Featuring: Social Media & Society IT, CSR & Social Awareness— The Need Top 3 Articles in IT & CSR Brain Teasers & Top IT News
SummIT—The Information Technology Cell at NMIMS
Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT
Foreword My Dear Students Congratulations on bringing out this issue of “Manthan”. This issue is focused on the applications of information and communication technology for the benefit of society. Information and Communication Technology have been of great use to the corporate world but it is now high time for students , professionals and the IT industry to see how technology can be used for the betterment of society. There are several segments of society which need extremely advanced technology and the IT industry , academia and students need to apply their minds to see how this could be done.It is in this context that I would urge the readers of this issue of Manthan to think as to how mobile phones , tablets , laptops and other information appliances could be made easy enough to be used by senior citizens , differently enabled people and people who cannot read or write even in their own mother tongue. I hope this issue of Manthan will provide the initial spark needed to set the wheels of the above line of thinking in motion. My best wishes to the SUMMIT team! Dr.Nilay Yajnik Professor and Chairman - Information Systems Area Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies
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EDITOR’S NOTE The term, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), although defined in various ways by different authors essentially means acts of responsibility carried out by Corporates aimed at managing the needs and expectations of its Stakeholders. Socially responsible activities by Corporates are gaining more prominence nowadays, partly to minimize conflicts with Stakeholders and to live upto their expectations, avoid being caught off-guard by law enforcement and Government agencies and partly to keep up with the competition, which is ever-increasingly participating in CSR activities. The power of the tools and facilities like the internet, blogging sites provided by Information Technology has been leveraged upon to a great extent by Corporates to carry out and promote their CSR activities. A notable use of Information Technology by Corporates in this regard has been to keep its stakeholders like shareholders and the world at large informed about the CSR activities they have been carrying out or plan to carry out in the near future and some Corporates have regularly differentiated themselves from competitors on the basis of this. The main point of differentiation provided by Information Technology in promoting social awareness and CSR activities is its low cost of information dissemination, per user; cost which does not increase significantly with the increase in the number of users and targeted consumers of the information. This reason, coupled with the fact that Information Technology is being increasingly adopted by companies to carry out CSR activities, convinced us of the importance of this use of technology and hence we incorporated it as the theme of this edition of our annual magazine- Manthan. We received a good response from many students studying in B-Schools across India in the form of articles related to the theme. It was a tough task choosing the articles which would feature in this edition, given the limitation in terms of space in this edition of the magazine. Alongwith the articles, a section has been devoted to the activities carried out by SummIT in the past one year. Brain Teasers, Interesting Facts and a section on latest happenings in the Information Technology sector have also been featured in this edition. Happy Reading The Editor, SummIT.
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CONTENTS
1 Social Media: The Next big thing in creating Social Awareness?
Page 6
2. IT, CSR and Social Awareness : Connecting the Dots
Page 12 3. The Role of Information Technology in CSR and Social Awareness.
Page 18
4. The Role of Information Technology in CSR and Social Awareness
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT
CONTENTS 5. Role of IT in Corporate Social Responsibility and
Page 26
Social Awareness
Page 29
6.Brain Teasers
7. Social Media for Social Awareness : The role of IT in CSR and Social Awareness
Page 30
8.”Role of ICT in E-Governance : A Perspective”
Page 34
9.The Power of Information : The Role of IT in CSR and Social Awareness Page 38 10. SummIT 2011-2012
Page 42
11. Interesting Facts
Page 48
12. News Centre
Page 50
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Social Media: The Next big thing in creating Social Awareness?
Information Technology: Inseparable and indispensable It is said that Mobile Technology, Satellite Technology and the Internet are the 3 biggest inventions that mankind has seen in the past 100 years. Information Technology, the key driver of these 3 mega inventions touch our lives more than 100 times
Meera Prashant Bankar NMIMS, Mumbai
each day, 365 days a year and is
Malekandathil NMIMS, Mumbai
changing its form faster than the rate at which we blink our eyes! The steady rise of the Internet has done two main things: It brought the people closer and blurred the borders between the nations. In the past decade or so, a revolution has begun on the internet with the name of Social Networking Sites (SNS as it is popularly known as). SNS have created a virtual world, so real that a day without logging into your Facebook account may seem like an incomplete day. The level of engagement is so much today that people use social media as a platform not only for mere communication, but also to share sentiments, voice opinions and keep abreast with latest happenings around the world. It is literally a parallel world out there! Social Media and the Corporate World So if the Social Networking Sites are such an inseparable part of our lives, has the corporate world taken a note of this fact and used it in its communications? The answer is Yes. According to a study carried out by Custom Communication on 287 of the world’s most sustainable companies, a staggering 84% of these companies have already embraced social media for general PR or marketing purposes. Below is an example of how Pepsi India has used Facebook for its new AD campaign: Change the Game.
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If the companies have understood the worth of the social media in creating awareness and promoting their products, have they started using it for creating awareness of their CSR initiatives? The answer is that the companies have gradually started using the social media as a tool for their CSR communications. Not only the corporate world but also NGOs like Greenpeace have realized the true potential of the internet and started using it as a platform to spread awareness on social issues across the globe. KRC Research in a survey of 217 fortune 2000 company executives with a background in CSR found out that the usage of social media in CSR communication has raised from about 40% in 2010 to almost 70% in 2011.
Source: KRC Research
Upon further research as to why many corporate are focusing on social media as a potent tool for CSR, it was found that social media proved to be the best media to create opportunities to expand and reach diverse audiences. It is also seen as a way to connect directly with the consumers in a low-cost efficient way.
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Source: KRC Research What is the reason for the great synergies between social media and sustainability? The answer lies in the almost common philosophies of the two: Transparency, ethics and innovation, and both can help secure a company's bottom line. The companies can use the social media in an effective way only if they can prove how they can be useful for the communities at large and how they are valuing community participation and feedback in whatever they do. Social Media and CSR So how exactly have the companies used the social media for their CSR Communications? A few examples that will answer this question are: In 2006, HSBC launched Your Point of View, a sustainability social media project to create awareness about social issues. In 2008, Starbucks launched MyStarbucks Idea to counter community criticism of the company.
MyStarbucks Idea
HSBC’s Your Point of View
Now as said earlier it’s not only the corporate world that is using the Social media but also the NGOs worldwide. In 2006, Wal-Mart Watch was launched to make big companies (like Walmart) realize their unethical practices and egg them on to take corrective measures. In
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT 2008, Unilever’s Dove was on the receiving end of an aggressive Greenpeace social media campaign, Onslaughter, against palm oil deforestation. Nestle was targeted next by Greenpeace on the palm oil issue.
