Leadership Talk Series: Nitin Seth

Students at IIM Lucknow had the opportunity to interact and gain insight into “Organisational Transformation & Leadership” from experience of the stalwart – Mr. Nitin Seth.



Mr. Nitin Seth (MD & Country Head, Fidelity Worldwide Investment) kicked off the session by sharing his own career experiences with class. The winner of President’s Gold Medal at IIM Lucknow was the first student to be picked by McKinsey from campus. He did consultancy across industry - manufacturing, operations improvement, financial institutions and business strategy. After an attempt at entrepreneurship, he came back to McKinsey to spearhead McKinsey Knowledge Center (McKC). When he joined McKC, it was merely a research back office with hardly 30 people. McKC had been a very satisfying experience for him. Mr. Nitin transformed the center into largest and most diverse knowledge hub at McKinsey. Indian IT/ITeS sector is close to his heart and he has been closely associated with NASSCOM.

Nitin emphasized that there are lot of opportunities in India in current economic scenario. Organization need to undergo transformation – the biggest reason being the challenges in global environment. Somehow, India has not been up to the mark in producing leaders. There is perhaps no direct answer, but “few reasons could be – British subjugation, and weak political and educational system” – he emphasized.

Talking about organizational transformation, Mr Nitin identified 4 forces coming together that may force an organization to introspect and go for transformation –
1. Global economic crisis – Organizations have gathered an unsustainable level of debt – a serious issue.
2. High degree of competitions as markets is going global.
3. Shift of wealth from west to east has led to increased purchasing power in Asia.
4. Technology has always caused a paradigm shift in way organizations do business. These days following 4 factors are kind of trend that businesses must not ignore –
a. Social Media
b. Explosive growth in reach and power of mobile phones
c. Growth of data
d. Cloud computing

Mr. Nitin stressed that to remain competitive – Organization must act fast. Change has to happen at all levels. Everyone in organization should take responsibility. This is again one of the ways to bring out the leader within. Mr. Nitin also shared best practices in driving change –
1. Organization must understand and evaluate the change before implementing it.
2. The change has to be communicated well through simple and consistent messages.
3. Identify change agents: Communication has to be decentralized; organizations need to identify people who can pass on the message.
4. Focus on quick fix – It helps organization to build trust and confidence within and outside.
5. “Go slow to go fast” – Organizations must think long term and not try to rush into everything.
6. Need to build stronger stakeholder position.

Again, for a organization to succeed, it needs leaders. Is there a quick formula? Answer is “NO”. However, Mr Nitin was kind to share a few traits that every leader must have. He termed this framework as 5C that leaders possess.



The whole class was inspired and mesmerized by in depth knowledge of Mr. Nitin. After Q&A, class thanked Mr. Nitin for sharing pearls of wisdom with students.

- Siddharth Asthana

Emerging Trends & Challenges in New Age Marketing by Ms. Anisha Motwani

Ms. Anisha Motwani is the Director and Chief Marketing Officer (C.M.O) of Max New York Life insurance. She has over two decades of experience across diverse industries and has authored more than 50 articles on 'brands and business of consumers' for leading newspapers and magazines.

She had an engaging session with the students on various facets of new age marketing. She introduced traditional forms of marketing like print, radio, television, OOH, augmented reality etc. and then focused on how each of these can be leveraged to boost marketing and promotions in present day context. Even with the proliferation of social media, Television as a media is still relevant. She highlighted the importance of media optimizer tool in deciding composition of marketing channels and associated budgets, but cautioned the young marketers that despite being heavily quantitative, Marketing is more of an art than a science.    



Ms. Anisha then moved on to the new age marketing tools like social media, mobile, PDAs, e-commerce based platforms etc. She emphasized the need to create a proper “digital diet” among all such tools with a single aim to provide authentic information to end customers. Integration, alignment and scaling up were highlighted as the main challenges in new age marketing.  She summarized her talk with few examples of new age marketing used in promotions like MTV tweets for Nano driving campaign during their prime time shows and a real case study of how she designed marketing campaign of Max New York Life’s new product around new age media like Facebook and online communities that finally resulting in increasing sales by over 15 percentage.

The main take away for the class - In new age marketing what that matters is a well designed Social Business strategy.

- Nikhil Bhargava

Chat with Mr. Manoj Tandon on “What B-School courses lack”

It is fascinating to talk about a thought provoking article, especially when it is with the author himself. That was the experience IPMX05 students had when Mr. Manoj Tandon, Associate Director at CSC came over to the campus for the leadership talk series. He was also excited to talk to the students about his article –“What B-School courses lack”.

