MMA-KAS Business Mandate (Oct 2022)

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f o u n t a i n h e a d o f e x c e l l e n c e BUSINESS MANDATE4 OCT 2022 CONTENTS MADRAS MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION Management Center, New No 240 Pathari Road, ﴾Off Anna Salai﴿, Chennai 600 006 Ph:044 2829 1133 / Email:mma@mmachennai org | mandate@mmachennai org | www facebook com/mmachennai EDITOR Gp Capt R Vijayakumar ﴾Retd﴿, VSM READERSHIP OUTREACH Gp Capt Dr R Venkataraman ﴾Retd﴿ Sundar R Vakeeswari M DESIGN D Rajaram, Tayub Refai

The Best Again!

Thankyou for making us the best yet again! I am delighted to share that we have been named “The Best Management Association in India” by AIMA for the Thirteenth time in a row. We are proud to have been chosen again and again for this coveted award Thank you for your Love and support We could not have done this without you.

It has been a momentous 66 years for MMA. And this journey would not have been such an enjoyable one if not for our members we have had along the way. Every member, institution and well wisher has walked with us towards propagating the Management movement in this part of the country It is with gratitude and confidence that we enter into another

EDITORIAL Gp Capt R Vijayakumar (Retd), VSM The winning team at MMA
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year We look forward to walking with all of you and creating yet another year of beautiful memories

I am happy and privileged to share the Award picture as the cover in this special issue. Click the link to view the presentation of the Award by the Chief Guest

A great honour indeed! Thank you

MMA All India Management Students’ Convention

The students’ convention provides insights into strategies of winners and helps young aspiring managers, who are on the threshold of an exciting management career, to understand the determinants of success

After a gap of two years, this year’s convention is scheduled to be held in person. The theme: “AI: Shaping Today and the Future ” This convention seeks to provide key perspectives and insights on the emerging trends in the area of Artificial Intelligence. Every business must acquire intelligent digital muscle as a pressing management imperative A galaxy of eminent speakers would share their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities for management students. A large number of students are participating in the convention off and online I convey my sincere wishes to the delegates and all the very best in their future endeavours.

Launch of Special Issue of Business Mandate

The special issue of Business Mandate, the monthly digital magazine of MMA, is being brought out on the occasion of MMA All India Management Students’ Convention The emphasis is very strongly on innovation. I am delighted to present articles on how Aravind Eye Care became the world’s greatest business

case for compassion and the story of Train 18, which affirms that thousands of such projects could bloom in our country. All it needs is courage, passion, sense of purpose, and resolve in leadership. Also in the package are insights on employment in small towns and the twelve habits of smart skill building and more

Please read on and get inspired.

CavinKare MMA Chinnikrishnan Innovation Award 2022

Mr Chinnikrishnan ushered in the “Sachet Revolution” with the hope that whatever the rich man can enjoy, the common man should be able to afford As a fitting tribute to his memory, the CavinKare MMA Chinnikrishnan Innovation Awards is a celebration of innovation in India

For the first time since its inception, a total digital route was taken to reach out to a large number of innovators around India through campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube

The result was excellent and exceeded our expectations, achieving 65 lakh impressions and over 40 lakh reach. The distinguished panel of jury, after deliberation,

The special issue of Business Mandate, the monthly digital magazine of MMA, is being brought out on the occasion of MMA All India Management Students’ Convention.

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selected three innovations for the award, which will be presented on Saturday, 22nd October 2022, at a grand award function at IIT Madras Research Park Auditorium. There is indeed a serious need for a relentless focus on innovation to democratise products and services Join us in our endeavour to promote innovation Block your diary to be there with us during the celebration of innovation or watch it live.

Water Security

Water and sanitation have been important areas of focus in recent years for the Central and State Governments of India One area where we need to act is achieving higher efficiency in water usage A global study indicates that water loss in India is almost at fifty percent, which means that one litre of water saved at the consumption point eliminates the need to supply several litres from the main storage, as distribution losses are high. Water preservation is, therefore, important for conserving water Major reforms were implemented in the face of the financial crisis, but we cannot afford to wait for a water crisis to begin. In this context, MMA is organising a discussion with the support of KAS and Policy Matters on the theme, “Water Futures Tamil Nadu Pathways for Sustainable Development” at 06.00 pm on Thursday 29th September at MMA Management Center. Please join us in person at MMA Management Center or click to watch the programme live.

Moonlight Mischief – A Bane or Boon?

The idea of moonlighting is from an era where employees sold their time to their employers in exchange for a salary but used part of this time to do other work But over the years, employer expectations increased Workers were expected to work beyond the regular hours. This change in paradigm was also one

sided, to expect an employee not to do what she pleases in her free time to supplement her earning is totally unfair. Knowledge workers have now begun to express displeasure. Corporate voices have arisen against what is widely referred to as moonlighting Wipro Chairman Mr Rishad Premji used the term ‘cheating.’ That it flouts professional ethics is obvious, and companies do have the right to act against such behaviour by full timers who violate their terms of employment But ultimately, its the employees’ dedication that every employer must count upon whether at home or office. Corporate values and mission alignment matter in setting one company apart from another Companies need to take this issue seriously and do the right thing as appropriate.

As always we would be happy to hear your views, comments and suggestions

Happy reading!

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Our

first hospital came into existence in 1976 as a post retirement activity of Dr. G Venkataswamy (Dr V). He retired from government service on a very small pension There wasn't much wealth around. When his brother built a house, Dr V told him not to move into the house. He started using it as the very first hospital The four bedrooms became the ward and one of the bedrooms became an operating theatre. That's how it began.

Today we are in multiple locations, covering Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh, serving roughly a population of about 10 crores or 100 million We have seven large hospitals, in each of which we see between 1,000 to 3,000 patients each day; seven smaller hospitals and a number of rural clinics Typically on an average day, we see between 15,000 to 20,000 patients, most of them in the hospital and some of them in the outreach work. Surgeries vary from 1,500 to 2,000 plus. We do a fair bit of outreach and a lot of academic work as well

Last year, we handled more than 43 lakh outpatient consultations and more than five lakh surgeries. Close to half of them today are offered free or at a much subsidised rate It used to be at a much higher proportion when we started. This volume would be somewhat equal to what is done in all of the UK by the NHS, at a very small fraction of their cost Their budget is about 2 4Bn pounds to deliver similar care

After diagnosing, we would tell them that they have cataract and we would offer them free surgery. But what we found was that very few people came to the hospital for the free surgery and it was really puzzling.

In this talk organised by MMA in partnership with IIMA, Mr Thulasiraj Ravilla, Executive Director, LAICO & Director Operations, Aravind Eye Care System, speaks on the lessons learned in providing care to the needy.
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Over time, we have expanded our scope to do a significant amount of research work. We have published more than 350 articles in peer reviewed journals We do a lot of consulting and capacity building with a slight twist in the sense that clients don't pay us. Because of our drive for the purpose, we set up this institute We do quite a lot of manufacturing as well

Right from day one, Dr V wanted to continue eye care after his retirement. Even in the government, he was doing a lot of community work and he wanted a means to continue doing that Our purpose is quite simple It is “To eliminate needless blindness ” We didn't put any boundaries around it geographic or otherwise. Let me discuss some of our approaches that helped us get to where we are today

Approach 1: Close the Care Loop

When we started in 1976, we used to organise a lot of outreach eye camps and many patients used to be advised to undergo surgery. All these people came to the camp because they could not see. After diagnosing,

we would tell them that they have cataract and we would offer them free surgery. But what we found was that very few people came to the hospital for the free surgery and it was really puzzling

So we did a formal study. We picked at random 100 patients those that we advised and then went back to their homes to find out whether they got operated or not We were able to track 82 patients and we found that less than 15% of them had got operated over that time. It should have been a year or two since the time of diagnosis and advice We looked at the remaining 85% to see whether they had good vision and if that was why they did not want to come, but the reality was that they were all literally blind. The other puzzling factor was that most of them wanted to go for surgery and they wanted their sight back. This was a bit of a contradiction. When we dug a little deeper, we found that many of them did not have the means to travel to Madurai Because they were old and blind, they needed someone to accompany them to the hospital and in those days, surgery required one week of

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hospitalisation unlike today where you come and leave in a couple of hours We had put the onus on the patient to come to the hospital and get operated, stay for a week and make arrangements for their food.

