The “Chanakya” of KIAMS draws inspiration from Chanakya, the legendary Indian strategist, known as the personification of statesmanship, political craft, spirit of adventure and unyielding perseverance. With this persevering spirit of acquiring knowledge and exploring new avenues lying at its core, the "Chanakya" of KIAMS brings a palette of assorted readings on various contemporary management issues and general topics, issue after issue.
In This Issue Public Affair Model Mr. Aditya K V Emotional Stability: Modern Adaptation of a Traditional Concept Dr. Ashutosh P Bhupatkar HRIS - A strategic toolkit for redesigning HRM functions Prof. Shailaja G. Hiremath Employees First and Customers Next Dr. S. G. Bapat Retirement Mr. Bhooshan Khadgi Impact Interview Balajee Sampath The Path to Passion Mr. Sumit Roy Managing the IKEA way Mr. Devashish Bajaj On The Edge Prof. Atul Kulkarni VOLUME 12 ISSUE 14 MARCH 2012 The Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies Enriching Lives
Transcript
In This Issue
Public Affair ModelMr. Aditya K V
Emotional Stability: Modern Adaptationof a Traditional ConceptDr. Ashutosh P Bhupatkar
HRIS - A strategic toolkit for redesigningHRM functionsProf. Shailaja G. Hiremath
Employees First and Customers NextDr. S. G. Bapat
RetirementMr. Bhooshan Khadgi
Impact InterviewBalajee Sampath
The Path to PassionMr. Sumit Roy
Managing the IKEA wayMr. Devashish Bajaj
On The Edge Prof. Atul Kulkarni
VOLUME 12 ISSUE 14 MARCH 2012
The
Kirloskar Institute of AdvancedManagement Studies Enriching Lives
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
he months of January and February have been extremely busy months on the co-curricular activities of KIAMS. There was the alumni meet (Samanvay 2012), held in Pune T
for the first time. Harihar also hosted the “Nostalgia” journey for the latest three pass-out batches. Placements were happening all over the place, engagement with the K-Group on MDPs, Competency Mapping and the Assessment Center for identifying their next crop of fast trackers.As assessors for the Fast Tracker program, we could observe varying shades of behavior, endeavors and performance. There was one interesting observation about performance in, and as, a group. The activity was termed as roller coaster where the challenge was to transport a marble through cut pipes to a final destination. Naturally, the exercise was hemmed with all types of constraints which challenged managerial competencies to perform within these constraints. One particular constraint was that all communication should cease at the halfway mark and one had o work in silence. The penalty for violating this was to start all over again. The groups already being formed, initially there was a lot of storming instructions, cross-instructions, advise, encouragement all were bandied about with very little result. The habit of chattering was difficult to discard even after entering the silence zone, and quite a few re-starts were there due to the silence zone violation. In one group, suddenly a sane voice (proved 'sane' in retrospect) was heard: “Look, we are only creating confusion with our talk and also violating the climb, egged on by a raucous crowd shouting motivation and encouragement but they would slip down at some point or the other. One outstanding frog determinedly climbed to the top and the crowd silence zone unwittingly. No value is being added with all the shouting and encouraging, as we are not performing” And so he set the norm “Lets be silent right from the start line”.
From the DirectorBelieve me, the performance shot up dramatically and they were able to perform the delivery multiple times”. Having got sensitized to this, I became acutely aware that the “silent” groups outperformed the vocal ones. Other groups too adopted silence from the first and they too performed brilliantly.There were two types of chatter the ones where ideas were exchanged on the Operations front of how to get the job done, which turned out to be value-adding. Then there was all the chatter of motivating, recriminating, expressing disappointment, verbally wondered at his achievement. On being asked how he achieved it, the champion from signaled that he was indeed deaf.I suppose when you have to perform, all extraneous aspects have to be kept out. Imagine Arjuna shooting the bird if his well meaning brothers were shouting encouragement to him. To my mind, when someone shouts motivation to me (which could very well be 'at me', if only I were deaf), s/he is burdening me with the weight of her/ his expectation. And then s/he either gets disappointed or patronizing you will do it next time piling on the expectation. There is of course the alternate “Hanuman syndrome” where the monkey God needs to be reminded of his strength before he deploys it (or so I have heard that this is his characteristic!). But here too it is a motivation based on “facts” rather than an expectation, for Hanuman is expected to have those strengths which only needs a wake-up call. I may be out of step with many but I really abhor external motivators. Paradoxically, there are many who find me a good motivator but the crux is they claim to be motivated (or inspired) not by anything I say but what I do.In conclusion, I read the piece by Atul Kulkarni of his experience of rappelling. What I got was that to perform, his whole being shut out from the outside world, barring the sane instructions of the anchor. Neither claps nor exhortations reached his ear
Dr. Gopal Iyengar
Editorial
“You can't expect your employees to exceed the expectations of
your customers if you don't exceed the employees' expectations
of management.” Howard Schultz.
With these insightful lines, Team Chanakya brings forth the March
issue which reflects the complete example of integration of both
campuses working effortlessly to make this issue a success.
While reading this issue, the festival of colour will be knocking
your door “Holi” which imparts the amalgamation of different
colors, in the same way the students of KIAMS have come from
different regions, cultures and act like one big family now.
This Chanakya's edition explores the theme of “HR”. Human
Resource is a product of the human relations movement of the
early 20th century, when researchers began documenting ways of
creating business value through the strategic management of the
workforce. The function was initially dominated by transactional
work such as payroll and benefits administration, butdue to
globalization, company consolidation, technological
advancement, and further research, HR now focuses on Strategic
Initiatives like mergers and acquisitions, talent management,
succession planning, industrial and labour relations, diversity and
inclusion. Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs
are increasing while low skilled jobs are decreasing. This calls for
future skill mapping through proper HRM initiatives.
Indian organizations are also witnessing a change in systems,
management cultures and philosophy due to the global alignment
of Indian organizations. There is a need for multi skill
development. Role of HRM is becoming all the more important.
Human Resource in this competitive era has turned out to be the
most important asset of any industry and it is going to be more
precious with time. As machines are the heart of any organization,
Human Resource are the limbs, without which target cannot be
achieved. With this message, we wish everyone a great HOLI. We
also wish a successful corporate life ahead to all the passing out
students of B-13. Happy Reading !
The Editorial Team
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n a country filled with misconceptions and misunderstandings
of the corporate way of life, nothing is more mistreated/ Imisunderstood than the field of Public affairs. The confusion arises
as the field is popularly associated with the “suitcase” based
lobbying, which is prevalent on a large scale in the third world
countries. A public affairs consultant guides his client through the
complex structure of a country's government. He understands the
nuances of the 3 main pillars in a democratic country i.e. the
judiciary, the legislature, the civil society and is able to
comprehend the sentiment of the fourth estate (the media).
With businesses growing manifolds and multinationals crossing
boundaries to enter the business environments of other countries,
the businesses entities need handholding to navigate the complex
streams of multiple structures that we see govern us both at the
federal and at the state level.
This field finds its origins in the lap of “Public Relations” which thoriginated formally in the wake of the 19 century and spread like
wild fire under the firm guidance of Edwards Bernays (the nephew
of Sigmund Freud), Ivy Lee, John W. Hill, and Carl Byoir, who got
their start with the Committee on Public Information (also known
as the Creel Committee), which organized publicity on behalf of
U.S. objectives during World War I. Today, public affairs
consultants strive to eradicate rumours and create a congenial
atmosphere for business growth deriving from the same principles
of solid research and message based activism.
Post the Liberalisation era, when one of the largest markets in
terms of population had opened up to the world, the world
economy may not have been prepared for the culture shock that
they had in store for them; the variance in socio cultural fabric
which had a dynamism every 50 kms and multiple regional
governments and the largest constitution in the world which
dictated the basis of the way life functions in the country. It also
required a keen sense of understanding of the “Babudom” which
controlled the initiation, change and maintenance of the public
policy in the country.
This is why India as a country presented a challenge to Public
Affairs consultants, it meant to break into the fiefdom of lobbying
which was controlled by political pimps and was majorly
individualistic in nature.
The major objectives that needed to be addressed:
a) Address the socio political fabric and initiate
opinion change.
b) Build relations based on mutual benefit and for
greater good.
C) Catalyze economic growth.
For this, a list of duties was charted out for all the
consultants who wanted to address the problems
professionally in each of their organisations and
were implemented
The major duties of a Public Affairs consultant are listed
below:
a) E s t a b l i s h t h e k e y s t a k e h o l d e r s i n e v e r y
proposition,
b) U n d e r s t a n d t h e l a w s o f t h e l a n d ( B o t h
constitutional and financial),
c) Unders tand the s t ructure of the countr ies
government,
d) Profile the major decision makers with respect to
the clients requirement,
e) Analyze the sentiment in the general public and
media about their current proposition,
f) Predict any objections arising out of the socio
cultural fabric of the society,
g) Evolve an official communication system which
may connect the major stakeholders to the client's
needs,
The evolution catalyzed as many leaders had emerged in
pockets who looked at development as a tool for appeasing people
rather than free sops, the best example of these can be shown in the
leadership of Mr N. Chandra Babu Naidu who ran a super efficient
regime in the state of Andhra Pradesh which took its decisions
based on the research paradigm and was objective oriented in its
development. As more leaders of such calibre emerged, doors were
opened for many Public affairs consultants to present their cases on
behalf of their clients and research took the front end.
Emergence of Social Media and its impact on Public Affairs
It is predicted that in the year 2012, social media users in India shall
reach a staggering number of 45 million. Facebook alone has over
43 million users already and India stands at the number 2 position
in the world for Facebook users and over 80% of Social media
users take the mantle of being creators (they create content and let it
flow, content here might be out of individual opinions, social
cultural conditions, upbringing etc). They comment, tweet and
blog about EVERYTHING, in the sense that daily millions of
thoughts are being exchanged about the way the country functions
and how the policy tweaked and how can it be influenced.
The recent success of Anna Hazare campaign can be the best
example of how India woke up and challenged its own
government. It is quite essential to understand that at this point of
time; the User Generated Content (UGC) had reached quite
proportional heights.
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Public Affairs Model
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
Mr. Aditya K V
Below is a basic cycle of a campaign:
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Mr. Aditya K V,
Strategy Head & Communication Consultant,
Hyderabad.
Fake bank account statements were circulated, fictional
biographies were created to demean and scandalize political
leaders. In short, India created what it believed and reality
wasmanufactured out of home computers.
In such a scenario it is essential to address the general public with
facts and not opinions. A public affairs consultants' prime motive in
such scenarios, where reality is manufactured, is to bring to light
the facts concerning the case and to educate the public which is
being swayed by sentiment.
Tomorrow the fate of nations would be decided by the opinion a
person posts on his Facebook wall or a single utterance on tweets.
In the viral world, it is important that Public affairs consultants are
ever ready to face a cyber attack on their clients and to be ready to
retaliate with affirmative action.
The Flipside
Since the function of Public affairs is in constant touch with the
denizens of the country to record sentiment, they serve as a perfect
vehicle for research for the political contingent of the country as
well. For the past few years the political contingent has employed
professional brand management, advertising agencies to control
their communication output. Leo Burnett created the “Aam
Aadmi” campaign for Congress and it has shown how political
advertising has come of age in India similar to the West and how
politicians rely on creating brands for effectively communicating
to the public.
Pollsters and opinion researchers (in their own capacity) advise the
politicians to take action according to the current issue and mood
prevalent in the country. Though this professional environment of
functioning is still far behind their counterparts in the west but has
started off in a positive note in India where Public affairs
consultants advice the leaders in their image building, opinion
crafting and media presence.
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
Emotional Stability: Modern Adaptation of a Traditional Concept
Abstract: American literature around Emotional Intelligence has attracted attention of the corporate sector in India. Indian tradition, notably the one around Bhagavad Gita has emphasized the importance of equanimity. Yet there are differences in the way the tradition looks at Emotional Stability and the manner in which Emotional Intelligence as a concept has been deployed. This paper attempts to place the traditional view in the modern context.
IntroductionThe term “Emotional Intelligence” has attracted a lot of attention in India and there are numerous instruments that test and tell about your Emotional Intelligence. There is very little theoretical work that supports the notion of Emotional Intelligence; yet it matters little to the corporate world which is interested in using the notion for selection of talent either at recruitment stage or for career progression. It is thus in the same league as the other popular notion of Competencies, which are supposed to distinguish superior performers from the average ones. Much more theoretical work needs to be done to develop a model of how performance is dependent upon factors like Emotional Intelligence and Competencies. At the same time, the singular focus on Performance in the Western world has proved to be the undoing of the high and mighty in recent times.The means adopted to achieve Performance have many times been at variance with norms of honesty and integrity. In many cases, what is shown as Performance is a projection from blatant falsehoods. The surprising aspect, however, is that in general, Indian management shows little willingness to learn from the experience of Western counterparts. “Catch up with the West” has been its Mantra for a long time. Exceptions are heartening.
Emotional IntelligenceLet us look at some definitions of Emotional Intelligence. Here I am excluding entirely the work published by Daniel Goleman, as it does not fall under the category of academic work. Here is the one developed by Mayer, Salovey and Caruso.Emotional intelligence refers to an ability to recognize the meanings of emotion and their relationships and to reason and problem-solve on the basis of them. Emotional intelligence is involved in the capacity to perceive emotions, assimilate emotion-related feelings, understand the information of those emotions, and manage them. (1)You will notice the emphasis on instrumentality of intelligence for an external outcome such as problem solving. It is perfectly valid to take such a view from a paradigm of instrumentality: everything is a means to an end. There is another paradigm which regards human sensibilities as an end and not as a means. For instance, I want to feel wholesome, not because it leads To good health, but because that is my aim: to feel wholesome. If we look at Indian (and Asian) traditions, the emphasis is on ends and then follows a consideration of the means. Here I would like to take Bhagavad Gita as an exemplar of the Indian traditions. I am quite aware that the Indian philosophic tradition has many strands of Vedic and non-Vedic thought. Even within Vedic tradition, there are different philosophic positions such as Samkhya, Nyaya and so on.