Green Peace’s Onslaughter
Wal-Mart Watch
It is ironic that Facebook which is the favorite social media used by the organizations to create awareness hasn’t been spared by the activists for its choice of coal-powered data centers. General Motors had launched a social network, GMNext with great expectations. However, its “green” section was overwhelmed by activists who questioned “Just how green the SUV behemoth can be?”
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What should the Companies Learn? It is clear that today’s corporate world has realized the true potential of the social media and has started migrating towards it for promoting not only its products but also its social initiatives and CSR activities. However, in using the social media it should not forget the three basic principles of CSR: Transparency, Ethics and a Community First approach. The examples of GM and Facebook prove how social media is a double edged sword. Another important aspect that corporates working in CSR must bear in mind is the fact that though social media gives access to a wide range of audience, the memory retention span of an average social media user is very limited. You may just ‘like’ a social cause or ‘join’ a group, and yet not do anything concrete about it. This is a real challenge that must be overcome to ensure that the impact of social media must be sustainable and result into some tangible benefit in due course. Nonetheless, companies like Ford, Pepsi, IBM and several others have realized that true sustainability can be achieved only through understanding the community’s needs and working collectively towards achieving it. It is high time others too understand this Guru Mantra!
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References The Sustainable Business Blog: The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/ sustainable-business/blog/sustainability-csr-social-media Custom Communication http://customcommunication.co.uk/
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IT, CSR and Social Awareness: Connecting the Dots
Facilitating Change: For decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives have been limited to traditional avenues. With no clear distinction between philanthropy and CSR, the profit churning multimillion dollar businesses had no obligation when it came to giving it back to the society. But gradually, the fervor of CSR set in and the practice of adopting ‘responsible business practices’ followed. There are many potential reasons for the change in CSR
Abhishek Shukla NMIMS, Mumbai
wave but the winner for facilitating the changing dynamics of CSR is definitely Information Technology (IT). Cold Facts: With revered players including TCS, Infosys and Wipro, Indian IT industry excels in providing seamless digital support to the entire globe. With revenue of US$76 billion in 2011, it is flying high with no jitters in sight. To balance out the equation, let us explore the flip side too. India, a trillion dollar economy, has 33% population living below the infamous poverty line of $1.25 per day. With one sector writing success stories at will, the nation suffers disheartening poverty levels at the bottom of the pyramid. The disparity between ‘haves and have-nots’ is on the rise. The billion dollar question is ‘How to leverage on our IT infrastructure to attain an equitable society’? Spread the change: To let IT enable the wave of CSR transformation, the pre requisite is social awareness. The ‘ease of connection’ has played a huge role in bringing masses together and it has created a phenomenon called social networking. Social networking helps create wild fire wherein a corporate initiative, be it good or bad, is transmitted to all nooks and corners of the world within hours. But the fame has also brought in the devil too. A
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT bad publicity across any channel can be disastrous for the company since it appears across all other social networking sites within seconds. So it is now left for the organizations to decide the level up to which they wish to harness this powerful tool.
Connecting the Stakeholders: Let us explore various facets of CSR initiatives wherein IT played a significant role in elevating the relationship between business and its stakeholders. 1. Employees First, Customers Second: When Vineet Nayar turned around HCL using his magical ‘Employees First, Customers Second’ philosophy, the power of employees was recognized. Over the years, employees have been the key focus of CSR initiatives adopted by organizations. Under Employee Electronics Recycling (e-Scrap) process, Cisco employees bring their used electronics items which are then recycled using the business processes followed by the organization. Another initiative is C-vision, a content sharing technology which helps employees communicate through varying media including video, audio and photos. A respite for employees came in with Cisco collaborating with Safari books online for access to its premier reference library. With transportation getting costly and time gaining paramount importance, the need for virtual meetings was realized. ‘TelePresence’ and ‘Cisco TV’ empower managers and employees to interact on a regular basis thereby reducing physical boundaries. Currently, the CSR initiatives focus broadly on talent retention. But corporations can achieve cutting edge technology using IT which will not only help in retaining employees but also in attracting talent.
Cisco TV facilitates employees and managers to collaborate 2. Win-Win situation for society: Businesses exist for the sole purpose of creating value for its customers and in return receive profits for their efforts. But this traditional model has run its course. With exponen-
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT tially evolving technology, corporates need to take first step in creating value proposition for the society. An encouraging step in this direction came through IBM’s ‘Sahana Software’. It is a web based disaster management application which helps in restoring balance in society after tsunamis and earth quakes.
Sony Wonder technology lab enables children explore the possibilities of science ‘Sony Science Program’, a series of educational workshops, teaches innovative principles of science. ‘Sony Explora Science’ and ‘Sony Wonder Technology Lab’ provide an opportunity for the society to take a sneak peek into the technology world. Dell has created ‘Planet Read’s same language subtitling program’ which provides subtitles of the lyrics of the film songs in the same language. This cost effective tool is providing extensive reading practice to 150 million weak readers. Cloud computing has also joined hands with CSR as ‘Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2011 Nonprofit Solution’ helps NGO’s to organize and manage their resources online. Microsoft has taken a bold step to rein child pornography by creating PhotoDNA. It is an image based technology which searches and removes worst child pornography images from the web. By initiating mKrishi, TCS is providing agro advisory services to villages in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. The information on weather, soil technology, fertilizers and grain prices is provided through multiple channels including cellular networks and mobile handsets.
Same language Subtitle program enables reading practice for weak readers
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT 3. Environment-Looking beyond the Green: Environmental CSR activities have predominantly focused on traditional practices such as planting trees and keeping environment clean. But it is time to look beyond the ‘Go Green’ mantra. Infosys has initiated a welcome move by introducing iSmart. iSmart, an intelligent power strip, monitors energy consumption levels and detects wastage. It allows organizations to manage and utilize their power requirements efficiently. ‘Microsoft System center Configuration Manager 2007 R3’ is also a support tool for better computer energy usage. ‘Cisco Energy Wise’ empowers corporations to reduce the energy use of all IP enabled equipment. It reduces energy costs and GHG emissions, ensuring operational efficiency.
iSmart chip enables smart energy usage
According to a Gartner report, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) energy consumption is estimated to produce about 2% of all energy related emissions. So the big players of IT industry have moral obligation to find ways in order to reduce energy emissions of the other 98%. The oil crisis of the 1970’s already showed us a glimpse of our heavy dependence on traditional energy sources. IT has a lot to offer in terms of renewable energy research and exploring cost effective energy usage approaches.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Reshaping Future: IT, CSR and social awareness have a simple connect. The challenge is to exceed the boundaries of IT to explore innovative CSR initiatives. Then create a wave of social awareness to spread the word. The renowned global IT players IBM, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Cisco and Google have integrated CSR into their core business strategies. When compared to the western counterparts, Indian IT CSR activities have just begun to flourish. Indian IT space needs to look beyond traditional CSR and leverage their IT expertise to energize the nation. It is a daunting task for the Indian IT industry to rebuild a nation but the potential is certainly there to make the fairy tale possible.
