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PRATIBIMBThe Reflection Of Management
Finance | General Management | Human Resources | Marketing | Health Care | Systems | Operations
August - September Issue A Student Initiative
D i s h a
FINOMENAL
The BloombergStory
Dialogues withIndustry Magnates
TAPMI
T. A. PAI MANAGEMENT INSTITUTEManipal, Karnataka
About TAPMIT. A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) is a premier management institute situated in Manipal
and is well known for its academic rigor & faculty-student interaction. The Institute has been
recently ranked amongst top 1 per cent of B-schools in India & 2nd in the South Zone by The
Week Magazine.
Founded by the visionary, Late Shri. T. A. Pai, TAPMI’s mission is to provide much needed
impetus to the task of building professional management capability in the country. In the process,
it has also played a role in strengthening the existing educational and health infrastructure of
Manipal.
Our Mission“To excel in post-graduate management education, research and practice”.
Means:
• By nurturing and developing global wealth creators and leaders.
• By continually benchmarking ourselves against best in class institutions.
• By fostering continuous learning and reflection, achievement orientation, creative
interdependence and respect for diversity.
Value Bounds:
• Holistic concern for ethics, environment and society.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 2
"Pratibimb", through its elite and lettered articles is rightly focused andforward looking. The write ups included in the issues by the industry expertsare thought provoking and give the satisfaction of a good read. I truly believein the magazine's role and responsibility in eliciting the thought processes ofthe students and getting them at par with the current market trends. Iencourage the students, faculty and industry experts to utilize this magazinein order to gain a greater understanding and better know-how.This special issue is focused on 'DISHA 2014' - The largest HR Conclave inIndia and 'Finomenal 2014' - The Finance Conclave during which weinaugurated the country's largest Bloomberg Finance Lab here at TAPMI.I'm sure the efforts of the students team and the faculty in materializing themagazine will be appreciated by one and all. May you have a good read
Dr. R C NatarajanDirector, TAPMI
DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 3
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
THE TEAM
STUDENT EDITORIAL BOARD
Debayan Bhattacharjee
Debidatta Satapathy
Deepanwita Nandi
Harshavardhan Rajendrababu
Pallavi Prasad
FACULTY ADVISORY BOARD
Prof. Aparna Bhat
Prof. Chowdari Prasad
Prof. R C Natarajan
Prof. Seena Biju
Prof. Vidya Pratap
Prof. Vinod Madhavan
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 4
It’s been buzzing activities here at TAPMI all of last
two months. Two of our flagship events ‘DISHA’ &
‘FINOMENAL’ saw an influx of some of the brightest
minds of the industry with a rich turnover of
experience stories and professional advices! Meet
the minds and the teams that made it happen!
Our cover stories include two exclusive interviews
with Chairpersons Prof. (Col) K J James and Prof
Madhu Veeraraghavan. Get to know what drives
them and keeps their team motivated while they
speak of their respective events.
With two very intriguing themes ‘Talent Race in
Emerging Economies-will India win?’ – DISHA and
“Financial Innovation: Sustainability Vs
Vulnerability” - FINOMENAL, the only dearth
experienced during the two conclaves was that of
time! This issue is also dedicated to envisaging the
thoughts & opinions delivered at the conclaves!
We bring you the perspectives and standpoints of 15
experts from a spectrum of industries with an
invitation to a gen-broadening and inspiring reading
experience!
Compliments to the team of editors for their good
work as they continue to grow in their efforts to
consolidate and disseminate valuable reading to the
family of business scholars!
Keep reading, Keep reflecting!
Dr. Seena Biju
Ex-Officio Editor-in-Chief
CONTENTS
Cover Story
Making Bloomberg Happenwith Prof Madhu Verraraghavan
Enabling India’s Largest HR Conclavewith Col. P. S. James
The Inside Story
Development of Capital Markets in IndiaBy Mr Binoy Samuel, CFO. Geojit BNP Paribas
Different Elements under TreasuryBy Mr Ganesh K, SVP - Treasury and Corporate Development, DRL
Employee Engagement and Talent Acquisitionin Financial Sector
By Mr Mohit Shetty, AVP-HR, Reliance Capital Asset Management
Business Transformation and Change ManagementBy Mr Rajat Jain, Managing Director, Xerox India Ltd.
The Great Debate
Will India WinDisha Edition
Regulation v/s InnovationFinomenal Special
7
10
12
13
16
17
14
18
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 5
CONTENTS
In a Dialogue
Karuna Kumar VempalaHead Acquisition, Cigniti Technologies
Raghavendra KV.P. and Head HR, Infosys BPO
Amitabh KumarHead HR, NEC
Dipti DasHead HR-South Asia, Aramex
Suraj ChettriHead HR, Airbus
Prem VelayudanHR Director & Employee Relations Leader - APAC, CISCO
Sridhar KrishnamurthyCo-Founder & Director, Kelsa Solutions
Ranjana AnandDirector – HR, Optimal Strategix
Prabhakar PatilJoint Director, SEBI
22
24
26
28
29
30
32
34
36
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 6
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 7
Making
BLOOMBERG
Happen!
Madhu
Veeraraghavan
Professor and Area Chair
(Accounting, Economics and
Finance), TAPMI
As spoken to Debayan
Bhattacharjee
Let’s begin by asking you about
the TAPMI Finance Lab –the
conception of the idea, the story
preceding it, the challenges faced
in the process and significance of having such a facility TAPMI.
The conception of the lab goes back a year, when I joined TAPMI. The Director, on a tour to the
US, visited Business Schools where they were equipped with Finance Labs, and we then
discussed the possibility of replicating the same at TAPMI.
Initially we had a product called Cogenesis, which is a type of newswire. The Trust swiftly
approved for Bloomberg.
Soon, I coordinated with the experts at Bloomberg to keep the ball rolling here. The architects
were identified a room in the second floor of K.K Pai block. Things fell into place by late April
and the critical part of the work started in June. Along with the construction team, I set a target of
3 months to complete establishment up of the Lab. The Bloomberg Lab was successfully
completed in August.
The launch of the Bloomberg Lab was magnificent. Mr. Nayan Mehta, CFO, Bombay Stock
Exchange was honored to be the Chief Guest for the launch along with star studded list of
industry experts, CFOs, CEOs and Analysts.
At Finomenal 2014, Samnidhy was officially floated, a mutual fund envisioned to be run like a
business entity with a CFO, a CEO, CMO; it is principally intended to give students an
experience of running a corporate show. Samnidhy is a great opportunity for students to learn
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 8
‘ ’Finomenal
SMIF is actually not unique. There are two schools in India that have it - one is IIM Lucknow,
how to handle money. In finance, there always lies a disconnect between the theory and the
practice of finance. Hence now at TAPMI, we expect these initiatives to extensively bridge this
gap and help us go a long way up.
Next, we launched was course, namely SMIC (Student Managed Investment Course), where 36
students were to be involved in it. Each student would be given INR 25000 worth real money to
invest in the market - if they lose we adjust it with their fixed deposit and if they gain then they
share 50-50 with TAPMI. It goes to an endowment in TAPMI. So a very interesting course
outline was drafted and 36 students were picked. There is no final exam for this course, you
either burn your fingers or you make money. We wanted this to be a real experience. No other
school actually provides this in India. Schools outside India which provide similar platforms to
students are Stanford, Monash, HKU, etc.
