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Sacrifices Strengthen Determination Corporate Citizen pays tribute to the 44 brave CRPF Jawans who were martyred in the Pulwama terror attack on February 14th.

We salute each one of them

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I have been a regular reader IntervIew Manoj Gupta, vp-Hr, of Corporate Citizen, I have ColuMbIa asIa HospItals enjoyed each one of your stories right from Volume One. survey The photos, the design, and the artwork of each and every story have been absolutely brilliant. Kudos to the team.

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Green: An incredible jourSayali Bhilare ney”, which talked about the and Shrikant Mundhe successful journey of Lt. Col. Suresh Rege (retd.). In the article, Suresh Rege talks about his extensive work in creating an efficient waste management system by disposing waste at the source itself, which is cost effective, innovative and efficient onestop solution. The journey and the initiative is truly very inspiring. I also agree with him regarding the lessons from the Army which the corporate should inculcate. His career in the Indian Army has definitely helped him to become a successful entrepreneur.

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Volume 4, Issue No. 22 / Pages 68

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The 20 19 Di Marketi gital ng Strateg ies Survey

reSh reg e Su ( L.

) td. re

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Editor-in-Chief’s Choice-I/ Khalid Shah Post Pulwama attack:

10 Questions for the Government

Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian

The immediate consequence of the Pulwama carnage is the sense of fear developed in the State of Jammu and Kashmir

T

The Jammu-Srinagar highway is the main connectivity route between the two regions of the State.

Numerous attacks have happened on this route. Is the highway secure for the movement of troops anymore? What are the mechanisms in place...?

he Pulwama terror attack, which took away lives of over 40 paramilitary men, has sparked a raging debate on how India should respond to Pakistan.

Planners of this attack, their logistical support and infrastructure are still in place. In a video recorded before the attack, the young suicide bomber claimed that there are more attacks waiting to happen. While the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir has admitted of the security lapses that lead to this attack, there should be a determined focus on preventing a second strike. There is also a loud chorus arguing for a Pakistan centric response, but the establishment should not lose track of the internal lapses and the possible future consequences of the internal failures. Below are the 10 hard questions that come before me.

First. The suicide bomber Aadil Ahmed, in the video, spun out a communal lexicon while explaining his reasons and motivation for conducting this strike. Some clashes have already been reported from Jammu. The collective moral of the nation will be tattered if communal clashes occur in Jammu and Kashmir and other states. It should be ensured that law and order is maintained and a communal backlash is prevented.

Second. The large quantity of explosives used in this attack raises serious questions on the effectiveness of the counterinsurgency (and counterterrorism) grid. How did such a large cache of explosives reach the Pulwama district of South Kashmir? Were the explosives smuggled across the border? Were the explosives procured internally? Irrespective of whether the explosives were smuggled in or procured internally, serious questions need to be asked about the effectiveness of the security forces in controlling the further proliferation of the explosive materials.

Third. The planners of the attack may have recruited a local Kashmiri boy to execute the suicide bombing, and he may not have needed elaborate training for the execution. Perhaps, the only qualification for such an attack was driving skills and a die-hard motivation to carry a Fedayeen (suicide) strike. Given the rising level of recruitment of local Kashmiris in the Pakistan-based groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), would it not be easy for the recruiters to find motivated local youth to conduct more attacks? Do the security forces have an elaborate

4 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

intelligence gathering mechanism to track the activity of such recruits?

Four. There has been a vehement denial in Kashmir and in some circles in Delhi regarding the trend of radicalisation of Kashmiri youth. Fardeen Khanday was one of the first Fedayeen attackers recruited by the JeM. In a video recorded before his death, he called for more boys to join the cause of JeM. From the news reports, it appears that the suicide bomber Aadil Ahmed joined JeM two months after Fardeen’s attack. Is a new crop of homegrown suicide bombers and Fedayeen attackers coming up in Jammu and Kashmir?

Five. As per a report published in The Times of India, Afghan war veteran and IED specialist Abdul Rasheed Ghazi infiltrated into the Kashmir valley in December last year. This report, quoting intelligence inputs, suggested that Ghazi was sent by the JeM to avenge the killing of Azhar Masood’s nephews, Talha and Usman.

The video released by the suicide bomber also claimed that one of the main motivations of the attack was a revenge of the killings of Talha and Usman. This raises serious questions on the growing infiltrations along the line of control. The Union Government has largely maintained a silence on the cross border infiltrations. At a time when the JeM is sending its best fighters, which include nephews of Azhar Masood, to conduct attacks in India, the questions that arise are (1) what is the likely number of such highly trained fighters active now in the valley? (2) Why are these infiltrations not being curbed on the Line of Control? (3) How do infiltrators traverse the distance and manoeuvre through the security grid from the LoC to the districts of South Kashmir?

Six. The Jammu-Srinagar highway is the main connectivity route between the two regions of the State. It is the most utilised route for the mobilisation of the troops connecting the two different regions. Numerous attacks have happened on this route. Is the highway secure for the movement of troops anymore? How will the route be secured if India decides to go on a full-scale strategic escalation against Pakistan? What are the mechanisms in place to secure the highway? Has any lesson been learnt from the continued attacks on the highway since the year 2016?

Seven. Before and after the hanging of Afzal Guru, the parliament attack accused, the Indian media and intelligentsia brazenly eulogised the convict, turning him into a cult figure. While the JeM has taken the re-

sponsibility for the Pulwama attack, why is the media shying away from naming the “Afzal Guru Squad” — the Fedayeen wing of the JeM — for conducting attacks post-Burhan Wani encounter? Did the sympathy wave created by the media and intelligentsia for Afzal Guru overlook the consequences of the glorification of individuals accused of terrorism?

Eight. Some sections of the Indian media and security establishment had overzealous obsession with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hafeez Sayeed. This singular obsession with this terror group made other Pakistan based groups appear less significant in comparison, and perhaps that is why the strategic community didn’t pay much attention to the JeM. With the revival of the JeM, followed by the re-emergence of the Al Badr group in Kashmir valley, it seems the prime time analysis which is prone to myopic viewpoints fail to inform policymakers and the general public of the looming threats. Al Badr, along with Gulabadeen Hikmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami, is known to have fought in the Afghan war against the Soviet forces. The JeM is also said to have been linked with Deobandi Afghan Taliban.

Nine. The immediate consequence of the Pulwama carnage is the sense of fear developed in the state of Jammu and Kashmir which could possibly lead to rescheduling or cancellations of the parliamentary polls in the state. Ever since the Jammu and Kashmir came under the central rule, efforts have been made to revive the electoral politics in the state. The State and Central Governments have failed to conduct elections in the Anantnag parliamentary constituency of South Kashmir and the Lok Sabha seat is vacant since April 2016.

Should the government give Pakistan, the terror groups and the separatists a sense of victory by not holding or delaying the parliament polls?

Ten. There was a clear intelligence input regarding a possible IED attack. An intelligence note, which is now in public circulation, suggests that all branches of the CRPF, the BSF, the Indian Army, the CISF, the ITBP and the Jammu and Kashmir Police were warned of a large scale attack. The Governor of Jammu and Kashmir has admitted “security lapses” leading to the deadly attack.

While the Governor’s admission is welcome, can the individuals involved in the key decision-making at the highest level of the State and Central Government continue to hold the charge? The current security is not just precarious but utterly insensitive too. The possibility of another terror strike looms large, and the government has as per allegations appointed “yes-men” in key security assignments in the state. Most of the most talented officers, including officers with decades of counterinsurgency (counterterror) experience, have been given insignificant postings in the State police and central agencies.

Clearly, no lessons have been learnt from the past experiences, especially the IC 814 hijack in Srinagar in December 1999 and also the Sukma Maoist attacks in which CRPF also had suffered heavy losses. Before any strategic or a diplomatic response is calibrated by the Government of India, accountability for the internal failures must be fixed. And heads must roll!

(The author is an Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF). His research focuses on Kashmir conflict, Pakistan and terrorism) This article was originally published in www.orfonline.org

Clearly, no lessons have been learnt from the past experiences, especially the IC 814 hijack in Srinagar in December 1999 and also the Sukma Maoist attacks...

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 5

Editor-in-Chief’s Choice-II / Col. Jaibans Singh Post Pulwama attack: (This article was first published in Indian Defence Review. Read the original article on www.indiandefencereview.com)

Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian

Stand steadfast in support of the brave Indian soldiers

T

he terrorist attack on a CRPF convoy at Pulwama, Srinagar, is a tragedy of monumental proportions. It was a cowardly act of mindless violence that has left the entire nation aghast and horrified. The foreign hand is well established since the terrorist involved had allegiance with the Pakistan based terrorist organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). As the country grapples with the calamity, many questions are being raised about the attack and the possible reaction of the Government to the same; volumes have already been said and written about the same.

It is being alluded that there was an intelligence failure and a security lapse in assessing the danger being posed in a movement of such big convoys of security

It was a cowardly act of mindless violence that has left the entire nation aghast and horrified. The foreign hand is well established since the terrorist involved had allegiance with the Pakistan based terrorist organisation, Jaish-eMohammad (JeM)

6 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

forces. There is also talk of a lack of synergy between security forces in the passage of intelligence. One needs to remain assured that the intelligence network in Kashmir is strong, effective and synergised as is visible through the incisive and very successful joint counter-terrorist attacks being launched in the valley since the last year plus. It needs to be acknowledged here that the enemy we are dealing with is equally determined and strives to finds ways to break our network! He will succeed sometimes, as in this unfortunate incident.

The increasing capacity of Pakistan based JeM in influencing the conflict situation in Kashmir needs to be assessed in detail. This incident was a Fiyadeen (Suicide) attack by a local terrorist and preparing a person for such an operation takes a lot of time and effort.

Preparation of the attack, identifying the target, carrying out the research and reconnaissance, getting the necessary explosives and the vehicle, all require detailed and professional planning. It is not something that can be done by a novice terrorist or a single individual. The JeM was also behind the recent grenade attack on a school in Pulwama in which 19 students were injured; it is also responsible for mobilisation of civilians for creating disruptions during counter-terrorist attacks.

That the JeM has developed such capacities, which also include psychological conditioning of locally recruited terrorists and detailed planning for engineering of violence, is something to think about.

The time has come for the government to remain aloof from political pressures and optimally utilise all resources at its disposal to address the situation in Kashmir. Strong action needs to be taken to stop the process of radicalisation that is in place across the Kashmir valley through paid agents of the Pakistan based terrorist machinery. How is the Hurriyat being able to implement its abhorrent protest calendars with such relative ease? Will the Hurriyat now condemn this dastardly, inhumane and cowardly act? If not, then should it not be taken for granted that the conglomerate supports the same and, on this basis, it be declared as an enemy of the state.

The most urgent requirement of the moment, however, is for the nation to stand steadfast behind its security forces in this moment of grief. The families of those killed need to be given succour and looked after. This set

back provides no reason for doubting the capability and capacity of the security forces to deal with the situation in Kashmir, on the other hand, they need to be assured of the Nations faith in their ability and helped to overcome the huge loss of their comrades.

The media would be well advised to desist from finding fault in the operational procedures and try to blame the entire incident on intelligence failure etc. There is no scope here for sensationalising the incident nor is there any need to call Pakistan based commentators on television shows where they can lie blatantly and gloat over the dastardly incident. It is well known that Pakistan is behind the attack, so there is no need to dwell on the subject! There is a need to exhibit sensitivity for the lives of the nation’s soldiers lost. It is best to remain assured that any loopholes found in the standard operating procedures will be identified and rectified. It is in the interest of the security forces to do so and they will do it well!

The Prime Minister has already condemned the attack and assured that the sacrifice of the soldiers will not go in vain; the government should be given the opportunity to react in the most appropriate manner.

The government is already at the job! The Cabinet Committee of Security (CCS) the apex national body on security issues has already held a meeting to assess the situation and come up with an action plan. A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has already been dispatched for this purpose; it will undoubtedly boost the internal investigation process and come up with suggestions on what is required to be done to strengthen security. Undoubtedly, the Union Home Minister and National Security Advisor (NSA) will interact with the commanders on the ground and provide them with all support that they need to face the emerging security challenges.

One would also expect the political parties in Kashmir, especially the local mainstream entities like the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to come up with a workable plan to mobilise its cadre to control the situation! They can make a big contribution in isolating their people from the machinations of the enemy. It is notable here that such parties have been speaking about the inconvenience being caused to civilians due to convoy movement, it is such pressures on the security forces that lead to situations of the type that we have in hand now.

It is also expected that all national political parties will leave their personal vendettas and agendas behind and join as one to meet the challenge posed by the enemy through the medium of this attack. This is not the time to make political brownie points through a blame game.

That our soldiers are the best in the world and not afraid to give their lives for the country is amply proved time and again, it is now up to the Nation to stand up for them.

(Jaibans Singh is a reputed security analyst, columnist and commentator. This article was written by him for Indian Defence Review: www.indiandefencereview.com)

The most urgent requirement of the moment, however, is for the nation to stand steadfast behind its security forces in this moment of grief.

The families of those killed need to be given succour and looked after

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 7

Contents

04

Volume 4 Issue No. 23 March 1-15, 2019 www.corporatecitizen.in

Cover Story

Sacrifices Strengthen Determination

The Pulwama terror attack, which took away lives of over 44 CRPF, has sparked a raging debate on how India should respond to Pakistan—expressing an opinion on the same 8 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

11 11 COLLYWOOD Chatpata Chatter from the Corporate World 16 WAX ELOQUENT Who said what and why

18 EXPERT VIEW A look at the recent Interim Budget 2019 and what are its provisions aimed at 20 INTERVIEW Govind Shrikhande, one of India’s

leading mentors and the former MD of Shoppers Stop, on his 34-year journey in retail and his insights on how to transform a brand 26 NHRDN SESSION Padma Shri Dr BVR Mohan Reddy, Executive Chairman, Cyient Ltd, in his keynote speech, at the NHRDN National Conference 2018, speaks on forthcoming waves of changes

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20

32 MILITARY TO MANAGEMENT Once a Major in the Army, Sirisha PN who is now working in a corporate organisation, compares life in the Army and the corporate 38 BUDGET 2019 - OPINIONS Insights from corporate leaders, on how the new budget provisions will impact the nation

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42 CASE STUDY KHS Machinery Pvt. Ltd.—showcases how its contract employees have become integral stakeholders in the success of the organisation

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47 MY FIRST BOSS Sanjay Lohani credits his first boss’s invaluable advice in overcoming adversity and long-term thinking 48 LOVED & MARRIED TOO Pankaj Vasani and his better half Dr. Poonam Patel Vasani, on what is togetherness, that has brought them together from diverse professions

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50 CAMPUS PLACEMENT Abhishek Sahoo, on his campus placement and his mantra for career success 52 SURVEY PwC’s 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey explores, what do global CEOs feel about the future

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contents

Contemporary Management Thoughts

Editor-In-Chief Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian Consulting Editor Vinita Deshmukh vinita.corporatecitizen@gmail.com Assistant Editor & Senior Business Writer Rajesh Rao rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com

52

Senior Sub-Editor Neeraj Varty neeraj.varty07@gmail.com Sub Editor Vineet Kapshikar

56 HEALTH Arjuun Bajaj, CEO and founder of home brand, Daiwa, shares his hands-on fitness tips 58 PEARLS OF WISDOM When love becomes all-inclusive-is when you touch the boundless 60 MOBILE APPS Best apps for your smart TV

Creative Direction Sumeet Gupta, www.thepurplestroke.com Graphic Designer Shantanu Relekar

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Advertising and Marketing Manager Delhi: Mohamed Rizwan riz.mohamed@hotmail.com Chennai: Anil Kumar Menon anil.menon@corporatecitizen.in

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Be A Corporate Citizen

How do you like this issue of Corporate Citizen Contemporary Management Thoughts?