References – http://www.ioeemp.org/fileadmin/user_upload/documents_pdf/memberpublications/english/csr_swede n01_roleofbusiness.pdf http://devdata.worldbank.org/ict/ind_ict.pdf http://www.ibef.org/industry/informationtechnology.aspx http://motherjones.com/politics/2006/10/hype-vs-hope http://greatlakes.edu.in/uploads/pdf/Chapter2.pdf http://www.article13.com/A13_ContentList.asp?strAction=GetPublication&PNID=1201 http://www.karmayog.org/csrothercompanies/csrothercompanies_9520.htm
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT http://www.mmbgims.com/docs/full_paper/1_Shobhna_Vora_pp.pdf http://www.citehr.com/319673-discussion-innovative-corporate-social-responsibilityinitiatives-csr.html http://www.csrwire.com/reports/1231-PwC-Canada-Corporate-Responsibility-Highlights2011 http://www.tbl.com.pk/why-social-media-is-vital-to-corporate-social-responsibility/ http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/csr/index.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/community-actionblog/2011/dec/08/facebook-social-media-community-development http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14457809 http://www.konicaminolta.com/about/csr/csr/vision/index.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac227/csr2011/docs/CSR2011_full_report.pdf http://www.justmeans.com/-10-Most-Socially-Responsible-Companies-inWorld/46571.html http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/en-us/reporting/workingresponsibly/privacy-safety/privacy-security/ http://www.tcs.com/about/corp_responsibility/Documents/TCS_Corporate_Sustainability_ Report_2009-10.pdf http://www.wipro.com/Documents/Wipro%20Sustainability%20Report%20200910%20online.pdf
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The Role of Information Technology in CSR and Social Awareness
The Basis of Corporate Social Responsibility & Social Awareness As the world has started analyzing the long-term effects of climate change and energy availability, businesses are vying for an area of opportunity - energy conservation, reduction of carbon Amit Kumar Patel emissions, and supply chain. Under NMIMS, Mumbai
Sharmistha Sahoo NMIMS, Mumbai
this strategy, a company's analysis of profit, return on investment, and return on equity is replaced by Triple Bottom Line encompassing economic, social and environmental factors. Social awareness can also be defined as social consciousness; to be aware of the problems that different communities face on a day -to-day basis. Both are fast becoming a core area for organizations which can help improve employee motivation and satisfaction.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT The Difference Maker – Technology Forward-thinking companies can be at the forefront of shaping and fixing the environment by using IT to redesigning new Environmental Friendly products & supply chains. There are two types of CSRs – Internal & External:
Role Of Information Technology In Internal CSR Strategic Sourcing and Procurement IT helps in implementing an automated supplier enablement process which provides comprehensive information about suppliers that mitigates risk. IT helps to carry out an assessment of the environmental consequences at various stages of a product’s lifecycle measuring the environmental costs of securing raw materials, manufacturing, transporting, storing, handling, using and disposing. Continuous Process Improvement IT builds effectiveness and efficiency across the entire supply chain through continued process improvement utilizing tools like lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and Total Quality Management. It translates to continually improving the resource productivity, production & distribution efficiency, with less material, less capital, less energy, and less waste per unit of production. Product Lifecycle Management PLM is an enterprise, business and information strategy that enables companies to
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT establish global information networks between design and manufacturing. PLM capabilities could be used to calculate the amount of packaging used for its products and to help identify opportunities to reduce packaging which improves margin by lowering packaging costs and reduces the amount of waste produced when the packaging is discarded.
Logistics IT optimizes shipping routes which in turn reduce costs and reduces the carbon footprint. It helped UPS shave $28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which resulted in savings of roughly 3,000,000 gallons of gas and reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons just by eliminating left hand turns out of their delivery routes. Performance Management and Measurement Environmental dashboards are environmentally proactive tools. Dashboards and Web portals provide critical information for decision making which evaluate and guide the CSR programs within a company. Virtualization Virtualization helps reduce the number of physical servers while increasing the utilization rate. It lead to a significant reduction in energy consumption, as there are fewer physical servers to power, and less cooling is required to dissipate the heat these servers generate.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Role Of Information Technology In External CSR
ICT in School Kadurupitiya, a small village situated on the outskirts of the Sri Lanka, came alive with the introduction of ICT. The village school, Ashokamala Kanishta Vidyalaya, which for years suffered poor attendance now boasts of a near 100% attendance - all on account of the advent of IT by providing education online through installed computers. Digital Talking Books for Visually Handicapped The ICT Agency in Sri Lanka is working with the Daisy Lanka Foundation in producing a collection of digital talking books which would be invaluable to the print disabled. 72-hour “Eco-Efficiency Jam” In January, IBM led a 72-hour “Eco-Efficiency Jam” during which anyone around the world could give their insight on issues from green IT to improving the company’s environmental performance.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Timberland’s Voices of Challenge It has the goal of involving one million “Earthkeepers” who will weigh in on how the apparel company can reduce emissions, reduce waste, and improve worker conditions throughout its supply chain. The Accountability Web It is a cooperative project led by Harvard Kennedy School’s Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, suggests steps companies can take to ensure a platform that allows their stakeholders to participate in sustainability-related discussions
Sony's Social Contribution Activities
Sony Explora Science (Japan, China) Help visitors understand scientific laws and principles Employees themselves support the workshop as the lecturers
Sony Wonder Technology Lab (US) & Science Program SWTL is an interactive museum-free to the public. In 2009, Sony launched the series of science workshops for children. CONCLUSION Advanced Market Research estimates that 89% of companies in US and 62% in Europe plan to use technology for their CSR initiatives, and 70% of companies has a dedicated budget for CSR initiatives within the next two years. Thus IT would have a major role to play in identifying, assessing and optimizing present and future CSR risks to business operations, such as legal, political, reputational, supply chain disruption.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT REFERENCES http://www.earthkeeper.com/voicesofchallenge http://www.ibm.com/ibm/green/ecojam/ http://www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/CSRI/ http://www.sonyexplorascience.jp/english/ http://www.gartner.com/technology/supply-chain-professionals.jsp http://www.icta.lk/en/programmes/73.html http://www.epicor.com
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The Role of Information Technology in CSR and Social Awareness Introduction Corporate Social Responsibility has come a long way from being the new buzzword of companies across the globe. Today it is considered a deeper, more inclusive concept that is, it would seem, almost as essential to a business as its primary motive of profit making. We talk of ‘stakeholders’ perspective in CSR’, creating economic opportunities for society, and building businesses that give back to society. The concept of ‘shared value’, made popular by Mark Kramer and Michael Porter, is catch- Lizanne Marie Raphael ing on and is the new ‘in thing’.