"I Shall Live With Blindness."

This study made us realise that not charging is not the same as being free for the patient This was an important realisation. This was a sophisticated study that got published and one of the early publications on barriers to healthcare The real impact of this came when we had a camp in Thiruparankundram the temple town near Madurai. A beggar by name Sambavan was totally blind When we diagnosed and offered free surgery to him, he felt very grateful He fell at Dr V's feet to bless him but he said, “Sir, I'll have to forgo this kind offer of yours because if I don't beg, I won't have any money to feed myself So I will probably live with

my blindness ” That brought home the message and a very practical approach

We went back to the drawing board to redesign our services. We decided to provide, in addition to free surgery, free transportation to the hospital and back, as well as food when they are in the hospital To avoid the need for someone to come with them, which in our cultural context is a necessity, we said we would escort them and bring them back as a group We assured the family that we would take care of the patient. That seemed to have worked. In the very first camp that we did with this redesign, around 70% of the patients who were advised, landed up in the hospital and immediately had surgery. This is the notion of closing the loop.

Prescription Doesn’t Help

We came about another example. In the early days of the outreach, we used to prescribe glasses. We were not sure if people bought the glasses when we prescribed them Prescribing a glass requires a lot of effort like taking them to an optometrist who has all the necessary equipment to do that. Again, we did a study and it was an intervention trial In some camps, we decided to give the glasses on the spot in the camp site itself, while in some camps, we only gave them a prescription. We went back three months later to their homes and found that where we gave only a prescription, less than 25% of them had actually bought the glasses and were wearing them. But in the group where they got the glasses given at the camp site itself, 80 percent of them were wearing glasses

So in the outreach, we set up an optical shop under a tree or in a classroom. The person could choose the frame that they would like We also had our own algorithm, considering a wide variety of inventory of lenses and anticipating what powers might be prescribed. As the patients were waiting, we would edge

 Prescribing a glass requires a lot of effort like taking them to an optometrist who has all the necessary equipment to do that. Again, we did a study and it was an intervention trial.
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the lens, fit it and then they would try it on Thus the QC happened right there The patient tried it out and was able to see. This is something that they pay for. It is not that it is given free. We had completely eliminated the cost of procurement If we didn't do this, the patient would have to make at least two or three trips to the nearest town one to place an order, one to get the glasses and if there is a delay, go back again and that will often cost quite a bit more than the cost of glasses themselves. These have all been our insights.

Enabling Access

We recognize that providing services isn't good enough. We have to enable the customer to access it. This probably holds good far beyond eye care as well. In our case, it stems from owning the problem We all tend to draw some boundaries. Most healthcare providers will draw the boundary around diagnosis and prescription of treatment Accessing the care is completely left to the patient and very few monitor that Because we monitored, we were able to recognise the impact of doing this. Again, looking back from a business point of view, the customer satisfaction happens only when they get the benefit of the intervention. That cannot happen until the patient is able to follow through the advice. The more and more we did this, our own reputation in the market also grew

Approach 2: Focus On Non‐Customers

Because our purpose was to eliminate needless blindness, the focus shifted to those who are not seeking care. Those who seek care would get it in any case. Our approach used to be doing eye camps. Some of the camps used to attract thousands of patients In the pre covid year, we had more than 3,000 outreach camps, saw more than five lakh patients and close to one lakh patients received surgery cataract plus other

surgeries. Even though we had such high numbers, our founder asked the question, “Is this good enough? Are we reaching everyone? Will we reach our purpose that we stated?”

Again, we did a formal study wherein we organised 50 eye camps. We went back into those communities, house to house and found out how many people had eye problems and for which they felt they needed help We made a list of all those patients. We went back to our records and found out that only 7% of them came to the eye camps and it was very disappointing We knew that the eye camps draw a large number of people Until this study was done in 1999, for almost 25 years, we were lulled by the high numerator that we saw. We didn't pay attention to the denominator and once we did that, we recognised that we were not even scratching the surface through our approach of outreach and something else needed to be done

The question was, “Can we have our permanent hospital like facility, instead of having an eye camp, which we do once a year for a period of five to six hours, usually at our convenience and based on availability of doctors, etc?” We realised the community can't access it. So we came up with the design and the first technology enabled centre was opened in 2004. Those days, the internet was not there in the villages

 We recognize that providing services isn't good enough. We have to enable the customer to access it. This probably holds good far beyond eye care as well.
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We put up our own towers and created our own closed user group network using Wi Fi, going over long distances. This is a design that we came up with.

A patient walks into the centre and pays 20 rupees, which is good for three visits There is a technician who is well trained to do a complete eye exam as you would get it done in an ophthalmologist’s office. We also check for other things like blood pressure, sugar and intraocular pressure. A doctor at the remote end is able to talk to the patient and every patient gets a tele consultation Today we do about 3,000 consultations each day and ours is probably one of the largest models. If a particular patient requires only glasses, it is made available right at the centre itself. So within half an hour of their coming with a problem, it is completely resolved This focus helped quite a bit Eyeing for AI

Today we are incorporating new technologies We

have been working with Google for several years and they have developed a cloud based AI service, wherein the technician just takes an image of the retina and then pastes it in the application. We have developed the front end It takes literally 10 to 12 seconds for a complete analysis of the retina whether there is a diabetic retinopathy, if the patient needs to be referred to, how severe the condition is, etc. These have been validated through independent studies This brought in a much higher level of diagnostic calibre into the hands of the primary care provider. We now have 103 of these Vision Centers dotting across Tamil Nadu Last year, we handled over seven lakh patients through this network

When we set up the vision centers, we got a little bit wiser and became denominator focused. We could estimate the number of people who are likely to have an eye problem and it is around 25% of the population Everybody above 40 may need glasses or something more complex. This is what we found. The 91 vision centres covered a little less than 8 million people Within that group, more than two million people had registered, which is about 26 percent. So we feel that we probably have a hundred percent market coverage through this approach of sustained work

Promoting Best Practices

Having done this, a part of our purpose is also to promote best practices elsewhere We are working with many governments, for them to adopt this care, so that eye care becomes available and accessible. Each vision center covers about 8 to 10 km radius The access becomes very simple and easy. We are working to propagate this model far beyond Aravind. The insight was that building the market requires a lot of proactiveness, which is not default amongst healthcare providers, who tend to be very reactive to those who present themselves.

 We are working with many governments, for them to adopt this care, so that eye care becomes available and accessible.
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Approach 3: Perspective to Cost

The next approach that we took was about how we viewed the cost. Typically, the approach tends to be viewing the cost with respect to how much we charge But then we realised that we need to really work on the total cost to the patient, which includes lost wages and many other things So once we had that recognition, we came up with the patient centric service design We never had any appointments because appointments actually add cost to the patient. If there was no appointment, they can easily combine it with something else like coming to the town for shopping or a wedding There are so many other opportunities they can leverage.

We also don't have any waiting lines If surgery is advised today, the next day they would get it done We work on completing the care on a single visit, which tremendously reduces their cost. Because we have multiple tiers of care, we are also able to do the care at appropriate local levels. Every hospital in our system has a paying and a free section. The patient is free to choose where they want to go There is no gatekeeping mechanism It is completely on an honour system

Focus on Efficiency and Quality

On the hospital side, we focused on efficiency and quality, both of which drive costs down, and also on managing bottlenecks. To ensure quality, we broke down the notion of patient centricity into actionable modules or domains We came up with 10 areas and we were able to develop separate systems to ensure quality. We also have robust patient feedback. Quality at one level is clinical outcome and at the other level, it is the patient experience which we constantly monitor and give feedback to the individual teams, usually in a benchmarked manner.

 After this, the infection rates have come down. It is now the standard procedure across all the hospitals for every surgery and our infection rates are between zero to one or two per 10,000, which is 1/4th of what is reported in the UK or US.

