The Yale Great Lakes Conference started with the inaugural address from Dr. Venkat Krishnan, the conference chairman. 

Venkat Krishnan, Director, Yale Great Lakes Center for Management Research

He said that western models were not relevant to this country and that there was a need to build a body of knowledge. According to him, “This conference brings together the thoughts of various scholars and the body of knowledge is enriched. We have a group of excellent speakers who will be talking on various areas of management.”

Dr Bala Balachandran, Founder and Honorary Dean, Great Lakes Institute of Management

Welcome Address

Dr. Bala, the Dean of Great Lakes welcomed one and all to the 3rd Yale Great LakesConference. He said that it was important to push the frontiers of management education and be on the cutting edge. One of the initiatives was the Yale Great LakesManagement Research Conference. He said “we are happy to have Dr. Venkat , who is spear heading Leadership influence and Power as a discipline at Great Lakes. Great Lakes requires its students to do an empirical study in a functional area of management. There are close to 80 faculty members who guide the research of these students”. Talking about the other research initiatives, he said “The second initiative is the Great Lakes NASMEI Marketing Conference spearheaded by Dr.Seenu Srinivasan. He has put Chennai on the management education map with the work done”. Talking about the progress Great Lakes had made, he said “we have 12 full time faculty members. Just as Kellogg is known for marketing excellence, we are focusing onmarketing at Great Lakes and to this effect 4 of our permanent faculty are from themarketing background. We will be soon having a journal in the marketing arena. We are also planning to have the formal inauguration of the new campus by the prime minister of India”. 

Deepak Jain. Dean, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Inaugural Address

He started on a lively note with an alternate introduction for himself. Talking about the Indian education system, he said “Indian parents concentrate on giving their children the best education. He cites this as the differentiating factor that will keep India ahead”. He said that people question whether students come to management school to learn or to earn. The teachers that taught their students all these financial instruments bear some indirect responsibility since they should teach the risks associated with the instruments as well. HBS started with the concept of a pedagogical tool called case studies. This was the philosophy for a long time from 1950-70. Late 60s and early 70s took a big shift. Dr.Seenu Srinivasan and Dr.Bala etc. applied their research background to management problems and this was the turning point in management education. People from operations research, economics, anthropology etc. used their concepts to solve management problems and thus there was a paradigm shift from case studies to analytical concepts. Business strategy was nothing but an application of game theory. These were the years that faculty from different branches got into management education and lot of research papers were published. Therefore this constituted the phase of research and analysis from the 70s to the 90s. Then 90s was a revolution due to the advent of new interactivity through the internet. With technology people started leveraging it to save time etc. In 2001, people started to question b-schools. People questioned the Friedman theory of maximizing only shareholder value. Enron was the key spark provider. Rather than ROI the new mantra was return on integrity. This gave birth to CSR. People of his generation grew up in an environment of constrained optimization. This resulted in three major characteristics.
Ø Dealing with ambiguity: He said that ‘we do control what should be done moving forward’. ‘Uncertainty is inevitable, worrying is optional’. In this generation, no concept of constrained optimization exists. The present generation does not recognize that ambiguity can exist and therefore are ill-equipped to deal with it.

Ø Ability to anticipate: The way the conference arrangements were made pointed to the fact that there was enough room for changes which indicated the ability to anticipate.

Ø Ability to adapt: After doing his PhD he was told that mathematics isn’t going anywhere which is why Dr. Seenu, Dr.Bala and him shifted to management. He moved to marketing. Going from Tejpur, Assam to the US and adapting is something that his generation has accomplished successfully, he opined. In a joint family system the advantage was that they tend to deal with diversity better. They learnt to compromise at a young age itself. 

Management education  should deal with the art of dealing with situations. Freedom is good but cannot be extended to infinite limits as has happened today. 

Kellogg  curriculum is being defined along the four pillars.

Ø Intellectual depth: Curiosity to ask the professor why something happened and under what conditions it wouldn’t happen.
Ø Experiential learning: Like medicine in which after receiving the degree you are required to go through internship for a fixed period before you can actually practice, they have buy out labs where students are trained by alumnus’ on practical equity trading etc.
Ø Global emphasis: He said that any country that attains superpower status or any organization attains it because of one factor: relative tolerance of diversity. By diversity it means diversity of thoughts. Welcoming diversity has to be a part of the curriculum and it is the real source of innovation. The concept of independent directors on the board has come about like this. 
Ø Social responsibility and leadership: Kellogg campaign currently is to move from success to significance. Management schools should focus on creating leaders. He ended the talk by saying “In life you have to live with the conditions that we are in. People leave people, people don’t leave companies. Be the best b-school not only in the world but for the world”.

Dr.Seenu Srinivasan, Professor of Marketing, Stanford University

Keynote Address

Dr.Seenu Srinivasan began his talk by talking about the progress Great Lakes had made. He went on to talk about a research paper he had worked on which dealt with customer priorities. He posed the question “Why is the measurement of customer priorities important?” and he said “There is a fixed amount of development time for a product. That is where the assessment of customer priorities becomes important eg software.
This also finds application in defining priorities among different research topics at the Marketing Research Institute, USA”. He talked about the focus on an individual level measurement of a large number of customer priorities. He talked about the 3 methods for the measurement of customer priorities namely Constant Sum, Max Difference Scaling and Adaptive self explication. The adaptive self implication method was developed by Dr.Seenu and he demonstrated that it was one of most accurate methods of assessing customer priorities. 