Send in your views, news, suggestions and contributions to corporatecitizenwriters@gmail.com.

We would love to hear from you!

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Kolkata Bureau Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar sangeetagd2010@gmail.com Pune Bureau Joe Williams / Kalyani Sardesai / Namrata Gulati Sapra

61 UNSUNG HEROES A village girl, Sarita Prabhakar Wagh, on the big task she has taken to convince villagers not to marry off girls young 66 LAST WORD What makes a long tour of Egypt special, even for someone who has notched up eighty-seven countries

Writers Delhi Bureau Orchie Bandopadhyay archiebanerjee@gmail.com/ Sharmila Chand chand.sharmila@gmail.com

Manager-Circulation circulations@corporatecitizen.in West : Jaywant Patil, +91 9923202560 North : Hemant Gupta, +91 9582210930 South : Asaithambi G, +91 9941555389 On Cover Page Tribute to CRPF Jawans Cover Page Pic http://vecteezy.com Website / Online Subscription www.corporatecitizen.in For Advertising, Marketing & Subscription queries Email: circulations@corporatecitizen.in (Corporate Citizen does not accept responsibility for returning unsolicited manuscripts and photographs. All unsolicited material should be accompanied by self-addressed envelopes and sufficient postage.)

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People in the news

Phaneesh Murthy joins board of Value Point Systems

(Left) Deepak Ahuja, (Right) Zach Kirkhorn

Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja retires again, Zach Kirkhorn to replace

After Tesla reported $139 million profit for the fourth quarter of 2018, generating a record $7.2 billion in revenue, its Founder and CEO Elon Musk dropped a bomb, saying the company’s Indian-origin Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja will be retiring.

Ahuja, who worked out of Tesla’s San Carlos headquarters, quit Tesla in 2015, only to rejoin in 2017. In his place, Zach Kirkhorn, previously the company’s Vice President of finance is taking over. Kirkhorn had only been the VP of finance for two months prior to the announcement. However, current CFO Ahuja said, “I feel really good about Zach taking over. He’s proven himself over the years with many tough challenges he’s worked on.” Kirkhorn has a finance degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard and has been with the company for a decade in various finance roles. Ahuja noted that he would remain an outside advisor to Tesla and CEO Elon Musk noted that he’d “hope that would be for years to come”.

Infosys arm to revive lake in Karnataka Global software major Infosys’ philanthropic arm said that it will restore the Panchakalyani lake in Karnataka’s Mandya district. “The Foundation will restore the lake by cleaning the tank, removing silt and waste deposit, ensuring structural and chemical conservation of Panchakalyani and a nearby tank called Ganeshan Honda, reconnecting the existing canals and building a compound wall,” the city-based Infosys Foundation said in a statement here. Panchakalyani, about 140 km from here, is said to be one of the largest ancient lakes of Melukote town, which has several water bodies situated on a hilltop through which rainwater has been harvested for consumption and irrigation for decades. “The restoration project is important to improve the water quality of the lake and bring back the balance in the natural ecosystem of Melukote,” Foundation Chairperson Sudha Murty said in the statement. By preserving the lakes of Melukote, a town patronized by the empires of Hoysala, Vijayanagara and the Wodeyars of erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore, the heritage structures and legacy are also protected, Murty said.

One of South Asia’s leading digital transformation catalysts, Value Point Systems, has appointed IT industry veteran, Phaneesh Murthy as Additional Director on its board.

Value Point Systems is a 28-year-old systems integrator and managed services company, which is growing fast and expanding into new technologies and new geographies.

According to a statement from the company, Murthy will guide the board in creating a global vision and strategic roadmap to transform the company from an IT infrastructure products and services firm into a leader in digital transformation solutions and higher value services. With more than three decades of experiences in the IT industry, Murthy has been a pioneer in sales and marketing, product solutions, structuring and managing outsourcing deals.

Prior to joining Value Point Systems, Murthy served as the Chief Executive Officer and President at iGATE Corporation where he led the turnaround effort. He has also served as the Director of Infosys.

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 11

collywood Entrepreneur First launches in India, appoints Esha Tiwary as GM PV Sindhu signs `50 crore sponsorship deal with Li-Ning PV Sindhu, listed as the world’s seventh-highest paid sportswoman on the Forbes list last year, has acquired a sponsorship deal with the Chinese sports brand, Li Ning. The deal is of a whopping amount of `50 crore and is for a period of four years. This record deal comes after Kidambi Srikanth was offered `35 crore over a period of four years by the same company last month. This deal can be seen as one of the biggest deals in the history of world badminton. “Sindhu’s deal is one of the biggest in world badminton. It is close to `50 crore for sponsorship and equipment,” Mahender Kapoor, director, Sunlight Sports Pvt. Ltd., the multi-national exclusive partner of Li-Ning in India,” was quoted as saying by the PTI. Sindhu rose to fame and glory when she won an Olympic silver medal in Rio Olympics. This is Li Ning’s second stint with Sindhu. There earlier deal was in the year 2014-15 for a sum of 1.25 crore per year.

Entrepreneur First (EF), a pioneering UK based global talent investor, announced its launch in India and the appointment of Esha Tiwary as General Manager (GM). EF also announced its first-ever cohort of 50 founders in Bengaluru, its sixth global location. Entrepreneur First has a first-of-its-kind programme model that invests in outstanding individuals, even before they have an idea and helps them find co-founders and raise seed funding.

This model has been running successfully in five locations around the world - London, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong and Singapore. EF focuses on deep tech companies that build on defensible technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, AR/VR, robotics etc. and in the past has funded companies across a broad spectrum of industries including space, satellites, medical devices, logistics, marine technologies, insurance, banking, fintech, education, agriculture and many more. Finalised startups from EF Bengaluru will pitch to well-recognized regional and global investors at Investor Demo Day in Asia next July. Also present on the Investor Demo Day will be startup counterparts from

EF’s Hong Kong and Singapore programmes.

Speaking to journalists at the India launch, Matt Clifford, Chief Executive and Co-Founder, Entrepreneur First said, “We invest in people who have the will, ambition and skills to succeed. At EF, our investment is in talented individuals who go on to find the right co-founder in their cohort and build globally competitive companies. We believe that the world is missing out on it’s best founders and it matters what the most ambitious people do with their lives.” Entrepreneur First also announced the appointment of Esha Tiwary as General Manager, India. Esha has spent several years in the startup ecosystem in India and has a deep understanding of the space. Matt Clifford further added, “We are very ambitious about the Indian market and can foresee this becoming one of the largest global plays for EF. Given our ambition for India, we have brought in Esha Tiwary to lead our India operations. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in building and scaling startups and will be an asset for EF. We welcome Esha.”

Sumit Sawhney of Renault India moves to a global role French carmaker, Renault has announced that the Renault India leadership is set to undergo a change.

Venkatram Mamillapalle has been appointed as the new Renault India head and will take over the leadership duties from March 1. He takes over from Sumit Sawhney who had been heading Renault’s India operations since 2012. Under Sumit Sawhney’s leadership, Renault saw a fair amount of success in the Indian market thanks to the launch of the Duster and later, the Kwid. Sumit Sawhney will continue to be a part of the Renault team and operate in the Africa-Middle East, India Region but his final position hasn’t yet been disclosed. Venkatram Mamillapalle who till recently was the Head of Renault-NissanAvtovaz Purchasing Organisation in Russia comes

12 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

with extensive automotive experience and has worked with various Indian and International OEM’s.

He will report to Fabrice Cambolive - Chairman, Africa-Middle-East, India Region for Groupe Renault.

“India is an important market for Groupe Renault’s future growth plans. I am confident that Venkatram will build on the momentum and will further drive the growth and performance of our operations in India”, said Cambolive.

Vakrangee hires Blue Dart veteran Anil Khanna as MD, Group CEO

Matt Clifford

Livspace appoints former Flipkart executive as first-ever CMO

Livspace, an online home decor startup, has appointed former Flipkart executive Kartikeya Bhandari as its first Chief Marketing Officer. At Flipkart, Bhandari was senior Marketing Director.

Bhandari will lead overall brand, marketing, and demand generation efforts at the home design firm as it enters its next phase of growth and expansion, Livspace said in a statement. He will report to Anuj Srivastava, CEO,

Livspace. “Kartikeya’s vast experience in online retail and marketing will help us accelerate our brand goals,” said Anuj Srivastava, CEO and co-founder of Livspace.

An MBA graduate from the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, Bhandari had worked with Walmart-owned Flipkart for almost five years. Bhandari had also spent eight years at Nokia, serving as the global product marketing manager.

Vakrangee Limited (VL), announced the appointment of Blue Dart veteran Anil Khanna as its new Managing Director & Group CEO effective from January 25, 2019.

Prior to Vakrangee, Khanna was the Managing Director of Blue Dart Express Limited since 2007. Dinesh Nandwana, the founder promoter, has been elevated to the role of Executive Chairman and remains fully committed and would continue to play an active role in the business strategy and operations.

Commenting on the same, Nandwana, Founder Promoter & Executive Chairman, said, “We are delighted to welcome Anil Khanna to the Vakrangee leadership team and family. With over four decades of proven business track record, Anil Khanna has the right combination of the wealth of knowledge, leadership and business acumen to propel our company to new heights of growth and aspiration. We are confident that he will play a key role in the continued growth at Vakrangee.” Commenting on his appointment, Khanna, Managing Director & Group CEO of Vakrangee Ltd. said, “I am excited to join Vakrangee, a company that has built an overwhelming reputation for being the pioneer for the last

mile reach presence through an asset-light franchisee-based business model in the country and delivering superior services to its clients.

Despite the outstanding successes achieved thus far, I strongly believe that Vakrangee’s best years lie ahead. I am looking forward to sharing my experiences and tapping into my deep knowledge to continue to drive and accelerate Vakrangee growth.

With a growing business and a vibrant team, it will be my endeavour to steer Vakrangee to scale new heights. I am honoured and glad at this opportunity to oversee and contribute to the growth of this company.” Khanna has 40 years of experience in various industries and has been with Blue Dart since 1992 and he moved to the position of Managing Director since 2007. Under his leadership and guidance, Blue Dart was able to broaden its strategic focus from being an air express company to a full-fledged logistics organisation offering a wide range of products and services, as well as industry-specific solutions in air and ground express segments.

Khanna is a graduate from St Stephen’s College, Delhi and holds an MBA degree in Marketing and Finance from UBS, Chandigarh.

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 13

collywood Raj Kundra invests in social influencer tech start up Armsprime Media Shilpa Shetty’s husband and entrepreneur Raj Kundra invested an undisclosed amount into tech startup, Armsprime Media. A new age technology that helps celebrity and influencers build and monetize their own customised apps. The technology comes with multiple unique and customisable features from celebrity shout outs to merchandising, VOD and online stores. The company has already signed three to four celebrities, generating revenue of over $100k plus a month. Speaking on the occasion Raj Kundra said: “Armsprime Media is really disruptive in nature, the features and back end technology this company offers for its celebrities and social media influencers to take control of their content is unparalleled. I have made a strategic investment in this company as I believe in the founder Saurabh Kushwah. He has created a great product, which we

will make excellent together. Brands look for a way to target captive audiences and that is exactly what we have. We will be launching over 15 celebrity apps this year alone and produce multiple unique branded IP shows with our partners. We have hired Meeta Jhunjhunwala who comes with a wealth of experience in celebrity and content management to head the business development of the company.”

Saurabh Kushwah added: “I couldn’t have asked for a better strategic investor than Raj, his nexus and relationships in the media industry will be a great asset in scaling up the business. My key focus is the unique technology we have created and the level of customisation we can do in break speed time. We give the power to celebrities to be able to monetise their own content, which now they currently give free on their social media platforms.”

Ravi Narayan appointed new CEO of T-Hub T-Hub, a leading startup engine powering entrepreneurship and innovation, announced the appointment of Ravi Narayan, former Global Director of Microsoft for Startups as its new Chief Executive Officer. Narayan has been actively involved and instrumental in India’s startup ecosystem. In a career spanning over two decades, Narayan has been a product engineer, entrepreneur, investor, mentor and a leader. He has co-founded three companies, which he led from their inception to their successful acquisitions, T-Hub said in a statement.

By helping create startup density in the product space of Bengaluru, Narayan is a key player in its evolution beyond being a hub for services. Besides advising the government of Karnataka, Narayan has also advised governments of Singapore and Malaysia. As the global director of Microsoft for Startups, Narayan has helped establish accelerators and Microsoft go-to-market programmes with startups across 14 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

the world, the statement added. With more than 1,100 domestic and international startups that received support to scale, various corporate partnerships and international organisational tie-ups, T-Hub, under Narayan’s leadership, will further elevate the process to build a stronger innovation ecosystem in Telangana and in India. “Hyderabad, with its mature infrastructure, active government participation and vibrant ecosystem offers the best springboard for corporations and startups looking to create new products and technologies and disrupt the existing ones,” said Ravi Narayan. “The board has selected a strong leader at a time when businesses, cities and countries around the world are focused on building robust innovation and startup ecosystems, with Telangana at the forefront of this movement,” said Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industries & IT, Telangana.

Wipro launches ‘QuMiC’ to fast-track migration to Oracle Cloud Global software major Wipro launched Quick Migration to Cloud (QuMiC), a platform designed to transform the way organisations migrate to Oracle Cloud. QuMiC migrates all aspects required for a Cloud implementation process definitions, configurations, data, and code to Oracle Cloud for a wide variety of software environments. Enterprises can expect to save nearly 30 per cent in overall Cloud implementation costs and time by leveraging the QuMiC platform, Wipro claimed. The time taken to design ERP (enterprise resource planning) processes, analyse and set up the configurations for each environment during the migration process, testing, production and development will be reduced by up to 60 per cent, the company added. Wipro is a Platinum level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). ”Wipro’s QuMiC demonstrates our expertise with Oracle Cloud and is an example of our continued investments in Oracle Cloud development,” said Ravi Purohit, Vice President and Global Head - Oracle Service Line, Modern Application Services, Wipro.