MDI Gurgaon
So, what role does IT play in helping companies in their CSR practices? How can it help in creating social awareness about how companies are creating opportunities and giving back to the society with which they co-exist?
Role of IT in CSR and Social Awareness So what role does IT play in CSR and creating Social awareness? The answer to this question lies below: Dissemination of Information Information continues to be one of the biggest assets that a company can possess. But of what use is information if it cannot be accessed by the people who need it to make decisions? Forget decision-making, how can a company reach out to its clients, customers, and all other stakeholders if it does not have a channel of information that they can access? Companies today are using IT tools to not just create awareness in the minds of their stakeholders about the various CSR activities that it undertakes, but also to reach out to society and involve it in the entire ‘shared value’ creation that is going on. Company reports, initiatives, performance, blogs Not only are company reports published online, but also detailed histories of their so-
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Online CSR initiatives Most companies are using IT and IT tools to promote their online CSR initiatives. ITC’s echoupal, and Srei Sahaj e-village concept are examples of how companies are leveraging the internet as a means of social communication. Inclusive growth and business opportunities Inclusive growth is the order of the day. Business models, corporate values and mission statements are changing, all to accommodate the concept of sustainable and inclusive growth. E-commerce led the way, and now we have e-governance to facilitate and reach out to people across all walks of life. ‘Don’t shelve it, Facebook it!’ Social media has gained an importance like never before! Websites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and a host of others have stormed the planet, and have brought a revolution. Companies have made their presence felt on all these websites and have used them to communicate with society about their activities, which include CSR. Also, these media provide a platform to users to come up with suggestions, feedback, ideas, comments, et al, thereby giving the company a virtual face to interact with the community. Reaching out to the youth Almost of 40% of India’s population is plugged into some electronic device or the other. That 40% is the one below the age of 25 years. Companies are reaching out to the younger audience to put across the message of socially responsible behaviour and activities. IT just helps, enormously.
IT is in! It is quite evident that IT is the perfect platform for companies to project and promote their CSR activities. Not only does IT provide the tools for companies to do so, but it also serves as a means of communication with the society and enables companies to reach out, explain, invite and implement all that it intends to do for the community it serves.
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Role of IT in Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Awareness Companies/Organizations have a significant impact on Economy, Environment and Society as a whole and it is their responsibility to curb and gauge any uncertainties in its management that could lead to damage to any of the above 3. This is where Corporate Social Responsibility comes into picture, wherein a company takes care of social and economic status of its stakeholders, in compliance with all ethical, legal and international norms governing/affecting Corporate Social Responsibility. CSR is a cumulative care of People and Planet while managing Profit. To achieve this, IT plays a crucial role. The information
Lakkshay Bussi
technology has revolutionized the way we store, process, dis-
SIMS
seminate information. It is inevitably a crucial part of our everyday life. It can help companies in following ways for their CSR activities : IT services can be used to maintain Trust and Transparency among all stakeholders of the company thereby inculcating a genuine culture of ‘doing the right thing’ within an organization. This is essential to offset risks IT services ensure an effective/organized social health, wellness and safety, which helps companies improve their Brand image or procure licenses from govt./public to start/expand a venture IT helps in the smooth operations of the Social Investment made by the firm to improve the life of rural and semi-urban people.
Companies like Ben&Jerry’s join groups like SaveOurEnvironment.org in a campaign to fight Global Warming. Others like Suzlon Energy initiate efforts to combat air pollution through its P.A.L.S.(Pure air lover’s society). Both these efforts can’t even be thought of without IT services. Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) programmes cover education, irrigation, afforestation, adult literacy, vocational training, handicrafts and rehabilitation of the handicapped persons and The Community Development and Social Welfare
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Department (CDSW) at Tata steel carries out medical and health programmes, blood donation drives, mass screening of Tuberculosis patients immunization camps drug de-addiction, AIDS awareness drives etc. All these require enormous amount of Data collection, compilation, processing and analysis for which IT plays a crucial role. Recently ITC won the 'Golden Peacock Global Award for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Emerging Economies for 2005'. The Company received this award for its e-Choupal and social and farm forestry initiatives that help improve the flow of Information (from farming to Aviation) among common villagers. IT plays a Direct role here by allowing the companies to increase knowledge of farmers as India prepares itself to be a Knowledge economy Besides above benefits, IT also is a key to our Social Awareness. Millions worldwide are now connected and IT through its Web technologies combined with a spice of Social networking Websites, has become a powerful tool for Society, Companies, and Individuals to generate social Awareness. How can one know about a girl that was repeatedly beaten to death in Japan while we are sitting on our Lappy in our Dormitory? How can you get the reviews (from people whom you don’t know) about a product that you are planning to buy? How can you know the nearest best restaurants for you after watching people talk about it on websites like Yelp.com? How can you get know about a B-school straight from the student’s mouth without meeting or knowing them? Well, the answer to all questions is ‘IT’. IT has made our life faster, better and the World Smaller through its far reach and instant actions/updates. One can log on to any Social Networking website and see the level of awareness companies create, be it Ford with its Ford Explorer campaign or Kohl’s by its $10mn campaign that it gave away to 20 schools on Facebook. Companies/organizations are actively using this platform to create Social awareness. Politics is not far away from it either. Politicians are actively using Social platforms to reach out to their public and create awareness about what they have to say that is socially important. Newt Gingrich announced his run for the presidency through Twitter and Facebook a whole two days before he went on Fox News to speak. Mitt Romney used a YouTube video to launch his presidential exploratory committee, then used Twitter updates and Foursquare check-ins to create hype about the official announcement made on his family farm. Who can forget President Obama’s innovative digital campaign for the 2008 election? That
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Viral Obama campaign gained supporters. The 2008 election had a voter turnout of 56.8%, which was the highest number since 1968. If this goes on, then Information Technology will enable & empower us to engage with the world in an unprecedented way which would not only make our society a better place to live in, but also a socially blessed one where everyone is cognizant of his/her own society.