Zubin Mulla, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
Venkat R Krishnan, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai

Topic: Do Karma Yogis make better leaders? Exploring the relationship between the Leader’s karma-yoga and transformational leadership

They presented a paper which validates James Macgregor Burns’ hypothesis that moral development is a critical qualification of transformational leaders. Mr Zubin said that morality is conceptualized as Karma Yoga, a technique for performing actions such that the soul is not bound by the results of the actions. He also explained that Karma Yoga has three dimensions namely duty-orientation, indifference to rewards and equanimity. They studied 205 leader-follower pairs to investigate the impact of leaders’ karma yoga and follower’s belief in Indian philosophy on the follower’s perception of transformational leadership. They found that leader’s duty orientation was related to leader’s charisma and inspirational motivation. The relationship was strengthened when follower’s belief in Indian philosophy was high. The findings support a model of Indian transformational leadership built on the fundamental beliefs in Indian philosophy and duty-orientation. 

Sayantan Sen & Joffi Thomas, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai

Sayantan Sen, a student of Great Lakes Institute of Management presented a paper on “Environment, Business Strategy and Sustainable Competitive Advantage” which he co-authored with Prof. Joffi Thomas from IIM K. Their paper suggested some models that companies should use in future to address climate change, and how they can profit from what they do. 

The models showed how climate change strategies can be implemented to root out existing inefficiencies. At the company level, implementing climate strategies will draw attention to money-saving opportunities. At an economy-wide level, climate change strategies will reform inefficient energy systems and remove distorting energy subsidies

Ashok Vasudevan, Preferred Brands International, USA
Topic: “Crisis as Capital & Capital as Crisis: The Entrepreneur’s Post Meltdown Dilemma”

He talked about the days bygone around the 4th five year plan when the outlay for the 1st and the second five year plan was 2356 and 4346 crores respectively. At that point in time, it was a big sum of money. If you have to build a nation, large amounts of money is needed. He talked about the number 28 trillion dollars which was the amount of money we have lost in the first 9 months of this year in the stock markets. The financial crisis in the past was caused mostly by insufficient capital available at the right time at the right place but the current crisis is caused not by the lack of capital. He drew a parallel between thermodynamics and business wrt capital which flows from an area of lower return to an area of higher return. He said “Most of the assets we own increase our standard of living although they depreciate over time except for real estate at least that was the thinking till now”. He talked about the trickle down economics based on increased spending by consumers who would also become recipients of this wealth in a small way. He said that this cycle was a vicious one over time. He said that the current system of economy resembled a universe centered on the consumer encouraged by irrational exuberance and profligacy while the government was somewhere at the outskirts of this universe. He talked about the amount of money spent on home loans which he said was a significant part of the consumer spending. The second circle of the universe he referred to were the corporates who were driven by greed, hubris, inequality and a huge amount of leverage. In the 1980s, for the top10 corporations, the average salary of the CEO was 4 million but today, it has gone up 50 times which he quoted as an example of inequality and greed. The third circle of the universe was the financial instruments like excessive capital, some of them dubious and driven by a quarterly focus. The banks who till recently been conservative in giving loans decided that it was ok to give loans without the guarantee of repayment with the collateral of the real estate property which was booming. 9 out of 10 MBA students did not know what the hedge fund was which he mentioned as the 4th circle of the universe which was driven by deregulation, ideology and ignorance. He talked about what the entrepreneurs need to do in an environment like this. There are only 3 ways to improve the business: increase users, increase usage and find new uses for existing products. He revisited porter’s 5 forces and talked about the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, consumers and the environment. The first force of the year was inflation which was the bargaining power of the suppliers to raise prices. The customers drive their inventories down and provide cash discounts. The environment was driven by a strengthening rupee and they hedged exports. The consumers as a result were expressing frugality. Once the consumers became frugal, they devised a strategy to increase the number of users. All this put together is a zero sum game which will make you come out of it the way you went in. The inflation came down when the oil prices fell down. So they started conserving cash. The rupee started weakening and became 50 Rs to the dollar. The need of the hour was to hedge imports. In a deflationary situation, they gave price offs which drove the consumers to buy more given that there were some attractive deals on offer. The cost of customer acquisition is high and one is willing to invest money on consumers. The priority shifted to increase the usage of the products instead of increasing consumers. 

Recessions force entrepreneurs to take a closer look at their ideas. He said that they are usually obsessed with their ideas and the time had come to evaluate them. If however, one had the right idea, this was the right time to start a business. Recession forces frugality. The business that tries to resolve customer pain becomes more visible in a recession. Recessions lead to committed start up teams. Also, startup costs are low. 


Krishnan Dandapani, Florida International University
Topic: “Winning Strategies for conquering the financial crisis of 2009”

He talked about the financial crisis and he said “The total loss in the stock market is $45 trillion. This is as much as the entire GDP of the world. The loss in the stock market is like taking away the earnings of everyone in the world for a year. Recessions are a regular occurrence”. He believes it is a failure of the regulators, not so much a systemic failure. According to him, “The housing market went up 25% on an average over the last 4 years. Normally it goes up only 4%. This was the root of the problem. By the latest measure 20% of the homes in the US have to walk away from their mortgages. Ninja loans are loans given to people with no income and no assets. This led to change in the way banks obtained funding – from deposits to securities. The debt payment on mortgages should generally be around 26% of the income. Across the nation it rose to approximately 50%. Almost $62 trillion of CDS market has been developed. Banking system had assets that were worth much less than that. Sub-prime mortgages as a percentage of the total mortgages issued per year has been rising to up to 20% before the crisis. Because of securitization toxic securities were distributed all over the world. This led to re-pricing of many mortgage backed securities. Most American people have their wealth in their homes. Similarly people have money in their retirement accounts and the stock market. In a recession it is expected that the unemployment rate will reach around 10%. In the depression it was at about 30%. Present one is not expected to go down to this level.”

