would realise that by taking on true ownership, you provide scope to assimilate joy at work–so why wait further? Embrace ownership, as a companion at work and thereby for life. Happy Role Taking and Happy Working! l
(G Udayakumar [CEO, CORE MIND] is a Management Consultant, Corporate Trainer and Leadership Coach, based at Chennai. He can be reached at: coremind@eth.net)
CC
tadka
Rise of unlicensed software in India In India, computer users are using unlicensed software at an alarming rate, despite the link between unlicensed software and cyber attacks. As per a survey by the Global Software Survey from BSA - The Software Alliance called ‘Seizing Opportunity through License Compliance’, found that in India, 58 percent of software installed on computers was not properly licensed which represents a two-point decrease compared with BSA’s prior study.
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 43
cii Case Study-8
YES TO HUMAN CAPITAL OPTIMIZATION AND ENGAGEMENT FOR ACHIEVING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE BY Dr Reshmi Manna & Dr Shalini Khandelwal
CII - Western Region 2nd EdgeFarm HR Case Study Writing Competition Finalists secondary category
Dr. Reshmi Manna
Dr. Reshmi Manna, Faculty of IBS-Gurgaon, Six Sigma Black Belt from Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi and SFR Fellow of QIP and CEP Department, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India. She obtained her Ph.D. on Developmental Psychology, Calcutta University, Kolkata, India. She has academician experience of 10 years and 2 years of corporate experience in the domain of human resource management operation. Actively involved in research on behavioural science, human resource management, business strategy, operation and quality analysis. Present research interest includes competence mapping, consumer behaviour, entrepreneurship and business analytic.
Dr. Shalini Khandelwal
Dr. Shalini Khandelwal is currently Associate Dean (Research), Area Head - HRM & OB and Faculty Member at IBS Gurgaon. She is the Managing Editor of IBS Gurgaon quarterly newsletter ‘Samvaad’. She has 19 years of experience including industry, research and academics. Prior to IBS Gurgaon, she has worked with Rexcel Pharmaceuticals, Mumbai and Apeejay School of Management, Dwarka. Her area of specialization is Organizational Behavior and Strategic Human Resource Management. She was awarded doctoral degree from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV), Indore in 2003. She is Gold Medalist in MBA and College Topper in graduation from DAVV, Indore. She has authored a derivative book on Knowledge Management. She has presented research papers at many national and international conferences and published 16 research papers and 7 case studies. She has conducted Management Development Programs for senior managers of Moser Baer, Food Corporation of India, RIICO, Rajasthan Financial Corporation, and State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur. She has conducted Faculty Development Programs for the faculty members of reputed colleges of Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi.
Corporate Citizen, the Exclusive Magazine Partner of the event, will publish the series of top Case Studies, one by one 44 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
cii Case Study-8
“We believe that high quality Human Capital is the biggest asset in an organization and have been focused on attracting and retaining the best talent from India and abroad. We believe that best performance can only be achieved through empowered employees and therefore, we offer all Yes Bankers an opportunity to work in a growth environment with a young work force.”
- Rana Kapoor, CEO and Managing Director, Yes Bank, 2007
1.INTRODUCTION Yes Bank was founded by Mr. Rana Kapoor in 2003 to establish a high quality, customer centric, service driven, private Indian Bank catering to the future businesses of India. Yes Bank was recognized amongst the top and fastest growing banks in various Indian Banking League Tables by prestigious media houses and Global Advisory Firms. The bank was steadily evolving as the Professionals’ Bank of India and was the only Indian bank to be awarded Greenfield Bank license by RBI. The bank had received several national and international honours for its various businesses including Corporate Investment Banking, Treasury, Transaction Banking, and Sustainable practices through Responsible Banking. The foundation of Yes Bank strategy lied in its name “YES”, which underlined the twin ethos of service and trust. Bank had promised to deliver a truly delightful and unprecedented banking experience to all customers to become the best quality bank of the world in India. To achieve its objectives, bank had leveraged on human capital engagement practices, innovative management framework and cutting edge technology to create distinctive, consistent work culture and delightful customer experience across all Indian branches. Bank’s first tenet was to emphasize care, empathy and sensitivity towards employees. Second tenet was to implement robust owner-manager-partner approach, so that employees would be vested with authority to work towards organizational goals by improving the level of customer satisfaction. The bank believed in the philosophy of providing insightful knowledge banking solutions to nascent sectors of Indian economy and was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades in the last 10 years. The bank was adjudged “Strongest Bank in India by Balance Sheet 2015” by The Asian Banker Magazine, Singapore. That was the 3rd time in the last 4 years that Yes Bank had received that recognition. It has received “Global Performance Excellence Award 2014” for its services by Asia Pacific Quality Organization (APQO) in Chicago, USA; ‘Account Growth Rate – Rising Depository’ Best Performer at NSDL Star Performers (2014); India’s best managed bank (2011-2013) by Asian Banker Magazine, Singapore; Golden Peacock Award for Sustainability – 2012; Environment Management – 2014; Best Midsized Bank for 2013, 2012, 2010, 2009 & 2008 by Business Today (KPMG’s Best Banks Annual Survey); RBNQ Business Excellence Awards 2013 by IMC (Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Awards); Rank 1 Sustainable Bank of the Year (Asia/Pacific) in FT/IFC Sustainable Finance Awards (2012, 2011); Emerging Companies Excellence Awards (Nov-7, 2014) and was conferred with The OKOVISION Sustainability Leadership Award by ÖKOWORLD LUX S.A. YES BANK’s Founder, MD & CEO- Rana Kapoor received The Best BANKER award at 4th Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Awards 2013 and Asian Banker CEO Leadership Award 2013 . The bank had started its operations with just 250 employees and two branches in 2004. As of October 2007, it was operating with 60 branches and 3,263 employees. By September 30, 2015, total headcount stood
at 12,700 with increase of 3,088 employees over September 30, 2014. By the end of FY 2015-2016 the human capital strength of bank had crossed the significant milestone of 15,000. Banks belonged to service industry, where talent maintenance and development had been the key to competitive advantage. Since inception, Yes Bank had been receiving awards and honors from different forums for its HR initiatives, (refer Annexure VI) . It won the Best use of Technology in Human Resources, Training & eLearning Initiatives award at the IBA Technology Awards FY 15 and the Inspiring Work Place Award 2014 in the Private Sector Banks Category – Banking Frontiers at the 23rd Global HR Excellence Awards. 2.BACKGROUND NOTE Yes Bank was incorporated on November 21, 2003 and started its banking operations on May 24, 2004. The bank had wide span structure with a decentralized model and was organised into different divisions as per the banking business areas (refer Exhibit I). Yes Bank had adopted international best practices, highest standards of service quality and operational excellence to offer comprehensive banking and financial solutions to all its valued customers. The bank had established a paradigm shift in Indian banking through innovation and excellence across 29 states and 7 Union Territories. The bank had been a part of global thought leadership forums like the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), Triple Bottom Line Investing (TBLI) and Tallberg Forum. It had become the first Indian Bank as a signatory with the United Nations Environment Programme (Financial Initiative) . Yes Bank had partnered with various companies for delivering quality products and services namely Cash Tech, Cisco Systems, Gartner, Intel, i–flex, Reuters, VSNL, Wipro, De La Rue, Murex, Wincor Nixdorf and Sanovi.
Exhibit I: Yes Bank Business Areas Corporate and Institutional Banking
The bank offers a broad range of financial and risk management solutions to clients such as large Indian corporates and groups, multinational companies, central and state governments, government bodies and public sector enterprises.
Business Banking
Yes Bank offers a range of products, services and resources to small and medium businesses.
“Yes Bank announces financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2015”. Newsvoir.com, June 14, 2016, 31. “Awards and Honours”. Yesbank.in, June 15, 2016, 6. “Awards and Honours”. Yesbank.in, June 15, 2016, 6. “Yes Bank Ltd.” Profit.ndtv.com, June 15, 2016, 27. August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 45
cii Case Study-8 Corporate Finance Retail Banking Investment Banking
It offers corporate finance solutions to various clients such as local corporates, multinational companies, financial institutions and public sector undertakings. Under that, the bank offers wide range of products and services such as saving account, current account, fixed deposit, retail loan, depository services and many more. Yes Bank offers investment banking services in area of mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, private equity syndication and IPO advisory.
Source: “Yes Bank Ltd.” Profit.ndtv.com, June 15, 2016, 27.
As part of the distinguished strategy, Yes Bank had focused on development banking through its interventions in the areas of Food & Agribusiness, Infrastructure, Microfinance, and Sustainability. Yes Bank believed in engaging directly with its clients without involving call centers or outsourcing agencies with a focused team for subject, sector and segment for ensuring high service quality. Bank’s strategy to attract and retain customers was derived from understanding of customer’s needs (comprehensive product suite, customized and tailor-made financial solutions). Yes Bank had designed comprehensive product suite of Corporate Finance, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, Investment Banking, Branch Banking, Transaction and Business Banking in all Indian branches (refer Exhibit II).
EXHIBIT II: COMPREHENSIVE SUITE OF PRODUCTS OFFERED
Source: “Comprehensive suite of products offered by Yes Bank Ltd.”. Cocubes.com, December 30, 2015, 38.