Every clinic will have their score as well as the score of others which tends to drive improvement.On the clinical side as well, we have done a lot of work Post surgery, the infection rate used to be about seven or eight per 10,000 which was the acceptable international level. But to our chairman, who is an ophthalmologist, this was not acceptable After doing some literature search and study, he came up with the process of injecting a very small quantity of antibiotic in the eye at the end of the surgery. After this, the infection rates have come down It is now the standard procedure across all the hospitals for every surgery and our infection rates are between zero to one or two per 10,000, which is 1/4th of what is reported in the UK or US So the clinical outcomes have been very tightly monitored and we can quite confidently say that our infection or any complication rate is probably about half to one third or one fourth of what is reported in the west

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Lean Tools That Helped

The other aspect around efficiency was with HR and within the HR, it is the doctors the ophthalmologists We wanted to optimise their output. If a surgeon had one table and one set of instruments and somebody supporting them, they can at best do one surgery per hour But to the same surgeon, if you give another table with another support staff and more instrument sets, the same surgeon can do six to eight surgeries per hour. Basically, we are leveraging the dead time that they wait between surgeries.

When a surgeon is operating on one table, the next patient is made ready on the other table. Once the surgery is done, the surgeon just swings the microscope over to the other side. Even the position of the microscope is done in such a way that we don't fiddle it too much to refocus Such process improvements have helped us achieve a much higher level of productivity, which in a way drives our financial model

as well But beyond these techniques, it is the ethos that our founder put in, that really matters Having empathy and compassion helps us think in a certain manner.

Challenges and Opportunities

Every one of us has challenges in our lives and in the organisations that we run. We clearly have two options either we complain or figure out what we can do about it. In the early 1970s and 80s, cataract surgery meant that you did the surgery and gave the person a pair of thick glasses In the late 1980s, the technology emerged by which you could implant a lens inside the eye. In the early days, it used to cost around $300 per lens. Even the rich in India could not afford that. So the World Health Organization, Government of India and all the funding agencies felt that this technology was not suited for developing countries because of the prohibitive cost. In their mind, the budget that they had, would only go to fewer people if we adopted this technology.

That is when we took the plunge of starting a manufacturing unit even though we had no experience in it We now make and sell about 3 million IOLs per year, which is roughly 10 to 12 percent of the global market. When Auro Lab launched the product, we had a 10x price disruption. If a lens cost about hundred dollars, our starting price used to be around ten dollars and today it is much less.

The other challenge that we had with HR was not having enough trained nurses and doctors. Over the years, we worked to develop our internal pipeline We have 330 doctors who are consultants. We also have 400 doctors in training, either to become an ophthalmologist or a subspecialist They keep feeding into the pool to take care of attrition We follow the same system with our support staff as well.

 The other area that we have been working on is the environment. Healthcare in India accounts for five percent of our carbon footprint. In the US, it is about 14%.
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We are also working on technologies which can be de skilled, because if there's one common problem in HR, it is finding people. We can either de skill or use technologies to reduce that need. We also worked quite a bit on creating an enabling work environment, basically removing the frustration elements. Our people enjoy working. We have a day care centre as most of our staff are young women and they all have tiny babies We take care of all the costs

Sustainability and the Triple Win

The other area that we have been working on is the environment. Healthcare in India accounts for five percent of our carbon footprint. In the US, it is about 14% We felt we had a moral responsibility to reduce it, so we adopted very lean, clinical protocols and recycled the biomedical waste from surgeries. The studies have shown that our carbon emissions per surgery is 1/20th of what is reported in the west

We have been developing over the years models for environmental sustainability wherein we have been paying attention to the building. Most of our hospitals are net zero grid energy That means, we generate our own solar power or purchase solar and wind power from outside. All our hospitals have water recycling. We recycle about two million litres of water per day.

We pay a lot of attention to the use of all the resources A lot of our lean protocols reduce travel for the patients. All our staff have housing in the campus, so we eliminate the travel to work. Many of these approaches have helped us to score a triple win Because when we pay attention to environment and do appropriate things, we get triple benefits:

• We reduce the efforts for the patients

• We are able to get more patients and it ends up costing less for the care providers.

 We have a large offering of training programs. We have more than 40 courses and trained more than 12,000 eye care professionals from across the world.

• Together, the carbon emissions come down

The broad impact of all these approaches has helped us to be on a continuous growth path over the years, except for a dip during the covid. We have a large offering of training programs We have more than 40 courses and trained more than 12,000 eye care professionals from across the world. We have produced more than 1,000 ophthalmologists and several sub specialists

In 1992, we set up an Institute to help other eye hospitals to perform better, basically by sharing the best practices and that has helped us to add close to 800,000 to a million additional surgeries per year happening in perpetuity. We have lots of publications. Financially, we are quite well off. In fact, as a principle, we don't raise money for our core caregiving process We have a healthy surplus after meeting all the care for the poor patients, which goes in for expansion and growth. As a strategy, we promote competition because many more players are required to achieve our broad purpose of eliminating needless blindness.

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Weall have many myths about small towns which I would like to bust I’ll dwell on three areas:

a) The story small towns

b) What we do at NextWealth; and

c) The social impact of what we are doing

The BPM industry is the Business Process Management industry. All of us are familiar with the IT industry, which is basically into the technology part of it BPM is all the back office, call centre type of work that is being done It provides 1 4 million jobs today; but the problem is, it is largely concentrated in the top 10 cities in the country, including Pune and Hyderabad. The industry has very high attrition of almost 40 to 50 percent per annum, which means that they are recycling their entire set of employees every two years. You can imagine the cost to train and re train them. The loyalty factor is also less and there is always a war for talent between the top organisations.

What is the social impact model that is focused on creating employment for youth in small towns across India? Ms Mythili Ramesh, Co Founder and CEO, NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd., explains the workings of this model in a freewheeling discussion with Mr. C. Siva Kumar, Managing Partner, Prabha Associates and RV Industries

Mapping Demand and Supply

On the other hand, we have more than 250 small towns in Tier 3, 4 and 5, and these are not necessarily the villages Around 2009, we realised that more than 60% of the colleges in the country engineering or general graduate colleges are concentrated in these small towns. These graduates don't have local job opportunities because they aspire to work in an IT or a BPM organisation. But in a town like Vellore or Salem, there are very limited job opportunities for them from the IT and BPM sector So, many of them migrate to the city Not all of them migrate because, typically, many families are from a very conservative background even men are not allowed to migrate to the cities. It's like going to the US for them Women definitely are not allowed to move to the cities About 30% of them move to the cities looking for a job. You will find in most large IT or BPM organisations like Wipro, Cognizant and Infosys, almost 30% of their employees are from small towns. During Covid, it was really tough, because all of them went back to their hometowns and now many of

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them don't want to come back. 70% of the people who stay back don't have local job opportunities. They take up something which is not commensurate with their education They are all first generation graduates, which means they must have taken loans for their education and they need to pay that back. They need money to pay back the loan As for those who migrated to the city, even if they earn 25 to 30K per month, they don't save anything because the stay, boarding and all that is expensive. On one hand, you have the demand in the city and on the other, you have supply in small towns In 2009 10, after I quit Wipro, I was looking to do something, which has a social impact. Four of us joined to create a model which will match this demand in the city and the supply in the small towns, so we can provide a social impact. We asked, “Can we have the work moving to where the people are, instead of people moving to where the work is? If work can be given 3000 miles away from the US to India, why not 300 miles away from the cities to the towns?” That's how this whole thing started.

Aspirations Matter

But to do that, we had to understand what small towns' people are capable of. We went to Salem to understand the demographics of the people there. We realised that the people are generally very conservative, soft spoken and very diffident For them, to be able to survive in the city, in large organisations is tough. Their oral communication in English is poor but their written communication is somewhat good Their employability in the IT, BPM organisations is much lower But what we found was that they are highly trainable, because their aspiration and commitment to whatever they took up was very high We estimated the talent pool and found that 0.5 million graduates are employable by the sector. They are capable of doing all BPM as well as IT type of work The things that are tough for them are international voice and some complex IT /software development. The physical infrastructure is not bad. There is always power back up with UPS and generator. In fact, in the last 12 years we have been in Mallasamudram, which is 20 minutes’ drive from Salem,

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we probably had a down time of 15 minutes

The benefits

• Lower cost of living

• Less attrition

• Better operational stability

• Inclusive workforce

• Reversing the migration and crowding in the cities

The cost of living is much lower. To give you a perspective, if any of the large BPM organisations charge 15$ an hour for an invoice processing work, their cost will be in the range of $10 an hour. We do that work between 3 to 5 dollars an hour, still making money We are not making a loss Essentially, we are able to do the work at one third the cost of work done in the US and probably 30% to 40% lower than what you would see in the cities A large pool of trainable talent is available Attrition, which is a big problem for this industry, is only 10 to 15 percent per annum in these locations and it gives operational stability. We have an inclusive workforce Reversing the migration and crowding in the cities is a big benefit of it. Thanks to Covid situation, work from home is a reality and we can look at disruptive delivery models and reimagine the future of work, different from what it is today

The challenges:

• Local conditions

• Cultural nuances

• Different local languages

• Lack of managerial talent

Large organisations find it very difficult to go and replicate in small towns They are used to running 5,000 to 7,000 people centres For them to run a centre of 500 to 1000 people is a big challenge. Distributed Delivery Model

...we wanted entrepreneurs who are emotionally connected with the place, understand the local language, can get the last mile connectivity done and want to create an impact.

