Volume 2 issue 13 for website

Cradle of Leadership Exclusive interview with Dr Yogesh Kulkarni, Executive Director of Vigyan Ashram, pabal, pune Volume 2, Issue No. 13 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in

September 16-30, 2016 / `50

Dynamic Duo: 37 Ushma & Thiagarajan Suryanarayanan

High Flyers NHRD Delhi Chapter

CEOs speak about the changing business dynamics in a rapidlyevolving new world order

Loved and Married too

Ajitaa and Bimal Rath on the importance of supporting your spouse through the demands of work, home, a nuclear set-up

Interview

Kurt Inderbitzin, American expert on doing business, speaks about his in-depth experience in the fields of media, education and technology

2 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Incredible india

India according to world-renowned intellectuals, philosophers, scholars and scientists Sir W Hunter, British Surgeon: The surgery of the ancient Indian physicians was bold and skilful. A special branch of surgery was dedicated to rhinoplasty or operations for improving deformed ears, noses and forming new ones, which European surgeons have now borrowed.

Max Mueller, German scholar:

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.

R W Emerson, American Author:

In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which, in another age and climate, had pondered and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us.

Mark Twain, American author:

India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition, our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.

Dr Arnold Toynbee, British Historian:

It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way.

Albert Einstein, American scientist:

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

Will Durant, American historian:

India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all".

W Heisenberg, German Physicist:

After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.

Wheeler Wilcox:

India—The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas.

Sylvain Lévi:

She (India) has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim... her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinese Sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales, and her civilization!

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 3

Guest Editorial S K JHA

It’s raining Tax Returns

W

ho is required to file income tax returns? A person in the meaning of the Income Tax Act includes an individual, a Hindu Undivided Family, a company, a firm, an association of persons or a body of individuals, a local authority and an artificial judicial person.

Each year in the Budget, income exempt from taxation is prescribed, which may be different for different categories of persons. Due dates of filing income tax returns are notified for different classes of persons. Non-filing of returns by the due date attracts penal interest on payable tax and also penalty, while failure to furnish returns of income leading to willful attempt to evade tax may also attract prosecution in extreme cases. The returns can be filed in the prescribed form for each class of persons electronically. The only exception is in the case of individuals or HUFs having income less than `5 lakh per annum, who have the option to file paper returns.

The facility for electronic filing of returns is a recent phenomenon which is very helpful to taxpayers and which guarantees speedy receipt of refunds. The unfortunate part is that our tax base is very narrow—which is roughly four percent of our population. In the preceding financial year only 5,34,000 persons filed income tax returns.

What happens after the income tax returns are filed? The returns are processed u/s 143 (1) of the Income Tax Act electronically, by the Central Processing Centre at Bengaluru for all returns filed electronically, and in field offices where paper returns are filed.

Taxpayers are intimated about the tax demand if any, after processing. Wherever there is refund, the same is directly credited to the bank account of the taxpayer specified in the returns as per the instructions issued, and completed within four months.

Taxpayers sometimes have the grievance that refund receivable as per the returns of income filed, do not come in due time. But in most cases, this is due to mistakes on the part of the taxpayers. They commit mistakes in specifying their PAN correctly, or by giving their bank account particulars wrongly. Sometimes the mistake 4 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

could be due to a mismatch between the claims of tax paid, particularly in the case of tax deduction at source and tax paid recovered. Taxpayers are advised to check form N 26 A 5 before filing returns of income so as to avoid mistakes.

Will you come under tax scrutiny?

Taxpayers are sometimes worried that after filing their returns, their case may be selected for scrutiny. Cases are selected for scrutiny in roughly two percent or the cases and hence taxpayers need not worry. Scrutiny notice u/s 143 (2) of the Income-Tax Act can be issued only up to six months after the financial year in which returns are filed. Taxpayers can comply with the notice for scrutiny by sending their authorised representative, or by giving a written submission in response to the queries raised. The government has recently announced a pilot project where queries and responses can be given by email and where physical attendance may not be necessary.

The intention of the department is to reduce the interface between the taxpayers and tax officers to eradicate the fear of harassment. The order passed by a tax officer after scrutiny is a speaking order in writing, which is called an ‘assessment order’. Penalty proceedings under relevant provisions may be initiated and noted in the assessment order. However, penalty can be levied only by a separate order after giving an opportunity to the taxpayer to respond. The assessment order encloses a demand notice specifying the amount of tax to be paid.

You can appeal The Income Tax Act provides for a full judicial system of appeal. Taxpayers may not accept the assessment order and the same can be contested in appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeal). The order passed in this appeal can be contested both by the department and the assessee before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) which comes under the Ministry of Law and is a judicial body independent of the income tax department. The ITAT is the final body on issues of facts. However, if there is any question of law, then both the assessee and the department can go to the High Court and Supreme Court against the decision of ITAT. There is a provision in the Income Tax Act to reopen the completed assessment passed after scrutiny or even the intimation received after processing the returns. However, the reopening cannot be done arbitrarily and on the whims of the tax officer. It can be done only after it is recorded in writing that some income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment. Taxpayers will have the right to demand the reasons recorded to reopen his assessment and challenge them. The tax officer can proceed further only after meet-

ing the objection of the taxpayer. The reopening can normally be done up to four years after the completion of the assessment, but it can extend up to six years, if the income escaping assessment is more than `1 lakh.

The tax officer making the assessment has a unique position. He is both prosecutor and judge.

He has the powers of a quasi-judicial authority and at the same time he is required to gather evidence against the assessee to be relied upon while passing the assessment order. For gathering evidence he can issue summons to relevant witnesses or carry out survey action at the office or business premises of the assessee.

However, the most serious action for gathering evidence as stipulated in the Income Tax Act is the search action. A search action is conducted by a special wing of the department named the Directorate of Investigation. Evidence collected by it is forwarded to the assessing officer for passing the assessment order.

When can you have a ‘search action’?

A search action is conducted based on information of tax evasion of significant magnitude. The information is either collected by the officers in the investigation wing or given by informants who are given rewards. Rewards normally are

also be recorded.

The purpose of all the proceedings under the Income Tax Act like gathering evidence and passing the assessment order is to collect taxes which have not been paid voluntarily.

The modes of voluntary payment of tax are advance-tax, self-assessment tax and tax deducted at source (TDS).

The intention of advance tax is to pay tax when you earn. This is paid during the financial year in installments before the stipulated dates under the provision. From financial year 2016-17, advance tax has to be paid in four installments, on or before 15th June, 15th September, 15th December and 15th March.

Coaxed or coerced The Income Tax Act provides for coercive measures for collection of unpaid tax which has not been stayed. Coercive measures include the attachment of bank accounts, and properties both moveable and immoveable. Even debtors or tax defaulters can be asked to pay the tax department to the extent of their debt and they will be legally bound to comply with the order. The properties attached can be auctioned for recovery of tax paid. And, last but not the least, the tax defaulter can be sent to jail if he does not cooperate. It is

The unfortunate part is that our tax base is very narrow—which is roughly four percent of our population. In the preceding financial year only 5,34,000 persons filed income tax returns 10 percent of the tax collected due to the search action based on the information given. The search action can take place against any person or any entity whether they are taxpayers or not.

The place of search can be any number of places where hidden assets or incriminating documents or books of accounts are suspected to be kept.

The place of search can even extend to motor cars, bank lockers, aircraft or even ships. However, for transparency and fairness of the proceedings, the search action is carried out before two independent witnesses.

After the conclusion of the proceedings a panchnama is drawn which notes the details of the search proceedings and the same is signed by the witnesses, together with the officers conducting the search and the person who has been searched. The search party can make seizure of apparently unaccounted assets like cash, jewellery and other valuables together with the seizure of incriminating documents or books of accounts found, if any. Statements on oath of the persons present in the course of search may

not denied that while payment of tax out of your hard-earned income is a real pain, the process of collection of tax is a thankless job. But there are good reasons also for filing income tax returns and paying your tax. We all know the altruistic reason, that our tax goes towards building our nation. Whether it is developmental work or social welfare work, the country will need resources and our tax paid go into such resources. In addition, a taxpayer gets an identity and his PAN card is a credible identification certificate.

“Taxation is the price which civilised communities pay for the opportunity of remaining civilised,” said Albert Hart. Does anybody of us like to be uncivilised? I believe the answer is a big NO. Then, do not think twice and pay tax. File your income tax returns in due time. Please do not wait for an unknown person to come and knock on your door. A good, peaceful sleep is much better than tension caused by greed.

(S K Jha IRS (retd) is former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax)

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 5

Contents 36

Cover story

Dynamic Duo 37

HIGH FLYERS

An in-depth interview with Ushma and Thiagarajan Suryanarayanan on their high-profile careers and what it takes to achieve a work-life balance

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 Interview Kurt Inderbitzin, American expert on doing business, speaks about his in-depth experience in the fields of media, education and technology 6 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Volume 2 Issue No. 13 September 16-30, 2016 www.corporatecitizen.in

20 NRHD Delhi Chapter On why more and more CEOs across the globe are talking about the changing business dynamics in a rapidly-evolving new world order 24 CORPORATE COLUMN The Rush and Pause of Appreciation 26 Cradle of Leadership Exclusive interview with Dr Yogesh Kulkarni, executive director of Vigyan Ashram, Pabal

14

26

44 Interview Ambika Sharma, founder and MD, Pulp Strategy Communications, speaks on attitude-working ambience 48 Flashback Indian sportspersons who have defied all odds to reach where they are, unfortunately falling short by a whisker to kiss the medal

20

16

9

50 Survey On employees working round the clock and are becoming increasingly stressed 54 STAR CAMPUS PLACEMENT Aarushi Agarwal on her first break 56 Loved & Married tOO Ajitaa and Bimal Rath on the importance of supporting your spouse through the demands of work, home, a nuclear set-up and a very young child 58 BOLLYWOOD BIZ On movies bringing a hitherto unknown location in the limelight and making it famous overnight

56

48 24 September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 7

Editor-In-Chief Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian

58

60

Consulting Editor Vinita Deshmukh Assistant Editor Joe Williams Senior Business Writer Rajesh Rao Senior Sub-Editors Neeraj Varty / Dinesh Kulkarni 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 Create your own mental sunshine

by Dada J P Vaswani

54

62 mobile apps PokÊmon Go—Meet the gaming phenomenon!

66 the Last Word Successful startup ecosystems by Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, 5F World, Pune City Connect and Social Venture Partners, Pune

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 Graphic Designer Shantanu Relekar

62

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 / September 16-30, 2016

On Cover Page Ushma and Thiagarajan Suryanarayanan Cover page pic Ravindra Joshi 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

Anant Maheshwari to head Microsoft India

Anant Maheshwari will take over the operations of the company from Bhaskar Pramanik, according to software major Microsoft. Pramanik, who is currently the chairman, Microsoft India, will retire in March 2017. Maheshwari took charge on September 1 as president, Microsoft India and will take over from January next year. Currently, he is president at Honeywell India. He was appointed the president of Honeywell India in January 2014, after serving various roles in the company for 10 years. As president of Microsoft India he will be responsible for all of Microsoft’s product, service, and support offerings across the country and also be responsible for continuing the company’s transformation into the leading productivity and platform company for the mobile-first, cloud-first era. “As we continue to transform as an organisation and to support our customers’ digital transformation, Anant’s leadership will be pivotal to our continued growth. Our mission at Microsoft, which we all care deeply about, is to enable every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. I know that in India, Anant will help us to continue to deliver against this, in one of the most vibrant, diverse and exciting markets anywhere in the world,” said, Jean-Philippe Courtois, EVP and President of Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing & Operations in a statement. Pramanik, prior to becoming chairman of Microsoft India in 2011, was managing director for Oracle India and managing director at Sun Microsystems. Reacting to the change of guard, Pramanik said, “I am privileged to have participated in the growth of the Indian IT industry over the last four decades from the days of mainframe computing to the mobile first-cloud-first world of today where computing is all pervasive. I have seen the Indian IT industry grow from a few million dollars to the $200b global behemoth that it is today”.

No Parle in Vile Parle!

Found everywhere, Parle-G biscuits aren’t being rolled out from the Vile Parle plant any more, as the unit has been shut down by its owners, the Vijay Chauhan Family. Citing the reason for shutting down the unit, which is nearly 90 years, old, Arup Chauhan, Parle Products executive director stated that the production at the time of the closure was negligible and didn’t make commercial sense to keep it running. The `10,000-crore Parle Products has manufacturing units across India that make Parle-G and other biscuit and candy brands. At the time of the shutdown of the plant, which at its peak produced the largest volume of biscuits, there were around 300 workers, who have all taken VRS. Chauhan described the VRS process as smooth. Spread across about 10 acres, the factory houses Parle Products’ HQ. Although Chauhan did not divulge details, the closely-held Parle Products, named after the western suburb, is likely to retain the land—which sits on a prime location amid a host of residential complexes—for development.

According to experts, the going rate for residences in Vile Parle is between `25,000 and `28,000 per sq ft .

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 9

collywood Additional charge for Dilip Rath as NDDB chairman

Dilip Rath takes charge as the chairman of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), after the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Government of India gave him the additional charge of the post until the appointment of a regular incumbent. The chairman’s post fell vacant last week after T Nandakumar resigned before his five-year term ended.

Rath is currently the managing director of NDDB. Holding an MA degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Rath went on to complete his MSc from the London School of Economics. He joined the IAS in 1979 and served in different capacities under the state governments of West Bengal and Odisha. He was also the joint secretary in the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, GoI from 2008-10. As a mission director of the National Dairy Plan (NDP), Rath is involved in project conceptualisation and formulation of NDP. He was instrumental in implementing various schemes of the Central Governmenti ncluding being the divisional head of 12 cattle development organisations.

Dabbawalla’s CEO pep talk motivates young audience International motivational speaker and former CEO of Mumbai Dabbawallas Dr Pawan Agrawal, shared the success story of Dabbawalas, Mumbai’s tiffin delivery empire, at a programme held in the New Delhi recently. While talking at a function sponsored

by Ace International Business School and organised by HVPP, Agarwal also provided the young audience with tips about establishing businesses and achieving success in life. “The story of

Dabbawalas is an extraordinary source of learning. It may be surprising that from something as small as delivering tiffin boxes you can learn so many things.

Dabbawalas, commitment to the work and their dedication to their customers show optimum level of professionalism from people who are mostly illiterate,” said Bijaya Timilsina, the principal of Ace Business School, at the event. “Today people are always complaining about the

Sunil Munjal to steer Hero power and defence Delhi-based Hero Group has realigned businesses between brothers Pawan and Sunil Munjal. According to sources, Sunil Munjal, 55, stepped down as joint managing director of Hero

10 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

MotoCorp Ltd, India’s largest motorcycle maker, to lead the group’s ventures in defence and power. Commenting on the reshuffle, his elder brother, Pawan, chairman and chief executive

lack of resources, so we wanted to share the story of Dabbawalas, who, despite having very limited resources, are providing world-class service,” he further added. The century-old Mumbai Dabbawalas, provides employment to 5,000 people and delivers 2,00,000 tiffins boxes every day. The organisation has been recognised all over the world for their passion, dedication and accuracy in delivering exemplary service to their customers. officer of Hero MotoCorp, said the move will further stimulate the immense diversification opportunities that the Hero Group envisions for itself, while enabling family members to pursue their own aspirations. He himself will continue to focus on the group’s auto business. The new ventures will be spearheaded by Sunil Munjal’s company, Hero Corporate Service Ltd. “It’s a family decision and nobody else has any role to play. The group now wants to diversify aggressively and it wants to focus on high-growth business areas,” said sources.

In a statement, Sunil said, the entire Munjal family believed the Group’s diversification drive needs a fillip to accelerate growth.

“This is also an exciting time for me to consolidate and strengthen some of the existing businesses and to explore new opportunities that are close to my heart,” his statement said.

Guruprasad Mohapatra to head AAI as chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra has been appointed as the chairman of the Airports Authority of India (AAI). An Odisha-born bureaucrat, Mohapatra is from the 1986-batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer. Prior to this assignment, Mohapatra was posted as Joint Secretary in the Union Ministry of Commerce and had served as Municipal Commissioner of Ahmedabad for over three years. After about two years of his tenure as Joint Secretary, he was appointed the Chairman of AAI. An MA in Political Science and MPhil in Diplomacy (International Relations), Mohapatra is also an MBA degree holder. He hails from Niali area and is the youngest son of noted litterateur the late Mohapatra Nilamani Sahoo. He had a long stint in the power sector, where he was involved in comprehensive reforms in the power sector and restructuring of the erstwhile Gujarat Electricity Board into several commercial entities. He also served in the sales tax department as Special Commissioner (Enforcement) and Commissioner of Commercial Taxes and as the Commissioner of Transport, besides as the Joint MD of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) during his service in Gujarat.

India ‘far away’ from having smart cities: Narayana Murthy One of the flagship programmes of the government is far, far away from having smart cities, according to Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy who said engineers prefer bigger cities for work. “In my own company, we have built development centres in Mysore, Bhubaneshwar, Thiruvanantapuram, These are not rural centres, second-tier cities .

They are not occupied more than 50 percent,” he said at an event recently. "Nobody wants to go there. Everybody wants to be in Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Noida. That is the reality,” he said, while replying to a question on whether we can aspire to contain the massive urbanisation.

Murthy said. “jobs for spouses, children’s education and quality healthcare are among the prime reasons why the company faces this problem. Interestingly, the comment from the former chairman of the IT company comes even as government has been nudging IT and IT-enabled companies to go deeper into the country in order to create jobs all across.

He spoke on urban systems during a lecture in which he stressed that India needs to work keeping in mind that mass-scale migration will continue in

the times ahead”. He added, none of the high-income countries have progressed without urbanisation. “To take care of this, we will need to create jobs in the services and the manufacturing sector,” he emphasised. He went to add, “which is why our country is far, away from its ambition of having smart cities. Since we are far, far away from smart cities, I did not talk about it”. Replying a question on why he excluded any mention of the government initiative in his over one-hour lecture on the topic ‘City Systems’. “I am a doer, I am not just a talker,” he said, asking the audience to visit Infosys' campus in Mysore to have a taste of what a smart city can be.

Cipla ropes in Kedar Upadhye as global CFO Kedar Upadhye joins as global chief financial officer (CFO) of Cipla.

Until recently, Kedar was vice-president, Global Generics Finance, and Head of Investor Relations in Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, according to a release issued

by Cipla. Prior to Dr Reddy’s, he worked with Pepsi India and Thermax Group, it added. Commenting on the

appointment, Cipla MD and Global CEO Subhanu Saxena said, “With his strong financial expertise and deep insights about the global generics industry, he shall be a strong addition to our management council to help us move forward towards our aspirations.” Cipla added that Umang Vohra will continue as the global chief operating officer of the firm.

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 11

collywood Ashar joins Reliance Industries The former managing director and CEO at Cairn India, Mayank Ashar joins the Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries as adviser refinery and marketing business. Ashar would be reporting to Hital R Meswani, who is an executive director on the board of RIL, according to an email sent to the company’s top brass last week.

Ashar, who is also known as Mike in the industry, left Cairn India, citing personal reasons. He had joined Vedanta Group company Cairn in the year 2014 and quit the firm in 2016. The 60-year-old executive’s exit from the Vedanta Group company came at a time when the oil explorer has been

performing poorly, following the collapse in crude oil prices. Ashar has been trying to get the lease for the Barmer oil and gas block extended by another 10 years

beyond 2020. Ashar has over 36 years of rich and exhaustive experience in the international oil and gas industry through various senior management and top leadership roles in leading global companies such as British Petroleum, Petro-Canada and Suncor Energy. Ashar brings a rare mix of driving corporate strategy and on-ground execution, Cairn said in the notice. He also served as the chief executive officer and president at Irving Oil Limited.

He holds a bachelor in Chemical Engineering, a BA in Philosophy and Economics, a Master’s of Engineering and an MBA from the University of Toronto.

Automation replacing IT jobs of midlevel execs: Pai Ten percent of incremental jobs in India’s IT sector will disappear because of increasing automation that will shave off middle-level managers in the era of artificial intelligence, according to industry veteran T V Mohandas Pai. “I think in the IT sector, maybe 10 percent minimum of incremental jobs that are created will disappear.