References: http://www.rhcatalyst.org/site/DocServer/CSRQ_A.pdf?docID=103 Book – Brand Royalty by Matt Haig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility http://smagency.com/tabloids/social-media-politics/ + Own Knwledge
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BRAIN TEASERS 1. A man is trapped in a room. The room has only two possible exits: two doors. Through the first door there is a room constructed from magnifying glass. The blazing hot sun instantly fries anything or anyone that enters. Through the second door there is a fire-breathing dragon. How does the man escape? 2. What do the following words have in common- a duck, a restaurant goer, Congress?
3. Find out the logic used to frame the following sequence of
Chiranjib Banerjee
words- gun, shoe, spree, door, hive, kicks, heaven, gate, line,
NMIMS, Mumbai
den.
4. Three people take a room in a hotel and pay the manager $30 for the same. The manager, on remembering that the rent is $25, calls the attendant, gives him the balance 5$ and asks him to return it to the guests. The attendant keeps $2 for himself and hands over the balance $3 to the guests. So, each guest paid $9, totalling to $27 and the attendant kept $2 for himself. This totals to $29. Where did $1 go?
5.What do the following words have in common- a river, a cave and a face?
(Turn to Page 47for Answers)
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Social Media for Social Awareness The role of IT in CSR and Social Awareness INTRODUCTION The entire world today is connected through a single click. With the boom in information technology, everything has become fast, convenient and easily accessible. Thanks to this development, the 2000s saw a change in lifestyle with the emergence of the social media as an integral part of people’s lives. Social media went much beyond just helping people connect with each other. Along with host of other activities possible on social media, social awareness and CSR took a bigger shape. Companies, who were earlier reluctant towards CSR activities owing to the burden and cost
Lipsa Mahapatra, XIM, Bhubaneswar
involved, now started their CSR activities through social media. Several NGOs and individuals now use social media for spreading social awareness. ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN SOCIAL AWARENESS The role of social media in social awareness can be summed up in terms of 5 C’s:
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Catch Right audience – People form groups as per their interests on social networking sites. Hence, when a campaign for any social awareness program is started on social media, it will readily attract the right audience for it. Carry Spread the word – The biggest advantage of social media is the buzz it creates and in the process spreads news faster than any other medium. Hence, when social media is used for any social awareness program, it can easily spread to more and more number of people. Cost Minimal cost– Since, spreading social awareness through social media involves minimal cost both from the perspective of people starting the program as well as the audience; it is wiser to prefer social media. Convenience Ease – A person does not have to do anything more than just click a “Like” or “Share” button on Facebook in order to spread a cause. It is so much more convenient than going place to place in order to reach the masses.For example, there are campaigns on Facebook in which a certain amount of money is donated for every single “like”. Direct Interaction– Social media provides the advantage of direct communication between the initiators of social awareness programs and the target audience. This helps to clarify things as and when any concern is raised. Coverage Large number of youth – The population of young people is very high in social networking sites. This helps in the cause of social awareness because the youth is generally very enthusiastic to do variety of activities.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Networking – The groups interested for spreading social awareness also gain from social media by building networks with people or communities who can in turn help them in their program. Know the society – Social media provides an excellent platform for knowing the society and the thoughts of people. The social awareness program can invite comments, ideas, suggestions etc. from people on social networking sites. This will not only help them understand the society but also help them shape their program according to the needs of the society. MAKING IT BIG WITH SOCIAL MEDIA There are several examples of campaigns taking a big shape in social networking sites. Few of them are:
Anna Hazare campaign Robin Hood Tax on banks Green festival project Children’s defense festival WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY Although social media has great advantage for serving the cause of social awareness, it could lead to several disadvantages, if not handled carefully. The cause could take a completely unwanted direction or the initiator’s reputation could suffer because of improper communication. Several things need to be taken care of when using social media for social awareness: Language of communication – One has to be extremely careful with the words he/ she uses in social media. A single wrong word could destroy the whole purpose of the work and harm its image too. Maintain focus – Since there will be lot of people and a variety of discussion going on in social media, it’s very easy to lose focus and de-track. Hence, it’s very essential on the initiator’s part to maintain focus of the campaign and lead it in the right track.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT CONCLUSION Awareness can spread only when it is passed on from one hand to another, and what better a place for this than social media! If social media is used innovatively as well as responsibly, it can help spread social awareness crossing all boundaries and limitations.
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“ROlE Of ICT IN E-GOvERNaNCE : a PERSPECTIvE” The use by government agencies of the information technologies (IT) to improve and transform relations with the citizens, businesses and other arms of the government for availing services to its citizens, and providing them an efficient way of complying with the regulations set by the government, is known as e-governance. Information needs to be spread among all the sections of the
VINIT CHAWLA
society to avail the services of the e-governance. Some of the
NMIMS, Mumbai
well known initiatives in this regard are filling the forms online, payment of bills (electricity, water supply etc.), and distant education for its citizens, filing the tax returns, registration of land records and birth and death rates in India, and telemedicines, and the services like e-choupal. Business transactions with the government can be done by Government to Business Transactions (G2B) where the information is delivered and transactions are made electronically with the businesses. It even helps in government to government transactions, or inter-departmental transactions within the government, and with government employees called, Inter Government Administration, (G2G). Egovernance can also help increasing the exports and tourism and raise foreign trade of the country through G2X Transactions.
Roadmap for Application of ICT for better governance: 12th Five Year Plan Technology needs to provide implementable solutions for impending problems. Such solutions can emerge out when the primary stakeholders such as the nodal ministries of Health, Education, and Rural Development etc. are taken into consensus and ICT is used as an enabling tool. Overall the focus should be on suitable applications rather than just infrastructure. This can be achieved if the primary stakeholders are involved during the design and implementation of the required ICT infrastructure. To achieve success in the field of health, education and employment it is important to work through agencies which are responsible for promoting health, education and literacy. An example in this regard is the
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT concept of telemedicine as a business model. For Telemedicine to succeed there is a need for organizational capability of number of telemedicine centres connected with speciality hospitals and clinics. Currently such an experiment is going on in the state of Tamil Nadu. Schemes like Aarogyashri initiative by the Andhra Pradesh government where a network of hospitals including private hospitals is providing health insurance coverage to all the BPL families of the state. This initiative is a public private partnership entirely driven by ICT. The 12th plan should look to replicate such initiatives where the stakeholders of the concerned field have a major involvement.