Compiled by Joe Williams joe78662@gmail.com

Corporate Trend

Transition to tech platforms for rewards and recognition With companies realising that highly engaged performers can be the motivating force for an entire team to maximise their goals; the need to show workforce appreciation has thereby seen gradual transitions

By Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar

C

or .Performance and Spot awards and orporates can now choose rewards Peer awards. packages ranging from a diverse “Employee Engagement, reward and portfolio of experiences and activrecognition is the core of every business ities, enterprise SaaS rewards Platand a distinguishing factor in identifying form and gift vouchers. good companies from great ones. Hence, “As organisations opened up to the concept companies who have a planned budget of experiential gifting, they realised that gifting in place will look out for a robust engageexperiences made a difference to employees’ lives ment plan and reward and recognition and they actually came back to work rejuvenated. mechanism to win talent war. They track The spending patterns of people have also drastithe progress effectively,” said Khandelwal. cally changed, as the overall spent on luxury has also gone up tremendously. When people them“The key to a successful on-the-spot selves are open to spending and living these luxrecognition programme is timing. The ury or exotic experiences, it’s time organisations recognition for going above and beyond too looked at it as an option to delight employmust be immediate to clearly link the reward with ees,” said Sumit Khandelwal, the good work. It also contribCo-Founder, Xoxoday.

The key to a success- utes toward the development From its previous prima- ful on-the-spot recog- of camaraderie and teamwork ry ‘avatar’ as a gifting soluwithin the organisation. The nition programme is result is increased employee tions company, the Mahindra Group-backed Xoxoday, has timing. The recogniproductivity and higher rates come a long way since its in- tion for going above of employee retention,” said ception in 2012; following the and beyond must be Khandelwal, on some of its merger of its B2B firms Giftxpopular offerings. oxo and Frogo. The new entity immediate to clearly Xoxoday has since added on link the reward with Popular Trends new corporate rewards offer- the good work Xoxoday’s 360 Degree solutions ings and curates more experiare a one-stop solution for Emential gifting ideas. ployee Engagement, Reward & Recognition, and On the growth potential of the ‘corporate reRedemption requirements. Clients can choose wards’ services sector; Khandelwal said, “Almost from either of their products such as ‘Experience 2-3% of a company’s revenue would be spent on Box’, Customised Xoxo Voucher and Enterprise employee engagement, rewards and recognition.

Portal. “Xoxoday platform engages with pointThis shows that the market size is really huge. The based engagement, reward and redemption, with Indian market has been moving towards digital features like announcements, surveys, referrals, solutions in the past 2-3 years. This has helped special perks, experience and gift voucher resome startups to come up with certain innovademption. tive employee engagement platform and likely Its ‘Experience Box’ is aimed at making expeto make inroads globally.” riential gifting more tangible. Xoxoday’s ‘Experience Box’, offers options of gift vouchers, perks Rewards Platform and privileges, physical goods and team and group Rewards and gratification programmes are activity programmes for its’ corporate clients.” based on employee contribution or period of Its ‘360 Degree solutions’ offers a one-stop soluservices such an Employee Rewards and Recogtion for all employee engagement, reward and recnition, Long Service Anniversary (LSA) Awards ognition, and all redemption related requirements

Sumit Khandelwal, Co-Founder, Xoxoday

under our product-the ‘Experience Box’. Other services include customised Xoxo vouchers, enterprise portal for point-based engagement, reward and redemption, with features like announcements, surveys, referrals, special perks, et.al.

The other programme of Long Service Anniversary (LSA) Awards is equally popular. "Loyal employees spend a considerable time in their career and life in an organisation. Their (client’s) long-standing employees are their most valuable resource and they help to keep the organisation running. Their sense of ownership and commitment is often so strong that when it comes to appreciating their contribution, simple monetary rewards or traditional gifts often fall short. So we help companies recognise loyalty and longevity with an award as significant as the milestone itself. We try and give personal attention to our client’s specific needs as we create a unique and customised programme for their service awards that are built based on relevant technology platform and data insights", he adds.

Creating Recognition Models Khandelwal explains that its ‘Performance and Spot Awards’ is one of the most sought after packages by corporate houses. He envisages that this trend is expected to lead more corporate houses to incorporate a company-wide or department wise budget. sangeetagd2010@gmail.com March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 15

wax eloquent

The Right Game Plan

Take a look at what our corporate leaders have to say about recent trends and their experiences in the business world

Indian biz has to wake up to the new world reality

“Business confidence also has to wake up to the new world reality. Indian businessmen have been tuned to a particular way of doing business and in this 24x7 media world and electronic world, business has to realise there is no way to hide. You have got to go out there and do the right things and be transparent about what you are doing because there will be no place for you to do stuff which you could get away like in the past.”

Indian consumer is a bundle of contradictions

“India is a land which celebrates contradictions. Indian consumers may have started travelling by air instead of travelling by train, but there, too, they look for value. It has led to the growth of airlines such as IndiGo, which chase value-seeking consumers.”

Bhaskar Bhat,

MD, Titan Company

Courtesy: https://www.businesstoday.in

Uday Kotak, executive vice chairman and MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank

Courtesy: https://www.cnbctv18.com

Storytelling as a strategic tool “Data can persuade people, but it doesn’t inspire them to act. To do that, you need to wrap your vision in a story that fires the imagination and stirs the soul. The most essential part of my role is to develop strategies for which stories should be told where, and how bridging together leadership, marketing, sales and culture communications can create a new and innovative kind of value.”

Bianca Ghose, chief storyteller, Wipro Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com

We are happy that marketplace model prevails Learn to say no

“While there are many new and exciting things that you would probably like to try, it is essential to focus on your company’s core competencies. While this does not mean that one should stop innovating, trying to do too many things at once is why too many businesses fail.”

“The government’s made its intentions more than clear—it does not want those with foreign investors to do multibrand retail. It doesn’t want them dumping money in the form of discounts. All this has been the playbook of many players. The new clarifications make it amply clear that their model has to change.”

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder, Paytm Mall Courtesy: Business Standard

The crisis of information on the Internet

Akshay Mehrotra,

“The crisis of information on the internet is as big and urgent a problem as climate change. You can compare it to climate change for instance, where I am sure everybody can take personal responsibility and try to do what they can to not waste energy, but it’s obvious that we need wide-scale solutions.”

Courtesy: Times of India

Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com

CEO and co-founder, EarlySalary

16 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

Martin Gelin, Swedish author and journalist

High GST growth envisaged does not mean more aggressive tax administration

“This is a system that is there for business and this system is supportive of honest taxpayers.

This is a transparent system, where the manual interface is minimised. The system itself encourages compliance and that will ultimately result in correct revenue collection.”

Ajay Bhushan, revenue

secretary, Government of India

Courtesy: The Economic Times

It takes 7-10 years to build anything worthwhile

“You don’t realise until you start a company, that it takes 7-10 years to build anything worthwhile. You have all of these misconceptions about how you can build a billion dollar company in two years or four years and there are examples of that but those are the real, real, exceptions. Most businesses, most startups, it takes a while, you have to be patient, you probably have to change your plan two or three or four times.”

Sanjay Parthasarathy, entrepreneur

Courtesy: https://factordaily.com

Will RPA render workers jobless?

The budget was an election budget

“The budget was an election budget with the goal of finding ways to garner rural votes for the BJP. We believe they largely succeeded in that effort and therefore this should help them in the elections. This, however, comes at the expense of fiscal discipline and potentially rising funding costs. There is nothing in this budget that should please a fixed income investor.”

Krishna Memani, chief investment officer, Oppenheimer Funds Courtesy: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com

“At a unit level, a process would need lesser number of people to handle when Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is applied. But it does not lead to those workers being automatically rendered jobless.

It is like understanding the difference between driving a car with manual transmission, driving an automatic car, and driving a self-driving car—the driver is there in all cases.”

Daniel Dines,

Enabling women across the investing ecosystem

CEO and founder, UiPath

Courtesy: https://www.livemint.com

“As a Venture Capitalist, the people you interact with are mostly external to the fund and don’t work with you on a daily basis. They have never seen you perform; so, when you meet someone for the first time, you can sense that there is scepticism, you notice the bias. I have been in meetings where the person would rather talk to a man who is my junior than look at me in the eye and talk to me. It takes some practice to move past it and make yourself heard.”

Harsha Kumar, Associate Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners Courtesy: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com

There are only opportunities

The key to genius is simplicity, not complexity

“There is no risk. The market conditions are such that everybody is looking down. That means that many companies will be available for takeover, so there is no risk, there are only opportunities. These kinds of confusions and kinds of uncertainties throw up a lot of opportunities for us in terms of acquisitions.”

“I am saying be a purist. Don’t go wide, be deep. Be a specialist as opposed to a generalist. We live in a world that says, do a thousand things well, but I’m suggesting create one Sistine Chapel ceiling. Rather than having 5,000 friends on social media, have three friends that you really get to know. Rather than having 10 priorities every day, have a smaller level priorities and be excellent in those priorities. The key to genius is simplicity, not complexity.”

Vivek Chaand Sehgal,

Alex Liu, managing partner and chairman, AT Kearney

chairman, Motherson Sumi Courtesy: Mint

Robin Sharma, leadership coach and author

Courtesy: Mint

Right game plan for growth “Make sure that you have the right game plan for growth on the customer service side and the revenue side, you could apply that type of approach to any sector to attract foreign investment within India.”

Courtesy: Mint

Unpredictable policies are not good for investments

“Abruptly changed, unpredictable policies are not good for investments. If we do the same in the US, there will be less Indian investment in the US.” James D Taiclet,

Jr., chairman and CEO, American Tower Corporation (ATC) Courtesy: Business Standard

Compiled by Rajesh Rao rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 17

Expert View

An Inclusive Budget

by S K Jha

(IRS (retd) and former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax)

T

The interim budget proposed this year is aimed at achieving inclusive growth considering that farmers, workers in the unorganised sector, marginal taxpayers and the salaried class have received special attention. A look at some of these provisions….

he interim budget was presented on 1st of February 2019, which is the new fixed date for the Union Budget. The current year being the election year, a full-scale budget could not be presented. The new government after the elections will present the full budget.

The government could have resorted to VoteOn-Account to meet the expenditure until the new government is formed, but it chose the other permissible alternative of the interim budget for FY2019-20. The handful of measures of the interim budget are of far reaching importance and of a high resonance value in the election year. Steps have been taken to help the middle class by bringing about some amendments in the Income Tax Act while measures have also been taken to help farmers and workers in the neglected unorganised sector.

Income Tax amendments

There will be no tax liability up to the threshold limit of five lakhs taxable income. For this, the tax rebate limit under section 87A has been increased from `3.5 lakh to `5 lakh. The Finance Minister explained that this single measure will roughly help three crore tax payers.

However, there is no proposal to change the slabs or the existing tax rates in the Interim budget.

Abolition of taxation on notional income of house property

At present, only one house property which is self-occupied by the owner is exempt from tax.

A house owner was required to pay tax on other house properties, even if not physically occupied by him. The tax is calculated based on ‘fair rental value’, which is the rent which the property can fetch in the open market. It is a common experience that in many cases, a second house of the owner is kept vacant due to practical constraints and not rented out. The interim budget has proposed that there will be no incidence of tax liability on the second house. This will be a great relief to many taxpayers. More than two self-occupied properties will be subject to tax as against one self-occupied house prior to this amendment.

Long term capital gains exemption

The law prior to the proposed amendment brought in the interim budget was to grant exemption u/s 54 of the Act on long term capital gains, if the sale proceeds are invested in a new property within the stipulated time. The proposed amendment widens the width of the section 54 while keeping the conditions of time frame of fresh investment. Now, in place of one house ceiling for fresh investment, the new ceiling is up to `2 crore. This benefit will be once in a lifetime of the person seeking relief u/s 54 of The Act. The Finance Minister explained in the Lok Sabha that in many cases people want to buy more than one house after the sale of their old house as per the requirements of enlarging families but due to the technical stipulation of only one house in the provision, they faced hardship. The new provision of the permissible

The interim budget measures are the first step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go. Good measures are dependent on better income. Our nation’s income comes mainly from taxes. This year some more measures could be taken as our direct tax collection improved and it may touch `12 lakh crores 18 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

two houses for investment will be of great help to taxpayers.

Standard deduction

Last year’s Budget incorporated a provision for granting standard deduction of `40,000 against the salary or pension income of a taxpayer. To give more benefit, this year in the interim budget, the quantum of standard deduction has been increased to `50,000. This will help many salaried taxpayers and pensioners.

TDS threshold limit

Tax was deducted at source (TDS) if the interest income exceeded `10,000. This threshold limit has been increased to `40,000 for interest earned on deposits in banks and post-offices.

Earlier, people used to file 15G/15H forms to save TDS if their total income was not taxable or used to file tax returns only to claim refund against TDS. Many senior citizens and people with income from deposits used to face practical difficulties. The Finance Minister explained that this step will help many taxpayers.

Agriculture sector

The total increase for the agriculture sector has been 73% over the revised estimate of the year 2018-19. One path-breaking scheme for small and marginal farmers in the name of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKISAN) was announced. As per this scheme there will be a direct cash transfer of `6000 into the bank accounts of small and marginal farmers having land holding up to five acres every year in three equal instalments of `2000 each. The entire burden under this scheme will be `75,000 crores in the FY 2019-20 and `20,000 crores in the current year. The scheme has been started with effect from December 2018 and `2000 will get transferred to eligible farmers before 31st March 2019 and so a part of the burden will be there in the current fiscal year.

Interest subvention of 2% was announced for farmers affected by natural calamities. An additional 3% relaxation will be given for timely repayment of loans. This scheme has also been extended to farmers engaged in animal husbandry

and fishery-related activities, and availing loans through Kisan Credit Cards.

Unorganised sector

A new pension scheme for workers in the unorganised sector has been announced which has been named Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan (PMSYM). The Finance Minister explained that this scheme will be beneficial to around 42 crore workers. The new scheme promises pension of `3000 per month for workers after the age of 60 years. The government will also be a contributor in this scheme. A worker joining this scheme at the age of 29 years will have to contribute `100 per month, while a worker joining the scheme at the age of 18 years will have to contribute `55 per month. The government expects that at least 10 crore labourers and workers in the unorganised sector will avail the benefit of the scheme within the next five years, thus making it one of the largest pension schemes of the world.

The Budget is a financial statement for the year. The interim budget presented is a balanced budget and efforts were made that there is no undue escalation of fiscal deficit despite being an election year. The fiscal deficit has been kept at 3.4% of the GDP as against the targeted 3.3%.

The fiscal deficit last year was 3.5%. It is believed that the outlay of `20,000 crores this year for farmers led to some slippage.

The government has taken measures for in-

clusive growth and that is the reason that farmers, workers in the unorganised sector, marginal taxpayers and salaried class have received special attention. We are the fastest growing major economy in the world but that will not be enough if living conditions of our poor and lower middle class do not improve.

Pay your taxes

The interim budget measures are the first step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go. Good measures are dependent on better income. Our nation’s income comes mainly from taxes. This year some more measures could be taken as our direct tax collection improved and it may touch `12 lakh crores. GST collection is less than targeted though it is picking up now.