In 2009, he expects a recession will be forced in India as well and expected unemployment rate to be around 10%. The balance 90% will see a 10-15% reduction in income. The prices of capital goods – home prices, automobiles etc. will all fall. There may be collapses of major companies. Generally companies that are not cost efficient are the ones that collapse.

Talking about the crisis, he said “Why is this happening? Financial leverage went up to around 20 times on average. Lehman etc. had a leverage ratio of around 40. How long will it be?, it may last upto 1 or 2 years”

He said regulators didn’t act because people did not have an incentive to shift from the “originate and distribute model” back to “originate and hold model”. According to him “Ratings agencies thought the real estate market would not move up continuously and they always knew that they were part of a chain and if the chain broke they would still be able to escape scot-free. The major concern that led to the bailout of the auto companies is that around 300,000 people are indirectly involved with the auto industry and will all be unemployed. Second is that if they declared bankruptcy no one would buy a car from them. So, they would never be able to recover. The social cost of keeping them up and running makes it the right solution and GM etc. will have to improve their performance”. He also posed the question “Doesn’t the bailout package de-incentivize companies from improving their efficiency?” to which he answered “Since the monetary stimuli didn’t work the fiscal stimulus package is the only way out”. 

Prem Saran, IAS, Government of Assam
Topic – “Win-Win Management: An Indic approach”

He proposed an alternative to Peter Senge’s model of organizational management He said that the Indian ways of thinking are going to be increasingly salient. India, Japan and China are going to take the sun. He developed a trivalent axiology of culture. There are not many useful models of Indian culture. He feels his model can set people thinking. Of the 3 themes or values in Indian culture that have been dominant for centuries:
Ø Valorization of play and pleasure: 
Ø Counter-intuitive valorization of gender equity: 
Ø Personality structure is porous: 
Ø He said these qualities are relevant when portraying the personality of Indians. The use of this kind of a model in management is as follows. His model was considered as an alternative to Senge’s fifth discipline. He called his discipline the sixth and ultimate discipline at the conference where he presented it as an alternative to Senge’s approach. According to him, the Nobel prize winning work of two parts of the brain- left and right is useful even today. A meditative and visualization approach can help tap up to 90% of the right brain. The West uses more of the left brain. Meditative practices also help to create permanent changes in the brain, given the tremendous neuro-plasticity of the human brain. With practice those parts of the brain become more dominant and hence more accessible for use. Neuro-linguisitic programming sees the human brain as a tremendously powerful bio-computer. He cited the example of champion athletes who regularly use visualization. Every 90 minutes or so the human brain shifts from left to right brain mode. He said “What we need is a simple technique to access this right brain state. Once in this deeply focused state present yourself with the pain or problem that you face. Having a technique to access that state systematically will help you be one up on the competition”. He proposed a simple modification of the ancient kundalini technique. He put some IAS officers in an altered state of mind in an experiment and he observed that, in this state the brain uses its tremendous power of association. This according to him was Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking. This type of technique will help one develop a winning organization, foster team work and that’s why he calls it win-win management. He proposed the Indic way as an alternative to the protestant work ethic. 

Sivan Nathan
Topic: Going green is a winning management strategy. 

He began by citing the example of Henry Ford’s assembly line when he wasn’t aware of the potential damaging effects on the environment. According to him “Since it was small scale the effects were localized and were hardly noticeable. As the scale of industrialization and consumption increased the effects on the environment became noticeable around the 1930s. Steel, coal based power plants etc. started showing their damaging effects on the environment. As Japan and Germany joined the ranks of industrialization the effects were even more significant. Water industrial discharge, pesticides, cleaning agents, plastics etc. were more and more in use. Early 60s and 70s the Asian countries became more prosperous. With most of the manufacturing shifting to China, the lack of regulation exacerbated the problem. With the fall of the Berlin Wall things like Chernobyl etc. came to light and people got to know the damaging effects of pollution in the former Soviet Union. Over the last 2 decades as Indian and China ascended the crisis came on as the scale is so large due to the populations of these 2 countries. Smog in LA etc. even after all these years of regulation. Children born with birth defects etc. were visible as the scale of pollution became enormous. In Asia it occurred in the order of Japan, China and now even India”. 

He said that a lot of credit should go to the NPA organizations formed in the US that then proliferated all over the world. Initially they were considered to be hostile to industry but now their role is being understood. The EPA was charged to regulate chemicals and protect human health by safeguarding the natural environment: air, water, and land. Similar govt. agencies have been established all over the world. Auto-emission regulations also started in the US and were exported abroad. Over the last decade the focus has been on worldwide regulation, e.g. the Kyoto protocol regulating emissions of four gases and two CFCs. The US however has not subscribed to this protocol. Rise in the price of crude oil helped research into alternatives like renewable energy etc. Regulation and the eco-system (in the sense of the rising price of energy) have both played their hand in the development of renewable and energy efficient appliances. Example of how going green is a winning management strategy: Georgia state pass out Crissy Klaus opened a volatile zero organic compound child care center that uses no chemicals in the food, electricity etc. that is hugely successful. Many companies have gone into generation of electricity in biomass plants from mainly wood rather than coal firing. Marketing research shows that consumers are concerned about the environmental policies of a company. Consumers are less likely to buy from a company that follows unethical and illegal environmental policies. A significant drop in sales occurs when a company comes to media attention because of faulty environmental policies. 