The article was written in the perspective of two year management course, PGP.  But, most of it was relevant to one year management courses as well. The talk series was structured as a discussion between the author and the students. He encouraged students to criticize the points and generate new ideas and suggestions. Manoj Tandon started off with the points about bloated egos and the unawareness of the ground realities. Manoj Tandon also agreed that to an extent this could be overcome with the depth of the experience the IPMX batch carries.

He went on to discuss the lack of foundation and the importance of implementation. Student’s observation was that management education, especially of the kind of IPMX, focuses on adding new skills and providing new perspectives to solve pertinent real life problems. The breadth of the industry experience in the class – Army, Information technology, Tourism, Finance etc will add to this learning experience and provide the interesting perspectives and develop well rounded personalities. In the end, students were pleased by the experience they had and were energized by the prolific discussion they had with the author.

-          Bijumohan

“Consulting – What is in store?” by Mr. Rohit Bansal

A guest session that was highly anticipated was one by Mr. Rohit Bansal (Vice President, EXL Services). The batch had a lot of curiosity about making a career in ‘C’ – is it the right career for you? What does it entail? What knowledge, resources and skills do you need to arm yourself with?

The ‘C’ that was the talk of the IPMX batch was ‘Consulting’.

Mr. Rohit introduced the batch to ‘blue-sky thinking’. He shared how consulting is both a science and an art. Answers from science need to be tapped and sanitised for customer needs. He talked about developing a target operating model for firms which would encompass dynamics of the organisation, market, business entities, IT, strategy – which is why consulting leads to challenging assignments. This would often lead to questioning the fundamentals, problem solving and arriving at a unique solution suiting the client.

At this stage, it was clear that a person has to don many hats as a consultant and think out of the box. But why do you need to choose a career in consulting? A career in consulting is just as rewarding as it is challenging. It gives one the opportunities to work with various clients at senior levels. It also gives the person tremendous opportunities to evolve as an individual. A consultant should be able to get the client to buy into the solution being proposed rather than what the client wants to hear. Consulting will help a person develop life skills and the ability to think differently. A consulting career also provides the opportunity to experience diverse sectors and geographies.

Mr. Bansal was kind enough to share an overview of the Consulting Industry as well.  After the session ended, the audience continued the discussion with Mr. Rohit Bansal over tea as well. The batch was very thankful to the guest for the wonderful session. Mr. Bansal gave good food for thought for the batch to ponder over.

Leadership Talk Series: Mr.Rohit Bansal, Vice President, EXL Services

“If you are a person who hates mediocrity and loves challenges in life, consulting is the place for you”. This was the core message delivered by Mr. Rohit Bansal, Vice President, EXL services to the students of IPMX in his two hour session. It was a great learning experience for the students of IPMX where they learned about the nuances of Consulting industry and what it takes to touch the zenith of success in this industry.

Leadership Talk Series, Mr. Amandeep Gupta, HR and Executive Director, Dalmia Cement

AN EVENING CEMENTED IN THE MINDS



It has been a long time coming! More than a month ago, we were fortunate to play host to Mr.Amandeep Gupta, HR and Executive Director of Corporate Affairs for Dalmia Cements, and accompanying him was Mr.Anil Chakaravarthy, HR Head for Dalmia Sugar. Dalmia Cements is a relatively old company with a rich heritage for 70 years. Dalmia Cements is also one companies that  is heavily invested in R&D and in specialty cements ranks first in the country.

Leadership Talk Series: Mr.Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder Info Edge

"Businesses are built on customer insights”

This phrase captures the essence of the seminal address given by Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge and creator of successful web portals such as Naukri.Com, Shiksha.com, and Jeevansaathi.com to the students of IIM Lucknow IPMX course as part of theIPMX -Leadership Talk Series.

Throughout the close to 3 hour session, Mr. Bikhchandani enthralled the students as he shared his experiences on his entrepreneurial journey. Info Edge started as a company which performed entry level salary surveys, and moved on to build a market a database of pharmaceutical trademarks.

An Afternoon with Mr. Ambarish Dasgupta

In the first week of July right after our Term –I exams, we had the privilege of hosting  Mr. Ambarish Dasgupta for a leadership talk series at our IIM Lucknow, Noida Campus the area of focus being, “Management Consulting”

Mr. Dasgupta is a stalwart of the consulting industry, having more than 15 years of experience in this field and is currently the executive director and partner at Price Water House Coopers (PWC Ltd.)
In the 90 minute session he touched upon the various changing trends in consulting space.