Steady IntellectConfusion envelopes Arjuna on the battlefield and reduces him to immobility. Krishna attempts to dispel the web of confusion and advises him to approach the epic battle with a steady intellect. He advances a number of arguments in support. But after all the pragmatic reasons are advanced, Krishna turns to a philosophic discourse to convince Arjuna.“Get ready for the battle and avert from the path of sin, by being indifferent to happiness and sorrow, gain and loss and victory and defeat.” (2)(II, 38) What is the basis for becoming indifferent? Krishna answers the doubt by saying that our control extends only to our work. Outcomes are beyond our rule. So we need to perform our duty unmoved by the thought of outcome. “This equanimity is the way to connect with the Supreme principle. Shed the attachment and become established in the equanimity and then perform your duty unmoved by the thought of success and failure.” (II, 48) To become established, you need to be rid of all the desires that arise within. “When, O Arjuna, he gives up all desires for sense gratification produced within, and experiences fulfillment within the self, his intellect has become steady” (II, 55)So there are two related yet different strands of thought here. First, attachment to outcome is based on a shaky foundation, since outcomes are beyond our control.Secondly, desires create an attachment in the mind to the thoughts of enjoyment and deprivation. There is a chain reaction that creates volatility in the mind. If we rid the mind of attachment, then the intellect would become steady. In the context of Mahabharata, Krishna is persuading Arjuna to get down to battle by getting rid of the confusion.Later, Krishna describes the behaviour of his ardent devotee in Chapter 12 in more specific terms. “He envies no one, bears goodwill towards all and is compassionate. He is not possessive, nor does he have a false ego. He is unmoved by distress or happiness and has a forgiving nature.” (XII, 13) Thus a steady intellect is the result, first of a person's relationship with himself and then of his relationship with fellow-beings.
Emotional StabilityIn the modern adaptation of this traditional view of steady intellect, we choose to focus on behavioral Elements and sideline purely intellectual tendencies. The reason is the difficulty in assessing the latter. So we focus on Emotional Stability, which is one facet of a Steady Intellect.Performing one's duty unmoved by the thought of success or failure is the essence of an Internal Commitment. Compassion and a forgiving nature combine to create Empathy. Not being possessive, freedom from attachments and Release from a false ego all point to a high degree of Self Awareness. There is also a quality of being Content within oneself in such a person. He envies no one and bears goodwill toward one and all. So Contentment can be the fourth element of Emotional Stability. Thus Emotional Stability can be conceptualized as shown below. It is conceivable that these elements would have some interactions between and among themselves. It would be an interesting exercise to study these relationships through research and testing. In the diagram above, the possibility of interactions is shown by dotted lines.
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Dr. Ashutosh P Bhupatkar
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
In the scheme of the Taittiriya Upanishad, the body is made up of natural elements and is enlivened by the breath. Its activity is driven by the mind, but controlled by the intellect in order to achieve fulfillment and bliss. Emotional Stability is largely in the sphere of the Mind, while a Steady Intellect would belong to the realm of the Intellect. Again taking recourse to the teachings of the Gita, one could state that Emotional Stability is not of the passive kind, but has an active orientation, stemming from the clear understanding of one's place in the scheme of life and by implication, of one's role in the organization in which one is situated. Internal Commitment provides that anchor toward performance.
Dr. Ashutosh P BhupatkarVisiting Faculty
Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies
First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII - and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.
~Douglas Adams
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ImplicationsWe saw earlier that Emotional Stability is one facet of a Steady Intellect. The other facet is an I n t e r n a l R e a l i z a t i o n ( a considered phi losophical understanding or a world-view) of one's place in the scheme of life. We have a role to perform and it is our duty to perform it without attachment or aversion. This realization cannot tie us down to inaction, but rather make us fearless in action. A l m o s t a l l m o d e r n c o m m e n t a t o r s f r o m Vivekananda to Tilak to Gandhi have stressed this aspect of the teaching of the Gita.
ConclusionA brief attempt is made here to p r o p o s e a n a l t e r n a t i v e conception of Emotional Stability based on our tradition. It has the merit of fitting into our cultural psyche. Care has to be taken to ensure that we use it in a non-instrumental manner. It would mean that we regard E m o t i o n a l S t a b i l i t y o f individuals as a goal by itself and not as a means to superior performance. That is no mean task.
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
HRIS- A strategic toolkit for redesigning HRM functions
anagement Information System (MIS) has evolved as a Mgreat strategic tool for many organizations and has changed the way of business operations including Human Resource Management. Human Resource Information System (HRIS) or Human Resource Management System (HRMS) is a subset of MIS. During 1960's, many large companies were looking for centralizing their Human Resource data as it was difficult to keep the record for various regulatory needs. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software had gained its popularity in large business organizations by 1980's because of its capacity to process large data on real time basis. So, HRIS also gained the momentum during the same time.
Business organizations started realising that HR information can empower companies with “HR intelligence” for better decision making. Software vendors like Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP started introducing HR modules in their ERP software to suit their client's HR requirements. Today there are hundreds of vendors developing customised HRIS software for big as well as small companies.
HRIS consists of large employee databases. Depending on the size and nature of any organisation, HRIS system might consist of a single database or a number of interconnected ones. These databases will store basic employee information (such as personal details, job profiles, company role, salary etc), as well as information regarding benefits administration, payroll and an almost limitless range of other aspects of human resources. Furthermore, a good HRIS system will allow the HR professionals to keep track of employment applications; for example, to store and review CVs, and search for suitable previous applicants when a new vacancy arises.
One of the major benefits of an HRIS system is that it will offer human resources department an access to visual representations of attendance and leave figures, as well as performance history for each employee. Furthermore, more advanced HRIS systems will allow to pinpoint employees with particularly high potential, or those who are exceeding their targets. This will help to make decisions more based on facts rather than assumptions. Human Resource Management has evolved from record keeping function to strategic function which enhances employee productivity and satisfaction. So, one can see the increasing features in HRIS software including various functional modules aimed at recruitment and selection, performance Management system, career planning, competency mapping, payroll and so on.
Today organizations' believe in empowering customers, employees, managers, suppliers and vendors, with direct access to data at the enterprise level, through self-service electronic mediums such as the Internet/Intranet. This flexibility has given the competitive edge to organizations. Indian organizations are embracing the change in management style and introducing systems, new management cultures and philosophy as a result of globalization. This has lead to the need for multi skill development.
Human Resources Management is increasingly becoming a more strategic business partnerassisting top executives by providing critical data for better business decisions. This paves the way for having a robust HRMS in place in an organization. Most organizations today, have a HRMS in place, catering to their varied needs. It helps to manage relationships, streamline processes and improves the use of information to make strategic and operational decisions.
According to Vani Sathvik, VP-HR and Administration, Eka Software Solutions, HRMS plays an important role in the changing needs of the industry by enhancing organizational capabilities and managing systems as well as people. This paves way for matching the customer's and strategic needs"
Trends in the HRIS space are moving from transactional to strategic support, from recruitment to e-recruitment, towards standardization of HR Application and providing substitutes like HR BPO's to in house HRMS so on.
In the current competitive era where companies have spread across in multiple geographic locations and working in distributed models, HRMS is going to play a very vital role. It would play a crucial role in managing the huge resource database, financial data of the company, HR process implementation mapping, etc. Still many small and mid-sized companies in India are managing Such information using Excel sheets. But, this trend would definitely change as automation of various processes and alignment of those to the HRMS will be required.
When an organisation implements the HRIS, its focus is not just limited to short term benefits like
l
l
l
managing the employee data, but there is a long-term perspective from its many advantages in terms of:
Optimal deployment of human resources
Speed of operations, accuracy and decision-making
Process consistency
There are certain questions that need to be addressed before implementing appropriate HRIS software in any organization, like:
l Does the organization really need automation in HR department?
l Whether organization has a capacity to invest in HRIS?
l Whether organization has right IT infrastructure to implement HRIS?
Once the organizations set the requirement for HRIS, then there are many factors that should guide the selection of HR management solution, following are few critical ones:
l Inception of the idea
l Feasibility Study
l Selecting the project team
l Defining the requirements
l Vendor Analysis
l Training for employees
l Tailoring the HR Management system
l Collecting the Data
l Testing the system
l Starting up
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Prof. Shailaja G. Hiremath
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
l
l Evaluation of the HRIS
Some of the HRIS Software includes:
l ABS (Atlas Business Solutions)
l Abra Suite
l HRSOFT
l Human Resource Micro Systems
l ORACLE- HRMS
l SAP HR
l SPECTRUM HR
l VANTAGE HRA
Now it's high time for HR professionals to become IT savvy to effectively manage HR functions. Use of technology goes beyond the context of just the payroll system and attendance management. Today, organizations use HRIS as an effective tool for talent management and a means for increasing employee productivity and skills. Employee Self Service Modules help in employee empowerment by making HR information accessible to employees.
Upgrades & Maintenance H.Venkatesan, Senior VP, Global HR, ISGN, rightly said “IT platforms free the HR professionals from being mere book-keepers of labour statistics. They provide them with an opportunity to play a key role in organizational renewal and revitalization". So, HRIS acts as a strategic tool in redesigning HR functions in any organizations for enhanced employee productivity
Prof. Shailaja G. HiremathVisiting Faculty
Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies
The new set of benefits offered by the organizations today are
extended maternity leaves, vacation donations, cab drops during
pregnancy, adoption maternity leaves and even bereavement
benefits. Being socially aware can be a rewarding experience in
IBM. IBM offers an adoption maternity leave for those who
choose to bring someone else's child into their families.
Unfortunately, this benefit is for women employees only, as single
men adopting children is at a nascent stage in India.
Every women employee would be eligible for four weeks of
maternity leave in case of adoption. This has to be availed within
one month of adoption and is applicable to women employees
working out of IBM-India locations. Hewlett Packard also offers
the same benefit, and is believed to even pay up to a certain amount
towards the legal expenses incurred while adopting a child.
The proof of the act, in form of an adoption deed or an adoption
order by a court, and an approval from the manager is all it takes for
an employee to enjoy four weeks of uninterrupted time with the
adopted child to form bonds that just might last for a lifetime.
In case of Maternity leaves, IT companies offer one unique thing
that is hardly found in other sectors. If maternity leaves aren't
enough, a female employee who just had a baby can take up to a
year of leaves without pay as she copes with being a mother. At
IBM, the post-maternity leave is capped at six months while those
like Infosys give you a year off work, keeping your job secure as
you can enjoy the warmth of being a mother.
SAP Labs offers support even before you become a mother. In the
last two months of pregnancy, you can get a chauffeur-driven car to
make your commute to office and back more than a little easier.
While the arrival of a new member to the family is definitely
celebrated by IT majors Through these small ways, they're not far
behind when it comes to sympathizing with employees for the loss
of a loved one. Most of these offer bereavement benefits if an
employee loses a close family member. At IBM, a grieving
employee can get time off work if the managers can sanction it. In
addition, Big Blue also offers an interest-free contingency loan of
Rs 5,000 for such an employee. “The loan will be deductible in 20
installments of Rs 250 per month,” says the mandate.
SAP Labs gives you five days of paid leave should you lose a family
member. The bereavement benefit is offered by most IT companies
but in various forms. Leaves are a benefit that workers of most
companies are eligible for. Healthy employees and workaholics
usually let their casual and sick leaves lapse at the end of the year.
But if you're working at Qualcomm, you can borrow some leaves
from colleagues whenever you need them.
The vacation donation programme, as it is called, is a system
wherein colleagues can donate their vacation time, up to a
maximum of five days, to other employees who have exhausted
their leaves and need additional leaves. Here's an example of this
benefit. An employee suffered a major illness and needed
additional leaves. Other employees got together and because of the
vacation donation option, accumulated about 105 days of leaves for
the employee in this case. So instead of allowing leaves to lapse,
you can donate them to your colleagues and spread some cheer
around. SAP Labs also offers an interest-free personal loan of up to
Rs 75,000 to its employees in need. For IBM, the amount is Rs
50,000. Big Blue also offers something called a 'hardship
allowance', which is meant for employees who choose to work in
strife-torn or 'hardship' locations. An employee of IBM working in
Jammu, Srinagar, Leh, Assam or Northeast India would get
8 The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000 a month over and above his or
her salary. India Inc may not give you a chance to sob your broken
heart out, but it sure meets you halfway in many other ways.
Google, a seven year old internet communications and Technology
Company based in Mountain View California, tops the fortune 100
Best Companies to 'Work For' list. Let us look at the latest trends in
employee care at Google. It gives Up to $8,000/year in tuition
reimbursement. On-site perks include medical and dental
facilities, oil change and bike repair, valet parking, free washers
and dryers, and free breakfast, lunch and dinner on a daily basis at
11 gourmet restaurants. Google offers unlimited sick leave. It
allows 27days of paid time off after one year of employment.
Global Education Leave program enables employees to take a
leave of absence to pursue further education for up to 5 years and
$150,000 in reimbursement. Free shuttles equipped with Wi-Fi
from locations around the Bay Area to headquarter offices. Google
conducts classes on a variety of subjects from estate planning and
Home purchasing to foreign language lessons in French, Spanish,
Japanese and Mandarin.