In NextWealth, we pioneered a distributed delivery model to bridge this demand supply gap. Instead of setting up one large centre, we can set up many small centres in small towns and do the same work of a large centre The distributed centres can have even 1500 or 2000 people. We can impact the local ecosystem only if we hire people from those small towns.

For instance, if we put up a centre in a town and bring in managers from Bangalore or Chennai, they will come back running because of the glamour of the cities. So we wanted to build managers from the grassroots in these locations Therefore, we went with an entrepreneur driven model

Entrepreneurs: Our Chosen Few

We appoint entrepreneurs in these locations, who will run the delivery centres They were carefully chosen because we wanted entrepreneurs who are emotionally connected with the place, understand the local language, can get the last mile connectivity done and want to create an impact. For example, the entrepreneur who runs our centre in Mallasamudram is from Salem. He did his engineering and then MBA in the US He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and has worked for 15 years in the industry. He wanted to come back to Salem and give back to the town.

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Similarly, the one who runs our Chittoor centre has done M.Tech and PhD. He has four or five patents to his name. His mother used to run a hospital in Chittoor. He wanted to go back and set up the centre there because he is emotionally connected with the place In an entrepreneur model, if we build managers from the grassroots, from the local people available, twenty years from now, these centres will be like Bangalore or Pune of today. With such a model, a lot more work can be brought from the US or UK and all over the world, into these locations This is the first time that such a model has been set up

What are the benefits for people in the chain? For the graduates, they get a job locally, and even if they earn 20K rupees, they save 90% of what they earn; there is clearly a value proposition For the entrepreneur, because he is emotionally connected with the place, he is able to give back to the town. As a business proposition, he makes 10 to 15 percent margin It also impacts everybody else For a centre of 2,000 people, you must have that many buses, canteen, etc. A whole ecosystem works around it. For the customer, clearly there is affordability because they get 30% to 50% savings For us at NextWealth, we have profit with social impact. Thus every factor or every person in the chain gets benefited in this model

Between NGOs and Corporates

When we started, we wanted to be a social entrepreneurship firm. But how do we define social entrepreneurship? NGOs are typically for ‘do good ’ They have a purpose. They want to do good; they have commitment to a cause and a social objective but they are highly dependent on grants It is difficult to establish accountability and achieve scalability

For corporations, it's all about ‘do well.’ They have profit objectives, commitment to the business and are self sustaining They are accountable to the stakeholders NextWealth is about do good as well as do well. We combined the purpose part of NGOs with the profit part of corporations. When we have to choose between these two, we choose the social objectives, self sustaining and high accountability We are not dependent on grants. We are profitable and whatever profits we make, goes back into the sustenance of the business Thus, this is a model of purpose with profit It is a social venture, in a distributed delivery model.

When we started, we had two challenges. One is to find a good entrepreneur who can run this and second to get customers that will give us work In getting entrepreneurs, we found absolutely no challenge. More than 150 entrepreneurs showed interest, wanting to set up in places like Patna, Lucknow and Nasik We had to say no to a lot of them, though we ran an entrepreneurship workshop. Getting customers was a challenge because they thought, as we were operating from Salem, they can give us only data entry type of work When we talked of social impact, they wanted to link the job to their CSR budget. They also thought that we would be very, very cheap, which was not the case. We do very high end work, with a quality equal to that of the major players, if not better. It is purely because of the aspiration and the commitment of the people

 Getting customers was a challenge because they thought, as we were operating from Salem, they can give us only data entry type of work.
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here The work that we do is AI/ML data services, digital CX and IT services Some of the AI/ML data services are in very complex areas. Our customers were worried if we could meet international quality standards. We ourselves had that doubt initially With our first customer, we were not meeting our targets, which was an accuracy level of 98%. We were only at 85%.

I went to see what our people were actually doing and when I sat with them, they were very happy with their 85% accuracy, which they equated with their college marks. Then I had to tell them why even 98% may not be good enough We had to train them on the quality aspects and on why 98 or 99% is important One thing we have always ensured is: quality first and business next. We have refused businesses where we thought we could not meet their quality norms

70 Plus NPS

We do our customer satisfaction survey every year and we ask for the NPS: Net Promoter Score The customer is asked one single question if they will refer NextWealth to anybody else. It's a universal score known worldwide and our score is 70 plus. That is one of the highest in the industry The next highest is 36 or 37. It is because customers are highly satisfied with our work and our quality of delivery.

We do computer vision, image annotation and semantic segmentation These days, driverless cars are becoming a big thing in the US and worldwide. How do these driverless cars go without hitting anything? They have an AI/ML algorithm inside the car which guides the car But that AI/ML algorithm has to be trained so the car can differentiate between a billboard, a moving object, a road divider, etc. We train the car.

One of our customers has low flying aircraft or drones which will take pictures of the railroad tracks

in Texas and it will then suggest that a certain nut is loose or there could be a possibility of an accident. The aircraft constantly takes videos and the algorithm will just say that this area has a problem As it covers thousands of miles, physical inspection is not possible Those pictures come to us and we verify whether that algorithm has correctly pointed out the deficiencies. If not, we train the algorithm to report correctly We also work in NLP (Natural Language Processing), Chat Bots, conversational AI and so on, which are all high end types. Apart from that, we also do IT services. Now, the in thing in IT is called ‘Low code, no code ’ It is very difficult to find data scientists who can do this sort of work. This is something that we do from these locations Apart from that, we do low end application development work as well

We are in six centres at Salem, Vellore, Mysore, Hubli, Chittoor and Bhilai. We have more than 4,500 employees We have done about 557 million plus transactions so far and have over 100 customers We have all the certifications that are required ISO, HIPAA compliance, PCI DSS compliance, etc.

Women Empowerment

We also want to ensure that we give jobs to more women than men. We have 56% women and 44% men. Men are able to impact the family a lot but women

 We had to train them on the quality aspects and on why 98 or 99% is important. One thing we have always ensured is: quality first and business next.
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impact the family, society and the community We have found that both men and women are able to fund their siblings’ as well as their own education and their siblings’ marriage, which is a big thing in these locations They've been able to buy vehicles and get loans for buying appliances. The standard of living itself is going up.

Let me give a few examples of the work that we are doing from these small towns We do identity verification. If you go to the US and go to an Airbnb residence or any other place, for ID verification, you give your passport and they take a picture of that Then they take your picture on a camera They have to compare both and see whether it is the same person or not. When they run on a platform, it comes to our

centre in Mallasamudram and within 85 seconds, we have to come back and say whether it is the same person or not, with 99% accuracy, which is not easy. We have 1100 people doing that work, 24x7x365.

For a worldwide retail multinational corporation that has millions of catalogue items, their product managers have to take a decision on a daily basis on what pricing they have to put. The AI/ML algorithm compares their product pricing with that of competition and suggests a suitable price. Sometimes, a decision is also taken automatically by the algorithm. Wrong decision means leakage of revenue and loss of profits We train that algorithm to do the correct match and make the correct decision. It is a lot of judgement work. We do invoice processing for a worldwide multinational IT organisation: catering to 75 suppliers, across 75 countries, in 10 different languages, including Spanish, French and so on. They have more than 700 types of tax codes that people have to remember. This is being done at 99 95 percent accuracy There is no opportunity to do QC on this, as it goes straight through to the customer’s system. So we have to be very, very careful in doing this We work with an equity research company We access and collate data from 35 different sites. Typically, banks use this platform to know about

 These are all just examples of the type of work that people in small towns are capable of doing, if given an opportunity. They are highly trainable.
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an organisation, its financials, whether there are any litigations and who the directors are

These are all just examples of the type of work that people in small towns are capable of doing, if given an opportunity. They are highly trainable. They take a little more time to learn but once they have learned, they are absolutely bang on, in terms of the quality and the focus with which they do the work.