Business Analysis is Not IT !

In continuation of the rich tradition of the Leadership Talk Series, we got an opportunity to interact with not one but two eminent business leaders, Ms. Kathleen Barret, President and CEO of International Institute of Business Analysis and Mr. Ashish Mehta,Vice President and Global Practice Head- Business Analysis at Keane Inc.

Established in 2003 with its base in Canada; International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) is the leading association in the world of Business Analysis. The organization with its team of 20,000+ members worldwide is working extensively to build a body of knowledge reflecting the generally accepted practices in the field of Business Analysis.

Leadership Talk Series : Evolution of BA practice and its relevance to MBA's

"Background of the Speakers "

 

Kathleen Barret

• In June of 2009, Kathleen Barret became International Institute of Business Analysis’s full-time President and CEO.


• Over 25 years of experience in information technology, Kathleen has held many roles including most recently, managing offshore software development work for a large financial service organization.


• Experienced in CMMI and benchmarking, and through her many years of consulting, brings cross industry knowledge to her role at IIBA.

Ashish Mehta

• Vice President and a Global Practice Head – Business Analysis at Keane Inc.


• 14+ years of proven track record.


• Strong capabilities in building and leading Business Analysis & IT Consulting organization along with the expertise in Strategic Management, Business Development and Quality.


• Certified six sigma black belt.


• Ashish holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and an MBA in Marketing and Finance from H.P. University, India.

LEADERSHIP TALK SERIES- STOP “WORKING”!!!!!!!

After many moons of harping by the IIML admin, we finally got the opportunity to kick-start the Leadership Talk Series on 20^th May 2011. First up on deck was a man who had made a habit of facing adversity eye to eye and trumping it with clinical precision.

Mr.Vijay Shekar Sharma, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of One97, was kind enough to accept our invitation, grace us with his presence and regale us with his talk and very early on it was evident as to why he was regarded as a renowned industry speaker.

Dr. Kiran Bedi at IIM Lucknow

Dr. Kiran Bedi

Last month, we had the privilege to listen to Dr Kiran Bedi, as part of our Leadership talk series. Being the first woman IPS officer, Dr Bedi has been a role model and an icon to many of us and we all were waiting for her lecture with much anticipation. And boy, did she deliver!!

For my part I was really curious to know how a career Police woman would talk to us about the finer nuances of management. To say that it was a real enlightening experience would not be an exaggeration.


She shared her experiences on her tenure as IG Prisons of Tihar Jail - how she brought about reforms in the management of the prison, and initiated number of measures such as detoxification programs, yoga, redressing of complaints by prisoners and even literacy programs. In just about two years she took up a sick organization (if a jail can be so called) and turned it around into a self sustaining and humane organization.

When she took over as IG prisons the prison was a stinking place, literally, as MCD had stopped its cleaning operations in lieu of unpaid bills. An ingenious idea to treat this waste to make manure not only solved the problem of waste disposal but also helped in growing fresh vegetables for the prison Kitchen. This was one of the many measures which she brought about to transform an apathetic government enterprise to a well run professional organization. Leading by example, she started taking rounds of the prison facilities regularly, pointing out the deficiencies and problems in notices pasted on information boards. Her active interest forced her subordinates to emulate her and to take up corrective actions so that on the next round the highlighted issues were taken care of. She started complaint redressing programs, literacy and counselling programs for the prisoners. This was aimed at gaining the prisoners confidence and to make them shun the path of crime once free. Because according to Dr Bedi, the purpose of the prison is not just to house and punish the criminals but to reform them and make them better citizens. Though she admitted the process was not that easy or simple but it had really started showing results and a number of criminals on leaving prison were reformed, law abiding citizens.

As a good leader she also developed second rung leaders, giving them autonomy, appreciation and due credit, so that 15 years after her leaving her position, the good work is continuing and Tihar prison is still citied as a case-study for prison reforms.

Apart from her stint as IG, Tihar she shared other experiences as well and stressed a lot on “sharpening ones axe” continuously and to always be in touch with lowest level of execution as mantras for success. She also impressed on the importance of keeping a balance between ones professional and personal life.

Her experiences brought forth a number of things to us. She proved that innovative thinking can help to overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers. Also it is possible to have a humane side to management and still be immensely successful and profitable. If one has the will and the determination then the so called “chalta hai” attitude prevailing in lots of walks of our lives can also be tackled. By the time Dr Bedi finished her talk, I am sure there was not a single one of us who was not motivated and inspired by her incredible zeal and positivity to become not only inspirational mangers but above that better human beings.