The plan allocations of ICT infrastructure has to be commensurate with the service delivery outcome keeping in view the coverage and the costs of assessing such services. The National E-Governance plan and the UID authority has already created large amount of IT infrastructure. The focus of NeGP in the first 4 years of the 11th plan was on laying the necessary infrastructure. But the utilization of this infrastructure is quite low, in fact currently only 15% of service delivery transactions between government and citizens are IT enabled. In this too there is seen a huge disparity between states where some states are miles ahead of the other laggards. To meet the required aim to facilitate common man the focus is to create integrated delivery mechanisms which are cost-effective and reliable. Therefore the priority should be to utilise the existing infrastructure rather than new customer service centres in the form of allocation such as Panchayat or post offices. Out of the 90,000 customer service centres only 10-15000 are functional. The viability of these access points in the rural areas requires deliberation and therefore in the 12th plan the emphasis should be on e-district program which delivers actual services. In this regard the target should that at least 50% of all transactions of the top 20 customer dealing agencies are IT enabled. The design of computerized projects should include process reforms. For efficient delivery of services a workflow process in various government departments is imperative along with the ITCization of these departments.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT In spite that service delivery lags behind the availability of IT infrastructure, there are places where support infrastructure is actually missing. For example in state of Arunachal Pradesh a rural area citizen walks nearly for two days to access a government office. The 12th plan needs to focus on technological innovations to provide access to such remote areas using ICTs.
The telecom revolution is integral to the ICT revolution. But still the use of mobiles by rural population is limited and the main uses are social voice calls and missed calls. 33% use for SMS and 1-1.5% for any other use. The 12th plan should focus on the following: Ensure availability of low cost mobiles with local language capability through indigenous production of low cast mobile sets Create customized value added services for the poor
There is need for pilot projects to be evaluated by an independent evaluator and the ones that have the potential for replication need to be supported. Pilot projects like Satcom for English language teaching by Unnati with the support of Tribal development department, Gujarat or Gyanshala in West Bengal and Bihar are good examples.
It is imperative that the citizens are aware of their rights and services. The public broadcasting medium is the best medium to spread awareness of the ICT enabled services. In this regard the 12th plan must incorporate this citizen education. Finally the draft bill on electronic service delivery focuses on creating an authority with the capacity to handle complaints. The focus of the bill must be on mechanisms that prevent these complaints from arising in the first place by improving the delivery process.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT References: http://12thplan.gov.in/ Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, http:// www.mit.gov.in/ Press Information Bureau, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/mainpage.aspx http://www.governancenow.com/
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The Power of Information The Role of IT in CSR and Social Awareness This article attempts to devise a model that can effectively use IT technologies to deliver and ensure better social awareness. Before I explain the details of the model it would help to understand the subjects under consideration. I would define social awareness as the act of knowing the facts about any occurrence or phenomenon around oneself. Formulation of opinion or the taking of decisions based on those facts and the quality of those opinions and decisions are independent of the social awareness in itself, which is just the knowing of facts. For the purpose of this article I am extending the ambit of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to also in-
Vinay Arun NMIMS, Mumbai
clude government agencies and offices. The reason is that, CSR ideally derives from a sense of responsibility among corporations, and as a people, we also desire this same responsibility from our elected government representatives. In this article, IT technologies will refer to all contemporary communication, data storage platforms and all the applications built on those platforms. So for example, the internet and applications like Twitter would be covered by the term IT technologies. The model I propose aims to use IT technology to deliver raw information to the masses, at a level of detail that has never been reached before. The goal is to have information stare people “in the face�. The RTI Act can be used as a reference to understand the concept I am proposing. The act enables the public to access information; this information being available means accountability and accountability is in turn hoped to force responsibility. The shortcomings are: There is a process involved in accessing the information It requires people to need and demand the information
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT There are many other shortcomings with the RTI Act; however the above two are drawbacks in the design itself. IT can enable information to be available to a far greater audience at greater detail. This information can pertain to governance related issues of central and state governments and even public companies. The information available to all and accessible by all will result in an effect many times greater than what the RTI Act intended to have. This is illustrated with the following data flow diagram for a generic tendering process by the government. The tendering process involves many stages and government tenders follow a set procedure. If the information flowing through these can be standardized, it can be captured into a centralized database. Information such as bidders, bid details, prices quoted, timelines etc. can be captured in the database. Through the database this information can be made public. Some information such as prices quoted may have to be guarded to ensure privacy, but only till the stage of closing of the tender. Once the tender has closed even this information can be made public. Now with so much information so easily available to the public, the officials in charge are under a constant monitoring process, and this is the ideal we must strive for in a democratic set up.
Feedback
Initiation of Tender
Stage 1
Stage N
Data Repository
Close of Tender
Stakeholder
Custom generated report
Figure A Tendering process possibilities With such a set up the room for corrupt practices decreases drastically. All decisions taken can be comprehensively evaluated by the public. Hence when the public sees that a bidder choice has been made against public interest the alarms will be raised. Now what is essential is that this information needs to be highly visible. Although it will drastically reduce the process involved in obtaining information, special stakeholders like
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT journalists and reporters will have to exploit the system to further increase visibility. And this is very likely to happen. This set up can be extended to all functions and all governments (state and central) to increase reach. In the ideal scenario all government actions will be available for analysis at a single spot through a website for the general public. The transparency that this will bring will lead to awareness as certain key stakeholders utilize the system (like journalists).