That means every year if they do (create) two to 2.5 lakh jobs, 25,000-50,000 jobs will disappear,” said the former CFO and HR Head at Infosys.

According to him, middle-level managers account for 10 percent or 450,000 people of the 4.5 million (45 lakh)-strong IT industry in India. Half of them (2,25,000) would lose jobs over the next one decade as their work would get automated.

“There are lots of people (middle-level managers) earning between `30 lakh and `70 lakh (per annum). Half of them will lose their jobs in the next 10 years,” Pai said while talking to the media. The tech investor said the new breed of IT engineers should have better skills and deep technical knowledge, adding, prospects for those having just a bachelor’s degree (B. Tech) are going to be less and less in IT. Stressing that IT hiring 12 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

would become more and more specialised with companies looking for higher and greater levels of expertise, Pai said he would recommend aspirants to do master’s (post-graduation). “An ordinary B.Tech is like X standard today because you have to go ahead for the next 30 years,” the chairman of Manipal Global Education said. He said automation, machine-learning (artificial intelligence) and robotics would create a new kind of specialised workforce. “People who have got skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning and new coding languages like Python, Android and those in the mobile area would do very well in the next five years,” he stressed.

Iyer is MD of Mondelez India Former Bharti Axa General Insurance Company CEO and MD Deepak Iyer takes charge of confectionery major Mondelez International as managing director of its India operation. Iyer, as MD of Mondelez India Foods will be part of the Asia Pacific Leadership Team and report into Maurizio Brusadelli, EVP & President, Asia Pacific, Mondelez International. He replaces Chandramouli Venkatesan, who led the business as managing director for close to two years and was with the company for more than a decade, according to a statement issued by the company. “We are delighted to welcome Deepak to Mondelez International.

Deepak joins us with over 20 years of management experience spanning sales, marketing, R&D, franchise management and general management. He also comes with extensive experience in the FMCG space in India,” Brusadelli said. Prior to Bharti Axa, Iyer was the CEO and managing director of Wrigley India. He has also worked with PepsiCo for 17 years across different roles and in different markets.

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 articles on this topic, we have discussed what ‘Leverage’ means and how to calculate the Operating Leverage, Financial Leverage and Combined Leverage Multiples. I had also pointed out that, from this perspective, there are only four types of organisations. Type I would be where both the Operating and Financial Leverages are high; Type II where both are low; Type III possibility is where the Operating Leverage is high and the Financial Leverage is low; and the last possibility being where the Operating Leverage is Low and the Financial Leverage is high.

Types of Organisation

I II III IV

Operating Leverage

H L H L

Financial Leverage

H L L H

Let us now understand how to read and interpret leverages to analyze the health of an organization.

The first type of organization we are considering has a high Operating Leverage.

I

Operating Leverage

H

Rating the Type II organisation

The second type of organisation has a low Operating Leverage.

Types of Organisation

Rating the Type I organization

Types of Organisation

However, even a small depression in sales will bring profit sliding down, and the organisation may even start making a loss.

How would you rate this organisation on a risk scale of one to 10 (one being low-risk and 10 being high)?

I would put it in a range of eight to 10. If this organisation approaches you with an offer of a large order, but demands a six-month credit period, how comfortable would you be to take it on as a customer? Not comfortable at all!

When it approaches a bank for a loan, you will agree that the bank is going to be reluctant to entertain its proposal.

However, as long as it is making profit, it may be worth investing in its shares as a short-term proposition—while recognising that it is a somewhat risky investment. If its sales continue to rise, there is scope for phenomenal gain. Having invested, you would need to watch it carefully, and exit at the first sign of a downward trend.

Financial Leverage

H

Now when is Operating Leverage high?

Yes, only when the Operating Fixed Costs are high. As we saw a short while ago, Operating Fixed Costs are, by and large, beyond the control of the organisation. They are dependent on the nature of its activities.

The Type I organisation thus seems to be one that, by virtue of the nature of its business, must bear high Operating Fixed Costs. This gives us an inkling that the break-even point of this organisation will also be achieved relatively late since it has to generate sufficient Contribution to recover a higher Operating Fixed Cost. Once the organization breaks even, it will begin to enjoy the benefit of leverage by default. Every small change in turnover, post-break-even, will lead to substantial increase in profits.

We have gauged all this information just by looking at the letter H under the column Operating Leverage.

Let’s now look at its Financial Leverage, which is also high.

A high Financial Leverage would indicate that the interest burden is high.

This gives us a peek into the temperament of the management as regards borrowing. They seem to believe in liberally supplementing their own resources with borrowed capital. This would push the company’s breakeven point even further. It would now have to work harder, and make and sell more, in order to recover the additional burden of interest cost. But the combined leverage is so high, that once the organisation breaks even (which would be achieved at a substantially high level of installed capacity), the slightest change in sales would take the profit zooming up. Of course, the scope for this is limited, since this organisation may soon reach the limit of its installed capacity.

II

Operating Leverage

L

Financial Leverage

L

This means that its Operating Fixed Costs are on the lower side.

This appears to be a lucky organisation since the fixed costs that it must bear, and over which it has no control, are less.

This also means that on operations it has a quick break-even.

The company is very likely to break even on a relatively lower level of its installed capacity.

It has a long way to go before it reaches full capacity utilization.

We now turn our attention to the Financial Leverage, and find that this is also low.

This tells us that the organization has a low burden of interest.

It appears to be conservative in its approach towards borrowing.

Even though it achieves break-even relatively quickly, it does not believe in hastening its pace of growth with the help of borrowed resources.

If this kind of organisation approaches you with an offer of a large order, provided you extend it a long credit period, go right ahead.

However, it’s very unlikely that this organization will come to you with such a request because it clearly does not believe in borrowing.

If this organisation goes to a bank for a loan (which in all likelihood it will not) the bank would be very happy to entertain its proposal.

If such an organisation is issuing shares, stay away. You will probably make more money keeping your investment as a fixed deposit on interest with this organisation than from investing in its stock.

In the next issue, I will discuss the rating of the remaining two types. (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 September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 13

wax eloquent

india-a learning for the west Take a look at what our corporate leaders have to say about recent trends and their experiences in the business world Change of leadership contributes positively

Advertising not necessarily best way to build brands

“The less you advertise, the more you win. Every time I see a full-page advertisement, I say this is going to shut down.”

Mahesh Murthy, founder, Pinstorm and co-founder, Seedfund

“I always believed, especially from my long experience in the IAS, that the institution benefits from change in leadership. Even if an extremely competent leader is changed after five years by a less competent person, I still believe that change of leadership contributes positively to the institution.”

D. Subbarao, former RBI governor Courtesy: www.livemint.com

Courtesy: www.livemint.com

In love and marketing everything is fair

“If you look at Patanjali and if you really look at Baba Ramdev, I think he has stirred the marketing pot, so to say. One of the biggest weapons he has is the fact that Patanjali Ayurved is a desi company, not that others are not. So, he has used that to his advantage. I very frankly believe that in love and marketing everything is fair. As far as Ramdev is concerned, he has used a weapon. Now you will see reactions to that use.”

Harish Bijoor, brand consultant Courtesy: http://www.moneycontrol.com/

Money is there for the best companies

“The fundamentals should be strong, on top of which, you have supplydemand. In every hot market, valuations go up and in low market, they go down. Same thing happens in stock market.

Investment cycles are like sine curves, so we’re in this low-key moment where investment has slowed, but money is still there for the best companies, but everyone is not getting funded.”

Kavin Mittal, founder and CEO, Hike Messenger

Courtesy: http://economictimes. indiatimes.com/

14 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Ease of doing business

India has made big progress in the last few years on establishing businesses. It is easier to start a business in India when it comes to foreign direct investment rules and permitting process with fast-track approval process. This doesn’t happen anywhere outside India.

Juvencio Maeztu, CEO, IKEA

Courtesy: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

Data is the new oil

“If you look at the last 200 years, industrialisation was about transforming oil and energy in various forms— rail, cars, machines, etc. As we move deeper into the 21st century, it is more about transforming data. If you look at the companies with the highest market capitalistion in this planet, up until 2010, it was oil companies and 2010 onwards, they have been displaced by data companies. We are redefining the IT goal for India—data is the new goal.”

Jan Brecht, CIO, Daimler AG

Courtesy: Economic Times

Business side of fashion

“Fashion is a business, it is important to understand that from the very beginning.

Designers are really taking control of the business side of things from Alexander Wang and Christopher Bailey being both the CEOs of their businesses and running the design side as well.”

Rachel Roy, fashion designer Courtesy: http://www.businessstandard.com/

Box office does matter

Social media becoming a listening service

“The fact that you can tweet to Sushma Swaraj that your wife has lost her passport is great. John Kerry is not doing that. But this is happening in India partly because processes are so complicated and VVIP interaction is really hard. What I like about it is that it is helping some people.

India, in the way it has leapfrogged technology, has enormous learning for the West.”

Sree Sreenivasan,

chief digital officer, New York City Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com

Reformer PM Modi injecting pace and ambition

“At a time when we have got a new government in the UK, with a mandate to be increasingly global in our outlook, you have a PM here who is a reformer himself. He is injecting pace and ambition with developments such as the ‘masala’ bonds. I think we have the biggest single government-backed corporate bond, it was oversubscribed and was very successful.”

“I don’t see myself as a businessman outside films. Within the industry, however, I am a producer and I’d be a fool if I deny looking at numbers. Yes, box office does matter because it helps you do more movies.”

Akshay Kumar, actor Courtesy: www.livemint.com

Greg Clark, UK minister for business, energy and industrial strategy Courtesy: www.economictimes.com

Capturing the soul of customer

“Indeed, banking is unique—as it is the only industry where the entire life of the customer goes through it—in a way we can say it captures the “soul” of the customer.

This is very powerful, because only a bank can utilise this collective wisdom to make highly individualised decisions for each and every one of its customers.”

Rivi Varghese, CEO, CustomerXPs Software Courtesy: http://www.bankingtech.com/

What excites me about digital marketing...

“I think the fact that something can impact a person’s life in such little ways, such quick ways and such uninterrupted ways is why I am so attracted to digital marketing. You can make something so much more fun on digital and that is what excites me about digital.”

Roles of VCs in India crucial

“Our core belief is that VCs have to be an integral part in building new India. India is a large enough country and we can create $1 billion worth of companies. India is the only market that has the size and scope like China and the US. It is the only country where you can create companies similar to these two markets.”

Rajesh Raju,

founder, Kalaari Capital

Courtesy: Business Standard

Prachi Maroo, business director, The Glitch Courtesy: http://www.bestmediainfo.com

Key drivers of growth

“India has approximately 4,000 startups already launched in the past year, and the number of software developers throughout India is expected to grow to over 5 million by 2020. This indicates that this region is poised to unleash a tremendous amount of innovation by the next decade.”

Prabhakar Jayakumar, country manager, DigitalOcean Courtesy: http://www.computerworld.in/

“Entrepreneurs should remain entrepreneurs.

They should keep building businesses. After finding success once, they should hand over the reins to their capable lieutenants and move on to their next pursuit. There’s a deep sense of satisfaction associated with taking something to the next level, launching it and finding a market for it. So, my mantra when it comes to entrepreneurship is: define, invest, build, succeed, and repeat.”

Sonali Minocha,

Approach to new technologies

“I constantly think about what is coming next. If you don’t disrupt your own business, someone else will disrupt it. We thus continue to experiment and innovate, leveraging our technology capabilities and our understanding of the consumer.”

Vineet Jain, managing director, BCCL

My mantra for entrepreneurship

Courtesy: http://www.strategy-business.com/

entrepreneur and co-founder, OSSCube

Courtesy: http://techstory.in/sonali-minocha/

Compiled by Rajesh Rao rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 15

interview

American thinking India

Building progressive, profitable and happy companies is my speciality, says Kurt Inderbitzin, an American expert on doing business in education, media and technology, and in combining these areas to create cutting-edge educational platforms. After a 10-year stint producing feature films and television series in the US, Inderbitzin moved from Hollywood to Bollywood in 2006 and oversaw construction of veteran filmmaker Subhash Ghai’s media school, Whistling Woods International, in Mumbai. Thereafter he built another film school, the Annapurna International School of Film and Media, in Hyderabad, before moving on to work with film and entertainment services company, Reliance MediaWorks, in Mumbai. He is currently working with Zodius, a private equity firm in Mumbai, as well as on multiple real estate projects in the United States and two startups in India. In an exclusive interview with Corporate Citizen, Inderbitzin speaks about his in-depth experience in the fields of media, education and technology, his startling observations and what he loves and hates about India By Rajesh Rao Hollywood to Bollywood Moving from Hollywood to Bollywood, what were your early experiences about the differences you confronted?

Bollywood movies, which are changing rapidly now, were fairly traditional even 10 years ago.

They are big spectacles with lots of dance numbers, while Hollywood movies tend to be big spectacles with lots of special effects. But there are key differences. Bollywood movies are generally shot without syncing the sound on-the-spot, whereas in Hollywood they sync sound while shooting-that’s the technical difference. You are recording the actors as they speak. In India, because labour is relatively cheaper, they tend to hire very large production crews and the pace tends to be slow, while in the US, because labour is so expensive, they work with smaller crews and utilise more equipment to accomplish their goals as rapidly as possible.

I would say on an average, my experienceshoots in India can take two to three times as long for the same amount of content. That’s also due to logistics, infrastructure, roads, and partly due to the lack of professionally trained crews. These are the differences I saw and it’s a strange experience. However, things are changing. Bollywood is getting more efficient as it gets corporatised and it is catching up with Hollywood in lot of ways. With big budgets, they have to run efficiently.

Are the media schools in India capable of catering to the country’s rapidly growing film and media industry?

Many schools like Whistling Woods and Annapurna International in India are training

students and they are finding jobs. But you must understand that these two schools may be bringing out only fifty graduates a year, for a film industry that is employing thousands of people. Those graduates are just a drop in the bucket. In the US there are over 500 film schools. In Pune, there is a government school which graduates around 12 students a year. I guess there may be around 300 graduates coming out every year from various film schools in India, when industry probably needs 10,000 graduates a year. It is challenging. If you are a businessman in India, your biggest challenge, whether it’s film, TV, fashion or any industry, is hiring top people. We all know that the weakness here is poor education and corruption. Poor education is the one thing that can hold India back. India has got all the potential, it has got the youngest and the brightest minds in the world. It’s a democracy and the economy is growing. But the companies here can’t hire people, because they can’t find the right people-it’s really a struggle. It is same in media or in any industry.

Startups & Entrepreneurship The startup boom in India has sparked hopes in aspirers that they too could make it big. Do you see this enterprising story to go a long way?

I think it’s incredibly exciting for India and for the world. The good news is obviously India has 1.21 billion people and statistically you are going to have millions of geniuses-that’s how the numbers play out. And if most of those geniuses have access to capital and exploit their ideas, interesting stuff is going to come out of India.

That’s good for India, it creates wealth.

16 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

If you name the top ten global brands like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatApp, Amazon… they are all American brands. You cannot name a brand that has come from Europe, Japan, or Australia in recent years. I don’t think that’s healthy. But India has the biggest population in the world now, probably bigger than China, but name a global brand that has come out of India in the last 10 years? Flipkart is a brand in India, it’s not global, nobody in the US has ever heard of Flipkart. And its market value is dropping like a rock recently. So, that worries me and there is a reason for that.

India is a relatively smaller economy, growing but India is one-seventh the size of the US economy.

So, it’s much harder to

pics: Ravindra Joshi

India has 1.21 billion people and statistically you are going to have millions of geniuses—that’s how the numbers play out. And if most of those geniuses have access to capital and exploit their ideas, interesting stuff is going to come out of India. That’s good for India, it creates wealth build a billion-dollar company, when the whole economy is seventh the size of US. Secondly, the primary and secondary education in India is a huge problem and it holds the startups back. If you have a start-up company in India, you have a great idea, and you need to hire a chief technology officer (CTO)there are not a lot of really smart, qualified and well-trained CTOs in India. All of them are snapped up by Facebook, Google, Amazon and they are gone. You can’t compete salary-wise if you are a startup, with those companies. With a billion people in India, there should be a million CTOs sitting around waiting for jobs. But this million potential CTOs will only be ready for a job if they get proper training. Surveys show that 85 percent of Indian college graduates are unfit for employment and the number for MBA programmes is 90 percent. Where are your companies going to get people to work for them with numbers like that? So, there are two concerns, one that the startups aren’t able to scale because they can’t find good enough people at reasonable prices. Secondly, India hasn’t figured out how to create global brands.

The common man walking on the street in New York, has never heard of Infosys or Tata, but he has heard of Amazon, Google, or Apple.

What is needed for running the entrepreneurial marathon?

Companies are all about people. But where do you find those people? You have a company, even if it is technology, it takes smart people to create that technology, market that technology, operate that technology. Recently I gave a talk at a B-school, where I told the students to not September September16-30, 16-30,2016 2016// Corporate CorporateCitizen Citizen // 17

interview just look for corporate jobs but start their own company and be an entrepreneur. One of them asked, I am a poor student, what do I do to raise money? I told him to look around-what if you got to know all thousand students in your class and got each of them to give you 5,000 rupees.

Five thousand rupees is not a lot of money for any one person. If you could make 1,000 people give you 5,000 rupees, that’s seed money and you could start a company. Then, if you are connected with these 1,000 people, you may hire your CTO or CFO out of them.

In order to make startups sustainable, what is important?

Got to tackle corruption and revamp the education system-they are real bottlenecks. It’s really going to hold progress back. Even in the US, with the best higher education in the world, Silicon Valley is screaming to the US government to open up visas to more scientists, engineers, coders, etc. Even with the amazing quality of higher education in the US, they can’t find quality em-

Tips

for aspiring entrepreneurs

Figure out what you really like and figure out how to make money. Don’t become an engineer or a pilot because your parents want it. With today’s technology, whatever you like, there is a way to make money.

You can market products today, in a way you like. You are going to spend thousands of hours at work for rest of your life, so do something that you like.

If you are at a school, take advantage of being there with thousands of students and network. Get all of them to know you, respect you and like you. Because in any business it’s about contacts. It’s not usually what you know, the old cliché is true, it is who you know. If you really network with these thousand people, you are going to become really successful.

After you are successful, give back-come back to the school and help other students. If you are going to be the boss, insist that your employees make mistakes. The definition of risk is that there is some chance of failure. If you don’t encourage your employees to take risks, if nobody takes risks-without risks your business will die. Mistakes mean your employees are taking risks. Teach them to own their mistake, teach them to find ways to not repeat the mistake, but encourage mistakes.

ployees. And there are thousands of world-class schools in the US for higher education. There is not even five percent of that in India, so how can India get enough people to grow these startups?

Is the startup ecosystem thriving in India, because of its smart brains, intellectual thinking and multi-skilled individuals?

It is thriving, but is it going to sustain? Do you know how much money venture capitalists and private equity lost in this country last year? Big and really well-funded companies basically collapsed last year. Who got big funding four years back are just nonexistent today. In the US, the basic model for venture capital is out of every 10 companies you expect seven of them to fade out, one does satisfactory, one does pretty good and one get huge. And your 10-million-dollar investment becomes over $150 million. Today Facebook is worth over $300 billion-that’s hard to do in India. There is no $300-billion-net worth company in India.

Now the good news is, the web, the Internet, changes a lot of these rules-you create a company in India that can serve everybody in the world. There are all sorts of Internet sites that you can use as easily here as in the US. Google is pretty much everywhere. So, you can create a company in India that can have applications all over the world. But again you run into a problem-if you want to market globally, you have to be able to compete with global companies. And again it comes back to education. Can you find qualified people, who can compete with those in the US and Europe? The kind of people who can market against companies globally, can do a more sophisticated job of marketing, because they are better educated people. Statistically, there are brighter people here in India, because big population and percentage of high IQ is the same everywhere. But, without the education background to develop the right skills, that IQ is only of partial use.

Has India become a place where risk taking is now being encouraged?