In the forthcoming future, we are planning to get the Bloomberg training team here to train all
Finance people and non-Finance faculty members, and bring the real world to the classroom.
Once the lab has been set up what is your continued relationship with
Bloomberg? Does it end there?
TAPMI has agreed to have an annual subscription worth INR fifty lakh for the Bloomberg
licenses. Bloomberg also has a magnificent support team called WebEx. They conduct training
sessions. Every Wednesday they have WebEx remote sessions conducted by people who live and
breathe Bloomberg. Here at TAPMI, we have two Bloomberg champions, whose job it is to
promote the use of Bloomberg across the 95 finance students.
They have people who assist faculty all around in designing and integrating Bloomberg into the
course, esp. in a courses like portfolio management, security analysis, international finance,
capital market courses. Theory is isn’t as much fun alone. But when this is put together, it makes
a profound influence. Students enjoy it and understand things better.
The Bloomberg database has tons of information. They have used it, internalized it, tailored the
information, and then are attempting to sell it to us. Without Bloomberg, they would have
researched on the web, made reports, and collect data. But the credibility of the data may be in
question or the same may be outdated or not readily available. A Bloomberg subscription serves,
you with all the data, some probably we didn’t even know existed. Bloomberg delivers at a high
level of reliability, hence foremost players of the financial industry, including banks and schools
have a Bloomberg terminal. It’s a win-win situation for TAPMI. The annual investment of INR
fifty lakhs may seem huge, but the returns are obtained in the form of brand image it creates and
the industry readiness users may experience here at TAPMI. It simply cannot be quantified.
Let us talk a bit more about the SMIF. Where do you draw a line between it
being a business versus being an educational experience? Also, what is the
level of autonomy that the students get in terms of faculty? How far are they
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 9
overseeing on this?
and other IMT Ghaziabad. Our model is different to theirs. In their model, it is basically the
faculty that does everything. I wanted this to be reversed. What we have done is put up an
advisory board which other schools don’t have. SMIF now has a very powerful set of people in
the finance industry who are going to be advisors to SMIF team. The advisory Board actually has
the power to veto a recommendation an executive makes. That connection can actually bring the
industry closer to TAPMI.
As far as the question on business versus learning is concerned, this is a superb learning
experience. No question that it is also a business. Because these people are going to handle your
(students’) money. It is not a lot of money but at the same time if you are handling somebody
else’s money, you better know how to handle that money. So your unpreparedness, ill equipped
knowledge would be devastating. This is a student run activity, run by students, for students. And
so every student who puts his money is learning something. Now you are not playing with just
your money, you are playing with 400 other students. They are all looking up to the SMIF board
to make sensible, rational decisions.
What is the plan with regard to continuity and passing on the Finance Lab and
Samnidhy to the junior batch once the seniors graduate and leave the campus?
We want some first year students to be involved in the SMIF Committee. It is imperative that the
first year students are extremely interested to receive a hands-on experience. I will ensure that
there is a perfect succession plan.
What is the future you see for the TAPMI Finance Lab as well as Samnidhy?
What I wish to see is the TAPMI Finance Lab integrated in as many finance subjects that we
teach. There should be no finance course that gets taught at TAPMI where TAPMI finance lab is
not being used.
My vision is to see that faculty take ownership, of the facility, of the resources that we have put
together. Students then should shrink gap between the theory and practice of finance. The
industry will observe that TAPMI graduates are certainly different to others because of the
industry exposure they have received.
In regard to Samnidhy, it is probably a more challenging task than the finance lab, because in
Samnidhy, there is going to be a lot of turnover, students are going to leave and the new batch
comes in. The finance lab can only run where there is support or where there is ownership both
from faculty and from students.
My desire and my goal is to see that everybody uses it at TAPMI, and make learning much more
fun, for students and faculty.
Enabling India’s
Biggest HR Conclave
Col P. S. James
Professor and Area Chair –
Human Resources
As spoken to Pallavi Prasad
Disha 2014 – How do you think it
has evolved over the years, and
what do you think are the factors
that contributed to it?
Disha has evolved over the years; from a
two day singular themed event with a
substantial number of HR experts as guests,
this time it was larger in scope, and was
spread over six days with more than sixty
HR officials, who were able to schedule
their travel to Badagabettu with ease due to the elaborate duration of the event. A diverse set of
themes were discussed with great enthusiasm by the guests as well as students.
The student committees contributed their best efforts to make Disha 2014 a success. Disha 2014
gave a platform for students to interact with very senior HR managers for the industry. The
students had a lot of buy-in, which they derived with portraying lot of fervour and energy. The
HR forum and Placement Committee joined hands together to attract the best talent to TAPMI,
where the latter shared the corporate world connections it had gathered in due course of time.
What have been the takeaways for the students, the management, as well as
the Corporate HR guests who came down to TAPMI for Disha 2014?
For the students, the takeaway from Disha 2014 has been first, emphasis on talent, second, an
insight into what the companies are looking for, and third that the term ‘talent’ is not generic in
nature, in the sense that every human being is talented in one or many ways. But they also learnt
that there is a need to gather specific talents relevant to organizational or industrial needs at the
moment.
The second takeaway was that it has given confidence to an organization that it can bring
eminent personalities and great talent from the field of HR to TAPMI for interaction with the
students. Most organizations believe in recruiting the right talent, even if it is from a far-off
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 10
‘ ’Disha
place like Manipal, but we saw the actual implementation of that during Disha. In fact, it is a
significant demonstration of that.
For Faculty, I believe it was a wonderful opportunity to interact with several corporate people,
and the industry-academic collaboration. The fairly comfortable lunch breaks were favourable for
interactions between the faculty and the guests.
For the managers themselves, they were quite elated, primarily because they could meet several
of their colleagues and peers from other industries, and discuss on theme of talent management.
They were able to exchange notes, and more importantly, got the opportunity to have individual
discussions with students. All of them participated in the panel discussions, 2 to 3 of which was
scheduled each day of the six days. Also, they were asked to deliver a guest lecture to a smaller
group of 40 to 50 students for an intensive interaction. These two activities kept them very much
engaged and involved throughout the time.
Considering the present has been a successful undertaking, what do you now
see as the future for Disha?
The future of Disha would be very much on the same lines. I would say that for the next 2-3
years we should work on stabilizing the present model before we look at something different. We
could improve our efforts to increase the industry closure. It would also be a good idea to have a
short presentation of TAPMI to the guests at their arrival, although everything about TAPMI is
discussed with them essentially on an individual basis, or when the students come. But perhaps
there is still scope for some senior faculty, the Dean or the Director himself to give short
presentations to the guests. Although with the given framework of their flexible timings, I am not
really sure to what extent we may be able to implement this idea. Getting a theme for next year
would also be a challenge, I believe.
One more thing that I feel is that Disha is a platform for everyone to take-off, and not for just the
HR students. It is perhaps just a perception that the guests here are HRs, and therefore only for
the HR students. But the talent and people that they pick up are across functions and industries.
