Management One - A blog on Innovation & Design Thinking

RewardPort....Loyalty and Reward Managers

2012-02-05T19:54:00.001+05:30

Source : Brand Equity

Incentive and Loyalty Management Services Company

What started as a pure travel rewards company has today evolved into a specialist that has helped brands like Maruti,Ford,Max New York Life,HDFC Bank,Nikon,HUL and Nokia,to name a few,connect effectively with consumers.Reward-Port offers vacation packages and travel gift certificates to employee incentive,customer and channel partner loyalty & reward programmes as well as independent promotions.

Servicing over 250 clients with a team of 150 professionals,RewardPort says it has hit a turnover of 100 crore and aims to double sales every year over the next five.Thats ambitious,but doesnt sound too outlandish if you trace back the founders early days.It all started when Javed Akkhtar,Heena J.A.and Bhavin Parekh,while packaging travel for different corporates,found that companies had a tough time putting together all the elements of their loyalty and promotions programmes.This challenge and pain area was identified as an opportunity.It was obvious that if they were able to offer all of this under one roof,companies would save time,money and effort and also get better results.RewardPort was then set up as a separate entity to look into this, says Heena.

The model offers plenty of scope for innovation.For instance,when GMR flagged off the new Hyderabad airport,the flow of air traffic out of the city was limited to population in and around the city.For the project to be viable,the airport had to attract more traffic.GMR launched a programme designed by RewardPort to incentivise travel north or south or even overseas,using Hyderabad as a gateway.A large number of travel agents who stood to gain rewards that ranged from computers and mobile phones to white goods and other household items saw value in the proposition,and the habit was duly instilled via a loyalty experience.Today almost 20 cities and towns are being covered from Pune to Vijayawada and Girish Khare,CMO,RewardPort says: No one really knows that its cheaper and faster to travel from Pune to Delhi via Hyderabad than via Mumbai.

Other interesting examples include the reward programme devised for a petroleum brand focused on the auto rickshaw community to motivate them to fill more fuel in one go;the rewards ranged from simple t-shirts to computer education.Henkel tied up with RewardPort to reward every buyer who brought their product with a free hair cut/facial/manicure/pedicure across 200 towns and cities across India.It was one of the most exhaustive exercise done by the company covering 12 million users.Loop Mobile has done an activity with RewardPort which according to its spokesperson has been satisfying.It is different from normal mass media activity as customers are excited by the prospect of getting rewarded for using the brand, adds the Loop Mobile spokesperson.

RewardPorts offering cuts across categories as well as countries.For Touche Golf School in Bengaluru RewardPort made a programme that gave its patrons access to pubs,lounges,high-end brand stores and even medical services while on a trip abroad.The programme is very similar to a concierge helpline which is available to customers through just a phone call, explains Khare.

RewardPort has its office in Mumbai and Bengaluru and its technical backend in Hyderabad.While our services are very tech driven,the last mile of delivery always has a human interface;this ensures a much personalised service, explains Khare.Besides its core team of 150,RewardPort draws on the resources of local partners in different markets where it is conducting the program.So by riding on event management agencies,activation arms of advertising agencies or simply people they know well in local markets,RewardPort remains a lean team thanks to its ability to tap into a pool of last mile talent.The gifting,rewards and loyalty industry is pegged at 22,000 crore and Khare says the opportunity for brands to engage through the channel is immense.Technology and social media are new frontiers identified by RewardPort to continue rewarding consumers.

Daytripper

2012-02-05T19:30:00.002+05:30

Peter Rothwell lives out of his suitcase, but you wouldn't expect much else from the Head of Global Travel company.

Source : Brand Equity

Travel Branding

Peter Rothwell is on a whirlwind visit to India, his third ever. It is one of the 30 odd 'day-visits' planned to the various Kuoni offices across the globe over the year."The day-visits are more like business meetings face to face and across geographies at which the top brass meet and discuss the management of the various offices."He has already been to Japan and Hong Kong earlier in the year,making Ind the third of the scheduled day-visits.And it's just February!

But you can't expect anything else from a man who joined the travel industry after graduating in languages from Oxford in the early 70 and has remained a travelman ever since."In my early years in the travel industry,I had started off by taking American school kids on bus tours to Europe as a bus guide;it was great fun and a great lesson in keeping customers happy."

Travel branding is itself a much different ball game from say a consumer product brand in lot of ways,says the travel industry veteran."A travel brand is different from FMCG brands it is intangible,as it is difficult to demonstrate physically what a travel brand represents."When people are spending money and travelling long distances with the family,there is a lot of emotional involvement and they want everything to be just right.

Traditionally brochures or travelagency staff have been representative elements that often help make decisions in this space.In the modern world,the Internet has taken up that role.New media may not be so important from the transactional point of view,as people still like to have some sort of human interaction as it creates trust and also often leads to improvement of choice.It is quite nice to have somebody to turn to if you have a problem while traveling,says the CEO.He adds that it is quite a brave person who does just everything on the Internet and then says it'll all be fine,particularly when there is more than one country to be traveled.

The travel industry has been rapidly evolving what is true today is not guaranteed to be true tomorrow and things can change a lot and also fast.Which calls for two things: being nimble;and assetlight.Kuoni is both,says Rothwell."We don't have chartered aircraft and owned hotels;we find it very easy to change fast.If currencies change or fashions move or there are geo-political issues we respond quickly to those situations."

Having a mother brand Kuoni that stands for a certain personality alongside an array of different brands in different markets like SOTC in India can be chaotic.How important is the mother brand in the Kuoni scheme of things "We are clear that the local brands are the ones that take emphasis in their respective markets;and they are also the ones bearing the brunt of facing the customer."He cites the example of Scandinavia,where Kuoni has a brand called Apollo that is well-known for 1-2 week Greek-styled beach holidays."For us to replace that brand with Kuoni would be suicidal.Kuoni in Scandinavia may not be as well known,and that's ok for us.We don't insist on representing ourselves as Kuoni in whichever markets we go;the elements of the mother brand are always there but they do not take over."Rothwell gives the example of SOTC in India,which is a stronger brand than Kuoni is in India.Eddie D'sa,partner global client strategy at Naked Communications feels it makes sense,since it is not just nuts and bolts that come with an acquisition in a local market but the customer relationship that comes with it.It would not make sense to lose that.However,there is a downside according to David Keen,CEO of the travel branding firm QUO Global,who says,"Creating local agencies with individual identities enables the parent to retain its high level positioning but does not capitalise on its significant equity,particularly in the European markets."

Rothwell refuses to share details on potential acquisitions but does concur that there are opportunities being looked at keenly.India overall has become significant in the Kuoni scheme of things."We have always made money in India and have been the number one player in India."Globally the Kuoni brand is more than 100 years old,though in India it is a relative young entrant.It has been present since 1996 through acquisitions of local brands."Even though we are basically European,we are increasingly trying to think Asian,as one-third of our customer base is mostly Asian now.The GTA (Gullivers Travel Associates) buyout earlier last year in UK has helped Kuoni become a strong player in the Asian market,since GTA has a strong presence in the Asian market.Europe is going to be fairly static in terms of the growth southern Europe is likely to be negative and northern Europe slightly positive so net net growth would be zero."