 

Great Lakes Institute of Management organized its annual B school fest - L’Attitude 13” 05’ 

on the 20th of December. The event started with the inaugural address from the Dean of Great Lakes, Dr. Bala Balachandran.

Dr. Bala Balachandran addressed the gathering and welcomed one and all. He went on throwing light on how Great Lakes has survived the odds so far and has moved up the ladder of academic excellence. The institute would be having a state of the art , eco friendly , platinum rated , green campus come next year . The ballpark date of inauguration is 7th of January. He sent a strong signal to the audience that Great Lakes is on its way to pursuing business excellence and academic elegance , He called for a 360 degree vision and leveraging hindsight while exploiting ones insights and not to loose sight of impending potential potholes. He ended his speech after a brief introduction of the former Chief Election Commissioner of India and now, a full time faculty at Great Lakes – Mr. TN Seshan.

Mr Gururaj Deshpande, Chairman, Sycamore Networks

He asked the graduates of today to be part of the resurrection process of the economic engine.  Entrepreneurship, he said is the most challenging occupation that one can pursue but the rewards are incomparable. He hinted at this being the apt time for such ventures when the market conditions are apparently tough and demands a fully focused approach. 
Mr. Gururaj believed that the last couple of decades saw a relatively stable scheme of things on the global stage, both in the financial and the social sector. However the time has come when the world is going to witness a paradigm shift in its structure. It is not going to be the same anymore. We need to strive relentlessly to create value and rest assured that reward is a natural outcome. 
After leaving India in 1973, Mr. Deshpande set various firms in the US. He is closely working with MIT in the field of innovation in technology. His Indian initiative includes the ‘Akshay Patra’ scheme which ensures a mid day lunch system for the children in the Hooghly district in Karnataka. It started with providing food for 185000 children and has grown phenomenally to 1 million children per day. Every aspect of the project is worth attending to- the supply chain management, accounting systems,. In fact the model has become an example for the US for its 500 million dollar initiative for Africa. 
He concluded by stressing on the fact that India is very different now than what it was compared to the very recent past. Under such circumstances it becomes very important to combine best practices of business with compassion and non profit. 


Mr. GRK Reddy, MD, MARG and Chairman, CII, Chennai Zone

He very crisply emphasized on the potential of the youth of the nation. Amidst all the gloom that the world is passing through right now, its only a matter of time when the phase is going to ebb away. Affordability and scalability are expected to be the next buzzwords in the infrastructure. 

Dr. M S Krishnan, Professor, Stephen and Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

He essentially threw deep insights about the field of innovation. The New Age of Innovation consists of Connectivity, Digitalization, Convergence of different parts of technology and Social networks. He took the audience through the new approaches of wealth creation and went on giving examples of companies like Google, Starbucks, Nike, Amazon etc. The firms do not think product, they think experience. He talked about the way to give a personalized expression to each and every product that the firms come up with. They take the global pool as their resource base for maximum mileage. Rethinking innovation and value creation by leveraging personalized experience and global talent network is the mantra. Eg i Pod. Mr Krishnan stressed upon co creativity, virtual integration and referred to Apple, Google, Nike and ICICI Prudential. Agility, responsiveness, integration of technology and logistics transparency should be the framework upon which organizations should base their growth on. 

Power Talk

Mr. Ravi Kant, CEO and MD TATA Motors

Mr.Ravi Kant shared his thoughts on means of responding to the global financial recession. “Indian industry has to demonstrate adaptability to paradigm changes. Earlier model of cyclic market generated high profits during crests and huge losses during troughs of the cycle. The new economy model should be designed to defeat recession. This model calls for colloboration among industry players, innovation and designing the business model to minimize risk.” 

Mr.R Seshasayee, MD, Ashok Leyland

Mr. Seshasayee pointed out that by sticking to the fundamentals the current financial crisis could have been avoided. Mr.Seshasayee emphasized on the importance of leaders being right on the spot to manage the crisis. He advocated “visibility and communication” to tide over the problem. He expressed confidence that eventually “We are going to come out of this problem”.

Mr.Sunil Rai, CEO, Mumbai Business School

Mr.Sunil Rai saw “Huge opportunity in the current down turn”. He said that leaders should cooperate with each other to tide over challenging times. Leaders should show the way by practicing what they want their followers to do. Focus is the key to turning tough times into blooming times” 




Panel Discussion

Can India Grow while being a part of global economic system and overcome the current crisis or does it need insulation


Dr. Ajit Ranade, Chief Economist Aditya Birla Group, started off by acknowledging the fact that Great Lakes, though a 4 year old institute has already started making waves in the world of management education. He appreciated the concept of Karma Yoga that is included in the curriculum at Great Lakes.
About the subprime crisis, he said that such terms are really puzzling for the common man because there are hardly any words were for such terms in common Indian languages, and that no body had heard of these terms till a few months ago. Now you hear every other person talking about them.
He said anwsers to contemporary issues may not be very obvious and may need a deep study of the problems facing us. He briefly explained the process of how the crisis affected the industry. He mentioned that because of the credit crunch, lending of all kinds stopped, which is why firms were short of Working Capital.

