GMP,XLRI student needs help and support

My batchmate, Vidya Sagar, GMP,XLRI student needs help and support.

Please follow the link for more details

http://kimelody.blogspot.com/2009/11/xlri-student-appeals-to-conscience-of.html

From State Owned firms to world class competitors

We group of 10 students from XLRI GMP attended a high profile Forum and Round Table Discussion on State Owned Enterprises(SOE) or Public Sector enterprises as we call in India. The forum attracted esteemed leaders and CEOs from Asia Pacific. Apart from listening to insightful experiences of these leaders, the interesting aspect was having a personal interaction with Ms. Ranjana Kumar Former Chairwoman, NABARD, and Vigilance Commissioner, Central Vigilance Commission

In fact, She accepted our request of coming to XLRI for sharing her experiences in turning around Indian Bank.
http://www.aim.edu.ph/events.aspx?id=349

Mr. Brian Keegan, MD for Capital Structure Advisory and Solutions, JP Morgan Securities laid emphasis on why Optimal Capital Structure is required for State owned enterprises.
Apart from explaining WACC and peer models, He explained Dynamic Model which measures value of future operations as well as current operations.
His mantra for SOEs was
1)raising equity is good
2)Good governance is must
3)Balance sheet integrity is important
4)reduce relaince on Govt support
5)Optimize Capital Structure

Ms. Corazon De La PazBernardo explained how SSS, Philippines has come into blue as far as contributions and payments are concerned.

It was
astonishing to know that 22% of Filipino workforce(8.7 mn workers) work outside the country.
Mr. Tanri Abeng, President Commissioner, PT Telkom Indonesia shared his experiences candidly with the audience. Pointing at bloated staff at SOEs, He jokingly said that , " you will find too many people in SOEs but not enough". He reiterated that balance between entreprenuial drive and management discipline is essential for success of any company.

He introduced how 2 tier corporate board works efficiently in Indonesia.
Panelists for 2nd RoundTable discussion were Dr. Gu Shu, Board Secretary, ICBC, China and Dr. Pallapa Ruangrong, Commissioner, Thailand's Energy Regulatory commission.

It was insightful to know that Industrial and Commerce Bank of China is world's largest Bank in terms of deposits and M-Cap.

The last panel was addressed by Ms Ranjana Kumar and Mr. Jose Rene D. Almendras, President Manila Water Co. Philippines.

It was interesting to know that Indian Bank had -12% Capital Addequcy Ratio during bad times. It was interesting to hear the turnaround story of Indian Bank.

Mr. Almendras gave a lucid presentation on commendable work done by Manila Water Co in Philippines and other countries including India. He explained why people don't trust private companies supplying water, which is a universal commodity.

Overall, The conference gave an interesting,enriching insight into economic complexities of the Asia pacific region. It was a treat to hear dignitaries from around the region. I hope we can apply this improved understanding of Asia's commercial and economic challenges in near future.

Asian Institute of Managment, Manila did an incredible work in organizing the event and inviting GMP students from XLRI to be part of it

Day 4@AIM,Manila

It was Day 4 today @ AIM,Manila. After having sumptuous American breakfast, I joined other participants on Balance Score Card Strategy as part of Human Capital Management program conducted by Prof. Tony Perez http://www.aim.edu.ph/faculty2.aspx?id=43&cat=fulltime .

It was very interesting session. He built core concepts of BSC strategy from scratch. He explained the whole model in simple manner that we never realized that he is teaching a Strategy class that we are so used to. He built all the concepts using a simple case of Ming Hua, a Chinese rice farmer. The class was very interesting as particpiant came from various companies based in Indonesia,Philippines etc.
Few excerpts from his class
1)We were surprised when he asked our permission to rub the class board. He said, Writings on the board is product of case discussion. Hence, he needs to do so as part of case teaching methodology.

2)He told how important it is to have right measures while explaining that the yesteryear's flawed measurement of number of baskets in the game of Basketball.

3)He gave an example of Indonesian Toyota Car Dealer, while teaching concept of Lifetime cost of a customer.

4)He shared an astonishing figure of 40,000, which is the number of sales people who were recruited by Pfizer at launch of Viagra. They were trained in an elevator so that they learn the skill of making quick presentations.

Looking forward to rest of his tomorrow's class.

Diwali @ XLRI

GMP Hostel

Teacher's Nite@ GMP, XLRI

Some snaps from Teacher's Nite

Ravana burnt elsewhere, worshipped in parts of Madhya Pradesh

Ravana burnt elsewhere, worshipped in parts of Madhya Pradesh

Finance Guru in making ?

Economic Times’s supplement, Brand Equity used to carry a critique section on Ads - Ads which didn’t create the buzz or could not achieve the stated objective or simply were waste of resources and generated confusion among consumers. This Ad of Aegon Religare Star Child Plan appeared last week in ET, and I believe this Ad deserves a critique.


Firstly, when you start reading the Ad, you don’t have any clue of why we are finding out whether your child is Finance guru in making or why those 7 symptoms are being written?


Secondly, even if we assume that Ad tells you to find out financial genius of child, questions remain unanswered - how scientific are these 7 questions and whether these questions are true indicators of a potential to do good in Finance. If these 7 questions are not scientific, then should these questions be used in such an ad in which the advertiser is playing with emotions and setting wrong benchmarks in minds of consumers?

Isn’t it a cheap way of satisfying egos of parents and trapping them in an emotional trap. I am not saying that marketers and advertisers should not leverage on the emotional fear of consumers instead their promotions should make sense and not make fool of consumer’s intelligence.

Doesn’t this Ad show creative bankruptcy of advertiser because mere answers to so called symptoms are not good enough reason for parents to buy a Children education policy and lastly, Why Finance? Why not any other profession or fields of study? It is universally accepted that finance is no longer a coveted profession as it used to be before current slowdown. Then, Will target consumers really be fancied by such an Ad during current scenario?