So where does the travel CEO who thinks that his job is to 'deal with people's happiness' take off when he is not making 'day-visits Rothwell's holiday is activity-led;the destination is secondary.So it could be sailing in Croatia,skiing in Switzerland,or flying aircraft in New Zealand."I have promised myself a visit to Rajasthan to ride horses in my next trip and to check out the palaces."Before that,however,he is focused on another trip the one from his hotel room to the Zurich head office for which he is set to make a dash to the Mumbai airport.

Can a 10-year-old sell you a bike?

2012-02-05T19:02:00.001+05:30

Advertising gurus are turning to kids to help them sell products to all you adults.

Source : Times Life!

FlipKart’stelevision commercial shows two children seated at a salon, discussing the virtues of online shopping

Agang of children, all aged five to 10, let their lips make exaggerated 'o' and 'e's as they enunciate every word of what is the new inspiration anthem, courtesy AR Rahman. Two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp's latest television commercial, Hum Mein Hai Hero ditches that actors and cricketing stars of Dhak Dhak Go, turning to a group of young children to instil in customers, faith in their inner potential, and perhaps sell a couple of bikes along the way.

"There is a lot of cynicism around us. It's only kids who can spring hope within us with their innocence and purity," says Prasoon Joshi. Joshi's word is as good as gospel truth, considering he is executive chairman of the Indian arm of global marketing communications giant, Mc-Cann Worldgroup and currently Bollywood's most sought-after lyricist. He too decided to turn to children while scripting the lyrics for cola giant Coca-Cola's latest TVC. Umeedon wali dhoop, sunshine wali aasha, Rone ki wajah kam hai, hasney ke bahaney zyada...Zidd hai muskurayenge, khush rehne ka hai waada, Joshi made the child actors sing, murdering cynicism in one clean sweep.

Creative teams at advertising agencies are betting on junior power, and clients look convinced of the idea of children selling products meant for adults to adults. FlipKart, India's largest online shopping store, has picked two kids and perched them on salon chairs, with rollers in their hair, to preach the virtues of online shopping. Kartik Iyer, CEO of Bengaluru-based Happy Creative Services, the agency behind FlipKart's commercial, says, "Only kids can trust unconditionally. Add to that the subtext that the FlipKart service is so easy to use, even a child can use it. That was the starting point of our storyboard."

Often, advertising is not just about generating sales. Building an image is key to a brand's success. When Hero Motors disassociated itself from Honda Motor Company of Japan last year, it announced a new name, logo and identity, with the Hum Mein Hai Hero commercial at its core. It was a new positioning pitch - a hero lies in all of us - and fitted snugly with the brand name.

Rahul Nangia, chief creative officer (west and south) of Law and Kenneth, the agency that created the Hero ad, says, "When we launched the first commercial in this series on August 15 last year, the response was overwhelming. With thousands of people uploading their own videos against the track on Youtube, the commercial gained a life of its own. Shooting it with kids alone was the next logical step. The client isn't looking at marketing anything with this ad. It's looking to create a brand identity. Through kids, we are trying to open up people to their own potential."

While there is no gainsaying that kids bring a fresh breath of purity, what about credibility? Joshi, who has wrapped up the lyrics for a new Greenpeace commercial has children pleading with adults to place nature in their custody. "When children make an impassioned plea, you realise the situation is alarming, and it's time to act."

And creative gurus claim it's cost them no labour to convince clients of kids' potential. Responding to, how does a motorcycle manufacturer fit into a 10-year-old's life or what do a pair of lovable brats have to do with online shopping, Iyer says, "That's like saying why show dogs in an ad where the product is of no use to the dog." While he admits that frequent discussions with his client were needed to plug loopholes, Nangia says his client's reaction to exploiting the marketing power of kids was 'fabulous'.

For the audience, what matters is that the ad appears natural, like a slice of life. Kids who behave wise beyond their years make a commercial contrived. Koushik Sarkar of Apostrophe Films, the firm that directed the Coca-Cola TVC, says the kids you see in Sunshine waali asha.., weren't picked because they were good-looking or acted well. "We just wanted kids with a spark." Sarkar remembers dropping in on the sets one morning to find the kids lost in rehearsal. "They were being their naughty selves, poking each other, screaming. I asked my team to stop rehearsing, and roll the cameras. I wanted the oddities included. Listen in carefully, and you'll notice bits where the kids are singing out of sync. None of the imperfections have been edited."

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2012-02-04T02:03:00.001+05:30

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Recruiters throng wedding halls, churches for right candidate

2012-02-03T23:11:00.004+05:30

Source : The Economic Times

Your name registered in the voters' list can do more than just help you exercise an electoral right; it can land you a job as well. A few aggressive field recruiters have started going to political parties' district committee offices and get hold of voters' lists, which have contact numbers too. Apart from going through voters' lists, recruiters have begun to hang around at wedding halls and churches to spot the right candidates.

"We need to pull a few strings and get an entire database of a few thousand voters, which has all their details," says Biju Kumar (35), senior recruiter for Team Lease. He did this for the first time in July 2011 and got 3,000 names in one haul; 30% of them were hired for new jobs. Kumar's task is to get 50 candidates join the clients' firms every month. He realised that political parties were a gold mine of data when he saw party workers on the prowl at job fairs, looking for candidates. "Some did ask us for money for sharing their database but we don't allow that," says Kumar.

Recruiters also throw in names of the local bigwigs when they go to panchayats and ask the village headmen to encourage their youth to take up jobs. Adecco's group of 300 field recruiters has started visiting panchayats as well.

Recruiters are looking at other off-beat avenues too. Malls, coffee shops have become passe and hiring agents are now hanging around at wedding halls and churches to net candidates. "We have to step up on different strategies to meet our numbers and hovering around coffee shops are old ways of getting contacts and references. Now even banners are put up at wedding gates," says Sangeeta Lala, co-founder TeamLease. Since these are done through personal contacts, there are no advertising costs and any calls or leads generated are a return on investment.

Recruiters at staffing firm TeamLease have asked their friends to print job openings in their wedding invites, and mention how the hiring agency can be a perfect matchmaker between a candidate and his job. This was first tried in a wedding in 2009 in Mumbai and later, two weddings in Bangalore too saw guests being encouraged to call the staffing agency for jobs. "However, when it became difficult to convince parents to have job requirements printed, we settled on banners," says Biju Kumar.

Recruiters even go to churches. In Bangalore, some of them go to St Mary's Church. The pastor is requested to allow the field recruiters to talk to churchgoers once the mass is over. Getting the right fit has forced staffing firms to pay those who can come up with numbers of friends who are willing to get placed. "Since mid-2011, we have started paying Rs 5,000 to every candidate through whom our recruiters have managed to get more references," says Amitabh Das, CEO of Vati consulting.

For a group of recruiters who have to get leads from every prospective candidate they meet, any way of meeting targets - no matter how intrusive - looks like it's the only way to go.

Turn Ideas into economic growth

2012-02-01T00:15:00.004+05:30

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Member, National Innovation Council, & CMD, Biocon

In today's knowledge-driven economy, innovation is the prime driver of progress. India's ability to generatewealth and create social good will come to naught unless we monetise innovative ideas by unshackling entrepreneurship. For innovation to flourish, we need to fund ideas to take them to market. Without capital, even the most transformative ideas can die before they take wing.

