LEADERS CAN BE MADE IF THEY ARE BORN

    This piece is about “Samvit- 09” held in the campus on 25 Oct 2009.The conclave was themed- “emerging pillars of the Indian economy”. The title of this blog is taken from our director’s speech. I found the line quite intriguing probably an answer to the pertinent question – “Are leaders born, or can they be made?”

 

   The Emerging pillars as mentioned in the theme are reasons why the Indian Economy was able to withstand and emerge stronger from a recession that collapsed the major economies of the world. Also what are the ideas and strategies that are going to take us forward from here?

 

Ajith Balakrishnan – CEO Rediff.com.

 

I found him quite like I visualized Steve Jobs of Apple. He was an entrepreneur at the age of 22. Today he heads Rediff. Ajit spoke on “machine learning”. He compared the digital revolution in India to the growth of Indigo in the 19th century, and quite an eerie similarity emerged in the popularity and demand of Indigo with that of Digital expertise India. He explained how knowledge and ideas are going to make or break economies. A few excerpts noted from his 15 min speech are as follows:

•     Data mining (it will be the skill set most sought after for digital supremacy)
•     Pattern recognition ( US is trying a software to classify facial expressions as part of security and surveillance)
•     In today’s world for a digital economy, unlike traditional economic concepts, “there are positive returns to scale”, i.e. more the number of users the better. 
•    “machine Learning “ is the future of all industries

 

Pramod Bhasin – chairman of NASSCOm and CEO Genpact

 

      He is accredited for the success of the outsourcing revolution In india. He is the second in command at NASSCOM , with a very typical American tinch to his speech delivery. Two highlights of his speech were – “Building Disruptive Virtue companies” and “Suburbanization of India”. Highlights of his talk:

            • Globalization of services – services can be bought and sold lke manufactured goods.
            • Build “DISRUPTIVE VIRTUE” companies.
            • Broadband access nationwide.
            • India has sheer demographic advantage unlike Scandinavia, japan etc.
            • “SUBURBANIZATION” of India – great idea to spread wealth to the whole of the country.
            • Buy and sell shares and participate in the economy.

 

Kalpana Morparia : CEO JP MORGAN

 

           I found her name in the 100 most powerful women in the world, sharing the list with Sonia Gandhi and Hillary Clinton. Like a true banker, she spoke with figures and stats and few that she brought out were quite startling. Highlights of her talk:

•     In India, services have been the key drivers for the rapid rise in the economy not manufacturing like   in other developed economies.
•     Insurance sector is the most underpenetrated market, though numbers including the govt insurance companies are skewed because of govt policies.
•    There is less than 5% bank penetration in the country.
•    To reach all the rural regions and all across the country stop thinking “MORTAR AND BRICK “ and use DIGITIZATION.
•  “BIOMETRIC HAND HELD DEVICES” are innovations to reach banking to the remotest villages.

 

Biswajit Mitra: Texas instruments india

 

           He is the head of Texas instruments and he focused on the technical pillars of the economy. In his time – slot, he stressed on the increasing need of accessibility to world class technology that India has and stressed on the following:

•      Need for “TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE” : eg . need for hand held portable ultrasound   device that can be equated to a doctors stethoscope in the future , and make accessibility to health care more accessible and cheaper at the same time.
•      It is imperative to keep affordability and accessibility of health care independent to provide better healthcare management in india.
•     Tech innovations : Incandescent lights(CFL) to LED lights.

Meera Sanyal: CEO ABN AMRO

 

             The head of ABN AMRO India had the perfect smile and was probably the most articulated speaker of them all. Having stood in elections in Mumbai, she impressed upon the need to disrupt the political monopolies in the country and work towards transparent and effective governance. She stressed on CSR and covered the following:

•  “HUMAN INFRASTRUCTURE” 
•  it is a tool to motivate, engage and retain employees. It is found that many professionals like to work for companies that “feel” 
•  Need to create a “DISRUTPTIVE VIRTUE POLITICAL PARTY”

Dr. Sandeep Pandey - Ramon Magsassay award winner:

 

                 He focused on the other side of the all the good which was the focus of all the other speakers. He took the example of “Kinley” and “Bisleri” and emphasized on the monopoly and exploitation of large corporations. Excerpts from his talk.

•  Economy of India is doing fine, the people are not . 
•  Why is bottled milk more expensive than milk in india, a good example of the monopolistic pricing by organized companies namely coke n pepsi as against the unorganized sector ie farmers.

 

Maximiiiize!!

            It’s been a long time, since I’ve maintained an 18 + hrs work schedule, most of it being studies, involving reading and comprehension. Actually, this could might as well be the very first time. Of course at OTA the “waking up hours” were always more than 20 hours, but that was a different ball game altogether.

             Each of the semesters here is of a total of 20 work days, with 7 subjects, involving  105 hours of class room sessions. Our profs tell us that the design of the syllabus is such that there are a total of 15 hrs of classroom for each course (that’s a subject in IIM lingo) and it is expected that the participant puts in another 35 hours per course through self study. That’s 50 hours of work for each course which works out to about 350 hours of total study time.  Considering the duration of the semester , that  would work out to 17 hours and 30 min of study time each day.  I have to maximize my qualitative performance given the constraints…. Its more than a squeeze. I feel I need bonus hours in a day.  Of course, I haven’t added the weekend free hours, Its like a 48 hour set of free hours that gives the much needed mental buffer boost , when I feel that I am lagging behind, which more often than not is the prevalent feeling.