DEUTSCHE BANK
Deutsche Bank employs over 80,000 people worldwide. To better
meet employees' needs, the company offers a host of family-
friendly measures, including flexible working time a range of
childcare services, professional training and extended unpaid
parental leave.
Flexible benefits and working policies
Since 1990 Deutsche Bank's female employees are entitled to
reduce their working hours following maternity leave subject to
agreement with their manager. Also, a dedicated 'Child Care
Assistance' payment has been designed to encourage employees to
return early from parental leave. In addition, women on Parental
leave may take part in further company training initiatives:
Deutsche Bank's 'return programme' offers women an individual,
flexible reintegration into the company after their family leave.
This takes the form of three to six months on-the-job training in
order to become qualified in technical knowledge and new
products.
Commitment to family and business
The family-friendly measures implemented by the Deutsche Bank
are a response to the results of a survey carried out in 2006, which
revealed low retention rates of women after pregnancy. The new
measures seem to have worked well and nowadays nearly 80 per
cent of Deutsche Bank's female employees on family leave return
to the company after finishing their leave two-thirds of them on a
part-time basis. Deutsche Bank's Family Network, established in
2005, provides a support structure and information exchange about
topics such as coping with the often difficult toddler years and
dependent care. Other direct child care benefits frequently include
childcare vouchers, emergency child care and, in larger Deutsche
branches, a workplace nursery. Feedback from families indicates
Deutsche Bank's family benefits are broadly popular, impacting
positively on employee morale and productivity, and providing
value for both employer and employee in terms of tax efficiency. In
September 2009 Deutsche Bank was named among the 100 Best
Companies of 2009 by Working Mother magazine, underscoring
its dedication to family-friendly benefits and programmes
supporting work-life balance. Several of Deutsche Bank's
programmes are highlighted in issue magazine, including the
Bank's adoption assistance benefits, backup family care
programmes, maternity / paternity and adoption leaves, and its
Phase Back to Work Programme.
SIEMENS
As an attractive employer, Siemens respond flexibly to the
different life phases and the diverse needs of their employees. They
support them in their desire to balance their career and family, and
provide them with an excellent work environment with flexible
work conditions.
Childcare centers near the workplace
Child or career: Many employees at Siemens no longer want to
make that kind of choice. Their answer would ordinarily be “both
child and career,” but in order to realize this, employees need
excellent and most importantly flexible daycare. For mothers and
fathers to be able to quickly return to work after the birth of a child,
they need to know that their child will receive the best of care.
9The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
GOOGLE
Siemens is the leader in Germany in terms of the number of
childcare centers it provides close to the workplace. As of February
2011, they have more than 500 childcare spaces in 26 facilities at
13 different locations. These facilities are supplemented with
company-sponsored childcare spaces at smaller locations. They
target is to increase that number of spaces to roughly 800 by the end
of 2011.They have a wide array of childcare facilities, from nursery
schools to mixed-age facilities for children ranging from babies to
age twelve, to cooperatives with communities and other
companies, to parent-initiated groups started by Siemens
employees. There are nursery schools, preschools, daycare
facilities, vacation childcare, emergency care, a babysitter
exchange, and child lunch programs.
In all of their childcare facilities, flexibility plays a very important
role when it comes to daily hours of operation and annual holidays.
In addition, the facilities are always situated as close to Siemens
sites as possible to keep travel time between the childcare facility
and the workplace to a minimum. And Siemens has high standards
when it comes to theeducational quality of the facilities: Even the
youngest of children will feel safe and secure in their nursery
schools, and preschoolers are given the room they need to
experiment and explore.
But Siemens is hungry for more. In the next few years, they wants
to significantly expand its SieKids program, which already stands
for high-quality company childcare, to include even more
childcare facilities located close to the workplace throughout
Germany.
The SieKids concept
During school vacations, Siemens help parents out by offering a
wide range of childcare options. Around 2,500 children
enthusiastically take part in these on-site programs every year.
Many employees even choose to book vacations for their entire
families.
Returning to work after parental leave
They help their employees return to work after a parental leave of
absence. They offer re-entry programs that specifically target
employees who want to quickly return to work after a parental
Leave, and combine those programs with a wide range of flexible
work-time models. They also make it possible for employees to
stay up-to-date while on a parental leave. Using “Stay connected,”
all employees can access the intranet and their company e-mail.
To give parents the opportunity to join a comprehensive exercise
and wellness program to keep their energy levels high, Siemens
offers its employees a special company health-spa program with
childcare.
Help for family members in need of care
Due to demographic changes, the care of family members is
becoming increasingly important. In many locations, Siemens
offer an Elder Care program in some cases, in cooperation with
external placement agencies to provide their employees with
information, counseling, and concrete care arrangements. In this
respect, their Erlangen location has taken a pioneering role:
Among other things, Erlangen offers employees emergency care
for elderly family members as well as a lecture series and family
training programs. Employees with family members in need of
care or assistance can visit during Elder Care consultation hours to
talk to specialists.
They also offer a program to employees with family members who
have critical needs, which allow those employees to take up to
twelve months off to care for their loved one.
Flexibility in the workplace
A modern work environment calls for flexibility: Siemens offers
a wide range of work-time models to meet the requests and needs of
our employees. At Siemens, employees – even those in
management positions – can telecommute and work part-time.
Other work-time models they offer include flex-time models, job
sharing, and sabbaticals. In addition, with its flex-time honor
system, the company makes its employees responsible for getting
their own work done – to the benefit of both parties
Mr. Ravi Santosh,
PGDM I, KIAMS (Harihar Campus)
References:
lhttp://blogs.siliconindia.com
lwww.deloitte.com
lwww.deutsche bank.com
lwww.siemens.com
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his background paper is inspired by the following
quotation from “The New Pioneers” by Tania Ellis, TDanish British Prize winning writer.
“The world is changing and so is humanity. We are
reaching a critical mass of people who are conscious about the
consequences of humanity's unsustainable growth and want to do
something about it. Old and new paradigms co-exist, and this
creates paradoxes. But, paradoxes give us the opportunity to
progress. Just like optimism and utopias do. The future is not
something we predict. It is something which we collaboratively
design and co-create. A will to change is the first step. The next is to
take action.”
th20 Century Lessons
Most of us have understood by now, that, the last century
thhas offered some lessons to us. A quick review of 20 Century
means: Exploitation of weak countries by strong countries through
the World War I and World War II. On the industrial front,
employers exploited employees for a fairly long time. Then it was
employees and their Unions' turn to exploit the employers. Soon,
employers and employees joined hands to exploit the customers! (a
side effect of the sellers' market). It is very interesting to observe
that before the turn of the Century; Employers Employees and
Customers joined hands to exploit the Nature and create Pollution!
thObviously two lessons can be drawn from the 20 century
“Exploitation”.(A) Exploitation requires 'energy'. Perhaps, in the last
century, we misdirected our energies to exploit various sections of the society.
(B) Experimentation is the real answer. It also requires energy one which is well directed towards innovation and creativity for sustainable development.
st21 Century: A Century of Experimentation:
Some visible trends are
(A) “Management” does not mean exploitation. It means
responsible behavior for achieving sustainable
development without exploiting anybody.
(B) Most of the business and industrial organizations are
slowly but surely marching towards professionalization.
Employees First and Customers NextDr. S. G. Bapat
(C) Both at “thinking” level and “acting” level, we are
moving from: “Owners first and Owners last”, and / or
“Customers first and Employees next and owners last” to
“Employees First and Customers next” (Owners'
contribution duly recognized)
Looking Back-
It was a general understanding that a CEO has special
obligations towards shareholders / Board of Directors. One
implied assumption was : If a CEO can look after the interests of
shareholders and work hard for offering more and more dividend to
the shareholders, (s)he is the most successful and effective CEO.
(S)he will get more “autonomy”.
thBy the end of the 20 century, management thinkers,
academicians and practicing managers started describing the word
CEO as “Customers first Employees Next and Owners last.” A
great awakening about “Customer came only when “Sellers'
Market” was steadily replaced by “Buyers' Market”. One can read
the under currents! Mahatma Gandhi long back remarked:
“Customer is the very Purpose of Business” but industry absorbed
the concept in a 'Selfish' manner! (I am sure, that you are going to
say: who is NOT selfish?)
HR Conclave 2012
The current conference (jointly organized by RCU and
BETGBS in Belgaum) discussed the various aspects of the new
concept “Employees First- Customers Next” not merely as a
slogan but as a new concept of Leadership. The credit obviously
goes to Mr. Vineet Nayar who successfully explained the concept
and is pioneering to advocate it through facts and figures.
Can we ignore corruption?
A casual observer is struck by the following statistics:
Harshad Mehta : 40 Crores
Fodder Scam : 900 Crores
Madhu Koda : 4000 Crores
Satyam Computers : 14,000 Crores
11 The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
Stamp Paper : 30,000 Crores It has been fully recognized that there are three sets of
Commonwealth Games : 77,000 Crores employees that all of us will come across –
2 G Spectrum : 1,76,000 Crores (1) Ready and willing to Change
One cannot dare to make a total and divide the same by India's (2) Those who will resist any change, and
Population. Let us leave this exercise to the statisticians! (3) Those who will be on the fence.
What can we do? If we want to achieve transformation, we have to respect
A good question– but no good answer is available. On all the three categories of employees and create a culture of change.
th150 anniversary of Swami Vivekanand, one can quote his often In this very city (Belgaum), there is a shining example of 'Business
quoted statement – Ashram' run successfully by Mr. Suresh Hundre, Managing
“Western Efficiency and dynamism combined with Indian spiritual Director who primarily pays Rs. 50,000/- per hour as a tax
values will create the best management system in the World” (1984) willingly and smilingly and offers an example of “Employee
A remark in the visitors' book of International Exhibition Empowerment”. This can, well, be described as “Spiritual
in France makes a great mark. Management”.
Peep into the Future I am sure, that, the discussions and deliberations in this
As all of us know, J. M. Keynes said – “It is better to be conclave will open the doors for “Culture of Change” and perhaps,
roughly right than precisely wrong” My prediction is based on this it will inspire the delegates to “Lead the Change”
statement. Business Leaders and managers of today have realized Dr. S. G. Bapat,
that it is necessary to shift from “Individual Leadership” to “Team Lead Faculty,
Leadership”. It is both, challenge and an opportunity. Dr. S. G. Bapat & Associates
There is a positive power in the vision of Vineet Nayar References:
who is advocating “Employees First and Customers Next” as a lThe New Pinoneers – Sustainable business Success through
philosophy of collective Leadership. In his book, Vineet has social innovation and Social Entrepreneurship by Tania Ellis p.p
spelled out various steps of achieving the success in implementing 187 – 188.
the concept. lRe-inventing India by Dr. Raghunathi Mashelkar p.p. 402 – 403
l “Employees First – Customers Second” by Mr. Vineet Nayar
"One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell
breaks loose."
- Randy Pausch
.
12 The Chanakya, March 2012
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Retirement
etirement, by definition means to withdraw from one's
occupation, business or office as for rest or seclusion.The Rconcept of retirement does not always exist. According to a survey
done by a group of archaeologists, - 'In the early era of human
evolution about 30000 to 40000 years ago, the life expectancy was
40 years'. People did not retire at that time; they just had a shorter
life span.
As we know every product in market has its own life cycle with
different phases like Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline;
the career of a human being can be identified with the career life
cycle exploration, establishment , mid career, late career ,decline
(retirement).
Retirement is not a completely new concept and it has some roots in
ancient times. According to Hindu Mythology, a human life can be
identified with four different phases called as Ashrams namely,
Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sannyasa.
The first part of life “Brahmacharya” is the stage of a student where
a student used to spend in celibate, controlled, sober and pure
contemplation under the guidance of a guru and building up the
mind for spiritual knowledge. Second stage is “Grihastha” which is
householder's stage. The third stage is “Vanaprastha” which is
called as retirement stage, a gradual detachment form material
world and finally “Sannyasa” the stage of asceticism, where one
renounces all worldly attachments to find the “Divine” or the
“Moksha”.
Similarly in career life cycle, a human starts as a student, as a
learner, gets exposed to theoretical concepts, learns and develops a
career interest where he wants to contribute for a long term. After
formal education a person joins organization to contribute his
learning and to grow and develop. Learning and development in
human life perpetual process and it goes with all phases of life
cycle or career life cycle. It gives a person opportunity to grow, to
succeed and he achieves maturity level in his career when he
experiences high level of expertise and responsibility. After
serving one or more organizations at various phases of career for
various roles, a person finally retires voluntarily or involuntarily.
Initially during early industrial revolution, retirement did not have
any pre notions of age limit and persons announced retirement as
per their own preferences. In 1889, a 74 year-old German
Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck started an old-age social insurance
programme and set bar for a retirement age in western world. He
set the retirement age at 70. Anybody over that age was eligible for
retirement benefits.
During the great depression of 1929, a doctor Mr. Townsend who
himself lost his job was witnessing the Sufferings of old people
during that period. He then Proposed a great scheme whereby
people above age 60 would be paid $200 per month as a monthly
pension. Over 5 million people supported this campaign, Franklin
Roosevelt got the Social Security Act passed and the Congress had
set the retirement age at 65.
Why Do People Retire?
1) Health Issues: A widespread belief exists
that a considerable amount of people who leave
gainful employment before age 65 do so because of
poor health. They may be no longer able to
work due to poor health or injury.
2) Personal Commitments: Sometimes people in
work have high level of responsibilities or
commitments for their family members or
society.
3) Leisure: Some people love to live their life as
they want. After working for years a few of them
prefer to pursue their long time interest and enjoy
their hobbies.
A retirement decision of a person often depends on his
financial stability, his wealth and assets, savings and
dependents.