India's economic agenda is being shaped to deliver high growth based on an innovation matrix that cuts across social and economic activity. This approach is expected to result in economic reforms and value-added products and services that are key drivers of India's progress. Whilst the strategy is sound, the process of implementation is pivotal to its successful outcome.

Financing the innovation ecosystem: What India needs is a national innovation ecosystem that puts in place a financing cycle: academia generate ideas, especially those based on science and technology, which are incubated to proof of concept through government-sponsored seed and incubation funding and then taken to market through businesses backed by venture funding. India's ecosystem is not only suboptimal but it also lacks a some enabling mechanisms that can help innovation germinate and take root.

Let's start with academia's role in generating ideas. While government funding supports this phase of the innovation value chain fairly adequately, it falls short in nurturing ideas and growing them to a proof-of-concept stage where business can intervene. The notion of incubating start-ups within academic institutes is still nascent. The regulatory reforms that permit researchers to unconditionally assume dual roles as academicians and entrepreneurs is yet to be fully implemented. Academic entrepreneurs have virtually built the entire US technology sector and are continuing to do so despite the economic recession. India urgently needs to emulate this aspect of the US innovation ecosystem.

It is when the proof of concept is taken to the market through a process of commercialisation, that venture funding makes the critical difference between an idea and successful business. Venture funding relies on a regulatory framework that encourages risk-taking. Today, venture funds in India typically steer clear of risk-ridden small business ventures, leaving a huge funding vacuum in the commercialisation process. Venture funding in the US, on the other hand, is at the heart of driving innovation to the market. A sobering statistic offers food for thought: Venture capital investments in India reached $658 million in 2010, a 19.8% increase over 2009, according to data collated by Venture Intelligence. Compare that with China where venture capital investments reached $5.4 billion in 2010, a 79% increase over 2009.

A secondary stock exchange: I strongly believe the disconnect lies in lack of access to capital markets. Technology companies that do not have revenues are not eligible under Sebi guidelines to apply for listing. Such companies are stuck in a loop in terms of availing venture funding: venture capitalists won't fund technology companies that don't provide exits to capital markets and capital markets are not available to such companies owing to listing regulations. Industry bodies such as the Association of Biotechnology-Led Enterprises (ABLE) have been pushing Sebi for differentiated eligibility criteria for technology, research and innovation-driven companies for several years to no avail. Unencumbered entry and exit will be the catalyst in taking innovation to the next level.

So, how do we create an enabling innovation ecosystem that enables entrepreneurs to propel ideas into a sustainable business that adds value to our economy? The only option is to set up a secondary stock exchange to allow technology-driven, revenue-less, innovative companies to access capital markets, emulating the role Nasdaq plays in the US for technology companies and London's AIM for technology companies in the UK. This will spur innovation and unleash an entrepreneurial avalanche that will transform the pace of value-added growth in the Indian economy.

Drip feeding innovation will not build a sustainable technology sector, nor will risk-averse investors build a credible innovation ecosystem. Innovation requires sustained capital infusion both by the government and private sector. Unless investors are willing to back innovation, it will not create a credible knowledge-led economy that delivers high value to the economy. This is the underlying rationale for a secondary stock exchange for technology/innovation-driven companies that do not generate revenues but drive value creation as they approach the market.

Beyond capital markets: The ecosystem must also facilitate curiosity-driven research across academia and business. India's diverse social and economic challenges provide a substrate for innovative solutions that can create innumerable business opportunities based on affordability and accessibility. The size of the Indian market adds to business opportunities. But the optimal financial model to catalyse innovation is missing.

The government has initiated the investment process through some financing mechanisms that cut across grants, seed and incubation funding. The private sector now has to bring in the next level of funding through venture capital and access to capital markets. We need regulatory reforms that enable the creation of another exchange to spur innovation. Ideas abound in India. The challenge is to monetise these ideas through successful ventures. Only then can India move rapidly up the value chain to achieve faster, more sustainable growth.

Team India Needs to Turn It Around Like Corporates

2012-01-31T00:32:00.000+05:30

Source : The Economic Times

5 Reasons for India's loss to Australia :

1. Poor Hiring Policy (Hiring without competency based practices)

2. Poor Succession Planning

3. Failure in Leadership

4. Poor strategic planning and execution

5. Lack of Team Work
Former Australia captain Steve Waugh once told his bowlers ahead of a Test series against India: "If you get (Rahul) Dravid, great. If you get (Sachin) Tendulkar, brilliant. But if you get (VVS) Laxman, it's a miracle". The Aussies managed to achieve all the three in the recently-concluded series in which they blanked out the Indians 4-0.

What makes a star-studded team that seems invincible on paper flop? It's a question that not just the legion of frenzied followers of the flannelled fools are grappling with; pinstriped promoters in boardrooms and corner rooms of India Inc time and again are confronted with a similar dilemma, particularly when growth isn't a given and competition is cut-throat. After all, the problems are not dissimilar.

Failure in leadership; conceiving poor strategies and executing them even more poorly; the sudden realisation that yesterday's stars don't glitter anymore; and the sinking feeling that inadequate attention was paid to planning for their succession during the win-win days are some of the parallels that can be drawn between India's down and out cricketeleven and sections of corporate India that are in the wars.

Team India today resembles a once-successful corporation that rested on its oars when the going was good and then got caught out by a near-fatal combination of complacency and harder-working competition.

To complete that corporate analogy, Indian cricket is a bit like Nokia, the Finnish handset multinational that could do no wrong in the 90s, but has since been on the decline thanks to the ascent of nimbler smartphone players like Apple and Samsung.

The Indian team's decline mirrors Nokia's, albeit over a shorter span of time - it became the number one team in Test cricket two years ago, and won the World Cup in 2011. But it's been pretty much downhill since then, with eight overseas Test defeats on a trot.

Nokia brought in Microsoft heavyweight Stephen Elop to stem the rot; and has since aligned with the makers of the Windows operating system to script a comeback. Who should the wise men at the Board of Control for Cricket of India (BCCI) turn to?

Or, more importantly, what should be the way ahead? Let's start with leadership - it's time for a change.

Succession planning should be priority of BCCI

"The role of a team leader is to get things done through their team and obviously this is not working," says Amit Nandkeolyar, assistant professor-organisational behaviour at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. The professor adds that a captain needs to highlight and define "collective" goals, and guide team mates towards achieving these goals.

"When team members believe they can achieve their goals, they are more likely to engage in pursuit of a task. A low level of belief works against the team," he adds.

The immediate priority of the BCCI should be succession planning.

Experts point out that the exercise should have begun yesterday. Says TV Mohandas Pai, director, Manipal Universal Learning, "In the corporate world, succession planning spans many years. We have an ageing superstar cricket team." He adds that it doesn't help that many of them are in the same age bracket and will retire at the same time.

"There is clearly a lack of strategic planning, risk assessment and succession planning. Especially, when the cricket calendar is known for the next three years," adds Pai.

A predicament related to age, and overachievements in the past, is the lack of passion to win. That's when complacency, and the famed Indian 'chalta hai' attitude, seeps in. "You have to be desperate to succeed," says K Sudarshan, managing partner of search firm EMA Partners. "What chances are there for this desperation to exist when you have been there, done that, with an array of achievements to boot," he asks.

