Udyam 2012: HR Strategies and Leadership

Day 2 started with the thought provoking insights of Prof. T.V Rao on Human Resource Development (HRD). Listening about “Emerging Challenges for the HR Leaders in the globalized corporate landscape” from the father of HRD in India was as mesmerizing for students of IIM Lucknow as it was for student participants from other B Schools, the esteemed Professors of IIM Lucknow, and Industry executives who took part in Udyam 2012. Prof. T.V Rao’s each word of wisdom on the subject illuminated the audience in understanding the roots of the actual problems in the current corporate landscape. Dr. Rao concluded his speech by impressing upon the importance of high value culture for the success of modern organizations and the need to increase the occurrence of two way communication between organizations and employees.

The second debate on Day 2 of Udyam 2012 was focused on “Building leadership and Management Excellence – Spotting young Leaders”. The debate diversely captured the views of the industry stalwarts like Mr. Ashish Kumar Chawla, Country HR Director, ST Microelectronics, Ms. Kavita Rao, HR - Head, Unisys,Ms. Malvika Verma, Sr. VP HR, Max Healthcare,  and Mr. Ashok Bhat, Director of MindShare HR Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.  



Mr. Chawla in his introduction speech stated that the Job of HRD department is to make the employees feel motivated. HRD can’t be separated from the rest of organization as it is one department through which all information or transactions pass within an organization. Ms. Kavita engaged the audience by elaborating on Whys, Whats and Hows of leadership. She explained why an organization does needs a leader and what traits separate a leader from a manager. A leader is visionary and innovative and one who leads his organization to success.

Ms. Malvika Verma, aptly used an anecdote to the need for right recruitment for right position using right hiring policies. She stressed that today’s organizations face two major challenges in terms of hiring right employees and retaining the star performers. Mr. Ashok Bhat emphasized that the role of HRD practices has now more or less settled in the current organizational landscape. We don’t really need an HRD department as HRD practices have become routine for most organizations.

Overall in the end of the debate the respected speakers agreed that the organizations need to understand the need to enhance the leadership quality. It is important to have lateral mobility within organizations as it motivates achievers to perform better to grab underlying opportunities.

The next session was “Rethinking HR Strategy: Impact of social media” by Mr. Vivek Tripathi, Chief Human Resources Officer, Lava International Limited. Mr. Vivek apprised the audience of the challenges faced by employees, recruiters and companies due to the impact of social media. Intricacies of HR strategies entwined with social media evoked good interest among the audience.



Jack Welch once noted – “Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.”

In the afternoon session, we had an interesting discussion on "HR challenges due to globalisation of the work force".

The panelists for the discussion were:
Mr. Manmohan Bhutani, VP - People and Operations, Fiserv Global services
Mr. Prashant Bhatnagar, Director- Hiring and Staffing, SapientNitro India
Mr. G V P Rajan, Director, Vardhnam Consulting
The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Abad Ahmad, Chairman, National Committee at Aga Khan Foundation



The panel felt that the key challenges can be overcome mainly by dealing with ‘Intercultural sensitivities’ adeptly and handling situations with ‘Contextual Awareness’. Clear explicit communication is most important to reach a common understanding. Mr. Bhutani noted that sometimes personal meetings are very essential to experience and understand culture and sensitivities of other nationalities/diverse backgrounds. Mr. Bhatnagar was of the opinion that we should be ‘global’ while being ‘local’. Values may be global but contexts should be local, he opined. He also said that organisation should move towards centers with no center of gravity – meaning an organisation which is completely decentralised in taking decisions with no single center of authority. Mr. G V P Rajan expressed that HR managers have to define global career paths and facilitate aspatial careerists. He also stressed on the need to have appropriate compensation plans and understanding of the local laws while framing local policies for the organisations in various countries.

With this, Udyam 2012 has concluded and we are satisfied with the exposure to various facets of human resources and current challenges. The event has provided excellent food for thought and equipped us with knowledge passed on to us by the eminent industry practitioners that will hold us in good stead in the coming years.

- Shekhar Kumar, Karthik Bharadwaja

Nobody can build you unless you are ready to build yourself!

The second day of Udyam 2012 was kicked off by none other than the father of Human Resource development in the country, Mr. T. V. Rao. The topic of the session was "Emerging challenges for the human resource leadership in the globalized corporate landscape." He started the discussion by illuminating the audience with his talk on the evolution of the human resource department in India. He described how the   first dedicated HR department, comprising  mostly of psychologists and social sciences experts was established in Larsen and Tourbo in 1974 with the sole aim of promoting all round development of employees. In the 1980's most of the US companies renamed their training department to HR department.  Other countries including India followed the trend.