Impact of Retirement on Economy:
In countries like US, under the Social Security Act, a retired person
gets financial security though they are not contributing directly to
Nations Economy. Similarly in India under the Pensions Act,
retired persons from organized sectors get one time Provident Fund
and per month fixed pension without any contribution to nation's
production of goods and services. This is a liability to the
Government. In India, the Central government pays pension to 3.8
billion retirees and a spending of $ 12.1 billion is expected in next
financial year approximately 26%more than the last financial year
spending on pensions.
As retirees increase the expenditure of the Government, recently
world has witnessed increase of retirement age by various
countries. Spain announced that it would increase retirement age
from 65 to 67. In 1998, the Central Government of India increased
retirement age of the central government employees from 58 to 60
and now they are in talks to increase this age to 62. In 2010, France
increased retirement age from 60 to 62. Germany has also
increased retirement age.
Effect of Retirement on Individual:
While several studies shows effect of health on retirement
decision, a few studies explain effect of retirement on health in post
retirement times. After retirement an average person is likely to
enjoy leisure time and experience drastic changes in his lifestyle.
People experience decline in physical activity and social contacts.
Studies show that complete retirement leads to 5-16 percent
increase in difficulties associated with daily activities, 5-6 percent
increase in illness conditions and 6-9 percent decline in mental
health over an average retirement period of 6 years. Studies also
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Mr. Bhooshan Khadgi
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
Show that adverse effects are mitigated if someone is married and has social support. Such persons are likely to indulge in physical activities and likely to maintain social contacts through social meetings, community work, or part time work. Some people who fail to adopt post retirement lifestyle face financial problems as their monthly income after retirement supports only moderate expenditure.
What happens to Organization when people retire?
Undoubtedly, ageing workforce impacts organizations differently and its impact depends not only on the organization's current manpower but also its internal demographics and future ability of organizations to attract future staff. An impact analysis of ageing workforce in organization including the analysis, who is eligible to retire, which positions are likely to be vacant in near future and how it would affect organization's ability to carry out its vision and mission may help individual organizations to design better HR policies from recruitment to retention while identifying gaps in HR Planning. As employees retire from an organization, the institution faces potential loss of knowledge. Unfortunately many organizations do not realize the loss unless impact is felt by decaying efficiency or setbacks for important goals.
Recently engineering giant L&T revealed that it is grappling with quickly greying top management and by September about 200 of its top senior and middle managers will retire. L&T is not the only manufacturing firm to face this problem but some of the PSU's like NTPC and some private players like JK Group are struggling with same issue.
The retirement of top executives is visible and organizations face problems to find their successor, as these positions hold power and leadership that drives employees in direction of the vision and mission of the organization. But, the bigger worry is retirement of middle level executives, as these are in sizable numbers and sudden loss of this chunk may lead to the organization's operations in shambles as it is hard for organizations to replace large number of employees. A sizable number of retirement within short time leads to younger, inexperienced workforce that affects production and service delivery. If hired from outside, newly recruited middle level managers take time to learn new skills, organizations culture. If employees hired within organization by job enlargement and job enrichment the new managers may face huge pressure work resulting in decaying efficiency at work.
Knowledge loss to organizations:
The highly impacted area in organization due to retirement and turnover is knowledge loss. Organizations face the risk of potential knowledge loss due to retirement. It is really difficult to develop a plan to combat knowledge loss, if organizations are not aware of risk of knowledge loss. Also organizations cannot realize knowledge loss until they see a negative impact of knowledge loss. The following figure shows impact of knowledge loss:
14
A study conducted by International Public Management Association for Human Resource on impact of knowledge loss on organizations mission revealed that more than 70% of respondents responded loss in efficiency due to critical knowledge loss and more than 50% respondents replied with goals not reached. So how does an organization will secure its vision and mission and avoid knowledge loss?
Knowledge Management:
It is a popular concept and is defined as any effort related to capture and maintenance of institutional knowledge. A typical knowledge management plan consists of following key components like:-
lDocumentation of Policies and Procedures.
lCross training.
lCentralized record keeping system.
lJob shadowing or mentoring.
To work on these key factors, organizations need to determine, which information to get from whom, how to organise it and how to make it available to those employees who need it.A typical example of knowledge management can be given as; a new employee is trying to determine how to be best at his job. Knowledge management effort must not only focus on efficiently organising explicit knowledge (e.g. facts, figures, policies, procedures) but also it must focus on efficiently organizing contextual information, best practices, identification of subject matter experts to be useful for that employee. Simply capturing and digitizing reams of data and content under the guise of knowledge management cannot be effective. Rather, it would be very expensive.Methods to counter Retirement:The most common methods practiced by organizations to assess appropriate resources and knowledge are:1) Succession planning.2) Skill gap analysis.3) Performance measurement.4) Knowledge transfer.Out of these four, Succession Planning and Knowledge Transfer are directed to identify new leadership and to fill management roles. These two methods soothe the path of transition of employee to new role. Performance Measurement and Skill Gap Analysis are used when organizations would like to be more proactive, know more about their own resources and want to prepare plans for the future. Skill Gap Analysis allows organizations to act strategically by focusing on resources, skills and talent needed by organization.Conclusion:Retirement breaks formal relations of employee and organization. Initially both of them grapple with changed conditions. To maintain proper health post retirement, an individual should not allow drastic changes in his lifestyle and should indulge in physical and social activity.Organizations should take a proactive and direct approach while dealing with the issues associated with ageing workforces. Organizations should assess and understand impact of retirement in context of their own organizations. Organizations should have a pre-planned strategy to face retirement with a scope of proactive measures to be included as a flexible strategy to respond to a dynamic global change and issues like turnover and attrition
References : l www.economictimes.coml www.ipma-hr.org
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Mr. Bhooshan KhadgiPGDM-I, KIAMS (Pune Campus)
IMPACT INTERVIEW
His commitment and honesty in trying
to tackle important social issues are both
inspirational as well as infectious. The
impact of his work has been seen in
several villages, where technology is
actively used, and which are now able to
generate their own funds and are able to
s u s t a i n t h e i r ow n c o m m u n i t y
development programmes
r. Balaji Sampath, while a graduate student at the University local community. If you look at our organization structure we have Dof Maryland, was instrumental in expanding AID's chapter mix of people. We have graduates who studied abroad, in reputed base to many cities across the US. Upon completion of his Ph.D. in institutes along with other would did not pass their twelfth 1997, he returned to India as an AID Fellow (Jeevansaathi). Based standard, but struggled very hard to survive and support their in Chennai, Dr. Sampath works with the Tamil Nadu Science families. So this mixture works out very well, many other Forum, particularly in the areas of community health, education organizations do not have this. Right now I am outside our core initiatives and women's savings groups. He, as part of AID committee room, which consists of three people from IIT's and Chennai, was instrumental in organizing the national-level BITS, six people from villages who take vital decisions. We feel workshop of the People's Health Assembly in Nov-Dec 2000, and is that ultimately what we have done and experience is what matters. a key coordinator of the block-level developmental initiatives of This mix gives us a lot of belief and commitment. Even when we the All India Peoples Science Network (The Hundred Block Plan). did not have enough funds, their commitment reflected when they
worked two or three years without salary, and these people are from Can you give us a brief about AID? those families who did not have more that thousand rupees a month
to live, they continued to work because they feel strongly towards AID India started off in Chennai 1997, this started when I was the cause. involved with a group called AID in America. It started as a group of active graduates to raise funds and support activities all over What makes graduates leave corporate world and render India. I was involved in writing chapters for India. At that time I felt social service?strongly that I should come back to India. So in 1997 I came back and started AID India. Initially we helped many organizations and That's an easy question. I always wonder what makes those people learnt how to do work, and then we started doing many direct who undergo real difficult times who survive leave the better programmes. One of the main focus areas is education, but we also opportunities and come here. See, though we are into this our work on health and livelihood. families are well off with our brothers and other family members
earning revenue, it's not like I would go hungry tomorrow. Our How can you differentiate this with other organizations? volunteering and commitment is looking at others who when
working here their families would go hungry, they still do it. I have I don't think that we must differentiate. I will give you how we do seen many people come to organization stay for some time and go differentiate since I was asked this question many times but I back to their lives here or abroad. Thus the real challenge is to stay personally feel that there should not be differentiation because we here and stick to the job. Here you see people from villages even need many organizations working together for cause like this more motivated, when working with them you will understand that because these problems are huge. Unfortunately there aren't many you can also make very significant contributions in the field and organizations. Many NGO's have started but they mostly don't that keeps you motivated. When I ask my team members one time focus and deliver results. There are not many such organizations or other they tell that they have to make a difference. The biggest which are committed to reduce poverty or provide better education contribution to success is that those who have stuck to our cause and hence I don't think there is a need to feel competitive about it. have been with us for a very long time. They look at the amount of
commitment these native people bring in. For example one of our If you are asking how we raise funds or run operations I would say associates was working in a large software firm happened to meet that at implementation level we have couple of principles. Firstly two of our on field volunteers. She was amazed to see the amount we believe that whatever projects we implement we need to have of time and energy they were devoting toward the cause, and then lot of local level participation in it, not just nominally or these volunteers are from families who depended on them to get financially, we need people who take decisions. When we conduct them out of poverty instead of devoting to their our families they evening classes we need them to come, participate and ask are working for betterment of society and others. Then she got questions, especially the parents. Most of our volunteers are from inspired to quit the job and devote full time with us.
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So when you see others are doing it you fell motivated to do it How can you measure the impact that you create in the yourself. society? Both qualitatively and quantitatively?
What according to you is the biggest problem faced by There are parameters to measure our success. We see how much society today? our children have learnt when compared to before. We keep
checking very regularly, it gives you numbers and its very According to me the biggest problem is Inequality in Education. important for us to keep track of how much we are progressing. But What happens is kids from well to do families, are getting access to everything cannot be measured in numbers. Sometimes you need lot of resources, the amount of inputs they have is huge, apart from to measure what impact this has made in lives of families, in terms that is parents are not satisfied they go for more resources other of values, in terms of what they believe in their kids in their houses. than school. But kids from poor families at government schools I think all of this is qualitative. And actually how many of our cannot generally add or subtract even after five years of schooling. friends went to government offices to argue regarding how much There is such a huge gap in learning and education is going to improvement is needed in the schools. These are not direct impact create next generation of inequality. Now we are talking about next parameters. But they are very important indicators as they tell how generations of kids going though schooling. When even after 5-6 much change we have brought about in mind set of individuals. years they cannot substantiate their learning they drop out. Now in Changing people's minds is one other very important impact I think a world which is going to become even more competitive what it's one of the softer parameters as we cannot measure it directly. would these kids do and already parents are poor, if their kids are We believe that we should measure our outcomes especially hard not even going to get basic skills, these kids are going to worse than outcomes and work towards them, but there are lot of soft what their parents did. So this is a huge problem that needs to be outcomes which you cannot measure easily. But it's also important; addressed. It's not like parents are not interested in sending their sometimes it's even more important than hard outcomes.kids to schools. There are many other problems obviously, but if
you ask what is the single biggest problem which is going to affect Can you please give today's youth a message, which can us in 20-30 years to come, then this is a biggest challenge. 20 years encourage them in serving society? back being illiterate is different because they did not have access or I won't tell them to leave all that they are doing and come to serve awareness of education. Now this generation kids had access to society. Let them do all of that, also spend some time wherever you schools but still cannot add or subtract. At that time world was also are now towards society. Don't say that after 20 years I would do very different. Now there is this cut throat competition wherever and all that. Do it from where ever you are now, at this point. It's not you go. like society is going to change just because some five people have Yes sir, Most of the kids who got quality education quit their jobs abroad and come to serve society. Society will themselves are facing so many problems, we cannot even change when millions of people make small changes in their lives; imagine about poor kids. basically make a small effort to make society better. Make sure
that opportunities are given to poor people equally. That is going to Yeah, now this is going to lead to a bunch of other issues. Like this make a very large scale and long term impact. For that you cannot naxalism etc., because they strongly feel that they were denied the expect everyone to quit their lucrative opportunities for this. Even opportunities. This is going to create big threat to the country in the if it is a small thing, need not be a large thing but do it now. May be future.you can go to a small school nearby and help children learn there.
How will you describe the ideal situation for this problem? Even if its five children at least you can help them. Then you can bring about a transformation in their life and also in your life. If you I think at this point the government should take action in very big can start doing that then you can aim for bigger and larger things. way. So whenever you go and talk to them, not just for this issue, It's impossible to make people stop writing competitive exams. But overall government reacts in a very defensive mode. For example if it is even more difficult to help other people. Anna Hazare is been raising corruption issues, government's
reaction is to affect people who are raising it. It is not like society is Sir, you received the many prestigious awards like Ashoka bringing this up; let's see what we can do to change it. Same Fellowship, Lemelson Innovator's Award etc., Can you share problem is happening in education. And I don't think that this with us the amount of hard work and determination which problem would be so big that it cannot be solved. It can be solved resulted in this kind of recognition. easily if there is some political will for it. And the full implication
Actually I don't believe in these awards. They are more of a team cannot be realized until it is too late. I feel that the seriousness that contribution more than an individual. Unfortunately many people should be there is missing. give them as individual awards. I think that if you keep working to
Sir, you mentioned that the core committee consists of highly your purpose rewards would automatically come. It is foolish to qualified individuals along with those who haven't even aim for the rewards and try to get them and it's also not possible. completed their formal education. Can you tell me how you You just keep on working for the cause and if recognition comes it bring them together? What values and beliefs they work on? comes and if it doesn't come it's OK. The real recognition for me is
when I see these children learning and transforming into better What brings them together is a strong commitment to the cause. individuals. The satisfaction that I am able to make difference in For example working in Tamil Nadu they believe that every child their lives, this recognition coming from within is far more should get very high quality education. They realize that they important, than any other awards. These awards are also useful to might not have gone through very good education they believe that help raise funds, build awareness, outside credibility etc., but other every other kid in village should get good education. That than that it's not of great value. If the recognition comes from commitment basically bonds everyone together. The fact that the outside you have to doubt yourself. If recognition comes from entire team works for a cause like this and is also highly committed inside like your team members, friends and others then it is real enhances the bonding force. And then there is a lot of friendship, so
lot of help is exchanged between individuals. But of course this did not happen overnight. Initially it took a lot of time for individuals
-As told to Siddhartha S Modukuri,even to believe that it is possible.