Risk taking is happening in India. It was a much smaller component 10 years ago and now youngsters everywhere in India are saying-I am going to start my own company, I am going to take risk, I am going to take a chance. Most of the students I meet ask me questions like how do I start my own business. These students are smart and ask smart and challenging questions, it is impressive.

It is said that competition can copy your strategy and idea. How do you stop it?

The copyright is not well protected in India and is one of the potentially weak areas. For example, copyright infringement of filmed content is not really enforced, and this may come down hard in India in coming years. As India gets richer,

18 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Risk taking is happening in India.

It was a much smaller component 10 years ago and now youngsters everywhere in India are saying—I am going to start my own company, I am going to take risk, I am going to take a chance

foreign governments like the US are not going to like it if Indians can make carbon copies of an American movie-that’s not fair and they shouldn’t like it. But patent protection, if it is a technology-based company and you want to go global, then the US, Europe and Japan-they really do have some leverage here.

India, my love You said you love India. What attracts you to India?

I came here to join and work with filmmaker, Subhash Ghai and for his film school, Whistling Woods International, in Mumbai. That was a really interesting project and I am really glad that I did it. But when you move around in India as a westerner, just the sound here-we use horns in an emergency situation in the west, here they use horns for everything. They beep so much that the horns have no value, nobody pays attention to them. When you first come as an American, it’s a cacophony of noises you have never heard.

It’s overwhelming and it takes a few years just to desensitise to that.

What I love of India? I like the energy, the vitality, the rawness. I love Goa, it’s not because it is a tropical paradise. I love it because it’s raw. You can actually go to a beach, where there is nobody else on the beach. Goa is raw and beautiful, and not a concrete jungle. When I am in Goa and in India, I love taking a motorcycle out, it’s a raw adventure. You can explore India, which most

position. She was Secretary of State and did great work. She’s been investigated probably more than any human in history, and pretty much been cleared. Everybody thinks she is corrupt and everybody hates her. I think she is competent and it will be great for the world to have a woman as a president of the US. I voted for Obama and one of the reasons I voted for him is because racism is a real problem in the US. It was really healthy to have Obama as the president-that was great for the country. And it would be as great for the country to have a woman president.

America as a superpower was responsible for the peace of the world, but perception is that it has destabilised the peace. Is America a custodian of peace or a problem maker?

Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. A similar thing that I would say is capitalism is the worst form of economic system except for all the rest. Capitalism tends to breed an unquenchable desire for profit. In the US, it certainly bred an unquenchable thirst for oil. We are close with Saudi Arabia and at war in Iraq, why? We wouldn’t have anything to do with these countries, if they had no oil. So, oil and the money that come from oil, blinds people to stay true to the ideas of democracy and human rights.

Indians haven’t even seen. It is raw, unspoilt and that’s magical.

India-US alliance Should there be more constructive relationship between India and the US, economically and in many other ways?

Together as allies: India and America are the two largest democracies in the world, they should have a special relationship. I would love to see the two countries together as allies-for freedom, for democracy. Really happy to see that we are understanding each other’s culture as countries, and their militaries are moving closer too… I presume the reason is China. We are stronger against China together. It’s not a great reason to become friends but I wish that China was more benevolent and didn’t require this kind of behaviour.

Economic ties: There is such disparity in wealth between the two countries and India is very protective. It is a very protected economy. Your Dell computer costs a lot more than a Dell computer in the US because of these protections.

So, there are still big duties on imports in India.

They still don’t have Wal-Mart here. I believe the law still wants an India to own 51 percent of WalMart India, so Wal-Mart won’t come. Wal-Mart says sorry, that’s not going to work for us. And the argument is India needs to be protected. That is hard to make feel fair to both sides. The US consumers pay huge sums for pharmaceuticals.

In India, you can take a pharmaceutical product which was developed for 5 billion dollars in the US, reverse-engineer it and make a generic version of it and sell it for two rupees. It is billions of dollars that is going away, from America’s standpoint.

The flip side: On the other side, the US contributed the most to global warming in the world.

Now, India wants to develop, they suddenly realised global warming is increasing and the US says India has to stop. When US industrialised , it was alright to warm the globe, when India industrialises it is not. India is right to say that it is not fair. I hope the US is going to pay India to not pollute the world as they industrialise. But try to get American taxpayers to send billions of dollars to India to build solar energy plants in India-it’s tough. So, there are really tough ingrained economic differences. As India gets richer, it will get easier to overcome them.

American Dream Your view on the present US presidential election, the candidates and their campaigns?

The recent presidential election in the US is such a zoo and for many people it’s a scary situation.

And Donald Trump seems so erratic. What he’ll be like as president-he scares me. But, Hillary Clinton-who has been very close to India-most Americans do not like her. I have never understood it, she always seemed to me an impressive woman. She was a Senator, in a very powerful

American policy was to contain communism.

The only job America has done is to collapse governments of other countries.

I don’t want to sound nationalistic but it’s very hard to know what the world would be like without America. I agree, America has made lot of mistakes, particularly in the quest for oil. But, how would the world be if America were not the superpower? I don’t think it would have been better for the world if Germany or Japan had emerged as superpowers. I wish the US would be more about human rights and democracy than we are about oil. But I think the world would probably be a worse place, if America weren’t there.

America has everything, it is a superpower economically, politically, militarily, but why is youth of the country so frustrated? Look at the campus killing incidences that are happening.

There is a certain media hype to that. When one person goes crazy and shoots lot of people, I wouldn’t assume all or even a significant number of American college students are frustrated.

I think the root problem with America in terms of these kind of attacks that you are seeing two or three times a year, is two-fold. One, we have incredibly easy access to weapons and the other, we are the richest country in the world and we have no mental health facilities. The combination of no mental health care and readily accessible guns is a dangerous combination. rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 19

NHRD Delhi chapter

From left: Sumit Mitra (MD, British Telecom Group), Jeff Schwartz (Consultant, Deloitte ), Ashish Bhandari (CEO, GE-Oil & Gas) and Hitesh Oberoi (MD & CEO, InforEdge)

A Future-ready HR

With more and more CEOs across the globe talking about the changing business dynamics in a rapidly-evolving new world order, HR leaders also need to change. But are they changing fast enough? This was the topic of a spirited discussion at a recent NHRDN’s Human Capital Conclave By PRADEEP MATHUR

F

ormer US President John F Kennedy once said, “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” Until recently HR debates in India rarely touched on future emerging trends in the global HR domain. Most debates focussed on a few standard topics such as talent management, talent retention, engagement, building culture, building a leadership pipeline and so on.

But with growing realisation that the world is

changing faster than ever before and that change has become the ‘new normal’, the focus of these debates has also started changing. One such held recently in Gurgaon -- as part of the National Human Resource Development Network’s 4th Human Capital Conclave 2016 -- witnessed a high-powered panel discussion, lasting about 90 minutes, which delved deep into the million dollar question: What role will HR play in this constantly changing and ever- evolving workplace?

It also touched upon other allied questions: How well equipped are our organisations

20 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

to navigate the transformative changes and emerge with a competitive edge? How sweeping global forces are reshaping workplaces in India? Is the increasing focus on organisation design, leadership and company culture, and the steady rise of analytics and digitization heralding a new era for HR? The panellists also discussed the role millennials are playing in this evolving New World Order, operating under the influence of disruptive forces (like People Analytics, Digital HR, the Internet, etc) which are mandating change not only at the

Q&A session

As CEO and senior business leader of your company, what leading business challenges do you face? What keeps you awake at night and what major concerns do you have?

workplace but also in the way work is done.

Chaired by Deloitte’s Senior Director (Human Capital Global Leader), Jeff Schwartz, the theme of this highly engaging discussion was titled, “Business leaders on the changing role of HR in the rapidly evolving New World.”

The panel consisted of three top CEOs from the corporate world including Hitesh Oberoi, MD & CEO of Info Edge; Ashish Bhandari, CEO of GE Oil & Gas (South Asia); and Sumit Mitra, MD, Central Business Services of the British Telecom (BT) Group. Over 200 HR leaders attended the session.

In his opening remarks, Jeff observed that while the world is changing and business leaders are changing, nobody talks as to how this change is taking place, what challenges we face, are we in sync with this change, and whether each one of us is changing fast enough. To find out, he laid out a set of questions. “I first want the three panellist CEOs to give us an understanding of how their business landscape is changing and then answer the following questions:

Ashish Bhandari: My company, US multinational major GE is in all aspects of infrastructure that you can think of. Recently we won an order to put up a locomotives plant in Bihar. The project involves building 1000 locomotives over ten years in Bihar, setting up a factory in Bihar’s Marhowrah. While 100 locomotives will be imported, the rest will be manufactured here as part of Prime Minister Modi’s Make in India initiative. The problem we are facing right now in Bihar is rather unique. It is all about multiplicity of functions over there. The Marhowrah project involves a cost of about Rs 2,052 crores and apart from creating thousands of jobs, it would also give a fillip to local ancillary industries that will be required to service this huge locomotive plant.

Since everybody there wants to make profit and becoming local will help our own growth, we’ve tried to get into the weeds. But getting anything done in Bihar is not easy. Here everything you do requires multiple functions, multiple geographies and multiple points to come together to deliver things. It’s not a ‘command and control’ kind of situation where somebody sitting there says, go and do this, and it gets done. Everyone works in a matrix, says how do I get out of it? But that’s the reality of the world you work in.

It’s a whole flatter world and information is not easily available, but what you do with the information makes all the difference—all of these play out in the real world and challenge us to do more. I tell my colleagues in GE that it’s like a 100-year-old banyan tree where you have a million roots coming out of it but you don’t know which is the primary trunk that’s giving life. You have got no one single root, no single trunk, and no eco-system where you try and do things well by yourself.

Hitesh Oberoi: For us, the world has been

a very different place ever since 2008 happened when we had a dream run as a company. The influence continues to run, as besides owning India’s largest job provider company, Naukri.com, we also own other internet properties like Jeevansathi.com, Shiksha.com, Naukrigulf.com and 91acre. com and have stakes in many other internet businesses. We’ve also invested in Zomato, the online restaurant search providing company. So, for us, we have a dream run since 2008 and then, of course we had, like everybody else, a very tough time for a couple of years and then things looked like as if we’re back on track and started doing well again.

In the interim there suddenly was a of sort rush for private equity and venture capital money which came into this country in a big way. Most of them were focussed on investing in engineering and technology start-ups.

We all know how, for the last four years, Flipkart’s name appears in the Economic Times almost every day. So, suddenly we saw, from no action to massive action, very uncertain environment, very volatile environment and again things seem to have changed in the last six months and now there is a talk of things slowing down, funds drying up, the world not being the same ever again and stuff like that. So, again, it has become a very volatile and uncertain environment. The one thing that worries us also is the fear of the dotcom bust -- which we’ve seen and weathered with our new brands like Jeevansaathi.com and 99 acres.com, to name a few. The other thing which worries us is about our space. Like everyone else, we’re also cautious about technological disruptions. Incidentally, Naukri is today regarded as India’s largest job search site and is now about 19 years old. There was actually no Google when we started.

That was the first major disruption we faced in our industry. Then there was Facebook.

That was another disruption in our space, and then there was Mobile. Every five years, we have something or the other happening which disrupts our business. So, like we disrupted the offline space some 20 years ago, we also have somebody or the other disrupt-

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 21

NHRD Delhi chapter ing our space every five years. We don’t know where the next disruption is coming from, probably it will come from one of these startups which have been getting funded well in the past couple of years, but we don’t know who they are and what they will look like. These are some of the things we worry about in our space.

Sumit Mitra: We have entirely different sort of problems in the telecom space. If you look back to around 2008-2009, BT as a company had a 1.6 billion write off. The global financial crisis of 2008 had resulted in the near-collapse of our group. So, it is better to understand how we started off from that loss of 1.6 billion than from a company which started in 1860. It was a big challenge for us, we had to change and transform the way we operated across the globe. In the last six years, we had to take out around five and half billion pounds net cost of our business and that was a difficult thing. So, from a business challenge perspective, we’ve evolved as a business significantly. We’ve moved into the television space. Who would ever know that British Telecom, which is fundamentally a telecom company, now has BT Sports which is a very popular TV channel? We have our own platform. We’re having BT TV. We’re delivering broadband. But our challenge now is very different. Number one is bugging in the regulatory space. In UK, because of its regulator, the Ofcom, which manages the broadcast and telecom space, we’re losing around 400 million pounds revenue a year. We’re incurring this huge loss because of regulation every year.

So, if we have to stay flat, we have to increase our business to the tune of 400 million pounds every year. On top of that, the new data laws that will govern big data privacy and security, which will be operational in 2018, will also have a huge impact on how we manage our global workforce. And, finally, I’ll quote from the chairman of my company. I asked him very recently, now that we’ve transformed our business since 2008 and our share prices have gone up eight and a half times, how would you mark us?

You know, we’re in broadband, we’re in IT, we’re in telecom, sports, mobile, wi-fi, retail wireless services and so many other areas, how would you mark us? He said, “six and a half out of ten.”

I was very, very surprised. I asked, “Why would you do that?” He said, our biggest challenge is, how do we improve our consumer experience in the consumer space and in the BT business space? “We badly need to improve that and unless we get to a 7-1/2 or 8 out of 10 in customer expectation and customer satisfaction, we can’t rate ourselves among the top companies of the world. This is because our business is customer experience-based, so we are never going to get nine out of ten.” So, our biggest business challenge in the next two years, as I see it is, how

do we improve our customer intimacy and improve our customer experience, especially in the consumer market. In our broadband, in our telephone line, telecom space, how do we improve the experience of our customers who are using the technology for the first time? Who were the traditional BT customers in the last 20 years? That’s our biggest challenge.

As a major employer both in India and around the world, how do you see the talent and employee market? Are expectations of employees changing? Are the talent markets deeper, thinner and more volatile now than ever before?

Ashish Bhandari: I’ll answer this question in two parts. The first relates to the war for talent for GE wherein, for example, if you want a sales person in a traditional role, today you’ll find him easily in India, relative to, say, five-six years ago.

But there is a big risk if we leave it at that. At GE, we’ve been trying to bring in industrial internet in digital format in a really, really big way. We’re

from an information point of view. So, war for talent is massive in GE as we’re competing with all the dotcoms of the world. We’ve put up a massive technology centre in San Ramon in California where we’re hiring. In its ads for candidates, you’ll see how GE is making fun of itself in this war for talent.

The second part of my answer is more fundamental because when we hire people, many a time we realise that we’re not getting the best. Yet we try to upgrade their skills by providing them top-class training and then to retain talent, we offer them programs like HealthAhead (which is GE’s global wellbeing program), Women’s Network (which is meant to accelerate women’s advancement through sharing information about best practices, experiences and leadership development, to name a few) and Work from Home (which gives employees freedom to work from anywhere) and a variety of things which obviously creates a lot of good strain on the organization.

Hitesh Oberoi: Ashish is right when he says we

In our broadband, in our telephone line, telecom space, how do we improve the experience of our customers who are using the technology for the first time?

Who were the traditional BT customers in the last 20 years? That’s our biggest challenge - Sumit Mitra putting in billions of dollars in trying to create a digital part of GE which would be the world’s first industrial operating system. We want to be among the leaders in the fast-growing “industrial internet of things” market. Our aim is to help organisations in industries such as aviation, healthcare, energy and transportation deal with the vast amount of data being generated as sensors are attached to everything from medical equipment to aircraft engines. In OctoberNovember last year, I went to attend a course in leadership at GE’s Crotonville training centre in New York. It’s a wonderful place, where 90% of managers who go there for the course have worked for GE all through their lives. But this time around, when I went there, I found that 30% of the class was new. Many of them had worked for less than 12 months, but everybody was an expert in IT or technology, and was bringing technology into data analytics and data sciences.

No wonder, I came back from that training completely shaken. I realised, if I didn’t change, my role as CEO would be gone in a very short time! That was a real wake up moment for me and I’m now trying to learn about technology

22 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

don’t wear a tie to work but we have to compete with companies whose CEOs wear shorts to work (laughs)! We’ve been in the talent space -- in the sense that our Naukri platform, having 55% market share, is currently used by nearly 60,000 companies to hire people every year.

We’ve been seeing what is happening not just with us, but with a lot of other companies over the years. So, from the talent stand point, I don’t think, things are as bad as they were from 2003 to 2007-08 when India was actually growing at 9-9.5% per annum and nobody was able to hire people, irrespective of which sector, which space, which market and which business you were in because the market was such. HR bosses of companies used to tell us in Bangalore that guys were resigning by sending just an SMS and do not turn up for work the next day, they would abscond and would have four to five job offers at any point in time. These guys, company bosses would tell us, were very, very rude. These were the things that HR managers used to complain all the time. In fact, they used to ask us that we should not keep their career sketches in our database, and that we must black-list them be-

cause they deserve to suffer. The situation is not as bad today, because India has slowed down a bit as it is not growing at 9.5% and war for talent is not so acute. More people are available today. We just have to look around for them.

But the situation is very bad in some pockets.

There are sectors and industries which are hot.

In our space, for example, it is impossible to hire people and you were lucky to retain them till about six months ago because everybody was hiring. It was almost impossible to get good talent. Even today, as I speak, it is very hard to get people in big data and people analytics which is a very hot skill, very, very hot. Three years ago, it was very difficult to get mobile developers when smart phones became the rage and everybody wanted to build an app. It is still very hard to get mobile developers today. You go through these phases where some skills are hot and there is shortage of resources and people are not available with those skills and there is war for talent. This can apply to management too. Suddenly if a company starts expanding aggressively, you may find that middle managers are not available, or if the economy opens up and enters into new markets, it realises that there is no talent available. You go through all these phases, but in a country like India, it is not so difficult because we have so many people graduating , entering the workforce every year. Every three to four years, the situation tends to correct itself. But yes, you’ll always have pockets where people are very, very hard to get.

Sumit Mitra: Again, I’ll set the context. About three and half year ago, we had about 300 employees in India from a BT Group perspective.

Today we have 8,000 people. We have had a significant growth over the last few years and there is changing dynamics in the labour and talent market. One of the key things for us is: It’s not the same in every domain. The work we do here ranges from contract management to legal and commercial type work to project management to technical jobs, and we also do contact centre-type work. What we have noticed -- and this is my personal view -- is that the biggest challenge is at the contact centre which is service-based and where we serve people who are serving our elite customers. In India people are unable to connect with the purpose of the company, as to why they want to connect with the company. And people are still moving for a little pay rise to enhance their careers and that’s a big challenge. But do I have the same problem in the finance area? No, I don’t. I have CAs who want to stick around and be with us.

Our biggest challenge at the moment is: How to stay along? How to stick to a company and gain understanding in a mutual symbiotic relationship that we have with organizations

People will always be a challenge.

You will not be able to attract the best people all the time. Sometimes you have to go by what you have and get the best out of them - Rohit Oberoi and employees? And, what we are doing about it? Money is no longer a big issue for people.

The environment they work in is. The issue is their experience with the first line managers they are dealing with; whether they are working for a sustainable company; is that company doing enough for the society. These have become key issues in the talent business.

What are the most important gaps which have the highest impact on their businesses? Where would they like their HR leaders and their teams to step up their contribution? How can HR have an impact on their organizations?

Ashish Bhandari: As I’ve progressed in my career, HR is the one function for which my respect has gone up tremendously. I respect what the role brings about as you change the way we evaluate people, the way you work in a matrix, the way you drive skills through the system, getting absolutely new functions to come in and all of that. However, a good HR person should have is the empathy of things, especially in the Indian context. It is one function that people look to, for many a thing.

If your car is not coming on time, if the food is not right at the cafeteria, if you’re not getting promotion, whatever, HR becomes the catch-all for any of these. An HR manager has to first fulfil the fundamentals by getting the vibe of the organisation, the connect and then empathy with the team.