Feedback and monitoring
Central government Processes and functions
Custom generated report
State government Processes and functions
IT Backbone
Stakeholder
Central Repository IT Interface
Local governments Processes and functions
Figure B Comprehensive IT solution for social awareness The key concept in this system is making information available to the public who will then form their own opinions. The system will bring internal government functioning into the mainstream. It holds tremendous potential if, for instance, budgeting and government expenditure information is also covered. Every rupee spent can be accounted for. Expenditures claimed by an official can be validated on the ground. The system can provide features to compare wards in terms of developmental expenditures made by their respective corporators. The analysis of the information and formation of opinions or judgment will only be facilitated by the system. This can be effective and will be enough. Two prominent examples demonstrate this. The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) was started by George Clooney and John Prendergast in Sudan. The idea was simple: deploy a satellite that observes everything that happens on
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT the ground in Sudan. The aim was to prevent atrocities during the Sudan partition. This is a prime example of IT bringing raw information to the masses. Being watched continuously meant a deterrent to potential crimes because of the clear risk of perpetuators being exposed. Another example is the Kony 2012 campaign. Started by the NGO Invisible Children, it is a campaign to garner worldwide support to stop Joseph Kony and his army, the LRA, from exploiting child soldiers in Africa. The aim here was to expose the little known Kony to the entire world. Using the social media the NGO managed to gather huge support within 4 days! This shows the power of bringing simple information to people. Hence in summary we can say that if we leverage IT to obtain comprehensive information about government functioning and bring this to people, then we can increase social awareness levels to a great extent. In fact such systems will most likely be a part of future egovernance systems. When implemented they can, through the increase in awareness, bring about an accountability drive that will ensure responsible behavior from government representatives. References: http://www.satsentinel.org/documenting-the-crisis http://www.kony2012.com/
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SUMMIT 2011-2012 Pylon of Isis – Parichay Date: 14th July, 2011, 9:30 pm onwards It is an online treasure hunt where the participants have to cross the different levels. The clues to the next level are present in the existing level and one might have to change the url, click an item or answer questions or explore the map page. The person completing all the levels earliest is the winner. Around 90 teams (180 members) participated in the event. 37 teams
Compiled by: Mugdha were able to crack the Desai, NMIMS Mumbai treasure at the end. The blog page http://labyrinth2010.blogspot.com was hyper active and attracted over 1000 page hits in a span of 3 hours.
IDEAS – Augustus Date: 11th August, 2011, 2:30 pm IDEAS is the flagship seminar of SummIT. This year, the topic of the seminar was “Careers in IT after MBA”. It featured a panel discussion between the industry experts from Information Technology sector. The guest speakers were: 1. Mr. Sachin Kelkar, Head of Channels, Intel 2. Mr. Lokesh Bhagwat, Vice President, Patni-IGate
Dr. Nilay Yajnik, Chairperson, Information Science, NMIMS Mumbai There was a very good participation from the first years’ batch with the house occupied. The seminar was very interactive with the audience asking several questions regarding the career growth in IT. Ideate Ideate, is the interactive IT newsletter. Every issue invites articles from students on various
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT broad topics of IT. This year, SummIT launched two editions of Ideate: Ideate - August 2010 edition on “Green IT” and Ideate- December 2011 edition on “IT – The Banker’s Delight”
KHOJ 2011 ……Starts Where The Search Ends Date: 11th Nov – 13th Nov, 9:30 pm onwards SummIT, the IT & Consultancy cell at NMIMS, Mumbai conducted “KHOJ 2011” as a part of the annual college fest, “Paragana”. “KHOJ” is an Online Treasure Hunt competition. The game was hosted online on Khoj website. The facebook page -http:// www.facebook.com/SummIT.nmims was hyperactive with numerous hits throughout the span of the competition as it attracted many visitors and earned many “Likes”. As many as 465 teams registered for this grand treasure hunt event. The SummIT website and its facebook page witnessed 742 unique visitors and 77823 page hits. Around 149 teams (2 members each) participated in the event. There were 99 teams from outside colleges. 9 teams were able to crack the treasure at the end, thus making their mark in the Hall of Fame.
Workshops An academic workshop on “Generating Business Value through IT” was conducted by Dr. Nilay Yajnik, Chairperson of IS area at NMIMS, Mumbai. It was a 2 day workshop of 3 hours each on 14th-15th Nov. A total of around 40 students from 2nd year, NMIMS had participated in it.
CA International Case Study contest It is a global case study based competition of “Computer Associates”, one of the world’s top most software companies. The finals of the contest were conducted in this year in Las Vegas on Nov 13- 15th. A team of three students represented NMIMS, the only university from India and competed with the top B schools of the world e.g. Copenhagen Business School, ISB, Nanyang Tech Univ, University of Cincinnati, etc.
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SUMMIT 2011-2012 Eluminate – Euphoria Date: 4th February–19th February, 2012
This was a case study competition. The topic was “Social Media Development” based on an NGO in Nashik, named “Abhivyakti”. The competition was open to all full-time MBA/PGDM or equivalent program students for all business schools in India. Participation was in a team consisting of maximum 2 members. Case study was released on 4th February. It was sent to B-schools all over India and was released on dare2compete and mbaskool as well. The participants needed to send Executive Summary with 300-500 words within the stipulated deadline. There were a total of 35 entries for the competition and 7 teams were shortlisted for the second round. The teams had to send their reports and complete analysis on 18 February. On 19th February the final presentation was organised in the college. The judges invited included the Director of Abhivyakti – Ms. Sujata Babar. The presentation was judged on the basis of the content, innovative ideas and presentation. Additional points were given to the teams which came up with innovative means of media (like poster, video, photographs, flannel stories etc.) for the final presentation. The winning teams were rewarded with certificates and prizes.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Infothon – Euphoria Date: 16th February, 2012 This was an online competition of a crossword quiz. It was a game in which interesting questions were to be answered about IT. The questions were posed in the form pictures. The quiz was full of exciting facts related to technology and IT. The crossword was to be submitted as the final answer. The participation was individually or in teams of 2 members. The game was on for a duration of 2 hours.
There were hundreds of registrations from colleges all over India. 20 teams could submit the final crossword. The top 3 winning teams were identified on the basis of correct answers and the earliest submission time. They were rewarded with certificates and other prizes.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Zero Respect – Euphoria Date: 18th and 19th February, 2012 NMIMS for the first time conducted its college festival in a gaming campus LSG v2 LAN gaming centre at Irla in Vile Parle. SummIT, in association with LSG Frag Academy organised this event in the LSG gaming cafe at prime mall. The arrangements were made on professional gaming machines to ensure higher quality in terms of gaming experience and ambience.
The different games organised were counter strike, FIFA on X box and Blur. The elimination rounds were conducted on 18th and in the morning slot of 19th. The finals were conducted in the second half of 19th. Registrations were in a team of 5 members in CounterStrike. Numerous gaming enthusiasts enjoyed playing. In CounterStrike top 3 prizes were given. In FIFA and Blur the top 2 winners were awarded.
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ANSWERS TO BRAIN TEASERS (Page 29) ANSWERS: 1. The man waits for the night and exits through the 1st door. 2. A Bill 3. One, Two, Three, Four, Five….. 4. Be careful in adding up! Of the total $27 paid, $25 goes to manager and balance $2 is kept by the attendant. 5. Mouth
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INTERESTING FACTS Did you know that the very first Google Doodle was designed as a kind of “out of office” message? In 1998 Brin and Page took the weekend off to go the Burning Man festival in Nevada. The Burning Man doodle was designed by the Google guys and added to the homepage to let their users know they were out of office and couldn’t fix technical issues like a server crash. Google’s first ever Twitter post was as satisfyingly geeky as you could hope for. The message, sent in February 2009, reads “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.” For anyone not fluent in binary, here’s a hint — it’s a well-known phrase from the company’s homepage. Got it? Yep, it reads: “I’m feeling lucky.”