3. WHY YES BANK? Yes Bank, on the occasion of its 11th anniversary (2015), launched a movement of new prospering India, as indicated below:“From small steps to taking giant strides… From overcoming obstacles to seizing opportunities… From technology that challenges to technology that empowers… Yes Bank salutes this indomitable spirit of India that echoes… INDIA bole YES” A set of Yes Bank values, embodied since inception, continued to nurture the pursuit of their vision as India’s Finest Quality Large Bank by 2020. Yes Bank had adapted the following 5 Key Pillars, which epitomized the growing strengths of the Bank:3.1 Corporate governance for growth: Yes Bank had always followed the recommendations of Banking Regulations, the Ganguly Committee, Clause 49 required for stock exchanges for formation of Board of Direc46 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Yes Bank believed in engaging directly with its clients without involving call centers or outsourcing agencies with a focused team for subject, sector and segment for ensuring high service quality. Bank’s strategy to attract and retain customers was derived from understanding of customer’s needs (comprehensive product suite, customized and tailor-made financial solutions) tors and other governance regulations. The bank had always promised growth for its internal and external stakeholders; symbolizing Say YES to Growth! 3.2 Brand creation through trust: The bank had faith that its differentiation was created due to its services offered and trust mark ‘YES’. ‘YES’ represented the true spirit of bank and showed its thrust on service-orientation. Yes Bank was tagged as the first Indian Bank to receive certification for its “Complaints Management System (ISO 10002:2004)” by British Standard’s Institution (BSI) (August 25, 2010) and it also became the first Indian Commercial and Retail Bank to be awarded by Bureau Veritas (Global Leaders in ISO Certification) (March 31, 2010) for its “Quality Management Framework (ISO 9001:2008)”. 3.3 Knowledge Banking and human capital optimization: To go beyond traditional banking, Yes Bank had implemented knowledge driven entrepreneurial approach and offered financial solutions beyond traditional realm of banking. Since inception, the bank was committed for development of food & agribusiness, media & entertainment, information technology, infrastructure, renewable energy, telecommunications, manufacturing and textiles, life sciences etc., to expand its reach. Yes Bank had always believed in person-fit recruitment to enhance its human capital quality and represented the finest talent in Indian banking. By June 2012, Yes Bank was able to rope in 9 senior bankers from its competitors in 2 months . Yes Bank was also closely associated with international consultants like Hewitt and Korn Ferry to acquire best talent in the banking industry. 3.4 Technology: Yes Bank had established highest standards in customer service by adopting innovative technology, such as outsourcing of processes and getting engaged with leading companies as partners for providing specific solutions to clients to differentiate it from other competitors. Yes Bank had received RBI approval for setting up of an Asset Management Company (AMC), which would leverage the bank’s distribution network for customer acquisition and provide customers a seamless DIGICAL experience for their investments & savings solutions. The Bank had adopted an ‘Alliances, Relationships & Technologies - ART’ approach to Digitized Banking Process by building strong relationships with financial technology firms and leveraging their innovations to provide a superior Banking experience .
cii Case Study-8 3.5 Responsible Banking: Yes Bank held transparency, accountability and responsible banking as its business focus to build flexibility, openness and ‘sustainability mandate’ in the market. The triple bottom line of bank focused on development of planet, people and profits through long term value-addition 4.YES TO A GREAT WORK PLACE Different advisory firms and prestigious media houses had not only rated Yes Bank as one of the top and fastest growing banks, but also a superlative place to work as employees. The bank had been focusing on building human capital competency and had aligned employee’s goal with corporate goals to attain business excellence and employer branding. Efforts of Yes Bank were recognised at Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards 2012 at Singapore with six awards, including awards for talent management, excellence in training, and continuous innovation in HR strategy at work. Yes Bank had been known for its practice of meritocracy in nurturing, recognizing and rewarding talent(s)/team(s) with either incentives or leadership roles for excellent performance. Bank offered compensation package, benefits including employee stock options plan (ESOP) (refer Exhibit III) and work environment which were best commensurate with the industry. Yes Bank believed in employee engagement through its learning programs, mentorship sessions, guidelines and tips on personality, wellness and grooming, to manage workforce diversity and enhance the performance culture at the bank. The following were the Yes Bank efforts to augment its employee engagement and productivity:4.1YES to business partners’ engagement model: Yes Bank employees
vestments to achieve its vision of becoming best quality bank by implementing 5 C’s engagement model (refer Exhibit IV) of Yes Bank’s core business values. The model encouraged honest communication, supported career development, promoted open culture, emphasized on care (for stakeholder, employee and customers) and strengthened connection among employees and community. That’s what made Yes Bank a ‘Great Place to Work’
EXHIBIT IV: YES BANK’S 5 C’S EMPLOYEE
EXHIBIT III: YES BANK ESOP Yes Bank had instituted Stock Option Plans to enable its employees to participate in bank’s future growth and financial success. It provide employees a platform for participating in important decision making and instilling long term commitment towards future growth of the Bank by way of rewarding them through Stock Options. The Stock Option Schemes also enable the Bank to hire the best talent for its senior management and key positions. The Bank has Four Employee Stock Option Schemes viz.: •Joining Employee Stock Option Plan II (JESOP II); •Joining Employee Stock Option Plan III (JESOP III); •YBL ESOP (consisting of two sub schemes JESOP IV/ PESOP I); and •YBL JESOP V/PESOP II (consisting of three sub schemes JESOP V/ PESOP II/PESOP II –2010). The Employee Stock Option Plans are administered by the Nomination & Remuneration Committee of the Board of the Bank. were treated as partners for planning, managing, developing and accomplishing organizational goals through engagement in ‘creating and sharing value’ driven by professional entrepreneurial ethos. Yes Bank believed in highly competent human capital as the real source of competitive advantage and hence focused to develop them with leadership mindset, which would result into high performance and exceptional proficiency in an entrepreneurial environment. Thus, Human Capital Management (HCM) practices at Yes Bank had targeted to develop brand image as an ‘Employer of Choice’. The bank had always focused on best talent acquisition, their performance management, career growth, retention and succession planning to maintain balanced human capital lifecycle. Yes Bank adopted the strategy of long term in-
Source: “YES! It’s our bank”. Yesbank.in, June 15, 2016
4.2 Yes Bank key engagement differentiator • 5 Years commendation initiative: In April, 2009, Yes Bank had institutionalized an initiative in which a Commendation Certificate and a Yes Bank PIN were awarded to recognize bankers who had completed their 5 years of partnership and commitment with the bank. • YES - Golden Pin: This award was started in April 2009 to honor selective Yes Bankers who had consistently upheld the track
Thus, Human Capital Management (HCM) practices at Yes Bank had targeted to develop brand image as an ‘Employer of Choice’. The bank had always focused on best talent acquisition, their performance management, career growth, retention and succession planning to maintain balanced human capital life cycle. Yes Bank adopted the strategy of long term investments to achieve its vision August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 47
cii Case Study-8
Yes Bank had also institutionalized an engagement plan in which personalized appreciation letters were delivered. Recently, Yes bank had introduced Facebook as work solution to improve the internal communication flow within the organization thereby helping to increase the vigilance and swiftness in decision making as well as strengthening the interpersonal relationships and engagement across multiple teams in the bank record of continuous achievements which resulted in extraordinary success with a path breaking contribution. The award was also printed on visiting cards of achievers. •CEO’S league of excellence: The award was given to honor high performing Yes Bankers for their outstanding contribution in delivering core business objectives. It was specially designed to identify exceptional contributors in the areas of Customer Relationship Management, Business Support, Service Delivery, Productivity Management and Branch Profitability. •YES personality - Grooming, Attitude & Wellness was a unique and differentiated proposition which promoted employee’s focus towards prosperity and wellbeing. To achieve those goals, all branches of Yes Bank were supported with best-in-class systems, designed for high class business environment which helped to evolve employee’s personality, professionalism and personal conduct, resulting in personal/ professional effectiveness and success. Different Yes Bank’s forums kept circulating useful tips and guidelines on personal grooming and health/ wellness which made employees highly positive. •YES club fit – Yes Bank had launched an innovative pedometer-based wellness initiative called ‘YES CLUB FIT’ to help executives irrespective of age, gender, physical ability and fitness levels to increase their health quotient. Yes Club Fit was complemented with regular sessions on ergonomics, meditation, zumba and lifestyle management. •Yes Bank’s HRIT system - “YESforYOU”: In January, 2008, Yes Bank had started ‘YES for YOU’, an HR - IT system, a step forward in achieving the vision of becoming India’s most ‘Technologically Architected’ bank. YESforYOU was a comprehensive Human Capital Management (HCM) system with which YES executives could manage their requirements with transparency, convenience and minimum time. The bank had made available “virtual HCM team members” for continuous transactional support of leave, performance management, payslip, career progression and access to all HCM policies to make HR system more effective. •YES Connect: The programme was launched in July, 2009 to provide a platform for celebrating togetherness and bonding among colleagues to improve productivity, harmony and share best practices among themselves. It was generally hosted on first Friday evening of every month, to recognize and cheer the “Extra Mile’ers” (who had shown exemplary achievement in their jobs). The newly joined employees were 48 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
also invited with their families for a small get together. During leisure, work reviews of past months were conducted to identify performance areas to be focused. •YES to my voice: Yes Bank had developed a grievance redressal portal for its employees named ‘my voice’ since 2009. ‘My voice’ aimed to provide a platform to post enquires and grievances with built-in tracking and escalation mechanism to make grievance redresses more quick and effective. All queries of ‘my voice’ were screened by the head of HCM team. An Exhibit V below indicates the analysis of ‘my voice’ data of 2013 &14, which depicts that most of the time employees just required clarification on different issues and most enquires were raised regarding payroll.
EXHIBIT V: MY VOICE PORTAL FOR YES BANK EMPLOYEE
Source: “Annual Report 2013-2014”. Yesbank.in, January 11, 2016, 5.