Hitesh Oberoi: In a company like ours, where things change pretty rapidly, people’s skills also get outdated very easily. What you are known for today may not be required five to seven years down the line. Jawa, for instance, was a hot skill 15 years ago, today it is not. HR is the custodian of talent, people and company’s culture which have a very important role to play in attracting and retaining people in organisations, keeping them motivated and engaged, empowering them, getting them to perform better than expected or more than what you expect otherwise. HR, in our kind of business environment has to help in developing people’s skills because skills get outdated very fast. How do you keep people current and relevant? It’s even more important in smaller or

mid-size organisations where there aren’t very many opportunities to keep people around and develop them. In large organisations, it is very easy to keep people moving around between businesses, bring people across geographies and so on, but it is just not always possible in small organisations. So, how can you help develop people as the industry changes? That’s an important area where HR can play an important role. The other is culture, which is key, and which also depends on how the top management functions. But HR has to play the role of facilitator, enabler and custodian so that companies have the right kind of culture which enables them to attract and retain the best of talent. People will always be a challenge. You will not be able to attract the best people all the time. Sometimes you have to go by what you have and get the best out of them.

Sumit Mitra: If we could look back and see how HR has evolved in the last 100 years, up to the 1930s and 40s, HR was a very admin-type function, writing contracts for people, then it kind of moved into practices in terms of how we hire, train and retain people. In the last five to ten years we are talking about HR as a business partner: How do you understand and impact the strategy of the business? But the modern challenge is, how do you do outside it –that’s a big challenge for HR. How do you understand the business context? How do you communicate with the government?

How do you benchmark against other organisations? How do you add value back into the business? It’s no longer an inward-facing function where you say I would put in practices in place. The important thing is the practices you run within your organisation are very much dependant on the outside in-view. Because the world is changing so much and so fast, it is important for HR to have a very outward view, understand the market trends, stakeholders, the ecosystem they are playing in and bring back the impact and business strategy that’s driving it. One more thing, because you are an HR person, it doesn’t mean that you have to remain an HR forever. You need to get out and work in the business domain to understand it better and that gives you a far more knowledgeable way to understand and connect with the business. mathurpradeep1@gmail.com

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 23

corporate COLUMN

G Udayakumar

CEO, CORE MIND

The Rush and Pause of Appreciation

Let’s make this world happier, by rushing to pause and pausing to rush for appreciation!!! What are you waiting for?

The waiting time, is over! You’ve been long in the queue of life, already. The ticket is in your hands! Just go ahead and scream loud appreciation, to all others around you “I now perceive an immense omission in my psychology. The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated” - William James

T

his emphatic truth of life, that has stood the test of times, was ushered to our Universe by William James, who is also referred to as father of American Psychology, who lived between 1842 and 1910. He was a renowned philosopher and psychologist, who also was a physician and credited as the first educator to offer a psychology course in America.

This quote often resonates in my heart as often in my life and works, that I’d never tire myself telling this and while seeking opportunities to practise this tenet, so much so it stumps me to disbelief that I’ve left many opportunities around me yet go unattended, leaving me feel miserable and incomplete!

My sense and suggestion to myself and you all readers is to “Rush to Appreciate” as and when there’s something that captivates your attention in another, as simple as the energy, brightness, enthusiasm the other manifests, to big-ticket items of the likes of accomplishments, milestones shared, colossal efforts, values akin to humility, respect for others, helping orientation, etc. The list can be endless that which seeks attention, for us to Rush for Appreciation. This simply implies, don’t wait

for another day to appreciate others, as either that day never arrives or becomes stale, when deferred. Do it Now (Appreciate Now!) is not a prescription, but a process to be relished both by the giver and gifted to the receiver!

As seemingly paradoxical is my recommendation is to “Pause to Appreciate”. Yes, it’s one of my earnest convictions that we need to pause to hand over huge doses of appreciation, to others. All of us are caught in the wraps of time to constantly perform tasks and deliver results, achieve perennially, be on the treadmill of activities and push boundaries, so much as it has become almost a norm of shameless obsession, as though if we do anything otherwise, it is demeaning for survival. There seems to be an illusion of being unstoppable in the quest of materialism, in the rat race-filled world, of twisted comparisons and jealousy. Here my humble submission is that we all need to Pause to celebrate and Appreciate, however tempting the need to move on to the next activity (with perhaps the only exception in the unlikely event of the next immediate happening is a certain disaster or peril), is to pull stops, take a few deep breaths, pause and appreciate the other soul/s, for what they’ve done to themselves, to you, others around, to the team, organisation, or to the world.

We all need others around us, be it our parents, spouses, children, siblings, neighbours, seniors, peers, team members and strangers to

24 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

We all need others around us, be it our parents, spouses, children, siblings, neighbours, seniors, peers, team members and strangers to Rush and Pause to Appreciate us! We would ever love and crave to be appreciated by others in all contexts quite unconditionally Rush and Pause to Appreciate us! We would ever love and crave to be appreciated by others in all contexts quite unconditionally. There’s nothing wrong in holding this desire and when it doesn’t come from others, we oscillate between being uncared, indifferent, demotivated, depressed and what not. Legitimate it is for us! The point I’m driving home, is not about your expectations being fulfilled or not, by others. If it arrives in time (Rush) or later (Pause), let that be a value, adding bonus, for you to be bolstered. Accept it gracefully and acknowledge the value of the same to others, if it arrives.

On the other hand, I’m goading the urge that happens dormant or seldom within you to incessantly Rush and Pause, to Appreciate others, given any situation that appears on your radar of normal senses about others, for there resides a whole world of craving for your love, care and empathy, waiting to be Appreciated by you!!!

Let’s make this world pappier, by rushing to pause and pausing to rush for appreciation!!! What are you waiting for? The waiting time is over! You’ve been long in the queue of life, already. The ticket is in your hands! Just go ahead and scream loud appreciation, to all others around you.

CC

tadka

Holidaying on FB While on a holiday, 95 percent of Indian travellers spend majority of their time on Facebook as compared to other social media channels, revealed Hotels.com Mobile Travel Tracker survey. The study surveyed 9,200 travellers across 31 countries and noted that on a holiday, travellers turn into social media show offs, use mobile to search for the next meal and have Facebook face-offs with travel companions.

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 25

Cradle of Leadership Dr Yogesh Kulkarni | Executive Director of Vigyan Ashram

Making

of aRural

Entrepreneur Vigyan Ashram, a unique school in Pabal Village of Maharashtra, is a pioneer of the Rural Entrepreneurship Programme, where teaching is imparted by way of handson training. As PM Modi’s Skill India mission is gaining momentum, it’s a precursor which can be traced in this unique school. From this year, the Maharashtra Government has made it a part of the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) introduced its first-ever FABLAB in 2002 based on the model made by Vigyan Ashram. Hence, Vigyan Ashram’s FABLAB is known as FABLAB 0 (there are thousands now across the world). The ashram, is located in an innocuous village, known for the palatial mansion of Mastani—the other significant woman in the life of Peshwa Bajirao—attracts young IIT engineers, researchers and scholars across India, who want to establish themselves as entrepreneurs and professionals in a world where environment plays a vital role. This educational institute is the brainchild of research scientist, the late Dr Shrinath Kalbag.

Corporate Citizen interviews the young, dynamic Executive Director of Vigyan Ashram, Dr Yogesh Kulkarni, who networks across world’s scientific institutions to enhance the quality of rural technology enterprise, while motivating his students at Vigyan Ashram. Excerpts from the interview…

By Vinita Deshmukh What is the idea of Vigyan Ashram?

I would like to call it a laboratory of education. We believe that 90 percent of students, who are Class X dropouts, are able to do many meaningful things, in real life. They become successful entrepreneurs, construct bridges and work as technicians. Only, they are not being formally trained in a school. All of them undergo a way of learning that is completely natural by apprenticeship method. So, Vigyan Ashram is a school dedicated to the weakest link in formal education. If 90 percent of students drop out 26 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

of school, there is a need to develop a system for this percentage of students.

Besides, we have a programme for formal school, known as Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT programme).

We are implementing this programme in 122 schools in Maharashtra, including a few schools in Chhattisgarh as well as Odisha. Beginning this year, the Government of Maharashtra has made it a part of the National Skill Qualification Frameworkv (NSQF), having termed it ‘Multi Skill Foundation Course’. This philosophy is making

Students are trained in a real-life environment.

After all, cost, quality, delivery, are better learnt in a real-life situation.

As for the community, it gets an access to services, which otherwise, would not have been possible for a village pics: Yusuf Khan

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 27

We mostly develop content and curriculum for them. In some cases, we also monitor and mentor. Our curriculum is constantly updated as per the demands of the society.

We also conduct programmes for school teachers

Our main programme is the one year Diploma in Basic Rural Technology.

It is primarily meant for students of Class X, whether they pass or fail and is a residential, hands-on programme

28 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

inroads into the formal system. So, it is the laboratory of system.

Tell us about your programmes and student enrolment.

Basically, we take students from different levels. Vigyan Ashram is more like a commune of school dropouts—those who abandon education due to financial reasons—and students who have pursued engineering at the graduate and post-graduate level, but want to learn more in order to contribute to the society. All kinds of students are learning together here.

We have three main programmes—a one year programme, which we call the Diploma in Basic Rural Technology. It is primarily meant for students of Class X, whether they pass or fail in class and is a residential, hands-on programme. The other one is the Design Orientation Centre, affiliated to the Savitribai Phule Pune University. This entails four programmes, namely Product Design, Agriculture Design, Sensors Technology and Water and Basic Management. These courses are held for a duration of six months each. Students who do not have a technical background, yet want to explore this arena, can enrol for these programmes at Vigyan Ashram.

For instance, you can join the programme even if you are a student of Commerce, wanting to study Electronics.

On a functional level, we assign a real-life problem to students, such as the maintenance of an inverter or a solar system. While working on these problems, students gain an insight into the curricular details as well. Six months later, they are armed with practical skills. Thus, they are equipped to solve a problem of the community. Based upon their performance, the university recognises their learning, gives them a credit and certificate from NSDC. They get level-5 and level-6 certificates upon completion of this course.

A large number of applicants for this course include graduate engineers, diploma holders.

Our third programme is open to all college groups and entrepreneurs looking to upgrade their skills. We also conduct programmes for schoolteachers. We mostly develop content and curriculum for them. In some cases, we also monitor and mentor. Our curriculum is constantly updated as per the demands of the society. When you cater to the society, your skill becomes outdated at a fast pace.

Tell us more about the IBT Programme.

The Basic Principles of IBT programme are as follows:



Learning While Doing: There is no classroom training involved. Students

actually work using their hands and while actually doing things. In the process of working in a real-life situation, they learn about quality, customer satisfaction, costing and pricing.

Multi Skill Training: ‘Nature’ is in the syllabus for IBT programme and is divided into four sections. Training in multiple skills helps broaden horizons as far as experiences of the student are concerned, as the course enables them all to become a handyman.

It helps them in deciding their preferences for a vocation in future. Most of the problems at ground level need a multidisciplinary approach and hence having multiskills helps. Students, thus become the jack of all trades and decide the one skill they want to master later.





Community Services: After using basic tools at schools, students provide various services to community at a modest cost. Hence, students are trained in a real-life environment. After all, cost, quality, delivery, etc, are better learnt in a real-life situation. As for the community, it gets an access to services, which otherwise, would not have been possible for a village. These services include fabrication, plumbing, soil analysis, electrical appliance repair, etc.



Instructors as Entrepreneurs: Young, skilled individuals from the community work with the school as ‘honorary teachers’.

Honorary teachers demonstrate skills to students so that they grasp concepts better. The teacher uses facilities of the school and with the help of students, provides services to the community. He is free to practise his enterprise using facilities available in the school.

teaching method.

We believe in training students through reallife activity, as we do not have funds to create a model, which may or may not be used in the market. For example, if we want to impart training on welding, why not teach them how to make a stool; if we want to teach them the principles of construction, why not teach them how to make a real staircase or a ramp. Or if we want to teach them about earthing, why not go to a village in need of it and give them hands-on training there! Of course, we charge the village for material cost. However, this teaching model benefits both the village and the university as we provide low-cost solutions to them, while the university saves the cost on material to give hands on training to students.

It is a win-win situation for everyone, you see.

The motto of the ashram is ‘Education through development and development through education’.

Please throw some light.

To cite an example, someone from Sindhudurg had a requirement for biogas plants and we catered to his demand. At the ashram, students get real-life training, while customers get an access to services at a low cost. At the same time, our objective as an educational institute is achieved as we provide real-life training to students.

Please elaborate on the hands-on September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 29

Cradle of Leadership

So, this is congruent to our motto as we educate, conduct development activity in the community, which, in turn, pays for the services. It is through education that we are trying to achieve rural development. For example, pre-monsoon, we tested water quality in over 100 villages included in our school programme. We tested water for its potability and informed the community about the same. It is a service, developmental activity. Similarly, for plumbing activity, we visited villages to fix leaking taps or put washers in leaking taps. Obviously, students get a good hang of the plumbing tools and

how they can use them to fix leaking taps, etc.

So, through education, we are carrying out developmental activities in the community and vice versa. Therefore, both education and development are interlinked.

Tell us about some of the successful projects undertaken by students.

One of the real-life projects is manufacturing an egg incubator for a small enterprise. Egg incubators at commercial hatcheries are available for storing 10,000 eggs and are very expensive. We made small incubators which can store up to 100, 500 and 1,000 eggs. The

30 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

request was made by poultry owners who wanted small hatcheries to hatch native breeds.

So, we developed a low-cost incubator which runs on electricity, solar power, LPG or wood.

It benefitted the poultry owners immensely as they didn’t have to purchase a generator for maintaining temperature because usually, in big hatcheries, one needs to buy a generator, thereby increasing the capital cost.

Another example is of the women members of the Chaitanya Self-help Group in Rajgurunagar, who wanted a machine for pounding brown rice. They supply 100 kg per day to an outlet in Pune, but found it difficult

Dr. Shrinath Kalbag: Dreamer of Rural Entrepreneurship

V

igyan Ashram, is the brainchild of Dr Shrinath Kalbag, a research scientist who pursued his PhD in Food Technology from University of Illinois, Chicago. During his two-year residence in Chicago, he would spend weekends at ranches in nearby rural areas to see and study the life of rural folks, especially the farmers. He observed that the farmers used science and technology not only for agriculture, but also for general living. This observation inspired him to establish Vigyan Ashram at Pabal in Pune district.

ciated his sincerity and offered all possible assistance in the project. He was relieved from the post but appointed ‘Scientist Emeritus’. After touring entire Maharashtra to select a rural town for his future project, he selected Pabal, Taluka Shirur in Pune District, a rural town under rain shadow and always short of water supply. Dr V G Kulkarni introduced him to Dr J P Naik and Chitra Naik of Indian Institute of Education (IIE). After studying the project report submitted by Dr Kalbag, the two scientists gave him the green signal.

After he earned his PhD, his professor urged him to continue and work in the USA as a researcher in one of the leading manufacturers of glandular preparation at a grand remuneration. Dr Kalbag, however, insisted on returning to India at the earliest. He joined Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) in Mysuru and later, joined Hindustan Lever Research Centre, Mumbai as head of the engineering sciences department and worked there until 1982. During that year, he decided to take voluntary retirement and start working for his dream project of establishing an ashram-type institute to promote non-formal education for rural youth, especially school dropouts.

In 1983, Dr Kalbag founded Vigyan Ashram in collaboration with IIE, Pune, renting a big room of a defunct oil mill at Pabal and shifted his residence from Juhu, Mumbai to a Maharwada at Pabal. This was a well planned step to set an example for local folks to forsake discrimination between the higher and lower castes.

His bosses at the research centre appre-

to pound it manually and they wanted to reduce breakage. Vigyan Ashram worked on towards achieving their goals. We charged them an advance amount of of `7,000 and successfully made the machine for them in turn. The demand for this pounding machine has grown and so, we have now started supplying it to other such entrepreneurs. One of them has also been supplied to Kolkata.

There has been a request for additional facilities like cleaning and grading rice too.

Tell us about your sanitary napkins project.

There are girls in Vigyan Ashram, who find it awkward to dispose off sanitary napkins out in the open, public bin. So, an idea to make an incinerator to destroy them struck students.

We found that commercial incinerators catered to 10 to 15 sanitary napkins and were costly, so we wanted to make smaller ones. We came up with two versions, one is electricity-based and the other is solar based. The latter can be put up on the rooftop and burns away. However, a time has to be set for it, usually between 11 to 2 pm. Normally, the time is set to 2 pm, at which time, the sun flash burns it, turning it into ash.

You can even dispose it in the wash basin. As

Some time later, Govt of Maharashtra donated land for Vigyan Ashram on a barren hillock. Vigyan Ashram is an education system based on the principle of “Natural system of learning”.

Dr Kalbag breathed his last on July 30, 2003. His mission was to see youngsters start their own enterprises, thereby reducing migration to cities.

for the one that runs on electricity, it costs `1 for a pad disposal. The cost of machine is `5,000. This one can be placed in the bathroom. It takes four minutes to dispose sanitary napkins off with this machine.

We made 10 such units on trial basis and installed them at various places. It is a proven technology now. As of now, we are looking for someone who can manufacture it. Because we function as a lab, I want to hand it over to someone who take it forward.

Tell us about the windmill project.

There are 20 students who are undergoing

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 31

FabLab is a kind of distributed international network of scientific researchers and community inventors to define, conduct and apply new discoveries and inventions for benefit of both research and local communities training to make the windmill. A Spanish windmill expert has arrived from Auroville Ashram to teach the students. The customer is a farmer, Gitaram Kadam from Nhavare Village, who wants to install a windmill in his farm. He is sponsoring the cost of making the windmill.

How did he approach you?

Gitaram Kadam is an alumni of Vigyan Ashram and belongs to the 1999 batch. We learnt about the windmill expert through Google search. We have 20 students from various academic backgrounds, working on this project. These include IIT students, post-graduate engineering students, five students from our Basic Technology Course and five individuals from outside the university who are interested in wind mill technology. Those who are engineers, can do the documentation, communicate and read the drawings. But physically, they may not be not as good as DBIT students. Both of them have to understand the strength of one other and work in tandem. They have to work as a team. When the students of MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arrive, we follow the same protocol, that no one is above or superior to the other.

So the students of MIT, students of Dapoli University Agricultural University, DBIT students work on a project, write the paper and publish it too. Students of MIT visit the ashram regularly. In fact, they have a very good collaboration with FabLab. What is FabLab? A FabLab (fabrication laboratory) is a smallscale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication. A FabLab is generally equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different-length scales and various materials, with the aim to make “almost anything”. If you have an idea, you come to FabLab with it and all the tools are at your disposal. So, you draw on a computer screen and give a print command. These are all automated and CNC machines.

Tell us about its origination The FabLab was started by MIT in 2002. The concept of FabLab originated from Vigyan Ashram. Following a discussion between Dr Kalbag, the founder of Vigyan Ashram and the Director of MIT, the concept of FabLab witnessed evolution. It is for this reason that Vigyan Ashram is called FABLAB 0. There are more than 1,000 FabLabs around the globe.

What is the focus of Vigyan Ashram’s FabLab? ‘We can make almost anything!’ is the tagline of FabLab, a brainchild of Dr Neil Greshenfield, (Director, Center of Bits and Atoms, MIT(USA). The lab has a collection of commercially available machines and parts linked by software and processes that MIT has developed for making things. The project aims to give ordinary people around the world the technology to design and make their own stuff.

As for Vigyan Ashram, it is the first Fablab outside MIT. It was established in 2002 and received capital equipment by NSF-USA and IITK. FabLab is a kind of distributed international network of scientific researchers and community inventors to define, conduct and apply new discoveries and inventions for benefit of both research and local communities. The goal of FabLabs is to find solutions to some of the most pressing concerns that the world faces today through distributed research network. Vigyan Ashram has taken up various appropriate technology projects under FabLab. Some of them are i) Human power-based lighting solution ii) LED lights iii) Egg incubator iv) Agri sensors, etc. The FabLab of the ashram hosts several innovative student projects (Diploma, Graduate, Master’s) every year.

In Vigyan Ashram FabLab 0, we focus on precision agriculture. We primarily provide support to the farmers on maintaining poly house temperature, humidity. Besides, we also provide them customised solutions. The incinerator and the incubator are FabLab products. Presently, we are working on fun

32 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

projects, such as, we have made a machine to draw rangoli and another one to make rabdi.