Also, not many students are aware that there are some solid databases that TAPMI has, and I
firmly believe that if they use it they will be much better prepared to join the industry.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 11
Development Of Capital Markets In India
Mr Binoy Samuel (CFO, Geojit BNP Paribas)
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 12
‘ ’Finomenal
Mr Binoy Samuel, an exemplary participant of
Finomenal 2014, shared his views on “Capital
market – how it developed in India” with
students. In accordance with the theme, he
took the students through the history of
evolution of the Indian Capital Market where
in the pre- 1991 era trading was at that time
limited to a dozen brokers. This selectiveness
gave room for scams and highlighted the
challenges of liberalisation. But with the
introduction of technology and governing
bodies like NSE and NSEL, the Capital
Markets industry was changed for ever.
Digitalization and technology transformed the
system to a very fast one and magnanimously
increased the volatility at the same time. In last
decade it has been observed that there has been
a paradigm shift in Indian capital market. The
application of many reforms and developments
in Indian capital market has made the Indian
capital market comparable with the
international capital markets. Today the market
features a developed regulatory mechanism
and a modern market infrastructure with
growing market capitalization, market
liquidity, and mobilization of resources.
Of late, a new category of markets,
commodities market has been introduced in
India. A lay person cannot understand
technicality of financial instrument, but with
the advent of commodities market even a lay
person feels motivated to participate in
something that appealed to them-commodities
they use.
He asserted that with the volatility of growth
of Capital Markets, there is a lot of scope of
penetration into the weaker social sector of our
society. This will invite the next step after
banking i.e. participation in the Capital
Markets. Concluding the enlightening session
he said that capital market has become very
transparent today and there is a potential for
the Indian market to expand.
Different Elements Under TreasuryMr Ganesh K (Senior VP - Treasury and Corporate
Development, Dr Reddy’s Labs)
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 13
As a part of the ongoing TAPMI Finomenal
2014, Mr. Ganesh K, Senior Vice President -
Treasury and Corporate Development, Dr.
Reddy’s Laboratories interacted with the
students regarding the nitty-gritty of treasury
and how it is managed across different firms.
He began the session with different elements
under treasury – cash, liquidity, debt, capital
and forex. According to him, managing funds
is the elementary function of treasury and is
the toughest part.
Further on, he talked about the different
functions of finance – corporate finance, sales
support finance, supplier finance, structured
finance. He gathered more interest from the
audience when he suggested that forex is an
attractive and a much more fashionable option
for students.
With respect to a student’s question, he
explained how bureaucracy of India is a
hindrance in a company’s operations, and how
countries with fewer regulations are becoming
attractive places for investment and operations.
More into the session, he explained how
treasury starts in company from defining the
capital structure, leverage, pay-out i.e.
dividends or buyback and then, corporate
finance, which forms the heart of treasury and
that is what defines a company.
Mr Ganesh concluded the session with a brief
overview about a merger and acquisition
process – pre-deal, deal and post-deal phases
and how it is different from treasury.
According to him, M&A’s are mainly done to
feed a few needs of a company like exploring
new geographies, inducing brand recall and
focusing on technology.
Regulations v/s Innovation
Finomenal 2014 started off on a bright note
with its first panel discussion, where four
industry stalwarts collaborated to give their
perspectives on the topic – Financial
Innovation - Sustainability V/s Vulnerability.
Mr. Amit Trivedi (Executive Director, Royal
Bank of Scotland) opened the discussion by
asserting that in the financial world,
innovation is inevitable; the question is how
sustainable it is. He believes that there is no
way to completely eliminate risk, at best, we
can only mitigate it. He was of a strong
Dr. Prabhakar Patil (Joint Director,
Securities and Exchange Board of India)
cited that sustenance of financial products or
schemes in the current environment is the real
challenge faced by this sector and whether
these changes or innovation can be regulated
or not, even with the available sophisticated
tools. Market dynamics must be taken into
consideration while focusing on innovation;
otherwise the harm caused by such practices
affects the functioning of the complete system.
opinion that innovation is important, but what
is more important is to innovate responsibly.
Mr. Viswanathan Iyer (Director, National
Australian Bank) shared his opinion that any
innovation that enhances customer service,
reduces costs and reduces risks is welcome.
He asserted that the biggest innovation in the
financial sector is technology and that
innovation along with regulation is the mantra
to financial stability and success. He expressed
with certainty that regulation is necessary for
any sector. It is more important that we know
that regulations do not stifle innovation. The
idea is not to complicate but to keep it simple,
and innovation is the key to that problem.
Mr. D. Ravishankar (Founder Director,
Brickwork Ratings) professed that the only
driving force for the companies is innovation,
which not only affects the financial domain
but other domains as well. He believes that the
impact that technology creates in the financial
world on various stakeholders is the real
measure of innovation.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 14
‘ ’Finomenal
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 15
He strongly believes that evaluation of any
financial product can be done only when it
benefits all the stakeholders.
Mr. Dhaval Vakharia (VP, Avendus PE
Investment Advisors) strongly believed that
in this tug of war between innovation and
regulation it was all about the way regulations
are implemented. A strong policy, a strong
form of regulation needs to be implemented
such that scams such as Coalgate and 2G don’t
happen again.
Mr. K. Sridhar Seshadri (Financial
the financial sector in the country and what
mechanisms must be deployed to safeguard
the interests of the stakeholders in the process.
It was an enriching experience for the students
to understand the working dynamics of the
financial world especially from such
distinguished panelists who inspired and
motivated them.
Controller, DCB Bank) was of the opinion that
“Innovation and regulation are co-existent”, as
ultimately all the participants are interested in
developing the market. If there is growth each
one of us has stake in it and each one of us
grows with the economy. Dilemma is in
deciding that which one is prior innovation or
regulation. To build upon his point he
elaborated by saying that innovators should
not take liberty of a regulator being there to
protect them and try to innovate in a way that
minimizes flaws.
Remarking on the credible regulatory policies
of India he laid the fact that India didn’t
crumble in the South East Asian economic
crisis just because of the effective regulations
by RBI in terms of sensitive sector exposure.
He mentioned that with globalization the small
investors, which are a major part of Indian
financial markets are more prone to risks and
hence need better protection.
The discussion touched upon many important
and critical issues which are being faced by
Talent Acquisition in Financial Sector
Mr. Mohit Shetty - AVP of Human Resources
at Reliance Capital Asset Management started
his career with payroll outsourcing, statutory
compliance, benchmarking, designing
incentive and reward framework and policy
formation as well as execution.
With 16 years of experience in various sectors
such as hospitality, BPO, telecom,
entertainment and financial services and
extensive work exposure in – talent
management (career and succession planning),
compensation, performance management,
training & development and talent acquisition,
he engaged the students in an enlightening
discussion.
He started by speaking on employee
engagement and talent acquisition in financial
sector. He asserted that a person should choose
HR as his/her career only if the person feels
that he/she can contribute to the organization’s
goal and growth. It is very important for the
HR personnel to be pushy, aggressive and
direct. Throwing light on engagement, he said
that the engagement should be of a level that
even the operator knows the company’s current
targets and knows how to go about managing
it. He also emphasized on the fact that the
managers and leaders need to know each
employee personally - strengths, and
weaknesses, to be effective managers.