•YESave: It was a programme launched in July-2008 which targeted to reduce cost from 5%-20% through role clarification among employees and identifying all unwanted expenditures and optimization of wastes. All Yes bankers were encouraged to suggest different solutions online for addressing any particular issue. As a result, every branch’s monthly expenses were tracked with statistical charts hosted on bank’s in-house portal to view and minimize cost at the grass root level. Yes Bank had also institutionalized an engagement plan in which personalized appreciation letters were delivered to all key partners from MD & CEO. Yes Bank shared quarterly financial updates with its Human Capital Management (HCM) partners and celebrated successes with them. Recently, Yes bank had introduced Facebook as work solution to improve the internal communication flow within the organization thereby helping to increase the vigilance and swiftness in decision making as well as strengthening the interpersonal relationships and engagement across multiple teams in the bank. 5.YES TO BEST HR PRACTICE Yes bank had adopted certain best HR practices as part of their strategic plan that enabled improved services to employees and increased profitability for the employer. •YES talent optimization program (y-top): Y-top was institutionalized in 2007-08 to ensure a transparent, timely, result- oriented and unbiased appraisal process which was linked to rewards and recognition for potential employees. Meritocracy was the base for performance and potential recognition was done by Balanced Score Card approach. Team goals and individual goals were aligned with corporate strategy to achieve business objectives.
cii Case Study-8 •YES–mentor: It was initiated in 2006 to engage and ensure the wellbeing of Bank’s high potential human capital. The effort was to integrate potential employees professionally and culturally into Yes Bank’s mainstream by senior management team members known as YES mentors. YES mentors were responsible for providing support and guidance to bank employees to improve communication, interpersonal relations and counseling for certain grievances. The programme aimed to develop highly disciplined work culture and environment to enable individual and business achievements. The high level of motivation and morale among bank employees indicated the successful implementation of Yes-mentor, however, an ongoing review of the initiative was always done by MD & CEO of Yes Bank. •Learning and development initiatives: Yes Bank laid major emphasis on knowledge driven approaches to focus on capability and competency development. Learning and development, talent management and leadership programs were designed and delivered under the aegis of Yes School of Banking (YSB). YSB was institutionalized to create center for excellence to stimulate, assess, deploy and support innovative approaches to sustain human capital and achieve brand image as a ‘Preferred Employer of Choice.’ YSB internal and knowledge trainers were utilized as specialist trainers for other employees. The program aimed to ensure fast knowledge dissemination among employees across all locations. Often, external trainer was also hired to train new methodologies. Online Learning Solutions was an online library facility where executives could access a variety of books and magazines (including facilities of borrowing and returning) such as Harvard Business Review etc. My learning@YES: Yes Bank’s private learning management system (LMS) offered customized online learning modules about all business units for its employees to gain insight and knowledge. •Talent management initiatives: Yes bank had taken following initiatives to develop and enhance competency of its human capital: University & School Relationship Management (USRM) was an initiative of bank to partner with top B-schools to create learning engagement for its employees and bridge the knowledge gap between academia and industry. YES Professional Entrepreneurship Program (Y-PEP) was a talent acquisition program institutionalized to hire young leaders from best B-schools and prepare them for future business endeavors. Talent Management & Leadership Development Program was developed for top executives to prepare them for succession. 6.YES TO EMPLOYER BRANDING Yes Bank had always envisioned an enterprise based on Employee Value Proposition (EVP), which would help Yes Bank to develop the employer brand image. EVP had been integrally linked with bank’s core value, process and systems (refer Exhibit VI) to derive maximum effectiveness. Objectives: •To shape a strong employer brand. •To gain desired ranking in financial and banking industry. •To ensure bank’s long term success by attracting and retaining talent. Focus: Yes Bank had been focusing on building world class professional team, through the method of person-fit recruitment and training them to share bank’s core values. Yes Bank believed that appropriate transmission of its external brand value to potential customers and promoting the same as internal brand value for employees would help
them to imbibe organization’s core values (refer Exhibit VII & VIII).
EXHIBIT VI: VALUE PROPOSITION
Source: “Employee Value Proposition”. Yesbank.in, January 11, 2016, 16.
EXHIBIT VII: BRAND PROPOSITION
Source: “Employee Value Proposition”. Yesbank.in, January 11, 2016, 16.
EXHIBIT VIII: CUSTOMER AND EMPLOYER VALUE CHAIN PROPOSITION
Source: “Employee Value Proposition”. Yesbank.in, January 11, 2016, 16.
7.YES TO BUSINESS EXCELLENCE Yes Bank had grown at a tremendous pace since its inception, during first two quarters (2004-2005) its balance sheet was standing at 1,300 million rupees (US $ 19279273) , which paved the way for successful ventures in India. Yes Bank performed well during the Financial Year (FY) 2015-16 with a net profit of 2,539.45 crore rupees (US $ 376633193.91) (refer Annexure II, Profit and Loss sheet), which was an increase of 26.6% from FY 2014-15 (refer Annexure III, Balance sheet). Yes Bank had continued to accelerate and build momentum into strong liability franchise with CASA ratio at 28.1% at the end of FY 2015-16 (refer Annexure IV and V, Ratio analysis and Cash flow). Yes Bank had maintained best-in-class Asset Quality amidst a volatile environment owing to its prudent risk management practices . Yes Bank had total network of 738 branches and 1,371 ATMs as on December 30, 2015, which stood as 860 branches and 1609+ ATMs as on March 31, 2016 (Annexure VIII). The bank was determined to establish its single largest National Centralised Operations Management and Services delivery facility in Ambattur, Chennai. The facility was planned to be spread over 7.5 lac August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 49
cii Case Study-8 sq ft in two phases. Bank’s investment in the state-of-art-facility was in sync with the Bank’s continuous endeavor to provide a superior service experience, and to attain its objectives of creating a highly scalable and growing retail banking business by 2020. Bank had already commenced operations at its IBU branch in the GIFT city with an initial capital infusion of $20 Million. That would significantly enhance Yes Bank’s International Banking product offerings for the Bank’s corporate clientele while enabling long term Foreign Currency Fund raising at competitive rates . Yes Bank had signed MoU of $ 220 million with OPIC (Development Finance Institution and Wells Fargo of US Government) to explore financing of MSMEs in India. Yes Bank had collaborated with Blue Dart and Snapdeal to make ‘Cash on Delivery’ process faster and streamlined. Yes Bank had achieved the milestone of being the only bank in the world to get featured in United Nations’ Secretary General’s Climate Finance Report. The report was launched at the Climate Finance Ministerial Meeting in Peru. Yes Bank underwent rigorous assessments across economic, social and environmental dimensions to get selected as first Indian bank in Dow Jones Sustainability Indices in the Emerging Markets Index in New York. Yes Bank continued to maintain strong credit ratings across International and Domestic Rating agencies. Moody’s had assigned a Long-term rating of Baa3 which was in line with the Sovereign Rating of India and Domestic Rating agencies (ICRA & CARE) had assigned Long-Term rating of AA+ for the Bank’s Basel III compliant Tier II instruments as well as for Infrastructure Bonds . Yes bank had entered the industry significantly late, when the banking industry was already crowded with other private players. Yes Bank had been identified as youngest bank among the competitors and in spite of all constraints the bank was able to maintain its fastest pace of growth. It was able to make its strong mark in the Indian Banking Industry by positioning its strategies and acquiring talent in such a way that it helped the bank to differentiate itself from others in the banking sector. It had adopted unique 'knowledge banking approach', emphasized on technology and human capital, which provided specialized services to various diversified industries and customers through domain experts. As per Yes Bank website, motivated and talented manpower had helped the bank to achieve business excellence and its human capital was the real asset. Yes Bank had decided to fully capitalize domestic and global markets through focusing on its core competency, flexibility and the spirit of “CARPE DIEM-Seize the Opportunity, Everyday”. Crape Diem was about leveraging optimum advantage of present environment with high dedication, motivation and tapping employee’s latent potential to get the best outcome in every situation. YES BANK has endeavored to ensure its Human Capital Management strategies were proactive by providing integrated supply chain for talent, training, planning for future talent requirements, forecasting skill gaps, re-skilling and resupply to reinsure its efforts for becoming “The Best Quality Bank of the World in India by 2020”. One may argue that the growth and business excellence of Yes Bank was the repercussion of human capital optimization and engagement, and if that was the case, what initiatives and strategies were necessary to continue to be competitive and sustain the growth in the times to come. As the bank was poised to grow exponentially, it faced the challenge of identifying and developing talent required for future business growth and performance at all levels and institutionalizing the system of fair, consistent and equitable reward to people as per their organizational value. It remained to be seen whether it was going to be easy for the bank, in a highly volatile and competitive environment, to continue its focus on the enablers of care, connect, career, culture and communication. 50 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