Finance Ministers always find problems, as for a country of over 130 crore people our tax base is very small. Our direct tax base has improved to `6.85 crore as against `3.5 crore in the last four years, but still it is not enough. There is a tendency in our country to evade taxes. Search and surveys keep taking place but that will not be enough to bring out all the tax evaded.

If we want to see our country as a super power, we must start paying taxes honestly. As per the statistics of the year 2015-2016, only 1.72 lakh people showed income exceeding `50 lakh in our big country. We have 14 lakh registered companies but only 5.97 lakh filed returns and

out of them 2.76 lakh companies showed losses or zero taxable income. The number of companies showing income between one crore to ten crores was 28,667 while only 7781 companies showed income of more than ten crores.

Our taxes are used for welfare measures and for capital expenditure in all sectors to make our country strong.

The Finance Minister in his budget speech this year made a welcome departure by thanking the taxpayers as it is their money which is helping the country.

#Pulwamaattack Strongly condemn the terrorist attack in Pulwama, J&K. Thoughts and prayers with the families of martyrs and wishing an early recovery to those injured. The entire nation stands united in the fight against the forces of terror and evil #PresidentKovind @rashtrapatibhvn March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 19

I went back to the drawing board to try to understand what it was that was leading to the losses. I realised that there were 3-4 big areas of concern which needed to be corrected. It took me about eight months to get the corrections going, and by the end of the first year, we had turned the company around and made a profit

20 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

Interview

Retail is about

Dreams and Experiences Retail is one of the most dynamic professions in the world, and no one has a better view from the top than Govind Shrikhande, one of India’s leading mentors and the former MD of Shoppers Stop. Under his leadership, Shoppers Stop went from being a struggling company to becoming one of Indian retail’s biggest success stories. Corporate Citizen chats with him about his 34-year journey in retail, his insights on how to transform a brand, and how retail went from being a small sector to becoming the behemoth that we know today

By Neeraj Varty

Tell us about your education.

I was studying Textile Technology at Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (VJTI). I passed out in 1982. At that time, Mafatlal Industries had offered me a job. But if you look back at the history of India, 1982 was a dark period for the textile industry. We had just witnessed the biggest textile strike in Independent India’s history. The norm at that time was to work in the textile mills for seven days at a stretch, get a one day break, and then work for another seven days. I felt it was a very stifling work environment. In addition, this was at the peak of Unionism in India. Datta Samant had more than half a million textile mill workers in Mumbai on a year-long strike in 1982, which triggered the closure of most of the textile mills in the city. I had also seen at close quarters, the unsafe working environment and killings that the city was in the midst of with the heightened Unionism. I felt that, I shouldn't be taking such unwarranted risks at that time.

It made sense to me to not step into the professional environment for a while and continue with my studies at that point in time. MBA was a new stream which was rapidly gaining popularity in India. I found it

fascinating and decided to pursue it. I moved to Pune and took admission at the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management. This was just the second batch of the institute. Once I graduated from Symbiosis, I had offers from five different companies-PSI, India Today, Hico, Philips, and Mafatlal. Mafatlal offered to place me in a marketing profile instead of working on the shop floor, which I had been initially offered post my BText. I felt that since I had studied for four years in the textile field, it would be more appropriate to join a company in the same field.

Unlike in Philips (whose offer I was tempted to

accept), in Mafatlal, my knowledge of textiles would be put to use, so I took them up the offer.

This was ahead of liberalisation.

Do you think post-liberalisation, retail took off in a big way?

Liberalisation brought a lot of global thought processes to India. When I look at 1984, we were in an era where we couldn't even imagine that everyone would have a mobile, much less a smartphone. There was no internet then.

There weren't even any TV channels apart from Doordarshan at that time. Today we have 600

Liberalisation brought a lot of global thought processes to India. When I look at 1984, we were in an era where we couldn't even imagine that everyone would have a mobile, much less a smartphone. There was no internet then. There weren't even any TV channels apart from Doordarshan at that time

Pics : Shantanu Relekar

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 21

Interview channels. This magnitude of transformation is difficult for any individual to really comprehend.

The country and the economy changed beyond recognition. New companies emerged. New industries like telecom emerged. There was no concept of organised retail at that time. The unorganised sector was pretty much all there was to it. No one could imagine even joining the organised retail sector, much less heading a company in the sector and take it from five stores to 200 plus stores nationwide.

What did you learn from your stint at Mafatlal?

Mafatlal helped me connect with textiles trade, my basic core. I learnt Market Research, Retail Store Opening, Channel management & Product Sourcing. From there I went from strength to strength and learnt how to go from textile to retail to apparel and then to multiple other categories.

How has retail changed from the mid 80s to now?

It has changed beyond recognition. When I look back today, there have been two or three dramatic changes. Way back in the 80s, it was actually rationing shops which dominated retail. Everything was controlled. The big retail stores that you see everywhere today were not even thought about, because the supply chain wasn't there. Post 80s, we saw what is known as the franchise store concept coming up in a big way. We saw Bombay Dyeing, Calico, Raymond and Bata stores pop up everywhere. In 1991, Shoppers Stop was born. 1996,97 and 98 are the years when Westside, Lifestyle, Pantaloons and other such companies were born. While all these companies were formed and were growing, the biggest push came in 2001, when the retail policy was changed and it was opened up.

Post-2005, most of the international players too entered India.

You can divide retail in India into three distinct phases. Phase 1 was mom and pop stores, Phase 2 was the entry of organised retail, and post 2013, we saw Phase 3, which is the growth of online. In fact in the last four years, online has grown exponentially.

How did the Shoppers Stop opportunity come about?

Shoppers Stop, as I mentioned, started in 1991. It kept on adding space till 1994. From 1994-2001, till the time I joined, they had opened only seven stores and employed less than 500 people. The year I joined too was a difficult year. On the day I joined, the headline of Economic Times was 'Is Shoppers Stop going to fail?' On the seventh day, Business Today carried a cover story saying "Has Shoppers Stop failed?" Everyone was writing us off. Shoppers Stop then had a `224 crore turn22 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

over and a `24 crore loss. That was the number which made everyone worry about where the company was headed. I remember walking to my boss and asking him 'mujhko kaha fasa diya?' He said, 'We are in difficult times, and we want you to help us in getting out of this difficulty'.

I went back to the drawing board to try to understand what it was that was leading to the losses. I realised that there were 3-4 big areas of concern which needed to be corrected. It took me about eight months to get the corrections going, and by the end of the first year, we had turned the company around and made a

profit. Since then, we have never looked back, other than one year where the whole world experienced a downturn during the Trillion Dollar Meltdown.

Tell us some key initiatives undertaken by you whom you are proud of.

There are several things which I feel proud of.

The first thing I did after I joined was addressing the burning issue of partnerships. Retail is a platform to connect partners to customers.

The partners have to sell their brands and the

Around 2006, we repositioned the brand. We introduced a new modern logo and positioned Shoppers Stop as a more aspirational 'bridge to luxury’ concept. We came up with a new store look, new visual merchandising and a new ad campaign.

We became the first bridge to luxury brand in India

customers have to pick a brand of their choice.

Our relationship with our partners wasn't very good when I joined and we had a big fight with Madhura. They had moved out of our chain the year before. The first task I did was to create a concept called 'Partnership of Progress'. This was an annual summit that we created. It has been running for 17 years now, and we meet every year, share with our partners what our plans are and invite their inputs as well. We also starter a scorecard called Partnership Satisfaction Index.

It was in addition to the Associate Satisfaction Index, which we were already running, and the

Consumer Satisfaction Index, which we introduced. Together, these three indices are a good health indicator of your company. If your associates are as happy, they will give good service to your customers. If your customers are happy, your partners are happy too. We have been able to ensure that our relationship with partners remained strong through thick and thin. We have been able to ensure their support throughout, whether it is through a regular supply of merchandise or exclusivity. The suppliers also helped us in creating the new Trading Modules of Sale Or Return, Consignment etc. These new models helped us derisk the business in a big way and also ensured better cash flows for the company.

Around 2006, we repositioned the brand. We introduced a new modern logo and positioned Shoppers Stop as a more aspirational 'bridge to luxury' concept. We came up with a new store look, new visual merchandising and a new ad campaign. We became the first bridge to a luxury brand in India. We also launched a lot of new brands at that time. MAC cosmetics were launched at that time. Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, etc came in during that period.

The third step we took around 2007-08, we created a new anthem. Every day, at 10:45 am across India, all stores, offices and warehouses of

Shoppers Stop play our anthem 'Hadh se aage'.

This anthem is written by Gulzar Saab and sung

by Sonu Nigam. This anthem binds together everyone across India. It unites the 10,000 of our employees with the spirit of service.

#Pulwamaattack Attack on CRPF personnel in Pulwama is despicable. I strongly condemn this dastardly attack. The sacrifices of our brave security personnel shall not go in vain. The entire nation stands shoulder to shoulder with the families of the brave martyrs. May the injured recover quickly.

- @narendramodi March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 23

Interview The next initiative I am proud of is creating larger than life events. Shoppers Stop earlier did a lot of events with bigger connotations.

In 2009-10, we created 1,129 makeovers in an event we dubbed 'Makeover Marathon'. Post that event, the make-up sales in our stores nearly tripled. In the last 3-4 years, we created the largest Santa Claus, the largest cricket bat, the largest snowman and the largest jacket.

Every year we come up with one event anchored around a product while creating a larger than life experience to boost the sale of that product or category. This continues from 2010-16. Other big initiatives were the number of stores. When I joined, we had only seven stores. When I became CEO in 2007, we had only 16. If you look at the last 11 years, we have opened more than 60 stores. We also opened a lot of new formats. We launched a lot of new brands for Shoppers Stop, including brands like Rheson by Sonam Kapoor and Virat Kohli’s Wrogn. We are the largest retailer of beauty across India by far.

Nobody else has this big a collection of beauty brands, products and categories. We would be among the top two watch sellers in the country as well.

We felt customers needed better service standards, so we launched Personal Shopper.

Today, if you visit any of our stores, you can actually ask for a personal shopper. The Personal Shopper can take you through the entire store, free of charge. If for whatever reason they are not free at that moment, you can book an appointment for a convenient time. You can also book an appointment online. It’s like the character Jeeves by P G Wodehouse. In a few cities, you can call a personal shopper, and they can come to your home with the merchandise that you want, and you can choose whatever you like. This is taking service standards to a new level. I believe that retail requires a lot of experience, a lot of theatres. This is why we have created this initiative called 'Bring back romance to retail'.

We aim to deliver great merchandise, great service as well as a great experience through multiple action points.

We also revised our Vision, Values and Strategy to reflect our new Omnichannel Strategy.

It has been an incredible journey for retail, but now with the explosion of online retail, how does offline compete with it?

Initially, we were unsure of how to fight online, as they had money to burn and very low overheads. Then over a period of time, we realised that online is something that customers love. You cannot treat online as a curse; rather you must learn to treat it as a gift. That’s how the word omnichannel came into play. We created an entire 24 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

When a new product is launched, within two days’ time you know whether it is working or not. You can't get such a fast response in any other industry. You have a lot of power to influence a customer, but you also have a lot of responsibility to ensure that the customer's experience is stellar strategy of how to be omnichannel and we have almost achieved it now, but the reality is that it is now a platform war. A platform war is very different from a purely omnichannel play. This platform war is played very differently all over that world. In the US, the market is dominated by local players like Facebook, Google and Amazon. In spite of that, one thing that stands out is that online has no taxes in the US. They don’t have to do any discounting there. Products are at

the same price online and offline. In China, when Alibaba started, they had no takers. There was no trust in online transactions in China then. There was a trust deficit between buyers and sellers.

So Alibaba created an escrow payment system called Alipay. You don't pay the buyer. The customer pays to Alipay. The seller ships the goods to the buyer. Once you receive the goods and are satisfied, then Alibaba releases the money to the seller. If you aren't satisfied, no payment is made

On the other hand, when you walk into a brick and mortar store, you can touch and feel the product, you can try it, touch it, and smell it. The job of the retailer is to strengthen this experience.

After Shoppers Stop, you have now become a mentor. What made you take up this new direction?

I thought that I had worked non-stop for 34 years from 9-9pm, 365 days a year. Retail, as you know, doesn't have any days off. We work on Diwali, we work on Christmas. We are busiest on Sundays. The challenge in such a long journey is that after a point of time your body starts aching. You burn out. If I think of my career, it is divided into three main areas. I started with textiles, moved to apparel and then to retail. So I decided to take the next step and move on to mentoring. I have been lucky. Two companies have got me on their board. I am also advising three private equity companies. I am also consulting two more companies. This gives me a broader perspective, a slightly more strategic insight and a top view perspective rather than the monotony of day to day work.

What is your idea of relaxation?

I love watching movies. I like comedy as a genre, especially Marathi comedies. In the last three years, Marathi movies have stepped up their game and I really like the content. I am an avid cricket fan, and also like listening to music. My grandson is in Chicago. Every evening, I love chatting with him on FaceTime. It is a great relaxation for me.

Do you believe in separating work life and personal life? and the goods are picked up. Alibaba is only a marketplace. They don't buy and sell anything.

So they never make a loss. There is no Google in China. The Chinese ecosystem is called BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent). Coming to India, we are treated like a third world. Our eco-system is completely borrowed from the US and China. India's retail is being taken over by China and America. Walmart and Amazon are on one side and Alibaba on the other. The only fighting company that is remaining is Reliance. Reliance is creating an ecosystem from Petroleum to telecom. Future Group is also aligning itself to take this battle head-on.

To fight this onslaught, we created a strategy called ACE - Assortment, Customer service and Experience, along with the omnichannel investment. At the end of the day, customers also look at shopping at entertainment, and online is not entertainment. That is where we have the edge. Online doesn’t provide entertainment. It is only browsing, and eventually, people get bored.

The challenge is that it is dependent on what stage of life you are in. In the beginning, you need to acquire experience, acquire money. This race takes a decade of your life. Once you reach a position where you are running a company or are in upper management, there is so much responsibility that automatically you tend to spend more time at work. This is a race that is very difficult to win.

You must find the right balance. One of the things I have realised is that when I started my career, companies can always find somebody else to replace you, but your family can never find anyone to replace you. Since mobile phones have evaded everyone's privacy, I switch off my mobile when I am at home and switch it on only when I get in my car. For 12 hours at least I am off mobile completely. That's something I have been practising diligently for the past 15-16 years. Another thing I followed was when I am in the office, I wouldn’t respond to mobile calls. All those who know me would message me and they would know that I would call them back when I am driving back home. My commute was for an hour each way.

All my calls would be answered between 7-8 pm

in the evening or 9 to 10 am in the morning.

Other than that, it is difficult to segregate any more as the boss of the company, there are so many responsibilities on you. Ten thousand people depend on you, it’s a tightrope to walk.

You have seen retail in India transform from a small entity to the behemoth that it is currently.

What advice would you give to students who are considering retail as a career in 2019?