Posted on behalf of Neha Saxena

Power of Rural India- Talk by Mr Pradeep Kashyap- CEO and Founder, MART

Mr. Pradeep Kashyap, CEO and Founder, MART

We got amazing insights this Tuesday, when Mr. Pradeep Kashyap, CEO and Founder, MART, also considered father of rural India, delivered an informative lecture on the power of rural India and its role in the growth of Indian Economy. The Q&A session went on as long as the session itself, continuing well into the high tea whereby Mr Kashyap managed to evoke enthusiastic curiosity amongst a normally urban smitten audience. We were all taken by the sheer power of rural India and its role in the growth of Indian Economy over the last decade and the potential for future. Clearly, it is a BIG asset today as opposed to a liability that we had grown up thinking.

We are realizing the potential of the vast market that had been untapped so far. About 70% of the Indian population resides in our villages and they account for 60% of FMCG market, 57% consumer durables and 40% two-wheelers. As the transportation is improving, the villages are becoming electrified and the literacy rate is improving due to heavy investment and focus by the Indian Government, the scene of Rural India is undergoing an image transformation over past 7-10 years

One of the biggest advantages is that rural sector was instrumental in guarding India from the Global Economic meltdown. During the last 1-2 year recession period, there has been no growth in urban sector, but all the growth that occurred in Indian economy is solely due to rural sector. 600,000 villages saved the 5136 odd towns and cities that together make up our country. There was no wealth erosion simply because all the impacted sectors (IT, real estate and stock market) did not have a role to play in the rural market! People construct houses to live, not for investments and of course there are no IT companies or stock markets to bother here.

Going back to statistics, rural India accounts for 0.5 Trillion USD today (this has been the growth until now i.e. in 60 years) and it is expected to cross 1 Trillion USD in the next 10 years i.e. by 2020. This is the total economy for Canada.
In 50 years (1950-2000) we managed to have road connectivity to 50% villages. In the next 10 years (2000- 2010) another 30% villages have been connected! 21% teledensity with 0-> 180 million connections has been accomplished over last 5 years. On an average each family in rural India has a mobile phone today! Could we ever envisage this?

Everything's seem to be going well on rural marketing front whereby domestic as well as Multinationals have recognized the market potential due to sheer volume of population. The only jarring note is agriculture as the farmers are still the poorest with their per capita income less than half of those in any other sector. The service people are definitely the best off. Fortunately the Rain God and Government God ( yes, Mr Kashyap used these two terms ;)) have been very kind over last 10 years and we had 8 out of 10 good monsoon seasons as opposed to an average of 5 out of 10. Toda, the people in villages spend about 43% of their income on food as opposed to 58% back in 2000. This number is projected to further reduce to 33% by year 2020 that is the amount invested by urban man on food today! The needs to the village man are clearly becoming more and more urbanized giving cues to all the companies out there to reach out to this new market with customized products.

The growth rate of Rural India is at an all time high of 13.5% and some of the projections are as follows:
Healthcare: 24.4% today to 55.6% by 2020
Education: 24.4% today to 55.6% by 2020
Transportation: 44.4% today to 80% by 2020
Communication: 3.3% today to 8.9% by 2020

We can comfortably look up to Rural India for leading Indian Economic growth. The only factors that can possibly go wrong are failure of monsoons or a shift in the priority of Government. The latter is unlikely , therefore, we should gear up to a rural economy led growth and here's a message to all the companies out there....come and explore, rather explode the potential of our rural market to reap benefits for one and all !

The Government Business - Talk from Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya, Director, Hewlett Packard

In the recent edition of Leadership Talk Series, we got opportunity to interact with Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya, Director, Government Advisory at Hewlett Packard. We all found the session to be quite an eye opener in terms of opportunities that are available for private sector in doing business with government and also typical challenges that are there in this area. Businesses today definitely can’t afford to overlook tremendous potential that is there in providing goods and services to government given the fact that government is largest procurer in the country. 

Dr. Bhattacharya highlighted the need for businesses to be impartial and neutral towards political establishments so that change in government doesn’t put you out of business. Another interesting point that I noted was how can we factor in typical challenges like delayed payments, beaurocracy etc. in our business model itself so as to ensure a successful execution. 