We also do more serious stuff like working on prosthetic hands; we are a part of global network of makers of the prosthetic devices.

Many volunteers working with Vigyan Ashram make prosthetic devices locally. So precision agriculture is one, second is prosthetics and third is energy. In energy, we try to use solar energy or biogas. We try to make it all economically viable.

What are the innovations made so far by the ashram?

The list of commercial innovations can

be found on the website and on our WordPress blog. Some innovation projects are still in the pipeline. Another website, http://dsttara.in/ (DST stands for Department of Science and Technology and TARA stands for Technology Application for Rural Areas), is the website managed

by Vigyan Ashram. It has all the rural applications made by different organisations across the country. DST asked us to maintain a website like this one. Normally we try the technology here. My intention is that I get information about the new development so that I can try it out, I can test it out. So that is also available.

Tell us about the GKN Intercontinental Award won by the ashram.

We have won many competitions organised by the World Bank. These were more like development marketplace competition.

We won them in 2013 and 2014. We won one for $ 20,000, while another one for $10,0000. As for the GKN Intercontinental, there is a company called GKN PLC in UK. On the occasion of completing 250 years, the organisation announced a global competition to be adjudged on ideas.

They wanted to celebrate the efforts made towards development. We participated in the competition; we made a proposal around the

Pune plant, went through several rounds and finally won the competition.

Are you receiving any governmental support?

The Department of Science and Technology is supporting us. DST finances the core staff and mostly the engineers. It also supports their salaries. There are four engineers supported by DST. Are you happy with this support?

We have higher expectations, but the government has given us land, so they have supported us well.

But yes, there is much more that it can do.

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 33

Cradle of Leadership

Vigyan Ashram:

HAPPY TECHNOCRATS Everyone is happy at Vigyan Ashram to say the least. While students find joy in contributing to a cause, those working here have their own reasons for joining the Ashram inspite of having an impeccable academic background

Subir Bhaduri, Projects Head, Design Innovation Center, Vigyan Ashram

Supriya Baban Kadam, FABLAB Engineer, Vigyan Ashram

Arundhati Jagdish Jadhav, Intern, Vigyan Ashram

I studied Physics in my graduation and pursued MSc. Later, I worked for four years in various industries, following which I completed my PhD in Engineering from Belgium. Soon after, I joined Vigyan Ashram. I learnt about Vigyan Ashram back in 2010 when I made a small engine called 'sterling engine' (a contemporary of steam engine).

I love engineering designing against a backdrop of constraints, such as there are no high-tech solutions and very costly solutions are not affordable and ultimately, you have to make your original design very robust regardless of the environment.

This is one of the reasons I joined Vigyan Ashram as Projects Head at the Design Innovation Center.

I don't know what I'll do but one of the plans is to form my own design company, in association with Vigyan Ashram. I love the flexibility at Vigyan Ashram for our primary aim is rural development, but we have the freedom to work on a problem that is socially relevant to urban areas as well. Although we are in a rural setting, we have some of the latest machines at our disposal for prototyping. I love the philosophy of Vigyan Ashram which focuses on expanding horizons and experimenting in order to learn. What adds to the charm of the ashram is the idea and objective behind it, which is to make design innovation centre interesting for youth; to show them they can have fun too while designing and that they don’t have to be boring designers. I have no future plans as such, but I do know that I want to form my own design company in association with Vigyan Ashram.

I visited Vigyan Ashram during the final year of my college, where I pursued my engineering in electronics.

Upon my visit to the ashram, I was impressed by the functioning of the FABLAB, the very reason I chose to join it.

I learnt that there was one vacancy to work here and fortunately, I got selected to work as a FABLAB Engineer at the ashram after I cleared an interview.

Working at the ashram is like a dream come true for me. I work on various kind of projects using rapid prototyping machines like 3-D printer, laser cutter, modeller machine, which is a milling machine and roller V knurl cutter.

It is with the help of FabLab, that I made a basundi maker which makes cooking easier while saving time and human effort. The machine will soon be put on solar reflector.

Enrolling in a Fab Academy course enriched my knowledge about machines. As part of the course, I made 19 assignments and completed a project in three months’ time.

In five years from now, I want to start my own business. I intend to have my own production centre where I can make machinery of various types. The production will strive to help the common man. As far as working here in the ashram is concerned, I have already completed a year and wish to continue working here as this kind of work interests me.

I am an electronics engineer. Currently, I am pursuing my M Tech in Rural Technology from Kolhapur, Shivaji University. I have already completed my first year of M Tech and am working in the ashram as an intern.

What drew me to Vigyan Ashram was my desire to work on biogas plants. Working for the cause of rural folk makes me happy. I like working on renewable resources, given that there are major electricity challenges confronting rural areas.

Moreover, rural areas have a lot of scope from renewable energy since they have a wealth of renewable sources in the form of solar energy, wind energy, cow dung and so on.

However, these forms of energy are not put into good use. Thus, I want to work on biogas and build biogas models so I can cater to their energy needs.

What I admire about Vigyan Ashram is that they provide hands-on training here, unlike most other colleges where the most frequently used means of teaching is the blackboard or PowerPoint presentations.

On the contrary, we learn all by ourselves in the ashram, right from finding errors to rectifying them. At Vigyan Ashram, practical learning is the core.

Therefore, we gain an insight into the real world problems here which does wonders to our knowledge vinitapune@gmail.com

34 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Claps & Slaps Corporate Citizen claps for the ‘Queen of Endurance’ Michelle Kakade, who has reserved a berth in the coveted Guinness Book of World Records as the first individual to have completed the Indian Golden Quadrilateral, run on foot The Guinness Certificate received by Kakade mentions “the fastest time to travel the Indian Golden Quadrilateral on foot by a female in 193 days 1 hour and 9 minutes and was achieved by Michelle Kakade (India) between 21 October, 2015, and 1 May, 2016.” Running about 35 km on an average every day, Michelle successfully completed the 5,970-km run in a record time of 194 days spread over 167 stages across the four metros Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai and 56 towns. With only 27 rest days, she has achieved the equivalent of running 142 full marathons from October 12, 2015 to May 1, 2016. Michelle began her run from The Gateway of India, Mumbai on October 21, 2015, moving towards Delhi on the Golden Quadrilateral and from there to Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and returned back to Mumbai on 1st May 2016. Michelle was supported by a crew of five members throughout her run. While the honour is a great triumph for the nation, it also narrates a story of willpower and determination from someone who took to professional track events at the age of 35, post-motherhood and rejoices in her journey to success. Speaking to Corporate Citizen she said, “It was a desire to do something out of the box, to do something different. As a regular person, I wanted to chart a different course of life and age is just a number...” The 46-year-old Michelle started out with a local competition on June 25th as suggested by one of her local gym member some 12 years ago and enjoyed the whole experience. Then on she totally focused and developed herself for bigger laurels in life. On a higher plane, Michelle dedicates her marathon runs “to the millions of women in our country who are battling every day for survival purely on the basis of their gender.” A mother of two, Michelle’s tryst with the tracks started post the birth of her son (Nikhil), who is now 25; her daughter (Nishka) is 22 years old. She participated in sports in school only because it was compulsory, and she had no way out of it. Michelle originally hails from Bhopal and has a British lineage. Married to city businessman Anil Kakade, she had a regular life that moved dreamily from blissful, and eventually, to ordinary, when she gradually decided to do something for herself. Her advice to women is, “We need to give more time to ourselves. In a family set-up, women reserve time for kids and kind of lose their own identity. “Do whatever that makes you tick, what you enjoy doing the most and give expressions to that ..Say, half an hour in the day, give yourself your time and develop interest that spells who you are ...”

Corporate Citizen slaps the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike) on its recent demolition drive to override on its own past mistakes of allowing land encroachments on lake beds and storm water drains (SWDs)—seen as the prime trigger resulting in the recent heavy flooding Nearly 600 houses were submerged after the city recorded 250mm of rain, the highest in more than five decades. The government faced severe criticism for doing nothing to stop encroachments on lake beds and SWDs. The BBMP has identified 1,923 encroachments, some of which have already been removed in earlier drives. BBMP’s wake up call to mercilessly demolish sites has left over 100 families homeless since the drive began and is slated to continue. It has brought down 822 buildings that have been illegally constructed on encroached lands. Justifying its actions, Karnataka MLA N.A. Haris said that BBMP should have taken this step 25 years ago and that demolitions of marked properties are inevitable to save Bengaluru. Public furore continues as government remains determined in its demolition drives; which experts deem as a knee-jerk reaction to the recent damages caused due to flooding.

Critics reminisce that BBMP’s April 2015 demolition drive on the Sarakki lake bed covering 38 acres had recovered land worth `2,000 crore in 10 days.

And it continued to do so after the Bengaluru Urban DC sent notices to slum dwellers. But, the exercise was soon stopped—“Did they have to wait for floods? Why is there no permanent policy on such issues? Why is it so piecemeal?” ask urban activists. BBMP explained that whenever they issue eviction notices, citizens get a court stay and continue to live there. So, this time, the BBMP has also approached the High Court and filed caveats to prevent people from obtaining stay orders on the demolitions. But, shocking revelations also point out that many residents living in these marked properties do possess ‘A’ khata or legal property—free from land related issues.

The committee estimated the value of encroached at `1.50 lakh crore. The authorities have not spared the house of martyr, Lt Col. Niranjan’s house. In another recent development, the slumberous BBMP muscled up like petty goons to recover property tax and raided JW Marriot for defaulting `5.59 crore worth property tax. They left only after collecting the property tax through a demand draft for `4.39 crore and a cheque for `1.19 crore. As long as BBMP’s demolition and property tax drives loops around powerful developers and private lobby groups too, and not just aimed at the poor and the middle class alone, BBMP’s ‘Kumbhakarna’ act of sleep , wakefulness and sudden war footing will have to battle the ire of its citizens!

(Compiled by Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar) September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 35

Cover Story Dynamic Duo: 37

Ushma & Thiagarajan Suryanarayanan

High flyers Thiagarajan Suryanarayanan is perhaps one of the most fascinating corporate leaders you can meet. Starting from the ground up at Asian Paints, he built a strong career foundation which went a long way when he helped shape up Accenture in its early days in India. Currently, the Global Head of the Talent Supply Chain at HCL Technologies, Thiagarajan has his work cut out for him. A strong work ethic, a brilliant mind and immense passion for his work make him one of the most accomplished HR professionals in the country. His wife, Ushma Thiagarajan is Senior Project Manager at Infosys in Raleigh-Durham, in North Carolina, USA and has been with the company since 1999. Despite both being in high-profile jobs, they have admirably balanced work and marriage including the upbringing of their two children, aged eight and six. They speak to Corporate Citizen about their high-profile career and what it takes to achieve a work-life balance

F

By Vinita Deshmukh and Neeraj Varty

or the super speedster (in work and words) and globetrotter Thiagarajan Suryanarayanan, his erstwhile girlfriend, now wife, Ushma Pancholi has been at the centre of all his career-building decision making. She was his junior in Visvesvaraya Regional College of Engineering (VREC) in Nagpur in 1996. They got married in 2001 after a five-year courtship.

Says he, “My career decision throughout the last 10 years has been my relationship with my then girlfriend, and now wife. I took up MBA because I knew that after my engineering, my parents would pressurise me to get married. They did not know then that I was dating Ushma. I gave them the excuse that if I got married, I would not be able to find the time to study again. So I wanted to pursue my post-graduation immediately.”

He adds further, “Also, I knew that if I took up sales and marketing, I would be posted in a rural area. And my girlfriend got a job at Infosys, Pune. I knew I had to take up a job which had postings in big cities. That’s why I opted for Asian Paints.”

Ushma reminisces with romantic nostalgia. “We first met during our annual Inter-Department Cultural Festival in Visvesvaraya Regional College of Engineering, Nagpur (now rechristened as Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology) in the year 1996. I was a freshman in Computer Science while he was a junior (Third Year) in Electronics Engineering. He had come to attend our internal quiz and ended up getting a lot of chocolates for all the audience questions he answered correctly. Even though he refused to share the chocolates with me, I took notice of him that day”.

She further recalls, “Over the subsequent days we interacted a bit during some events and even went to a nearby lake for a nice little walk.

Maybe it was the air by the Ambazari Lake or the greenery in the Japanese gardens at Seminary Hills (in Nagpur), but something clicked and we kind of knew this was it. I guess between the multiple walks we had around

36 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

campus and the evening kachoris and samosas we had at Bajaj Nagar near the Girls’ Hostel, we both grew close to each other and before we knew, he was graduating from college and going to Mumbai to start his career with Air India. At the time, we had to give this some certainty and we both committed to be together and here we are, 20 years later. Two kids and two decades and he still doesn’t share his kachoris or ice creams with me!”

Adds Thiagarajan, “Both of us were the serious kind, we knew what we wanted to do. Then we went for our internships—I went to Air India and she went to Goa. We kept in touch, and when I reached the final year, as the D-day approached when I would be graduating from college, I said, ‘I am going to be gone in May, but I am going to be there for you.’ We decided that we were going to marry. We knew there would be problems, because at that time my sister was coming out of a troubled love marriage, so my parents were sceptical—inter-caste, inter-community had become taboo. We knew we had to wait for some time. In Indian society, if you are successful, all marriages are approved. If you aren’t, nothing is approved.

So we knew that if we did well, if we got good jobs and had our own money, our parents would turn around. I said to her, “First you crack a good job”. She got a campus job with Infosys. Back then, getting a job at Infosys was a big deal. I got into Asian Paints. We were in good companies, getting paid well. Once we saved some money, got some professional status, we decided to marry. Our parents were okay with it, even though they weren’t too happy with this inter caste alliance.’’

They currently reside in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the USA. States Thiagarajan, “It is a small city, I chose it because it is an educational, R&D hub. It is like Mysore, a planned city, small, very nice place to live, up and coming, and excellent for kids’ education. Living in New York is no different from living in Mumbai. It doesn’t matter to me where I stay, as long as I’m available where I need to be. When my CEO needs me in Delhi or New York, I’m there. My job involves extreme amounts of travel. I have taken over 200 flights in the last two years, and half of them are international. I don’t spend more than two weeks in a continent.’’

Today, there could be many who would want to marry me. But back in engineering college, there was nobody who would have wanted to marry me because I had nothing then. When somebody is willing to commit her life to you at a time when you had nothing, then she has really committed her life to you because she actually saw something good in you — Thiagarajan September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 37

Cover Story

A Globetrotter Thiagarajan Suryanarayanan

Early college days

I have very fond memories of studying at the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune. Back then, SIBM was not in the lovely campus it is today. It was just a four-storey building. The college was attempting some new initiatives; in fact, Mr Pillai in HRD ran yoga courses and instilled discipline. SIBM provided a strong foundation for us to work in different corporations. I did my summer internship in Coca-Cola. Back then, placements were quite strong at SIBM, so I had a choice of jobs.

I picked up Asian Paints because they were known to provide the best management training.

The first job

I have worked for over 15 years, I have had a phenomenal career. I have travelled widely, worked in several countries including South America, Australia and Japan. Asian Paints gave me my strongest grounding in management principles. I’ll give you an example—in Asian Paints, even though you’re specialising in HR, everybody needs to learn how to paint.

You have to get into dirty clothes, and know how to scrape the walls.

Asian Paints gave me a chance to work with unions in the factory at Bhandup and in Patancheru in Hyderabad, where it has the largest factory.

In those two years, I had a chance to negotiate with unions. This was a very unique experience, just after coming out of college. At the Bhandup factory they spoke in Marathi, and the Hyderabad factory, Telugu. I knew neither. I had to edit the magazine, ‘Tutāri’ meant for internal communication with the workmen. So you literally had to go through a cultural assimilation before the workers accepted you as one amongst them. But in those two years I represented the management, conducted salary negotiations and signed two settlements—that was one of the most definitive experiences. At that age, to represent the management was fascinating.

Different countries; different work cultures

I have spent a lot of time working in the western world. One of the things I appreciate about multinational companies is that they can be quite direct in their communication. In the Indian work culture, we tend to beat around the bush. It makes communication very inefficient. Many a times it is actually best to fire a person than skirt around the issue. In the US, the average notice period is two weeks as compared to several months here.

There is also a high degree of transparency in countries like US and UK. 38 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Work culture in other countries

Spain: When I first landed in Spain, they didn’t tell me that they used Spanish as the business language in the office. I assumed that like in any Accenture office, they did business in English. People there write in English, but they talk in Spanish. I was supposed to be there for two weeks and carry out the audit. I had little choice but to actually learn the language. The good thing is that the Spanish also has Latin phrases like English, so it was not difficult. I enrolled for a course in Spanish. But it was quite revealing that even in an MNC, work could be done in the local language, and that work habits were substantially different from ours.

In Spain, dinner was at 10pm, so lunch would not start till late afternoon. They start their day very late, and are generally quite lax. In terms of pace, if you compare Mumbai and Madrid, they are polar opposites. You also realise that it is very difficult to get work done out of Latin Americans and Spaniards, partly because they take life at a very different pace.

China: China is very different. In China, people speak English very poorly but their written English is better. Being subservient is part of their culture, so they don’t speak up in front of their bosses. In all likelihood they may not understand what you say because they lack in spoken English and English comprehension, but they will not speak against you. You may host a meeting, and assume it is going well because they nod their heads. Whenever I had a conference call with the Spanish or Chinese, I would always make sure my chat window was open. They are more comfortable asking questions on chat. And if you budget a typical conference call for an hour in the West, I would budget three hours in China.

Latvia: I visited Latvia a number of times. Latvia used to be part of the USSR. Many people don’t know Russian culture. It’s very unique. In Russia, people don’t respond to emails immediately. You send an email, they ignore it. You send another one, they ignore it again. You send a third email and then they respond. If you don’t persist in following up, people don’t assume it’s important.

Slovakia: Slovakia has Germanic roots. They are very efficient, and very precise and very smart people.

Poland: Poland is now the hub of analytics. The standard of maths education in Poland is very high. They have Jewish roots. Israelis in general are very good at maths and finance. So it is not a surprise that Warsaw and Krakow are becoming hubs for data analytics. Poland is like a mini-India.

The scale is very small, but the model is the same.

pics: Ravindra Joshi

What you are destined to get, will eventually come to you. You just have to play the part and keep working on things you believe are right. If you chase things that you want to get instantly, they will elude you. If you go after money, you will not, get it. If you go after something you believe in, the money will follow September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 39

Cover Story My Accenture stint

Times Square

We were in Hyderabad when Accenture happened. We had a personal crisis; Ushma had a miscarriage there, so she was not happy, she wanted a change of environment, to move somewhere close to Chennai and Goa, where our parents lived. Bengaluru was a nicer place. Asian Paints didn’t have anything in Bengaluru. But Accenture was setting up operations in India at that time.

They started in Mumbai and were setting up office in Bangalore. So we went to Bengaluru We were less than 100 employees at Accenture then, I was one of the earliest ones. Accenture has the largest campus in Bengaluru, but was relatively unknown in India then. People could hardly pronounce ‘Accenture’. They would say, “Kya company ka naam hain?” When I joined, the biggest challenge was to hire a lot of people and to attract the best. We went from 100 to 15,000 in two years. That got me noticed in Accenture, because I did what was most important for the company. As we got the scale, my CEO at Accenture, now the CEO of the financial services of the company said, ‘Let’s make sure we bring quality standards to the country.” He wanted to implement PCMM (People Capability Maturity Model). It’s basically a quality standard for the HR process. Nobody had done that before. PCMM became my window to the world. I started implementing it in India; it went off very well. After that, I was told to scale it up across the world. I did the same PCMM journey in multiple companies in multiple continents, but in different contexts. I went to places like Mauritius, Latvia, Slovakia, and even those you would find difficult to locate on a map, or get a visa to go to.