REFERENCES 1.“A report on Yes Bank”. https://www.scribd.com/doc/24741884/YesBank-Report, June 15, 2016 2.“About Us”. http://www.hdfcbank.com/aboutus/general/default.htm htm, June 15, 2016 3.“About Us”. http://www.icicibank.com/aboutus/about-us.page, June 15, 2016 4.“About Us”. http://www.kotak.com/about-us.html, June 15, 2016 5.“Annual Report 2013-2014”. https://www.yesbank.in/images/all_pdf/ AnnualReport2013-14.pdf, January 11, 2016 6.“Awards and Honours”. https://www.yesbank.in/about-us/awardsand-recognitions-2014-15&Category=AwardsandRecognitions&FYe ar=2014-15, June 15, 2016 7.“Axis Bank”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_Bank, June 15, 2016 8.Chakraborty Somasroy and Saraswathy M. “Yes Bank ropes in 9 senior bankers in 2 months”. http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/ yes-bank-ropes-in-9-senior-bankers-in-2-months-112062100072_1. html (June 21, 2012), June 11, 2016. 9.“Carpe Diem “https://www.yesbank.in/images/all_pdf/carpe_diem. pdf, December 30, 2015 10. “CEOs League of Excellence” https://www.yesbank.in/images/ all_pdf/ceos_league_of_excellence.pdf, December 31, 2015 11.“Comprehensive suite of products offered by Yes Bank Ltd.”. https:// www.cocubes.com/yesbank#about_yes_bank, December 30, 2015 12.“Differentiation’ is key for Axis Bank’s India wealth management”. https://www.hubbis.com/articles-content/4451, June 15, 2016 13.“Earnings Presentations - Half year results for FY 2013-14” (PDF). Axis Bank. (17 October 2013), January 26, 2014 14.“Employee Engagement”. https://www.yesbank.in/human-capital/ employee-engagement.html, December 30, 2015 15.“Employee Preposition”. http://www.kotak.com/bank/careers/kc_ employeeproposition.html, June 15, 2016 16.“Employee Value Proposition”. https://www.yesbank.in/humancapital/employee-value-proposition.html, January 11, 2016 17.“Financial Inclusion/ Technology Innovation”. http://www.skoch. in/images/40summit/casestudy/YES%20BANK,%20Technology%20
As per Yes Bank website, motivated and talented manpower had helped the bank to achieve business excellence and its human capital was the real asset. Bank had decided to fully capitalize domestic and global markets through focusing on its core competency. Crape Diem was about leveraging optimum advantage of present environment with high dedication, motivation and tapping employee’s latent potential to get the best outcome in every situation
cii Case Study-8 Innovation.pdf, December 31, 2015 18.“HRIT System- YesforYou”. https://www.yesbank.in/human-capital/ employee-engagement/yes-bank-s-hrit-system-yesforyou.html, December 23, 2015 19.“India-bole-yes”. https://www.yesbank.in/about-us/india-bole-yes, June 15, 2016 20.“India’s Best Companies to Work For: Industry Wise”. http://www. greatplacetowork.in/best-companies/indias-best-companies-to-workfor/industry-wise-winners#, December 31, 2015 21.“Kotak Mahindra Bank”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotak_ Mahindra_Bank, June 15, 2016 22.“Media Centre”. http://www.axisbank.com/media-center/bankprofile.aspx, June 15, 2016 23.“Investor Presentation”. http://www.hdfcbank.com/assets/pdf/ Investor_Presentation.pdf, June 15, 2016 24.“Performance-management-yes-talent-optimization-program-ytop”. https://www.yesbank.in/human-capital/employee-engagement/ performance-management-yes-talent-optimization-program-y-top. html, December 23, 2015 25.Sharma Leena. “Employee Value Preposition (EVP)”. https://www. linkedin.com/in/leena-sharma-662b534a, June 15, 2016 26.Singh and Kamlesh. “Employee Productivity of Private Sector Banks in India”. International Journal of Management and Social Sciences Research, 2(10) (October 2013), http://www.irjcjournals.org/ijmssr/ oct2013/10.pdf, June 15, 2016 27.“Yes Bank Ltd.” http://profit.ndtv.com/stock/yes-bank-ltd_yesbank/ reports , June 15, 2016 28.“Yes Bank Awarded CEO with HR Orientation” http://m.moneycontrol. com/news/business/yes-bank-awarded-ceohr-orientation_300885. html?type=business&category=business, June 16, 2016. 29.“YES! It’s our BANK”. https://www.yesbank.in/work-with-us/yes-itsour-bank, , June 15, 2016 30.“Yes Bank Ltd.”, Capital Structure for YES Bank Ltd. Indiannotes.
com,http://www.indianotes.com/research-analysis/company/companyfinancial.php?cc=MTQwMzAxNDQuMDA=&i=capital-structure, June 15, 2016 31.“Yes Bank Announces Financial Results for the Quarter Ended September 30, 2015”. http://www.newsvoir.com/release/ yes-bank-announces-financial-results-for-the-quarter-endedseptember-30-2015-5600.html, June 14, 2016 32.“Yes Bank Ltd.”. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/yes-bank-ltd/ directorsreport/companyid-16552.cms,, June 15, 2016 33.“Yes Bank Ltd.” http://www.moneycontrol.com/competition/yesbank/ comparison/YB, June 15, 2016 34.“Yes bank launches ‘Facebook at Work’ across entire workforce”. Computer.http://computer.financialexpress.com/news/yes-banklaunches-facebook-at-work-across-entire-workforce/17631/, June 11, 2016 35.“Yes Bank Ltd., Executive Summary”. https://www.yesbank.in/images/ all_pdf/YBL_Exec_summary_27_Jan_2014.pdf (January 27, 2014), December 21, 2015 36.“Yes Mentor”. https://www.yesbank.in/human-capital/employeeengagement/yes-mentor.html, December 26, 2015 37.“Yes Connect”. https://www.yesbank.in/human-capital/employeeengagement/yes-connect.html, December 23, 2015 38.“Yes business partners engagement model”. https://www.yesbank. in/human-capital/employee-engagement/yes-business-partnersengagement-model.html, January 01, 2016 39.“Yes Bank Ltd”. https://www.cocubes.com/yesbank#about_yes_bank, December 29, 2015 40.“Yes School of Banking”. https://www.yesbank.in/human-capital/yesschool-of-banking.html, December 23, 2015 41.“Yes Golden Pin”. https://www.yesbank.in/images/all_pdf/the_yes_ golden_pin.pdf, December 31, 2015 42.“Yesave”.https://www.yesbank.in/images/all_pdf/cost_management_ yesave.pdf, December 31, 2015
ANNEXURE I: CAPITAL STRUCTURE FOR YES BANK LTD. From Year
To Year
2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2003
2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005
Current Equity: 421.00 Crore Rupees Paid Up Face Paid Up Capital Value (Crores) 10.00 420.53 10.00 417.74 10.00 360.63 10.00 358.62 10.00 352.99 10.00 347.15 10.00 339.67 10.00 296.98 10.00 295.79 10.00 280.00 10.00 270.00 10.00 200.00 18 As on June 18, 2016, 1 $ (dollar) is equal to 66.07 rupees of Indian currency (To be continued...)
Class of Share Authorized Issued Capital Capital (Crores) (Crores) Equity Share 600.00 420.53 Equity Share 600.00 417.74 Equity Share 600.00 360.63 Equity Share 600.00 358.62 Equity Share 600.00 352.99 Equity Share 400.00 347.15 Equity Share 400.00 339.67 Equity Share 400.00 296.98 Equity Share 400.00 295.79 Equity Share 400.00 280.00 Equity Share 400.00 270.00 Equity Share 400.00 200.00
Source: “Yes Bank Ltd.”, Capital Structure for YES Bank Ltd. Indiannotes.com, June 15, 2016, 30.
Paid Up Shares (Nos) 420,531,641 417,736,098 360,633,626 358,622,289 352,987,424 347,147,124 339,667,269 296,978,930 295,789,750 280,000,000 270,000,000 200,000,000
Disclaimer: n n n n n
The views expressed in the published CASE STUDIES belong to the Author / Co-Author (s) of the respective case studies, and not necessarily those of CII’s. The copyright of these case studies, however, belong to CII. Reproduction, in any matter, without prior permission from CII is expressly prohibited. NOTE: CII has given exclusive permission to CORPORATE CITIZEN to publish the CASE STUDY only, in full, and without any changes / modifications. Reproduction in parts is not allowed. For further information, please contact: Snehada Fatterpekar, Executive – Human Resources & Industrial Relations, CII Western Region, Email: f.snehada@cii.in
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 51
Star Campus Placement
Selfdiscipline is the key to success Meet Ananya Naidu, a young, bright student, who completed her post-graduation from a renowned management school and is today placed with a leading firm. In a candid conversation with Corporate Citizen, Ananya took us through her journey from college to the corporate world By Mahalakshmi Hariharan
A
nanya Naidu, who majored in the marketing stream from a leading management college is today placed with the BPO arm of leading IT giant, Infosys, as an Associate Consultant for Value Design with a good package along with other perks and benefits. Here, she takes to us on her first big break–her journey from college to the corporate world.
My campus placement experience
“Today, I am placed with Infosys BPO through my college. The company had initially shortlisted 110 students before its arrival on the campus. Post the pre-placement talk, we were divided into multiple groups for the group discussion round, and mine was the last group to go. We had a very intense discussion. Post the GD, we were asked to wait for the results. When the results were announced, there were only a handful of candidates who were chosen and I was the only one selected from my group,” recalls Ananya. “Post this round, we had a personal interview with the officials. I was the last one to go. Every interview lasted for 30 minutes or so. Since I was the only fresher on the list who was qualified for this round, I got even more nervous and started panicking. However, I decided to calm down and went for it,” she adds. “I was asked a lot of theoretical questions from different subjects such as Economics, Social Media Analytics and Brand Management. The panel seemed to appreciate my internship work which 52 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
was with Zee–Living Foodz, at a time when it was going through a structural and digital change. I was also asked about my internship work, mechanics of social media and how it can be leveraged to enhance a brand,” Ananya further added. “The interview lasted for almost 45 minutes. In the end, I was also shortlisted with three other candidates, for a final round of interview with the Heads of the organisation. This interview was more of a basic interaction where the person on the other end enquired about constraints, if I had any. After about an hour of my interview, I was notified that I was the only one selected from the college. It was thrilled. It was an overwhelming moment for me,” said a happy Ananya.