PGDM I, KIAMS (Harihar).
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16 The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
tudying in a B school is a beautiful experience. And we all can
feel it. Some of us had adapted to the new environment quickly Sand some of us might have taken a bit more time. But after a short
span, it is like a huge family. We like this because we can
experience it. When we visit a place which we like, we are in joy.
Again it's because we are experiencing it. So, experience is the
main objective for us. Well, let us talk about placements. Why we
look forward to good placements? Because we will be able to
experience the life we want to live. And ultimately this
“experience” is the root cause of why we are here. The purpose was
to experience the life we wanted (at a point in the past). We are here
(at present), surrounded by specific circumstances because we had
actually wanted that. Ok, now it might be a little hard to get into.
The fact is whatever is happening with you, or whatever you are
experiencing, is simply because you are the one who had wanted it
to happen at a certain point of time. Our entire life is a super
complex matrix of choices surrounded by wishes. All these,
connectively, are creating the present situation for us to live in.
That means whatever life you are leading (happy or frustrated) is
nothing but the summation of end results of some actions and
thoughts of yours in the past.
Now, I know, you will argue that where is the free will then, that the
masters and yogis talk about? Then what is the meaning of life, if
everything flows like a program? Well, free will exists and the case
can now be viewed from a different dimension. And that is left
there for us to experience. Because, in tough circumstances, people
will apply their free will and they will again want something or the
other to experience. Depends on the nature and concentration of the
will power, you will again take some decisions and will thus start
creating your future in the microcosm. For the explanation,
microcosm refers to your world, your own perceived world.
Whereas macrocosm refers to the entire universe where we exist,
as an individual. So, now it is becoming a web. And believe it, we
are in a web.
So, who are we? Why we exist after all? And again why we chose to
be here, right in this present situation, in our life? Who is forcing us
for our priorities and our choices? When we face with a situation
(might be motivational or negative), we decide to act and behave
based on out thoughts. Some of the actions that we undertake are
immediate and some are long term (like career plans). But while
taking the fast decisions, how do we understand the choices? How
do we evaluate about the actions that can be undertaken in the given
context. That is based on our level of maturity and the depth of our
knowledge. ‘Knowledge' of what? It's the knowledge from the
views, knowledge of life and knowledge that is being acquired
through the life time.
Thus, we can see that facing similar kinds of situations, two or
more individuals will choose to act differently. This is simply
because they had analysed the situation differently and had
perceivedthe situations differently. (Had Bill Gates been in my
place today, he would have different priorities and choices.) Thus,
essentially it is us, who are creating our life continuously by
choosing to act / respond in a particular way that is being guided by
that individual's accumulated knowledge and perceptions and
views. And then, when we can't achieve something we either blame
GOD or blame luck. Remember, luck is nothing but chances. You
can never live on unknown chances.
Hence, to have complete control over our life, we will have to
consciously create chances for us. You have to take the control and
will have to be in charge of the beautiful journey called life. The
most pertinent question now is “how”. As it has been told earlier,
our life is nothing but the summation and implications of the
choices we made, hence the most appropriate way is to make better
choices. For better choices, we need to have better knowledge (of
life in broad), better analysing skill, better understanding to
comprehend. And we can't alter the accumulated knowledge which
we have, instantly. But of course we can have better perceptions
and thus better understandings if we use titanium processors,
instead of Celeron one. That means, if we can visualise the things
as whole (not just dots), we will grasp the bigger picture. And this
requires our processor to be more powerful and operating with
newer technologies. So, how to do that? Ok, it's actually simple.
Take the example of a microprocessor. Think about a computer.
After working for a certain span, it needs rest (restart, shutdown
etc) for better performance. Our body needs rest after a certain time
to get back the energy. And remember, our mind also needs rest. If
you can consciously reboot your mind, you will experience
freshness. You will feel energy in soabundance that will force you
to think why you did not try for it earlier. To put in simple words, it
is like becoming the tour guide, rather than continuing as an
unknown traveller in the beautiful journey of life. Suddenly you
will realize that you are viewing and perceiving things in totality
instead of viewing in subsystems. Our mind exists in different
dimensions. The more high you raise, the more complete view you
can have and thus more complete understanding. Thus, you can
have the sense of the bigger purpose and you will realize “what is
your job” and why you exist after all. Your life will become an
awesome journey with full control.Forcing the mind to operate in
other dimensions or planes requires disciplined efforts, at those
realms that are unusual to us. The mind is infinitely more advanced
than the microprocessors which are now available.
For Joy, A better life
Mr. Supratim Kundu
17 The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
The mind has a superior capability to upgrade itself, provided you
wish to. The fundamental aspect is to restart it from time to time.
We think, in sleep, we are taking rest. That is right for the body. In
order to rest the mind to an extent, we need to have disciplined
sleep everyday and still this is a slow process. Because, sleep is an
unconscious process and is guided by nature as a natural process.
We are going to be professionals and enjoying 7hrs disciplined
sleep every night might not be the best alternative. Again
remember, sleep is a slow process and there we are not in charge. In
sleep we get dreams and feel uneasy if we are in difficult situation.
So take rest, but be conscious. Apart from sleeping, also make
effort to take rest consciously. Consciously force your mind to
operate and withdraw it. Remember, your mind is just like a slave
to you. We can order it anytime. Rather, in most cases we choose to
become the slave of mind. That view needs to be changed. The
mind is gifted to us so that we can use it. It is there as a tool to do
work for us. Consciously try to take the control and make the mind
work. Make the mind operate at a higher realm to serve you better.
Choose a particular time in a day. Be with yourself and this is really
important. Completely be with yourself and don't let your mind to
think about any unwanted things. Be calm and start observing your
breath. Observe only your breath. Think about nothing. The breath
comes in and then goes out. Keep on observing the inflow and out
flow of breath. This breath is the biggest mystery of life. We know
that we cannot exist without it. Breath connects our mind to the
physical universe, i.e., to our body and the surroundings.
On the other hand, we also know that we all had lived without
aerial oxygen (in mother's womb). What a paradox! The full grown
embryo (after 7-8 months) stays within the fluid in the womb. But
now, we cannot think of even staying without aerial oxygen even
for 1 day. After coming out of the womb, then, if we don't breathe,
we will not survive. In reality, we can exist both with and without
breathing. There are many such happenings in our life that shows
the beautiful nature of ours. The single connecting feature between
nothing (space) and us (consciousness) is “the mind”. Thus the
more advanced the mind is, the more satisfying your life will be.
The mind can do such things for us that we generally perceive as
being super-human. Think nothing during the exercise. If you force
your mind to think nothing (void) and still continue observing (no
feeling, simply observe) for sometime, your mind will start
functioning without your emotions. It will start following your
order like a gentleman. This is called conscious rest of the mind.
This is conscious withdrawal of the mind from the matrix. If you
can continue your practise, you will realize that you have never
been so active. You will start realizing that your mind actually
creates the entire life for you. You will start experiencing the higher
realms of your-self. With practice, after attaining certain
perfections, in higher stages you can even command your mind to
create the life you want and the situations you want to be in. We
judge the entire universe and the life through our mind. So if we can
sharpen it, it will sharpen our choices and priorities. This just needs
your wish to practise. Practising the art of becoming the master of
yourself. You will ultimately, understand the difference between
happiness and joy
Mr. Supratim Kundu
PGDM I, KIAMS (Harihar Campus)
18
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“The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.”
-Mao Tse-Tung
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
The Path to PassionMr. Sumit Roy
19
re we asking the question 'why should we follow the path' or granted and never question our purpose of being.
we are ok to be blind or we do not have a choice or we are What it means to live with passion?Ascared to choose and walk the path of our choice? It reminds me of Rumi's poem:
Passionate people are passionate because they have chosen a path. “When you find yourself with the Beloved, embracing for one
How can you walk your talk if you have not laid a path to walk? breath,
Living passionately is a matter of choice. The choice is a matter of In that moment you will find your true destiny.
the heart and heart is a matter of education. The word 'education' is Alas, don't spoil this precious moment
derived from Greek word educe which means 'to draw from It's very rare”.
within'. If the youths are taught to function, operate and act from Find yourself with the beloved, the lucky ones get their beloved and be with them and nurture them. Our passion arises from our heart and subsequently with refined mind then the acts of an beloved. Who is your beloved? It may be any specific person, individual will be passionate. Life is in living each moment, which object, your profession, or your hobby, anything where you can be
has its own significance and the significance is created by the united with it. The matter of embracing is your deep involvement individual who is creative. By being creative, one thinks and and engagement. According to the Gallup Management Journal's
Employee Engagement Index - 29% of employees are actively thinking animates the individual to deploy. So what is it that makes engaged in their jobs, 54% are not-engaged, and 17% are actively it possible to be creative, ideate and execute? I believe it is the disengaged. The statistics on workforce engagement are
difference between hot belief and cold belief. Our cold belief surprising. Almost two third of the workers are either moderately doesn't shake us from our deep slumber, fire is required to shake up engaged or not engaged, and this is a concern. Living with passion
is a matter of heightened emotional connection with the task at and shape up.hand and at the same time having a larger picture to connect with The present dilemma is about instant mindset. The youth has to the task. Many a times we get so engrossed with the task we get lost
understand that anything fruitful takes its own time; it has its own and passion may fade, the challenge is to remain passionate and Life cycle. The human intellect is very fluid and fertile and it sustain the euphoric feeling. Once we are in rapport with this
significant feeling we feel to feel again the feeling which fills our depends upon the individual to keep it fertile. feelings. The challenge is to sustain these feelings. What acts as a A few questions to ponder upon:hindrance is, our raw feeling overpower and overwhelm us with
What keeps one fresh and curious? our day to day concerns which mostly takes our vital energy.What triggers one's mind to search something new?
Living passionately is to be in touch with our essence. Our essence How can one remain agile and alert always? is our being which consists of our concern, existence and moods. Is it always possible to remain driven? Let's see these three elements in the context of dynamic living
What drives you and why? Concerns – We do work, we prioritize work based on our concern. What we are concerned about? What concerns you? Why you are Have you found your drive?concerned? Concern is something where your mind harbors and Are we nurturing our growth mindset?dwells and it erupts now and then to make you mindful. Our
I feel that by questioning oneself, one can change the brain mindfulness is like a space in an ocean of possibility, our focus
chemistry. These questions can reveal our thought patterns and gives us a wave in an ocean and this wave is like a concern which provoke us to stand up and think in a direction to act on Life. I see erupts in the ocean of our mind. But these waves are fragile and
illusory, once we catch these waves and give it a meaning to it may youths and many experienced executives are in search of disappear and get lost in our mundane way of operating life. Life is
congruency. At the age of 45, many are in the mode of searching precious so make your concerns precious.
and finding a foundation where they can lead the rest of their lives. Existence – The way of existence is the existence in our way of
I think it is a difficult task as years of conditioning has made a living. Do we exist? What I mean by existence is living soulfully or neural pattern that got established and many are partially addicted living with an authentic self who can't be penetrated or corrupted
by social dogmas and conditionings. Existence is a matter of to their own pattern. Everybody develops a pattern of living life as meaning making and meaning living. It is not that an end justifies we progress in our chronological age; we take in and accumulate the means rather the means has become a means for sailing, and
many pains, miseries, sufferings, trauma, emotional baggages, where the ends has dissolved and merged with the means. It is a hatred and afflictions. Also, we accumulate memories of state where the object has fused with subject to give a new
dimension and in this new dimension a new reality is formed to happiness, joy, wonder, affection, warmth. This becomes a cocktail extract a core that reveals the self to the self. The pursuit of the self and forms our habitual mind. Our habitual mind is that mind that by the self is selfhood. I strongly feel that it is this selfhood that
we are used to and it functions like an automata. The challenge is uplifts us from meaninglessness to meaningful. When we discover our pattern; a growth pattern, plateau pattern or a falling slope the meaningfulness in the process of flowering of self then we get
the nectar from our existence.pattern? On an average people's life mind cycle is patterned to
follow whatever is prescribed by the society. And we take it for
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
Moods – Our moods are like butterflies it keeps moving from contribution and your net worth in terms of what you value. flower to flower. Like a butterfly, moods itself are beautiful, I say it Life in its course gets stagnated and we get used to a comfortable beautiful as they have power to get engaged and shape and reshape. life. The ways to passion is to work and get in a flow.They are fluid by nature. Passion and mood has a connection, when
To flow is to remain in a state of a resolute path and the path can I say I am not in a good mood it means my emotion has taken a be -beating. A good emotion is precursor of a good mood. Our mood
has a mass and it can pull us down and drain us to remain aloof and lHave an unbending intent- Develop a habit of staying on this aloofness has a seed of depression. Many a times this purpose, if you are sure of it and your mind is aligned depression coalesce more depressions in our subconscious and don't let distraction distract you.immobilize us from any actions. Now you see here the role of our
lNurture the environment around and inside – It is one mood. So the challenge is to keep ourselves in an elevated mood
thing to have a seed and another to grow it. Have your and enjoy the butterfly and the flower. Life is colorful, sometimes
means to water your intent.we make it grey and many times our unintelligent way of living
lRemain fertile with openness – In the field of fertility, enhances the process of graying our life. Think how we can jump things get enriched. Let your mind be playful and be an back to the original color of life.observer of the Leela that's going around, this would
A Sufi's God is his Beloved. Sufis' anchor is LOVE- love to God bring you to the level of source where everything is in the
and everything, he has created. They are always in a state of a form of a potential.
lover's intoxication and their beauty is that, they express their lBe focused- In the knack of focusing your attention and intoxication ("masti") in poetry, which often becomes staota -
get a direction and becomes coherent. Remember divine vibrations. Rumi was one such poet, a unique dancing, anything which is coherent get hold of power and your singing and whirling poet. His life itself was a grand poem and an efforts become joyful.ecstatic dance.
lSeek fulfillment- When you are seeking fulfillment you Explore Passionare getting connected to your passion and passion in turn
l Keep the thought on “What am I doing here on earth?”gets your attention which in turn expands.
lBreathe life every moment and ask the significance of your stay"One person with passion is better than forty people merely
on earth. interested."- E. M. Forster
lHit yourself with a piercing question like should I continue the What matters for passionate living is determination. Determination way I have lived or living? is unwavering of human soul which is lit by a fire of purpose.