The BCCI could also go back to the drawing board and stress the virtues of team work - planning and executing strategies is rarely the work of one individual.

The Indian team is blessed with super-talented individuals who aren't quite jelling as a team. "You can have a great individual performer, but if he cannot work well for the team, it just does not work. The team is paramount," says Ajay Srinivasan, group CEO of Aditya Birla Financial Services.

Management gurus also explain it is extremely important to acknowledge that team success is accorded the topmost priority and individual records are kept subservient to that goal.

Elango R, chief human resource officer at MphasiS, has often seen in the corporate world teams failing when there are too many stars. "A star - at the work place or in the cricket team - is a star as long as the team wins," he says.

Many of Team India's 'stars' are guilty of overstaying the party. That can prove suicidal for a second rung of leaders in the context of India Inc. In the context of Team India, it is suicidal for the next-gen players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

"There are examples of senior executives overstaying by 7-8 years in a company and in the process killing a generation of future leaders by not giving them an opportunity. There's a lot of fatigue in such experienced people," Sudarshan says.

Bidding adieu to yesterday's super-achievers may be an imperative, but it is also a delicate matter. "We are talking about firing legends," says Nandkeolyar. "The first step is to acknowledge their experience and let them know that there is a problem," he adds. Also, if the captain has to be sacked so be it; he can still stay back as a player, if he is good enough.

The ISB professor points to scenarios in the corporate world where "younger people are managing much more accomplished but older employees".

Finally, it all boils down to hiring and appraisal.

"To me, it's a hiring issue. The mental make-up is tested only at the time of failure," says Abhijit Bhaduri, chief learning officer, Wipro. "People are hired for competency and fired for (lack of) mental make-up." Is the selection committee listening?

Mobilizing the Population

2012-01-26T17:18:00.000+05:30

SAP Citizen Connect, a new app for the public services sector, empowers citizens to connect with public agencies using their smart phones.

Source : SAP AG

You’re walking along a street in your city or town, and you see a piece of dangerous debris in the roadway. Or maybe you spot an overflowing trash can, or some offensive graffiti. You’re a good citizen, but – really – how likely are you to head home, research the appropriate government agency, look up contact details, and then spend time on the phone connecting to the right person to report the issue?

Now, imagine yourself on that same street coming across graffiti, roadway debris, or teeming trash. You snap a picture with your smartphone, and just a few taps later the issue is reported to your local government – complete with the exact location via GPS – and directed to the right department. Later, you can track the case with your mobile phone to monitor how the local authority responds.

You’re a lot more likely to take action in the second scenario, and a new mobile app from SAP makes it possible. SAP Citizen Connect is a self-service channel for citizens to report public issues to local authorities. It connects to SAP CRM and SAP ERP back-ends, enabling municipalities to enhance the value of an existing SAP infrastructure.

“Mobile reporting gives citizens a quick and convenient way to interact with local government,” says Andreas Muno, SAP solution manager for Mobility in the public services sector. “For governments, it offers a contemporary way to engage and connect with citizens; convey a fresh, modern brand; and improve efficiency by reducing call-center workload and streamlining processing.”

Examples of the kind of issues citizens might report via SAP Citizen Connect include graffiti, potholes, flooded streets, felled power lines, overflowing trash, and broken playground equipment. GPS built into smartphones automatically transmits a physical location, and built-in cameras allow mobile users to submit photos. When reporting, citizens tag their issue in pre-configured, custom categories for automatic processing in the city’s backend system.

Citizens can then track their issue, which Muno says can help improve government services generally. “In effect, citizens use the app to monitor the city’s performance, which is incentive for municipalities to make their processes more streamlined and cost-effective.”

Meanwhile, SAP Citizen Connect addresses two key trends driving change in citizen-centric service agencies: efficiency (doing more with less) and the demand for municipal services that are intuitive and easy to access. “Citizens expect the level of service they get from interactions with private sector entities like Amazon.com and online banking,” says Muno. “And they expect this better service despite diminished resources and revenue.”

SAP customers running ERP 6 or CRM 7.01 can implement SAP Citizen Connect in a matter of days. Once deployed, the customized SAP Citizen Connect mobile app can be offered to citizens via the local agency’s web site.

When a citizen initiates and categorizes a report, a case (CRM) or notification (ERP) is created, capturing the data and initiating a workflow. The categories are configurable in the SAP backend, as are the associated workflows.

“It is quite flexible and easy to brand,” says Muno. “An organization can put its ownbrand on the start page of the app and that makes SAP Citizen Connect a very powerful marketing instrument for dealing with citizens and consumers.”

SAP Citizen Connect is relevant not only to public service agencies and governments, but any business that has facilities and/or physical assets to maintain. Enterprises, for example, might use SAP Citizen Connect to allow employees to quickly report issues on corporate campuses to facility management.

SAP Citizen Connect was released in October 2011. “We based our development on research we conducted in cities that have successfully deployed mobile reporting applications, including San Francisco, Toronto, and Boston,” says Muno.

Anyone can download the SAP Citizen Connect application free from the Apple iTunes store. Of course, unless the mobile app is connected to a backend system, it’s just a “sandbox.” Customers can learn more and download the SAP Citizen Connect application from the SAP EcoHub or ask their sales representative for a live demo.

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2012-01-26T17:03:00.000+05:30

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CEO - Next Destination of the HR Professional

2012-01-23T23:53:00.000+05:30

Management of Intangibles is emerging as the main challenge in any transformation program in an organization

Source : People Matters

An interview with Dr. Khandelwal - CEO of Bank Of Baroda

The HR explosion all around is evident, given the number of conferences, seminars, books and papers that have been published and presented on the topic, but most often than not the topics and the narrations come to us as rhetorical sermons. In the emerging business environment, the core of the HR function cannot be restricted to employees alone. It has to also include customers – the very reason for business, culture, processes, governance, technology, issues of quality, etc. Together these can be clubbed as ’Intangibles‘. Numerous research studies world over suggest that intangibles contribute 40 percent of the market value of the company. Management of these intangibles is emerging as the main challenge in any transformation program in an organization, and is the new agenda for HR professionals.Introducing a column which shares the rare story of an HR professional becoming a CEO. As CEO, Dr. Anil K. Khandelwal, was able to achieve dramatic business outcomes because of his extensive HR experience. In his subsequent columns, he will share his journey from being an HR professional to becoming the CEO of Bank of Baroda

Remaining quarantined on ‘employee’ issues alone can lead to stagnancy of both the function and the HR professionals. The precise challenge ahead is how HR professionals can prepare themselves to take charge of the intangibles and promote their intrinsic value to the organization – professional preparation as well as soiling hands in the new business functions and demonstrating success.

My own professional journey from being an HR professional to becoming a CEO could be facilitated only when I took up the challenge (after initial reluctance) to banking operations in a difficult industrial relations environment. It brought me in touch with the real world and real business issues such as customers and their aspirations, problems and a host of concerns impacting the business. While the transition from HR to mainstream operations was challenging, it was also equally exciting. It was during this time that I discovered that the main challenge of any operations manager was ‘people management’. My learning in operational assignment had been phenomenal and that helped me to understand how employee attitudes affect customer acquisition, retention and loyalty; how communication culture affects business growth, what are the key concerns of analysts, investors, key customers and how they affect business growth; and how competitors’ strategies impact our business. In fact, my operational exposure helped me immensely to discover my own innate potential for other disciplines like marketing and technology in particular. I would emphatically say that the most effective and durable learning takes place when one is in field assignments.