Looking back - Life at the campus
“
Ananya with her family
Take your internship seriously. It is very important for students to perform and learn as much as they can during this period. This is the time where you step out of your comfort zone, learn and grasp as much as you can
with multiple backlogs as any ‘average’ student in my college always had. My directors and faculties have always encouraged me and involved me in various academic pursuits.” Ananya was part of the 'Corporate Relations Team (CRT),' at college, which garnered a very symbiotic environment. “It is here where my networking with various corporate honchos and corporate houses as well as with my fellow teammates drastically grew. On contrary to the popular belief due to the CRT’s schedule, I made many acquaintances and a few very dear friends who were always my support system. The schedule at college was undoubtedly hectic but I would say, this has prepared me to face the challenges in my current job where self-discipline is the key to growth and work-life balance.”
Ananya with her friends
Education and family background
backed by any kind of logic,” says Ananya.
Ananya hails from Bhilai (Chattisgarh) from where she pursued her education till the 12th standard. Post this, she moved to Kochi in Kerala to pursue her Bachelors in the Commerce Stream, specialising in Marketing & Entrepreneurship from the Amrita School of Arts Sciences (ASAS). This is where her interest for the Marketing subject grew and she decided to further pursue her post-graduation in IT & Marketing. Ananya’s father is employed with SAIL Ltd and her mother is a senior lecturer in a convent school. “My parents have always encouraged me to compete with myself and be better with each passing moment. I’ve been brought up in a very non-orthodox environment which has made me very unconventional in my thinking and bold enough to challenge anything that isn’t
Hobbies
Ananya is a complete foodie and an Instagram junkie who loves to travel and read while sipping on a cup of tea or coffee. “I am quite an outdoor person when it is sunny and love to whip up a filling meal when it is pouring like cats and dogs. I love to have conversations that would keep me engrossed even till late at night and also go clubbing or on bike rides with friends on weekends.”
Piece of advice to the juniors
Notes Ananya, “It is very important that students perform and learn as much as they can during their internships. This is the period to stretch out limits and come out of the comfort zone and know your subject in and out. Reading magnifies
“
Reminisces Ananya, “The time spent on the campus was one of the most memorable times. I have been an average student, all throughout,
the process of thought creation and reception of information in lectures.” She adds, “I would always suggest that my juniors work hard during those two months of internship than wasting time holidaying or vacationing. I also believe that for the time that they are in college, they must use their network within and outside the campus which would help in opening greater avenues later in life.”
Thoughts on the education sector in India
“I am still short of experience to comment on the Indian Education system, but I think times have changed and the current system needs a lot of work towards specialised learning and expertise, rather than creating jacks of all trades and masters of none,” she sums up. Mahalakshmi.H@corporatecitizen.in August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 53
Loved & Married too
It is not often these days that a college romance fructifies into a wedlock. Corporate Citizen unlocks the story of love that has culminated into marriage, for we believe in the stability of a relationship and family unit. We bring to you real-life romances that got sealed in marriage
When
love reports live...
The love story of Saurabh Gupta & Shivangi Shukla, Reporter & Associate Output Editor respectively with NDTV 24X7, has all the ingredients that go into making a Bollywood movie with a generous sprinkling of romance. The couple that tied the knot only a few days ago in Kolkata narrates their love story with as much passion as excitedness... By Namrata Gulati Sapra Love at first sight for her
It is more than just love that makes them fall a little more in love with each other everyday; it is a mutual obsession for reporting and journalism, “I joined NDTV Delhi Bureau a year ago, while Saurabh has been working with the channel for a couple of years now. I was awestruck when I first saw him reporting live in the Mumbai rains for hours together. He had my heart then! I fell in love with his dedication to work and stamina.” However, Shivangi soon gave up the thought of being in a relationship with him, “What’s the point, I 54 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
thought, of crushing over a guy who is posted in the Mumbai Bureau, miles apart from Delhi.”
Love over a telephone call for him
Says Saurabh, “I was supposed to go on air for an episode of the show My City, My Pride. However, I didn’t turn up that day. Shivangi was naturally upset about it as her bulletin went for a toss. She called me and chided me for not showing up. The more she continued lecturing me about the importance of being sincere to work, the more I was falling in love with her! I was impressed by this woman on the other end of the phone who seemed to be a perfectionist. Besides, there was a childlike innocence in her voice. It was the sweetest voice I had ever heard. I knew I had to find the owner of this mesmerising voice.” A few sleepless nights later, Saurabh had achieved his goal and how! “I spoke to a couple of colleagues and put the NDTV directory to good use!”
Hello cupid!
“As an Output Editor working on the desk, I often interact with reporters. Saurabh, for me, was just one of them now. We would make calls to each other to discuss work every now and then. Once, I called him for some translation work because I thought he was a Maharashtrian since he was reporting from Mumbai!” she laughs. As expected, the calls grew more frequent, “He would check on me regularly to see if I needed any kind of support. Even over the phone, he was extraordinarily caring, so different than most of the guys I have dated in my life. He would respond within seconds to my texts! I hazarded a guess that the reason he was calling me up consistently was because he had developed a liking for me!” Saurabh quips, “Yes indeed! I found myself making an excuse every now and then just so I could speak to her! Of course, FB helped in a big way!” As the conversations became longer, the journalists learnt that both of them had more in common
than they had imagined; both of them belonged from Bengal and pursued schooling from Darjeeling. “By now, I had more or less decided that I was going to marry this girl,” shares Saurabh.
The flight to finding love
“Shivangi would often share her plans of going on a solo trip. I would help her out with all he plans, but was secretly hoping she would take me along. And she finally did. Goa it was!” Saurabh says. The Goa airport is witness to their first meeting, “There is a huge difference between watching someone on TV and seeing them in person. I had butterflies in my stomach when i first supposed to meet Saurabh. I felt extremely shy and nervous about meeting him for the first time. I was also anxious because one of our colleagues was on the same flight as ours! I was hoping to avoid her. I think it was a very bold step on my part and a very adventurous one too or even crazy to spend a couple of days with someone I had never met.” “I knew all along that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Shivangi, but one look at her and I received a confirmation of what I wanted to do next!” Well, needless to say, Saurabh had been bitten rather hard by the love bug!
‘Tripping’ on mush
The Goa trip provided a perfect backdrop to a mushrooming love story, “We stayed in South Goa. We stayed in the same hotel but did not share rooms. This part of Goa is green, quiet and romantic,” Shivangi says dreamily. “We spoke nonstop over dinner. There was so much to talk about, from Mumbai and Delhi, to NDTV and Kolkata- we never ran out of words!” She continues. “Saurabh took very good care of me that evening and made me feel extremely comfy too. He was very soft and gentle. He seemed to be very genuine. There was no trace of superficiality about him.” As the waves clashed against the rocks, Saurabh confessed his feelings to his ladylove, “Before proposing to her, I was not very sure about how she would respond. She could have thought of me
as a creepy guy who was proposing for marriage on the very first date. But I didn’t care. This was a chance I had to take and that’s exactly what I did!” Shivangi interrupts, “I was shocked at this proposal! At first I thought he was joking! Come on, we had known each other for a short while! So, all I did was smile and say, ‘let us see’. I brushed all thoughts aside but had to gather them once again when he proposed the next day. In fact, he said it repeatedly throughout our trip. His gentlemanly behaviour towards me was also making me believe more and more in him.” Shivangi could not bring herself to believe in the marriage proposal for a few days, “I have had a string of heartaches as I have had guys propose marriage to me and then disappear. I wasn’t ready to nurse
in the Kolkata bureau of NDTV. However, they are crystal clear about how they will handle this predicament, “I will take everyday as it comes. I know how committed he is to me. I am convinced he will do everything to make it last. I invest my faith and trust in him,” says Shivangi. She goes on to add, “I have worked extremely hard in the last four years to build a career. Marriage and career are both equally important. And I don’t see why a woman should give up on either for the other . It is important to strike a balance between career and marriage and I know I can manage both well. After all, marriage is more about commitment and being there for each other than living in with each other. Besides, we have decided to meet every two weeks.” Saurabh supports Shivangi’s
“It is important to strike a balance between career and marriage and I know I can manage both well. Marriage is more about commitment and being there for each other than living in with each other” another heartache. I thought he was another one from the so-called ‘hook up culture’ which has become so common nowadays!” “ I knew how earnest he was when he postponed his flight to Mumbai to fly to Kolkata with me so he could ask my dad for my hand. He held my hand on our Kol-bound flight and said if I would not speak to my dad, he would take an appointment with him and drop by at his office! His ultimate test was showing up for dinner with my dad at my place and talk about marriage. He passed that test with flying colours. I finally believed him!” As for Saurabh, he wasn’t willing to give up easily. In his own words, “I knew she was the one right from the word go!” Shivangi, who believes ardently in faith and prayers, gets poignant at this point, “I practice Nichiren Buddhism and had been praying for a year to find the love of my life, and here he is!” She adds a quick piece of advice for young girls looking for love, “You should marry someone who is loving and caring. Believe me, that is all you should look for in the man of your dreams!”
Living apart post marriage
The couple who honeymooned in Darjeeling for obvious reasons, will have to live apart for a few years, given that Shivangi is working with the New Delhi bureau while Saurabh is currently posted
views, “Both our careers are equally important. There is no reason why she should sacrifice her career. Marriage is about making that extra effort and we will, no matter what. Yes, we will have to expend a little more. Perhaps cut down on our expenses somewhere else to be together, but that is indispensable. One of us will shift when it is mutually convenient. Right now, it is easier for me to shift, but we are not ruling out other options. I have given myself a timeframe of two years and I am sure I will figure something out by then. Until then, I am committed to understanding her needs and supporting all her ambitions and dreams.”