Tata,Jamshedpur and XLRI

“Tata” name is ubiquitous in XLRI as if XLRI is run by Tata Sons. Every class gets mention of “Tata word”. Almost very professor has given examples from various Tata Companies. Prof. Jittu Singh has worked in Tata Steel. Prof. A Gangopdhyay is currently doing an assignment for Tata’s in South Africa.

Jamshedpur is full of Tata companies. Local people and institutions have grown with the growth of Tata. It is incredible to know that there has never been a problem in Jamshedpur with regard to pollution or labor unions. While teaching Financial Leverage, Prof. Sengupta gave Tata steel’s example to explain the concept.

We never have to think very far. We get all kinds of example from Tata Group of companies. MIS and Strategy class found mention of TCS’s Global Delivery Model. Prof. Sarosh Gandhy, who is former Tata employee and proud Jamshedpur denizen, shared interesting stories from Tata Steel. My Marketing group gave presentation on Tata Nano case. Not only did we discuss Tata motors in class, but also got chance to visit Tata Motors’s Jamshedpur factory. It was a rare occasion to see “The World Truck” getting assembled.

Adventure trip, the unique aspect of GMP program was organized by TSAF, Tata Steel Adventure Foundation. In a guest lecture arranged by Prof. Smitu Malhotra, Mr. N.K Sharan taught us how commodity like Steel Rebars was branded as Tata Tiscon Rebar.

With Ranjay and Sudesh in class, understanding perspectives on Quality and Operations in Tata Steel is never an issue. In fact, I got chance to see LD shop in Tata Steel where Ranjay worked before. Few days back, Mr. M H Patel from TRF enlightened us on TQM.

I feel this symbiotic relationship of Tatas with XLRI is beautiful with no parallels in India.

Today’s MBAs should be the conscience keeper of the company: LK Gupta, CMO LG Electronics India

Today’s MBAs should be the conscience keeper of the company: LK Gupta, CMO LG Electronics India

So How is Wordpress Going to Make Money, Matt? | Mark Evans Tech

So How is Wordpress Going to Make Money, Matt? Mark Evans Tech

An Open Letter to Paul Krugman

Interesting article, An Open Letter to Paul Krugman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-k-levine/an-open-letter-to-paul-kr_b_289768.html

COAI- Need to be aloud again

Lately COAI- Cellular Operators Association of India, the lobbying organization has been quiet.It is not as loud as it used to be few years ago. The quietness has even entrenched into there website. Look at the picture on the left with garbage data "ddddd" appearing on left pane. This is not the only example of how organization's don't keep their website up to date. Many Government websites are full of incomplete and incorrect information. Websites are interface to the external world. They promote brand equity of organizations. This example among numerous others just shows how little companies/organizations understand Information Technology and its impact on their brand.
Mr. T.V. Rama Chandran, please visit your organization's website to make sure that you show to the world how committed and serious your organization is about IT and its benefits.

The Term 1 that was!

Term 1 of my GMP@XLRI has come to an end. What an eventful 3 months it has been. I have never been this much stretched and sleep deprived as I have been in last 3 months. Jumping from one assignment to the other, running for marketing project meeting to ELCC ,MANAC, Macro,Micro Economics group meeting, it has been a true roller coaster ride with surprise element built in every moment.

Classes/Studies: On an average we had 3-4 classes of 1.5 hours each. Sometimes it felt it is too much to do with case reading for marketing, Ethical leadership, management accounting practice and of course revision of dreaded classes of Quantitative techniques for Managerial Decisions to complete. Some subjects were taught by multiple professors, hence multiple midterm exams along with end term exams. With a day’s break, term 2 has begun and it seems it is going to be lot more hectic than the 1st term.

Exams: XLRI is very academic oriented Business school but focus remains on basics and applications. The biggest surprise element of XLRI is marquee list of Professors. Profs Make sure students read come prepared and perform at the highest level in various exams and quizzes. Lately, competitive spirit has taken front seat and everyone is talking about grades, marks etc. People say it is all only about leaning and not grades but culture of marks, grades, academic orientation builds in when Professors force you to study hard and remind you of exams in every class. Every exam is different; Standard of exam papers was very high in most of the courses in Term 1. Some exams were open book and some were closed book. Don’t ask for performance in open book. Open book doesn’t mean you will sail through instead you will struggle more than the other format. Only one professor, Prof. Sarosh Ghandy didn’t take any formal exam but he had his unique ways of asking us to submit answers to various questions on Ethics and Leadership on A4 sheets of paper.

Myth: B-school is all about partying, extra circulars: this myth was broken in first fifteen days when I started to realize that I don’t have time for any other activity other than studies. One needs to be incredibly good at time management to manage academic and non academic studies.

The CR factor
I have always been on the opinion that Bschools are perfect ground for networking, peer learning, managing conflict view points and learning prioritization. I have been fortunate that class reposed faith in me in selecting me as Class Representative. I am not sure how class evaluates me but I have tried to do justice to the job. Class Rep is a bridge between professors and students. There have been moment of high adrenaline, excitement, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction but overall it has been marvelous experience to manage 48 (strength of my section) of different opinions. Sometimes it becomes huge distraction, many a times you can’t concentrate on your individual priorities but it has made me realize why things move slowly in a democratic setup. Hats off to Indian growth despite Indian plurality and democracy.

CEO visits, guest lecture:
I had opportunity to attend gyan sessions of CEO of Airtel, Bihar and Jharkhand, CEO of SELCO, Dr Harish Hande, CEO of Goonj, Anshu Gupta and TATA Tiscon Branding guest lecture by Mr. Sharan from TQMS. One of the professors even humorously pointed me that I skipped his class to attend these CEO visits. It has been inspiring to know the exemplary work done by Dr. Hande and his team in areas of solar powering of Rural Karnataka and Anshu Gupta’s team. I remember his chilling narration left the whole CII YI team, (which I am part of) in pin drop silence. His words were of utmost disbelief to us.