According to him, India cannot be insulated form the crisis, even though it may not be responsible for the crisis. “But,” he said, “Our system is generally known to be slow. Our policies are known to go through huge amount of deliberation. Such well thought of policies are going to be our saviors.”


Dr. YV Reddy, former Governor RBI, started off by referring to an article in yesterday’s New York Times about How India avoided the crisis. 

He said that many concepts that the world so far thought were right need to be revisited. The financial institutions that the world looked up to for financial policies, financial frameworks, have collapsed. 
He talked about how the top 20 financial institutions stopped trusting and lending money to each other. He said that the problem was not confined to banks only – banks, financial institutions, real states, EMEs etc all of them were affected

According to him there are 3 ways to look at the causes behind the economic crisis – the financial view, the economic view and the political economic view. The financial view, he said, looks at the incompetent regulation, financial intrusion and irresponsible lending. The Economic aspect, according to him, includes the macroeconomic imbalances and the loose monetary policies pumping in too much money into the market. Talking about the political economic view he referred to another newspaper article by Paul Krugman that mentioned how Wall Street has been corrupting politics in a bipartisan way. He said that the central banks of the developed countries have, for the first time, used various instruments in reaction to the current crisis.

He commented that we are currently concentrating on managing and getting out of crisis. He believes that the rules of the game must change. The world must keep its eyes open, all options open. It is difficult to settle in such an unsettled situation. The world must look towards India and China.


MS Sundara Rajan, CMD, Indian Bank

Mr. Rajan began his talk by saying that India can grow. He said that he would give much of the credit to the Indian financial system which continues to be strong compared to china. India’s foundations are strong and the credit has to be given to the regulator YV Reddy, former RBI governor. He raised the CRR rates and thus helped the economy. He also said “India is in a global village and it cannot isolate itself. The great subprime effect of US, a developed economy where the credit risk is continued to be the best had impacted the world. If the crisis had originated in India, people would have written off India”. He said that although the bailout package was in place, it was important to analyze what went wrong. He called it the subprime crisis where loans were given to borrowers who are not eligible. He stressed the fact that “What is good for today may not be good for tomorrow; one cannot take things for granted. This financial crisis is an imported one”. He talked about ninja loans which he defined as the loans given to people with no income, no loans. A loan was originated only to be transferred to somebody else who had created the impact. He said that the banks had invested in these ninja loans and they hadn’t learnt anything at all. About 20 investment banks have crumbled and the question he posed was “Will it happen in India?”. He opined that it had affected the sentiments in India and the business confidence index had come down. The business confidence level was at a level of 119.9 as against 157.3 in Jan 2008. 

He said that certain leading magazines had identified a couple of things which was the need of the hour namely restoring business confidence and ensuring liquidity. Speaking about the Indian economy and stock exchange, he said “The stock exchange had come down from a high of 20873 as of 8th Jan 2008 to a low of 10099 as of yesterday. There was a liquidity crunch in between but the government has come out with the fiscal stimulus measures”. Talking about the banking system he said “Public sector banks are totally insulated. We need to learn lessons from this crisis to become stronger. Banks have tried to kindle the demand in the housing sector. There are 17 related sectors which also get boosted by encouraging the housing sector”. He concluded his talk by saying that there was a temporary setback and that the Indian economy would be able to withstand this crisis. 


Dr. Bala, founder and honorary dean, Great Lakes Institute of Management

Dr.Bala began his talk by saying that all of us are moved and act based on two forces, one is greed and the other is fear. Talking about the subprime crisis, he said “If the loan repayment is not done in the proper manner and instead debt obligations are collateralized, everything breaks down”. He opined that a bunch of mathematicians had engineered this model and the act of transferring risk was proposed to protect oneself from risk. Malpractices and lack of background checks had led to the current crisis. The real estate boom fueled the crisis. He said that the US was riding a boom and the other countries joined the bandwagon and invested. This according to him was greed. Many of the credit instruments that caused the subprime crisis were insurance products which came under the regulation of congress and they attempted to manipulate rules and convert these insurance products into non insurance ones and they succeeded. He drew a parallel between the credit crisis and the overbooking concept in the Airlines industry. He emphasized on the fact that we needed regulation. The directors of major banks sold loans to people and ignored the NPA on their balance sheets. Distributing liabilities was an example of illegally orchestrating greed. Speaking about the hope for a recovery, he said “We have hope in the shape of Barack Obama. Freedom is not free, there are responsibilities. He has to create 2.5 million jobs, put in regulations and create accountability and the govt will have to back the banks to give loans. It will take anywhere from 18 to 20 months to recover. I am confident that things will change but it won’t be easy. India is not insulated but we are resistant to the crisis. We have too many regulators in India and it is a good thing. There is a great opportunity to focus, to be nimble and sprint. In a way if India is growing slow, it has helped us given the current crisis. When the US recovers, India is going to march ahead with stability, security”. He concluded the talk by saying the architects of this crisis had to be brought to justice to deter such behavior in the future.

The fest also included a lot of other events for participants from other B-schools and the corporates. The events included a B-Plan contest KAALTEET, a Marketing Strategy game for re-launching a failed product DVIJA, an operations Strategy Game KUMBHAKA and the Business Quiz JIGYA.SA.