Why I left Accenture

Accenture PCMM took me around the world. Every two years I changed my role in the company. The key inflection point was a three-year period where I took advantage of Accenture’s flexi programme and worked from home in Bangalore. I used to only commute outside India for meetings, otherwise I was home. We had kids, my wife went to work and I stayed home with them. We had a nanny and we put them in day-care. So I actually had a chance to babysit the kids when they were young. Once they started school I got back into my heavy travelling schedule. Then I worked with Bhaskar Ghosh, one of the most senior leaders at Accenture, with whom I ran the Talent Supply Chain (TSC) agenda for Accenture in India.

In 2014, the only reason I considered leaving Accenture (despite many offers from Reliance and HCL which I wasn’t interested in), was that I realised I would not get to be the CHRO, even if I wanted to, because it is a very large company. In a multinational company, even after so many years, the probability that an Indian would make it to the No. 1 job didn’t seem too high. So, I joined HCL.

White House

My work in HCL

The type of work, per se, is the same because both are professional services, IT services companies where I do HR work. But the context is different. HCL is owned by Shiv Nadar. People talk about shareholder value.

But here you actually meet the biggest shareholder, in flesh and blood, and he will tell you what he expects. Shareholder value is not an abstract construct. If he says he wants 23 percent profitability this quarter, he wants 23 percent profitability in that quarter. If you don’t deliver it to him, if you don’t do your job, his net worth (he is the 5th richest Indian) will fall by a few hundred million dollars. The pressure you experience is very different. You get to interact with the press, you have a public presence, we are a listed company, and because your management team is so small, you have to do everything by yourself, unlike at Accenture where you have a specialised team for everything. You end up carrying a lot in this company and you end up learning a lot. And with that comes a lot of travel. HCL has offices in many countries, but it is a very tightly controlled company.

You go to Delhi, take orders, come back and execute.

Managing health

I have to take utmost care of my health, as I travel a lot. I have to be careful 40 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Legoland

about what I eat and how much I sleep. Being a vegetarian, my choices are limited, as several countries are meat-oriented.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), the way forward

Outsourcing is not a new thing, it has always been there. In IT, we carry out the outsourced jobs of our end clients. Similarly, HR is a support function for the core outsourced assignment. Fifteen years ago, hiring at IT was an art, now it is a factory model. You don’t require people like me to design the recruitment process. A lot has already been done. For the commoditised stuff, you get far better results and efficiencies of scale when you outsource it to a specialised vendor.

Newest trends in HR

Technology is changing professions. It’s changing media, it’s changing HR. The job of a recruiter in a few years will not be the same, it will not exist the way it does now. One of the most fundamental jobs in recruiting is the process of screening a resume and filtering it amongst the whole stack, and mapping it to a job. There are algorithms to do that, without even opening a resume. We can pass through hundreds and thousands of resumes, through internal and external job databases.

Those algorithms are developed by companies in Bangalore. We have piloted some of them. The results are very promising. So far, HR has gotten away without really being focused on the employee. A shift of focus on the employee is happening, the employee experience dictating how processes are designed. That is where some of the breakthroughs will come in the next few years.

Automation and loss of jobs

Automation is leading to the reduction of jobs. India needs to stop expecting IT to be the answer for all of India's problems. Although IT contributes to a lot of export and forex dollars, from a job creation perspective, India needs a hundred million jobs. IT can never deliver so many—it can deliver four to five million jobs at the maximum. India needs a manufacturing revolution. India has milked the IT cow to no end, and we are still expecting it to give milk for another 25 years. IT came into India in the 1990s.

It has been there for 20 years. We have got to a level of maturation and maturity, and the industry has found ways to manage with fewer people.

We moved to the USA

It’s only in the last year that we moved as a family. Today we are Visa holders in the US. In a few months I will be a US Green Card holder, but we hold Indian passports. I have always wanted to be based in India. We are getting paid very well in India, and we are getting to see the world. There is no reason why we should leave the country. This is the best combination you can have. Be in India, live with your parents, have people to help you at home, eat Indian food, and every second week go to Paris or Frankfurt or New York. That’s what I love. We wanted our kids to get some global exposure. So we decided to raise them a few years in the US, a few years in Europe, a few years in Australia, and make them global citizens.

Bringing up children

We made a big decision quite quickly. My in-laws started living with us.

That's the smartest model. My in-laws have been our backbone till we moved to the US. Then we had to take care of the kids ourselves. Now there is no support, as the grandparents are quite old, and they won’t be able to physically relocate. This happened only last year. For the first seven years, from 2008-15, my in-laws were there. My mother-in-law has been instrumental in bringing up our kids.

Work-home balance

Now the kids are eight and six years old, they can manage on their own.

One of the things I appreciate about multinational companies is that they can be quite direct in their communication. In the Indian work culture, we tend to beat around the bush. It makes communication very inefficient They have school from 8 am to 4 pm. Ushma can work from home. In the US, offices start early and they end early too. She comes back early. Some days the kids come back themselves. It’s still a lot of logistics, we have to manage that.

Tips on child upbringing

I believe it is the parents’ responsibility. It is the most important job, and also the most difficult job. There is a part of me which says, should we retire right now that we have the money, and just focus on the kids? Or should we take lighter jobs? Or get into academics, do some research work, some consulting work, and not have this big corporate job, because corporate jobs are brutal? Nevertheless, we are coping up well in our dual roles.

Keeping marriage steady

You need to remember why you married that person in the first place. I keep remembering why we fell in love. For me it’s really simple. I’ve had a lot of success in life. Today, there could be many who would want to marry me. But back in engineering college, there was nobody who would have wanted to marry me because I had nothing then. When somebody is willing to commit her life to you at a time when you had nothing, then she has really committed her life to you because she actually saw something good in you.

My philosophy of life

If I had to pick a statement, it would be, ‘What you are destined to get, will eventually come to you—just have to play the part and keep working on things you believe are right’. If you chase things that you want to get instantly, they will elude you. If you go after money, you will not get it. If you go after something you believe in, the money will follow.

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 41

Cover Story Ushma Thiagarajan

Good things take time What did you like about Thiagarajan when you first met him?

What qualities do you admire about him?

His focus and intensity. He was very confident and had his way with words.

He was a prefect at his hostel and was quite well respected in college and even though he represented a rival faculty (Comp Science and Electronics were competing faculties at the time for top honours), I couldn’t help noticing these positive qualities. He was and continues to be quite demanding of himself and all those around him and while I do wish he chilled out a little bit more, we make a terrific team!

Being an inter-community marriage, did you face any hurdles from parents from either side?

Oh yes! Many people told us that our own life was no less than what many Indians saw on screen in “Two States”. Being a union between a Gujarati girl raised in Goa and a Tamilian guy raised in Bengal we are as “Indian” as you get! The challenge really was to keep the relationship going during our long courtship period of four years where we had to deal with geographic distance, expensive telecommunication, societal restrictions, parental reluctance, walking away from some career options, etc. What makes such love marriages difficult is actually the combination of all these variables served to you like a rapid-fire quiz with huge negative marking in case 42 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

you got the answers wrong. Luckily, for us, we chose the right questions to answer and let a few pass!

Tell us about your educational background and how you got your first job

I majored in Computer Science at the National Institute of Technology, Nagpur at a time when Computer Science was just beginning to get centre stage in India. I was fortunate to be mentored by Dr Moghe, our dear professor who incubated the department in our college, and got to do some exciting stuff—including working on India’s first super computer. While I do feel like I missed a big opportunity in not pursuing my master’s degree in Science right after my Engineering degree, life had other plans for me and I ended up taking a job with Infosys Technologies which was the first company to visit our college for placements that year. There’s been no looking back since then in many ways!

You are a senior corporate leader in a leading Indian multi-national company. What are your responsibilities?

I am a senior project manager with Infosys Technologies, currently working for a major client of ours in the Insurance domain. I am involved with helping our clients upgrade from their massive suite of legacy applications

to migrate to the cloud, making it more cost-effective, enabling our client to make smarter decisions for their consumers.

Tell us about your journey in the corporate world.

It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster ride, actually. Walking away from the world of operating systems and theory of computing into the commoditized world of Applications Software was a tough start to begin with. Infosys was just emerging as a marquee employer back in 1999, and joining them as part of a campus recruiting event was pure serendipity. It’s been 16 years since that day and you still see me working for the same company that’s now come to be family. I have had a chance to work on different technologies, industry groups, geographies etc. Adjusting to a pure offshore role in the banking domain after the kids was a challenge, as that meant not being able to meet clients, which is a huge opportunity for learning in the professional services industry. Perseverance pays and today I am back to doing client work out of Raleigh, North Carolina, our home for the last year.

For some time, you and Thiagarajan were living in two different countries. What is it like staying away from your husband and how did it all work out for you?

want to sit in judgment on this matter but being the relatively old fashioned couple that we are, we have chosen to keep things simple. We have realised that good things take time—75 days for the recently planted cabbage seeds to flower in our garden, another 10 years before our son goes to college, years of practice before our daughter can get comfortable with her gymnastics routines, even as technology has indeed compressed time and made things more efficient—like being able to download full movies online in a heartbeat. There is no silver bullet that can guarantee happiness in a long-term relationship. All we have learnt is that it requires hard work, patience and practice.

What do you think of women’s empowerment in the corporate sector? Do you think there is gender discrimination both in the US and India? Or is there a difference in both countries?

This question is as old as humanity in many ways. From Jungle Dynamics to politics to Hollywood to high-tech this issue continues to be at the discussion table and for good reason. It is not for nothing that Sheryl Sandberg wrote about her journey so openly in ‘Lean In’ just to make sure people realised that the issues are as real in Hinjewadi as they are in Cupertino.

Companies are definitely trying their bit to make things slightly easier and even they have to fight societal norms and stereotypes. As with any major change it will be a slow and gradual process till technology disrupts and equalises the social order in ways that we haven’t thought about yet. My hope is biased towards technology levelling the playing field at a pace that

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. Given that both of us have had careers in the professional services i n d u s t r y where travel is an integral part, we came to accept this as part of our lives early on. The big thing that’s changed between back then when I first travelled to Canada on work and now when he is away on travel is the role that With entire revenue streams of the IT technology has come to play. Back in the days when companies at risk with the advent of SMAC emails were just being introduced and international —Social, Mobility, Analytics and cloud—it is calling was still prohibitively expensive, to now when important for employees to recognise that their facetime is a way of life, a lot has changed. And then again there is a big difference with kids around, where jobs will keep getting automated, replaced at distances are not just about him and I managing to stay speeds they haven’t seen before and it is on connected but to ensure the kids stay connected as well. them to keep staying ahead of the curve It is a lot of hard work and focus to make it all work, but then we seem to have got our fundamentals right. well-intentioned corporate leaders can never hope to achieve at the scale at which this problems needs tackling.

Your thoughts on bringing up children and the parental role.

We are blessed with two angels—Anirudh, who recently turned eight and Shweta who is six. Their personalities are quite different and that makes Does a woman make a better boss? parenting quite exciting. From their choice of fruit to sport to app on their The experiences that a typical Indian woman goes through in her early years iPad, they are so unique in their own ways and parenting them has been makes her more patient and resilient in general and builds some kind of inner life-changing in so many ways. Most importantly, I have got the opportunity resolve to do things that matter day in and day out even if it is not rewarding to relive my childhood twice over with each of them as they have gone from in a material sense, like say, corporate careers are. These models are changing infancy to being bratty toddlers to now being the adorable kids they are. rapidly in modern India and the little girl child of today might not be very different from the boy child she is competing with in a friendly game of angry birds. How an individual is in his/her work context, whether as an employee What does corporate success mean to you? What tips would or boss, is influenced in great measure by the experiences he/she is subjected you give to young corporate managers? to in the formative years. I can definitely say that there are distinctive styles Have your own definition of success in life. Do not let others define it for male and female bosses have, and as a team member one might find a paryou. Intertwine that with what you want to achieve in “Life”. They go hand in hand in so many ways. Focus and stay focused and never give up during ticular style more appealing and relevant at a particular context in one’s life. trying times. If Dipa Karmakar can attempt the Produnova to beat the odds of making it to last four at the Olympics, you and I can certainly take a few What is the future of the IT industry in India? What is the shots even if it means we will hit a few and miss a few! future of outsourcing?

The industry has been getting commoditised for some time now. One of the key indicators of that is how entry level graduate salaries entering this These days youngsters go in for superficial relationships. What industry have stayed relatively flat since I joined the industry 16 years back. does it take to keep your marriage and what is the advice you With entire revenue streams of the IT companies at risk with the advent would like to give youngsters? of SMAC—Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud - it is important for each What’s happening today is quite generational and universal in some sense, employee to recognize that their jobs will keep getting automated, replaced especially where technology has entered human life as significantly. In at speeds they haven’t seen before and it is on them to keep staying ahead an era where Facebook posts, snap chat messages are the staple diet of of the curve. youngsters, job/career changes are encouraged/eulogised. In fact, Tinder vinitapune@gmail.com is more ubiquitous than newspapers, and this is not a surprise. I do not September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 43

Interview

At Pulp Strategy Communications, an independent full-service agency in the digital and interactive marketing space, attitude is all. Work is meant to be as much fun as play, and play as important as work, says its founder and MD, Ambika Sharma

Attitude determines Altitude

By Joe Williams

A

mbika Sharma, a thoroughbred marketing professional with over 15 years’ experience in New Age marketing and technology integration, spearheads Pulp Strategy Communications as its Founder and Managing Director. She is a first- generation entrepreneur and visualises Pulp Strategy Communications to become the largest independent agency in India, creating value for clients in the form of better connectivity, stronger content, meaningful mobility, intelligent engagement and seamless experience through cutting-edge technology, research, innovation, talent and training.

Pulp Strategy Communications is a multiaward-winning full-service agency in the realm of tech-enabled, experiential, digital and interactive marketing. Pulp Strategy’s forte lies in the seamless convergence of consumer en-

gagement offline and online, providing a comprehensive range of integrated solutions seamlessly converging strategy, creativity, consumer insight, engagement design and technology to deliver measurable results for brands.

Ambika Sharma spoke to Corporate Citizen about the corporate culture and the qualities of being a successful leader. Excerpts: Attitude and performance are significant.

44 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Attitude decides altitude—positive frame of mind, accepting challenges, winning grit, humility, a flexible and keen learning mind enables brilliance in performance. Passion, zeal and ethics are other very important qualities. Your take on all these qualities.

I agree that attitude has a direct impact on the performance of employees and also on the people around them. Our top performers

are people with an optimistic outlook towards life, a go-getter attitude. They are the folks who get up each day with progress on their mind. They are focused and also inspire people around them to keep positive and focused. On the contrary, people with a negative attitude are toxic. Their performance is low, and they adversely impact the culture of the organisation and damage the positivity of those around them. We follow a stringent screening, and hire for attitude and train for productivity. We give constant feedback and also undertake structured programme which align employees closer to the organisational goals. One example is our ‘SparkPlug Factory’ initiative. It undertakes team building activities which are a creative way of allowing diverse functions to work together in a fun-at-work environment. We have had clay modelling, tree plantation drives, Lego building activities, etc., where we structure cross functional teams from every vertical. Every day at 5pm we have a 10-minute workout session. These initiatives go a very long way in moulding the culture of the organisation. The right attitude is important and one needs to be ruthless there. A few months ago we had to let some go because they were not a culture fit, and dragged their personal negativity into work and let it interfere with the process of collaboration at work.

At Pulp Strategy, we inspire employees to take control of their work and give them the freedom of expression and personal creativity. We appreciate the power of the individual and what each individual contributes to the overall vision You are in a stellar corporate career.

What have been your best moments in this corporate setup?

My personal favourites are the moments when the team comes together to tackle a difficult task and wins! A few months ago we were working on a pitch where we were the only independent agency. When we won that pitch based on the quality of work, that was an instant high! Those are the kind of moments when you realise that you are moving closer to creating something exceptional.

How do you get the best out of your employees, motivating them during stress periods and getting the best end results?

At Pulp Strategy, we inspire employees to take control of their work and give them the freedom of expression and personal creativity.

We appreciate the power of the individual and what each individual contributes to the overall vision. We have knowledge sharing sessions where team members share expertise with team members. Our policies and benefits are structured to enable work-life balance. For example, we give seven weeks, off in a year including a two week rejuvenation / recreational leave. We allow for work flexibility and also allow for sabbaticals when employees need time off personally. At work, we try not to let stress bog us down; we have daily, weekly and monthly initiatives which keep the workplace lively. We have a lounge which has comics, books and light reading as well as board games. We have a cricket team which plays at weekends, we have a 10-minute daily work-out session on the floor, and the Spark Plug Factory on the last Friday of every month. We also have monthly R&R programme called the Master-Blaster, where each department nominates a team member who has shown extra initiative, innovation, effort beyond the regular. The Master Blaster has high standards and is very competitive.

We give experiences like, a weekend trip for two, movies at the director’s cut, parasailing, hobby workshops, etc., so our master blasters can relax and feel celebrated.

Do you feel that the present education system has the calibre or does it need fine-tuning?

There is always room for improvement; our education system has come of age in recent times. The amount of exposure students in schools and colleges have today is phenomenal. There is a larger focus on overall development. Credit should also go to the endless curiosity of the young generation today, as they are utilising the Internet and other resources to educate themselves, become aware of global occurrences and trends, and utilise the collective wisdom to learn, transform and evolve. We can always do with more conditioning towards hard work and focused achievement, and do with a little less of the sense of entitlement which youngsters seem to be developing today.

We are proud of many of our Indian CEOs doing a commendable job abroad.

Ironically, our own bureaucrats fail in many ways and they are where they are.

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 45

interview

‘For me, good health originates from a good state of mind. With travel, I have learnt to appreciate more of my country and its culture.

It gives me the opportunity to relax and clear my head. Since all my hobbies are adventure-centric, it helps me keep fit and increases endurance’ What is your take on this?

I do not think our bureaucrats fail at all. Bureaucrats are not imported, they come out of the same society and schools as everyone else in India. We are only now truly training ourselves to think big and be farsighted, the corporate world is motivated and thus the change is faster. Look at the new startup ecosystem and how the acceptance as well as the infrastructure has changed, what took generations to build in a top-line two decades ago is now possible in a couple of years, if we demand larger, positive and global farsighted mandate of ourselves, including the system. The change is and will be evident with bureaucrats as well.

You have a passion for bikes, and are a proud owner of a Suzuki GSX–R1000 and a Harley Davidson Road King.

Besides, you have given expression

to your adventurous streak through extensive road trips, diving, swimming and kayaking. Do these help in making a perfectly healthy human being?

For me, good health originates from a good state of mind, and all these activities help me achieve that. With travel, I have learnt to appreciate more of my country and its culture. It gives me the opportunity to relax and clear my head.

Since all my hobbies are adventure-centric, it helps me keep fit and increases endurance. I ride with my father who is also a biker. Ours is a cherished friendship and we talk of everything under the sun. Six years ago, we decided we were going to visit the country by road. It is not uncommon for us to be discussing world politics (we have talk-back units fitted into our helmets), travel, ancient history and more in a single trip. The conversations, the perspective, the open air, the countryside and the adventure, all contribute to a better, healthier me.

You have a busy schedule. How do you find time to relax, and how do you relax?

I love what I do, it’s never hectic. The best relaxation is a great workday. At the end of the day I swim for about an hour, it keeps me fresh.

I also believe that finding real joy and pleasure in simple things is perhaps what works best for me. Small achievements, home-cooked food, the open road, rain, snow, travel, I discover true joy from the small things every day.

What advice would you like to share with youngsters waiting in the wings?

I would advise youngsters to have fun and work very very hard! When you are having fun, you are motivated and you make room for creativity and innovation! Hence, regardless of what you are doing, remember to have fun!

Could you share with us some aspects of your personal life (family)?

I am from an Army family. My father retired from Army Aviation, my husband, Amit Jaiswal is with the leadership team at PNB MetLife.

joe78662@gmail.com

CC

tadka Amazing fact about BSE The Bombay Stock Exchange has the largest number of listed companies in the world—more than 5000. However, only as many as 3,000 shares are actively traded.

46 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

interview

Every employee needs to feel part of your corporate -Soloman Nothing succeeds like success in industry and there are no shortcuts to power or career advancement. Meritocracy, rather than bureaucracy, drives positive results By Joe Williams

best end results…

Commitment stems out of personal ownership.