Social Impact

For the social impact of all of this, our metrics are quality of life, self esteem, family and community. They have been able to buy jewellery They get self esteem or pride Just wearing the badge and coming to office means a lot to them. They are a happier family, because they are able to support themselves, even during the hard times Earlier, they would marry off daughters at the age of 21 as soon as they finish graduation Now this age limit is going up to 23 to 25, which is better, as they are more mature and more knowledgeable rather than being fresh from college They are able to choose their partner. Earlier they had no say in their partner.

In a few cases, they have been able to say no to dowry, which is a fundamental change that is coming up. The statistics of women who were thriving before NextWealth was 28%. Now it is 50% and 5 years hence, it will be 79% We have many stories of social impact

With 4500 people, we are just a small drop We are trying to take this to the industry itself. We have put forth to Nasscom our vision to expand the revenue and the footprint of the BPM industry by redefining the future of work Earlier the openness to move to small towns was not there in the industry. But after Covid, they have realised that 30% of their workforce work from small towns and that quality work is possible from

small towns. The target that we have taken is that 10% of the revenues of industries must come from small towns 10% of the employees (out of 1,40,000) must come from a distributed workforce from these locations. We want them to set up centres in 100 towns across India Our approach to the industry is, 'Why can’t we move from WFH to WFHT (Home Town)?'

For manufacturing, there is a manufacturing unit and various subcontractors function from in and around this factory, supplying various parts Such a subcontracting concept has not been picked up by the service industry, especially the IT and BPM industry. We are trying to promote this concept by subcontracting the work to smaller towns and moving into a WFHT model.

Our focus is on providing services at world class quality, leveraging people in small towns, providing jobs to the people, impacting the local ecosystem, having a model that will help every person in the chain and one that will have operational stability and operational excellence Through this model, the large organisation also doesn't need to invest in capex, as they can partner with somebody. This is what we are trying to do with the industry itself. We strongly feel that the next decade is the decade of the small towns

 We have put forth to Nasscom our vision to expand the revenue and the footprint of the BPM industry by redefining the future of work.
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Ms Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh, business & leadership coach, speaker & author; Independent Director, IFB Industries Ltd , in conversation on the theme of the book with Mr Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO, Matrimony.com and Dr Aravindan Selvaraj, MS FRCS Ortho, Co founder and Executive Director, Kauvery Hospitals

Sangeeta: Have you ever wondered why some companies make a huge leap and others don't? What are the differentiating factors for such companies? How do you turn a good organisation into one that produces sustained results? As part of a research, the team led by the author Jim Collins scoured 1435 companies and came up with just 11 companies as Good to Great According to the findings, the 11 great companies turned an investment 6.9 times more than normal companies. They achieved sustained results for 15 years So it's not just good performance in one or two years. What made them different from the other companies that they were compared with? They came up with seven concepts that the good to great companies followed.

Level 5 Leadership: It is a blend of

personal humility and professional will Level 5 leaders have the larger goal of building a great company and the ambition is to put the company first and not the individual. The five levels of leadership are:

• Level 1: A highly capable individual

Level 2: A contributing team member.

• Level 3: A competent manager

• Level 4: An effective leader.

• Level 5: The Executive

First who? Then what? Get the right people and figure out what they will do with it. Take the wrong people off the bus It is important to put the right people in the right seat and that's when

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the business will keep growing. The right people keep motivating themselves They are focused in their work and giving their best

Confronting the brutal facts: To make a great company, you need to make great decisions and for doing that, you need to know the brutal facts of your company and accept the harsh truths. Lead people with questions. Don't give the answers Engage in dialogue and debate and do not coerce your people. Do not play the blame game. Build red flag mechanisms. Whenever something is not right, the system should automatically be able to pick it up. The good to great companies use the Stockdale paradox, which is accepting the brutal facts and navigating the challenges with unwavering commitment and faith that they will

prevail and get over that.

The hedgehog concept: The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing and manages to win despite the fact that the fox is cunning.

It is a very simple concept and it reduces all the challenges and the dilemmas to see what is really relevant for the business. It ignores the rest. The hedgehog concept is the intersection of what you can be the best in, what all you do, what drives your economic engine and what you are deeply passionate about.

A culture of discipline: Having a right culture of discipline helps to solve business problems. Great companies build a culture around the idea of freedom and responsibility They give the people the freedom they want. At

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the same time, they make them responsible The culture of discipline is not to be confused with tyrannical disciplinarian approach. One small step that is added to other smaller steps and doing that consistently gets you into a super discipline mode.

Technology as an accelerator: Good to great companies avoid the tech fads. They don't go totally by tech. They ask the right questions like how can technology help my business to grow? How does it enhance my cash flow, my top line and bottom line? Use technology as an accelerator but remember technology alone cannot build great results So don't rely totally on technology.

The flywheel and the doom loop: Good to great companies come up with a cumulative process It's not just one single thing that overnight changes them to be successful. But it's step by step, action by action or decision by decision process that turns the flywheel and leads to spectacular results that they produce The doom loop is a misguided use of acquisitions and selection of leaders who undid the good work of the previous leaders. They want to do things by themselves and reinvent the whole thing

It is much easier to become a great company. But the challenge is to remain great

 Good to great companies come up with a cumulative process. It's not just one single thing that overnight changes them to be suc cessful.

Murugavel Janakiraman: The level five leaders may be very quiet and sometimes even shy but in terms of executing things, they are relentless. One of the key learnings for me is the Stockdale paradox In the last 22 years, our organisation went through various challenges but we always had the belief that at the end, we would prevail and become much more successful At the same time, we faced the brutality of the facts. The hedgehog concept talks about focussing on the area where you are the best As an organisation, we may be good at doing many things but we need to find out what we are really the best at doing I posed this question to my leadership team as to why we are the number one in the world. They were not able to come up with answers. We need to brainstorm and figure this out

Dr Aravindan Selvaraj: When this book was written, technology was used mainly as an accelerator. That is very relevant to our healthcare industry But today, a lot of new age companies have come as technology disruptors. The other reservation I have on the findings is using market capitalisation as the lone

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benchmark to judge a company We started our hospital as a small 30 bed hospital in Trichy in 1999. In 2011, we came to Chennai and it was our first city, outside Trichy We had the best of tertiary and clinical care at an affordable cost. Healthcare though a service industry has to be run financially well, so that it can be expanded The care has to be world class but the cost has to be optimal. We had a few high profile hires at the CXO level They wanted to change everything and bring in new ways of delivering health care. As founders, we were not exposed to those ways. Their approach set off the doom loop phenomenon The promoter directors intervened and decided that the doctors are the best in running the institution. Now we don't have high profile, flamboyant CEOs with us. Cultural fit is very important.

At the same time, in an organisation which is used to one culture, we need change management as well. It has to be handled carefully. Any organisation is complex and more so, a multi speciality

hospital If change management is not monitored properly, it will lead to chaos Between 2012 and 2016, we needed a personal branding for people to accept us So I stepped in and did that According to us, a Level 5 leader has to be home grown within the company.

Murugavel Janakiraman: In Matrimony com, we are passionate about people getting married and leading a happy married life. But we are not sure if we are implementing the hedgehog concept We have not figured out what the best metric would be to correctly measure our profitability/growth. But in one of my friend's companies, I can see that they are doing what they are good at doing. They are also passionate about doing it and the unit economics are great In their industry, they are world class

Sangeeta: What would be a good economic indicator for your business?

Dr Aravindan Selvaraj: Even a charitable institution has to be financially run well. We started our hospital in 1999 with four doctors. At that time, we did not start a business organisation We started the hospital to practise the art and science of medicine and to deliver the highest quality of healthcare If I am a good doctor, my expertise should reach as many people as possible. So, the number of beds occupied is the single economic indicator for us

 If change management is not monitored properly, it will lead to chaos. Between 2012 and 2016, we needed a personal branding for people to accept us. So I stepped in and did that.
~ Dr Aravindan Selvaraj
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Sangeeta: Would you relate yourself as a doctor or an entrepreneur?