If students are considering retail as an industry, the best part about this sector is that-this is one of the few industries where you are in direct touch with the customer. In FMCG, you are dealing with the manufacturer, distributor or retailer. In retail, you are the first point of contact with the customer. You don't need to go through channels to get their feedback. Every Friday, a new movie either bombs or explodes. Similarly, the sales number of the prior week which we get on Monday tell us if sales have bombed or exploded. When we see the sales numbers for the previous week, we know what is selling and what is not. When a new product is launched, within two days’ time you know whether it is working or not. It is that fast. You can't get such a fast response in any other industry. However, this also means that you have a lot of responsibility. You have a lot of power to influence a customer, but you also have a lot of responsibility to ensure that the customer's experience is stellar.

So what you sell in retail is the experience and not just a product?

Absolutely correct. We sell dreams and experiences. neeraj.varty07@gmail.com

#Pulwamaattack No 1 is more braver than mother, wife & daughter of a Martyr. Nitika Kaul w/o Shaheed Major Vibhuti Dhoundiyal at his final journey raised the slogan of “JAI HIND” and said “ I Love You Vibhu..We Love You” @adgpi Nitka,Deepest Respect & Salute We will be with you always.

Major Surendra Poonia @ MajorPoonia March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 25

NHRDN Keynote Perspective

The Next Wave of Excellence The question that comes up is, where does this next wave of excellence come from?

And the answer is very simple—it comes from technology and that’s what everybody believes. But then the question that comes is, where does this technology come from? It comes from people and it is you who mould, nurture, develop and mentor these people, says Padma Shri Dr BVR Mohan Reddy, Executive Chairman, Cyient Ltd. In his keynote speech, at the inaugural session of the 21st NHRDN National Conference 2018, at HICC, in Hyderabad, he gave insights into the forthcoming waves of change. Corporate Citizen brings you the excerpts

By Rajesh Rao

I

t becomes extremely gratifying for people like me that even NHRDN now recognises that excellence will come through technology. And it’s their responsibility too, to make sure the right levels of awareness are instilled and ensure that everybody participates in this particular wave of change.

The process of change

If you look back at the word called technology—to me technology and mankind are synonymous to each other. If you look at the first industrial revolution, which came way back in second-half of the18th century, it was driven by technology. First-time mankind was experiencing that the muscle power can be replaced by mechanical power. That is when mankind started seeing steam engines, which then powered railroads. A tremendous amount of change came by. And, so was the second industrial revolution, which was largely led by 26 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

mass production. It was Henry Ford, who had the idea of the assembly line technique of mass production and therefore the cost of production came down dramatically and cars became accessible to everybody and anybody.

The third industrial revolution which was in the 1960s, was all driven by Information and Communication Technology (ICT)—more people call it as computer revolution or they call it as the ICT revolution—largely 1960s was when it came by. It was driven by two things, one is computer and the other was the internet.

But, what we see as the fourth industrial revolution, it has no barrier in the world so far, because the speed at which the change is coming about, has never been experienced by anybody, at any point of time. So, what is the reason, why this acceleration is tremendous? What we see is unbelievable acceleration, which we call as exponential. There are four factors, which are making this acceleration happen, as what it is.

The beauty of upcoming technologies is, people like me have tremendous belief that while it will disrupt economies and certainly will bring about lot of change, but this time the change will also impact everybody and we have to ensure that it will bring social equality to the world

1 - Computing power

The first and the foremost is—which is fairly well-known as the law called “Moore’s Law”. It is the observation made, by Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel Corporation. And Gordon Moore, way back in 1974 said, “The amount of computing power that you can put on a wafer, will double itself every eighteen months, the cost will come down by half and the size will also come down by half ”. People then thought Moore has gone mad, this will never happen.

Twenty years later, in 1994, they went to revisit how true was Moore’s law—they found it was not true, because it was not taking 18 months, it was even shorter than that, for the amount of power that could get on to a silicon wafer.

2 - Communications

The second factor is all about connectivity. People in this country waited for years to get a landPics: Yusuf Khan

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 27

NHRDN Keynote Photo Courtesy: Alex Knight on Unsplash

line connection and to speak to somebody. For an overseas call, you waited for a call for nearly 8-10 hours before you can get connected. Look at the change that has happened today—I have only one, but I am sure some of you here, at least few of you here have two phones in your pockets. That’s the accessibility to communication that has come to you. But more importantly, the speed at which this communication could happen—we talked about 2G, then 3G, 4G and now 5G will be a reality very soon—4.5G is what we are implementing for a couple of our customers.

More importantly, if you look at this network, when people get connected—the power of the network is not 1+1, it is an exponential number.

So, if two people are in the network it is 1+1, the power of the network is 2 to the power of 2.

How many people are in the network today— there are 7.5 billion people in the world and

what we see as the fourth industrial revolution, it has no barrier in the world so far, because the speed at which the change is coming about, has never been experienced by anybody, at any point of time 4.5 billion people are already on this network.

But, equally important is that technology at this point in time, makes just not people to talk to each other, we are also talking to things. So, by 2020, our estimate is, this network will have 20 billion people and things together. What does it mean? The power of the network is now 20 billion to 20 billion—computers will take time to crunch this information. That’s the second factor by which this fourth industrial revolution is growing at an exponential pace.

3 - Sensors

The third one are these ugly looking devices used to be there called ‘Sensors’, which were also expensive. What were they supposed to be doing? They could measure or sense many 28 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

things. But what has happened to these sensors are—applying the same Moore’s law—they have become smaller and they are in a position to sense everything and anything that you can dream about. When we actually think about the five senses of the human being—sight if perfected, we get images, which once it gets into a computer it can never forget that. The second is the sense of touch or the feel, is also perfected. The third is hearing or the sound is also becoming extremely good. Where we think is some work to be done, is in terms of smell and taste. But, now these sensors are coming in at amazingly low cost. At one point of time in the seventies, a resistor used to be $17 a piece, but now a sensor,

which can measure temperature, flow, vibration, geo-positioning, and so on, altogether you can get 1700 of them in the same $17 cost. Interestingly what the sensors have done further is, they are putting tonnes of data—people talked about kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes and there doesn’t seem to be an end.

We have these sensors measuring the health of an aircraft engine, which in navigation is called Engine Health Monitoring System. What happens is, on a long haul flight, it puts about two teraflops of data on the computer systems, just to measure how healthy is the aircraft engine.

So, you have this enormity of data that is coming in the third factor.

ICU bed. Using the new IoT technologies, you can now get it down to $10,000. So, you will look at the accessibility of technology to many more in the world. We will have an application in agriculture, which is to do with precision agriculture—you determine what’s the health of the crop, what intervention is required, whether it is water, pesticide or fertiliser—all this will happen through image processing, drones, thereafter AI algorithms, in agriculture. So, irrespective of which area you are in, you certainly are going to be impacted or the people who work with you will be impacted, with these new technologies.

Social equality to the world

The beauty of these technologies is, people like me have tremendous belief that while it will disrupt economies and certainly will bring about lot of change, but this time the change will also impact everybody and we have to ensure that it will bring social equality to the world. So, therefore it is good. We have certainly seen in the past too, whenever industrial revolutions happened, technology brought in economic impact, which means the GDP of the nation increased and the comforts for individuals improved dramatically.

But, this time it will also bring social equality to people. So, the fourth industrial revolution is good for all of us.

Future of work

What does the fourth industrial revolution mean to us in terms of life? Our life has changed—the way in which I think, the way in which I behave, the way in which I communicate, the way in which I buy, the way in which I eat, all of them have changed. But, let’s look at it from your perspective as HR professionals, as to how does the future of work look like to me.

Skills will change

The first and the foremost is, the skills will

4 - Algorithms

The fourth factor finally is all about the ability now to write algorithms, to get meaningfulness out of this data. People at one point of time said we needed structured data. Now, you don’t require structured data anymore, because the fuzziness in the data can also be understood by the computer. We can now write algorithms, which says let’s also talk about machines will start learning—they start learning from what they are doing at this point of time. So, putting all these four factors together—computers, communications, sensors and algorithms, are the big waves which are bringing in the fourth industrial revolution.

How will change impact us?

This fourth industrial revolution is going to be far different from the rest of them, because it is now trying to combine the physical world, with the cyber world and the bio world. So, all of them will now start to communicate with each other. How will this impact us? The first and foremost is, this time unlike the past, technology will impact every potential area, which you can dream about. The type of impact that you are seeing in healthcare again in this point of time through technology, is again mindboggling. We have a company with an ICU bed, with traditional equipment which will cost you $100,000—that’s an average cost of an

#Pulwamaattack Attack on CRPF in #Pulwama, J&K is a cowardice & condemnable act of terrorists. Nation salutes martyred soldiers and we all stand united with families of martyrs. We pray for speedy recovery of the injured.

Terrorists will be given unforgettable lesson for their heinous act. @arunjaitley March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 29

NHRDN Keynote

Photo Courtesy: Alexandre Debieve on Unsplash

change and will not be the same as what we had in the past. In every sector that we are thinking about, there will be a fairly large amount of jobs, which will get automated.

And there will be an intervention, which will happen, because of new technologies—technologies, which has to do with artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, 3D printing, machine learning and so on. All these technologies are different from what they are today.

Take for an example 3D printing—there is a job role called 3D modeller and it basically designs products for us. And one of the things, including me-as mechanical engineering that we learnt in our lives-is that if you have a sharp curve on a product, the manufacturing ability becomes a challenge. Though we used what we call as ‘French curve’, the way in which wherever you liked to draw, they are there. But, we never were putting it into products, for the simple reason that manufacturing would become difficult and difficult would then translate to be expensive. While today, for 3D printing that descrip-

30 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

tion does not come into play anymore, because you deposit material there as required. So, now the skills that are required, the mindset that is required for a design engineer, is far different.

The skills of the future are far different from the skills of the past.

Reskilling of workforce

The first challenge therefore you have, is making sure our workforce get skilled to the current technologies. Just as a data point, the IT and ITES industry, which NASSCOM represents at this point of time, employees four million professionals. Our estimate is that 50 per cent of these four million professionals, will require reskilling. So, the first area we have to look at is reskilling of our employees.

Changing workplace

The second one is that you will also find the future of workplace is going to be far different. You will see that robots and people will have to work together. Psychologically, you can imagine what it is—robots have taken away

jobs of people, who are there right now. There are bots in the backend, which does all routine predictable jobs. So, therefore the workplace is going to be very different from what it was in the past.

We have also seen, if you look at some of the technologies or a simple thing like a smartphone, which all of you have—you will find that there are several different technologies that have come in. It is not just an electronic gadget. It has the best of glass technology—the front glass is unbreakable, which came from Corning, which came from military application around thirty years back. Because of mass production, they brought down the cost. For example, Apple is not just a mobilephone manufacturing company, it also has glass manufacturing technologies and capabilities. What we are seeing at this point of time is, it has become extremely interdisciplinary. You can’t have all the skills with one person, so the result is a collaborative work environment in the future. We will also see more amount of diversity in people and we have to show tremendous amount

of flexibility—that’s what we all need to look at the future of the workplace as such.

Future workers

The third one is, let’s look at the future of the worker. For our colleagues including ourselves, what is it going to look like? These are all called the digital natives. If you look at India by 202022, over 64 per cent of the workforce will all be millennials. These people are saying that they are the digital natives. So, who am I, well, I am considered to be a digital alien. That’s what they all will think about you, if you don’t get updated with new technologies. These people were born in an age when social media was part and parcel of life. They can’t take their eyes off the screen, of their mobilephone or computer. And the consequence of this—we have also seen yet another change that is happening is that they need instant gratification and they have several options. So, therefore the future is not going to be the same as the past, it is going to be far different. People will require more flexibility, they don’t like to be micromanaged. Therefore, the role you have as an HR manager or a leader, is going to be far more different than what was in the past.

we have to create an environment to understand the current tech trends and start applying it. When you start applying it, you start questioning it and you have the ability to start challenging it about a change in the physical environment.

If you can’t bring a change in the physical environment, then at least make everybody very conscious about health.

The four things in the new regime that we will have are, make it very contextual by place, make them more emotional, bring about inspired leadership and create more amount of physical changes to make sure that they are all healthy.

The shape of things to come

What are we supposed to do in this changing environment?

Need for a contextual environment

We need to get into what is called as contextual thinking. We can’t say it was the past with me—I have to be all the time living in the present, because the present is different from the past. It has changed quite dramatically. Therefore, unless I start living in the present, unless I keep challenging by saying, why is it’s happening this way, I will never get results. I will never build a company that has a leading edge.

Therefore, we have to create an environment to understand the current tech trends and start applying it. When you start applying it, you start questioning it and you have the ability to start challenging it. So, the first challenge that you have is creating an environment which is contextual.

Need for emotional intelligence

The second one is, we need to create more of emotional intelligence in people, because we need to now run processes of integrating the thoughts and feelings and relate them, just not for themselves but also for the people around it. It is not any longer that you have lots of time for people, to spend time with them in the cafeteria.

Need for inspired leadership

The third one is, we need more amount of inspired leadership, because in an environment

which is changing so rapidly, unless we continuously inspire them, an inspiration to me will just not come from many things. Values to me are the one’s which would determine our behaviour and our behaviour then determines our culture.

So, irrespective of what technology brings about as a change, we should definitely start looking at, more intensely, into the values we create in the environment.

One, we have to be responsive and equally, we have to be responsible, because the change is coming so rapidly, you have to respond to it, as there is no other choice. As we keep saying, if you don’t, somebody else will overtake you.

Can you stop it? There is no way that you can stop it. You have to be there to respond to this big flood that is coming in, but make sure that every decision of yours, every action of yours, is responsive to this change. What can all of you do? Collectively work together in bringing about a change with people and I think that is what the HR professionals have to do—bring about a shared sense of participation with every individual who is associated with us. rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com

Need to be conscious about health

And finally, the other challenge we will also find is the physical challenge—people cannot be sitting all the time, in the places they have and that is not something which we can avoid.

A desk has become the place of work for many people. Earlier if I wanted to read something I would go to a book shop, now I go and google on my phone. I have become lazy now, I don’t even touch my phone, I yell at Alexa. So, in this sedentary environment that we have, it is important that you as an HR professional, bring

#Pulwamaattack Deeply saddened by news of the IED blast in #Pulwama, Jammu & Kashmir in which our brave CRPF Jawans have been martyred. My thoughts are with the bereaved families and prayers with our injured Jawans to recover soon. @PiyushGoyal March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 31

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irisha PN (R rS d.) et

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Military to Management

Officer & a Gentlewoman Once a Major in the Army, Sirisha PN is now working in an enviable position in a corporate organisation as Manager, Security and Admin, Hindalco, in Madhya Pradesh. The transition has affected not just her, but her daughter too, who misses being an Army child, but is happy her mother can finally dress up as a woman and wear heels once again. The corporate woman, who misses being an Officer, compares life in the Army and the corporate in a tell-all interview‌

By Namrata Gulati Sapra

32 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

At what point did you decide to quit the Armed forces for a corporate job?