Every employee needs to feel part of your corporate dream and an integral part of every critical decision being made. A flat organisational structure and being “one” with the team on the ground are an important part of this. I also consciously try to stay away from painting unreal, rosy pictures when I know that there will be thorns along the way. This way, the employee does not get disheartened through momentary setbacks and builds strength to work through the challenges.

You pick up the best talents. Do you feel that the present education system does have the calibre or does it need fine-tuning?

I have no doubt that the present education system builds academic knowledge, which plays an important role in corporate life. But the industry in general would be better served if the education system were to take on an agenda to build personal skills in equal measure, such as communication, confidence, written and oral skills and so on.

HR is always regarded as the envy of employees what’s is your take on this?

R

oney Soloman, the President and Co-founder of Verbat Technologies, a London-based digital technology solutions company with a unique ability to leverage the experience of global CIOs and the innovation of disruptive startups, combined with deep technology expertise, to accelerate enterprises into the digital economy. Formed by the coming together of senior industry professionals and subject matter experts, Verbat provides digital technology consulting, services and products to customers across the globe via its offices in the UK, USA, UAE and India. Based in London since 1997, Soloman has over two decades of experience in global outsourcing, the majority of which he has spent in the UK, European and US markets. Prior to Verbat, Soloman was responsible for leading business growth, structuring and managing successful IT services, relationships for an enviable list of large and mid-sized clients for the likes of Cognizant, Mindtree, NIIT Technologies and Accenture.

Soloman passed out of school and junior college from St Vincent’s High School and

Junior College, later went on to do his graduation in Electronics, Pune University in the year 1988 and completed his post-graduate diploma in Computer Science, Data Systems Research Foundation, Pune, a year later. Two years later he completed his post graduate MBA in Marketing; Finance, Institute of Management Development and Research (IMDR), Pune, 1991. Soloman, spoke to Corporate Citizen about how to go about in this present competitive corporate world both as a president and an ordinary employee.

You are in a stellar corporate career.Tell us about your best moments ?

Nothing builds greater satisfaction in creating and nurturing something you can call your own. My sweetest moments have come from taking pride in looking back at the exponential difference I have made by my personal contribution to various initiatives of companies I have worked with. I guess my inner motivation for entrepreneurship also stems from this fact.

How do you get the best out of the employees? Motivating them during stress period and

HR is often seen as an enabling function, something that helps manage the transactional elements of an employee’s corporate life. At Verbat, we extend HR to cover a “People” function, a team that cares for the welfare of our employees, either personal or professional.

As such, the HR team also feels empowered in playing a critical role in the organisation, rather than an administrative one.

We are proud of many of our (Indian CEO)s doing a commendable job abroad. Ironically, our own bureaucrats fail in many ways and they are where they are. What is your take on this…

Nothing succeeds like success in industry and there are no shortcuts to power or career advancement. Meritocracy, rather than bureaucracy drives positive results. The culture in the Western corporate world asks for what you can do, not who you know or what position you hold. It is no surprise then that good Indian talent receives wind beneath its wings for success in such environments.

What would be the advice you would like to share with youngsters waiting in the wings.

Never be scared to pursue your dreams, however far fetched they may sound or however difficult the road ahead might seem. The satisfaction of having achieved something through giving it your best is a great feeling no other emotion can replace. Also, treat failures and mistakes positively as great learning experiences. joe78662@gmail.com

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 47

flashback

Fourth is our favourite!

These Indian sportspersons have defied all odds to reach where they are, unfortunately falling short by a whisker to kiss the medal at the Games

H

By Joe Williams er achievements are bigger than any symbolic medal, Dipa Karmakar’s campaign in her maiden Olympics (2016 Rio Games), finishing among the top four in the world has made all Indians proud as she went on to master Produnova vault, better known as Death Vault.

The failure to win do break their heart but it hurts deep down more when those who do not understand the meaning of sports, love to kick them when they fail. In fact that's the time when a sportsperson needs more support, to lift themselves to fight again, be a winner.

Dipa, who has flat feet, is the lone Indian gymnast at the Rio Games to have advanced to the individual vault final in the artistic gymnastics. She is also the first Indian woman gymnast to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games. The 22-year-old gymnast from Tripura began her training at the age of six in a ramshackle gymnasium using makeshift equipment fashioned out of discarded scooter parts and crash mats.

There are many who fall in line with this brave heart, Dipa, and Abhinav Bindra, which also includes in the likes of Milkha Singh, PT Usha, to name a few. Corporate Citizen salutes all these Indian Olympian athletes who were so close and yet so far.

Milkha Singh was the favourite for the gold medal in 400m race at the 1960 Rome Olympics. He set the world record in 400m prior to the event in the preliminaries. ‘The Flying Sikh’ as he is famously known, missed out on the bronze medal by a tenth of a second in a photo-finish. History was written for India after Milkha Singh became the first Indian to

Dipa Karmakar is the lone Indian gymnast ever to advance to the individual vault final at the Olympics.

She is the first Indian to win a medal at the Cw Games

break an Olympic track record of 400m in 45.9 seconds. Unfortunately, he was one among four people to do so in the same race. His impressive timing of 45.6 seconds meant that he missed out on a bronze medal by just one-tenth of a second.

Then at the Los Angeles Games (1984) PT Usha was out of the podium (400m hurdles) by a 1/100th of a second, the closest margin for an Indian to miss out on a medal. She clocked a Commonwealth record of 55.54 seconds in the semifinal and won the race prior to the finals.

The Queen of Indian track and field, PT Usha, had a similar heartbreak at the Games held in

48 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

1984 in Los Angeles where she finished fourth with a time difference that was as small as onehundredth of a second.

The successful duo of Mahesh Bhupati and Leander Paes suffered a loss through straight sets against the doubles team from Germany in the semifinals of the 2004 Games.

Randhir Shinde participated in men’s featherweight 60kg freestyle wrestling event. He won his quarter-final and lost the bronze medal match at the 1920 Belgium Games.

The Indian football team made it to the semifinals at the Melbourne, 1956. But, fell

The Magnificent Three

Randhir Shinde participated in men’s featherweight 60kg freestyle wrestling event. He won his quarterfinal and lost the bronze medal match at the 1920 Belgium Games

other Indian athletes coming fourth in the Olympics Athlete

Sport

Year

Mangave Keshav

Wrestling

1952

Milkha Singh

Athletics

1960

Prem Kumar

Wrestling

1972

Sudesh Nath

Wrestling

1972

PT Usha

Athletics

1984

Rajinder Singh

Wrestling

1984

Tennis

2004

Weightlifting

2004

Joydeep Karmakar

Shooting

2012

Abhinav Bindra

Shooting

2016

Mirza/ Bopanna

Tennis

2016

Dipa Karmakar

Gymnastics

2016

Paes/Bhupati Kunjarani Devi

short losing the semifinals to Yugoslavia 1- 4.

And so did the Indian Women’s hockey team in Moscow, Russia, 1980. The most decorated weightlifter, Kunjarani Devi agonized when she finished fourth in the 48 kg weightlifting’ category at the Athens, Greece, 2004. She was disqualified in her final attempted of lifting 112.5 kg in the clean and jerk’ category, had she been successful, she would still have missed the bronze medal. Devi finished with overall 190 points, 10 points behind the bronze medalist Aree Wiratthaworn of Thailand. joe78662@gmail.com

(L-R) Sakshi Malik, Gopichand, PV Sindhu

PV

Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Dipa Karmakar became the saving grace of India’s campaign at the Rio Summer Games which concluded with a spectacular closing ceremony at Maracana in Brazil, as Olympic flag goes to Tokyo. But PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik and Dipa Karmakar who became the unlikely heroines and saved the country’s pride from returning empty-handed for the first time since Barcelona 1992. The trio notched a few firsts for India; Sindhu, at 21, became the youngest to win an Olympic medal, a silver which was never achieved in badminton; and Sakshi’s bronze was also a first for women’s wrestling. India’s first female gymnast Dipa went on to miss a bronze by 0.15 points but her clean finish in the high-risk Produnova vault won the hearts of a nation.

For a change, the cricket crazy Indians rooted for Dipa Karmakar, Sakshi Malik and then PV Sindhu's tryst with a medal, caught the eye of brand marketers as they do in the country. For this ordained period, the shameful treatment of women is forgotten as the nation takes a break from its rampant and structural misogyny to claim India’s triumphant "daughters" as its own, to co-opt their labour into a sense of national pride, and whitewash their struggle against patriarchy and gender-based discrimination with a coat of Brand India. The media swoops in on the kill, penetrating the private domain of the female athletes in its efforts to own their narratives of victory.

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 49

survey

Global Employee Well-being Survey As the world becomes globally connected, employees are working round the clock and are becoming increasingly stressed. Global organisations are becoming more and more involved in providing a stress-free environment at work. As companies rise to take on the challenge of employee well-being, Edenred-Ipsos, (a collaboration between two of the most renowned market research firms in the world) have conducted an employee-well-being-at-work survey by interviewing 14,000 employees from 15 of the largest economic countries in the world to understand and improve employee happiness at the workplace. Corporate Citizen presents the results By Neeraj Varty

I

n the 21st century, employees need more than just stable pay and job security. They need to feel enriched at work. In an era of unprecedented stress, the well-being of the employee is of paramount importance. According to the survey buy Endenred-Ispos, employee wellbeing depends on three factors—A conducive work environment, appreciation, as well as emotional involvement in the work done. Keeping this in mind, they surveyed over 14,000 employees from the worlds largest economies, and the results are surprising. Seven out of 10 employees are positive about their well being in their current workplace. Interestingly, India has scored the highest level of satisfaction on the scale with 88 percent, followed by Mexico (81 percent) and the USA (77 percent).

The study also shows a direct co-relation between wellbeing at work and motivation to perform better. Let us now see these individual parameters in detail.

50 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Who were surveyed?

THE 2016 EDENRED-IPSOS BAROMETER: Focus on wellbeing at work in 15 countries

Measuring Wellbeing at work The right work environment and positive affirmation about employee performance as well as a human and emphatic approach result in a positive and enriching experience at work.

10 essential conditions for well-being at work The right tools, respect from superiors and a stimulating work environment are essential conditions for well-being at the workplace.

Components of employee well-being As can be seen from the figures, the right environment is the biggest component of employee well-being. Respect from the management is the next priority for satisfaction, followed by job satisfaction.

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 51

survey

Global average score among employees in 15 leading economies More than seven employees on 10 show positive results on their well-being at work (average positive score for the 10 questions)

Breakdown by countries India has scored the highest level of satisfaction on the scale with 88%, followed by Mexico (81%) and the USA (77%).

Ranking by Key Components

52 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

WELL-BEING AT WORK AND MOTIVATION

WELL-BEING AT WORK AND HR POLICIES

summary

neeraj.varty07@gmail.com September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 53

Star Campus Placement

Three in my kitty Grabbing one placement, for most students, is an uphill task but then, there are others like Aarushi Agarwal, who work day and night and end up with as many as three in their kitty.

An alumnus of Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, Delhi, with a B.Tech in engineering, this bright one certainly knows how to make the best of placement time!

By Namrata Gulati Sapra Landing three placements

Well, there’s nothing ordinary about Aarushi’s placement story, that she narrates with much excitement, “I grabbed three placements! And these happened to be the first three oganisations that came to our college to hire students!

I have been really lucky.” In case you’re wondering, and of course you will, she made the cut thrice in renowned organisations with important profiles and at an enviable package, “The first one that I got placed in was Vinayak Solutions (VINSOL). My profile was to work on the Ruby and Rails platform. The organisation came to our college at the end of the third year and I was offered an industrial internship for six weeks along with an offer as a software engineer at a package `5 LPA. I did my internship here. The second one was ZS Associates that offered me the post of an associate data analyst at a package of `6.34 LPA and finally, I had an option to join Mu Sigma as data scientist at a great package too with a joining bonus.” After much contemplation, Aarushi finally zeroed in on ZS Associated in Gurgaon, that seemed to be the most lucrative job opportunity among the three, “ZS Associates has been enlisted on list of dream companies to work for. What else could I have asked for!”

A placement experience to cherish...

Placement time is sure to send a shudder down the spine of students. But Aarushi was more confident during the crucial period than one can imagine, “My placement experience was very awesome! I was very confident as I cracked the very first company at campus. This only added to my confidence level, which skyrocketed following the second placement.”

Here is a little secret. She wasn’t all that confident too. She reveals, “I was nervous, but I trusted my three years of investment on my studies and my skills as well. Thankfully, fate was in my favour too.” She continues, “Once you keep clearing various rounds, it boosts your confidence, but on the other hand, the pressure level rises with it. Thankfully, I managed to cope with that pressure too.”

54 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

Aarushi with her family

“My placement experience was very awesome! I was very confident as I cracked the very first company at campus. This only added to my confidence level, which skyrocketed following the second placement” ...But certainly not a cakewalk!

Though Aarushi make it sounds like child’s play, bagging three placements has more to do with her dedication and hard work than luck, “I thoroughly practised aptitude, quant and English for around a month. Other than that, I had my technical knowledge tips and gained an understanding of concepts instead of just cramming them. Lastly, I practised tricky codes and made sure that my knowledge of coding was up to date. I never crammed any code but understood the logic, the demand of question and then create my own logic.”

Aarushi emphasises the importance of apti and quanti, as students popularly call it, “The first key to any placement drive is apti and quant. Apti is one’s own knowledge and skills.

No one can teach them to you, but you can perfect them with practice, just like I did.”

The placement day

Aarushi with friends

Aarushi gives out six tips that will ensure smooth sailing when your placement time is round the corner...

“Believe in what you have studied over the past three years and not the past three days.”

“Practise quant and apti, which is the key to cracking placements.”

“Creating your own logic for coding is much better than cramming.”

“Your technical knowledge should be up to the mark. Concepts should be clear to you, but cramming is not how you should achieve this goal.”

“Work on your English and communication skills for interviews. Your English should be fluent on the final

“Placement procedure varies from company to company. But more commonly, around 1,000 student first appear for a written test that usually includes apti, quant, English and a few technical questions. The filtration is done on the basis the written test. Following this, companies have rounds such as GD, coding, interviews including technical and HR.”

isation that has been listed 13th in the list of dream companies to work for! I remember being extremely excited and happy about my first day at work.” She continues to tell us about the orientation day at workplace, “I had an amazing time at the orientation too, which effectively dealt with common concerns about the company, working environment, etc.”

The first day at work

A note of thanks

Aarushi gushes, “I am placed with an organ-

An alumnus of the 2016 batch, Aarushi

day. As for the GD, you should have a fresh set of ideas regarding the topic. Remember that participation is a must.”

“The interview round includes a large number of questions, but they are very basic and could largely about your own self too. So, you should first know yourself completely; what you want to do, want to be and be completely honest to your own personality. Beyond that, you should be attentive and confident, and you can answer all questions very easily.”

showers praise upon her college, which is famous for its quality of education, “All colleges play a major role during the placement time.

As for mine, it witnessed good companies coming in for recruitments. Secondly, faculty members helped us with the right subjects that we needed to study, make important notes and understand topics. They went all out to encourage us and did everything possible to simulate a stress-free environment.” namratagulati8@gmail.com

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 55

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

‘Dream for yourself and your partner’

Corporate professionals Ajitaa and Bimal Rath on the importance of supporting your spouse through the demands of work, home, a nuclear set-up and a very young child. “If you understand and support each other, everything falls in place,” they say

By Kalyani Sardesai

A

t the end of a hard day at work--the Raths like to unwind by watching Masterchef series on TV—and replicating the dishes as closely as possible. A tall order that one, given that Masterchef is a show dedicated to the nuances of professional cooking--but that does not bother Bimal and Ajitaa. For them, it’s just about seizing the moment.

A simple mantra that helps the young couple, balance the various demands of their work and

family life—a young child, and assorted stresses.

Currently based in Delhi, both have fairly busy schedules. While Bimal (32) is deputy manager at National Housing Bank (NHB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Ajitaa (34) is manager (HR) at Yum Restaurants (the company that owns Pizza Hut.) Amidst all this, they take turns to attend to their four-year -old son Viraaj—and be as hands on as possible.

“Sure, the corporate world is a tough act to follow. But if you understand and support your spouse—respect their dreams—and help out wherever possible, it’s completely

56 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

possible to enjoy a healthy family life with your career,” expresses Bimal. “I would also highly recommend really getting to know your spouse before marriage, in case of a love marriage like ours. We knew each other with our pluses and minuses and that was a good start.”

Back to the beginning

This particular college romance was scripted bit by bit over the two years of academic life. Both alumni of BIMM, Bimal was studying marketing, and Ajitaa, HR. “I think our first meeting was all thanks

to Bala sir’s induction programme.

Having been active right through my school and college days on stage, the presentation part was a breeze for me.

A lot of other students—including Ajitaa asked me to help out with theirs.”

“We both had a common friend— and hung out together,” reminisces Bimal. Bit by a bit, the association grew. Through lunches and movies, spending time together and taking on the various challenges of a hectic MBA programme.”

“He is frank, logical, rational and impartial. I really appreciate that about him,” says Ajitaa.

For his part, Bimal appreciates her spontaneity and down-to-earth attitude, despite coming from a fairly privileged background.

But it was only during his summer internship with LG Electronics that Bimal realised he was missing a “special someone.”

He confided his feelings to her; she turned him down. “I turned him down several times, to be honest,” smiles Ajitaa. “We both belonged to different communities—I am a Bihari (Kayastha) while he is an Odiya Brahmin—and I did not see our parents readily agreeing to the match.”

Not one to give up, Bimal suggested the matter rest until they both found suitable jobs.

And sure enough, even as they did, he took

The pillars of a marriage £

Respect and trust are intrinsic to each and every aspect of your life £

Make your partner’s dream yours £

Don’t let fights continue for too long £

Get to know your partner well before marriage £

Help out at home The couple with their son Viraaj

with grace, it works out better.”

Both work long hours, and travel frequently.

“We manage with the help of reliable help—and each other’s support, of course,” says Bimal, who is also fairly savvy around the house.

“A strong and supportive spouse is absolutely essential for a woman professional to do justice to her work. I am pretty lucky in that regard,” says Ajitaa.

Bimal is also fairly conscious about balancing

“A strong and supportive spouse is absolutely essential for a woman professional to do justice to her work. I am pretty lucky in that regard” — Ajitaa up the matter with his parents. “They were not pleased; they had several doubts as to whether it would work out given our cultural differences.

Her parents, on the other hand, despite their initial reservations, came around relatively sooner. “They wondered how I would adjust in his home, in the face of so many differences.

But one meeting with Bimal—and my dad was convinced that he was right for me,” says Ajitaa.

In fact, her parents made a trip to the Rath home to convince his parents. It worked.

An elaborate wedding ceremony combining the finer aspects of both Bihari and Odiya traditions followed in November 2009. “The various ceremonies were conducted over several days, and everything worked out very well,” they share.

The nuts and bolts of a relationship

“Yes, there have been a few adjustments to be made post-marriage,” admits Ajitaa. “Our cultural backgrounds are different; his mother is a traditional lady, but if you accept a few changes

family time with work. “Making the switch to a government sector job from a private sector set up in Kotak Mahindra was a tough call. But I made it for several reasons—not only would it be a valuable career move in the years to come, but it would also bring me more time with my family,” he says. “Spending time together is essential, no matter how busy we might be.”

To that end, the couple makes it a point to go out for dinner dates—once or twice a month— alone. “We really look forward to this time alone,” says Ajitaa. Saturdays and Sundays are also strictly earmarked as family time—during which they make it a point not to take calls or attend to work-related issues. When differences arise— inevitably—it is always wise for one partner to back off till the other one has cooled down, says Bimal. “Whatever you do, don’t let the negativity fester; apologise, talk it out--and get on with it,” he says. Parenting is another important arena of teamwork. “Roles are carefully divided—to the extent that we spend the maximum time with Viraaj,” says Ajitaa.

£

Have shared interests

“Both discipline and love have to be carefully balanced. To that extent, I am the more strict parent—and she, the more relaxed one,” says Bimal.