Dr Aravindan Selvaraj: When we started in 1999, all four of us hardly knew about entrepreneurship. We were doctors As we grew, we realised that it had to be run like an institution. We brought in people for finance, operations, audit and so on I still practise my orthopaedic surgery and also manage the organisation and lead its expansion. My profession is still the core Entrepreneurship is the key to growing our organisation

Sangeeta: Technology alone cannot produce great results. How would you relate this to Matrimony com?

Murugavel Janakiraman: Those days, technology was a mere disturbance but today it is a disruptor. If we don't adapt to the evolving technology, chances of our survival will become a question mark. Twenty years ago, who would have thought that Apple would get into the phone business? Nokia missed the smartphone evolution and we know what happened to them. The storage medium evolved from floppy disk to CD to USB drive The leader in floppy disks did not become the leader in CD drive. The leader in CD drive did not become the leader in the USB drive When technology changes, you need a different set of mindset and approach.

Companies that provide services to

meet the core needs of people like a pharmacy or grocery can adopt technology and grow We started Matrimony.com as a desktop based internet company. We have now adopted mobile technology If you look at the petrol car to EV evolution, you can see that hardware is the key in a petrol car while software becomes the key in an EV There is a fundamental shift happening in the business.

As an organisation, we must be equipped to handle this fundamental change For example, you now have both online and offline companies. I feel that in the long run, online companies supplemented by their own offline companies will be much more successful than offline companies supplemented by their online companies. Technology is no longer a mere enabler or accelerator but it can be a great transformator also.

Sangeeta: Do you have any stop doing list?

Dr Aravindan Selvaraj: Once we become a good organisation, a lot of opportunities like expansion or an allied vertical, keep knocking on us As

 When technology changes, you need a different set of mindset and approach.
~ Murugavel Janakiraman
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leaders, we get carried away by these Periodically, a good leader must revisit the things they are doing. The stop doing list is a very important part of any assessment in any organisation and for leadership. Covid gave us unsurmountable challenges and it also gave us many opportunities At that time, digital disruption was also happening in our healthcare industry. After Covid, we started 15 new initiatives like remote monitoring, home delivery of medicines, etc We revisited all these digital initiatives and asked the questions, "Are these really making a difference to the patients? Are these really making a difference to the doctors and healthcare service providers? If both these boxes are ticked, are they really

cost effective?" With this approach, we narrowed down to just 5 initiatives We scrapped the other ten initiatives. We are just going to focus on the 5 big digital initiatives

Also, during the peak of Covid, we started a small centre in Rwanda based on the request from a delegation from Rwanda for a gastro surgery hospital We sent our doctors periodically but after 18 months, we noted that it was not fitting into our overall organisational perspective We stopped that as well We have occupational health centres in many industries. We are revisiting this also, as it is not our core. The stop doing list has to be prepared periodically Every three months, a good organisation must revisit their list. 

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The Superstar Train

Ms Vidya Ragu, founder, Himalayacalling and Skillsgurucool

The legacy of Indian railways started in 1845, exactly 177 years ago But it got its fastest best in 2018 2019 when it got its superstar Train18 hitting the tracks. What made it very special was that it was made in India, from ICF, Chennai The train from scratch to prototype was completed in 18 months, when the global standard is 36 months. It was completed with less than 50% of the estimated global cost, without any TOT (Transfer of Technology) from global experts and all made with in house IPRs available with us In India, we are very good at doing things but not so good at documenting them, in an interesting way. Luckily, Mr Mani has documented the Train 18 journey so well

Attributes of a good leader

Mr Muthukumar, TAFE

To me, leaders stand out when they believe that impossibility is a possibility They also make other

The author, Mr Sudhanshu Mani, in conversation with Mr Keshav, Founder & CEO, Mantra, tells us how it is possible to deliver as a leader in a public enterprise, overcoming the shackles of bureaucracy, provided that the leader has a committed and capable team

people believe in this A leader has the courage of conviction (like Mahatma Gandhi, who fought a war without weapons). As Steven Covey says, a leader is one who makes people believe that they have capability in them. The journey that they take is holistic.

A good leader always takes risks. A baby turtle that does not stick its neck out after it is hatched, cannot reach the sea Leaders influence the entire system to start working around them They convert adversity into opportunity. Sudhanshu Mani’s team coming up with the first indigenous, semi high speed train in India is a great achievement As a leader, he has made a difference to the country, which every Indian can be proud of.

Insulate our reserves

Mrs Indra Prem Menon, Senapathy Whiteley Group of Companies

Train

18 is a Make in India story, from start to finish. It is a story that deserves to be told. It is a story that will inspire engineers, entrepreneurs,

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creators, dreamers, doers and the like. The author Sudhanshu Mani has transformed a regular team of engineers into a well oiled machine and made them perform like champions to create India's first Vande Bharat express, in a matter of 18 months. This kind of devotion from a team to a leader and vice versa can come only when there is openness and sharing of credit and praise to each other It shows how one determined individual with a can do spirit, though being a

 It shows how one determined individual with a can do spirit, though being a government employee, can face the onslaught of the bureaucracy and still manoeuvre the shackles and show the world that it can be done.

government employee, can face the onslaught of the bureaucracy and still manoeuvre the shackles and show the world that it can be done. My company was associated with Indian Railways in developing and getting approval for our mica tape used as insulation for 6FRA Traction motors. I know how difficult it is to get approval from RDSO (Research, Designs and Standards Organisation) It was in the late 90s and early 2000s that I met Mr Mani who was heading RDSO at that time. I am proud to say that mica tape is used now as a primary insulation in Indian Railways It took seven long years and very stringent quality testing before our product was approved. Our successful experiments opened the doors to other Indian manufacturers. We could reduce the insulation cost by 60% We in India have 80% of the world's best Mica reserves. We should qualify it as rare earth. China and Brazil have done it. We really need to protect our natural resources

Train 18 is a pure electric locomotive There is no cleaner way to transport such a large, populous country E mobility is what Train 18 provides and it is a platform

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for minimal carbon emission Clean energy is really required in the field of transportation

Not just a storm in a teacup

Mr R Bala Kesari, Retired Member of Railway Board & Columnist

In2017, when the idea of Train18 was getting a push, Mr Mani invited me and a few other retired Railway employees to ICF. We were asked to share our thoughts on how and what should be done to make a train of this type, which is unique We gave our ideas but thought it was probably one of those routine brainstorming sessions. Normally, after the storm, things become calm. But we never knew that Mr Mani had so much passion for this project

We were privileged to be present on the occasion when the train was inaugurated in ICF on 29 Oct 2018. After a lot of trials and safety checks, the train was inaugurated in Feb 2019 as the Vande Bharat Express by the Prime Minister, as the train between New Delhi and Varanasi. It has changed the way the Indian Railways are looking at passenger travel in this country This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a manager in a public enterprise set his own agenda, amidst

opposition, both explicit and implicit and yet achieved that

Sudhanshu Mani is a person who has been responsible for the success of Train 18. Railways have announced that they will launch 300 Vande Bharat Express trains But Mr Mani has recently written a blog, cautioning the Railways not to go overboard as only two trains are now running. He is honest enough to say to the Railways that they are over ambitious Even before our PM made the slogan of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat,' the Train 18 was launched. These trains being completely indigenous, I had suggested that the two (Train 18) trains running now be called 'Atmanirbhar Express,' instead of Vande Bharat Express. The spirit of self reliance was the motivating force for Train 18.

Dreaming to launch Hyperloop

Prof V Kamakoti, IIT Madras

Train

18 is a very passionate topic for me There are many important events that happened during Covid time which had mandated that India should move towards atma nirbhar The Ladakh incident was one factor. The more frustrating part was that many medical equipment, like ventilators, were not available and we had to very quickly make those equipment There was a company that created 3000 oxygen beds within a month. When the western world had a vaccine that would work at 8 deg C, we developed a vaccine that would work at 32 deg C During the lockdown, our Prime Minister had been giving many messages on the need for self reliance and he coined the word, 'atma nirbhar.'

If we do a project without challenges, it is a victory But then, if we do a project with challenges, it becomes history. I am sure Mr Mani has made history. I was also involved in a similar project, which was Shakti

 Sudhanshu Mani is a person who has been responsible for the success of Train 18. Railways have announced that they will launch 300 Vande Bharat Express trains.
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Microprocessor We wanted to build the entire process and ecosystem to happen in India We had only one fab in the semiconductor complex in Chandigarh. People were sceptical of their processor. But it did work. Mr Mani deserves a big applause for completing the project in spite of so many challenges.