In his closing remarks he shared valuable tips
with the students. He advised everyone to start
investing young, starting from this day itself,
and asserted that each and every one can
become rich. He imbued students to invest in
proper portfolios, which involved reading the
companies properly and analyzing them well.
He closed his debate by galvanizing students to
not work for money but having money work
for you.
Mr. Mohit Shetty - AVP – HR, Reliance Capital Asset
Management
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 16
‘ ’Disha
Business Transformation and Change
Management
Mr. Rajat Jain, Managing Director, XEROX
India Ltd., engaged the TAPMI fraternity in a
highly interactive session on ‘Business
Transformation and Change Management’-
food for thought for aspiring managers.
He opened the session with a quote by John F.
Kennedy – “Change is the law of life. And
those who only look to the past or present are
certain to miss the future”
The essence of the quote being that with the
pace of change that we see in the world today,
the past has become an unreliable tool to
predict the future; and rightly stated so.
He asserted that it is all about getting future
ready, and he strongly believed that 'Data
Analytics' will play a crucial part in making
this happen. The visionary that he is, he spoke
about a time in he sees in the future when a
person will call a nearby pizza place and the
pizza-guy will know everything about the
caller - ranging from cholesterol level to the
last holiday trip etc. all through the mobile
number of the caller. This was the kind of
transformation he sees coming in, in the
industries in the foreseeable future.
On the organizational level, he took a stand on
the practices of any organization stating that
strategies on customer retention will become a
game changer in coming times because you
have to know the needs of your customers.
And finally, he closed the seminar by adding
that transformation is not easy; it requires
conviction; it is essential in order to meet the
needs of Generation Z.
Mr Rajat Jain (MD, XEROX India Ltd.)
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 17
Will India Win?
Dr. Asit Mohapatra (Director HR,
Raymond) added that critical gaps have been
created in the Indian talent base. We live in a
VUCA (Volatile Uncertain Complex
Ambiguous) world that is filled with
complexity. And currently there is a shortage
of talented engineers in India. And this is so
because they want become managers.
in the Indian workforce which only needs to
be tapped.
Ms. Sarojani Gaikwad (Director, People
Business) expressed that a lot of work goes in
talent assessment and leadership development
of people and it is the organizations which
need to take proactive measures to solve this.
Employees should be able to manage and be
With the biggest HR conclave – a 6 day meet -
happening, at TAPMI, the leading HR industry
experts took the stage and put forth their
arguments on the set theme of Onimia "The
Talent Race in Emerging Economies- Will
India Win?"
Mr. Sridhar Krishnamurthy (Co-Founder
and Director, Kelsa Solutions) opened the
discussion by taking up the 5 C’s of talent risk
- Capacity risk, Capability risk, Cost risk,
Connection risk and Compliance risk. He
asserted that in order to overcome this barrier,
a nation needs to use opportunities like
adopting different organizational practices and
exploring new work models.
Ms. Ruth Singh (Head HR, Emkay Global
Financial Services Ltd.) eloquently quoted
that India has a challenging journey ahead in
terms of talent acquisition since the core
competencies and capabilities are lacking. She
emphasized on the fact that passion for the job
is a very important criteria as this talent gap
can be bridged only when we choose careers
according to where our heart lies.
Mr Rajat Jain (Managing Director, Xerox
India Ltd.) expressed that with the strong rise
of emerging economies there is now a need to
manage the talent supply chain. The Indian
diaspora has achieved significant success in
the global platform in the last few years and
this shows that there is an immense potential
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 18
‘ ’Disha
resilient to changes and expand their risk
taking abilities. There also needs to be agility
in their thinking and execution.
Mr. Clive VanBuerle (Vice-President HR,
ISGN) changed the course of discussion with
his statement that in India there is not a lack of
capacity but of capability. The lacking
capabilities are the situational fluency, the
adaptability and the gap between the
aspirations and patience of the people.
Mr. Piyush Upadhyay (Chief Strategic –HR,
TATA Power) taking a turn on Employee
Value Proposition to attract Multigenerational
Talent began by stating that an organization is
what the organization does, and what values it
inculcates in the employees. Communication
channels are important but execution of values
are most essential
Mr. Marian Jayson (Senior HR Manager,
HealthCare Global) expressed that an
employee should identify with the beliefs and
values of the organization in which he works.
Formulating an EVP that satisfies various age
groups in a workforce is extremely tricky as
one’s needs are not static.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 19
Mr. Gangadharayya Pashupatimath
(Director Engineering, Actuant India Pvt
Ltd) contributed to the discussion by stating
that EVP is all about how you deal with
people. Different kinds of people from
different cultures and countries involved in
same project makes it difficult to draft an EVP
which is applicable to all cultures.
Mr. Shripad Thosar (Head of shared
services HR, L&T Hydrocarbon) stated that
there are multiple generations working in
tandem today. With the coining of “war for
talent”, talented employees have a choice
when joining an organization just like a
customer has a choice while picking a service
provider. War for talent is more relevant today
than ever before.
Ms. Priyanka (Associate VP-People
Services, Davita) believes that Employee
Value Proposition has been passively present.
Biggest gap in an organization is that EVP is
crated to attract employees but once the
employees join, it is equally important to
implement it too. It should align with the
mission and vision of the company.
Santosh Mishra
Director -HR, 24x7
Innovation Labs
Mohinish Vaidya
Director - HR, UST
Global
Ivy Saldhana
Director HR,
Actuant India
Nagdev B
Director HR,
Aptean Global
Krishnan
V Head Talent
Development, HCL
Karuna Vempala
Head Talent Aquisition,
Cigniti Technologies
Suraj Chettri
Head of HR, AirbusVidya Muralidharan
Head HR - After
Market, Ashok
Leyland
Diptii Das
Head HR - South
Asia, Aramex
Amitabh Kumar
Head HR, NEC India
Siddhartha Chandoke
Director-Talent
Acquisition, Metlife
GOSC
Dr. Asit Mohapatra
Director HR,
Raymond
Rajat Jain
MD, XEROX
India
Sridhar
Co-Founder & Director,
Kelsa Solutions
Prem Velayudan
HR Director - APAC,
CISCO
Raghavendra
V.P. and Head HR,
Infosys BPO
‘ ’Disha
‘ ’Disha ‘ ’Finomenal
Dr. Ashok Aggarwal
CFO, Escorts
Securities
Binoy Samuel
CFO, Geojit BNP
Paribus
Charu Gulati
Associate Director-HR,
Axis Risk Consulting
TV Krishnamurthi
Group HR Head,
Titan
Nayan Mehta
CFO, Bombay
Stock Exchange
Prabhakar Patil
Joint Director,
SEBI
Sarojani Gaikwad
Director, People
Business
Rajesh Sahay
VP & Head HR,
Wipro Consumer Care
Aditya Pratap
MD, S&P Capital IQ
Vishwanathan Iyer
Director, National
Australian Bank
Amit Trivedi
Executive Director,
Royal Bank Of
Scotland
Dhaval Vakharia
VP , Avendus PE
Investment
Advisors
Sunil Wariar
Sr. VP-HR, Future
Generali
Vijayanti Margassery
Head-Talent Management
& Organization
Development, Biocon
Ramunni Nair
VP HR&GA, Renault
Nissan
Pritpal Kular
VP - HR, General
Motors
the US. I have basically been hiring people from all across the globe including India.