In today's context, Dr. Rao emphasized the fact that the line between family life and professional life is blurring. With employees spending most of their waking hours in office and then carrying office discussions to home, corporations are fast becoming their second families. The real role of HR is to ensure good mental and emotional health of its employees. He further questioned the classical definition of HRD and discussed how most of the classical HR functions such as employee mentoring and development are today taken over by individual line managers. He opined that the focus should now shift from HR Department driven HRD to user driven HRD. Mr. Rao emphasised that the success of HRD function is when it has attained status of self liquidation. It is not needed any more to promote learning among line managers or other employees. It only provides a milieu and mechanisms and learning happens on its own.

He categorized leaders into the following four categories:

Doers: This class of people (around 80%) need explicit push in the form of Job Descriptions, Job Specifications or WBS.
Achievers: These leaders not only do what is asked for but some more
Visionaries: These leaders have all the characteristics of achievers and they achieve results faster by applying their own thinking. They see opportunities in problems. He explained this class with the example of Dr. Verghese Kurien (Amul revolution)
Missionaries: These people are wedded to work and undertake everything with absolute single minded purpose.

In the 70s and 80s, technology was scarce and hence it was the main strategic variable based on which companies competed. In current times, human talent is in short supply and thus it is the new strategic variable. In today's world it is easy to buy talent but it is very difficult to develop and nurture talent from within. Mr. Rao believed that buying talent would lead to poaching of talent. The present day manager has to plan for long term but deliver results in short run. Since there is no fixed formula to achieve that, every manager has to develop his own heuristics. In the present context, every manager has to manage multiple stake holders including his direct boss. Dr Rao gave two golden rules to better manage bosses - give your suggestions to him only before he has taken any decision. Any suggestion after he took a decision is taken as an open criticism.

He winded the session with 7 strategic challenges faced by HR today

HR should think ahead of the CEO.
HR should influence the CEO's thinking.
HR must restructure their role appropriately.
HR must work on developing leaders and leadership.
HR should focus on continuous learning, including learnings from gen Y.
HR must inculcate values and culture in all employees.
HR must work on developing intellectual capital of the orgranization.
He said that it is easy to determine a company's intellectual capital (Market capital-book value) but it is very difficult for an individual to calculate his intellectual capital. Dr. Rao shared his HRD mantra of "a person's IC is no where except his own mind."

The biggest take away from this session is that no matter which technology, domain or industry we eventually land in, we all need to develop strong HRD skills to become efficient managers.

By Nikhil Bhargava (Media Committee)

Udyam 2012 - Emerging Challenges for the HR Leaders in the Globalized Corporate Landscape

It was indeed a great honor and pleasure to host such an august gathering that has come together under the aegis of Udyam 2012. An endeavor of the Executive management students, Udyam – is an annual summit hosted at the NOIDA campus and serves as a platform in bringing together eminent personalities and stalwarts from the corporate world, government and society to churn out and discuss ground breaking ideas and thoughts that would help shape the future of the industry, society and nation at large. It provides a unique opportunity for the students to interact with and learn from the vast bounty of knowledge and wisdom shared by the leading practitioners from their respective fields and thus help prepare them for a meaningful and enriching career in the industry. Continuing along the same lines, this year, Udyam 2012 would encompass discussions on Emerging Challenges for the HR Leaders in the Globalized Corporate Landscape.

Opening panel discussion on “Employee engagement on business performance” was anchored by Mark Lynn, from DD News.Eminent panelists Mr. Jacob Jacob - Chief People Officer, Apollo Hospitals, Priyanka Anand - Vice President - HR & Organisation, Ericsson, Ms. Savitha Nair  - Director - Human Resource, Sulekha  and Mr. Shrinivas Sastri - Vice President & Head India HR, BirlaSoft and Mr. Vineet Sharma -Director HR, Indus Valley Partners,voiced their opinion on this subject. Soliciting feedback from employees, substantiating that with an action plan and communicating it progress back to the employees will close the loop of employee engagement. Defining a clear career path in terms of technology skills as well as soft skills with active involvement by the employee is a norm in current scenario. Panel concluded the discussion by highlighting the importance of employee engagement in sustainable growth of organizations.



In session 2 of Udyam, an esteemed panel of Industry stalwarts discussed “Innovation and employee satisfaction through non monetary measures”. The panel included inspiring leaders such as Mr. Rajeev Bhadauria, Director Group HR, Jindal Steel and Power Limited, Mr. Ajay Bhasin , Regional HR Manager, Britannia, Mr. Anuricha Teotia, Deputy General Manager, Technopak, Mr. Ajay Bhasin, Regional HR Manager,Britania. Sharat Chander, Director at Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting played the role of panel moderator.

The speakers talked about the intangible benefits that could motivate the employees. Even during the selection process for middle to senior management professionals, special focus needs to be given to identify the values which the person cherishes. Fulfillment of these values will prove to be the best way to motivate the employee. The very insightful discussion concluded by resounding ovation from audience. Elite panelists convinced students of IIM Lucknow, Noida campus that monetary benefits alone cannot drive employee to excellence. Employee’s excellence is in his own drive to evolve as a leader in organization.