He has written a whole chapter on the public procurement policy. He has used the policy, brought in consultants, partners and vendors and created the train within the time. He deserves a big applause. He has run a factory with Mahila Shakti, which is very important today That the Vande Bharat express is running now is proof of its success This will surely inspire many of our students. There is a trend among our youth to become entrepreneurs rather than employees. The railways is sponsoring our Hyperloop project I wish that one day, we can release a book on the success story of Hyperloop.

In an organisation like Railways, there are 20 to 30% who are totally self motivated and they are the ones who drive such organisations. All they need is a pat on the back.

In2016, I became the GM of ICF, Chennai, after 35 years of service in the railways Right from childhood, I always wondered why we don't have trains in India like we see in Japan or Europe. There was always a talk of doing it But we were never able to do it. One group supported it and the other opposed it. But the support was only for imports. Making it on our own was not on the agenda ICF is in the Limca book of records for making the highest number of coaches under one roof. So this was an opportunity for me. I thought I had the dream, if not the vision, to bring out a modern train I had the fortune of getting people in my team who were willing to do my dream, without which it would not have been possible.

In an organisation like Railways, there are 20 to 30%

who are totally self motivated and they are the ones who drive such organisations. All they need is a pat on the back In fact, driving them can be counter productive If their leader is not willing to take up a task, then obviously they would be wary. My role was only to make people come together and work.

Initiatives like Quality Circle and Kaizen must be implemented from bottom up and never forced from top. Never ridicule anybody for giving suggestions, though you may not accept them. During my tenure at ICF, I asked every officer to give one idea for improvement every month We called it ‘An idea, a month.’ They have to bring it to the forum and if accepted, they have to implement it by themselves. It took some time for people to adjust to this but most officers were very quick to follow this. All I gave was a hand written certificate for good ideas. We had around 160 officers 95% of them gave good ideas In the 29 months that I was in ICF, we could implement nearly 3000 ideas, with no extra effort.

A vision can turn into a nightmare if the leader has a good dream but a bad team. If the visions of the leader and the team get aligned and if they have the capability to deliver, then it gets done in any organisation, and I would dare to say, even more in a government organisation 

Mr Sudhanshu Mani ﴾in a chat with Mr Keshav﴿
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Last evening, I had the privilege to meet a very successful tech entrepreneur from Chennai. He opened two successful software companies, sold them and then he was looking for a new direction in his life to do something else There was an inner call for him to start a University and he had no idea how to get into education The University is functioning in its second year. Along the way, he had a lot of difficulties and he had to unlearn a lot of things He made mistakes and learned from those mistakes. He's probably going to be equally successful in education. But what set him up as a successful entrepreneur in the beginning, wasn't helping him in the second innings. He is Mr K V Ramani, Founder & Chancellor, of SAI University.

***

Afamous Harvard professor of economics and business had another side to him, besides academics and his innovative management concepts. He was very much interested in life and in what life has to offer He started that at the age of 22, when he was a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford, every day in the evening, instead of playing and chatting with his friends, he spent an hour reading and thinking in his room. He cultivated the habit of reflection, thinking, reading, understanding and analysing, all at the age of 22 and carried it all through his life. He is Prof Clayton Christenson.

***

Warren Buffett is a very successful investor and in the Top 5 list in terms of wealth. He is now 90 and is the

Prof Bala Shankar, author and management consultant, in a freewheeling discussion with Mr N Ananthaseshan, Managing Director, Carborundum Universal Ltd , and Mr V Ranganathan, Ex E&Y Partner and Chartered Accountant
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The problem with our learning skills is that though we want to learn something, we can't take action

chairman of the group that he has been running for about 50 years or more He's got his wealth not from inheritance, real estate or by selling products or services. It is just by investing He said there's one skill that has stood beside him all the while and that has made him successful. That is communication skill.

***

Our own Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, was famous for his poetry, literature, music, art, education and social work He founded an outstanding institution, which still runs with a lot of success in West Bengal. At the age of 73, he started painting. He engaged a few supporting staff and artists and at 75, he ran an exhibition in Paris with his paintings.

***

A few years ago, our batch of management graduates had a reunion. Many of them had changed track substantially and it was intriguing I tried to understand at what point of time they did this and how they re pivoted themselves. For example, one of them is an engineer and an MBA. He ran a successful forging and casting company in Chennai. After 60, he handed it over to his son, took up a law degree and is now practising in the Madras High Court purely as a public interest litigant. He does it for free. He has won quite a few judgments.

I found out that most of them have a habit of skill building When we are out of college, more or less, our formal education stops. You have to find other ways to learn as an adult Forming habits helps people to learn new skills on a continuous basis. It can be a range of different and unusual sets of skills as well I could come up with 12 habits that different people employed. It can be a combination of all this. Maybe not all of them are needed but a few of them, at least

The problem with our learning skills is that though we want to learn something, we can't take action. The successful people have and they get down to action. The other thing is they are not afraid to start from the beginning to acquire a new skill Viswanathan Anand was a master of the manual, strategic chess. When computers started playing chess, he was losing to them He grew up with the theory that you win chess, not only because of your skill in the game but also because you have the tenacity and sharpness to see the moves ahead Computer has none of these things and decides what to do next using an algorithm that goes behind it So Anand started afresh and mastered computer chess as well. How did he achieve it? Because he was humble enough to say, “I don't know this skill I know something similar, but I need to be a student, at the bottom of the ladder and

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start from scratch ” He put himself down to it.

Disrupt yourself

Another habit they all have is disruption. If you have to succeed in corporations now, they say, ‘disrupt yourself ’ The only way we can move from the skills we have to getting another set of skills is by disrupting ourselves. One of the top aristocrats in Chennai went and worked in a Jharkhand village for three years. The President of the United States did it in 1920 His name is Theodore Roosevelt He had a six story mansion in Manhattan. He left everything, went and stayed with the villagers and hunted on horses He completely disrupted himself because he wanted to have the flavour of that life. People have used

networking as a habit, in order to learn new skills. When you network, you find new friends Successful people are also totally agnostic to what they do Skill A and skill B need not be connected. They think they can be totally different and run them in parallel Actor Omar Sharif is a Hollywood actor of Arab descent He came from Egypt and became a very famous actor in Hollywood. He's famous for another thing He was the captain of the Egyptian Bridge team in three Olympics. We may think that he is crazy to be spending time in Bridge instead of signing movies But he wanted to challenge himself. He also became a bridge tutor. He has produced videos for teaching youngsters who play the game One skill doesn't have to have a linear relationship with another skill that you know.

People have used networking as a habit, in order to learn new skills
When you network, you find new friends
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Consultancy is not a place where you can go and grow at a later point in time; you have to plant the seed very early.

Insights from panel discussion:

Prof Bala Shankar ﴾to Mr Ranganathan, CA﴿: What have been the two or three skills that you learned along the way in these years, which have had a transformative effect on your career or your life?

Mr Ranganathan: I was a chartered accounting apprentice to start with. I disrupted myself by quitting the CA course even before completing it and took up a job in the public sector because of family circumstances Then when I was very comfortably placed in the public sector as an officer and drawing a princely sum in 1980, my colleagues told me that I would lose interest after a few years and nudged me to pursue my CA. The time that I spent in the public sector was extremely educational to me I was in Bombay and it gave me a chance to learn a new language and be in a new place. I quit my job, completed my CA and took up a job in Murugappa group I was there for some period of time. I reached a level, which I realised was the ceiling for me Then I disrupted myself, moved out of the comfort of the corporate to consultancy. Consultancy is not a place where you can go and grow at a later point in time; you have to plant the seed very early. I did my balance stint in consultancy, which had its own set of challenges Over a period of time, I developed a skill: it is the ability not to do work and instead, let others do the work without interfering in their work. I used to tell people that I am finally

responsible if something goes wrong When you start your career, you should be very focused on details. But as you move up, both in age and in position, you should stay away from small things Even if somebody has committed a mistake, don't be particular to point it out every time.

What are some of the skills that you look for now when you ' re hiring for different levels, apart from technical skills?