Prabhakaran SK from IIM K secured Rs.70000 as the first prize for the B-Plan contest, while Shuchi Verma and Ravikant from IMT Ghaziabad won the Marketing Game. The operations strategy game was won by the team from IIT Bombay. 

The most awaited event of the day after the CEO Conclave, The Business Quiz, was hosted by Mr. Giri Balasubramaniam, who’s known to be one of the best B-Quiz masters in the country, and after an exhilarating written round 6 teams got through to the finals. The final round was fiercely contested by all the teams, and was finally won by the team from Sun/Sanmar which made the team richer by 30k.  All in all, the event was a grand success. It showcased some of the best talent in the country as well as engaging some of the most prominent business leaders to talk about the economic crisis.

Impact of Global Slowdown on Auto Industry- Ravi Kanth, MD TataMotors

Delivering a keynote address at L'attitude, a B-School Festival organized by Great Lakes, Mr Ravi Kanth, MD of TataMotors stated Auto Industry is not new to slowdown. This time the magnitude of slowdown in unimaginable. Started with US, Europe, Australia and now Asia. Auto Gaints in US want to be bailed out. Toyota declaring likely loses being posted in this years Financial Statements. Today we have seen tremendous changes and quick adaptability to those changes. In the history, we always had witnessed Cycles of growth and slowdown in the Auto Industry. India is not an exception to this except that this cyclicality is super imposed on the growth path. 10 years back we suffered 500 Crore losses. Heavy Commercial vehicles had huge cyclicality ranging from + (50 - 60 %) and light vehicles had + (25 - 30 %) .

We have worked on it and we have introduced a light commercial vehicle. Passenger cars have less amplitude. We have also worked on Portfolio of Geographies. As a result our exports went up by 14%.

L’attitude 13' 05 – Discover Knowledge

I had an opportunity to attend L’attitude, annual B-School Festival hosted by Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai. One of the keynote speakers in this event is Gururaj Deshpande, 48 year old Gururaj Deshpande, an IIT Chennai graduate is today the second richest Indian, worth $ 3.7 billion at the current market value. Mr. Deshpande is the chairman of Sycamore Networks, headquartered at Boston.

Dr Gururaj started saying, Focus shifted from creating things to betting on who is creating those things. Value adds to value creation is huge in India. Everything there’s a change, leader will emerge. Creation is not easy. You need to start now when you are in school now. Ability to make change is an asset on the personal balance sheet, which will come back to you sometime or later. Large Numbers and High Affordability is the Strength of India. There’s a huge amount of Innovation happening in India. Realize and Champion It.

Social Entrepreneurship projects like Sandbox, founded by Dr Deshpande help in the community upliftment. Incidentally Akshayapatra, an NGO founded by Mr. Deshpande and Mrs. Jaishree Deshpande work on providing mid day meal to the children studying in various schools with the support from local governments. India is a Unique Country. Commercial and Not for Profit Organizations should join hands together and should make the innovations created by both entities to see light.

Youth of this country should have guts to face challenges and failure.

Recession Times -World of Opportunities @ India

India with an estimated population of 1,129,866,154 approximately, has a pool of opportunities for business which benefit the society and they can be put under the category of Social Enterpreneurship. Following are the 3 areas which I can surely vouch for

1. Infrastructure
2. Health Care
3. Education

The above three are the sectors which seasoned professionals have been talking for more than a decade. For me, we need to look at them in different ways. Some of the business propositions which truly make difference and are beginning for the new era are

1. Under the infrastructure, Maytas’s Hyderabad Metro Project is truly a win-win in many ways. Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) has awarded the Concession for undertaking the development of the 71.16kms of fully elevated Hyderabad Metro Rail (MRTS) Project on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (the "DBFOT") basis to our Consortium comprising Nava Bharat Ventures Limited, Maytas Infra Limited, Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (“NMII Consortium”). Maytas promised to pay an estimated sum of Rs 1000 Crore per annum to the GoAP for over 30 years in return for the awarded project. Imagine the amount revenues that the GOI can generate by awarding such projects across the country and building infrastructure in parallel.
2. In the health care domain, Apollo Reach Hospitals will offer advanced Speciality care in semi-urban and rural areas, complementing existing clinical facilities and ensuring that people in these areas get access to high-end clinical care that would otherwise have never been within their reach.
3. In the education domain, I have seen couple of my friends struggling for an admission with some of the best schools in the city. The gap between some of the best schools in the city and other private schools is wide. Both in terms of the quality of education they impart as well as the fee they charge per annum. There isn’t organized schooling at an affordable cost. While this remains a gap before a new entrant comes into the foray, another area of opportunity which I have come across this morning in the news is MindLogicx’s IntelliExam fool proof concept where they have signed an MOU with Anna University.

Metrics for Employee Engagement

It intrigues me to look at people working in the employeeengagement roles only talk about Attrition reports and further dissect it intoreasons for attrition. For me, a thoughtof quitting an organization sparks in the minds of an employee long before hesubmits his paper. If someone says thatthey can stop attrition, it’s a myth. We only can control it by increasing thelongevity of the tenure of an employee with the organization.

How do we control it? Here are some metrics which helps us understand to what extent we cancontrol it

1. Are we recognizing our employees? What are thevarious channels to formally and informally recognize employees? There’s a problem of losing the charm forformal recognition by overdoing this. Weneed to be cautious to what extent we can recognize and are we recognizing forright reasons. It can’t be a give-away.