                Now with the above mentioned daunting proposition, and two weeks into the courses, I am still finding my course through the 7 different courses!! Though I do log waking hours  which exceed the minimum requirement, quality of each minute’s use is in doubt. Anyways, I try to spare an hour for a very pleasant jog round the campus, a circular distance of  3.5 k’s.  I think it’s the most beautiful track, I’ve run on, definitely better than the BPET routes in the Army.

                It is known that the environment has a very strong external input value which affects a person’s thought process to maximize or minimize outputs.  I suddenly feel studious and enjoy the stretched hours in the midst of as the prof’s say “ the brightest minds in the country”…guess vibes are infectious!!

I...I am @ IIM Lucknow

  After hanging up my boots and a short holiday back home, I am inside the coveted gates of an institution, one of the strongest brands, education in India can have. I …. I am at IIM.

            The PGP students call it the gates of hell. Their professors tell us that they do go through hell. Before coming here, six years back, I too had my experience with this 'gate to hell" phenomena, when I entered the gates at OTA. Those gates were different and my hellish experience was gruelingly different. I guess it’s the way you look at hell.. !!

            Anyways, landing in Lucknow after a two hour flight from Bombay felt just like getting back to base after leave. This time though, there was no change into uniform and no transit camp to go to. The small size of the totally empty airport tarmac and the pre 1990 construction of the partly dilapidates airport terminal, didn’t shock me as it does, to many who travel from India’s Metro’s to “small town India”. I have already had my share of “shocks” earlier, kudos the army.  Well, Lucknow is the Capital of the most populous state of the country and the Nawab of the Hindi speaking belt, though managed and administered by the most corrupt politicians India has produced. A dilapidated, ancient airport is definitely not an eye sore here.

            I picked my bags and booked a prepaid cab to the campus. I’ve realized, through the course of my travels  around the country, that the word “pre-paid”  gives me a  great sense of security and every time I land in an “alien” airport, I  look for the counter. I feel the worst part of travel, is to haggle with the cab guy and feel fleeced. The additional fare in “pre- paid” is probably, the price we pay for feeling secure.

            The cab driver received me outside the terminal and took the trolley from me to push it to the waiting cab. No sooner did he take it from my hands, did another guy come and take it from his.  This guy earned his grub by providing this sort of “escort service”, sounds a little cocky but I can’t find a better JD for the guy. He diligently walked to the cab and carefully, I noticed his deliberation, placed the bags in the trunk. Unlike Bombay, where once I had to squabble with the same sort of "escort service" guy, who forcibly took the bags and then demanded a “bakshish”, this “escort man” was more polite. Lucknow is known for its tehzeeb and respectful use of the Hindi/ Urdu language and the guy though disappointed at me, for handing over three rupees in coins (the only change I had), still smiled and even opened the door for  me. I apologized for the unavailability of funds!! Tehzeeb is infectious..!!

            The drive to IIML wasn’t as pleasurable as I had expected it to be. We went from one by-pass to the other and totally by passed the city. I wondered, whether I did land in Lucknow. After about 30 minutes of driving, which is long, as per Lucknow standards, I reached the “Gates of Hell”. It was already post sunset and my eyes hadn’t adjusted well, so I wasn’t really able to figure out the hell factor, through the well manicured landscape around and inside the gate. Well, entry into OTA was the same, just after sunset. Again I couldn’t figure out the hell factor at the time. It was, of course explained really well, later on.

           A quick registration check at the gate and I was directed to Hostel 15, which as per the guard was at the end of the road and which was “ peepal ke ped ke paas”. I am yet to find that “peepal ka ped”. In the army, we are used to all sorts of sign boards, for practically everything. Over here, though the layout seemed like a cantonment, the lack of sign boards made the difference. It took me about 10 minutes to find my home for the next six months, which was just a Km from the gate, through a straight winding road.

            I was among the last to arrive. The room allotted to me was on the third floor. The 25 k strolley would’ve been the worst torture the temporary attendant would have borne, trying to lift it up six flights of stairs. While he did that, I was busy chatting up my long lost course mates. I guess he must’ve forgotten his tehzeeb that time.  I caught up with him, on the third floor, unaware of the pain he must’ve gone through and took charge of the strolley to roll it to my room. I am sure to have got a lot of curses  at that moment.

            The rooms here are basic, yet not as basic as those in the army. Single room with a balcony and a common bathroom for the floor, is I guess a luxury for a student in hell. I can’t even compare it to the rooms in my hell. I got on to set my room and get used to the environs, more so, meet the 26 of my batch mates. The timetable for the whole term was already on the notice board, I read the still unknown acronyms for subject sessions and after a quick grub at the mess across the football field, I returned to call it a day. My sojourn in the place of dreams, hell for many, Brand IIM,had just begun.