Dr. Bhattacharya also shared his experiences regarding how Brazil chose to deliver cable TV through standardized CAS set top boxes and provided internet services as well through same boxes with the strategy to increase internet penetration as well as to deploy the resources efficiently within the country. He talked about open source revolution and how businesses today are leveraging it in government sector by providing services around open source solutions. He ended the session with food for thought for all of us: ‘Can India develop its own Microprocessor one day?’ 

An Evening with Dr. Rana Mehta, VP Healthcare, Technopak

Dr. Rana Mehta, VP Healthcare, Technopak, was at the Noida campus of IIM Lucknow yesterday (29^th July 2010) as a speaker in their Leadership Talk Series.

Dr. Mehta dwelled on the future of healthcare and emphasized the role of genomics towards the same, saying that a one-size-fits-all drug could make way for drugs customized according to an individual’s genetic makeup, as the science of genomics enters its ‘plateau of productivity’.

Costs of healthcare in the US, he also observed, have risen from 5% of the national GDP in 1960 to about 15% in 2005, but only 65% of the increase has been due to the technology; the rest has been absorbed by the insurance-premiums. Consequently, people from the US (and other developed countries) have started to prefer to immigrate into Asian countries for their major healthcare needs, making for a huge driver of growth for the industry in these parts of the world.

He also talked about the growth of healthcare sector in india. He discussed the various segments of the industry and how these segments are likely to shape up in the coming decade. He also talked about the PPP model for healthcare industry in India.

The students used the platform of the Leadership Talk Series to become aware of the challenges facing the healthcare sector, and the opportunities inherent in it. Students had a wonderful discussion on low cost healthcare in India with Dr. Rana.

Leaders Interaction Series 2009 - Snapshots

IIML - IPMX invites Corporate leaders from various industries under its Leaders Interaction Series programme, on a regular basis. Leaders Interaction Series 2009 is aimed at building a strong industry academia relationship and provide a platform for interaction between the Industry Leaders and students. The interaction program allows students to discuss Market Innovations, New Management Concepts and issues relevant to the industry in the current scenario.

Ms Charu Sehgal from Deloitte Consulting

Dr Praneet Kumar from Fortis Healthcare

Mr Shubhinder Singh from Reebok

Mr S Udupa from PWC

Mr S Mitra from Maruti Suzuki

Mr Benjamin from MART

Leadership Interaction Series

Posting from an article that appeared in pagalguy.com today on the interaction of IPMX participants with Dr Yashovardhan Verma, Director - HR, LG Electronics India
(http://www.pagalguy.com/index.php?categoryid=44&p2_articleid=1283)
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IPMX students at IIM-Ls Noida campus interact with HR Director - LG Electronics
By PaGaLGuY News ServicePublished: July 8, 2008

Leveraging the strategic location of NCR, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow - Noida campus initiated a ‘Leadership Interaction Series’ for the participants of International Programme in Management for Executives (IPMX). As part of series, the participants of the IPMX got an opportunity to interact with business leaders, discuss various strategic issues confronting global organizations at senior management level and learn from the thoughts & experiences of the distinguished speakers.

The participants of IPMX had an opportunity to interact with Dr Yashovardhan Verma, Director - HR, LG Electronics India. Dr Verma provided key insights and ring side view of the challenges and drivers of the senior management in a global organization. Dr Verma stressed upon the importance of innovation by pointing that, “Excellence of today is obsolesce of tomorrow”. He emphasized the significance of empowering the lower level employees in an organization that could result in ideas and solutions not thought of before. Introducing the concept of 360 degree leadership Dr Verma emphasized the importance of influencing without necessarily being in a position of formal authority.With reference to the increasing globalization of business, Dr Verma spoke about the challenges faced in integrating the different cultures and possible strategies to overcome the same. He also mentioned that while the skills & knowledge levels of most organizations are almost the same, the key differentiator of current business leaders is their agility & speed of execution.

About IPMX
IPMX is a full time, one-year residential executive management programme being conducted at IIM Lucknow - Noida campus and is designed for mid/senior level professionals, to prepare them for leadership roles. The programme aims to accelerate understanding of business at functional and strategic levels, and prepare students to manage enterprises engaged in global business. The class of IPMX 2008-09 includes 45 leads and middle level managers from diverse industries such as FMCGs, Financial Services, Government Services, Information Technology, Management Consultancy, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Projects/Construction, Shipping, Telecom, Automotive and Instrumentation. The class profile has an average GMAT of 701, age of 32 years and work experience of 9.5 years.
Website: http://www.iimlnc.ac.in/ipmx.php
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