One can never get to know ground zero realities by merely attending business meetings or being part of strategy groups. I believe that HR professionals should increasingly volunteer to take up business roles.

In my role as Chairman of Bank of Baroda, my continuous emphasis on building intangibles such as rebranding of the bank including logo change, customer-centric initiatives, deployment of technology, improving internal processes, talent and leadership development, and engagement of staff, resulted in dramatic business outcome and in turn, a major positive change in the perception of analysts and investors. Connecting with the people and speaking the language of business all through ought to go hand in hand, in my view, to get best outcomes. I am happy that even after my retirement, the bank has continued to perform exceedingly well on the different pillars of intangibles. This amply suggests that when we assiduously work on intangibles, performance of the organization improves and is sustained on a long term basis. My HR background helped me to diagnose and design appropriate interventions and lead execution with precision.

Mere number crunching CEOs are increasingly becoming irrelevant as CEOs who are visible, accessible and hands-on, are becoming more popular to lead organizations. In an environment where customers and employees are becoming increasingly vocal about the issues that affect them and their retention is a greater challenge, corporations need leaders who can engage with both employees and customers alike and can build seamless relationships with both. Maverick leaders who are creative, are open to take on new initiatives and can engage stakeholders in a new way will have greater chances of business success. Thus, a HR background is increasingly turning out to be a competitive advantage for the CEO role.

A CEO with a substantial HR background is in a better position to take long term steps to shape the organizational culture, identity and brand, and focus on building capabilities for future as well as set effective governance structure. The journey of HR to CEO will, however, depend on many factors such as willingness of HR professionals to accept an operational position, demonstrating a different style of management, continuous learning and experimentation with new ideas and methodologies in managing business. While at present, there may be only few HR professionals becoming CEOs but the trend is encouraging. 2012 will perhaps see many more HR professionals occupying the corner office and other top management positions.

Dr. Khandelwal is an HR professional who made it to CEO of Bank of Baroda (BOB), a staid large public sector bank and turned it out in a short tenure of 3 years. BOB today is a powerful and valuable banking brand. In this column, he would share his code of leadership that helped him achieve extra-ordinary business results. His book Dare to Lead (Sage 2011) captures his experience of the turnaround. Dr. Anil Khandelwal can be contacted at akk1948@gmail.com

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2012-01-22T21:02:00.000+05:30

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Use 360s to Your Advantage

2012-01-22T19:39:00.000+05:30

Source : The Economic Times

Few modern management practices show as much promise and as few results as 360 feedback. Companies often look to 360s to improve a leader's behaviours, provide insight during leadership development courses and help build more effective teams.

They believe that 360 feedback will either change their managers' behaviours or at least increase those managers' motivation to change.

Unfortunately, those expectations are unrealistic and not supported by science. In fact, given what the academic research on feedback tells us, we should be surprised that today's 360 processes work at all! Let's start by addressing some erroneous assumptions we have about feedback:

Feedback does not directly lead to change: Many organisations believe handing a manager a 360 report will cause them to improve their behaviours with no additional action required. Research says, when feedback is focused on our behaviours, rather than our skills, our willingness to change drops dramatically.

Gaps between self perceptions and others' perceptions do not motivate change: It's a commonly held belief that if we see a gap between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us we will be motivated to close that gap.

In reality, research is clear that when we are confronted with that perception gap we diligently try to excuse it or explain it away. We aren't resisting feedback - we're experiencing "cognitive dissonance." Our minds work very hard to ensure that our carefully developed, largely positive self-image is preserved.

More information does not create better results: Typical 360 reports have 50+ pages filled with charts, graphs, norms, icons and comments. It's nearly impossible for a manager to tell (without hours of help from a coach or HR leader) which items are most important to focus on and how to improve those behaviours.

A feedback experience that leaves us confused or angry creates a huge barrier to taking action.

MAKE IT EASY TO USE Making 360s work means making it as easy as possible for the manager to take action on the results. Here are three steps that will help guarantee that managers will follow the advice in the 360: Don't rate - guide: The typical 360 rates managers as being good or bad at various behaviours.

This doesn't help anyone change. Instead, use a scale that tells a manager to "Do More" or "Do Less" on that particular behaviour.

Focus only on the top three behaviours: Busy managers don't have time to search through confusing 360 reports to identify their priorities for change. The first page of their 360 report should list the vital few actions for them to improve.

Tell the manager exactly how to change:A well-designed 360 report should include specific "start, stop or continue" suggestions from their raters that describe exactly how the manager should change those vital few behaviours.

Don't include norms or self-ratings: We do not like to be compared to other people, especially when the comparison isn't favourable. Self-ratings and external norms only increase our resistance to change if we score below our expectations but don't motivate us further if we score above our expectations.

DRIVE ACCOUNTABILITY : The "old school" of human resource management used to insist that 360s were purely for development and that they should never be used to evaluate managers or help make organisational decisions. If we believe that how managers behave is important, then ignoring the best data we have about a manager's behaviours seems ridiculous. Properly gathered 360 data should be considered as one of many data points when making decisions about new roles, promotions or development.

When managers know their behaviors have consequences, they'll be much more likely to take action to change them. Getting 360 feedback doesn't have to be painful or unhelpful. By focusing on the core science and presenting information in a practical and easy-to-understand way, 360s can help managers to make important behaviour changes quickly and easily.

Business Technology Trends that will Dominate 2012

2012-01-22T17:40:00.000+05:30

Cos That Strive for Average Will Fail to Survive

Source : The Economic Times

Forecasting the Business Technology Trends that will Dominate 2012

As organisations enter the evolution from Transactional Systems to Engagement Systems,a shift is happening.And engagement requires a way different design point and business model for success.Engagement must account for sense and response,massive social scale,conversation,new user experiences,real-time and multichannel networks.Next generation

C-suite leaders not only build for engagement,but also design for the next era of experiential systems which apply context to deliver agility and flexibility.These shifts have massive impacts on the societal,technological,economical,environmental,and political landscapes.Accordi ng to Constel lation Research analysis,these very shifts to experiential systems drive the following biztech trends to watch for in 2012 and beyond.

Consumerisation of IT must be enterprise class or businesses will fail.

The recent Harvard Business Review post titled,Coming to Terms with the Consumerisation of IT (CoIT),identifies six factors for the basis of balancing enterprise class requirements.Businesses want IT to be simple,scalable,and sexy.While the pendulum is definitively shifting towards business,Consumerisation of IT requires enterprise class IT to ensure technologies to be safe,secure and sustainable.Success requires a natural equilibrium between business needs and IT needs for key areas like social,mobile,cloud,big data,and unified communications.

Organisations that master data visualisation gain the advantage of speed.
New data visualisation tools will improve internal and external communications.The convergence of big data,unstructured social and mobile information,and machine to machine data will provide a treasure drove of data for business analytics.But the flood of data will result in poor signal to noise ratios.Unfortunately,more data does not mean more information.Consequently,data visualization will provide a key tool to efficiently communicate complex information to stakeholders such as employees,customers,partners and suppliers.The systems change the future of work by allowing users to create,share,collaborate,and broadcast new visualizations models.In this case,an image is worth an exabyte of data.