Eminent leaders like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, lStay connected with your emotions and ask if your emotions Soichiro Honda, and Rabindranath Tagore had noble goals and did are genuine?everything to translate their vision into reality. Few people can
lGet connected with yourself beyond yourself by remaining make a huge difference. These few people are those who are detached and let an answer emerge. enthusiastic and take life with a cause. Every person has a cause
Generally people live by and let life pass by. The question that and the difference lies in identifying and acting on it.bewilders me is: Has the intellect of humans evolved? Or Fortunate is he whose deeply felt purpose never vacillates, whose fallen...? slightest action or inaction serves the one noble aim for which he Majorities are in oblivion. Life is given to us to live and not to just can ruin his life. Deeply felt purpose comes through examining the dwell on. Passionate people are keen in a search and make a self with the self. This activity most of us are not good at and people meaning and keep searching till they shape their meaning and be pay it in due course through compromising life and accepting as it with their meaning. In the process of their search, sometimes it happens and keep happening.becomes immaterial for the progress but the outcome rarely Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Unless we matters as they enjoy the meaning for which they live. And success are with our essence and keep the essence alive, the crude life is comes as a bonus. going to takeover and we can get into a vortex of our own doings The path to Passion which eventually cannot be tamed and it plays a havoc with our
existence.Live with Zest and take rest. Unfortunately zest and rest are done in installments and so life offers the gifts in installments. We are not The crux remains in owning our lives with our core. To live from total. Passionate individual are deliberate and they keep working
our core is to live intentionally on their signature themes and polish it till they get excellence.
____________________________________________________Picasso was the father of the artistic movement known as Cubism. He created a new piece of art each day from the time he was twenty Mr. Sumit Royuntil his death at ninety–two. His contribution to the visual arts
Entrepreneurship Educator from NENencompassed 50,000 works of art including 1885 paintings, 1228 sculptures, 2880 ceramics, 18095 engravings, 9293 lithographs/linocuts, 11748 drawings, 11 tapestries and 8 rugs. Now that is a herculean work ethic. Take a stock of your
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20The Chanakya, March 2012
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Managing the IKEA way
Mr. Devashish Bajaj
To do business with a clear conscience is an attitude that pays. We have to find more time for ourselves and to regain respect for the environment in which we live.”- Ingvar Kamprad, “
founder IKEA.IKEA as we all know is a wondrous organization. It seems to have completely taken to its founder's philosophy of selling cheap prices goods with conscience. It started from a small town in Sweden and spread like a pandemic to every corner of the world making every place which came along its path to fall desperately in love with it. If innovation is something which is the call of the day then IKEA is about it and more. They belong to a world of changers who have managed to make history. They were the first company to come up with “flat Pack” furniture. The invention made though an accident as an employee tried to fit his newly bought table into the back of his car and out of sheer irritation decided to take off the legs and stuff the table in. This incident has been the reason for the phenomenal success of IKEA. It is a wonder that a company has managed to overcome all the hurdles that came its way and won so many hearts. Well the answer lies in the IKEA way of doing things for it is this that which has supported the company's success story. Let us look at the various management areas and techniques used by Ikea in each of these which finally led to its success.It may be hard to believe that such a massive firm could have such a humble beginning. Ingvar was 17 when he started IKEA from the money his father had given him for his studies. Under a shed in Alumhult which sold fountain pens, picture frame was start of a now 2.7 billion Dollar Company. It is interesting to know how the company still manages to remain number 1 in its business regardless of all the competitors lurking around. The main contributor for the same is the strategies followed by the company. Let us have a look at a few of the related strategies under various heads. FinanceFinance is an important aspect of every business. The decision of how a firm acquires its money and utilizes it affects both the present and the future of the company. IKEA had a humble beginning and has always known the importance of its monetary resources ever since its incorporation. One such strategy of IKEA is to borrow money locally. The advantage of borrowing money locally is that the cost of borrowing will be protected from inflation and exchange rate fluctuations. Investment money taken from reserves of other operations may not carry any interest cost and therefore be a cheaper source of investment is available.
OperationsOperations is what IKEA is known for. The major reason for its success is that it has been able to successfully implement breakthrough techniques. A few of which are:1. It finds the strangest of suppliers to supply the raw material required to produce the good. An industrial soup can supplier is the manufacturer of circular stylish and at some point fashionable buckets for IKEA since he is able to make the buckets within $10. Similarly, a trolley manufacturer makes the framework for its sofa called “moment”.The reason for this is actually quite logical. An industrial soup tin supplier purchases large sheets of metal to make his product for the soup company. The price at which he sable to sell his product to the soup company is quite less as compared to the
other steel utensil manufactures. Hence, he is an optimum choice for a supplier of metal bucket. A similar metal bucket was being sold in the market for $40.
2. The layout of the shop is an extra ordinary one which requires the visitor to go through each and every department. So as to say that if a person is looking to buy a bed then, he'll have to go through the model kitchens, bathroom etc until he reaches the desired area and upon selecting the required product he will have to cross all other departments before reaching the billing counter. This layout leads to impromptu purchases as the low prices make the customer greedy for more goods.
3. The Square feet area of an IKEA store is mostly above 25000 m sq thus the amount of stock maintained is high. Also the huge space gives a large space to showcase the product.
4. The extent to which IKEA is ready to go to procure its raw material is just horrifying and pleasantly surprising. The group was one of the only in the world to own a whole express train for transporting goods. Also, it has been said to have constructed many roads in Russia so that the procurement of material becomes easy. Also these roads were also to link the stores to the cities. The company procures material from around the globe. Its founder once came across a lot of chicken been killed for their meat and their feathers were being discarded in China. Using those feathers it was able to make soft pillows at the fraction of the cost incurred by the competitors.
5. IKEA follows a zero waste strategy. Waste is equivalent to crime. In fact even while transporting products IKEA tries to utilize the space to the maximum.The flat furniture concept thus is suitable for it as it assists minimizes the amount of space being consumed by air.
Marketing
Marketing is an aspect which can build and destroy a business. At Ikea the marketing policies are towards converting people from stable furniture to temporary ones. I t has been successful in breaking the European tradition of passing down ancestral furniture and created history by increasing the demand for not permanent cheap furniture. Not only this the company has been successful in converting the traditional Christians of Britain to visit Ikea o n Sundays rather than going for the Sunday church. The tactics used by IKEA are many some of which are:1. It uses innovative TV commercials to not only launch product in an economy but also to kill competition. It has in fact been observed that IKEA tends to do better in marketing when it faces steep competition. The best instance of this is when the company entered United Kingdom (UK). In their early years in the country the culture of UK was quite different from what it is today. People believed in passing down ancestral furniture to future generation. The “chuck out your Chitz” campaign directly targeted at luring the British customers to switch from their favorite brand Chitz and try IKEA product.
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2. IKEA is always a challenger in the market. It never tries to mingle in. It in fact always tries to differentiate itself in one sense of another. It is visible through its various campaigns which it run in different countries. In the late 90's they came out with the slogan “stop being so English, similarly in Switzerland they had a slogan “stop being so snobbish”.
3. A subway train decorated in IKEA style was introduced in Novosibirsk, Russia. The four cars were turned into a mobile showroom of the Swedish design. The redesigned train, featured colourful seats and fancy curtains, and also carried passengers.
4. It has been different in its ad campaigns as well. It was the first brand to come out with an advertisement which showed a Gay couple.
Strangely all these being different strategies seem to work well for IKEA as their sales speak for themselves. Makes many of the other businesses think if being different can really be that beneficial.Human ResourceAt IKEA the 'human resource' is given a lot of importance. They are in fact referred to as co-workers regardless of their position. IKEA's vision was "To create a better everyday life for the many people." 'People' included employees, customers, as well as the community. At IKEA a paternistic stance is adopted towards the employees. The company believes that by taking care of its employees it can reap the maximum benefit out of them. In the year 2005 IKEA was awarded
nd62 position by fortune magazine in its search for '100 best companies to work for'.
Thus we see that IKEA is a wonderful place to work at. An interesting fact about IKEA is that none of the top management enjoys any benefit such as a lavish room during business trip. Every co-worker is supposed to stay in cheap motels and survive on café food. It follows a lean organizational structure with minimum levels of middle level management. These things seem quite in contrast to other multinational companies and yet seem to work for IKEA. There is no dress code in the organization apart from the people who are in direct contact with the customers. If the management wishes to interact with the customers even they have to be in the dress code.
Looking at all these aspects about IKEA which seem to contradict our traditional believes, one may wonder how is it that a company with such odd ways of doing things a success. Perhaps the answer lies in the question. It is all these things which are different which have led to the company's success. After all as it is saying goes- “winners don't do different things, they do things differently”. Thus, IKEA is a winner not because it does different things but, because it does them in its own unique manner
Mr. Devashish BajajPGDM-I (Harihar Campus)
References :l Great brand stories IKEA by Elen Lewis.l www.wikipedia.org
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My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our
eyes to see.
- Muhammad Yunus
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KIAMS
My Experience of PRAGATI
Mr. Pawan Singh
rticulating feelings and expressions for PRAGATI has never
been easy for anyone from any batch and so this challenge-Acum-opportunity came knocking at my door by none other than the
Chanakya Reps. Pragati, as is known to everyone officially, is the
annual rural trade and marketing fair which first year students of
every batch have been organizing for more than a decade now.
Unfortunately, it is always perceived roughly to be a selling
activity, meant only for marketing people initially but fortunately
always ends up giving much more than that to everyone involved in
it. Trust me and trust moreover the scenario of our batch post-
Pragati that everyone has got something to add to what we call in
MBA as “KSA”. I now undoubtedly agree to one of the statements
of our alumni, Mr. Basharat, where he mentioned, - “Pragati is an
opportunity to understand the entire management skills, i.e. MBA
in 3 days” and rightly said that that these three days will remain
with us for our entire life as the Best Days at KIAMS.
This live project of KIAMS- PRAGATI got their new
representatives in October, who started putting in their efforts
towards realizing this dream. I must appreciate their remarkable
leadership without which Pragati would not have reached new
heights. Starting from making vision, mission, and objective for
the execution, this year Pragati took a new shape by becoming a
365 days event, having research based orientation and taking
initiatives for upliftment of rural entrepreneurs and self help
groups. Similarly after few meetings, likeminded people joined
hands to make this year's Pragati a grand success and a historical
one. What I personally feel about Pragati is that it is nothing but
'People management'. The difficulties I faced throughout were to
keep everyone motivated towards achieving the common goal of
Pragati with academic classes going on parallel. Now having seen
the whole thing I must say that the whole credit goes to the
dedicated team of B-14 with continuous support from seniors,
faculty mentors and the management.
I want to make one confession through this article- Initially, when I
took the responsibility of prospecting companies for bringing
revenues for the Pragati, I felt that it was the most difficult and
critical job but as the work progressed and D-day kept coming
nearer with pressure mounting up, I watched every person
involved and realized that their work was equally difficult and
important. Be it promotions, where my friends climbed every legal
and illegal walls and poles for putting the Pragati banners,
distributed pamphlets by standing along the roadside, doing road
shows and auto-miking, overcoming the Kannada language barrier
and doing an outstanding work. Finance team did their job extra-
ordinarily by taking care of every reimbursements and also
maintaining the finance records and never let any work stop due to
lack of finance. Kudos to operations team for making the
masterpiece layout and most importantly accommodating every
promise that prospecting teams did to companies at the eleventh
hour also. I can never forget to mention the stupendous job done by
Cultural team as they kept every stakeholder of Pragati entertained
and made it enjoyable with hunting superb performances from all
the nearby areas. I must admit, Harihar and the nearby areas have
immense talent pools. The kids were absolutely amazing at the
various competitions- drawing, mehendi, dance, singing & many
more. We are still mesmerized after seeing their performances.
Hats off to the people who were taking care of legal permissions
and needless to say that this was impossible without their sincere
efforts. I know all this was never easy and that is why when I look
back to those golden days of Pragati, which genuinely gave a
direction to my life , it brings tears to my eyes and what is more
important is that it has added a fresh and true impression for
everyone who are here in KIAMS. It left a big impression in my
heart and mind. Along with the success of Pragati, I gained the
confidence to make the right choices in life. It was a lesson well
learnt which will stay with me forever in every step I take towards
achieving my goals
Mr. Pawan Singh,
PGDM-I, KIAMS (Harihar Campus)
23
.