I am a person who believes in giving 100% to her job. I put in the best of my efforts in making a difference wherever I am. I have always tried to be a good team member and am glad that my seniors have been considerate to commend my job. Yet the main reason why I decided to quit the service was that all my peers, the gentlemen officers, were detailed for courses, like MTech from IITs. Within the Army too, there are several courses on offer, such as Staff College. These courses are instrumental for further growth and for promotions in the Army. At the same time, they also help you by increasing your knowledge base. While the male counterparts were detailed for these courses, women officers are not eligible for them because we don’t have a permanent commission in the Army yet. For all courses, except for the legal and education branch, women officers do not have a permanent commission. So, they do not have scope for promotion after a particular rank.

We are also not given criteria appointments-these are appointments on which the officer is generally judged on his or her performance which enable his or her further promotion. This affects the confidential reports. Women officers are not given such appointments. Other than that, the prevailing attitude or mindset towards women officers in the Army compelled me to quit. They would think that marks are useless for women. We were never considered for growth prospects. This demotivated me. In spite of putting in my 100 per cent, I had no scope of growth in the Army. Personal reasons were another factor. I wanted to stay and get settled in one place. Though this was a minor reason, dissatisfaction at work was always there because there seemed to be no stability. But parity between men and women was the major reason that led me to quit the Army.

How would you sum up your transition from the military to management?

I would call my transition from my military way of life to corporate as someone who has transitioned from “Shriman to Shrimati” (Mr to Mrs).

Our alma mater prepared us to lead our men by example.

The rigours of training at the military academy had turned us into manly looking women so much so that when we would go out of the academy for hikes, people would mistake us for boys. They would sometimes restrict us from entering areas reserved for ladies. They would instead direct us to the gents’ side . Once, I happened to lean by mistake on a lady in a bus and she frowned at me. I had to explain to her that I am a woman, but she refused to believe me.

As we all know, after a cadet undergoes training, he or she gets commissioned to be an officer. Once the cadets become officers, they are wished ‘Jai Hind Shriman’ by the juniors. The same applies to women officers. On this note, I would like to share an experience. When my daughter was four years old, she took offence to me being addressed as ‘shriman’ or mister. My daughter once accompanied me for a sports event in the unit and as per the code of conduct, on my arrival, everyone wished me, ‘Jai Hind Saab’. She enquired with me about it and I tried to explain but she was not one bit convinced. At the end of the event, while we were leaving the venue, everyone began wishing me the same way. She could not bear it any longer and turned

around and said, “Madam Hai” (she is a madam).

How did you prepare for a fulltime corporate job after quitting the Army, which is considered a way of life?

Frankly speaking, I did not prepare for a corporate job as such, initially. I had plans to go abroad but finally, I cancelled them and decided to stay back. We, after completing our short services, are made to do a small course at IIMs. But I could not pursue that. This course is more about gaining a platform where you can interact with your peers and get to know the corporate world a little.

However, I found it very difficult to be placed after the Army. In spite of all the experience and exposure we had as Army officers, it is very difficult to explain it in a civil environment, with the exception of a few companies which have been working with retired veterans. Honestly, most companies do not understand the nitty-gritties of the Army.

And that’s why it becomes very difficult to be placed after being in the Army. I have instances where people were not happy because I did not have a specialisation in a particular field. Or because I was a woman officer. These things were a little difficult to handle. But in companies which have even minimal exposure of Army services, a retired officer can get placed.

What are the various challenges you experienced while making such a drastic switch from the military world to the world of management?

For me, the first challenge was to come out of the mindset of how we were trained in the Army-we were always told that we were officers first and then ladies. We were taught never to expect the privileges of a lady in the armed forces as a commissioned woman officer in the forces. My girl always had a doubt during parties as to why all the ladies were served food first but not me. She always asked me why I had to wear my ceremonial dress for the parties and could not dress gracefully like other ladies. On the day of my last dining out, when I was to exit the armed forces, she asked

In the corporate, the best part is the weekends, where we can recharge our batteries for the following week.

At the same time, one feels much more organised personally with these breaks in between. Yet I would say that the support system in the Army was much better and reliable March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 33

Military to Management me if I could wear gorgeous dresses and heels for parties and was very happy to learn that I finally could.

The first challenge I personally encountered was to learn the ways of a lady. I could feel a sea change in the way I comprehended situations as compared to the other ladies. Working with my troops in the ratios of approximately 1:700, there used to be stations where I could not even see a lady for weeks if we did not have a social gathering. Even the tone that I spoke in and my straightforwardness were misunderstood several times.

Over a period of time, I learnt about it and started being careful about it.

What is your current job like and in what ways is it different from your profile in the armed forces?

have the hang of everything. Some of my friends would often ask me if there was anything I had not done. It is very difficult to explain, as no one believes that a person could handle so many responsibilities. The system of working and delegation was so organised and strong that I could multitask to the hilt. Being an Electronics and Communication engineer, I was commissioned into the branch of the Army which was responsible for the communications of the Army. I held positions which gave me multifaceted experiences. I had responsibilities of handling communication teams, safety and security of military garrisons, HR functions, administration and facilities of troops including families, operations, logistics, organising events and grievance handling.

Currently, I am working as a Security and Admin manager in a private firm. The profile entails ensuring the safety and

My daughter once accompanied me for a sports event in the unit and as per the code of conduct, on my arrival, everyone wished me, “Jai Hind Saab”. She enquired with me about it and I tried to explain but she was not one bit convinced.

At the end of the event, while we were leaving the venue, everyone began wishing me the same way. She could not bear it any longer and turned around and said, “Madam Hai“ (she is a madam) security of the working premises and township.

The remuneration is on similar lines, but with a marked difference in the perks and privileges, which are incomparable and cannot be outsourced, because, in the Army, it is said that “we earned it”.

Defence is synonymous with discipline and people had the fear of consequences that awaited them on crossing the line. Enforcing discipline was much easier as it was streamlined, and donning the uniform made it a mandate. The system of penalising helped to ensure easier discipline which is not the case here in my corporate job. Here, it’s more about getting the work done, while discipline is more about individual attitude. In the Army, it was ‘One for all and all for one’. Even if a single person committed a mistake in the team, the whole team was punished.

While in the Army, I learnt to multitask. Extreme multitasking gave me exposure to all disciplines-from physical training to HR, Operations, Admin and many more. I was required to

34 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

as it is in a family. All privileges come with a lot of responsibilities. In the corporate, it is more of a linear structure as we are connected more professionally. But, as we say, once a soldier always a soldier. Even when out of the forces, all ex-servicemen stand out and people around us do give us due respect.

Now that you’re a corporate, do you feel you are able to devote more time to your daughter?

Sirisha’s daughter, Samhita

A typical day in the Army would start with PT, then HR functions of training, leave, travel, welfare activities, etc., followed by the conduct of some exam, interview, checking of quality of store from rations to ammunition, ensuring foolproof communications, safety and security…. the list is endless! In contrast, my current job makes me responsible for a specific task, hence I can gain expertise in the same and I feel it will consequently improve my quality of work.

Speaking of opportunities, opportunity-wise, there is not much of a difference. To put it the way my senior would say, it does not matter if you are in defence or corporate, one who is efficient in the Army will be as efficient in a corporate job. There is nothing like “I will relax in the Army and work better when I join the corporate.” I too believe that everywhere growth opportunities are the same for sincere and hardworking people.

They say a soldier is never on holiday.

How is the work-life balance in the corporate sector versus that in the Army?

The large variety of responsibilities kept us quite busy in the Army. You can have a break only when you are on leave. In the Army, we were working even on weekends and holidays as the job requirements were such.

In the corporate, the best part is the weekends, where we can recharge our batteries for the following week. At the same time, one feels much more organised personally with these breaks in between. Yet I would say that the support system in the Army was much better and reliable. We did not even bother if we had locked out homes or not.

Army officers are used to getting a lot of respect. Has that changed in corporate life?

The Army is an organisation which has a well-defined organised structure, where ranks, responsibilities and roles are defined, and people are bound to obey them

Giving sufficient time to a child as a mother is always a challenge for a working mother. There were times when my daughter would be sleeping when I left home and by the time I reached home, she would have gone back to bed. But as the place of work and living accommodation was in the same complex it gave me the confidence that I could be with her in just ten minutes. However, this is not the case in the corporate, as commuting consumes a lot of time. One of the primary reasons for me to choose my current job is that it has a township. Though there is an option to work from home in the corporate, it is not the same in most cases. Ultimately, children of working women are more independent and mature. And I am proud of my girl. In a single day, she had to bid goodbye to me thrice -once for PT in the morning, second, for office and finally, games in the evening, but there was never a day when she cried and asked me to stay back. She is missing the Army just as much as I am. Children whose parents wear a uniform, also learn the etiquettes of the Army. The environment they grow in is very safe and secure and the exposure they get by meeting many people due to the system of posting grooms them well. They become more outgoing and stronger emotionally. However, she is of course not the reason for me to leave the Army.

It is a well-known fact that teamwork is of prime importance in the Army work culture. How much importance is accorded in the corporate sector? Besides, the Army is supposed to be one big family. Is it so in the corporate sector too?

In the Army, delegation is very important. Generally, you don’t look back after work is assigned. And that is how extensive multitasking is possible in the Army. Here, in the corporate job, delegation level is low.

Here it is about how productive you are personally. Teamwork is just part of it, which ensures the completion of your work. In the Army, however, the ratio of the value of individual work to teamwork is 50:50, while in the corporate job it is 80:20, where 80 stands for your own effort, and 20 for external support. It is clear that one can be more comfortable in the Army as you get more responsibilities, but you can perform a lot of tasks together. Because of a rigid hierarchy, there is a lot of pressure about how you are around your superiors. This continues even in your personal time, as you are expected to be together even after office. A unit is one family. Unless you take it as part of your job, you cannot be very comfortable working in the Army. It is difficult to be a loner in the Army,

#Pulwamaattack I’m deeply disturbed by the cowardly attack on a #CRPF convoy in J&K in which many of our brave CRPF men have been martyred and a large number wounded, some critically.

My condolences to the families of our martyrs. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured. @RahulGandhi March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 35

Military to Management Welcome to Ramgarh, on a recce in Rajasthan

which is of course, a sign of a good system, but sometimes you feel like your privacy is being intruded upon.

What qualities have you imbibed in the Army that are helping you be a thorough professional in your current management profile?

The Army has taught me to work with loyalty, integrity and grace even under extremely stressful conditions. I understand the real meaning of a team and teamwork, after working with teams from diverse backgrounds.

As an Officer, everyone was made to work to the fullest of their potential.

We say we never forget our trainers as they push us to the limit of our potential. Though, during the moment, we face hardship, once we have surpassed it, even though with difficulty, we remember it for life-I think that’s why most defence personnel have many stories to share. All such experiences in the Army made me more dynamic and organised. But unfortunately, personally, I found it difficult to be placed with the corporate with my Army profile. More so, being a woman, it is difficult to be placed unless you are picked up from the IIMs after your resettlement courses as 36 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

the companies coming to the institutes are aware of our experiences and the right jobs for us. We are mostly placed in roles of security and facility, so many companies rejected me, saying they wanted a male candidate. I am glad that few companies, like my current one, recognise the potential of a woman officer and place us at par with our male counterparts.

How are leadership styles different in the Army versus a corporate job?

In the Army, there is stress on leading by example. The same is the case in corporate. Unless you show sincerity and hard work, your subordinates will not show it too. Your subordinates will always reflect the same qualities as you whether in the Army or in corporate. So, there is not too much of a difference between the leadership styles. That said, the scope of interaction with your colleagues and team is much more in the Army, where we go for PT, and games. The scope for rapport building and team bonding is more in the Army. Thus, we know our colleagues inside out in the Army.

What also facilitates team building in the Army is the regular interactions that officers have with each other on several occasions. Thanks to

On being promoted

The Army has taught me to work with loyalty, integrity and grace even under extremely stressful conditions.

I understand the real meaning of a team and teamwork, after working with teams from diverse backgrounds.

As an officer, everyone was made to work to the fullest of their potential regular interview systems and formal occasions, such as the system of ‘bada khaana’ and the frequent celebrations of cultural activities together, the scope of understanding between colleagues increases, allowing more scope for the extraction of the best out of each other.

However, in corporate, relations are restricted to professional relations. It is up to the other person if he or she wants to discuss his or her personal life with his or her colleagues. That way, you don’t build that cohesiveness here.

How would you compare the two jobs with respect to pros and cons?

One of the major strengths of my current job is that I am concentrating on a specifically assigned responsibility, which helps ensure more perfection and specialisation. Secondly, due to the system of posting in Army, one would miss the opportunity to see the completion of many projects one had initiated. But in the corporate, it can be our choice most of the times. Third, in the corporate, we generally change jobs and locations for better opportunities, remuneration and the place of choice of work-mostly it is our decision, but in the Army, it was generally unpredictable and organisational requirements take priority. While in uniform, one has a lot of pressure in terms of being in the right place at the right time, but here, it is quite relaxed in these matters.

To make a choice between the two jobs is difficult. Both have their pros and cons and are not comparable.

In a staff parade

In ceremonials for a social evening

Which of the two jobs is more accepting of women – the Army or the corporate?

In terms of acceptance of women, both are similar. But because of the very low ratio of women in the Army, I had to prove myself every day.

Though on the parameter of physical strength, it is not possible to compare or compete with men, I had to be the best in at least one thing. Like while I could not run better than them, I always ensured I was fit enough to do more sit-ups effortlessly. In corporate, I will not say it’s easy but better. Due to the close-knit environment in the Army, one’s reputation reaches the Officers even before one reaches the next location of work, so we had to maintain a reputation, as one mistake would lead to the whole fraternity being blamed. Though the ways of working were different, I do not feel much difference.

Do you miss working in the Army or the overpowering feeling upon donning the uniform? Given an option, would you like to return to the Armed forces?

Yes, I do miss working in the Army. The feeling when you don the uniform cannot be explained in words. I am sure it is equally difficult for anyone to hang up their boots. Though I had some discomfort while serving in the Army, after hanging up my uniform, I miss the organisation a lot. Not only me, but even people around me miss the organisation and the warmth of it. I would even say that given an opportunity, I would like to return to the Army. namratagulati8@gmail.com March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 37

Budget 2019- Opinions

` Empowering All Interim Budget 2019

Finance minister, Arun Jaitley presented this year's interim budget, on 1 February, 2019, providing an outlook of a financial statement for the year 2019-2020. It is seen by everyone as a crucial budget as it is announced by the ruling government before going towards the 2019 general elections. Corporate Citizen brings you insights from corporate leaders from various sectors, on how the budget will impact the nation

Something for everyone

An ‘election year’ budget that expectedly has something for everyone, from farmers to traders, workers in an unorganised sector to the salaried middle class. The income tax relief will boost urban demand and the assured income support programme for small farmers will lead to a revival in rural consumption, both of which augur well for overall economic revival. The pension scheme for the unorganised sector workers is a welcome move as it will provide a social security net for nearly 10 crore Indians and will bring them under a registered jobs database. The government has balanced the populist tone of the Budget by signalling its commitment to stick to the road of fiscal discipline.