New growth comes from monetising the complete ownership life cycle.
The low margins and limited barriers of entry for many products and services force organisations to rethink their business models.In fact,many organizations have painfully discovered that products remain excuses to sell value-added services and business model disruption is now a way of life.Consequently,new business models include value added services such as installations,after market warranties,inclusion in communities,and exclusiveexperiences.Newbusiness models also take advantage of new disruptive technologies and the shift to cross channel commerce.For example,profitability at a company such as Best Buy mostly comes from these new value added services,not the product.Thus,the goal shifts from selling products to winning market share in the overall ownership lifecycle.

Social shifts from B2B/B2C to people to people (P2P) networks.
Emergence of extremely viral people to people (P2P) networks forever changes the notion of the customer.Adoption of social media,social networks,and mobility drives the death of B2B and B2C as we know it.Why How we interact increasingly depends on context.For instance,a bad experience at work with a certain brand of laptop bleeds over to the consumer side.A great experience with consumer products has driven the rise of bring your own device to work and Apples success in the enterprise.As a result,context in the form of roles,relationships,location,business process,time,and other factors determine how we engage.These factors drive the new rules based on the rise of P2P networks.

The corporate dig ital divide o n ly g r ow s larger.
The gap in profits,innovation,and market share will continue to widen between the companies who adopt disruptive and emergent technologies and those who choose to stay the course.In some sense,average is over and organisations whichstriveforaveragewillfailto survive.Unlike the Occupy movement,organisations should strive to be in the 1%.Why Theres only room for the top 3 to 5 in most market segments.

Market leaders know how to manage their innovation agenda.
Market hype over disruptive technologies such as social,mobile,cloud,big data,and analytics will continue.However,a good number of early adopters have achieved success.Therefore,organizations must not only understand when and which technologies to adopt,but also when and which technologies to pass on.Successful organisations will manage their innovation agenda as a partnership between business,IT,and legal.Those who establish a governance model for innovation will succeed.The bottomline is that pace of change continues to accelerate in 2012.In business,the only constant is change.Unfortunately,the pace of change continues to increase.Organisations which fail to manage this change will cease to exist.Business and IT leaders should quickly factor these mega trends into planning for 2012 and beyond.Importantly,organisations should weigh and factor these trends based on their business hierarchy of need (see figure).

R Ray Wang is Principal Analyst and CEO at Constellation Research and author of enterprise software blog A Software Insiders Point of View.

R RAY WANG

Forget Networking. Get ready for Sweatworking!

2012-01-12T00:06:00.000+05:30

Boozy lunches with clients are out – today's executives prefer to conduct their business meetings in the gym

Source : The Independent, Britain's first news paper

Into the glossary of business buzz phrases – "greed is good", "lunch is for wimps" and the ubiquitous "thinking outside the box" – have come some lean new contenders. Consider the horrors of a "spin-spin situation" or, worse, "earn while you burn". The new corporate lingo has been adopted by dealmakers of the future who prefer, literally, to sweat over the details of a contract.

Despite the gym being a place of refuge from work's strains and stresses, sweating it out in a spinning class (hard pedalling on stationary bikes) or the weights room is increasingly an influential part of the way business is conducted.

The concept of networking while working out – dubbed "sweatworking" in the US where the trend originated – is proving increasingly fashionable in the UK. The New York Times reported last month that business people are taking clients to the gym instead of entertaining them with drinks and meals out. Spinning classes are particular popular because participants can exercise at their own pace. British health clubs, already equipped with cafes and internet access, say they are witnessing a similar trend.

Some informal sweatworking already takes place in inner-city gyms, according to David Petersen, regional manager for Fitness First's London clubs: customers take business associates along to personal training sessions. One member even conducted a job interview at the gym.

Fitness First will soon launch a structured breakfast networking meeting at one central London club. After making introductions, attendees will do a spinning class before heading to the juice bar for more networking. If successful, the idea could be introduced in the chain's other gyms.

The rival gym firm LA Fitness says it has already responded to demand from companies for free guest passes by including them in corporate packages, demand for which increased 60 per cent last year.

Peter Harrington, LA Fitness's sales director, said guest passes mean companies can give clients the option to swap the traditional "boozy lunch" for the gym. While corporate entertaining at gyms was still new, he said, the Olympics could boost its popularity. As people socialise with friends and meet partners at gyms, he said, extending that to professional networks was a natural progression.

Morgan's Group is launching Exec Health Club, a business networking forum with gym membership, at centres in Plymouth and Truro in April. Members will meet for monthly seminars. During "learn and burn" classes, they will pick up tips on improving their business while burning calories on an exercise bike.

"It's fun and time-saving," said Denise Boaden, Morgan's managing director, who said having leaders educated in health, well-being and nutrition was beneficial for workforces.

Michelle Mone, founder of the lingerie brand Ultimo, said that while sweatworking sounded interesting and was a different way of entertaining clients, the gym was a place where a lot of people go to unwind and recharge their batteries.

Working alone gives them the chance to think, she said. "It may not be the best place for a business meeting but a lot of good ideas can come when you're exercising, so it may be worth trying as a teambuilding challenge with colleagues."

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2012-01-11T23:43:00.000+05:30

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The Beginner's Guide to Facebook Commerce

2012-01-07T23:37:00.001+05:30

Source : Facebook Commerce Guide

Facebook’s gravitational pull of 750 million users is enough to hold digital marketers spellbound. Once they get past the sheer size, they find that Facebook also offers unique and nuanced selling opportunities amidst difficult obstacles.

First off, Facebook users have better things to be doing. The average Facebook user is connected to 130 Friends and 80 interest groups and makes his or her preferences known through rich profiles and by posting 90 pieces of content per month. Facebook users spend 700 billion minutes per month in an active, relaxed environment where word-of-mouth is built into every turn. The traffic, of course, also matters. Compete found that large brands like Coca-Cola are getting about 11% of their unique visits through Facebook Pages.

Selling on or through Facebook now has a name: F-commerce. As with most aspects of social media, it does not yet live up to the potential that many foresee and it has no problem finding both strong advocates and cynical detractors. In this post, we’ll break down the ins and outs of this digital buzzword. Let us know what questions you have about F-commerce in the comments below.

Four Types of F-Commerce

1. Facebook-Facilitated On-Site Selling:

Brands can bring the Facebook experience to their websites, tapping users’ connections and interests to support the purchasing process. The simplest examples involve using social plugins — short code snippets that ping Facebook’s network for information about the user visiting the brand’s site. The Like Button is the most common plugin and is usually regarded as a content sharing device, but when it is used in conjunction with a product page it can provide peer support by displaying the names and profile images of people who have Liked the product — most appealing for brands is the fact that it also highlights any of the user’s Facebook friends who have Liked the product.

A more sophisticated approach uses Facebook’s Open Graph API to retrieve the Likes and interests of the user, as well as those of his or her friends. There is a permission screen involved and every friend’s privacy settings are individually respected.