CII-YI: Four GMPians got chance and were selected in CII Young Indians society of XLRI. We have already organized Kshitij, a one day event for underprivileged school children. I am not very satisfied with my involvement till date as it has been limited because of academics and exam. I hope to compensate for the same in Term 2.
Online group: I am part of the Online group which handles online branding –Blogging, Newsletters, marketing GMP in online space, connecting with prospective students etc. So far the groups’ performance has been satisfactory and but we need to speed up the activities.

Accommodation:
The first welcome surprise was Accommodation. Hostel accommodations are very comfortable with AC, phones etc. The housekeeping staff is excellent. Although people have varying opinions about our mess food, but I have liked it very much and no complains at all. In fact, our GMP Mess committee members are doing a commendable job by keeping tab on quality, menu etc.

Parties
The academic pressure has not made us drab personalities, in fact we have had 2-3 parties, Thanks to our Party/Admin committee members.

Village Trip
XLRI’s focus on social entrepreneurship is commendable. A 3 day trip to villages is mandatory for all flagship programs. I along with my group happened to go to three tribal villages and was awestruck with grim realities of rural India. We had to walk for an hour to cross a mountain to reach the one of the villages. The village didn’t have electricity, road, school, primary health care centre but had lots of hope that things will improve for them one day.

Adventure Trip
The Adventure trip organized by Tata steel Adventure foundation was life time experience. Various Team building exercises such as Rock Climbing, Caving, self made rafting on Dimna Lake was truly amazing experience. These events not only helped us understand each other better but also helped us explore our limits.

Today was the first day of Term 2. Human resource management case writing projects need to be formed; I need to read about HUL’s Sangam initiative and solve a question in Optimization in Managerial decision making for tomorrow’s class. I hope term 2 to be as exciting and promising as term 1 and to get some time to scribble few lines on the blog…….

Term 1 Completion

I was laughing out loud after receiving this Term 1 completion surprise from my most humorous and fun loving batch mate, Kaushik Chakraborty.
I am not sure how and what similarity he saw between me and Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana,US. I am still puzzled. By the way, Thanks Kaushik

If you are reading, let me know what you think on this look alike puzzle?

SEBI might destory the industry

I have been following growth of mutual fund Industry for last 10 years. It has grown to huge proportion to what it was 10 years back; days when UTI dominated the MF category, few PSU mfs such as BOB, CanBank, SBI mfs operated and very few good quality private mfs such Templeton Franklin existed.
What makes me write this post is the fact that MF industry is on verge of destruction imposed by the none other than the regulator, SEBI, as clearly pointed by http://www.moneycontrol.com/mccode/news/article/news_article.php?autono=409014
Over the years, numerous regulations such as PAN quotation, KYC etc have been introduced for better identification of investors. AMFI (Association of Mutual Funds in India), an SRO (self regulatory organization ) and SEBI have played crucial role in growth of regulations. But are we not over regulating the industry as pointed out in the article? Are we not killing the MF industry in the name of enhancing investor interest? Is SEBI not crossing the limits by dictating what and how the distribution costs should be managed by mutual funds in India?
While you are forcing mutual fund advisors and agents to charge the clients for services provided to them, same is not true for other financial instruments such as Insurance and Post Office deposits. Why doesn't IRDA also follow the same principle and ask millions of Insurance advisors to charge their customers instead of them being paid by insurance companies?
Moreover, is the investor knowledgeable enough to decide how much should be paid for the service? If yes, Has SEBI identified service charges that need to be paid by customers?
Are we not doing too much too soon? Are not discouraging and dismantling a distribution channel, which is already very fragile?
SEBI seems to be playing an unjust role with AMFI and MFs playing the role of mute spectators. We have been clamoring about the need to grow mutual fund industry and its penetration in India. Instead of spreading the industry, the regulator, AMFI and Mutual funds are eager to put the last nail in its coffin.

Some thoughts on Layoffs

Life is hectic in XLRI and no time to do any thing extra other than finishing assignments, projects and meeting various deadlines. We are having regular classes on Human Behaviour and Organizational Structure by one of the world class Professors, Mr. Jittu Singh . Here are some of my thoughts on "layoffs" which had been a buzz word since year and half.