In India we have 80% people who are already trained and aware of the industry;
and only 20% of them need training. Where as in other countries hiring is a challenging activity,
because people are very different.
Do you feel there is a lack of talent in India?
When you look for talent you will mostly get talented people. Only 20% of the times you will
have to train them. So, I think the talent gap is only that much.
Can you tell us about the development programs that you have conducted to
nurture and motivate talent?
Generally for IT companies we have a different set of plans. We basically find out what are the
skills that the company wants, what kind of the talent pool do we have, and of course what the
customer wants.
Based on these we conduct tests and generate reports-skill matrix report and talent reports.
There are many other industries in the corporate world like insurance and
automobiles. Do you find difficulty in hiring and training employees for these
industries?
Whenever I look for people for certain jobs, I connect their specialty with the job profile. If I
A dialogue with
Karuna Kumar
Vempala
Head Acquisition, Cigniti
Technologies
By Shweta Varma
You come from a diverse work
background and you have
worked in many different
countries. How do you think
other countries are different from
India in terms of HR practices
followed?
I’m a talent acquisition person. I work for
countries like Brazil Australia UK, and
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 22
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were to hire someone say for example for the healthcare industry, a person who was previously in
hospital business will be my choice because that person can easily adapt to it. That way I don’t
find much difficulty in hiring and training people.
Another thing that I look for is the flexibility in the employees. I need to establish their learning
curve and realize the appetite they have for working.
You have worked across the globe with different cultures and nowadays there
is a cross-culture environment in all organizations, how do you approach the
challenges that come along with the merging of cultures?
I hire people across the globe, so the challenges we face are mostly the language challenges, the
cultural challenges, and lastly the time challenges.
We have to manage it all. It is the best and the only way is to be on top of everything.
What are the opportunities in the field of Data analytics according to you?
Where do you see this field going?
Data warehousing is really big these days. Managing big and real data is the real challenge.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. you name it, they all have huge data; millions of people
chatting, sharing, and uploading every minute.
It is a booming industry, and we are looking at multiple career opportunities in this area.
As an HR expert would you like to give any advice for future HR aspirants and
managers?
HR is a booming field. HR people from various industries are becoming partners everyday
because they are not just employees, they are comrades.
They are the main reason for excellence in the company and it is for that I advise people to take
HR as their field; especially the B-school students.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 23
You have a really diverse work
experience. You have worked in so
many industries. Can you tell us
how the HR function in IT sector
is different from the other sector?
I don’t think the HR function varies much
in different sectors because ultimately it is
people who you deal with. The ability to
connect with people is the key. The
industry comes later.
Sticking to IT, don’t you feel that maximum attrition rate is seen mostly in this
sector?
I don’t think so. The reason why I do not find this to be true is because in the IT sector the
opportunities are plenty; and, wherever opportunities are aplenty, attrition will be present. In the
IT sector we face mass talent acquisition. People from all over the country work in this sector,
every industry gets involved, and new industries join this process. In every sector where you see
growth or find economy booming, you will also find attrition. So, it is not limited to IT industry
alone. The insurance industry sees a 110 - 115% attrition.
Taking the growth angle, do you feel that the HR functions of any industry are
the direct result of the relationship with the economic environment?
No, it is irrespective of how the economic situation is. It is how you connect with the people-in
terms of interactions, growth, and learning. It is not state of the industry alone that impacts the
functions today.
An HR person should try to look at what it is it that will make a person come and join the
industry, what are the conditions that will you get the individual to experience and how you are
going to make it meaningful to him or her are what counts.
It is true that when you hire in bulk that there are opportunities available elsewhere too because
of choices available to people now. How you differentiate here is on your ability to connect, and
your ability to provide meaning to the aspirations of an individual. You need the three C’s-
compensation, career, and care and comfort. The essence is to give an individual respect; give
A dialogue with
Raghavendra K.
V.P. and Head HR, Infosys
BPO
By Shweta Varma .
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 24
‘ ’Disha
him or her platform where he or she can reach to his/her potential.
Now that we are discussing jobs, it is a common belief that in India it is still a
job race rather than talent race. How do you think we can overcome this
barrier of culture in an Indian organization?
With all things equal, everybody will chase after money is what you believe is the popular trend.
I agree, but once you reach a particular level there comes a standing point when money is not
sufficient. And this is not typical to India only because want will always continue to exist. But the
opportunity for learning, and the opportunity for development are what really count in the end.
Getting a little specific here, what are the challenges that you face as the HR
head of your company?
Attrition is a challenge at every point of time. My competitor ABC who is paying more is a
challenge. In constraints such as this what you do to make the difference is what counts. For
example, my previous CEO used to talk about GDP – growth, differentiation and people, and my
present CEO talks about the three R’s - relevance, respect and reach. A person needs to see the
growth of the organization and him.
It is seen that there exists a skill gap in every organization. In what innovative
ways, you think, can an organization adapt or evolve to overcome this
problem?
An organization is one unit; there are lot many players available to bridge the skill gap. Today,
the industry has to play the activist’s role, but apart from that, the government and the NGOs
need to come together and make a difference.
The educational institutes believe that their focus should be majorly on getting conceptual
knowledge; but if students are not taught how to actually apply conceptual knowledge and
principles we will have a problem in getting the right skills for our work, which I believe is
getting incorporated.
Speaking of B-schools, these days we observe this trend where mostly the
engineers that go for an MBA. In your opinion, do you find that other skills
are not developed is or that there is not much demand from the industry. What
you think can be a solution for such a trend?
No easy answers. I think people go where they see an opportunity. Today, everybody moves in a
particular direction; the focus is more on IQ than EQ.
Like, in the year 2008-2009 everybody wanted to move out of the private sector and get into the
public sector. In an economy which is developing, these type of imbalances continue to exist.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 25
A dialogue with
Amitabh Kumar
Head HR, NEC
By Raghunandan
You have over 20 years of
experience in the field of HR under
multiple domains like Telecom and
IT industries. What are the various
challenges you faced across these
multiple domains?
From my perspective, HR is a function that
deals with people. People challenges do not
change when one moves from one industry
to another. The changes are in the context in
which these challenges are addressed. The
nature of work in each of the domains is
different – e.g. Telecom is more of an
infrastructure oriented industry. We had
employees working in remote areas,
especially ones involved with telecom towers in God-forsaken places, attending an unfortunate
event of a breakdown in the tower communication. It’s different for a person working in an office
in Bangalore for a software development firm. Thus, nature of job may vary, but in terms of
approach towards the challenges, nothing changes much.
Please share a little information about the current company you are working
in, NEC.