For the past few months Amazon.com has been offering a “Tap into Your Friends” option (still labeled Beta). After the permission screen, the user is taken to an Amazon page showing the upcoming birthdays of Facebook Friends and their Amazon Wish List if they have one. Amazon uses a user’s friends’ profile data, which often includes favorite books and music, to make gift suggestions.

2. Facebook-Initiated Selling:

Business accounts can set up a storefront for free on their Facebook Pages, and many thousands have already done so. The vast majority start the shopping process at Facebook.com but then jump to their own ecommerce pages at some point. Lady Gaga’s Facebook store is an example of a store that takes users on a rather abrupt transition. Users can browse products on her Facebook Page, but any click takes them to the product page at bravadousa.com, a licensed merchandise marketer and fulfillment service. The Facebook branding is gone, and the look and feel changes completely. A new window opens which would make any Facebook multitasking (e.g., chat) cumbersome. Apparently, a Page with over 30 million Likes can get away with this — Justin Bieber has the exact same arrangement.

Best Buy keeps shoppers in the Facebook environment a bit longer and takes advantage of the social features while they are there. Its store app isn’t labeled “Shop,” it is “Shop + Share.” Users can search or browse for products, and when they find something that interests them, they have two options: “Ask Friends” or “Shop Now.” “Ask Friends” leads to a Wall post asking about the product. Interestingly, Best Buy currently makes “Ask Friends” much more noticeable than “Shop Now,” which takes the user to the product page at BestBuy.com for the shopping cart and checkout process.

3. Complete Selling through Facebook:

1-800-Flowers has pioneered a selling process that never takes the user away from Facebook.com. Shoppers can select products, options, see delivery dates and even include a personal message without interrupting their Facebook experience. 1-800-Flowers does not take full advantage of the social environment, though, as it doesn’t provide an easy way to ask a relative what Mom’s favorite flowers are or what her zip code is, for example.

Delta Airlines has built a complete ticketing system into its Facebook Page, and while it allows the user to promote Delta by posting a general message on his or her Wall, it doesn’t do much to help the user share details with Friends involved in the trip, something that a Send Button could do nicely.

4. iFrames vs. Facebook Apps:

There are two ways of displaying F-commerce Pages on Facebook.com, each with its pluses and minuses. In February 2011, Facebook adopted iFrames as the method that businesses use to supply custom content to their Pages. In the simplest terms, iFrames allow a business to create and host its own content and to display it in the 520-pixel middle column of a Facebook Page.

Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and even Best Buy, present their F-commerce pages through an iFrame. The advantage is simplicity, since businesses can create and maintain the content on their own terms — iFrames tend to offer the most seamless experiences for consumers. 1-800-Flowers and Delta do their selling via Facebook apps. The primary advantage of going to an app is real estate. iFrame content is restricted to the 520 pixel-wide middle Page column, while an app can control the left most 760 pixels — a 46% increase in visible selling space. The disadvantage of apps is that they are more difficult to maintain and they may stress smaller budgets within businesses lacking Facebook development expertise.

F-Commerce Developers Emerge as a Resource

The list of software developers offering F-commerce products is growing. Many come from traditional ecommerce, offering Facebook as an extension for their clients. SortPrice, for example, powers the Dallas Mavericks‘s Facebook store, and Usablenet, which powers JCPenney‘s Facebook store. Another popular application for adding Facebook to an existing ecommerce program is Storefront Social, which Borders uses.

A popular developer that seems to be emphasizing F-Commerce is 8thBridge, responsible for 1-800-Flowers, as well as Delta. And the popular Payvment app allows clients to become part of a Facebook shopping mall with a connected shopping cart.

The Future of F-Commerce

There are many more questions than there are answers about the long term future of F-commerce, which is still in its infancy and barely survived its birth. In 2007, Facebook tried Project Beacon, which collected ecommerce activity on third party sites and announced a user’s purchases on his or her friends’ news feed. Facebook quickly withdrew from that privacy nightmare but its dismal reputation for freely dispersing user data still haunts F-commerce. Many Facebook users have become so accustomed to Facebook’s aggressive data sharing policies that they automatically assume the worst. A recent study from JWT found the percentage of people worried about Facebook privacy and security to be in the 75% range.

Experienced ecommerce managers also see problems with Facebook.com itself. “The user experience is less-than-optimal with slow page loads and smaller page size due to Facebook’s advertising and navigation. I don’t see why customers would bother shopping through Facebook when a faster and better experience is only a browser tab away,” notes Linda Bustos, director of ecommerce research at Elastic Path Software. Facebook advertising is certainly an issue. No matter how you structure your F-commerce store, the user will still be served targeted Facebook ads during the buying process.

Many web marketers question the social nature of shopping itself, and there is considerable opinion that people visit Facebook to catch up with their Friends and not to be sold products. The good news on that front, from the JWT study, is that 48% of millennials (aged 20-33) would like to see the places where they shop give them the ability to buy directly on Facebook.

The best reason for businesses to take a deep breath before investing in a F-commerce is Facebook itself, which currently benefits from F-commerce primarily through the sale of ads promoting it. They’d obviously like a better cut and nobody is quite sure how they would do it. Facebook Credits could somehow be expanded to become the currency for F-commerce. Credits for gaming and virtual goods earn Facebook a 30% commission — F-commerce Credits would probably be in the 5% range.

There is no shortage of opinions regarding the future of selling on Facebook, but one overwhelming motivation — it is where the customers are, and they should be able to buy wherever and whenever they like.

2012-01-07T22:14:00.000+05:30

Management One Readers across the world....

2012-01-07T00:48:00.000+05:30

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3 Critical Talent Risks.......

2011-12-28T01:35:00.000+05:30

Source : Ernst & Young

The government may have scaled down the forecast for GDP growth rate owing to monetary tightening and the slow growth momentum in the West, but the Indian growth story is still credible. And even as India Inc treads on an uphill road, the risks associated with talent continue to remain relevant.

Indian organisations are exposed to three critical talent risks, according to a recent Ernst & Youngsurvey. The first is employability risk, or attracting the right talent for the right role. Despite being labour surplus, there is an apparent talent inadequacy in comparison to the business growth that is transforming the industrial landscape.

The numbers thrown up by the survey show that about 80% of the Indian workforce does not possess identifiable marketable skills; only 25% of professionals are considered "employable" by multinationals and the difficulty of employers in India to fill job vacancies has increased to 67% in 2011 as compared to the data from past years.

The second is attrition risk. In spite of early warning signals indicating an impending slowdown, most employment metrics continue to indicate that the war for talent is still fierce. This risk is not just restricted to losing talent but additionally, organisations have to absorb the attrition costs. This has led to several organisations continuously strengthening their internal HR processes to hold on to their critical people and create a war-chest of talent.

The third talent risk is that of increasing employee costs. The double-digit salary hikes being continuously provided for the last few years are forcing organisations to build stronger mechanisms to keep employee costsunder control.

Contrary to the erstwhile practice of talent management, where the various elements of managing talent were operated in silos, many organisations are now transitioning to an integrated talent management strategy, which has cross-linkages and is aligned to strategic plans. The important levers of an integrated talent management strategy encompass the entire gamut of attracting, engaging, building, leveraging and retaining diverse talent.