What are Layoffs?
As per Wikipedia, Until 80s, the term Layoff was used for temporary interruption in work when factory work cyclically fell off. In modern context, it is considered as permanent termination or elimination of jobs. The phenomenon has grown since 1980s. Various researches have been conducted to find the effectiveness of layoffs. Most of them have suggested potential gains to corporations and organizations. It is considered as the best tool for turning around declining organizations, cutting cost and improving organizational performance.
How layoffs are made to work?
Whenever organizations find themselves under stress of poor revenue/profits growth or falling revenues/profits or sustaining losses or turning around themselves from loss making entities to profit generating organizations, layoffs are considered. Some companies are conservative but most of them are very aggressive in laying off people. The stance- Aggressive or conservative depends on geography, socio-economic context and local laws. Generally American companies are aggressive and they go for blatant, open job cuts while Indian companies are considered to be conservative as they always adopt layoffs as a last measure to full fill their objectives.
The general approach to layoffs is find non-required job posts, non-performing or non needed employees. Once companies have list of employees, they try to find out cost savings, factoring in onetime expenditure on severance package etc. Generally, American companies tie this list of layoff with potential cost savings in dollar terms which they present to share holders. This is where Indian companies differ. Generally, In Indian companies, layoffs are kept confidential (in fact they make them as non transparent as possible), no cost savings are presented to shareholders. Thousands of jobs are lost in services and manufacturing companies both in urban and rural India but none are reported in media as these companies are either not high profile or Government undertakings.
During current recession or slowdown, Drivers, waiters, construction workers have lost jobs in urban cities and have returned back to their homes in UP, Bihar, Bengal and Orissa. These job losses are not even reported, forget about someone being worried about them.
Need for layoffs?
Layoffs are generally considered as a cost saving measure. During late 90s and early 2000, many PSUs were restructured and lakhs of employees were given VRS. The whole idea was to bring efficiency in system to weed out low performers, less productive workers in age group 50-60. The whole process was well orchestrated as PSUs had to be accountable to Govt, shareholders and powerful unions. Hence, good severance packages were given in the form of golden handshakes.
Let’s look at slip side of layoffs
· Money lost on training employees
· Low morale of rest of staff members affecting their productivity and leading to poor customer satisfaction
· Fearful and shortsighted employees.
Challenges
Committed and motivated employees are most productive and lead to higher customer satisfaction. While layoffs bring immediate cost savings but they lead to low morale among employees. Employees are strained to work more and share a greater work load which can lead to degradation of customer service ultimately leading to customers leaving for other competitors.
Experts have suggested to layoff during good as well as bad times. This makes the policy well accepted among employees; it looks fair from employees and well as from employer point of view. But companies never consider layoffs in good times. They need those employees during good times and when they are in trouble, they lay them off adding to difficulties of employees in finding suitable jobs in downturn.
Researchers have agreed on prompt, proactive communication of such important policies but barring few exceptions, companies seldom give warnings to those employees, make any statement in the company or outside to suggest such an action and when they do act, it turns out to be a bitter surprise for employees.
Employee morale definitely gets hit by dissonance in sayings and doings. People become angry and fearful. If companies claim themselves to be transparent and benchmarks setters, then they should assess and address these issues. This would clarify doubts among employees and would not give scope of gossip mongering.
"Loyalty doesn't mean taking care of an employee who does not produce value”. But well defined policies and procedures are very much required. Indian Companies have been blindly following American model of organizational restructuring. They can’t forget that each job loss in America is tracked and employees have unemployment insurance to fall back on. Also, since layoff is natural consequence of profit orientation, it is well accepted in American society not like here in India where there is no job loss tracker, no unemployment insurance and where layoffs are considered a social stigma.
Laid off Employees are given 3-6 months’ salary along with gratuity. Is it enough for those employees who have built liabilities over the years, who are paying home, car loans and sending kids to schools and colleges? This is where private companies have to learn from their government counterparts. PSU Employees happily parted away from their organizations unlike in private companies where they leave with tears in their eyes and deep agony in their hearts. It's not inherently disloyal to let employees go during tough times, but experts suggest doing so only after other avenues have been fully explored such as salary cut of those identified employees. Companies suffer in long term if they are not imaginative and simply go by rule book.
According to http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hmu/2009/03/dont-let-layoffs-ruin-customer.php , “The smartest companies today, even when they're in trouble, are moving employees around, having them share jobs, having them work reduced hours so the company can preserve jobs. Although the jobs may be different and may not add up to the same number of hours or amount of compensation employees enjoyed during the best of times, at least these people are still working. That creates trust between employees and management, and that's going to affect how these employees deal with customers.”
For those who must go, the best procedure is to "lay off people as if they were future customers”. When you let someone go, try to put together a safety net, do the best you can do, provide relocation support. Treat these people as potential future customers and potential future employees — as if they will one day is in a position to send business to your company."
I believe, the real test of an organization is in tough times and seemingly, many Indian companies are trailing by a big margin.

My MBA Admissions journey

XLRI, ya this is name that I talk, hear and write about these days. I am going to soon join XLRI’s General management Program (GMP), Executive Postgraduate Diploma In General Management. It is one the three flagship programs apart from other two - much famed PMIR and BM. It is a one year full time residential program catering to students who come with significant work experience ( Avg 7-8 years)
While I was applying to various B-schools, XLRI was always on top of my list because of following reasons:
· XLRI’s brand name. It is one of the top 5 http://www.careerlauncher.com/mba/about_mba/top_b_schools_in_India.html B schools in India. It is one of the oldest institutions offering Business education since 1949.
· GMP program is oldest 1 year program. I was nicely surprised with the fact that 1 year XLRI MBA program was started much before ISB’s which is highly recognized for creating and establishing the acceptability of 1 year program among Indian recruiters.
· Indisputably very strong profiles of 2008-2009 batch, http://xlri.ac.in/downloads/xlri_gmp_2009.pdf . The batch had people from diverse sectors – Auto, Shipping, PSU, Manufacturing, IT, Steel, Power, Energy etc.
· Mature Batch in terms of age.
· Marquee list of top notch faculty.
I was in US when I applied for the program. It was the simplest application that I had written - Paper application with a Short note on my current roles and responsibility. When you are writing unending lengthy applications, XLRI’s application comes as a welcome relief. One more visit to USPS, Eden prairie from where I sent the filled in application along with Bankers check for $50.

The journey to B-school is very interesting. You come across students, alumni and tons of data on internet. In order to understand the program better, I wanted to hear from current students. My conversations began with Manish Ballal, who was then studying in GMP. You need some overlap to begin a conversation. I noticed Manish and I shared same level of prior work experience and same employer, Infosys. Since then he has always been very helpful in answering my queries and clarifying doubts.
While in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, I had small group of friends. Prasad and Urvi were part of this group. They were from XLRI and so were natural attractions to me. See, Man is so selfish; he discovers all the overlaps similar to ants finding out their source of food. Those were the days when I was readying to fly back to India as my US assignment was coming to a logical end. Urvi introduced me to Rajesh and Niti Singh, both were XLRI alumni. In fact Rajesh belongs to first batch of GMP.

During this application process, I have been very fortunate of getting attention from people whom I didn’t know before. I had privilege of having long, insightful and interesting conversations. I set an appointment with Rajesh. I called him and soon discovered that he is at Airport heading for a vacation along with his family. I was surprised with the fact how deftly he was conversing with me and doing airport boarding procedures at the same time.
He said, “Anshuman, MBA is for starting a business. Creating Entrepreneurs is what B-Schools are for”. This was the most striking line that I remember till date which has caught my imagination since then. I hope I can work on some ideas and craft concrete business plans.
My wait for result had begun. I was hopeful of getting shortlisted for interview but you never know what is in store for you considering the high level of competition in India.