NEC India is a subsidiary of the Japanese corporation, NEC. In the way it is structured in India,
NEC Asia Pacific (APAC) handles 89% of the equity, which is based out of Singapore, and 11%
is directly handled by NEC, Japan. Currently, NEC India has over 400 employees spread across 4
locations – Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. We have a manufacturing unit in Chennai
and two software development centers in Bangalore and Chennai. Additionally, we have sales
headquarters across multiple cities. NEC is headed by a Japanese Managing Director, Mr.
Koichiro Koide. NEC is primarily an operations business with a B2B structure and not a B2C.
That’s why you will not see many visible products from NEC.
NEC is into multiple domains, like multi-media solutions, IT solutions, etc.
Thus, you have differentially profiled people interacting with each other. What
kind of bridge do you create to provide feasibility between them?
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In terms of Organization structure, NEC has a software development division, a carrier and
network division, an enterprise business division, IT platform products and a public safety and a
structural engineering division. Now all the four divisions are very different in operations and
nature. But NEC has a core set of policies which covers the basic code of conduct which are
typically global in nature. These are the common policies along with values and ethics which are
the standard practices. There is no change from one division to another.
NEC also lists a division specific set of policies as well. So, the differentiation is done and
maintained and is typically accustomed by our business unit HR. Hence all the efforts are made
to ensure that the differentiation is maintained and the core values and ethics are not violated.
What is the culture at NEC like? What are the benefits given to the employees
in order to maintain the retention rate, in due course of time?
Typically in a Japanese firm, you join a company at the dawn of your career and you stay there
till you retire. That is the philosophy we bring in from Japan. In India, the markets and
environments are quite different. When I joined NEC in 2010, there were just 10 employees.
Now we are 550, 400 of them on contract basis. And as an organization, there is a lot of focus in
the areas of training and career development activities, helping people move up. In terms of
work culture, it is very open and flexible. As a typical Japanese company, it tends to be a
hierarchical and a lot more protocol oriented. But it is also inclined towards ensuring the
organization process and chain of communication remains open. The decision-making consumes
more time and is based on the consensus principle. One person cannot override all the others
while making decisions. There are stakeholders who will look at things differently and one has
to go to through the process where he convinces each one of the stakeholders.
When prospective employees approach NEC, they may have an engineering or
management background, what is the basic expectation from each one of
them?
It depends on the role the particular individual is hired for. If an engineering background guy is
hired then he will be given more of a technical and service delivery role. People with
management background are generally hired for Sales or Strategy and Business development
role. So as such the roles are clearly demarcated. Even the internal grade structure and career
movement happens in a separate way. Each will have different roles assigned. A management
graduate will have business development roles and engineer may have technical specialist roles.
What are the CSR activities at NEC and how do they use it to improve their
brand value?
NEC India has not done much CSR yet. Although we have had a few blood donation drives. But
NEC worldwide has a strong program called MDD (Make a Difference Drive). As a global
organization, we participate in such activities whenever initiated on a country-wise basis. It may
be a supporting children’s education drive, helping the Tsunami victims or flood victims etc.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 27
A dialogue with
Dipti Das
Head HR-South Asia,
Aramex
By Krishna Chaitanya
What opportunities do companies
like Aramex anticipate with the high
growth of digital technology in areas
such as digital retail, digital
analytics?
I believe at Aramex, and the other companies
that I have worked for, digital technology is
redefining processes. This change has forced
the industry to implement digital technology
in its business. In supply chain management,
digital growth can be of immense help at the operational level, esp. in areas such as security
check of products, security by scanning, etc.
What are the innovative learning prospects for Aramex employees?
I feel innovation exists in every second of the day. Learning from experience is a virtue. One
cannot create innovative learning, but can create a learning culture. This is achieved by
empowering people; each must be encouraged to take a step of innovation in the learning
environment.
What are the challenges you experience in supply-chain-management and
logistics in India?
First, without challenges there is no growth. With double income and shortage of time, more and
more people are shifting towards e-commerce. The supply chain time is shrinking. Thus, your
biggest challenge is to think out of the box – how to re-engineer processes, ensure that process
overlaps are eliminated, and empower every person who is a part of the supply chain.
Does India have sufficient talent base to cope up with the challenges?
There is a surplus of talent in India. The only need is to scan through and extract the right people.
Shortage is created due to impatience shown by firms in filtering through different avenues they
recruit from.
What are your expectations from an MBA graduate?
Our industry is moving away from people who existed in the firm for a long time, and towards
people equipped with technical education. A hands-on approach, common sense, logic and
discipline of processes is what we generally look for. With a formal education, you are expected
to apply learnt concepts, and give back more to the industry than you derive in return.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 28
‘ ’Disha
A dialogue with
Suraj Chettri
Head HR, Airbus
By Krishna Chaitanya
How do you feel being amongst the
students of TAPMI?
This is my first visit to TAPMI and am quite
impressed by the intellectual awareness and
acumen amongst the students here. I see their
energy and enthusiasm, and it makes me believe
that these students are here to make a difference in
the future. They are smart, sharp and willing to
absorb knowledge.
In your 21 years of experience across
various sectors, what are the challenges
you faced while in transit from each sector to other?
I strongly believe that I have always been in the engineering domain. Every domain has its own
specialities, weaknesses and challenges. But to be able to contribute meaningfully, one must stick
to one’s domain and build expertise.
You were a part of a team that won the Best HR Practices Company Award.
Would you mind sharing some of the best HR practices in place.
To name a few, we introduced the ‘Buddy system’, where-in-which people who are inducted into
the organization, each is tagged with another person with a similar age and experience. We
believe that the first year of an employee with the organization is crucial. If they complete the
first year with content, they stick on to the company for a longer duration. HR personnel have
meetings with the newly inducted employees at the end of every quarter to gauge their comfort
within the company. The feedback is shared with the management at all levels.
What is your view on 360 degree feedback?
The purpose of having any tool for feedback is to ensure some corrective measure is
implemented at the end of each cycle. If nothing is done with the feedback, then there is no point
in taking the same. A feedback system should not be a stand-alone model; it is useful only and
only when it forms a part of the DNA of the organization.
What are the opportunities in the mid-term for Airbus in India?
I think until now, Airbus was focussing on sales. In mid-term, services will become equally
important. Also, there is a huge opportunity in the supply chain management.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 29
A dialogue with
Prem Velayudan
HR Director & Employee
Relations Leader - APAC,
CISCO
By Krishna Chaitanya
How do you feel being in
TAPMI again?
I think it is a fabulous experience
coming back to TAPMI after many
years, especially, getting the feel of this
new campus. When I passed out things
were very different and when I compare
the facilities from that time to what you
have now- the infrastructure, facilities,
quality of students and the interface you
have with the industry, I think it’s
awesome. So TAPMI has come a long way and all I can say is that I feel great coming back here.
You have 22 years of experience, how do you describe your journey across
these diverse industries?
I started with sales and marketing and then moved on to consulting for some time. But for the last
14 years I had been in HR core function. In HR, I have the opportunity to move across various
roles. Currently, this is my eighth year at CISCO.
This is the age of technology. So what measures do you take to upgrade and
update your employees to the latest technologies?