It was, however, disappointing to see the absence of any additional allocation for healthcare or incentives for science and technology. For the startups sector, Angel tax holiday for 10 years was expected but it did not happen.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson & MD, Biocon 38 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

Compelling vision for India

The Government, in its Budget 2019 has articulated a compelling vision for India, both for the medium and long term. It has provided direction, and a finite and ambitious goal for India, of becoming a USD 10 trillion economy by 2030. For the short term, this is a budget that has something for everyone, but more particularly the middle class, the agricultural community and marginalized sections of society. The sense of inclusion, financial as well as welfare is welcome and much needed to build the force for a stronger nation that can march towards what I call Vision 2030.

Anil Valluri, President, India & SAARC Operations, NetApp

`

Positive changes for agricultural sector

Hurrah for homebuyers

It’s a good budget focused on implementing positive changes to the agricultural sector. We believe this will pave the way for the sector to see increased participation from businesses in improving farmer skills and income. In addition to Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and other measures to increase farmer income, agricultural inputs and machinery should also be exempted from indirect taxes bringing down costs. Businesses should be allowed to invest intelligence in the cultivation of all crops and should be encouraged to set up model farms across India.

This will be a huge step in educating farmers on best practices and build knowledge pool. In addition, the Government should allow for massive investments to address issues at the ground level like soil degradation and gaps in Package of Practices. We are happy to see an increased allocation for MGNREGA in this direction.

Ravindra Agrawal, MD, KisanKraft

The Interim Budget of 2019 will definitely benefit both the affordable housing sector as well as homebuyers. The budget focused groups, especially homebuyers. The past five years has brought forth a number of policies including RERA and the Benami Transaction Act which will help bring in greater transparency within the sector.

The Government announced policies that would, directly and indirectly, impact the homebuyers, including a complete tax rebate for those earning up to `5 lakh, an increase in disposable income and an exemption of notional rent on the second self-occupied home. This directly implies regained trust between home buyers and the sector, and we can expect this to boost the second home market to a great extent. We are looking forward to further announcements on the reduced GST burden for homebuyers, which will further encourage greater investments and a further growth.

Ramji Subramaniam, MD, Sowparnika Projects and Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd.

Acche din for middle-class taxpayers

Beneficial to developers and builders

Middle-class taxpayers including salaried and pensioners are here to see some ‘Acche Din’ owing to tax sops announced in the Interim Budget 2019 and which came in over and above the expectations. In the entire endeavour, the FM has managed to please the debt market by containing the target current account deficit to 2.5% for FY19 and fiscal deficit to 3.4% for both FY19 and FY20.

Overall, the finance minister gave a road map and vision for next 10 years where he would like to take the economy, reducing hassles of the taxpayers and going digital thereby reducing the personal interface between taxpayer and tax officers. Overall, the budget struck a chord with almost all the segments of the society.

Arun Thukral, Axis Securities

While measures such as RERA have brought in processes to protect home buyers and streamline investments in the sector, the current budget has also announced measures to largely benefit developers and builders thereby making it a progressive one. The extended tax years on deemed rental income from an unsold inventory of residential apartments remaining in the hands of developers will definitely lessen the tax burden on builders. It will be a morale booster for developers holding unsold stock of apartments in a sluggish market. Recommendation to reduce GST from the existing 12% will have less burden on home buyers and will improve the buying power of genuine buyers who may have deferred buying homes.

Gururaj Bhat, CFO, Karle Group

Election breaking budget

The Interim Union Budget was supposed to be a vote on account of being an Election Year but turned out to be a populist and election breaking one. The Budget does no harm and can be aptly summarised as a pragmatic Balancing Act. From a macro perspective, despite the aggregate GST collections being less than 7% over the last six months, the Finance Minister hopes to end FY19 with a contained slippage at 3.4 % of GDP. The same estimates have been maintained for FY20 which is no doubt challenging considering the likely 0.5% downward impact the farmer cash transfer and the tax exemption would cost the exchequer. It is bold thinking and guarded optimism on tax buoyancy which is lending itself to the optimism for FY20. As we all appreciate the full blown out proposals would be left to the discretion of the New Govt. in July 19.

It is an Election Year and one had more scepticism as we headed towards May but FM Piyush Goyal should be complimented for having done his Maths to a granular level and presenting a set of proposals which no one would grudge and additionally make a few faces smile.

KV Ganesh, President - Finance & CFO, TVS Tyres

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 39

Budget 2019- Opinions Critical areas touched

Social and physical infrastructure

With the belief that India is poised to be a five trillion economy, the Budget 2019 aims at building the social and physical infra to ease living.

The income support for farmers, increase in MSP, 2% interest subvention for fisheries and animal husbandry, schemes for unorganised workers have brightened the rural economy and agriculture sector. In Government projects, the decision to source 25% material from SMEs, 3% from only women-owned SMEs is a case of lead by example which with other following suits would usher more opportunities to the doorstep of SMEs. Quarterly return for businesses less than five crore, the promise of further exemptions in GST, the GEM (Govt E-Marketplace) platform where MSMEs can showcase and sell their products are all steps that have been done with the aim is to empower the MSME sector.

Sunil Gupta, Founder & Director, ExportersIndia.com

It’s a lukewarm affair

The proposed programmes for the farmers and the unorganised sector focuses on the distress and empowerment of the rural economy.

PM Kisan Samman Nidhi is not a programme to substitute the farmers’ income, rather it should be seen as a policy that supplements their earnings. Also, the Budget brought to notice the impending issue of retirement planning even in the unorganised sector. It could have been better if the threshold limit in the slab rates would have been increased from `2.50 lakhs to `5 lakhs to pass on the benefit to all taxpayers, than providing the relief as a rebate for people with annual income up to 5 lakhs. Also, the India Inc had been expecting some relief on corporate tax; this may be focused in the later budget this year.

Kulwinder Singh Kohli, Founder and Non-Executive Chairman, Frankfinn Group

The 2019 Budget has touched upon critical areas such as enhancing tax exemption for salaried employees and digitising the entire tax filing process.

The decision to carry all tax verifications via an anonymous digital interface and processing all tax returns within 24 hours displays the Government’s strong intention to build a digital nation, whilst putting convenience in the hands of its citizens and ensuring complete transparency. Finally, the increase in the standard deduction for salaried citizens from INR 40, 000 to INR 50, 000 is an encouraging move as more than three crore middle-class taxpayers will now get the tax benefit of almost 4700 cr. In addition to this, the Government of India has also exempted tax for employees earning an annual income of up to INR five lakh which is a welcome move as it gives more liquidity to the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Bhavin Turakhia, co-founder and CEO, Zeta

No concrete incentives for EVs

The statements given by the government in this budget, highlight the intention of the government to promote road transportation by building new highways. Building 27kms of highways per day will make India the fastest highway developer in the world. The growth in the network of highways will lead to the creation of direct jobs and contribute to tourism. The Sagar Mala project will improve port linkages and drive the export of cars, critical for Make in India. We are supportive of Vision 2030 mentioned by Mr Goyal in the context of electric vehicles (EVs). The Budget was largely silent on concrete incentives for EVs but we hope that in the next FAME policy, the Government will spell out incentives for all stakeholders in the EV ecosystem – manufacturers, charging infrastructure providers and operators.

Sunil Gupta, MD and CEO, Avis India 40 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

A pro-growth budget

We see this as a pro-growth budget with the focus on bridging Bharat with India. The Budget is focused on infrastructure and rural development and large scale employment generation. There is a high momentum with the tax reforms announced among the citizens. This will give rise to increased adoption of energy-efficient consumer appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, etc. which are no longer considered luxury items.

Such consumer appliances need to be made more affordable while there is electrification of towns and villages, with a special focus on Tier III and rural economies. The Government’s ten point vision is a positive move as it covers a wide focus area comprising building next-gen infrastructure, Digital India, boosting startups, clean and green India, bringing down imports, expanding rural industrialisation among others.

Achal Bakeri, Founder, Chairman and MD, Symphony Ltd

Good for EV Startups

Thumbs up to it

Hon’ble FM has done a commendable job by walking the tight rope between fiscal consolidation, tax benefits and addressing farmer’s concerns. The budget focused on moderation of taxes with greater emphasis on tax compliance and stayed away from any loan waiver schemes though the benefits announced for farmers are recurring in nature and will put pressure on the fiscal math.

Although there was 0.1% increase in the fiscal deficit to 3.40%; this slippage is within an acceptable threshold keeping in mind that this is an election year and the budget was bound to be populist in nature. The budget had no negatives for any sector.

Saurabh S Jain, MD, SSJ Finance & Securities

Pro-poor and pro-middle-class

The budget comes as a stress buster for a large segment of the Indian population.

With measures such as tax rebate and health coverage for a majority, a great deal of mental stress will be reduced. It is a pro-poor and pro-middle-class budget. The government’s efforts towards addressing the worries of this section are commendable and will remove a lot of their physical and mental worries -thereby ensuring better health for them.

Under the government’s India 2030 vision, the ninth and tenth dimensions focus on healthy India and a comprehensive wellness system, respectively.

Padma Shri Awardee, Dr KK Aggarwal, President, HCFI

This 2019 Budget has been encouraging for EV Startups like us. We gained confidence in the announcement that India will lead the world in Electric Vehicles (EV) sector. This was backed by the reduction of import duties on components for electric cars. As seen in many other sectors, the growth in new initiatives comes from semi-urban and rural areas.

Our focus, on EV tourism, gets complimented with the government's vision of bringing an EV revolution to India by 2030 in many such locations. With the upcoming FAME-II likely to come out by March 2019, we hope the wider industry would benefit and gain encouragement through clear incentives.

Samarth Kholkar, CEO & Co-Founder, Arcis Clean Energy

Fair for women

The FM addressed the need of the hour by encouraging MSMEs and women entrepreneurs which will surely boost our economy. The increase in basic exemption limit to `5,00,000 will stimulate additional investments and disposable income resulting in more investment power. I also think that tax breaks for women returning to work will prove to be of immense help. An alarming number of women drop out of the workforce due to a number of reasons. Incentivising their return to work in the form of tax breaks will have a long-term positive impact on the economy. The government in order to boost women’s participation in formal sector jobs the previous budget proposed a lower rate of contribution towards schemes under the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).

Priti Rathi Gupta, MD and Promoter, Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers and Founder LXME

Good for startup ecosystem

Today, deep science startups are providing home-grown, cost-effective solutions to India's struggles for water, energy and the healthcare segments. Startups in these segments have also created employment opportunities and contributed to the country's current exponential economic growth. Hence they must be viewed in the context of national goals. The government has initiated funding schemes like MUDRA, ‘Startup India’, and ‘Stand-Up India, to make such startups easy, and enable quick access to credit for budding entrepreneurs and thus help them overcome financial strains.

Effective implementation of these will definitely help the startup ecosystem grow significantly.

CS Murali, Chairman, STEM, Entrepreneurship Cell, Society for Innovation & Development, IISC (Bangalore)

new avenues for MSMEs

Easy access to finance will help SMEs develop proprietary indigenous technologies and products. The government’s ‘Make in India’ programme along with ‘Designed & Developed in India’, will enable the sector to grow exponentially.

The 25% allocation of public project material requirements to MSME’s, will surely open up new avenues while GeM (Government eMarketplace) has already created a transparent market for MSMEs.

Yatishwar Dravid, Head, TIME, SME Initiative Society for Innovation & Development, IISC (Bangalore)

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 41

CII case study-5

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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in a Report on 'Good People Management Practices' has compiled real-life case studies of organisational initiatives to inculcate best practices in the industry. This Case Study pertains to KHS Machinery Pvt. Ltd., which showcases how its Contract Employees have become integral stakeholders in the success of the organisation

42 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

“Our employees come first... With trust and focused encouragement, every employee flourishes to new levels of achievement.”

- Yatindra Sharma, MD - KHS India For the last 21 years, KHS India, a majority-owned joint venture operation of KHS GmbH, Germany, has been a zero debt and consistently profitable company since its inception at Ahmedabad in May 1997. Another significant feather in its cap is that despite 50% of its human resources being in contract employee category, there has not been a single day of production loss or labour unrest since its inception.

The above has been possible due to the core values of the organisation and the adroit management and foresight of the senior management team, as all people issues are proactively managed.

Brief profile of KHS India

KHS India is a total solution provider for filling and packaging lines and systems for beverage, food and non-food industries in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives. Its product portfolio includes filling and

packaging systems for water, beer, soft drinks, juice, wine, and highly sensitive beverages and dairy products with machines that manufacture plastic bottles, bottle washers, fillers, labelers, packers, palletizers and conveyor systems. KHS India has its factory and headquarters in Ahmedabad and sales-cum-service offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

KHS India has around 500 on-roll and contract employees and an average annual sales turnover of INR 300 cr.

Employee First style

Due to its caring attitude and putting the employee first, KHS India has a satisfied and motivated team of both on-roll and contract employees.

It’s an inherent belief embedded in all systems, processes and activities that lead to KHS treating its on-roll employees and contract employees on similar terms. The team’s career development, engagement, learning, growth, health and wellbeing are of paramount importance. The senior team frequently reaches out to the team members down the line and listens to their ideas and suggestions.

Joy

Imagination

Action

Perseverance

Focus

KHS CREDO

The senior leadership team promotes and supports the KHS values and credo and it is very actively adhered to by the employees. The focus is on enhancing the individual sense of wellbeing at the workplace.

KHS attaches great importance to the creation of the culture of excellence by actively encouraging all team members to contribute, and supporting those who have a differential view point to understand their perspective.

It has a zero tolerance policy towards any violation of ethics and integrity matters and it is taken up at the highest level of the MD. The Management encourages “whistle blowing” practices by their open access culture and team members are encouraged to walk up and report even a minor ethical transgression.

The culture of excellence is embedded in the systems and processes in all areas of work. Efforts of employees for excellence are recognised and rewarded through multiple initiatives. Employees contributing to 5S, Kaizen and Safety are regularly recognised and rewarded. The company recognises and takes care of its talent by various mechanisms i.e. fast track promotions, individual awards, team awards, spot awards, praise in open March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 43

CII case study-5 forums, pat on the back by the MD and recognition during annual events.

Highlights of conversations with Contract Employees on their perception of work culture, benefits, facilities etc. at KHS is detailed further in this article… The names of the contract employees have been masked to ensure confidentiality.

Why does a contract employee join KHS?

KHS is known for picking up good talented contract employees from socially and economically backward sections and for providing them with an opportunity to learn, contribute and grow. All of them have lived up to the confidence that KHS has reposed in them.

The Industry in which KHS operates is cyclical in nature and while some months will have reduced workloads, the period from November till March is super loaded with work. Despite this cyclical nature of work, no contract employee is let to go during the lean months, nor forced to take mandatory leave or given extended weekly off. This action on the part of KHS results in massive goodwill and support amongst its employees and encourages their full hearted participation and involvement.

A Contract Employee A, working in the Manufacturing dept. maintains that this job security is, “one of the major attractions and it feels like a family where no one is thrown out even if there is not enough work load!”