Jan 23 2009- I was very happy at receiving Interview shortlist and nervous too as the real task of preparing my strategy for interview began.
I flew back to Bhubaneswar with cherished memories of my two year of stay in Minnesota. I was staying in Infy guesthouse, disconnected from world. With no Gmail access for a week, I was going crazy.
Feb 05 2009 - I happened to check my emails and not so nice surprise was in store for me. “You are expected to answer 6 questions/essays. Answer to these questions can be provided by 15th February 2009, preferably by logging in only once.” What??? My not so smooth US to India transition was not yet over and I am expected to write 6 essays in 10 days... XLRI never stops surprising you. This also showed its commitment for innovating new things.
I got to know that record number of applications have poured in this time and essays will help adcom in better evaluating candidates.
I was tensed, frustrated of not getting enough time to concentrate, was looking for accommodation as my guest house stay was getting over and worrying about trivial and not so trivial things but I was determined to give best shot at essays and submit them on time. Essay topics were on long term goals, conflicts and crisis at workplace, creative solutions that didn’t work, risks taken, collaboration and diversity.
Essay topics were unique and interesting. I had to really apply lot of brain to come up with well crafted and logical essays. I submitted essays on time. Thereafter, I shifted my attention back to Interview preparation. Interviewing in an Indian B-School is very different from an American B-school. B-school Interviews in India are full of cross questioning, grilling, intimidation and putting candidate at unease unlike US B-School interviews where candidates are very much at ease and interviewers follow a set pattern.

I was fortunate to attend a seminar on MBA Interviews at IMS, Bhubaneswar by Mr. Srijat MishraChief Executive Officer & Managing Director of Kalingasoft. It was very helpful and insightful talk. Being alumnus from IIM-C, his words carried credence. I built the question tree strategy that he suggested and was confidently prepared for the D-Day.
4th Mar 2009 - I was in Jamshedpur; getting ready for the final strike. I had plenty of time as I my interview was scheduled at the end of day. I confirmed plans with Manish for a lunch meeting at XLRI campus. I reached XL campus and was looking for directions for GMP hostels. I saw three mid age guys coming. I asked them for directions and reached Hostels. It was already way past 12pm. I was hungry. Immediately I accompanied Manish to Dining hall which was buzzing with GMP students talking about classes and placements.
Soon I was surrounded by other students and to my surprise; I was sitting among ex infoscions - Sandeep Vadnere, Sairam Iyer and Niraj. They gave me some tips about interview and talked about happenings @ XL and Infosys.
Loaded with a feel of XL, I came back to hotel where I was staying, was feeling uneasy as time for interview was not very far. I dressed up in Business formals, came out of hotel and looked around for auto in hot and scorching heat.
Here comes an Auto, one other guy and I stopped the same auto. He asked, - going for XLRI interview??. I said yes. There I met Saikat who had just finished his interview and saw going to see nearby attractions in city.
We decided to take the same auto and he shared his interview experience with me. In no time I was in front of MDP residence e block, got down from auto and went towards the building where GMP interviews were going on. To my surprise, I was the last candidate on the last day of GMP Interviews.
My mind was going blank as I was finally ready for the last step towards admission.
Interview panel had 3 Profs and to my utter surprise they were same folks who directed me to GMP Hostel when I came to meet students in the afternoon.
Interview lasted for 30 mins without tinge of ennui on their faces, although they were interviewing since morning.
Since I could answer all the questions very well, was very confident with the interview performance.
Now wait for final results began…
Last week of March 2009, someone sends me an email that XLRI results are out. I clicked GMP results link and closed my eyes for a moment before a “Congratulations” message appeared. I checked results one more time to verify that that I am finally in.
That evening, I was ecstatic, laughing from within and felt satisfied with outcome of a long drawn admission process.

Indeed, She is the future of Mandsaur

So, She is the future of Mandsaur http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-she-mandsaurs-new-future.html . It has been more than a month that she surprised me with use of orkut for getting her political message across and now she has surprised everyone by defeating the incumbent MP, Mr. Laxmi Narayan Pandey. Mr Pandey would not have imagined such a defeat at hands of a political novice in his wildest imagination as rightly pointed out by Business Standard http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/meenakshi-natarajan-defeats-laxmi-narayan-by-30000-votes/62005/on But history is already made and it's time for her to deliver on her promises and meet expectations of Mandsaur. ET came out with agenda for next 100 days for the Union Govt. So has to be the case for Meenaskshi Natarajan. Here is what she should immediately focus and deliver on :

1. Increase number of trains and better rail connectivity.
2. Completion of four laning of Neemuch Ratlam National highway in next 6 months.
3. Attract small business and enterprises to setup their shops in Mandsaur.
4. Plan for eradicating water crisis.
5. Put a curb on corruption involved in Opium supply chain.

She should not and in fact no public representative should forget that public will punish non performance. So Ms Natarajan, ball is in your court. People will keenly watch your action and in action too.

Euphoric response to Tata Housing project

Since I wrote last week about Tata's new low cost housing project http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2009/05/mr-tata-has-heard-me.html , there has been euphoric response. See this ET link http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4496483.cms . Success of this project will surely boost confidence of Tatas and other developers to start such project across India.

Mr. Tata has heard me!

Ya, I am right. Mr. Tata or perhaps CEO of Tata Housing, Mr. Brotin Banerjee has given much needed hearing to market demands. I am so delighted with launch of Tata Housing project for Low cost houses in the price band of Rs 3.9 lakh-6.7 lakh . These days, my predictions are proving correct. I will write more about those predictions in future posts. But for now, it’s great moment for Indian Housing sector. Since I wrote in May 2008 http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2008/05/housing-needs-nano.html ,there has been a great evolution of low costs models. Success of Tata Nano bookings has awakened top line conscious business houses to new source of revenues. All big industrial houses such as Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis and new age entrepreneurs should take a lesson from Tata’s low cost housing initiative and jump into the untouched, unserved markets of low cost housing for creating newer markets of middle class and lower middle class consumers. But I am surprised with poor coverage of this news, which according to me is transformational for Indian Housing sector. Let’s wait for more Low cost innovations coming from fast becoming Low Cost Capital of the world, India.

Why don't you not spend when you can?