A star performer can be great at what he or she does, but do they have what it takes to succeed in the higher level position is a vital question that every manager can ask themselves before they arrive at a final decision. With this as backdrop, session 3 on "The dilemma of years of experience v/s star performers" was initiated. Discussion was anchored by Mark Lynn, from DD News. Panel members were Mr.Vasant Sanzgiri - Group Head Human Resources, Shapoorji Pallonji , Ms.Pooja Arya, DGM HR , IBM  and Prof. Punam Sehgal.Discussion revolved around the importance of rewarding star performers by putting them in fast track and complexities created in the workforce management due to this change in leadership dynamics. Panel highlighted the need of fast tracking and its increasing level of acceptance due to the results they deliver.

Day was packed with lot of insightful thoughts being talked about and the students enjoyed every bit of it. They called it a day with great expectations about the upcoming sessions in Udyam 2012- Day 2.

- Parag Deshpande, Bijumohan R, Siddharth Asthana

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

Kakkar Ko Takkar - 2012

“The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous and enduring and thus more intelligent and even competitive”.

These are the words of wisdom by the famous environmentalist Paul Hawken, which propelled the Kakkar Ko Takkar 2012, an annual marketing club event of IIM Lucknow – Noida. The themes for this edition were -environment, social, and economic sustainability. The promotion of a creative idea based on these themes fired the imagination of the entire class. The fertile minds got together to create innovative ads resourcefully.

The event took off with Prof. Rajeev Kumra welcoming chief guest Ms. Radhika Agarwal – VP, Marketing at Shopclues.com. Our own alums Manish Chandra and Rajbeer Kaur added more colors to the event by their gracious presence.



Students presented captivating footages on power, e-waste, plastic waste, corruption, river pollution and many more current issues. With every passing team showcasing their thoughts, creativity, the competition was getting tougher to evaluate for the jury.

The winning team of Somya, Abhijit, Bharathi Shekar & Karthik walked away with the coveted first prize by giving a strong message to save power with the punch line “Save Power to Empower”. The team managed to shoot the video with a basic camera and showed the stark disparity between consumption of power in the urban and rural areas.

External jury Ms. Radhika was delighted by the work of the teams with minimum resources. She further sensitized the batch on E- Commerce, internet marketing and its challenges. She inspired the class stating that passion is the only important criteria to be successful in life.

This year, Max – Marketing club of IPMX added another flavour to the event by seasoning the event with the spice of Viral Marketing. Max uploaded all entries of the advertisements and challenged the participating teams to grab maximum views on Youtube. Here again “Power team” proudly walked away with maximum hits.

The adverts can be viewed at the following links:

Winning Ad:



Runners Up:



Watch all the Ads here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL567252DA51FDC0DC&feature=view_all

-   Neelam Talera

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

Shadow Banking

As I write - Shanghai is going gung-ho on shadow banking via web, harnessing E-commerce to its best. A  significant chunk of unregulated $ 2.4 Trillion* market in China is eventually moving online.

 What specially caught my attention, when I researched further was, that this conduit of capital, is making up 25-30% of the World's Financial System. In 2010 itself, just before when governments world over started tightening their credit policies, the market was an estimated $ 60 trillion** , truly reflecting, the impact it has on the global economy.

To my thinking, China's spurt in such unorganized retail lending, points at 2 things for Asia:

 - First, it aptly validates the acuteness of credit shortage all across Asia. Post 2010, with an ever increasing tightening of credit, there has been a mass acceptance of such institutions primarily because of more hurdles and checks put by banks and at the same time, quick availability of desired credit from these shadow banks without any process hiccups.

- Second, it is a precursor to the future Asian Credit crisis. With the sudden surge of such institutions and hence, of such unorganized loans, the quantum of bad debts are bound to go up, as these institutions are not guided/governed or regulated by central bank. These toxic debts will eventually worsen the overall credit flow. That day may not be far then... when analysts and economists globe-over start envisaging Asian crisis, on the footprints of European or American credit defaults. 

However, shadow banking is not all that villainous... It offers customers a  wider array of choices, in terms of credit supply. These institutions can often provide credit, that is more cost-efficient than banks. And most importantly, to customer segment , who might not otherwise have such access, in a way, aiding respective governments, in their financial inclusion drive.

There are disadvantages though...  These institutions have the tendency to lure customers by doling out more rewards out of the investments, much more than banks, thereby increasing risks mounting in the financial system. On a more of illegal means of funding, these unregulated shadow institutions can be used to circumvent the strictly regulated mainstream banking system and therefore avoid rules designed to prevent financial crises. 

If we recall, it were these shadow banks sitting in tax havens, that created the real estate bubble during first few years of this millennium that jettisoned the world economy out of the safety zone and landing amidst the Financial Crisis which we are still struggling from...

 - Article written by Malay Ghosh, IPMX05 

*    Data picked from Economic Times, 25 July 2012.

 ** As reported by  Financial Stability Board  (a regulatory task force for the world's group of top 20 economies (G20).