If all the world hated give and believed you wicked, while you own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt,
you would not be without friends.
- Charlotte Bronte
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
GLIMPSES
For the first time ever in the history of Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies, HR Meet was organised which turned out to be a great success. The theme of the HR Meet was “Next to Best”. In this meet, top HR executives from different sectors were invited and they shared their experiences on the best HR practices on different fronts like Recruitment, Talent Management, etc, which the company follows.
The day started with the invocation ceremony. Dr. Janaki Naik commenced the programme by introducing Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies. She threw light on the journey of KIAMS to establish itself as a centre of excellence, year by year endurance to develop the students to become effective and ethical corporate executives.
The first Guest Speaker of the day was Mr Sarabjeet Sawhney, Deputy Vice President HDFC Bank. His agenda was “Role of Training in Critical HR Functions”. He began with employee engagement and research which is required in this area for increased productivity. He said attrition is a big challenge in the industry today. Attrition is 5 20 % among the various industries and it leads to a lot of cost for the company because if people are leaving the organizations then it leads to recruiting new people, training new employees & putting them into the field. So, employee retention is very important for every organization.
He said that training is one of the most important functions in the HR today and it plays a major role in engaging the employees, retention of the employees and productivity enhancement. People always question us about the productivity of employees, our cost management & our ability to get the required output from the employees. Obviously, training intervention does this job. He took the example of Sales Job. Productivity of a single employee in a sales management team is say 10 products per month, with proper training it can be doubled; there can be 100% improvement in this productivity. It is not easy but it is very much possible through training interventions. The key areas for training are knowledge, skill and the learning attitude and up to some extent the habits also. Hence the factor for training could be advancement of knowledge but only knowledge is not sufficient, so we look at the skill factors also. Attitude & habits contribute to a great extent towards the training program.
Now training plays a major role in maintaining the expectations of the company as well the employee and it is also very important to setup a connection between the two which happens during the initial training of the employee. So retention can be taken care of, by early intervention as well as future intervention by the training department. Therefore, the role of a trainer is very critical and important because of today's synergic job development where attrition is a major issue.
There is a model called Pro-Test in which he has experience over a period of 15 years. Pro-test means 7P behaviours which are important for trainers to deliver the session in a most effective way.
st1 P is procedural means sharing the objective at the starting of the presentation. Next is R, which means researching through probing, asking questions, because only trainer would be able to understand the needs of employees. And last is E meaning exhibiting through imparting knowledge, role plays and supporting the group. Lastly he said training always add to the cost of the company and the owner always asks himself that if I am investing so much money in training what is the outcome, what are the results and that is why there is evaluation system in the organization to measure the effectiveness at various levels.
As per the new model, there are 5 levels of measuring the training
st functions performance according to Curve matrix. The 1 level is what the reaction was immediately after the training program means how the participants felt about the training program & it is very important for the trainer to bring about real change in the mindset by giving challenges and challenging the crowd. The next level is learning about the changes, is there any change in their
rdlevel of knowledge and to find that, surveys can be done. 3 level is job application and it means actually implementing learning which
thhe got during the workshops. 4 level is a business result which means whether there is any impact of training on business and it is quite easy to evaluate, for example, performance of a sales person. The ultimate level is return on investment, the change in productivity in comparison to the cost. With this he winded up the session.
After that Mr. Deepak Deshpande- VP-HR, NetMagic Solutions gave his insights on “Total Reward Management”. He explained how smart managers reward their employees and make building blocks for rewards. He also said talent management is one of the key strategic areas of HR. People are the key because they are going to manage resources later on. It starts with landscaping talent and all strategies to be aligned to the business.
He also gave one mantra of HR “Engaging the talent rightly & fruitfully”. He ended his conversation by saying one size does not fit for all.
On the query that attrition is always bad for organization, Mr. Deepak Deshpande responded that People staying at one position for long time and also not moving out of organization are hurdles in HR and Talent Management. That means organization is paying to them much higher than their market value.
It will be better if they leave and new talent come in at a lower cost. HR is not only about people, it is about people in business. HR cannot exist without this context. Managing people majorly depends on the generation. Generation X has problem of scanty whereas generation Y has problem of plenty. Resources which do not add value after crossing all interventions need to be checked out. Generation X has a lot of ego clashes, for instance, a situation wherein a person with 25 year of experience reports to a person with 8 years experience.
Mr.Vishal Kukreja, Senior Vice President- Human Resources, Dhanalakshmi Bank Ltd. spoke on the following key-points:
l Whatever we learn & execute, it should be simple. The simpler the thing, the more easily understandable it is and better chances of achieving objectives. HR should be more data-centric rather than being feeling-centric. Now-a-days great amount of tools are available to do that.
lHR is nothing if we remove the context . Initially when concept of selling insurance came, heavy incentives were given to sales force on number of insurance, whatever may be the size of insurance.
lThere are some roles in organization which requires teams and some roles in organization w h i c h r e q u i r e s individuals
Nikhil Dani-HR Manager at Arya Infotech Ltd. talked about recruitment saying the most important areas in H R a r e recruitment. Everything starts with recruitment and everything ends with recruitment. Due to current slowdown in economy, fresher recruitment has slowed down but middle level hiring is still on. Due to slowdown risks in IT industry, people in IT i n d u s t r y are trying to change industry, some of them choosing to become entrepreneurs.
24
HR MEET- “Next to Best”
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
Whenever you apply for any job position you should know the
correct job description of that position.
Post lunch session was initiated by Dr. Gopal Iyengar, Director of
KIAMS who gave in depth input about basis of curriculum
designing in KIAMS with the words that “Our customers to a large
extent are students and after we equip student with abilities and
potential to work our customers are ready to face the industry.
For this we have fundamental basic subjects like economics which
is given management orientation. Some of the subjects are
compulsory and some subjects we allow students to pick and
choose depending upon their interest, competency and so on. They
also get an understanding of strategic level subjects” This triggered
industry people for putting their thought process and giving few
valuable tips to be added in designing of curriculum.
Ms. Sophia Almeida- Head-Corporate Recruitment, Siemens IT
Solutions opened up discussion with IT recruitments. She said that
demands are quite low in market, gave an example of engineering
college where there are 20 lacs candidate pass-outs with a demand
of 2 lacks. Also advised that fresher should learn from GEN X
where people are working continuously for 10 years in same
organization.
Mr. Vinod Bidwaik- DSM INDIA spoke about the holistic
recruitment procedure. He gave a very Good hint to candidates that
you can make out the organization status if you look into their
recruitment procedure.
They poured knowledge about recruitment and dealt with queries
regarding fresher's recruitment, what are the do's and don't(s) for a
fresher and said “A fresher in industry should not look for a
specific role or position; this should not be the attitude of a fresher.
He or she should be open to learn new things and should get well
acquainted with the industry first”
Inquisitive and satisfied audience put forth various questions
regarding interviews, the answers to which were given.
Mr. Shreejeet Mulyee- Sr Manager - HR Cognizant Technology
Solutions laid down a presentation about the contribution of
Facebook, Google and the web to HR and its transformation. In
last ten years, a lot of things have changed, not only in
organizations but also outside them, the way we speak to our
friends, family, colleagues etc. He talked about how world had
become a global village at a click of a button. He ended the
presentation with a question for us to think upon, “In the era of
information bombardment, which information to use is vital?” It
is on us to take the decision wisely.
After the presentation, our Placement Executive- Ms Shruti Das,
delivered a vote of thanks followed by the closing ceremony.
Transcripted By-
Ms. Richa Rastogi & Mr.Bhooshan Khadgi
PGDM-I (Pune Campus)
25
Samanvay 2012: Walking Down the Memory Lane
he word “SAMANWAY” means cooperation, harmony and communion. It inspires a person at three levels of T
existence -
1. Relationship in one's own life (Self)
2. Relationship towards others (Social)
3. Relationship towards nature (Environment)
KIAMS, a 14 year old management college has a tradition of building a family with all the members who are associated with the organization.
Samanvay is a day celebrated yearly with all the alumni of KIAMS family. It is a celebration of togetherness, revitalizing the old memories that are associated with all the family members of KIAMS for lifetime.
stThis year also, the celebration of Samanvay was held on 21 and
nd22 January 2012, at the Pune campus. The preparation started a month back from the day of celebration, from collecting the alumni data to the making of invitation card, calling them for the function and making all possible arrangements for them. It was so much fun working together to make this event a success. Students were engaged in dance and song rehearsals and some were busy with hospitality arrangement, in a nutshell every individual tried his level best to make Samanvay memorable.
Finally the day arrived; the sun rose with its shimmering light, its warm rays cutting through the chilly the winds and enveloping everyone in its warmth and with this the alumni entered the campus
with a bright smile. The ceremony then started with hosting the flag of KIAMS followed by thein vocation. The lighting of the lamp was done by Dr. Gopal Iyengar and Dr.Janaki Naik, the alumnirepresentatives of B-13 and B-14, & our chief guest Ms. Giribala. Thereafter Ms. Giribala Dewasthal enlightened us with a beautiful speech followed by few of our alumni sharing their industry experience which was an eye opener for us.
The present alumni representatives introduced themselves and the presentation of Pragati was shown followed by the meeting held regarding the formation of Alumni Association. Then came the time for which we were extremely curious and that was the interactive session with the alumni, it was great talking to them and getting to know their life at KIAMS and in industry and we proceeded for lunch. Post lunch session was focussed on some of the activities which would remind our alumni of their college life….. Games like tug of war, kite flying, pottery making and T-shirt painting were organized for them and they thoroughly enjoyed it and so did we. The evening came with the twinkling stars in the sky, the moon was up there and our entire campus was decorated as if the stars have come down for the celebration. Then was the time for some real entertainment, the cultural night was arranged with dance, songs and skit performances by the students and even by some alumni which was like cherry on the cake. With lots of experience sharing, fun and frolic we proceeded for our next event of Ashwamedha, the sports event of KIAMS.
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
The lamp was illuminated by our alumni and present sports Post lunch, we took our alumni for outing to a nearby Pawna dam.
representative and then there was the prize distribution followed by It was then the time for their departureand the event to end.
the lighting the torch of Ashwamedha and running it through the With time flower blossoms, with time they wither away,entire campus. The night was turning dark and the breeze lowered
With time the dawn breaks and its time that ends the day,its temperature, and amongst this there was a delicious dinner
followed by rock-band performance and a born fire. It was Where nothing seems to last forever, one thing always stays,
heavenly sitting under the open sky with our alumni around the It's the strength of hearts blessings that defines times ways.born-fire and top of that having rabri n jalebi, which was
Everything comes to an end, so does the student life at KIAMS, but absolutely marvellous.
SAMANVAY calls all the loved ones to relive those memoriesThe day ended and everybody went to sleep, but the curiosity of
next day's event kept us awake. Morning again knocked the door Ms. Tulika Raj
and everybody met at the breakfast and followed by it was the PGDM-I, KIAMS (Pune Campus) session of some adventurous activities like rappelling and spider
web.
26
.
Exerpts from the speech delivered by Mrs. Giribala Dewasthale.
On the day of SAMANVAY 2012
“Thank you for this opportunity given to me by KIAMS, I have So one framework is the institute driven one, and the second
always wanted to visit your lovely campus. So here I am to share framework is the alumni driven one. First we look at the institute
some of my thoughts with you regarding the importance of alumni driven one wherein the contact with the alumni is driven by the
for an institute and as all of you know I have been associated with institute, faculty, staff and current students. In the alumni driven
IMDR for over a decade now. framework, alumni come together to form a mechanism to interact
with the institute in which case the nature and level of interaction It just came to my mind that the status of an alumnus is very easily with the institute is largely driven by the alumni. I'm not suggesting acquired. To spend two years in an institute and then suddenly that these models are mutually exclusive, they are not but becoming an alumnus, and the real question is whether you and the whichever framework you choose there are really same activities institute want to sustain this relationship. There has to be this that need to be performed to take this relationship to the next level. willingness on both sides to sustain such a relationship and in many The most important activity is tracking alumni i.e. where they are ways they are a statement of the calibre of an institute. Obviously located, there contact information etc. so tracking and institutes want to forge a very strong bond with alumni, but in my communicating this constantly is a very important activity for experience often both parties do not have a clear idea as to why they furthering this particular relationship and generating interest for want to forge this bond. Things sort of emerge over a period of time both the institute as well as the alumni group. Sharing information and if both parties like the picture that emerges they engage in it, about what is happening in the institute or sharing information and if they don't like the picture they lose interest and then this about the alumni and movements or achievements in the alumni relationship doesn't become a sustainable one. I think the real group is another important activity which needs to be performed. question is how an institute and alumni should forge this interest
before they can go forward with it. Like every relationship this also And the third important activity of course is to create opportunities
has give and take elements. to engage with each other. So to my mind these are the three
important things, one is to get information and maintain database, Alumni can take placement initiatives for the institute and can second is to share and communicate and third is to provide provide support for projects and internships. Alumni can also be an opportunities to engage in. integral part of teaching, learning and curriculum development.