All for marriage
Shivangi, who believes that marriage is no different than relationships except that the former involves rituals and chacha-chachi, mama-mami says, “Marriage is way cooler than a live-in, which has become so common these days. Marriages are certainly more social and exciting! They are not just about commitment to your spouse, but about commitment to a family!” Saurabh, on the other hand, is of the view that marriage revolves around “standing by each other”. He adds, “Marriage is a choice that individuals make. The institution of marriage cannot be wished away if one chooses to live within social constructs. Contrary to contemporary beliefs, marriage is not so bad!” He concludes. namratagulati8@gmail.com August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 55
Bollywood biz
The Sport Biopic:
A Remarkable
Journey
A few years ago, Biographical movies were considered commercially unfeasible in Bollywood. Today, the genre has evolved to a cinematic powerhouse, churning out blockbuster after blockbuster. Biopics have now become so bankable, they have spurned their own sub-genre – the sports biopic. Sports biopics are the most popular and commercially lucrative iteration of biopics However, it wasn’t always this way. This issue, Corporate Citizen traces the remarkable journey of the sports biopic from its frugal beginnings to its current mainstream success. By Neeraj Varty
Releasing December 2016
Dangal
You know a movie is going to be a blockbuster in advance, when it stars Aamir Khan, whose last film PK is the highest grossing film in Indian history (`600 crore worldwide gross) and which is based on wrestling ,a topic on which the similarly themed Sultan is already setting the box office on fire). Dangal is based on the story of Mahavir Singh Phogat, who taught wresting to his daughters, who went on to win Gold and Silver medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. The film is produced by Walt Disney studios, who are geniuses at marketing, so it is safe to assume that Dangal is well on its way to becoming the biggest sports biopic in Indian history.
Paan Singh Tomar Paan Singh Tomar could truly be called the first commercial sports biopic in India.Originally conceived as an experimental film, It was released in 2010 at London film festival, where it received overwhelming critical acclaim. At that time, it was considered to risky to release the film in India, as distributors weren’t convinced that a sports biopic would ever work. It was much later, in 2012, that the Irfaan Khan starrer received a limited release Box Office (That too, due to the rise in Irfaan Khan’s popularity rather than the film’s perceived crore bank ability). The film went on to become a critical darling and grossed many times it’s production value in its theatrical run. In a lot of ways, the sports biopic genre in India owes a lot to the Paan Singh Tomar’s success, as this was the moment filmmakers realised that sport’s biopics could also make money.
`39
56 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
// While the success of bhaag Milkha Bhaag signaled the arrival of the sports biopic in India, it was the spectacular success of Mary that cemented the future of the genre
// Mary Kom
Box Office
`104
By the time Mary Kom rolled into theatres in crore 2014, sports Biopics were just becoming mainstream, but women based sports biopics were still untested. However, Priyanka Chopra as a leading star and a compelling story propelled this heartwarming movie to a phenomenal opening, and a strong word of mouth ensured that Mary Kom would become a certified hit. While the success of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag signaled the arrival of the sports biopic in India, it was the spectacular success of Mary Kom (made on half the budget of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag) that cemented the future of the genre.
Box Office
`164
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
When Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was conceived, the Biopic genre was yet to gather steam in India. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra approached multiple leading actors like Akshay Kumar like Abhishek Bacchan, but they all turned him down. Finally, when he decided to cast multi talented actor, director, producer and singer, Farhan Akhtar as, Milkha Singh, little did he know that he was creating history. Farhan Akhtar gave it all to step into the big boots of the ‘Flying Sikh’ and his efforts were very much evident every time he appeared on screen. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag swept most of the popular awards of 2013, and became a box office blockbuster, signaling that the sports biopic had finally arrived in India crore
neeraj.varty@corporatecitizen.com August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 57
CORPORATE HEALTH
Suma Varughese,
Editor-in-Chief, Life Positive Magazine Yoga means lesser sick leave Yoga will make the employee much more peaceful, happy and productive, but most importantly, much healthier which means less man days lost on sick leave. AYUSH’s proposal is highly enlightened and am really happy to hear this.
Is Yoga a must for corporate INDIA? The Ministry of AYUSH has asked corporate houses to include a 30-minute yoga break in the daily schedule of employees. Corporate Citizen speaks to various professionals to find out their views on the idea By Namrata Gulati Sapra
Roneet Ghosh,
Senior Operational Analyst, LifeLine HealthCare Centre Yoga should be complemented by other exercises I support the idea of yoga for the corporate sector. It is a good way to de-stress. Less stress means higher output levels. Coupled with meditation, yoga also increases serotonin levels in the brain. This is the same hormone that influences our happiness quotient. There is no bigger asset for an organisation than happy employees!
Pradeep Kumar Gulati,
Administration Manager, FICCI Yoga helps in de-stressing, physical fitness and focusing. This obviously results in lesser absenteeism and greater productivity at workplace .Therefore, any such benefit should be welcomed by the corporate sector, at least those who can see the linkages between yoga time and increased productivity. At the 58 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
same time, the introduction of yoga at workplace is beneficial only if the increased productivity gain outweighs the half hour loss in working time. However, this has to be a purely voluntary decision by the corporate and there should not be any imposition or interference by the state, except that it may publicise the benefits of yoga vis a vis its merits in the corporate space and let them make their choice.
Another aspect is that employees should welcome it, if it does not increase their office timings. If it does, they are not going to like it.
Mamta Sharma,
Pawan Gogna,
Software Development Engineer, Amazon Yoga for corporates is useless in MNC culture There is nothing special about dedicated yoga breaks; not unless they are organised in batches and proper classes are held with an instructor to mentor the participants. Otherwise, these breaks would end up being a smoke break. However, I would like to question this idea. Why have them at all in the first place! After all, most MNCs are liberal and they don’t focus on time as such. There is no concept of needing a break and an individual is usually independent to take a break whenever he or she would like to.
Physiotherapist, Times Wellness It is a good initiative. Research has proven that sitting for long hours continuously increases the mortality rate to an extent that there is a saying—sitting is the new smoking. We need to keep our joints moving every 40 minutes. As per my view, every few hours, at least two breaks that last 15-20 minutes should be introduced. These breaks should entail some kind of stretching and mobility exercises.
Nithya Shanti,
Spiritual Teacher I think it is a good idea, but I am not sure that the break should be
restricted to yoga. Half-an-hour of meditation or mindful walking or creative writing or other forms of practice can also be helpful. It can help them to release stress, make better decisions, work more harmoniously with others and be more energetic.
Deepti Sinha,
IT professional, Pune My company pays for my gym or any fitness activity that I adopt. Just like all of us connect to different kind of books, we might have a preference for a different fitness activity other than yoga. If a company probably pays for the health check up or fitness activity of their employees, they are more likely to sign up for it as employees would be compelled to adopt a fitness activity, yet they would have the freedom to choose and pick from various options, such as martial arts or gymming or anything that appeals to them.
tips to corporate professionals Birendra Kumar Dubey,
Ayurvedic Medical Officer, AYUSH Saagar Chitkara,
IT professional, Delhi Employees should be reimbursed for fitness instead Although, I am all for yoga, I not pro mandating it in offices. Employees who want to practice yoga will do it regardless and the others will just wile away that time. Yes, happy employees happy companies, but with corporates scrambling for every penny, this half-an-hour would cost them and lead to loss of productivity. In lieu of mandating it, perhaps corporates can reimburse the employees for such practices. This will filter the ones who take such things seriously and ensure that employee invest in fitness.
speaks exclusively to Corporate Citizen to offer useful tips to corporate professionals
☑ You can practice various yoga exercises while in your seat! Anulom-vilom is one such exercise that is very beneficial to office-goers. These include improvement in concentration, creativity and patience. These qualities are essential in corporate life. Kapalbhati too is another form of exercise that is perfect for overall physical fitness. You can even practice it in short breaks. ☑ There is a misconception
that yoga is best practiced in
the morning. The best time to practice yoga is two hours after a meal or consuming water or a liquid.
☑ Corporate professionals
work for long hours on the computer, which can strain the eyes. To keep your eye protected, use Triphala.
☑ Ashwagandha is a nerve tonic for fingers without any side effects. It helps relieve pain in the fingers or fingertips.
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 59
Pearls of wisdom
Breathe out
stress
Breathe in
joy
Most of us breathe from the chest – such shallow breathing sends a signal to the brain that all is not well – we are stressed. Alternatively, breathing from the abdomen boosts respiration, ensures a rich supply of oxygen to the brain and signals that all is well “Breath is the link between the body and mind. If the mind is a kite the breath is the thread. The longer the thread, the higher the kite can go.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Breathe out stress, breathe in joy
Did you know that we can throw out 90 percent of the toxins from our body by breathing correctly? We can learn the art of breathing right by observing newborn babies. Have you seen their stomach gently rising and falling as they breathe in and breathe out? Breath is our vital source of energy. The key to healthy and happy living lies in right breathing. When we attend to our breath, it can heal us from all worries and anxieties. At a conference in Germany, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar explained the connect between breath and emotions, “Our breath is linked to our emotions. For every emotion, there is a particular rhythm in the breath. So, when you cannot directly harness your emotions, with the help of breath you can do that. If you are in theatre, you would know that a director asks you to breathe faster when you have to show anger. If you have to show a serene scene, director would tell you to breathe softer and slower. If we understand the rhythm of our breath, we are able to have a say over our mind, we can win over any negative emotions like anger, jealousy, greed, and we are able to smile more from our heart.”
Is your breath deep or shallow?
Most of us breathe from the chest—such shallow breathing sends a signal to the brain that all is not well—we are stressed. Alternatively, breathing from the abdomen 60 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
boosts respiration, ensures a rich supply of oxygen to the brain and signals that all is well. Observe your breath and note if it is deep or shallow.