I have always been amazed with Brand Building exercises and Ad Spends of two companies HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum) and BPCL(Bharat Petroleum). Here are the reasons for my amazement:

1. Both are Government owned Indian Oil retailers. I have hardly seen any other PSU which spends the way these two companies spend on marketing. Perhaps, there are few government companies in B2C (Business to Consumer) market.

2. Both companies are in red as per ET(Economic Times) dated 30th Apr 2009. If you don't make profits, then you try to cut costs and reduce expenditure on things such as Ads. I have hardly seen any visible efforts in this direction as they continue to get their products endorsed by costly players such as Dhonis' of the world.

3. Both companies are in oil retailing where competition is crushed by Government’s populist policies (Read Closure of Reliance’s oil retailing business). Why the hell you need to spend on brand building (Endorsement Spend, customer loyalty programs etc) when you hardly have any competitor to deal with.

BETTER TO BE A LION IN INDIA, THAN A MONKEY ELSEWHERE.

Got this interesting stuff in email. I have seen lot of people in US working in US below their capabilities just for sake of dollars... This just reminded me of people's love for nothing but "US dollars".

In a poor zoo of India , a lion was frustrated as he was offered not more than 1 kg of meat a day.
The lion thought its prayers were answered, when one day a Dubai Zoo Manager visited the zoo and requested the zoo management to shift the lion to Dubai Zoo.
The lion was so happy and started thinking of a central A/c environment, a goat or two every day.
On its first day after arrival, the lion was offered a big bag, sealed very nicely for breakfast. The lion opened it quickly but was shocked to see that it contained few bananas. The lion thought that may be they cared too much for him as they were worried about his stomach as he had recently shifted from India .
The next day the same thing happened. On the third day again the same food bag of bananas was delivered.
The lion was so furious; it stopped the delivery boy and blasted at him,' Don't you know I am the lion...king of the Jungle..., what's wrong with your management?, what nonsense is this?, why are you delivering bananasto me?'
The delivery boy politely said, 'Sir, I know you are the king of the jungle. .. but... you have been brought here on a monkey's visa !!! '
Moral of the Story....
BETTER TO BE A LION IN INDIA, THAN A MONKEY ELSEWHERE.

Is it true or just an email campaign from BJP office?

After fall of American Financial system, there has been growing debate on how to end existence of tax havens such as Caribbean Islands and Switzerland. US is negotiating hard to trace trail of American money in Swiss Accounts. At home, Main opposition party, BJP has been making black money as its one of main issues. I recently got below fwd email: Is it true or just an email campaign from BJP office?

IS INDIA A POOR COUNTRY? by M R Venkatesh
Revelation of Swiss bank accounts. This is so shocking.... ...If black money deposits were an Olympics event.... India would have won a gold medal hands down. The second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. U.S. is not even there in the counting in top five! India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined! Recently, due to international pressure, the Swiss government agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective governments formally asked for it... Indian government is not asking for the details..... ..No marks for guessing why? We need to start a movement to pressurize the government to do so! This is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption! Please read on........and forward to all the honest Indians to.....like somebody is forwarding to you.......and build a ground-swell of support for action! Is India poor, who says? Ask the Swiss banks. With personal account deposit bank of $1,500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country? DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them. Once this huge amount of black money and property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably. Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently.. 'Obviously, these people won't be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason,' believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn't referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who've been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin! Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country's wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks? Black money in Swiss banks -- Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:
TOP FIVE
· INDIA : $1,456 BILLION
· RUSSIA : $470 BILLION
· U.K. : $390 BILLION
· UKRAINE : $100 BILLION
· CHINA : $96 BILLION
Now do the maths - India with $1,456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot since 1947: Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen. The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear. What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens.. However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones. In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich. In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his widely celebrated book titled 'Capitalism' s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System' -- estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970. It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens.. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess. What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts?

Is she Mandsaur's new future?

प्रिय मित्र ,इन्टरनेट आज के युग मैं संपर्क का आसान माध्यम है और इसलिए बदलते समय के साथ चलने वाली आज की पीढी से संवाद के लिए मैंने इस माध्यम को चुना है . मंदसौर नीमच जावरा संसदीय क्षेत्र से मैं लोक सभा चुनाव मे उम्मीदवार हूँ . मुझे आशा है की आप मंदसौर नीमच जवारा संसदीय क्षेत्र के विकास के मेरे और आपके सपने को पूरा करने के लिए मुझे पूरा समर्थन देंगे. यदि आपके मंदसौर नीमच जवारा संसदीय क्षेत्र के विकास हेतु कोई सुझाव है तो कृपया मुझे स्क्रैप करे.कृपया मेरे वेब पेज को देखें www.meenakshimandsaur.com सदैव आपके साथ ,मीनाक्षी नटराजन

This was the scrap that I got from Meenakshi Natarajan, Congress LokSabha candidate from Mandsaur Constituency. I was happily surprised with her use of orkut and internet to reach out to voters in a constituency which is agriculture driven, rural district. In spite of low internet penetration, she chose to reach out to prospective voters. Either she wants to not leave any stone unturned in her campaign or there is immense potential of internet marketing even in semi urban and rural India. It’s unique experiment as your candidates and representatives are getting closer to voters not just in cities such Delhi and Mumbai but also in low profile, grossly ignored areas of the country.
I visited the site to know more about her and her agenda. Here are some pros and cons of her candidature.
Pros
· She is just 36 years old. Her youth with be beneficial as she is contesting against BJP candidate Laxmi narayan pandey, who is septuagenarian (76 yrs old).
· Her offensive is based on poor performance of her opponent who has not done justice to his job in spite being in the office for 8 times.
· Excellent academic record.
· Excellent political career.
· She has consciously moved to Mandsaur while her opponent is on weak grounds as his permanent residence is still not in Mandsaur even after representing the area for 8 times.
· There is clear anger among urban voters over lackadaisical attitude of Mr. Pandey over negligence and non pragmatism. Issues of Railway connectivity, Roads, Water crisis, Electricity, Industrialization have been neglected by current MP that will sway voters in favor of Ms Natarajan.
Cons
· She hails from Ratlam, a neighboring district. Since her opponent is also an outsider, her outsider status is not of greater significance.
· She is new for Mandsaur and it would be extremely difficult to recall a new comer’s name at the time of voting. Her South Indian heritage might be a disadvantage as Malwis (people of the region) might not associate a “Natrajan” to be one among them.
· She is just riding on incumbency factor and has not come out with any concrete action plan for solving problems of water crisis and industrialization. Sadly this has been the case for all Indian politicians who never have any action plan to solve issues. They just have political promises.
Overall, I feel Congress has done a good job in fielding Ms Natarjan. Her youth, energy and qualification will prove advantageous in removing BJP bottleneck from progress of Mandsaur, Neemuch, and Jaora.
Pic Reference : http://www.dpcc.co.in/aiccimages/minakshi.gif

