Leading the way to a greener planet...!

Darwin's theory stands till date, from "survival of the fittest" to "surviving the apt way". Beyond doubt, Life certainly has origins from green pastures, and like always, we have the habit of grazing over all of it. Realizing this, we tend to forget this fact like any other. Every single day that I am spending on this planet has a meaning, a deeper virtue that needs to be unleashed by the time this journey ends. Eventually, life is made up of nothing else but “Time”. And time, what I find, is running out faster than expected. This is in context to the environment that surrounds me, and the wretched condition that prevails. Time is definitely scarce to entrust the ingenuity of the environment to the coming generation. I don’t mind if there is life that exists somewhere deeper in the universe, till I am not spoiling the terrain I am living on. Certain things have kept my morale up, while the others added to the misery. The question is “What can anyone do to save the planet?” and the answer lies within us. One step taken is half the battle won; this is what I did when I planted the first sapling on the Tree Plantation Day at Lavale, under the SIIB initiative of ‘Kshitij’- A Community Development Wing.

PS: The pic includes the first Banner that i designed myself...:)

Managing the social way!

Albert Einstein once said “It’s a miracle that curiosity survives formal education”. “MBA”, the buzz word itself has a lot of things to learn from. Time management has certainly been one of them. But, managing time besides adhering to some social responsibilities is something that no other place could teach me. At SIIB, I am privileged to work with ‘Kshitij’ – the Community Development Initiative. Under this unit, I along with my colleagues, teach at a Govt. Senior Secondary School situated at Wakad, Pune. With this I wish to share my first hand experiences:

With the zephyr at its best and the monsoon rains at peak, my every interaction with the kids and the school authorities was distinctive. With every kid, I had more no. of eyes staring at me; no doubt inviolate and sacrosanct. Eyes filled with their own demands. Demands could be many; knowledge, inflated earning capacity, achievement, money and more…. These kids aren’t satisfied with what they have and what is being done to them in the school. What is it that’s keeping these kids immured in the school boundaries? Is it the societal statute? Or a dubious malediction brought out by their parents, who couldn’t get them to a high profile so called “Public School”? What is it exactly that satisfies human satiety? Are we really concerned about these kids and their future? Or simply blowing our own trumpet? I am sure these questions engender interest; irrespective of where you come from. If these questions help you realize that there is a wide of the mark, half my job is done.

On Interaction with the kids we have had our individual takeaways. But a question still went disturbing me throughout, “Is providing the right infrastructure for the schools the end of the road?” I have tried to gather the information to answer this question, but unfortunately in bits and pieces. The first thing that I observed was the system that prevails in India is unidirectional. The kids are shown the path and are required to follow the same stringent guidelines and deadlines. Provided the fact that everyone is unique and comes from different backgrounds, such a system is crippling. Secondly, there is no feedback mechanism designed, so that the students have a say in teaching methodology followed. Also, in my personal observation, there are no checks over what is being taught and discussed under these tarnished roofs.

The things could be made worse by simply sitting and watching. With a team of so many hard working souls, the best prerogative left with us was to take action. So the very first day we met the school authorities we had to set the goals fundamentally sound. Believe me; working with government machinery has its own limitations, though this is the best conduit to bring the flow of change that we have been longing for. And this is exactly the place where we have been making mistakes since independence. So, being the evangelists of change we proceeded with firm determination. We charted out a strict schedule to follow, a detailed session plan and the best co-curricular that could be added.

Recently, I was one of those chosen to meet Rahul Gandhi (MP-Ajmer constituency-NSUI meet, Pune, 7th Sept.). The same day someone asked Mr. Gandhi about what is to be done with Indian education system so that fruitful results can be expected. With all his charm and wit he replied “we have to focus on Education and not literacy alone”. Since then I kept this principle in mind. I believe, even if we can acknowledge the right problems at this stage then we can avoid much loss in terms of the coming generation, and much can be saved at hand.

The toddler in me..!

As Da Vinci rightly said "All our knowledge has origins in perceptions", today, I perceive myself of being able to express my thoughts through this surprisingly beautiful medium. And as the journey of thousand miles has to begin with a single step, now is the time for that baby step to demarcate the beginning.

It was just recently that i took part in National Competition for Management Students-2010, organised by All India Management Association, held at Mumbai. It has been an overwhelming experience of sorts, that i could see so many brains cracking their heads over the same topic i.e. "Managing Organizational and Developmental Challenges In India". Now that the very mention of India evokes strong compassion , believe me that identifying challenges that she is facing today has not been a cake walk either.

With this, let me include a small abstract of some of the internal challenges that we identified and most of which i covered in the presentation, the rest of the parts were taken care by my colleague and teammate.


The Internal Challenges:

Attrition: Since most of the economies are out of recession, companies are on a hiring spree. This creates troughs with strong negative pressure which attracts hard working employees from the other organizations of similar motives. With this revival in the job market, corporate India is all set to witness a significant jump in the attrition levels. Though this is especially true of the Aviation, IT and BPO, rest of the India Inc. will not be spared as a lot is determined in India by the “Band Wagon Effect”. To an extent that people are often teased by their own peers for staying with one company for more than 3 years.

Managing attrition is therefore a huge challenge that requires analyzing the reasons for which people leave especially those gathered from past exit interviews. Knowing these should help formulate an actionable strategy to minimize attrition.

Accelerating the growth momentum: To increase the growth momentum and become an industry leader, companies can use Inorganic growth strategy to acquire or be a partner in rivals’ businesses. M&A activities have become very prominent in the world post recession. Tremendous vertical growth opportunities are sought by the visionary organizations in the wake of the dark hours of recession. This comes with existence of the distressed organizations which came out with SOS signals. Thus it is a challenge for companies to perform well to avoid being taken over by a stronger competitor. To go for organic growth, companies need to do expansion of existing facilities or diversification of product or services they offer.

The Rural India and Challenges there:

India Certainly lives in her villages, as rightly said by Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation. Though the state of affairs had been very different at that point of time, conditions have maintained status quo in terms of Development in the respective areas. We certainly cannot think of building a brand with pan India presence unless paying due credit to this sector of the economy.

The rural areas present significant opportunities in all sectors. The miraculous success story of India that has surprised the whole world is not driven by the entire population. A significant proportion of the population is still left to make an impact in the growth numbers that we have witnessed. The biggest challenge for India Inc. lies in realizing the necessity to include the entire population. This is the prima facie necessity for equitable distribution of both the resources and the fruits of the economy

With this we also came up with an amusing powerpoint presentation. I will try and upload the same as soon as possible.

I have uploaded my PPt to this link: http://www.slideshare.net/nkumar0605/siibindian-challenges?from=share_email