Prana: The breath of life
The ancient Indian system of yoga identified the power of breath and strove to maximise its efficiency by developing special breathing techniques. The ancient yogis discovered prana as the universal life force or energy which distinguishes the living from the dead. We get prana from food, rest, breath and by being in a calm, happy frame of mind. However, the most important source of prana is breath—when our breath stops, we die. It was discovered that the quantity and quality of prana and the way it flows through the nadis (subtle energy channels) determines one’s state of mind. Due to lack of attention, the energy channels
Benefits of pranayamas (breathing techniques) u Enhances the quantity and quality of life force
v Clears blocked energy channels
w Harmonises the body, mind and spirit
x Boosts the immune system
y Rejuvenates the body and mind
z Slows down the ageing process
in the average person may be partially blocked, making the flow of prana broken and jerky. This results in increased worry, fear, uncertainty, conflict, tension and other negative qualities. When the prana level is high and its flow is continuous, smooth and steady, then the mind is calm, positive and enthusiastic. Here are some popular breathing techniques you may like to try: You can practice these breathing techniques at any time of the day whenever
“Our breath is linked to our emotions. For every emotion, there is a particular rhythm in the breath. So, when you cannot directly harness your emotions, with the help of breath you can do that. If you are in theatre, you would know that a director asks you to breathe faster when you have to show anger. If you have to show a serene scene, director would tell you to breathe softer and slower ” — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
your stomach is empty. ◆ Is your mind buzzing with activity? Can’t stop thinking about what someone said about you? Find a quiet corner and try the Bee breath (Bhramari pranayama) to apply brakes in the buzzing mind. This breathing technique is a boon for those with hypertension. ◆ Among the breathing techniques, Kapάl Bhάti (skull shining breath) is considered the most important and effective for detoxifying the body and clearing the energy channels. ◆ Low energy levels? Three rounds of
Bhastrika pranayama (bellow breath) will get your energy levels soaring! ◆ Can’t concentrate on the task at hand? Try nine rounds of Nadi Shodhan pranayama followed by a short 10-minute meditation. Nadi Shodhan pranayama calms and centers the mind by bringing into harmony the left and right hemispheres of the brain which correlate to the logical and emotional sides of our personality. (This article is originally published in www.artofliving.org)
CC
tadka European connection Alexander the Great of Macedon (356-323 BC) was one of the first important figures to bring India into contact with the West. After his death, a link between Europe and the East would not be restored until Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) landed in Calicut, India, in 1498.
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 61
Mobile apps
The best accessories for your smartphone The Smartphone is not a standalone device. There are a host of cool accessories that can make your smartphone the center of your digital hub. This edition, we list the best accessories to make your smartphone experience that much more awesome!
Skullcandy Smokin' Buds 2 bluetooth earphones
Price: `3,249
By Neeraj Varty Hamaker Bamboo Qi Wireless Charging Pad
Price: `1,200
If you own a smartphone with wireless charging capabilities, you should invest in one of these charging mats. This particular model caught our eye because of its elegant bamboo finish and light indicator. All you have to do is place your Smartphone on the mat, and the battery will automatically charge, without the need for a charging cable. Not more hunting for those pesky USB cables again.
Most of us love listening to music on the go, but at certain situations like working out in the gym or commuting in a crowded bus, wired earphones are less than ideal. They can get tangled up or even snap off. This is where the skullcandy Bluetooth earphones come in. They are light, portable, and have more than eight hours of battery backup. They give crystal clear audio for upto 30 meters you can leave your phone in your bag or locker while you work out. The earphones have a built in mike as well, which lets you make and receive calls.
Fujifilm Instax Share Smartphone Printer
Price: `6,939 SanDisk Ultra 200GB Micro SD
Price: `9500 For those of you who always seem to be running out of storage space on your Smartphone, the Sandisk 200 GB memory card is the perfect accessory. It can convert your smartphone into a digital warehouse, so you never have to delete a single photo or video ever again. We would have loved a 1TB memory card, but 200GB is the maximum smartphones can support‌as of now. 62 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
Even in our digital age, it’s nice to have a physical photograph to place in an album or a picture frame. This cool accessory from Fujifilm lets you print your favorite digital photos from a smartphone or tablet. The INSTAX Share App works with both iOS and Android. This printer runs on two CR2 lithium batteries, which give you approximately 100 prints before needing to swap out for fresh battery cells. This also makes a great gift for parents or grandparents. neeraj.varty07@gmail.com
Claps & Slaps Corporate Citizen claps for ‘One Matunga’ residents’ group that has successfully transformed the under belly of a flyover into a garden, which gives Mumbai it’s very first garden situated under a flyover The transformation has also resulted in getting rid of gamblers, hawkers and drug addicts who often hung out in the area under the flyover. Located on Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Road in Mumbai, the under belly of the flyover is now a spot you can pick to chill around with your friends or spend a few lazy hours. The newly beautified space, inaugurated recently by mayor Snehal Ambedkar, consists of a children’s park but its’ main attraction is the 600-metre long meandering jogging track that is shaped like the river Narmada. The Nanalal D Mehta garden is seen as one-of-its-kind, offering a stunning view at night. This park was converted from concrete into a green patch by local residents of Matunga and the citizens who worked hard by planting trees, installing benches and also decorated the space using colourful lights to beautify the area. The garden also doubles up as a lush pathway for commuters on that stretch and is used as a thoroughfare by pedestrians in that area. The greenery has been interspersed with rock formations and is a perfect respite from the concrete jungle that surrounds the rest of the city, just outside the gates of the garden. The constructive transformation of this urban wasteland into a piece of paradise however dates back to project approval in 2014. The ₹five crore project was embroiled in a political imbroglio, which greatly delayed its completion. In the initial stages, the area was barricaded and about 40 people crowd-sourced the funds. They hired private security to look after it for two years. They also managed BMC sweepers to clean the stretch and ensure that it did not become a dumping ground. The garden provides an evening interlude for senior citizens residing in the area and adjoining road to make small talks and relax. Evenings also find young children skating and a regular bunch of night joggers who unwind in their new found paradise after work. As Debi Goenka recommends, “Unfortunately, there is a huge pressure on most societies to provide car parking space. People must realise that if you concretise the compound, rain water harvesting goes for a six. I think in the final development control regulations, it mus be ensured that a minimum of 20 percent is kept open to the sky and kept green. That is the only way you can have greenery in your closest environment.” Other suggestions for Mumbai include a rooftop gardens with plants and the concept of a ‘vertical garden’, which has taken off in Singapore. All said and done, the up and running garden tells a tale of ‘All is well that builds well’.
Corporate Citizen slaps all forms of suicidal instances that crop up as a result of bullying—the recent case of a 14-year old Bengaluru boy, from a reputed school who chose to jump to his death than share his ‘agony’ with his near and dear ones It was not the first such instance by a young person and so, the question crops up as to who should hold the reigns to such destructive behaviour—the child or carers at home and beyond? It was the suicide note that spoke of betrayal by friends that shocked his parents. The family is campaigning to check the trend of bullying activities in schools or playgrounds. Still under investigation, fingers point out to some school mates who stood mute or where they not aware of the bullying activities? Couldn’t the school authorities, teachers and staff who dealt with the boy day in and day out get an inkling to the bullying episode/s, or the boy’s mental frame and taken a step to thwart the suicidal act? “No one should die over bullying” says Raunak’s family as they seek justice via a petition created on Change.org. The petition also demands justice for other children, who were forced to take such fatal steps. On the fateful day, CCTV footage from the apartment reportedly showed the boy, who lived on the first floor, but going on to the 10th floor directly after getting off the school bus. He left his bag near the lift and his mother who was home waiting for him, got the news only when the neighbours found the boy’s body. In fact, international surveys too focus on the alarming links between bullying and related suicide instances. A CDC (Centre for Disease Control), US report, states that “Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost seven percent have attempted it.” According to studies by Yale University, bully victims are between two to nine times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims. A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying and that 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide. According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying. So, if you are a parent, teacher or a carer—know and identify the signs that lead a bullied child to take the fatal step. (Compiled by Sangeeta Ghosh-Dastidar) August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 63
astroturf life. This is the time to reinvent yourself to resurrect yourself and give birth to the person you want to be.
Aries
Mar 21- April 20 Get your family relations right as later on this will help you in your career and also improve your love life and finances. The 4th house holds much power than these mundane issues Most people are held back in life because of old emotional baggage, old traumas that might still be active or negative memories which scientifically are destructive to mind and body.
TAURUS
April 21 - May 20 Finances remain good the entire month though you will experience the highs and the lows which is mainly because of your financial Planet Mercury which is rather behaving erratically. From the 1st to the 9th you need to think out of box out of your comfort zone to make money.
GEMINI
May 21 - June 21 Money is earned through your intelligence, and natural talents like teaching, journalism, sales marketing and networking. Trust your financial intuition which is exceptionally good and there is loads of luck in speculations. Health remains good the entire month.
CANCER
Jun 22 - July 23 You may have to work harder to accomplish your goals. Take care of legal issues and they can take up much of your time. Since you are still in your personal pleasure peak it is a good time for pampering yourself. Very good to give a total make over to yourself. Love is much happier from the 12th onwards there is no need to rush into anything.
ising.
CAPRICORN
(www.dollymangat.com)
Fortune favours the bold and the lucky
Your attitude is your altitude, says Dolly Mangat, our renowned Astrological Expert and believes she helps people create their own prophecies rather than live predictions further.
LEO
July 24 - Aug 23 The message of this month is that if you are practicing purity of intent and are right spiritually all the practical affairs of life will fall into place. The month ahead is prosperous and happy. On the 12th Venus crosses the Ascendant and enters your 1st house, which indicates happy career opportunities, new beginnings.