Mr Ananthaseshan: At a senior level, we look at how a person has handled failure and grown in adversity. The ability to connect the dots is also an important factor But one thing which, at least the last couple of years has taught many of us, irrespective of levels, is the skill to develop empathy. In a

sense, it is a dichotomy On the one hand, you have to manage numbers and facts. On the other hand, you have to deal with people, emotions and trauma. Have patience and keep that balance

Another skill that we look for from the pandemic experience is managing ambiguity. During the lockdown, we moved progressively from a complete unknown to known unknowns. The ability to handle a certain amount of fuzziness, look at the business and prepare scenario planning is a skill that is definitely important. Everything can't be put down in paper and the JV does not tell what exactly we look for in a person

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Prof Bala Shankar: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is an engineer from Manipal and later he did his MBA and so on. A tech person is good in maths and science but the other faculties are developed much later He had a child who had some growing difficulties and had to be attended to. He said that the only language the whole community of people who had special children spoke was empathy. In the end, he lost his child and it was a tragedy According to him, the fact that he picked up empathy now helps him to be the CEO of a company which employs 400,000 people and not his tech skills

When you have passion, you develop a skill. Also a hobby will become your skill and it's a determination of the mind to learn certain things. Generally speaking, people are not going to learn anything unless they are forced or the circumstances force them. What's your opinion on this?

Mr Ranganathan: To some extent. I would agree Typically, human nature is to shirk work Mankind would have comfortably rested on some tree if only they had been fed continuously by some agency, but then they had to find their food So they started hunting and to hunt, they needed tools. They started developing stones into tools. That is how the whole process of evolution happened and evolution, for some reason, cannot be stopped. AI and ML was avoidable but that could not be stopped We all have that impulse to move forward. Thus the process of skill building happens in a natural,

evolutionary way and it also happens under compulsion or coercion

When you disrupt your career and switch to new skills, don’t you think that you also require flexibility of thinking?

Prof Bala Shankar: The ability to embrace disruption is not only a brain’s thinking activity That's also your aptitude Are you risk averse or are you a risk taker? Can you cope with a little bit of uncertainty? Can you cope with some new learning and restart in a new environment?

Sometimes too much thinking may not be not good. Imagine the diver who goes up on the platform to dive into the pool He has less than a second to think before he jumps. Also, while you are at a younger age, it is easier to do this and it is less catastrophic for our careers or family or finances, than at a later stage in life, when a lot more thinking and calculations have to be done. You probably may not need very deep thinking skills. You just need the ability to bite the bullet, which also comes from a little bit of experience First, do small disruptions I know a good friend of mine whose family has stayed in Mylapore for about 60 years. Every few years, they move about ten or twelve streets within Mylapore

Over the years, a lot of importance is given to acquiring sufficient breath of exposure and knowledge across domains. Which is good breadth of exposure or depth of exposure?

Sometimes too much thinking may not be not good. Imagine the diver who goes up on the platform to dive into the pool.

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You don't have to necessarily go out of where you are. You can do a lot of things in parallel. It's just finding the right motivation to get started on it

Mr Ananthaseshan: It depends on who you want to be One of the things I have learnt now is skilling yourself on the go. As a material science guy working in R&D in a company, I had to go into depth and build a career. But when you look around, you come across opportunities to learn new things I got an opportunity to learn computers when there were no computers around. The fact that I wanted to put my experimental findings and tabulation into an Excel or a Lotus 1 2 3 those days and create a graph, got me into learning more about computers. Then, I got into project management and financial modelling. Later on, I was given an opportunity to completely disrupt myself from being an engineer researching materials to heading the purchase department.

My skills in computing and my knowledge on materials helped me create a big difference in the way we were buying and using things. The fundamentals are still there. The breadth of experience comes as we pick up skills along the way When I was given the responsibility of running the business division, moving from having managed five people to managing 500 people overnight, I was a little overawed. My boss told me that I don't have to know everything about it All I need to know is to be aware of who has got the skills to solve different problems.

Mr V Ranganathan: This is a conundrum in global consultancy firms too. They believe in hyper specialisation. That is, you should know more and more of less and less and they believe that clients value that kind of a specialisation. I hate this concept of being narrowed down to a smaller spectrum and would like to be around, all over the place. So breadth or depth which model is better? There is no perfect answer to it

Should disruption happen after mastering something? Or can it happen along, during the travel path? You should not become a jack of all and master of none.

Prof Bala Shankar: How early should you disrupt? You can take Mr Ranganathan as an example How late can you disrupt? You can take Rabindranath Tagore's example. It is better if you achieve a certain level of mastery in one before you disrupt yourself and go to the other. Again, there are examples of both kinds At some point in time, you will have enough balls to juggle with and one of them, you will catch. You don't have to necessarily go out of where you are You can do a lot of things in parallel It's just finding the right motivation to get started on it. Find buddies to help you get started

Who should be ideally responsible for skilling in an organisation—the CEO; the HR head; the employee themselves; academicians; the public or the government?

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Prof Bala Shankar: There is a difference between an organisation doing it for us and the individual himself or herself, taking responsibility for a task We all pick up degrees We don't pick up skills from colleges Planning, coordination, communication, ambiguity management, conflict resolution or avoidance or any of these things are not taught in any bachelor's or master's program.

You can only win there, when you're skillful enough to cope with these situations So the onus is on us as individuals to put an agenda in front of us and achieve some level of accomplishment in those skills Definitely organisations do support and they are also involved in it. They encourage people to reskill

Mr N Ananthaseshan: Skilling opportunities are aplenty in every organisation. But the individuals are responsible to capture and leverage those skills

Often, people get complacent in their job which they think is secure. How can they get the warning alarm?

Mr V Ranganathan: This was how life was in the past. You get into a bank or a government job or a company and take it as a lifetime occupation But now things have changed phenomenally, even in government. They're looking to recruit people on a short term assignment basis up to the joint

secretary level There is nothing permanent about it The onus is now on the individual to be productive and useful at all points in time.

Prof Bala Shankar: The warning comes automatically nowadays I was talking to a software person and he said, “They send people on overseas assignments only if they have a minimum of five sub skills. You can't be just a SAP specialist. You may have to know cyber security and so on You must be multi skilled within the tech industry to be able to be staffed into other projects. So the warning is already there.

Mr N Ananthaseshan: The rate of disruption is huge The last big disruption we saw was at the turn of the 20th century when we moved from the carriages to automobiles and that carried on for almost 100 years The rate of change we see from the IC engines to the EVs is huge and we need different technical skill sets A lady sitting on the pavement now knows how to use a QR code. That happened overnight just because of the demonetization We have to be aware of the trends and changes that we have to make to ourselves and to our organisations.

Many women have become unemployable, according to one of the recent reports, because they do not have an opportunity to update the skill; and all the routine jobs are taken over by AI/ML. If they're not employable, it has a serious impact on society. How can we keep our women empowered and upgraded with the latest skills, so that they are not left behind?

You can't be just a SAP specialist You may have to know cyber security and so on. You must be multi skilled within the tech industry to be able to be staffed into other projects. So the warning is already there.

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Prof Bala Shankar: I'm not in the government, but coming to the government's role, I can tell you examples of other countries. Women employment in places like Singapore and Hong Kong is probably 80 to 90 percent and they acquire skills related to whatever area they want to be in In some countries, they are almost equal in terms of skill level. A paradigm shift has to happen both in the eyes of governments who run programs and the society Society has to become warmer to the idea that jobs can be done by more women participating in employment It's coming in some fields, probably banking. The employers must hire more and more women.

Mr N Ananthaseshan: I have worked in Kerala which is one of the most progressive states and where many women are employed. We have a factory in Russia where 45 percent are women In Kerala, we engaged a woman to drive our truck and she is the first woman

truck driver The common thing between Russia and Kerala is perhaps they are communist states. In Russia, women took up jobs in factories because many of the men fighting in WWII did not come back. So the environment and culture also play a role.

Prof Bala Shankar: One skill that I have now picked up is accepting criticism for my works and feedback. Taking honest and genuine feedback and working on it is going to help me move forward The four examples that I narrated at the beginning tells us that at any age, you can start a new habit. When you start early, you can sustain it for a very long period of time These new skills need not be career oriented or for gainful activities. Compared to the past, we live twenty to thirty years more We have to spend those years purposefully, constructively and energetically enough.

Acquiring new skills is thus a post retirement compulsion too 

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