4. October 2009 by amal.

Recently I participated in CGI leadership summit on 21st, 22nd September, organized at Clarks Exotica resort located @ the outskirts of Bangalore.  One of the event highlight was the top of the worlds Ice-breaker session, which connected entire participants (sr. & middle management team) in amazing spirit. Just to give perspective, entire team of participants (BLR+Mumbai+Hyd) reached venue between 7:30-8:00  am. After decent breakfast, entire management herd was guided to the three storey conference hall.

Once we reached there, we were instructed to climb stairs to 3rd floor. While climbing stairs with high energy levels, we could hear drum music. We thought it’s probably Bhangda (Punjabi folk music) music is being played. Once we reached conference hall @ 3rd floor, we saw one person drumming and chairs being arranged in two semi-circles.  One drum was placed @ each chair for each participant. We started settling in while playing drum with the best possible energy levels. Key drummist (from Drum Jam) started giving us swift instructions, so that can play music in harmony.  Instructions were how to play high/low musical chords while playing drum and how best to harmonize together. For instance, instruction was to have eye-contact with person sitting opposite in semi-circle. Also how we can harmonize with members seated left & right side.  It was unbelievable, we (70+ members) all were orchestrating together without any practice, rehearsal. In fact it was altogether spontaneous rhythmic music flowing continuously.

We continued Jamming session for almost 75-90 minutes. We were also given some alternate music instruments for jamming. Towards the end part of the session, we all were playing tunes of “We will Rock you..”. Unbelievable but true, 1+ hour of most unsynchronized but synchronized & rhythmic music being produced with amateur group of people. Of course, with somebody like me who was drumming 1st time.  I never realized I can participate for jamming sessions. Not a bad deal

There were multiple sessions organized @ the summit (can’t disclose much)  and one of the key event was management speech by Rahul Bose. Most of us know Rahul Bose as bollywood star who has definitely curved niche for himself and he’s definitely atypical (Jara hatke - it’s different) personality altogether.  What we don’t know is that he was captain of Indian Rugby team and also chairman & founder of The Group of Groups, an umbrella organization for 51 Mumbai charitable organizations and NGOs. He also launched the Andaman and Nicobar Scholarship Initiative through his NGO, The Foundation. His speech centered on team dynamics with real time examples of his rugby and NGO experiences. BTW, he never touches upon his bollywood experiences during his speech. Also we didn’t ask single Q around bollywood. Only once the Q&A was completed, MC asked to share his bollywood experiences with his co-stars. He smiled perpetually and asked, “So you want to know more about Mallika Sherawat”. We all winked and smiled :-)  He did share few incidents. This time he was trying to be politically correct unlike while he was sharing his rugby & NGO experiences.  Check one of the snaps below:

There were many more memoirs, which I will share once time permits. Signing off until then.

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30. August 2009 by amal.

As per Wireless Intelligence analysts (www.wirelessintelligence.com), top 20 operators list is as:

Aggregated top 20 operators and operator groups*, Q1 2009

They contribute 58% of world telecom population. Among these top operators, consolidation is inevitable. Discussions among Airtel and MTN areunder progress. Once the consolidation happens, Airtel-MTN consortium should move to #5.  Interesting statistics are for China Mobile, which is 478 million from 2 markets.

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26. July 2009 by amal.

India definitely moved forward post 90’s from protected economy to liberal economy. Many of the PSU’s, govt. controlled sector such as bank, power, telecom, aviation etc. were open for private sector. Today @ mid-2009, progressive volume speaks about the result itself, growth achieved in last two decades. India companies started becoming global powerhouse and started moving inside-out. India is no longer considered a laggard country, rather a leader on its own. India contribution rather participation towards the world economy is must both as consumer and producer. Issue is did India moved in right direction and liberalize all relevant sector, companies towards private participation. Largely yes, if we consider growth demonstrated by Tata’s, Mittal’s, Airtel, SBI, Reliance, Wipro/Infosys establishing credibility not only limited to India, truly in global manner.

However, few thorns are still pricking India and one of them is government backing of sinking ‘Titanic’s’ such as Air-India. Air-India, though one of the best recognized brand “Maharaja” couldn’t able to achieve or open eye to the competition. Today, as it stands Air-India is dying and not gradually rather immediately. It doesn’t have money to pay wages/salaries; customer (even loyal Indians) prefers competitive airlines any day, operational expenses far exceeded the revenue numbers. It is demanding huge corpus in excess of 20,000 crore to infuse sign of life and recovery. It is high likely; Air-India will be given chance to rebirth in totality.  There is no way; Air-India can be left on death-bed with so many employees and support system relying on Air-India. More-over there is brand-equity associated with Air-India. That is still truly aviation brand of India.  There are already certain measures taken, such as change of management, operational expenses reduction, and focus on revenue. Aviation ministry must be contemplating how to infuse funds setting the correct precedence, rather than giving improper impression of supporting bad organizations how-so-ever badly run they are. 

One of the key lessons in this scenario is to evaluate organizations similar stature and establish auditing mechanism such that such instances are not repeated again. Let all the govt. protected organizations such as power companies, petroleum companies, educational institutions etc. define profitability in right manner.  Right manner can always be debated, since there is definite need to provide subsidy to rural sector, BPL families. What can’t be disputed is avoiding such circumstances of letting go organizations at point of no return and then infusion of 20K crore are required just to make “Maharaja” smile again. 

Being an optimist, I believe with such a blessed govt. machinery, they must be taking note of the situation and assessing/redefining business models of other protected organizations @ India. For sure, Maharaja will shine as usual, not hypothetically rather in real-sense sooner than later.

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