VIRGO
Aug 24 - Sept 23 You need to find perfections in the imperfections surrounding you cause life is never perfect. The planetary power is now in the independent sector Eastern this shift happened on the 13th of last month, they are moving towards you and away from others. While this gives you more personal power and independence, its never good for relationships. you.
LIBRA
Sept 24 - Oct 22 You would become more independent day by day. Personal power and charisma is increasing, you do not need to do things by consensus. If
64 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
something needs to be changedsomething that concerns you – take action, make the change you want to make. You don’t have to adapt to situations or people, if situations are uncomfortable create new ones that are more comfortable for you.
SCORPIO
Oct 23 - Nov 22 Love does become harmonious after the 12th as Venus moves away from her opposition to Pluto. She will be in your 10th house of career from that date onwards. This implies that love is high on your agenda and that you will be willing to put in the hard work necessary to keep love alive. For singles who are ready to mingle love opportunities mixes with their career goals, chances are they could find love in their working place.
SAGITTARIUS
Nov 23 - Dec 22 Your 8th house of transformation became powerful on the 21st of last month and remains powerful until July 22nd.Thus if you want to go in for detoxification now is the time to do so. This is an excellent time to get rid of all the clutter and emotional baggage in your
Dec 23 - Jan 20 Family is still important but now the focus should be mainly on your career. Approach your career by the methods of day- by overt physical actions. You are still in the midst of a yearly love & social peak until the 22nd. It is doubtful that marriage will happen but there would me more meetings and dating partying going on.
AQUARIUS
Jan 21 - Feb19 Self will and personal independence which is still strong in you right now is not always helpful in relationships. Yet, you will be able to handle these challenges from the 22nd onwards. Love seems very happy, if you are in a relationship there will be greater harmony with the beloved. If unattached then you’re meeting good prospects and dating more. .
PISCES
Feb 20 - Mar 20 You need your popularity and independence, you can create the world you want only that it would require some effort and time. You entered your yearly pleasure peak last month on June 13th the Summer solstice, so you can very well take out time to enjoy and indulge yourself in leisure activities and work what you most enjoy doing, this good time lasts till 22nd. Address: 143, St Patrick’s Town, Gate# 3, Hadapsar IE, Pune-411 013. Tel.: 020-26872677 / 020-32905748 Email: connect@dollymanghat.com/ info.dollymanghat@gmail.com
Subscribe for Corporate Citizen and grow in Life
To, Circulation Manager Corporate Citizen (Business Fortnightly) Krishna Homes Housing Society, Flat No. 2 & 4, Near Iskcon Mandir, Sector 29, Ravet, Akurdi, Pune - 412101. Tel. (020) 69000673-7. Email : circulations@corporatecitizen.in Website : www.corporatecitizen.in Subject : Payment of Subscription for Corporate Citizen NAME:
SUBSCRIPTION FORM
POSTAL ADDRESS:
CITY:
Building Name- Apt. Number / Bungalow Name-Number
STATE:
Landline No.:
Society Name
PIN CODE: Mobile No:
E-mail Address: DOB:
(d d)
/
(m m)
/
(y y)
Profession (If any) :
Designation (If any) :
Company/Organisation (Where Applicable): I want to subscribe : For One Year (24 Issues) For Two Years (48 Issues) For Three Years (72 Issues) For Ten Years (240 Issues)
: : : :
Yes / No Yes / No Yes / No Yes / No
- - - -
Subscription Amount Subscription Amount Subscription Amount Subscription Amount
: : : :
`1200/`2300/`3400/`10,000/-
I am remitting a sum of Rs. through a bank draft / cheque bearing number dated drawn in favour of ‘Corporate Citizen’ towards payment of the subscription amount for One / Two / Three Years / Life subscription. Your Sincerely, Date :
Signature of Subscriber
CRADLE OF LEADERSHIP
PROF. SUDHIR K SOPORY, VICE CHANCELLOR, JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY (JNU) Volume 1, Issue No. 21 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in
January 1-15, 2016 / `50
CORPORATE CULTURE
Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank on women in leadership and gender diversity
INTERVIEW
An in-depth interview with Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director India with Kingston Technology and Rajeev Bhadauria, Director, Group HR, at Jindal Steel & Power
Dynamic Duo 21 MEERA SHANKAR AND AJAY SHANKAR
UNFLINCHING SUPPORT
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 65
the last word tention and funding interest from some of the country and the world’s leading corporates. The uniqueness of the model lies in the collaboration between partners and with the funded agency and the probing done by the SVP Grants Committee which ensures that the funding pathway is well examined and metrics of success are established and monitored. In a country where many well-meaning NGOs and social enterprises fall by the wayside after a promising start because of the inability to plan their growth and sometimes because they simply spread themselves too thin, an organisation like SVP becomes the wind beneath their wings and also the steady hand at the tiller to steer the social ship through stormy waters to the promised shore. The experience of partners, not just the industry recognised names but also young and capable entrepreneurs like Aasiya and Samana Tejani and Narendra and Bharati Goidani helps to build truly successful partnerships.
Ganesh Natarajan
The power of venture philanthropy
SVP which was first initiated in Seattle USA by a small group of Microsoft folks, has grown to be a movement of significance since it brings in corporate venturing philosophies to the social sector
T
hree years ago, I was at an identity cross roads. The company I was running, Zensar, was doing really well. I had completed an exciting stint at NASSCOM as Chairman of the association and my national role in CII, heading Knowledge Management and Business Transformation had settled into a routine. The social movement we had commenced in Zensar Foundation was being recognised as a substantial contributor, not just to the city of Pune but also Hyderabad and Johannesburg, our other pools of manpower concentration. What is the next horizon, my mind was asking? A chance call from two friends, Ravi Venkatesan former Chairman of Cummins and Microsoft and Aarti Lakshman, CEO of Social Venture Partners (SVP) gave the new direction to focus my social energies. SVP India had been founded by Ravi and the initial experiment of getting together accomplished folks from the corporate sector to collaborate for social good had taken off in Bengaluru. It took us just a few months to replicate and innovate on the model in Pune and get the best of corporate partners – Baba Kalyani, Rahul Bajaj, Meher Pudumjee, Arti Kirloskar, Rati Forbes, Kumar Gera and others to become the initial engines to boost this venture.
SVP which was first initiated in Seattle USA by a small group of Microsoft folks has grown to be a movement of significance since it brings in corporate venturing philosophies to the social sector. Take the example of Pune which
The opportunities to engage are tremendous
today has over thirty engaged partners contributing money time and mentorship to small NGOs – Jagruti which trains nursing assistants for the healthcare industry, home chefs which enables livelihoods in the catering sector and Helplife, which sets up units to manufacture lower cost sanitary napkins for the underprivileged. SVP Pune is also the seed funding agency that has enabled the ambitious Pune City Lighthouses Employability skills initiative to come life, an initiative that is now attracting national at-
66 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016
SVP India itself has embarked on an exciting mission to encourage a 1,000 partners and enable a million livelihoods. Initiatives like the Lighthouses and the success of chapters in Bengaluru Pune and Mumbai and soon in Delhi and Hyderabad gives us the confidence that we have embarked on a truly meaningful journey that will give meaning not only to the many lives we will touch but to our own existence as members of a growing fraternity of philanthropists for an inclusive nation. And at a global
level, SVP Seattle where it all started has grown to over 500 partners. Other SVP chapters all over the world are proving time and again that a connected and engaged world is possible if enough concerned citizens are willing to get on the road to philanthropy and make a difference to the world. In a city like Pune, the opportunities to engage are tremendous. The Pune Smart City program is a good start point encompassing fourteen uplifting projects and each project has adequate touch points where citizen cluster can engage and throw their weight behind the efforts of the official machinery. The availability of the four key verticals in which Pune City Connect is operating jointly with the Municipal Corporation – Digital Literacy for all, Municipal Schools transformation, Swachh and the Pune Lighthouse initiative are low hanging fruit for individual as well as corporate social responsibility funds and volunteering to make a difference. PCC will soon be announcing its volunteering circles which will enable volunteers to contribute individually or collaboratively to any or all of these areas. At a personal level, my involvement with SVP at the global, national and local level has enabled me to see social change happening in front of my eyes. Inspiration comes from Dr Mashelkar who for many years has led the Innovation Council of our family foundation NES, from Jaya Kale who selflessly runs and grows the Jagruti Nursing Assistant program, from Sonali Ojha whose Dream Catcher training brings out the agency in every young person who starts a Lighthouse program and from every child or young adult whose tears we are able to wake away and provide a skill or livelihood that enables them to hold their head higher in society. But then, in the immortal words of Robert Frost we have “promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep.” Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of 5F World, Pune City Connect & Social Venture Partners, Pune.
Printed and published by Suresh Chandra Padhy on behalf of Sri Balaji Society. Editor: Suresh Chandra Padhy. Published from : 925/5, Mujumdar Apt, F.C. Road, Pune - 411004, Maharashtra. Printed at Magna Graphics (I) Ltd., 101-C&D Govt. Industrial Estate, Hindustan Naka, Kandivali (W), Mumbai - 400067.
August 1-15, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 67
Registered with RNI, under Reg. No. MAHENG/2014/60490 Pune posted Reg. No. PCW/179/2015-2017 Posted at BPC, Pune CSO 411030 on 15th and 30th of every month. Licenced to Post without Pre-Payment Licence No. WPP-252.
Corporate Citizen, Krishna Homes Housing Society, Flat No 2 & 4, Bulk land No 4, Near Iskcon Mandir, Sector 29, Ravet, Akurdi, Pune 412101. Tel. (020) 69000673-7. or Post Box No-4, Dehu Road Cantt. Pin - 412101. 68 / Corporate Citizen / August 1-15, 2016