Development for an employee is a critical factor in whichever industry you are in. So we have a
policy of 70-20-10 formula. 10% is learning; which is either classroom or e-learning, because
you continuously need to learn. 20% is a lot of shadowing; you connect with the senior leaders in
the company during the training procedure or you associate with a couple of key projects. This
way you get a lot of exposure to see how things are done differently. For example you have been
in development, then how do you get exposure in sales.
As you grow in an organization you need to have the knowledge of different facets of the
organization, and so you need to start rotating people. 70% is the organization. This helps us
decide on what cutting edge technologies can be brought in, and also how you can generate new
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 30
‘ ’Disha
avenues to enhance your product and services, which help your talent gets.
Did you find any challenges while moving people from engineering fields to
sales fields?
There are always some challenges in the transitions. Firstly, it should be in-line with people’s
development and their aspirations. It’s not just what the company wants to do but it’s a
combination.
You have to choose the right talent; one who has the capability to make this transition and also be
inclined to do new things in the future.
Attrition is the biggest threat to any industry. What measures do you take to
retain the employees?
Build a good culture in the company, be transparent, have a fair assessment system, opportunity
to grow, provide visibility and exposure to clients, and to the corporate world will be some key
areas that help us retain the employees.
Doing simple things but doing them right so that the employees feel good about coming to office
the next day is the mantra. People should be able to see their contributions getting aligned with
the company’s goals.
Big data analysis and Cloud computing are the buzz words today. So what are
the opportunities for people in CISCO in Big data analytics field?
We are a global company. It depends in which location and what technological groups people are
joining in. CISCO is making some radical changes in the technology being used, as the market is
moving so fast.
What are the traits and qualities you expect from a fresh MBA graduate?
First is learnability. The candidate must be open to a new environment, he should be able to talk
to people, and he should be able to use the learning in the MBA in a way such that it makes sense
in the job.
Asking people the right questions, seeking advices, reaching out to people, and learning as much
as possible about the organization and its people might seem trivial, but these are critical things
which would help him in the long run.
What is your opinion about DISHA 2014?
It is a 6 day event and I participated in the 5th day of the event, and still I see a lot of energy. I see
a lot of participation from the industry specialists and great topics for panel discussions. I think
the students will get a different perspective by interacting with people, who are leaders in their
respective industries.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 31
you don’t tend to enjoy what you do. If you enjoy then all other things will fall into the place. All
other things are output of how you enjoy your work. Similarly TAPMI reminds me of a place
where people enjoy their work with dedication. And it is always good to be present amongst hard
working people.
Can you please give us some insights about the HR policies that your company
follows?
Basically Kelsa is a consulting company and we work for several clients across India. Clients
range from large multinational companies to mid-tier companies to small start-ups. We have
close to eighteen people in the organization who work from different centres in India like
Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon even Cochin for that matter. Primarily what we do in
our organization is nothing specific to be honest, we being a consultants allow them to learn and
grow in the organization. There are no specific hours of work but there is only one specific need
that is to look at customers’ requirement and fulfil it. We allow them to do it in their own way.
So, there is a lot of freedom, understanding and appreciation of what we do for our clients. It is
more of a flexible work culture where in quiet a good amount of independence lies in front of the
employees yielding to a better outcome and better employee satisfaction.
Where do you draw boundary between the discipline and the flexibility?
To be honest, a basic requirement for any consulting company is to make its employees enjoytheir work. Also, make people understand and deliver what they want. As we are going to deliverfor our customers every customer is unique and every customer requirement is much moreunique. For this to happen we need an uncluttered mind and to that extent there are no broadrules at all. So, if you ask me about the boundaries for discipline there is only one that ismeeting customer deadlines.
A dialogue with Mr.
Sridhar
Krishnamurthy
Co-Founder & Director,
Kelsa Solutions By Aakansha
Shukla and Ayon Kumar
How do you feel being here at
TAPMI?
I was just telling one of your colleagues
that work is about what you live for. I am
doing my job and by the end of the
month I’m going to get some salary. So,
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 32
‘ ’Disha
Meeting customer’s deadlines and keeping employee happy - is it possible to
manage both?
Yes, It is absolutely possible. I will tell you two major reasons for it. One of them being, the
moment I start enjoying my work I don’t look at what time I’m concluding my work. The
moment somebody tells me you better conclude by this time, I look more at the clock than my
work. The ethos of a company lies in the ability to allow them to open up. We are an extremely
transparent company. Every month we have meeting with our people where we talk about not
only just the top line but also the bottom line, new customers, what did we deliver etc. Everyone
knows how the company has performed in the past and is performing today. Every employee
knows, if we made profits in the month of June or if we didn’t in the month of July. They also
know if we have made profits then what do they get out of it right there.
What is the performance management system that Kelsa follows?
Having worked in large organizations before, I feel that too much of structured systems hinder
the creativity of the employees. We have a clear defined system that is key result oriented. The
employees know what to deliver, at what state they should deliver, what is the value added inputs
they would require from us to deliver. They have very well defined requirement and delivery.
There is no ambiguity whatsoever. So, they are measured against their delivery and also based on
what the customer thinks about the delivery. If the customer is happy, then they would definitely
have done a great job. Our major purpose lies in satisfying the customer to the maximum. That is
how our system works.
So your organization is mainly customer centric?
Absolutely. We live well because of our customers. I always believe that the food on my table is
because of the customers.
What is your approach to understanding customer demand? How do you
know what is the current trend?
It is definitely a challenge for a young, vibrant and growing consulting organization like Kelsa.
The challenge is to manage the current trends in the marketplace, understand them, read them
and look at where it can be deployed. At Kelsa, we believe that the maturity of the organization
will decide what it wants. We do facilitate the customers to think in those lines. By facilitator
what I mean to say is that we objectively make them aware of the pros and cons of the alternative
and give them the power to make the right choice. This approach has played a key role in
understanding the customer demand and the current trends of the market.
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 33
A piece of advice to young MBA students?
I don’t believe in giving advice. But I would like to conclude saying that you people have plenty
of opportunities. This is a great place to study. The environment is phenomenal. So, try and take
the maximum benefit out of it. As an individual, how you can make the best use of the resources
available to you should be your point of focus.
A dialogue with
Ranjana AnandDirector – HR, Optimal
StrategixBy Kanika Lungani
With so many years of
successful work behind you
what has been your success
mantra thus far?
Hard work, hard work and hard work.
You have to be persistent in what you
want to do and where you want to go.
Every time I took up a job, I did not
look at it as a job but rather as a career.
When one wants a job one can get it
wherever one wants. But one has to
think in the lines of making a career out
of it. Only when you think along those lines can you achieve your goal or what is on your mind
or whichever way you want to take your career goals.
Since you have worked in so many diverse industries, how different was your
work in these industries?
Very different. I started my career with an ophthalmology institute where I was managing
education programs. Almost after a decade I was on the other end. So I worked in the dean’s
office, managing all the educational programs. I understood thoroughly how an MBA program
works. Then I got an opportunity to go abroad, I went to Dubai where I worked with S.P. Jain
Center of Management.