2. Do the HR personnel meet employees on a regularbasis formally? Do they have channels to meet them informally? Are we acting on the concerns, suggestions,grievances raised by employees? It makes no sense if we don’t act and just meetour employees for the sake of meeting.

3. Does the HR team knows policies and procedures thoroughlyand is there a calibration exercise carried for them to ensure that everyone isat par. Are they articulate incommunicating the policy matters?

4. Employees will be interested in learning newthings which will accelerate his growth. Do we do a thorough job by using atleast oneof the models suggested by behavioral scientists? One of the model which I think can be bestused is the four levels of Kirkpatrick's evaluation model which essentially measure:

a. reaction of student - what they thought and feltabout the training

b. learning - the resulting increase in knowledgeor capability

c. behavior - extent of behavior and capabilityimprovement and implementation/application

d. results - the effects on the business orenvironment resulting from the trainee's performance

5. We also need to evaluate the culture of theorganization and ascertain the factors that boast performance

a. Living up to performance goals that are anchoredexternally create performance anxiety because they originate from

i. a strong desire to please

ii. Avoidance of confrontation

iii. Low confidence in prediction

iv. An over confidence in own abilities

b. Quest for Peak performance is anchored fromwithin driven by a need to excel and experience fulfillment from attainment ofexcellence or greatness and is accomplished through

i. Process Mastery

ii. Sound Preparation

iii. Courageous Commitment

Point 5 should be the driving culture in anorganization and caution should be taken at hiring stage and nurture the sameinside.

“Marketing -For, By & To the Employee : An HR Perspective”

Today's Organizations face a number of business challenges. For them to meet these demands, the traditional approach to management would not suffice. Organizations need to streamline themselves in order to understand the needs of customers and differentiate themselves from competitors, based on capabilities that go beyond quality, delivery and services. Gone are the days when customers purchased and used a product and forgot all about it. Today's customers look for experiences. Companies that provide these experiences would evolve as the quintessential leaders. India, growing at a break-neck speed needs more of these organizations.

Some of today's super brands like Starbucks, Google, Yahoo and Amazon have thrived on the 'delivery of experience' model and successfully stayed ahead of competition. Even companies that belong to the so called 'traditional' industries have started demonstrating such capabilities. CEMEX, a cement company, allows its customers to decide price based on value added by the product. The customer pays low prices for company schedules and pays higher prices for on demand deliveries. The additional advantage of such a model is that it enables quick price discovery.

While talking about the delivery of an experience, logical flow would require that the experience be first delivered to and understood by an organization's internal customers (read: employees), who will then transfer the experience to the company's external customers. Indian Organizations like WIPRO have through alumni associations and ex-employee clubs created unusual and frank brand ambassadors for the organization. On a similar note, companies like Google have helped employees create a brand new identity and lifestyle for themselves. In this case, the Organization itself becomes an 'experience' and enthralls its first and foremost
audience, its employee!

Who delivers these experiences?

One thing common to suppliers, vendors and customers is that they all have to use the nerve centre of the organization its employees. Hence, experiences are delivered most effectively by front line employees of the organization. Now it is even more important that such employees understand the paradigm shift from a product and service orientation to an experience based one.

How to deliver these Experiences?

The employees or the 'delivery agents' and the human resource department have a very crucial role in enabling an organization transform itself from a product or service oriented one to an experience oriented one. Organizations face the following challenges while delivering the experiences.

§ Attracting the right talent

Attracting talent could be addressed by creating a corporate brand and thereby building a strong value proposition for potential employees. The second step would be to communicate the created value proposition.

§ Retention of Employees

Retention of employee’s demands that the corporate brand value be imbibed into every employee and thereby creates a pattern of behavior to pursue excellence and quality. The company, having invested heavily on intellectual capital, should view the exit of every employee as a failure on the part of the organization to deliver value promised by the brand.

The distinguished Professor of Marketing at Kellogg, Dr. Philip Kotler has commented on this subject.

In order to attract talent, the company must primarily be clear about its goal, mission, its own personality and what is unique within it. The systems and processes need to be effective enough to identify and map the core values of the company with that of prospective employees. This can be achieved by completely understanding the employee's aspirations and personal values. Adds Mr. Anuj Kumar, AVP HR of CSC, "Values are the guiding principles of our organization. Business interests take a back seat if organizational values are compromised. This has been our USP "

On the need for Marketing Specialists in HR, Dr. Kotler says, “Marketing should be kept in the loop of the HR processes. Alignment between service providers and service receivers is essential. As far as marketing people within the HR department are concerned, I think what we need is marketing thinking and not marketing people as such. So, I'm not ready to say that an internal marketing person is required. However, in the case of large companies which have large recruitments it may be required”. On the marketing for recruitment of employees, he says, “The recruiters generally go to colleges to make presentations and then competitors also go to the same colleges. So in that way a good presentation is required to interest those people. Good posters and good relations with the professors to know who the best students are. HR needs more organized thinking along with marketing.”

Continuing on those lines, he comments on HR & Sales saying that, “The first rule is to deliver on the promises. Second rule is to create an open office, so that concerns and complaints can be evaluated. Evaluation of the boss by the employee and evaluation of the employee by the boss, are both essential. Whistle blowers are not necessarily required in an organization but certain people who remain confidential are needed in order to
provide feedback. This helps you in gauging the happiness index.”

“You need to have both a fast track and a slow track in the organization. The company needs to deliver on the fast track by watching its key people. Do you have a policy to counter offers by competitors? Some employees in the organization leave without even discussing it, others will come to you and say that they are very happy but will also demand 50% hike in salary. You should look into the opportunity cost to the company.”