This one isn’t actually one of Google’s infamous April Fools’ Day jokes: Google rents out goats. Yes you read that right. It rents goats from a company called California Grazing to help cut down the amount of weeds and brush at Google HQ. The operation of 200 goats (plus herder and a border collie) is kind to the environment, and as Google puts it: “A lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.” Google programmers have messed around with code for Picasa to yield some surprising results. When in the desktop software, hitting CTRL-SHIFT -Y will make a teddy bear appear. Hitting the same combo again will give the first teddy a new buddy, and so on. It’s since been revealed this was the childhood bear of photographer and photo blogger Noah Grey who worked with Google on the project.
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The very first Apple logo was designed by Ronald Wayne, the third founder. The first logo shows Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree when he discovered gravity by an apple falling on his head; it has a poem all around its border. (Newton… a mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought.)
The Apple store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan (the cube) is said to be one of the most photographed landmarks in the world.
Bill Gates wrote a class scheduling program for his school. He tweaked the program’s code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students.
The first ever mention of “Microsoft” was in a letter from Bill Gates to cofounder Paul Allen in 1975. Gates initially wrote the company name as Microsoft, which made sense considering it’s a portmanteau of “microcomputer” and “software”. Losing the hyphen, “Microsoft” was officially registered as a company in November, 1976 in New Mexico where Gates and Allen were working with their first major customer, MITS.
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NEWS CENTRE Mar 15, 2012 Infosys Ltd. , India's No. 2 software services exporter, expects to double its product research and development engineers to 1,000 in India, the company said on Thursday.They will work in areas including digital electronics, internet commerce and healthcare, according to the company
Mar 2, 2012 Software services provider MphasiS once again disap-
SACHIN AGARWAL
pointed the street with a near 19% decline in consolidated
NMIMS, Mumbai
net profit in its first quarter (November-January), but says it is now making all efforts including increasing utilization and growing direct business to ensure profitability http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/resultsbrokerage-conference-call/mphasis-tofocusgrowing-direct-business-to-boost-profit_675906.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
Mar 2, 2012 CRISIL Research has come out with its report on OmnitechInfosolutions . The research firm has maintained the fundamental grade of 3/5 to the company in its March 1, 2012 report http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/crisil-research/crisil-retains-valuation-grade55-toomnitech-info_664323.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
Feb 29, 2012 In partial relief to Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) auditors SubramaniGopalakrishnan and SriniwasTalluri, accused in the Rs 14,000 crore Satyam scam, the Bombay High Court today directed market regulator SEBI to commence its inquiry against them from May. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/satyam-scam-hc-asks-sebi-todefer-probe-against-pwc-team_673779.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Feb 29, 2012 Mindtree appoints SubrotoBagchi, the current vice-chairman as chairman of the company, effective April 1. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/mindtrees -new-chairman-looks-tobuildsegment-expertise_674842.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
Feb 28, 2012 Intel Corp will sell its stake in two wafer factories to joint-venture partner Micron Technology for USD 600 million and will source its NAND flash from the memory maker. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/intel-to-sell-stakenand-factories-backto-micron_674493.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
Feb 18, 2012 "Indian companies are now contributing strongly to local State economies in the US with a presence in 43 states and having invested over USD 26 billion in the last five years in several key areas of the economy, in manufacturing as also in services," the Indian Ambassador to the US, NirupamaRao, said. She continued, "As per our estimates, Indian IT companies employ over 100,000 people in the US and the Indian IT industry supports over 280,000 jobs indirectly out of which about 200,000 are with US residents." http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/indian-it-cos-employ-over-100000peopleus_670476.html?utm_source=executive-briefing Feb 21, 2012 On the back of several and frequent speeches by President Obama in the US promising to create more jobs for Americans and targeting specifically companies in India and China, here is some worrying data. There has been a sharp and unprecedented rejection in the number of visas issued to Indians. "The visa rejections have been a major issue; like other players we have also had a large number of visa rejections during the last 12 months than ever before," told Managing director and chief executive N Chandrasekaran.
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/rejectionl-1-visassharp-risesources-_669416.html?utm_source=executive-briefing http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/visa -rejectionsthe-rise-says-tcsmdceo_663405.html?utm_source=executive-briefing Feb 10, 2012 Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) , India's top software exporter, and Japan's Mitsubishi Corp will invest USD 5 million in a joint venture to set up a delivery centre in Japan, TCS's chief executive said. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/tcs -mitsubishi-to-invest-usd-5mjv_664275.html?utm_source=executive-briefing Feb 9, 2012 NASDAQ listed Cognizant delivered a strong fourth quarter performance, for the quarter ended December 31, 2011. The company reported a growth of 16.4% in its net profit at USD 240.1 million, up 5.7% http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/results-boardroom/i-t-major-cognizant-targets-fy12revenue-at-usd-753-bn_664643.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
Feb 2, 2012 Mahindra Satyam posted consolidated net profit at Rs 308 crore versus Rs 238 crore last year. CP Gurnani, the CEO and Vasant Krishnan, the CFO of Mahindra say that the company is now crossing over from the restructuring phase on to a growth phase. "We are coming closer to industry standards of operating margins," they say. EBITDA margin for Mahindra
Feb 1, 2012 India's largest IT services player, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is betting big on digital technology to drive the next wave of growth. It has launched its global head quarters for its mobility solutions unit in the Silicon Valley. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/digital-drive-tcs-opensmobility-centersilicon-valley_659848.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
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Manthan—The Annual Newsletter of SummIT Satyam came in at 16.2% this time, up 10% from a year ago. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/results-boardroom/q3-growth-led-by-bfsi-rupeedepreciation-helped-mah-sat_661062.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
Jan 4, 2012 The country's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services has added 200 customers in its cloud-based small business line so far, a top official has said. "We have added 200 clients till now and the response is better than what we had initially projected," the city-headquartered company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) S Mahalingam told. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/tcs-adds-200-clientsits-sme-platformion_644735.html?utm_source=executive-briefing Jan 2, 2012 Top software exporter Tata Consultancy Services surpassed Reliance Industries on the last trading day of the year to become the country's most-valuable firm, capping a gloomy year for shareholders of the energy major controlled by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/tcs-pips-reliance-to-become-indias-mostvaluable-firm_642158.html?utm_source=executive-briefing
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