SCM

I found an easy explanation of SCM (Supply Chain Management ) concept. Here is the link
http://www.economist.com/business/management/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13432670&Fsrc=mgttkgnwl

Advani goes Obama way

Mr. Advani has adopted Mr. Obama's "Yes We can" in style. He is visible on social community sites such as Orkut and Facebook. His blog is getting popular day by day. BJP Ads on television are able to touch hearts of voters. His site http://lkadvani.in is creating fleet of volunteers.
But Is it worth investing so much money on Technology marketing in India where Internet and PC penetration is minuscule in comparison to the population of the country. How did BJP evaluated that IT is the way to go? Can this time's campaign go haywire as it had last time with India Shinning?
But whatever the answer is, It will surely have impact on urban voters in Tier 1 cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. It's welcome change to see leaders going tech savvy by writing blogs and creating forums to interact with people on facebook and orkut. The day of live Prime ministerial debates on lines of US's Presidential debates is not far. You can catch Mr. Advani's Blog @ http://blog.lkadvani.in/
It is heartening to know that BJP manifesto reserves one page for Information Technology.

Two promises are clearly in sync with what is needed urgently.

Launch a National Digital Highway Development Project to bring affordable broadband Internet connectivity to every village.

Mr Obama talked whole year while campaigning to increase penetration of High speed broadband connectivity which currently pales in front of South Korean achievement. Eric Schmidt, Google, CEO has been technology adviser of Mr Obama. Here's where we see the differences in Indian context, there is no open support and collaboration between Indian Tech leaders and aspiring political leaders. Why don't Indian Tech leaders come out in open and join political landscape by supporting , advising tech matters to these leaders on the similar lines as we have seen recently in US.

Every Indian citizen to have a bank account; welfare funds to be deposited directly into end beneficiary’s bank account to eliminate corruption.

This is good idea although remotely connected with Technology. Perhaps, BJP is linking direct deposits in Banks with information Technology. This act would create a direct channel between subsidy provider and consumer but How will we achieve this, given the fact that ECS(Electronic Clearing Service) is available in selected 50-60 odd cities in India and Cooperative banks and Regional rural banks have not invested much in technology. RBI and MOF(Ministry of Finance) would have to surely work hard to materialize this.

Leaving you with BJP's ads , Bhay Ho on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Nodf1aetA and Determined Leader, Decisive Government http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejuHr5FjtZg

USO for Private Banks

Ever heard of anybody taking Education Loan from ICICI Bank? What do you say? Never. Ya that's right...You will hardly find people taking educational loan from big private banks such as ICICI bank, HDFC Bank etc. 

While these banks chase you to give Home Loan, Car loan, Personal Loan but never ever they would agree to give loans that are categorized under Priority Sector Lending. This raises questions on universality of Priority sector lending itself? Is it just the job of PSU banks to offer all kind of such loans to Farmers, students, unskilled, semi skilled, rural population?

There is term called USO(Universal Service Obligation), frequently used in Telecom sector. IS USO not applicable to these private banks?

I understand that every private enterprise's primary objective is higher margins and bigger profits but when these enterprises grow big and their market share becomes dominant, they need to fulfill USO otherwise who  will care to serve the underprivileged?

 I guess banks such ICICI Bank should act as responsible bankers. Loans such as education loan provide them opportunity to build relationship with future high earners.

 In one such instance a PSU banker sarcastically commented, You maintain salary accounts and deposits in ICICI bank and when you need education loan you come to us? No relationship, no loans..

 Ms Chanda Kochhar, Are you listening? You need to revise your lending policies.

Satyam Saga

Ramalinga Raju has done everything to smudge Lord Ram’s name. This was a shocker which came from Land of Tirupati. He is a disgrace for every Indian and Andhrite. IT business runs on transparency and integrity. He has maligned both. What was he thinking all these seven years that he would never be caught? Every person has to bear the consequences of his wrong doings. Some face them sooner and some face them later. Everyone is talking about that he would not have been successful in his deeds without complicity of senior management.

So far we have witnessed lackadaisical approach of ICAI. How can a self regulatory body act against one of its powerful and distinguished member like PWC? Will we see same fate of PWC as Anderson consulting? Probably not, So far, PWC has come out with the claim that it is not responsible in this mess. How a company like PWC be so immoral not to even accept mistake and come out with a public apology.

Other interesting thing is huge political support for Raju. It is strongly believed that he had put all this money(7000 crore) in real estate with full support from present congress government. How will state government find fault in Raju without itself getting caught in the muddle? People call it accounting scandal. In fact it is a Real estate scandal. Real estate in Indian is most non transparent and poorly regulated investment sector. It’s through this sector all the black money is converted into white. Realty investment is considered a safe haven as far as black money is considered. Until now, nobody has talked about bringing transparency and uniformity in Land Transactions, their valuations, regulations and affordability.

Everyone agrees in India that every company cooks books. Why don’t we have a single sting operation from media to uncover this? I guess their TRPS will equally boost if they focus on illicit relations of businessmen with politicians as well as on non performance of crooked politicians. CNBC has over the years given tips for buying and selling stocks, Why don’t they start and do some investigative business journalism than just talking about market techincals and having sophisticated talks with CEOs.