In terms of addressing the risk of attracting employable talent, many organisations from across sectors are exploring opportunities such as tying up with educational institutes to introduce curriculum aligned to the requirements of the industry, adopting government-owned Industrial Training Institutes, setting up large training infrastructure and creating a network of trainers to build skills internally, inducting students as interns to enhance their practical exposure needed before joining the industry, etc.

For managerial talent, companies are ensuring they identify a set of management and engineering institutesand run a focused and continuous campus brand-building programme to be able to attract the right talent. Many organisations are also experimenting with channels such as the social media to reach out to their target talent audience.

Organisations are devising retention strategies by understanding and answering certain key aspects about their target talent, first being "who" they want to retain. Secondly, "what" are the components that employees perceive as important to stay in the organisation.

Organisations are continuously identifying the requirements of their key talent and aligning their HR practices to enhance the value proposition they provide to employees in those specific areas, typically identified as: role, career, benefits, compensation and culture.

She Aint Bossy

2011-12-25T17:50:00.000+05:30

Female bosses understand workers' need for work life balance

Female bosses are more tolerant of employees doing personal chores during work hours as compared to male managers, a new study has found. The research into the attitude of 1,000 bosses, commissioned by Vodafone, found that rather than berating staff for shopping, banking and paying bills at their desks, women are more likely to appreciate the fact that staff have to maintain a work-life balance.

By contrast male bosses are more likely to lose their temper when spotting workers on Facebook, Twitter, shopping websites, or overhearing them making personal calls.

It also emerged that female bosses are more likely to take the personal situation of staff into account when it comes to managing and reprimanding their staff.

They were revealed to be more likely to be aware of, and sympathetic to, problems people may be having in their personal life.

Men, on the other hand, are more inclined to tell employees off for letting home life get in the way of work, and admitted to having to do so on a daily basis.

“What this research shows is that a cultural shift has started. For many people in the United Kingdom, the way we work is changing,” the Daily Mail quoted Peter Kelly from Vodafone United Kingdom as saying.

“Britain’s bosses are realising that successful businesses must focus on generating results, not on monitoring what employees do at their desks.

“It confirms that we are seeing the end of the traditional 9-5 office working pattern. A new generation of workers is coming through the ranks.

“They prefer fitting work around their lives rather than the other way around,” Kelly added.

Source : Bombay Times / Hindustan Times

1000+ Visitors in 7 days

2011-12-25T16:52:00.000+05:30

Dear All,

Thanks for the overwhelming support i got for my newly started blog which went live last week - 1000+ Visitors in just 7 days.

Thanks & Regards,

Team Management One

Aspiration Quotient

2011-12-18T17:41:00.000+05:30

Source : Economic Times

Every job carries with it an intrinsic aspiration quotient (AQ), which is a function of both its economic and social value. Jobs with the highest AQ are those that deliver excellent economic and social value. By all accounts, a career as an IT professional or a doctor belongs in this category. High social value of these jobs may be because of the glamour factor attached to frequent foreign travel, staying in five-star hotels, and high currency in marriage markets. This perhaps explains the scramble to secure a position in one of these sectors .

High AQ jobs have no difficulty attracting job aspirants, nor do skill development programmes that lead to such jobs. At the other end of the spectrum are the low-AQ jobs that deliver meagre economic and social value. For an urban dweller, this could be a job as a retail sales clerk or a restaurant waiter. These are jobs that individuals turn to when they have exhausted other possibilities and are forced to settle for something that provides them with a livelihood. Skill development programmes that cater to these segments have a tough time attracting enrollments within an urban population.

However, they may work well for a rural or semi-urban population, for whom the economic and social rewards of even such jobs may be aspirational enough. The more interesting job categories are where economic value and social value are in conflict. This forces individuals to make difficult tradeoffs. Jobs with low economic value may still be attractive if the social value is high enough to compensate for it.

An entry-level job in government may not lead to a lifetime of huge economic benefits, but still carries with it social respectability and a perception of power. Skill development programmes for this job category have no trouble getting enrollments.

Open Source Leader

2011-11-02T00:11:00.001+05:30

You cannot lead your people until you love them - John Maxwell

Talent Integration

2011-08-22T17:33:00.001+05:30

Innovate the Innovation

2010-04-02T18:07:00.000+05:30

Amit Rangra of TCS redefines the term ‘innovation’, and argues on why it needs to be in a continual state of evolution
Hard times have come, stayed and gone, but the recent downfall of the world economy has lead every corporate to rethink their current and future strategies. It’s quite unanimous that we all need to think in a way that is different, unique, favourable, easy, understandable, feasible (as per the available resources) and most importantly futuristic. All of these lead us to the term innovation.

Let us first understand the perspective in which I have used this term here. Innovation is not invention. While invention is the occurrence of a fresh thought, innovation is the attempt to actually implement it. Innovation is not creativity. While creativity is an individual behaviour, innovation is a process. Innovation is not discovery. Discovery is the finding of an existing thing and the probable use of it while innovation is again the use of an existing thing but in a fresh way.

All these might be old and boring terms and comparisons which we might have read and listened to, somewhere. The point that I want to make here is that we need innovate in a way that in itself is so fresh and attractive that individuals don't feel as if they need to stress their minds day and night because their supervisor has asked them to come out with innovative ideas, leading to further mental stress and digestion problems. So let us try to innovate the innovation process itself.

Being in open source COE, I feel that the concept of open source itself is one of the biggest innovations of the 21st century. The open source movement is more like an open innovation which invites any individual who can contribute to the repository in a way beneficial to all users. Any organisation can devise, implement and practice their own innovation model which leads to standards in innovation. But an open source is free from any such standards since the standards are defined and redefined by the groups using the open source product. It’s only because of this open source movement that today we have at least a single product in the open source catalogue, for our disposal that can suffice our every need. Thus in my opinion, the open source movement that began with the publication of Netscape source code and Linux, is by far the best of approaches that have innovated the meaning of innovation itself.
Being in this ever changing world, we cannot go on reinventing the wheel every day. The model to innovate in itself has to be free to evolve every day, every hour, every minute and even every second. I agree that having standards leads to a manageable and uniform architecture but the same cannot hold true for innovation. If you think you can tell your subordinate to come up with a brilliant idea by tomorrow, it might not always work. Plus, we all have a certain mindset where we want to see things through our own perspective. If the new idea is not appealing to our perspective, we may reject it outright. Brainstorming, on the other hand, with a group of people is again not always a fruitful activity. If the agenda is not clear to the participants then it can simply be a fish market. In my opinion, new innovations need to be nurtured in a collective, collaborative, constructive and motivating way. All team members should be aware of the agenda, a clear-cut picture should be presented to all the members involved about the fate of those innovative ideas discussed, an optimistic approach should be taken where everyone is allowed to share his or her bent of mind, plus fresh initiatives should be undertaken like giving these sessions some interesting names, holding these sessions at interesting venues, far away from the usual boring and gloomy meeting rooms.
To summarise it all, let the birds loose and see that they'll all find their way, though natural calamities are always there.

Open source refers to a programme in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge, i.e., open. Open source code is typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the community. Open source sprouted in the technological community as a response to proprietary software owned by corporations.

Amit Rangra
Tata Consultancy Services, Delhi
amit.rangra@tcs.com