But what is it that an alumnus wants? Alumni look for recognition What one finds is that in the institute driven model a lot of
or acknowledgement from the institute regarding their resources are made available for this purpose, there are students
achievement. Alumni look to the institute for information who are maintaining an alumni database, constantly tracking
regarding the batch, source of information for networking and alumni, identifying alumni who are not there in the database so on
nostalgia value.I believe there are two frameworks with the help of and so forth.
which institute and alumni can get engaged with each other. The seeds of that are sown when you are here for two years so the
relationship with alumni actually begins with your role as a student
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
27
in the institute, and that also depends on whether the relationship is transactional or personal. I think it's pragmatic to take into account that every institute has two sets of alumni, those who are committed to the institute and those who are indifferent. So essentially when you are talking about forging relationship you are really talking about committed alumni or we hope to turn more alumni into committed alumni for that all our activities have to be geared towards that objective. The larger your base for committed alumni the better your engagement, something like loyal customers. If you look at committed alumni then it may be observed that committed alumni resent a transactional relationship. For instance they resent being invited only for placements and that's something they really don't like. It has been my observation that alumni like to be a part of the institutional landscape so they want to be invited for guest lectures, designing curriculum and so on.
I also feel alumni make some of the best teachers for the institute because we must remember that the values, cultures of the institute are internalised by the alumni, they also understand the teaching and learning processes. Narayan Murthy has gone on record to say this is the most underutilized resource of the institute. I would like to stress that teaching, learning is a very good way of engaging with the alumni and so it doesn't become transactional. Recognition is also very important to the alumni. Some come back for the nostalgia value; it is also only possible in an institutional driven framework. As peers alumni can meet outside in a restraint, book into a hotel and interact with each other but there is a nostalgic value of coming back to the physical space inside the campus and interacting with the teachers, staff members. If the teachers remembers the episodes from the batch the students are really happy, this is very valuable to them they like to see what the institute has done, the additional thing that they have come up and slowly the communication proceeds to how can the alumni contribute and this develops in a very spontaneous manner and is probably the best way to develop the institutional driven model.
This although also has drawbacks, if the alumni come back after 10 years and meet the new faculty, they feel somehow distant from the institute and they are unwilling to engage. They come to alumni meet but don't see any familiar faces and walkout; that is an issue and it's up to the institute to reach out to them.
In the alumni driven model the commitment to the three mentioned activities is secondary as the time is a very big constraint, so to take this activity forward you need to have a time commitment. When alumni's choose the agenda and level of interaction with institute and each other it is possible that institute's role may get reduced and they might derive benefits from just interacting and there might not be much scope for the institute. In fact in Pune a lot of institutes have their x-students association like the St. Mary's old girl association, they interact with each other and that's the end of it. And also I must say that alumni must be careful in choosing the alumni members who play an active role otherwise its degenerates the purpose of alumni's and is driven by their personal agenda. The inkling that I got from the interaction with some of you is that you are just starting an alumni association.
Alumni's as stakeholders form the part and parcel of the organization structure. Somewhere they may be the part of the advising council and I know that in places like Howard and Wharton there is even a part of management council that is handled by the alumni's. So then the alumni play an active role in the future of the institute. So what is institutionalising? This is what we must try and understand.
There are a couple of advantages, one there is continuity also it's not person centric so the institute becomes the art of the centre piece and there is a meaningful f forum for each other. And these were thought which I wanted to share with you and this should be food for thought. With this I would like to end my key note speech. Wish you the best in your initiative and wish you a great year ahead. Thank you”.____________________________________________________
(Prof. Giribala Dewasthale-Alumni Assoc. Head at IMDR, Pune )
ostalgia 2012!!! It was a moment that saw all wallowed in Nfeeling its intensity, reading through the moments of togetherness. It definitely was a tantalising & worthwhile experience, which created memories for a lifetime.
Nostalgia Day is an initiative of the institute to invite three batches at a time alternatively every year to each campus, Harihar and Pune. For Nostalgia 2012, batches 10, 11 and 12 were
th thinvited on the 4 and 5 February to the Harihar campus to come and experience their nostalgic space.
The event started at 5 in the evening with the cultural program-the scintillating and zealous performances by the students set the stage ablaze. And, adding to the ever burgeoning fervour, some electrifying songs by our very own alumni perfectly wrapped up the cultural night. What came out as a bolt from the blue was Dr.Gopi's enthralling song. The cultural was followed by a gala, lavish pool-side dinner with the mouth-watering Rajasthani delights along with fireworks emblazoning the skies. The taste is still relished by all of us. Now, all of us were ready to bang the dance floor at the D.J night. After midnight, we could enjoy the bonfire along with midnight snacks.
The next day started with the early morning sports-cricket and football which filled the air with rejuvenating spirit followed by fulfilled games of musical chair, tricks and treat, lotto etc. which lasted till evening.
It was elating to interact with our alumni, sharing their experiences, learning from them and of course having such a wonderful time with them. With a heavy heart and a hope to meet everyone again very soon, we bid adieu to all the alumni and with this our two day carnival came to an end.
After putting in a lot of hard work, a lot of timeless efforts and support, sleepless nights with coruscating hopes by the students, it left us with a beatific feeling. On behalf of AlumTrak team, I take this opportunity to thank each and everyone (with a special Thank You to Dr. Gopal Iyengar) who was a part of Nostalgia 2012 together with whose efforts we saw the Diaspora of Nostalgia blossoming
Ms. Ankita Mittal
PGDM-I, KIAMS (Harihar Campus)
NOSTALGIA 2012
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The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
On The Edge
Prof. Atul Kulkarni
stepped on the terrace of the two-storeyed building where the
atmosphere was colourful and festive. The briefing had started Iand about 20 eager students were making mental notes of the crisp
instructions coming from the instructor- not devoid of dark
humour. “The right hand has to hold the rope loosely while the left
is used to release (feed) the rope. 'Mistakes could kill' was the
message”.
The first batch of 8 students was soon strapped in the climbing
harness.
Then the first student crossed the terrace wall. I watched with rapt
concentration as he was preparing for the descent. I heard the
instructions- “Stand on the edge with your back to the edge. Feed
some rope with your left hand.” He did it successfully and was soon
on his way down like a spider. What was going on in his mind is
something I cannot say, but he certainly seemed elated with his
experience. The story repeated many times. The next batch was
soon being strapped-in and I was one of them.
I was courteously handed a helmet by a student. (Helmets were the
last part of the gear and in short supply). I accepted it gratefully as a
small privilege of being a faculty. I was the next to go. I stepped
over the wall of the terrace on a narrow parapet which was about 2
feet wide. Our instructor stood on the narrow extension with the
assuredness of a Nilgiri Tahr. I had seen him standing there for the
last one hour but now I was acutely aware of his presence. I found
myself holding a pole near the wall with my right hand, with the
edge of the building to my left. I am not terrified of heights though I
cannot claim to be terribly fond of them either.
I was quickly and efficiently buckled up. I heard the familiar
instructions and as I had mentally rehearsed for this moment a
couple of times earlier, I felt it should not be a problem.
I complied but then suddenly- My mind stopped.
The body had to protect itself. It sensed self- destruction. It had
taken over from the intellect. The self- preservation routine was
activated within the being without asking for my permission. I
could see that my right hand had grabbed the rope tightly. It was
clinging for life. My intellect knew that this was not the right thing
to do. But like a treacherous friend, it Had deserted me in the
moment of need. I could actually see my hand holding the rope
tightly.
I stared at my hand wanting to release the grip but I was unable to
so. I stood mesmerized. I could clearly feel the rope held tightly in
my right hand through the gloves. I felt a raw panic. In a few
moments the instructor in his calm and firm voice asked me to
loosen my grip. Then the grip was released. And with it
miraculously the fear evaporated. The rope was fed with the left
hand. I was totally oblivious of the young faces that must have been
staring at me. I heard instructions to step over the edge. The
instructions seemed to come from a distance though their source
was a mere 20 inches away. I complied. The intellect was still
nowhere in sight. No thoughts- No fear.
'Take a step down' I heard from somewhere- I did it. I was climbing
down- quite composed. After a couple of steps, I heard a loud cheer
from the students. I didn't even think of acknowledging.
After a few steps, the first thought re-emerged in the mind- I must
be near the second floor.
I continued- It became a routine. Suddenly I realised I was a couple
of feet above the ground. One more step on the wall and a jump and
I was on the ground. I was slightly shaken. No sense of triumph, no
fear. Momentarily I was frozen the experience seemed so
complete that time and I were stilled. Soon the intellect returned in
its full force. But for a few moments I had peeped within myself.
The words of Walt Whitman come to my mind-
“I contradict myself- I am large- I contain multitudes.”
I may not have experienced multitudes but had definitely become
aware of two 'me's.
Interestingly I write with the same intellect that had deserted me.
The other me is again lost below the babbling mind. What did I
learn from the experience?
Firstly- My intellect is shallow. There is more to me than the
intellect. When it comes to doing the unknown and the stakes are
huge, the other me takes charge.
Secondly- I need two anchors to venture into the unknown. The
physical anchor- the ropes and the aluminium clips which will
protect me from a free fall- and the psychological anchor- the
human- the leader standing at the edge who helps me to transcend
fear
Prof. Atul Kulkarni
Kirloskar Institute of Adanced Management Studies.
28
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The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
Brand Update
Mr. Puneet Sharma & Ms. Laxmi Gupta
INTEX AVATAR 3D:
Intex has released one of its
unique creation “AVATAR
3D” which very easily
converts 2D images and
videos into 3D images and
Video with a touch. The
As the product's USP and trying to leverage on it by gaining the
competitive advantage via product differentiation. This product
has been priced aggressively @ Rs.3690 looking at the highly
competitive market. Product features & specifications are as
ll In a huge embarrassment to the government and a jolt to
Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) worth the telecom sector, the Supreme Court on February 2, $10.4 billion, which has been in the pipeline for almost a cancelled 122 2G licenses granted during the tenure of decade, appears set to go to French company Dassaul t .
India's order for the Rafale fighter aircraft, which former telecom minister A Raja declaring it as "illegal" currently serves only the French Air Force and Navy, will and blamed the government's flawed first-come-first be a huge win for the French company, which has only
served policy. The Supreme Court also put to an end the succeeded in winning a small contract to sell a few planes allegations on the Home Minister being part of 2G scamto Brazil until now
.lOnce, the subject of a popular 1973 song, "Kodachrome,"
lIn a way to give some relief to market and borrowers, RBI by Paul Simon, Eastman Kodak Co, the photography icon
in its third quarterly review of monetary policy came out that invented the hand-held camera, has filed for with the decision to cut Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by 50 bankruptcy protection and plans to shrink significantly,
capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best- basis points which might result in softening of interest known companies. The Chapter 11(bankruptcy) filing rates. This decision will pump Rs. 32000 crore as makes Kodak one of the biggest corporate casualties of
primarily liquidity into the system.the digital age, after it failed to quickly embrace more modern technologies such as the digital camera – Ironically, a product it invented. lFacebook files its plan to raise $5 billion though it's first
Initial Public Offering (IPO) and has chosen Morgan
Stanley to take the lead on its planned IPO. Set to be the lAs announced, Wikipedia's main page was “blackened” biggest ever IPO, Facebooks's expected valuation is
on January 18 in protest of the controversial Stop online nearly twice the amount of money, Indians spent last year privacy act. The so-called SOPA blackout — protesting buying bread and cereals.(Rs. 2.9 lakh crore)the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA for short) in the House
of Representatives and the Protect IP Act in the Senate — lStarbucks in a 50-50 partnership with Tata Global has spread across the web, perhaps the most widespread Beverages is set to open its first outlet this year in August-online lobbying effort ever coordinated by Internet September and plans to have 50 stores in operation by the entities. The bills were intended to protect movie makers, end of this year. The formal launch of the company's retail music publishers and other providers of online content foray into India comes a year after it signed a deal with who fear that in the digital age, people can copy what Tata Global to buy coffee from India and open retail they've created and spread it without paying for it. outlets in the country.
The largest military contract in India's history for 126
.
The Chanakya, March 2012
KIAMS
ANSWERS OF BIZ QUEST
Across
2. IKEA started in a shed in_____5. Aam Aadmi Campaign creator6. Western Efficiency and dynamism combined with Indian spiritual values will create the best management system in the
World- is said by7. the stage of asceticism, where one renounces all worldly attachments to find the “Divine” or the “Moksha".8. The father of the artistic movement known as Cubism
Down
1. A holy book.Exemplar of Indian spiritual richness3. tops the fortune 100 Best Companies to 'Work For' list4. VP-HR and Administration, Eka Software Solutions6. A best way to relax
l A Kite-Flying event was organized at the Harihar Campus on 17.01.12 on the festive occasion of Makar-Sankranti.l Republic Day was celebrated on 26.01.12 in KIAMS.l SAMANVAY 2012 was held in the Pune campus beginning on 22.01.12, and, NOSTALGIA DAY was celebrated in the Hairhar Campus from 04.02.12. Both the events were held for 2 days each, where the students experienced a
healthy interaction with the alumni about the industry and corporate life.l ASHWAMEDHA- The Annual Sports Event was held successfully. l MDP, Fast trackers assessment, training and competency mapping of K-Group employee was held for 8days in Pune
campus of KIAMS.l PRAGATI 2012- the annual marketing fair, a 3-day event, beginning from 12.02.12 was organized by the students
of KIAMS in Harihar.l Batch 14 students of KIAMS attended the CII-National Retail Summit- 2012, Mumbai, “Realising the Indian
consumption potential in Retail” on 16.02.12.l Picnic trip to the Lion Safari in Shimoga for Harihar Campus and Nagaon Beach for Pune campus was organized by
the college.l GULMOHAR Day was celebrated on 18.02.12 in the Harihar Campus. Exciting games, followed by a sumptuous
dinner & a DJ party marked the day.l The Farewell Programme for Batch-13 was organized by the college.
Team Chanakya gives special thanks to Mr. Ayush Gupta, Ms. Shabbun Bhatia, Ms. Khushboo Vijayvargiya, Ms.
Bhavani Devi, Ms. Laxmi Gupta for their valuable contributions in March, 2012 issue of The Chanakya.