On the role of a CMO in branding HR, he says, “Absolutely, because in service companies people are a part of product delivery. If they are not living your brand, it will hurt you. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) would have built the organization as a customer centric one but he needs the human resource department to help make it a culture. People good in technical skills may not take equally good care of the customer. Joint planning of marketing and human resources will be very useful in this case.”

He further adds about the Head of HR becoming CEO, commenting that, “The Head of HR has a chance to be a CEO, if they are also very good in finance and have experience in line functions. They manage hundreds of people in big companies by managing the budgets well. But they do not show profits, that's
the biggest disadvantage with the HR department.”

Finally, he advises on the Do's & Don'ts of managing employee perception by saying that, “The problem has always been one of over promising and under delivery. In the case of under promotion the potential employee may not take the job. In the opposite case, word of mouth may circulate so well that the company might end up creating an impression that it does not deliver on its promises. Some level of agility, honesty, integrity
and trust is required to back up your words and promises. If you say you will give certain help, you better deliver it. If they know that you do not deliver then a correction is required.”


-Praveen Pantula and Amit Bhalla
PGPM Class of 2007

The authors are thankful to Dr Philip Kotler for sharing his experience and thoughts on the subject.

Note : This article was originally published in the Gravity Magazine(Inhouse Magazine of GreatLakes Institute of Management, Chennai, India) in April 2007.

N.R.Narayana Murthy @ Great Lakes

I had an opportunity to attend the Guest Lecture delivered by N.R Narayana Murthy @ L’attitude – 13o 5 , a B-School Fest Organized by Great Lakes Institute of Management.

He addressed the students of Great Lakes and other students from premier B-Schools of the Country. “This is an extraordinary time for India. Never in the last 300 years we have seen such a great time. Never a foreigner thought about India contributing to the world other than spices. Economy is growing well, NSE, BSE doing well, more billionaires are from India than any other country. All is good. However, there is another picture.

India has the largest mass of illiterates. 350 Mn cannot read or write, only 65% are literate, 250 Mns do not have access to safe drinking water, 750 Mn do not have access to sanitation. We created an environment for the first time for solving all the problems. Inclusive Growth. Wipe out the tears of people. We are in a position to create acceptable levels of nutrition, healthcare, shelter, clothing and bridge the gap between rich & poor and rural & urban. I see this environment which can create such an India when I’m with students. I smell, breath and live such an environment. I don’t see such an environment when I am with other people. Bright students who are ready to take on the world into despondent and unhappy individuals. You will reverse and accelerate the process to create a mindset . Make a difference to the world. Bala’s (read Prof Bala V Balachandran) of the world will become norms of the world and not an exception. You have tremendous responsibility to redeem on that promise. Few things you have to do

Open Mind : Challenge to over come the inertia of the world. Force required for a resurgent India is to become Open Mindedness.
Ease to accept the ways to go
Ease to subordinate your ego
Ease to say we will interact with the world
Ease to say ‘Welcome All
Ease to go around, observe an absorb other problems

Without open mindset, it is not successful

2. Data and Facts: At Infy we have a norm, ‘We Trust in God and everybody else to come with the data to the table’. We will create an environment of meritocracy. Every idea should be evaluated. People take positions and stands on decision based on ego and perspectives. One needs to change such thing based on data and facts.

We are at a time when India can afford to have an inclusive growth. People planning to become CEOs need to learn corporate governance to get respect from the society and governance to have longevity. People need to go to abroad to add value to the society as well. Spread the information of good citizenships of India.

We are at a time where growth is evident, and is an opportunity for innovation. Posteriori won’t excuse us. We need to show our commitment, hard work and honesty.

Redeem yourself with this opportunity to make the whole world proud about you. ”

Sam Pitroda @ Great Lakes

It gives immense pleasure to share with the readers of my blog that I had an opportunity to attend a Guest Lecture delivered by Sam Pitroda over a Video Conference L’attitude – 13o 5 , a B-School Fest Organized by Great Lakes Institute of Management.

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Dr Sam Pitroda, born in Titlagarh, Orissa, is an inventor, entrepreneur and policymaker. Currently chairman of India's National Knowledge Commission, he is also widely considered to have been responsible for India's communications revolution. He is the Chairman and CEO of World-Tel Limited, an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) initiative.

He is the founder and CEO of C-SAM, Inc, which has developed a suite of patented mobile transaction technology called OneWallet. Mr. Pitroda has lived mainly in Chicago, Illinois since 1964, with his wife and two children.

Sam talked about creating Knowledge is going to be wealth. The 11th 5-year plan is going to work on enhancing Knowledge in the country. We need truck drivers, carpenters, nurses to grow the economy. This is where a huge gap exists in terms of the need and available skills. He appealed to the students that Ethical Values and Discipline is required to excel.

Politics & Team Building

If you think, team building is thought at colleges and corporates use it for enhancing their bottomline, then you are wrong. Now, political parties have also realized the importance of team building.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi enjoyed a friendly match of cricket against the party's student wing-- National Students' Union of India (NSUI). Rahul swapped his usual stark white kurta-pajama with a casual white T-shirt and black track pants, taking time out from the game of politics. The match was played between the Youth Congress and the National Students' Union of India (NSUI).

For political parties, strong and cohesive teams should help them lead. But will these activities really help to work as teams once they are out of the field ??