After that I decided to make a conscious shift to the corporate world while I was doing my major
in HR because I had seen the MBA expanse and I wanted to see where this leads – I myself had
no experience in the corporate world. After 15 years in from the field of medicine and education I
shifted to the corporate industry. Then joined an IT company in Dubai. It was a sudden shift and I
realized that the ground reality was different. Everyday I’d get a shock because of the slangs they
used, the manner in which they talked. Everything seemed so different. It was a complete
contrast but then I thought the sooner I adapt the better for me.
Then I learned the tricks of the trade. It’s all about how you learn. The more you do self-learning
the better it is for you.
Since you have had a quite an interaction with the MBA world, I think it’s fair enough that Iask you that what exactly do you look for in an MBA graduate?
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 34
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PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 35
They have to be focused at first. “Just because I have done an MBA I should get the best job” should never be an approach. These day students say five years down the line I want to be a CEO or an entrepreneur, but that’s not the ground reality. It may happen but it requires a lot of hard work and won’t happen within a flash. So when we look at an MBA graduate we look at their interests, whatever they have studied, how well are they able to apply these concepts. If someone has done some other kind of job and has now come for an MBA then they should be clear why they took this decision. As soon as I see a resume I know whether the candidate is right for the job or not; especially now when I’m into research.
When I see the resumes today, I observe that children don’t think about the careers rather they go for big paying jobs. It should not be the case. If they act along these lines it will neither help them or the company.
Now sticking to Disha theme I want to know what is the future of HR inIndia.
HR initially was only a support function where we just had to type offer letters and give it,that’s all; there was no more involvement. But today things are different. HR is no longer anadmin support. Businesses have started to accept the fact that HR is also a core part of themanagement. It acts as a business partner. Only when the HR group understands what the needand requirements of the business is, they can HR support more, engage it’s the employees in abetter way and get the best out of them.
It starts from the scratch. Management explains HR the goal and vision of the company. ThenHR starts to work along those lines. Then the whole process starts right from recruitment-whatkind of people you want to hire, what kind of culture you want the organization to adapt etc.
This is the age of technology. So how easily do you see technology blending inwith HR functions?
Earlier, everything was manual. Technology has helped a lot in the recent times. We use a lotof softwares to keep all the date in place. Whether it is the personal side of employees or theprofessional side data remains in a safer and better place. Usually large businesses use suchsoftwares which helps in ease of the work.
What kinds of challenges have seen with such technologies?
We had PeopleSoft and SAP. SAP for payroll and PeopleSoft for HRIS. All the data was put inthere. It was easy to pull out data you needed about an employee. Even the performance datawas online. Everything was available. Hence, it’s very easy when it is technology based.
It’s difficult when you are in the phase of sticking to pen and paper or you want to convert itinto digital data. It becomes a challenge when you have to convince the management to getsuch a software to incorporate that into the system.
One thing you felt that the Indian professions lacked that professionals fromother countries had?
I think that the hierarchy in India gets into people too much. But in the west people don’t reallycare about that. There we didn’t have so many levels and people didn’t really care about thelevels. They are more into their job functions. Here people are obsessed with designations. Inthe west it is nothing like that. My operations manager was not really an operations manager.He would have been equivalent to a VP or a director in Indian context. He wasn’t reallybothered. He said how does that matter - I know I lead the team whether I’m the team leaderor a manager and they would all sit together and eat or watch soccer. That is something Ibelieve is not possible in India. People are very much into ivory towers. So conscious of theirdesignations that they don’t associate with people below their ranks. That is something Ibelieve is not needed.
A dialogue with
Prabhkar Patil
Joint Director, SEBI
By Shweta Varma
To start, I’d like to ask you as to
how well regulated do you think
are the capital markets in India?
There is a school of thought which
advocates lesser government
intervention and greater freedom
in capital market regulations.
What is your opinion on this?
In India, SEBI is a statutory body and
accountable to the Parliament. It’s that that
there is a mandate given, complete
regulations at different points of time
depending upon the dynamics of the market which are brought in for creating a healthier market
environment…and to the best of my knowledge, the developments that have taken place over a
period of time are very healthy. One of the goals was to protect the interest of the investors
besides the goal of developing the market and regulating the market - basically, the perception
that the control is not very strong. We keep to our objectives and keep making amendments and
new regulations because that’s what the market demands. As the market evolves, so do we.
But when you compare them to the capital markets in the US, it is evident that
there is a lot more relaxation of rules over there, what in a way led to the 2008
financial crisis. Do you think there needs to be a change in the kind of
regulatory system in India?
In India, there is more of a role based regulatory framework, and when we try to compare our
markets with western or European markets then the regulatory involvement is at par. The
difference arises when we talk about the market participants. In Europe and America, there is a
large amount of institutional participation whereas in India there is significant non-institutional
participation. The reason behind what happened in the US and Europe was because of the kind of
entities which existed in the market, and the type of financial products which are available.
Here, in India, there are more standardized instruments and it works well for us. You have seen
lots of fraudulent events happening in the past such as the Satyam case, and the Sahara case
where to protect the investors we have asked them to repay the money. In general, we have a
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 36
‘ ’Finomenal
PRATIBIMB | AUG-SEP 2014 | 37
perception that the western environment is better. But with respect to Indian capital markets, I
believe, we have done our best. We have achieved dematerialization at a much faster pace than
the developed parts of the world.
The FSLRC has recommended creating a UFA by merging SEBI, FMC, IRDA
and PFRDA. What is your opinion? Should all the regulatory organizations be
merged into one?
SEBI has been created by the executive and we have been looking after the equity, debt and
currency market. Though the currency is more regulated by RBI, SEBI has the mandate to
regulate the trading at Stock Exchanges for price discovery in a fair and transparent manner.
Probably what I feel is that in India we need to develop all sectors, all segments of the market.
We need to focus more on the pension sector, different developments need to take place and the
level of development that has happened in the equity market should be achieved by other
segments as well. This would obviously take time.
What are your thoughts on financial inclusion in India? What kind of
measures could banks and regulatory authorities take to improve the
situation?
We are basically trying to bring greater visibility to investors and inform them that there is a
proper regulatory environment. It has to be stressed that financial savings are very important for
their own future. Today, fortunately we have a large youth population in the country. But as time
passes we will move to an ageing economy as we have seen happen in the developed world. At
that point, everyone would require social protection, to have your own corpus built to take care of
yourself. People need to have a diversified portfolio. So there is a need for educating the people
about these factors.
Do you feel it only the responsibility of the government to ensure financial
inclusion or do you think even private players in the market such as banks
could do something about it?
One of the moves that has come - the Jan Dhan Yojna – is a really good move and is a step
towards that. We need to encourage banks to further this development. If people are aware of
these method of savings, then these Ponzi schemes and moneylenders will find it difficult to
attract them. It is important to be rational and cautious before parting with our hard earned
savings.
The markets have reacted positively to the new government. What is your
opinion on Modi’s government policies?
I think it is more of a strong government coming into power after a gap of almost 20 years which
has rallied the markets. There is proper guidance on how we have to function and that is what is
more important at this point of time. I’m sure that whichever political party is able to exert that
sort of direction will continue this trend of growing the capital market. With the given strength of
the Indian society, we are moving towards a better economy and better prospects.
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‘ ’Disha
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