Everyone from NRN to Nandan has said that “you can’t paint every company with the same brush” which is true and everyone agrees to it. Economist has recently said that “not a single Indian company not even an IT company is close to corporate and accounting standards followed by Infosys. If that is the case then, why don’t’ we make it mandatory for all companies to follow those standards?

In India, common populace is always fooled for its financial ignorance and illiteracy. What have we done to educate high school and college kids about money management? For e.g. very few colleges such IITs have economics as a subject for students. How and when will these engineers learn about financial markets? Are they supposed to earn and not understand and learn about financial world? A greater understanding will lead to better valuations in terms of market cap and respectability of these companies.

Not a single PIL has been filed to sue Regulator such as SEBI and ICAI, Ministry of Finance, Company Law Board. Why Indian regulators are always reactive and not proactive?We haven’t seen any CEO behind the bars for cooking books and insider trading? Why are we so lax towards well educated, well literate, corrupt and immoral businessmen?

Businessmen have always been shown in bad light in Bollywood movies of 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. It was only after 90s post liberalization, we started not to see scripts written around sahukars, strikes and blood sucking businessmen. Businessmen and traders were always seen second worst after politicians. People had almost forgotten about malpractices and have for a decade or so appreciated entrepreneurial spirit before this Satyam scandal came into being. This event will once again shake faith on Indian businessmen as no one expected that somebody from new economy sector such IT, with transparent and suave corporate culture would do such a thing.

Numerous awards are given to such wrong doers; hardly anybody questions their methods and credibility. That’s why Golden Peacock Award was given to Satyam for corporate governance. One question arises, why was Infosys not chosen for the award when it is highly regarded as the company with best corporate governance standards? Can people who give these awards answer this question?

Now Coming to Investors, As soon as SEBI got letter from Raju, why didn’t it order BSE and NSE to stop trading? Why did it allow the freefall? Why did it allow gullible small investors to buy the stock during the freefall? Who bought the stock and who sold the stock? Big institutional investor sold the stock and small investors bought it? Why was this allowed? Why small investors have to suffer while they were paring losses of big investors? Can we sue stock exchange and SEBI for this? Have they ever paid a single rupee in penalty to investors for their non performance?
While we are hearing bailout worth Rs 2000 crore for Satyam, there is no such boon for marginal investors. Why don’t we try to earn the trust of individual investors by bailing them out at least this time? Only 3-4 % percent people invest in equities directly. Can we ever think of a bigger equity investor base in india?

I have been reading Basab pradhan’s posts on Satyam

http://6ampacific.com/
He has been very active in penning down his opinion on Satyam. How many IT CEOS have made their stand public? I heard neither from Mr. Azim Premji nor from Mr. Ramadorai. It seems only Infy has lot of media friendly senior management folks, with no work at their disposal to appear on all the shows of NDTV and CNN IBN. People who have nothing to hide, they always express their opinions freely. Have you ever seen an informal interview of Raju like Nandan and NRN does? I am not comparing personal choice of people but these are some cost efficient ways of making a good public image. You don’t need to run costly commercials if you can have a public conversation. This is why blogging from senior management is so important?

These incidents will have long lasting impact on how business is governed and accounts are managed. Hope we learn from this and make laws stringent, punish the culprits and make regulators active.

Glass ceiling in Corporate World

While I am writing this, one of my school friends, Aarti reminded me of my incident in class 7th. When teacher asked me, what does my mother do? Instead of saying Housewife, I said, she does nothing. It was my ignorance and innocence and I didn’t mean what I said, but that line struck chords with my classmate. After 15 years she reminded on this incident that how she decided to be a working woman.

I saw this interview of Chanda kochhar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanda_Kochhar (next CEO of ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank) and Naina lal kidwai, Head of HSBC, India. This show on NDTV celebrates Chanda's achievements and explores answers to the question whether glass ceiling in corporate world still exists. It was very interesting with way Chanda responded that women employees should not expect favors from employers and do whatever it takes to complete the tasks assigned to them.
I have always seen that women are always dealt in special ways in teams and organizations. In Infosys, women constitute 40% of staff. This is a huge number and senior management is pushing hard to bring this number to 50%.
I am fortunate to have worked with exceptional, hardworking and diligent women employees. I have always been very appreciative of women employees when they don't seek special considerations and do the job with same passion as their male counterparts would do but I have also seen women employees coming with expectation that their team mates and seniors would assign them with lighter workloads and that it's their right to be considered unequal in terms of work load and responsibilities. Many a times, peers and immediate team leaders are responsible for encouraging this kind of behavior. They treat women employees in special ways and become lenient in terms of work assignments. I have even some times seen them doing women team member’s tasks.
I have seen managers tend to oppose having women employees, as they associate them as under performer in case of firefighting or heavy workloads. They fear that they won't have sufficient reason to ask them from staying late although they can dictate male employees easily. In some cases, they are not left with any choice but to accept women employees in their teams. But what should mangers do when every 2nd employee is a woman? How do they mitigate project management risks in case their schedules go haywire and they are left with no other option but to work extra in already frozen schedule?
It’s important for both managers and women team members to learn lessons from Chanda's rise to highest position in ICICI Bank. Woman employees should live an active professional career. They should not lead a passive or supplementary earner in the family. There will always be pressure in life to manage work and family but an active career would give them confidence to balance both worlds.
Managers should build the atmosphere in their teams so that each member in the team is equally driven towards team goals and any wrong expectation on the part of male or female employees should be appropriately handled.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences when you have come across such situations in your teams.

View and endorse at PetitionOnline.com

Please take a step ahead & join this initiative. Please view and endorse at PetitionOnline.com:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/26novAct/petition.html

On 7th December 2008, this petition will be attempted to be presented to the Prime Minister of India. Till 7th december, endeavour is to collect at least 1 million signatures. Probably such mass need may stir the administration to take visible and needful action.

Please sign and forward to as many people known to you as possible.