Apart from this, both share common interests, including biking and photography. Bimal isa budding photographer with interest in animal, bird and nature photography and also goes on long rides with Ajitaa on their Royal Enfield.

“I am proud of the fact that I am possibly one of the few women who can ride a Royal Enfield,” grins Ajitaa. “And I am a good apprentice when it comes to photography.”

“We have similar tastes—be it in food, clothing or hobbies. That’s a plus for us,” shares Bimal.

Ajitaa did take a break after their son was born—but was soon back at work. “I believe she has a lot of potential to do well, and back her in every way,” says Bimal. “In fact, I have my share of dreams for her—and she has her dreams for me. That’s how it ought to be.” kalyanisardesai@gmail.com CC

tadka

Growth rate of top five Indian cities at par with global middleincome economies By 2030, Mumbai’s economy will be bigger than the current size of Malaysia’s. Cities such as Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, will become as big as economies of the Philippines, Vietnam, Morocco, and Slovakia, respectively

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 57

Bollywood Biz

Best locations s u o m a f e d a m by movies

Movies have always been known to make the best of popular picturesque locations, but every once in a while, the reverse happens. A movie brings a hitherto unknown location in the limelight, making it famous overnight. This edition, Corporate Citizen brings you the best locations in India which owe their soaring popularity to cinema. By Neeraj Varty

Rohtang Pass, Himachal Pradesh Discovered in Jab we met

It’s not only Manali that Indian filmmakers have picked a fancy for. In fact, there are a lot of geographical marvels in the periphery of Manali which have been finding a lot of screen space these days and one such place is Rohtang Paas. Located at a high altitude of about 51 kms from Manali, movies like Jab We Met, Dev D and Highway have immortalised the raw and snow clad stretches of Rohtang Paas on celluloid, making it the perfect choice for all biking enthusiasts. Haven’t we all thought of biking on that stretch someday? Yes, we have!

Octagonal Step Well, Karmala Discovered in Sairaat Apart from great story-line, direction and acting, one thing that caught everyone’s attention in Marathi superhit film Sairat is the rustic cinematography and mesmerizing locations ! One of the most visually striking locations in the movie is the octagonal step well in the Karmala village in Solapur in Maharashtra. After the movie, there has been an unstoppable throng of visitors to the well and Karmala has become a tourist hub, boosting the economy of the district.

58 2016 58 / / Corporate CorporateCitizen Citizen / / September September16-30, 1-15, 2016

Doraha Fort, near Ludhiana Discovered in Rang De Basanti A perfect hidden getaway, Doraha Fort or popularly called as the RDB fort got its moment of fame after a crucial scene from Rang De Basanti was shot here. Remember the epic scene where all the guys run in the field and jump up as the Indian Air Force jets zoom over them? Ever since then, the fort has become a favourite getaway for people to chill, take photographs and enjoy.

Munnar Tea Plantations, Kerala Discovered in Nishabd, Chennai Express If you thought Kerala was only about its divine backwaters, Bollywood just proved you wrong. Picture Deepika Padukone running around in her Kanjeewaram silk saree and SRK chasing her in a tea plantation and you’ll know what we’re talking about. With more and more Bollywood films turning south for inspiration, India is finally waking upto the natural beauty Down South and Munnar Tea plantations have become the torch bearer. Showcased beautifully in Chennai Express, Nishabd and even in Life of Pi, Munnar is fast rising up as the new romantic destination of South India.

Hotel Highlands Park, Gulmarg Discovered in Bobby When someone talks about the movie Bobby, the first thing that comes to mind is the song ‘Hum tum ek kamre mein band ho.’

Did you know, the hut where this song was filmed is a part of Hotel Highlands Park in Gulmarg?

Interestingly, this room numbered 305 became a tourist attraction post the release of the movie. In fact, Shah Rukh Khan stayed in the same room while shooting for Jab Tak Hai Jaan. No wonder then, a lot of honeymooners especially pre-book this room to kindle their romance.

September September 16-30, 1-15, 2016 2016 / / Corporate CorporateCitizen Citizen / / 59 59

Pearls of Wisdom

By Dada J. P. VASWANI

Create Your Own Men Your expectations can become powerful currents of energy creating the conditions you desire and dream of, if they are allied to prayer, belief and faith. Therefore, choose to expect nothing but the best!

T

here is an inviolable law of life: whatever you expect will come to you. I have said to you time and again, your thoughts have magnetic power! Thoughts are tremendous forces. Every thought you think is a magnet; it draws to itself what you think about.

Think success, prosperity, joy and peace, success, joy, prosperity and peace will come to you!

We all wake up with certain expectations: some of us literally spring up from bed with the thought, “I know that today is going to be a

wonderful day!” Others, open their eyes to the new day with a depressing thought: “Oh no! I know this is going to be one of those awful days when everything will go wrong!” You are creating your day with your own thought forces!

Your expectations can become powerful currents of energy creating the conditions you desire and dream of, if they are allied to prayer, belief and faith. Therefore, choose to expect nothing but the best! Develop a strong sense of focus on all that is positive. Do not let your mind oscillate between anxiety and fear; just

60 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

repeat to yourself that reassuring mantra: All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds!

Tell yourself, in the words of Robert Browning: “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world!” We must never underestimate mindpower, the power of the will. Finding health, happiness and harmony in all that you do— depends on thought-habits. Truly has it been said that even happiness is the product of habitual right-thinking!

Try and imagine a huge slab of ice one-and-ahalf miles square, and 92 million miles high. It

That, which you expect, always comes to you. It may come to you tomorrow, it may come to you fourteen years hence, but it will surely come to you.

Therefore, why not expect the very best?

tal Sunshine would reach from the earth to the sun. Scientists tell us that this gigantic cake of ice would be completely melted in 30 seconds—if the full power of the sun were focused upon it.

Mental sunshine is equally powerful! When you have the will to live for your ideals, to live your passion, the sunshine of your faith and confidence will melt the ice of insecurity and uncertainty. Mental sunshine will cause the flowers of peace and joy and serenity to bloom wherever you go!

Therefore, cultivate the will to be positive— create your own mental sunshine! The universe works like an echo. Whatever thoughts you think, will rebound on you. The picture that

we paint of ourselves is assimilated by our subconscious.

There are people who focus their attention only on problems and difficulties. Tell them of your dreams and plans, and they will say, “No, no! It is impossible! It will never work.” They will point out all the drawbacks and weakness in you plan, and try their best to convince you that you cannot win. These are the people who can boast, “Bring me a solution and I will give you a problem!”

Be positive in your approach and you will find solutions to all your problems. The man with the positive attitude may be surrounded by adverse conditions, but he will look for a

place to stand on; he will seek a solution; he will expect the best results; and he will invariably succeed. Remember, this is the great law of life.

That, which you expect, always comes to you. It may come to you tomorrow, it may come to you fourteen years hence, but it will surely come to you. Therefore, why not expect the very best?

Expect success and you will achieve success!

David W. Hartman of Pennsylvania became blind when he was eight years, old.

He had always dreamt of studying medicine; but the medical school to which he applied for admission discouraged him severely by pointing out that no one with visual disability had ever completed a medical course. Hartman refused to be negative. Courageously, he took on the task of “reading” by having 25 medical textbooks audio recorded for him. At 27, David W. Hartman became the first blind student to complete medical school.

How wonderful is a positive attitude! “You are not what you think you are. You are what you think, you are ” said Thomas Jefferson.”Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving his (or her) goals.

Nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.”

When people say to themselves again and again, ‘I am unhappy’, ‘I am miserable’, ‘People are against me’, ‘Conditions are against me’, ‘I am overwhelmed by my problems’ and so on, they are gripped by a misery of their own making from which there can be no release except through their own effort: They imagine that they are injured beyond repair, and they simply cannot rise above their problems.

Instead, they must affirm to themselves, ‘I was born to be happy’Happiness is my birthright’, ‘God created me to be happy’. As their conscious and unconscious thinking changes, conditions and people will also change miraculously. Thought by thought, step by step, as their minds change, the world will also change. And the best that they expect will come to them!

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 61

Mobile apps

Meet the gaming phenomenon!

By Neeraj Varty There have been some strange scenes in recent days. Cars parked in odd places.

Youngsters wandering the roadside, staring into their phones. Grown ups acting like excited children. While it looks and feels like something out of a sci fi movie , it’s actually something different, the first big splash in augmented reality (AR)—Pokémon Go. Corporate Citizen investigates the craze.

No other game in history has caused a police car crash, multiple robberies, and a dead body sighting. That dubious distinction goes to Pokemon Go, the game that has set off a craze unlike anything else we have seen. If you see people—adults and kids—meandering around town these days, eyes glued to their phones, chances are very high they are not texting or looking at emails but searching for Pokémon, the cute, cartoon creatures that debuted in Japan in 1996 and won the hearts of every child since What is Pokémon GO? So what exactly is Pokémon GO? Pokémon Go is a location-based augmented reality mobile game that allows players to “catch” Pokémon in the real world around them. The game makes use of a phone’s GPS and camera to enable players to interact with a virtual environment, filled with Pokémon, which has 62 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

been geospatially overlaid onto the real world. As players go about their daily lives, they use their phones to locate and capture Pokémon. You can search for Pokémon locations using the game’s map, or your phone will buzz if you happen to come near a Pokémon. You then have to point your phone at the location, and the Pokémon will be visible on the screen in the midst of the actual location background. You then have to try to capture them by chasing them and flinging Pokeballs at them. Once captured, Pokémon can be trained and battled at gyms, which will usually be some popular spot in your area. The aim of the game is to capture as many Pokémon as possible, and compete with other players.

Are there any benefits of playing Pokémon GO? The upside of Pokémon GO is that it has real-life positive

health benefits. Players, known as “trainers,” download the Pokémon GO game to their smartphones. To progress in the game, they must walk around to find and catch Pokémon and access specific locations called Pokestops —where Pokeballs and other useful items are collected.

Getting to Pokestops, catching different Pokémon and hatching the Poke eggs requires lots of walking. The game records the distances players walk as they hunt and further inspires exercise by making it necessary to travel in order to electronically hatch Pokemon eggs they may have found.

Playing the game is a lot of fun, and it has been a catalyst to get people moving People are walking several kilometres a day to catch and train Pokemons which has a lot of cardiovascular benefits.

The Flipside Despite its health benefits, Pokémon GO has its fair share of detractors. in Japan, the craze resulted in numerous traffic accidents and other incidents. In Massachusetts in the US, a 26-year-old caused one of the worst highway accidents by abruptly stopping his car in the middle of the highway because he saw a Pokemon, which led to a massive pile up.

Some people also have reportedly died by falling off staircases and buildings while searching for Pokemon.

But as the saying goes, all great things have a flipside.

How big is the Pokémon phenomenon?

The figures for Pokémon GO thus far are astounding. Since its release, the game has been installed on more than 50 million phones., its rate of daily active users may soon surpass Twitter, and average daily use time is exceeding

No other game in history has caused a police car crash, multiple robberies, and a dead body sighting. That dubious distinction goes to Pokémon GO, the game that has set off a craze unlike anything else we have seen that of Instagram, according to Reuters. On top of that, and almost unbelievably, Pokémon GO has added an estimated $7.5 billion to Nintendo’s market value in just its first two days. The game is expected to make close to $3 billion in the next couple of years from ad revenue and in-app purchases.

The Pokémon Legacy Pokémon GO is not just a game, it is a global phenomenon.

No other game has managed to capture the imagination of so many people worldwide in such a short span of time. Pokémon GO is also an indicator of the immense potential of augmented reality on Smartphones. Till now, this was a niche market not explored by many developers. However, the success of Pokémon GO is sure to spawn an entire industry of augmented reality games and apps. Only time will tell if Pokémon GO is a flash in the pan or a lasting legend, but as of now, the entire world is reeling under Pokemania.

Note: Pokémon GO hasn’t officially released in India yet, however, it can be downloaded from apkpure.com, or if you refer to wait, the game should launch here anytime in the next few weeks. neeraj.varty07@gmail.com September 16-30, 2015 / Corporate Citizen / 63

astroturf ising.

Aries

Mar 21- April 20 Now is the time to focus your attention on others. Let go off personal motives, take a vacation from self indulgence and be concerned about what others want. Health remains good, especially if you concentrate on getting your health regime in order. Make changes in your routine. Money comes in through sheer hard work, you could perhaps supplement income by working extra hours or taking up weekend jobs.

TAURUS

April 21 - May 20 You will be able to balance both your personal and professionally life well. Allow others to have their own way as long as they are not destructive. Party time, a period to enjoy life, indulge in leisure activities and recreation.

Children or children figures in your life are prospering and seem supportive of all your plans.

GEMINI

May 21 - June 21 You are bound to feel the undercurrents of career instability and experience changes happening. But then you do not have to fear or fret about anything as time will sort things out for you.

CANCER

Jun 22 - July 23 You may discover happy financial opportunities close to your neighborhood. This is an excellent time for job seekers, and your career gets a boost because of your good work ethics. Health remains variable.

Great improvements are seen in your love life this month. More importantly the love planet starts to move forward.

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 This is the period to have your own way and create the world you like. Create what makes you happy and do things you enjoy the way you want. Make the changes you long wanted to make later on its bound to get more difficult. Use your power wisely and lawfully. Love remains happy this month through for singles there are going to be ample opportunities.

The money house is full of beneficent planets. There seems to be a cosmic conspiracy to prosper you. Health remained excellent last month and will remain so the month ahead.

be excellent. Job seekers need to work hard if they want to succeed its like. Health remains status quo and gets even better as the month pulls along.

SCORPIO

Oct 23 - Nov 22 Your personal power and independence will get stronger.

Don’t compromise, create the conditions that make for your happiness. You are still in your successful period, a yearly career peak. The most important thing is to relax rest and maintain high energy levels. Health is much improved. Job seekers too should find new and innovative methods. Money will come from insurance claims tax refunds or estates.

VIRGO

Aug 24 - Sept 23 You will feel naturally reclusive The cosmos supports you and your personal goals. Pay rises can be expected Health remains good more so after the 22nd.

LIBRA

Sept 24 - Oct 22 You will cover a lot of territory, and will make rapid progress and have good confidence and self esteem. Love will remains good.

Your financial intuition will

64 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016

SAGITTARIUS

Nov 23 - Dec 22 Your main challenge will be to maintain high levels of energy in the midst of all the hectic pace.

It should not be at the expense of your health. You will have to manage and keep your focus on essentials and let go off the trivia.

The career is enhanced by your motivation to travel and also by your eagerness to mentor others. Your good work ethics is important. Do not get things done in a hurry.

Dec 23 - Jan 20 Earnings remain good. Try not to make matters worse by being sloppy in your financial transactions. Care should be taken while doing any online transaction. Good time for viable business ideas. Time to give birth to the kind of person you want to be. This is an excellent month for weight loss or detox regimes. Good time to take stock of your possessions and get rid of the things that you don’t need or use.

AQUARIUS

Jan 21 - Feb19 Things and situations ease up this month. But focus must be on career and your outer goals. Happy opportunities are coming to you, but you need to study them before committing. Personal earnings remain stressful. The good news is that your partner is earning abundantly is prospering and is generous with you. This is the kind of period where financial interests of others are more important than your own.

Avoid travel if possible. .

PISCES

Feb 20 - Mar 20 Romance and love will remain good. Different kinds of people will enter your life and you will get along very well with everybody. Wedding bells or additions in the family would not be a surprise. You will come across intellectuals and influential people. Career looks successful and active this month.

Work hard and be sure of the outcome.

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

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CRADLE OF LEADERSHIP

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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

September 16-30, 2016 / Corporate Citizen / 65

the last word approach” to design a solution that is truly pathbreaking and both leverages and builds the ecosystem in which entrepreneurial passions can be kindled and entrepreneurs enabled through every stage of the process to success!

Ganesh Natarajan

Successful startup ecosystems Definitive milestones along the way have been the emergence of the venture capital and angel funding industry, the success of executives turned entrepreneurs like Narayana Murthy and Raman Roy and more recently the runaway valuations enjoyed by unicorn companies like Flipkart, Ola and Paytm

T

he startup movement in our country has seen many fits and starts. In the early days when employment, ideally in “safe government jobs,” was the best option for any educated young person in society and failed entrepreneurs could be frowned upon or even have their matrimonial prospects being diluted. Cut to the present day when every young person fancies himself as the next Zuckerberg or Bansal and we can see that the country has traversed the full course.

Definitive milestones along the way have been the emergence of the venture capital and angel funding industry, the success of executives, turned entrepreneurs like Narayana Murthy and Raman Roy and more recently the runaway valuations enjoyed by unicorn companies like Flipkart, Ola and Paytm. The emergence of incubators all over the country, both within academic institutions and through entrepreneurial initiatives and the Government support and visible leadership clarion cries like the Prime Minister’s “Startup India Standup India” initiative have all helped to foster the thought in young minds and even in seasoned executives that it is better to build an exciting new company that creates jobs than to hold on to a predictable employment or seek a job in an organisation created by someone else.

However, recent trends have shown that the startup opportunity is not all that it was imagined to be and indeed, one could twist an old cliché and say “where angels fear to tread, fools rush in”. The dramatic drop in valuations and the dreaded

STAGES

The five stages of ecosystem building would be as follows: 1. Awareness building 2. Accelerators 3. Incubators 4. Corporate Centres of Excellence 5. Financing These stages are best understood by tracing a customer journey or the way a potential entrepreneur would be assisted through every stage of the arduous journey. The awareness creation process could be done through video and blended learning modules made available through a number of participating engineering, technology and management colleges and even some of the better-equipped skills and counselling centres in the city. As

Two important aspects that the incubator must provide is a network of willing corporates to mentor entrepreneurs and open their organisations “down rounds” for fresh capital for firms who were the original darlings of investors in the seemingly limitless Business to Consumer (B2C) space and the relative inability of incubators and accelerators to deliver success stories with any consistency has sent tremors through the market and questions are being raised about the sustainability of the entire startup movement.

In such an environment, for a city like Pune or any other “smart” destination which wants to spur innovation and create a truly exciting entrepreneurial environment, there is a real need for a “design thinking

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part of this process, it would also be worth setting expectations among the wannabe entrepreneurial community and weed-out startups with me-too ideas that would be doomed to success without a differentiated value proposition.

Once a worthy cohort of potential entrepreneurs and ideas have been identified through awareness and counselling, formal accelerator programme offered through a select group of academic institutions and centres, ideally affiliated to the host university, would be needed to set the entrepreneur and the potential startup off on a sound footing. This

is the stage at which the formal incubator could come into the selection process, providing start-up capital and space and facilities to take the initial pilots forward and test out the robustness of each idea, product or service before the company has the ability to blossom on its own.

Two important aspects that the incubator must provide is a network of willing corporates to mentor entrepreneurs and open their organisations to test out some of the ideas in a true business environment.

And a full funding support system, from angel money to subsequent small rounds of capital all the way to a Series Ä venture capital round. Success must be measured not just by the number of startups that start the journey but also the number that successful move from proof of concept to real solutions and early stage to venture capital funding, Swacchh and the Pune City Lighthouses, which was one of the 14 projects launched by the Prime Minister on the first anniversary of the Smart Cities program in the country. With all the hype and hoopla that has surrounded the start-up movement in recent times, it is essential for a mature approach to be taken in leading cities like Pune to get entrepreneurs on the path to national and global success.

Our country has the ability to lead the world in many respects if we can overcome the forces of divisiveness and get all interested parties – the central and local governments, global national and local corporates, civil society and well-meaning individuals to work shoulder to shoulder and build more inclusive cities in the country.

In Pune, we have seen eminent citizens like Rahul Bajaj, Baba Kalyani, Anu Aga, Meher Pudumjee, Ashwini Malhotra, Pramod Choudhari, Anand Deshpande, Ravi Pandit and many others reach out with time, funds and volunteers to make social change a reality. With such a strong wind beneath their wings, startups will soon find their place in the sun as well!

Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of 5F World, Pune City Connect & Social Venture Partners, Pune.

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68 / Corporate Citizen / September 16-30, 2016