Prof. Raghu Raman, Faculty-Marketing has participated in the conference organized by the Chennai Chapter of ISTD (Indian Society for Training and Development) on the theme of “Leadership Insights: From the Chamber of the CEO” on the 6th and 7th November 2015. A brief summary of derivations from the conference is presented below:
The conference started with the Sub theme “Challenges of VUCA world: Ecstasies and Agonies of CXOs”. VUCA –Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity.
Mr. Sridhar Ganesh, Chairperson, Management Development Centre at Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA) Chennai spoke on the topic. He referred to the various changes and the volatile nature of the present world, especially referring to the technological developments of recent times. He said that we should, corporate leaders should brace themselves for these changes.
Mr. K. Ramkumar, Exec. Director, ICICI Bank, just dismissed the whole theory of VUCA as being an artificial creation, of something insignificant. He referred to the way the world has developed over time and how technology, and the understanding and conquering of technology and to make it a tool in our hands has distinguished the human race from other species. He referred to many instances of how he has handled situations which involved making people, especially at a mature ages, get over the fear of technology and therefore making them look at the world with an open mind, with the confidence to learn things new. This he said is one of the key tasks of a corporate leader- to make people learn by making mistakes by trying new things.
Mr. C. K. Kumaravel, Director-Naturals, spoke of how he started off under the shadow of his illustrious elder brothers who were pioneer entrepreneurs in their own right. He spoke of the need to keep oneself energized, be it high or low.
Mr. Jorn Hammer, Head of Indian Operations, Vestas, spoke about the various initiatives his company has taken.
Mr. S. N. Eisenhower, Director-Operations, Saint-Gobain Lass India, reflected on the various initiatives his company has taken in Skill Development area, especially the economically challenged and educationally backward youngsters by offering a technical course of four years and absorbing many of them into their own company; they also conduct special courses on glass technology and have plans to collaborate with colleges to introduce courses or modules in Glass technology.
Mr. Sriram Viji, Exec. Director, Brakes India, talked about the challenges of processizing work areas, introducing processes to capture aspects like tacit knowledge and employee satisfaction.
Mr. Ganesh Sankaraingam of Latentview, Javadev Mahalingam of PiQube and Mr. Krishna Sundaresan, CEO of Surukam Analytics talked about exciting case studies that they are working on in the area of Big Data, especially in Crime Prediction, Customer Preferences, Manpower selection and natural language based search.
The last session was on the “Business of Social Responsibility”. We were all amazed by the dedication and capabilities of Mr. Sankar Raman, a successful auditor (who, while confined to a wheel chair, right from his childhood, won an ALL India Rank in his C. A. exams) runs a successful home for underprivileged out of his humble confines in Tenkasi in Tamilnadu and makes a difference to society.
Mr. Madhavan, CEO, Cognizant Foundation explained the CSR efforts of Cognizant. Ms. Kalpana Sankar, Co-Founder, Hand-in-Hand, an NGO that works in the area of Women Empowerment, Education explained how their pioneering efforts are even helping make changes in countries like Afghanistan.
Compiled by Prof. Raghu Raman