“I was thrilled to be selected by the German company and chose this even though I had two other offers. Thereafter I stayed on for 20 years as we have excellent interpersonal relations with all the employees,” is the statement of one of the oldest Contract Employees.

Why are Contract Employees happy at work… what retains them in the company?

“We get our salary and bonus on time and sometimes even before time if it's a festival holiday. The canteen has excellent food, we have a smart set of uniforms (four sets to be exact) and the bus service is superb.”

This is the unanimous chorus of the Contract Employees on being asked what the key factors are that makes them happy at KHS. Another employee chirped in, “Not only me but my family is also very happy that I am working at KHS”!

The facilities for On-roll and Contract employees are similar, whether it is the uniform type, cloth or number of pieces; the excellent and highly subsidized lunch (80% subsidy) and tasty snacks at the common canteen; the day long availability of tea/coffee/drinking chocolate at the multiple Café Coffee Day machine, the transport facility, the Health Centre and various employee engagement activities. Being treated on par with on-roll employees creates an atmosphere of equality, pride and ownership.

All employees are treated fairly and with respect. Their supervisors and managers make them feel valued and they feel that their contribution matters. The interpersonal relations are very good and all conflicts are immediately addressed. Contract Employee B working in QA states, “We resolve all matters at our level and with the help of the supervisors. Very rarely is it ever escalated to the managers or head of departments!”

The work life balance is very good and quite a few of the contract employees have enough time to do additional work at farms, shops or as part time freelancers for different jobs. During the lean months at KHS plant, there are training activities, sports events, hands on training on products, etc., organised for the Contract Employees. “It’s fun to be at KHS” avers Contract Employee C. “I look forward to coming to work everyday!”

“My family is very proud that I work at KHS and my parents don’t allow

me to look for job opportunities outside KHS. Seeing the blue company T-shirt with KHS mark, even unknown people stop me at tea stalls or road side and remark that you are lucky to be working at KHS. My friends, neighbours and other acquaintances keep requesting me for job openings at KHS. I have referred six to seven candidates and they have been hired,” is the proud statement by employee D working in the spares dept. Employment at KHS is a matter of pride for the people staying in the vicinity of this industrial belt and much looked forward to the opportunity.

"I get the opportunity to travel by flight. I have been to Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Jammu and the company takes very good care of me! I could never have even dreamt of travelling by flight on my own, but KHS did it for me! I don't know if any other company allows flight for its employees!”was the highlight remark of a KHS a contract employee working in the Electrical department.

KHS has a family oriented work culture and employee engagement is a top priority area. This is embedded in all activities that the company does whether it is providing medical assistance to the needy or educational support to the children or simple personal loans to tide over any financial need.

Additionally at the workplace, there are multiple opportunities to participate in either sport, cultural activities, community initiatives, special projects, adventure sports and travelling. Each employee has the freedom and flexibility to participate in the activity of their choice and liking. “I got to play cricket during office hours and participate in a Rangoli competition. I loved it and told about it to my family and friends outside”! The amazement of a relatively recently joined Contract Employee (joined two years back) with work experience at a couple of other leading companies was palpable.

The decision of regularisation as an On-roll Employee does generate a certain amount of heart burn and internal competition amongst the team, yet it spurs many others to put forward their best efforts on a daily basis at work

44 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

How are Contract Employees regularly upskilled and trained?

While the conventional class room training is being sparingly used through the help of experienced internal trainers, KHS lays a lot of emphasis on hands-on training and learning by doing. For this exposure, rotation through departments, product lines and client site is frequently used.

KHS has implemented a system of formulating a qualification and skill matrix for employees in different departments. This matrix is derived based on the requirements of the organisation and the specific roles assigned to each department. Requirements in terms of knowledge and skills are identified for each activity of the department and employees are assessed and trained according to their skill levels.

The KHS Akademy is fully equipped with prototypes to learn and test the skills. The Akademy draws its faculty from amongst the most experienced and high potential employees and their expertise is shared with the other participants. Employees are also deputed to client site along with seasoned team members who would be involved in the installation, commissioning, maintenance or troubleshooting. To a question on whether you have been provided training to do your job, Contract Employee E working in QA dept replied, “My supervisor and manager spent a lot of time to train me on the work and the various tools. They guided me on different processes and now at times I am even called upon by the design dept. to help them when they have an extra work load. I willingly and happily help them out!”

“I joined with experience of only house wiring, then my supervisor and manager trained me in machine wiring. I learnt everything on the job. I have been trained so well on the machines that I can handle the customer

Employee Name

Read Drawings

Choice of measurement instruments

Handling of measuring instruments

Carefulness during inspection

Handling of incoming goods

Knowledge of part applications

Using TRIMOS

Following the defined rules

Z

C

C

C

L

C

L

C

C

Z1

C

C

C

C

C

L

C

C

Z2

C

C

C

C

C

L

C

C

Z3

C

C

C

C

C

L

C

C

Z4

C

C

C

C

C

L

C

C

Z5

C

C

C

L

C

L

C

C

Can do this job independently and is an expert.

Can do this job, but is not an expert. Must learn.

Can’t do this job. Has to be trained. site by myself. I even provide training to the new engineers!” states a contract employee from the Electrical Manufacturing dept.

The effort by Supervisors and Managers to train the contract employees and make them experts in their area of work adds a lot of value to the skill sets of these employees. “More than 60% of contract employees are working with us since the last 10 to 20 years. They started in KHS as mechanics and due to the training and exposure, they are now working as specialists of a particular product. We feel very proud to be part of their success journey from Mechanics to Specialists,” proudly proclaims Ajay Shah (VP - Operations and Plant Head).

How is safety and wellness managed at the workplace and do you have a role to contribute?

KHS very strongly espouses a safe and healthy work culture and mandates all its On-roll and Contract Employees to adhere to safe work and behavioural practices. We have an active safety team and medical commandos that are vigilantly manning this culture. There is 25% representation of Contract Employees on the safety team and medical commandos.

One of the critical components of ensuring occupational safety is having manpower trained with the necessary skills and knowledge of taking immediate decisions in case of an emergency situation. All members are well trained and qualified for managing any emergency situation like firefighting, first aid or any other disaster.

Further, KHS has defined guidelines for risk assessment for the ongoing identification of OHandS Hazards, assessment of risks and implementation of necessary control measures. The SHE programme has established a safe place of work for Contract employees at the shop floor through KHS-PS programmes and established design, provision, and maintenance of any article, plant, equipment or machinery for use at work in a safe manner. Standardised accident prevention and management systems, mock drills and training to manage emergencies at work, Periodic Safety Walks, Regular Safety Audits are conducted with full involvement of all employees. “I feel very safe in the factory and also the air quality inside the premises is very good” was a major sentiment amongst the Contract Employees. I am satisfied with the PPEs like safety shoes, protective gear (gloves, masks, helmets, harness, special suits, etc.) that are provided to identified Contract Employees performing specialised tasks,” states the Safety officer.

Annual medical check-up along with follow-up by a senior medical doctor and personal counselling is provided to all contract employees.

“The Company is concerned about our health and after the medical checkup, ensures that a doctor advises us on one on one basis. Last time a contract employee was advised by the doctor for a more detailed checkup and that lead to the identification of cancer. This timely investigation

helped to save the life of the employee!” was the response when queried whether the annual medical check-up was useful or not.

“Help from Vikas Nidhi Trust for prolonged medical treatment and financial assistance at the time of death” came in for special mention by the contract employees.

An employee’s contribution to the trust is met by matching the donation

by KHS. Further assistance by KHS in terms of salary for the period of absence and support for medical expenses was much appreciated as the contract employees feel that there is a safety financial net for themselves and their families. They would like to get benefits like housing and personal loans to be also extended to them.

How frequently do you receive recognition from your manager? When was the last time you received any recognition?

Reward and recognition policies are very robust and apart from the annual rewards, the management gives spot awards and verbal recognitions for a job done well where an employee has gone beyond the call of duty and done some outstanding work. With the active implementation of encouraging Kaizens and 5 S activities, there are ample opportunities to be recognised and rewarded in addition to work related rewards. Participation in sports and cultural activity also leads to self-actualisation and will be awarded for good performance.

A few feedbacks received:

“I got an award for excellent housekeeping under 5S competition in the stores department.”

“I submitted ten Kaizen’s in five years and got three awards.”

“5 Critical Kaizens submitted and four were accepted and awarded”.

“Tame bahut saras Kaam karya”, “You did very good work, just this statement from my supervisor motivates me”.

“My team won the first prize in the Rangoli Competition.”

“I was given best performer in Garba on family day.”

Can you give feedback to your supervisor/manager? Do they listen to you? How do you communicate with them?

KHS supports an open and transparent work culture and inculcating harmonious relations amongst all employees at all levels. The senior leaders spend a lot of time with their department employees and also employees from other departments. Cross functional teams work on various projects and synergise their collective skills to manage assigned tasks. There are multiple communication channels that are employed to gather communication from the employees and also to disseminate the required communication.

The senior team has an open-door policy wherein employees can walk into March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 45

CII case study-5

Performance Evaluation Criteria • Job Knowledge • Attendance/Punctuality • On-time work/activity/project completion • Kaizen ideas/suggestions submitted • Clean/Maintain work area, tools and equipment • Multi-tasking capability and willingness • Work behavior/Discipline • Team Work ability • Adherence to safety requirements • Compilation of periodic performance data and records • Initiation of confirmation process in coordination with SH (HR) • Readiness to visit site (I&C, Service)/do additional work their offices and walk up to to them while they are on the shop floor rounds and discuss their suggestions, ideas and concerns.

The Team Leads at the shop floor along with the Head Operations have the responsibility of daily, weekly and as per specific needs meetings with the Contract Employees. They are also addressed by the MD on special occasions of Family Day and various awards ceremonies for Kaizen, 5S etc.“The MD walks on the shop floor many times and I can directly talk to him; I can share my suggestions and concerns with my supervisor; I am encouraged to speak in team meetings; My manager listens to me”… are some of the responses received from the employees.

What is the biggest attraction/wish at KHS? “Our biggest hope and desire is to be regularised as a regular employee"!

46 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

The KHS Akademy is fully equipped with prototypes to learn and test the skills. The Akademy draws its faculty from amongst the most experienced and high potential employees and their expertise is shared with the other participants This desire resonates with almost all Contract Employees and they look forward to be inducted as regular employees. KHS regularly monitors the performance, discipline and behaviour of the Contract Employees and meritorious staff are selected and regularised as On-roll Employees as Foremen or Technicians. The merit based performance appraisal system assesses the contract employee on multiple criteria so that a well-balanced assessment is conducted. The annual increments and regularisation as On-roll employee decisions are made based on these assessments.

The decision of regularisation as an On-roll Employee does generate a certain amount of heart burn and internal competition amongst the team, yet it spurs many others to put forward their best efforts on a daily basis at work.

The fact that the company does not differentiate in terms of its facilities for On-roll and Contract Employees creates a sense of ownership and belongingness. With annual attrition of single digits, there are many Contract Employees who have been with the company for more than 20 years. There has never been any discussion of a move towards any kind of union activity or non cooperation. The environment of trust and respect nurtured at KHS makes it a unique place to work and grow. One of the Contract Employee summed up the general sentiment by stating that “KHS is better than the best”!!

My First Boss

‘My first manager took me under his wing’ Mr. V.R. Kannan

I

Sanjay Lohani credits his first manager’s invaluable advice in overcoming adversity and long-term thinking

t was early 1992, I had joined Sun Pharma some months ago as a rep. There was a buzz in the company about a special task force of management cadre being created with 8-10 best reps/front line managers from all over the country. The selection criteria were product knowledge, communication skills and experience. A new manager, Mr. V.R. Kannan, was to lead the team.

I had the opportunity to get one of the fastest promotions - from a mere rep to management in less than a year. Since I lacked experience, the local managers didn’t recommend my name.

Still, the HO called me for the interview perhaps based on my performance during the training programme.

Mr. Kannan was to take the interview, and I was confident, proud of my ‘in-depth product

knowledge.’ And when I saw him I was sure that it would be easy to convince him. He was a lean, plainly dressed and seemingly amicable person without the usual power halo often associated with corporate leaders.

As the interview begun, I realised I had totally underestimated him. His pointed questions were like he was peeling an onion - going deeper with every question, and soon my superficial knowledge laid bare. My ego was punctured and there I was disappointed, dejected and hurt at the lost opportunity. But I returned in awe of Mr. Kannan!

I don’t know why he selected me and I became part of his task force - the objective was to “concept-sell” alpha-blockers in hypertension - the bigger objective was to change the perception of Sun Pharma among leading doctors as a science-based company. That was eventually achieved when the project ended.

Later, Mr. Kannan left Sun Pharma and joined Micro Labs and offered me a position in the PMT. I was an inexperienced, non-MBA but with an intense hunger to join the PMT. He took upon himself to mentor me and introduced me to books from Philip Kotler, David Ogilvy and David Aaker. He would mark pages for me to read and then ask me questions on my understanding and then his tutorials would begin.

He would nudge me, push me, challenge me and in the process shaped me into a marketing professional which later gave me the opportunity to head marketing functions of well-known organisations like Zimmer.

In retrospect, I realise, I was simply lucky to have Mr. Kannan as my first true manager who had great depth of business acumen, leadership and strategy that he shared with me through his experiences!

I try returning his favour by mentoring young aspirants whenever I can. My stint as faculty at Narsee Monji helped me to connect with lots of young dynamic minds and I am still connected to them over the years. Mr Kannan taught me to make time for mentoring. It’s a small time commitment that can have a big impact for you and the next you!

The author is Senior Director, Teleflex (India)

#Pulwamaattack This is a slap in the face- far Bigger than the one we got in URI. This is absolutely insulting. it is a Grave and premediated PROVOCATION and most ill timed. 30 boys martyred and still countin Maj Gen GD Bakshi SM @ GeneralBakshi March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 47

Loved & Married too

It is not often these days that a college romance fructifies into wedlock. Corporate Citizen unlocks the story of love that has culminated into marriage, for we believe in the stability of a relationship and family unit. We bring to you real-life romances that got sealed in marriage

“Live, love & learn” “Togetherness is not necessarily about two people looking at each other, but it is certainly about them looking in the same direction,” is what this couple will have you know.

Perhaps it is this simple belief is what brought two individuals from diverse professions together in the first place.

Ten years on, neither CA Dr. Pankaj Vasani nor his better (best, as he insists) half Dr. Poonam Patel Vasani have any complaints about either the choice they made or the principles that brought them together. And yes, the twain has met

By Kalyani Sardesai

H

e’s a CA and lawyer by training, currently executive president and CFO, South Asia for Publicis Group, also recently decorated with “CA CFO of the Year in the Media & Entertainment Sector” by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) for the year 2018. He was similarly awarded the Professional Achiever Award for 2014 by the ICAI in 2014. Plus, he’s a fitness enthusiast with his name in the Guinness World Record for finishing Satara mountain half marathon.

48 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

She’s an Anaesthesiologist and Fellowship holder in Pain and Palliative Medicine. An active member of International Association for Study of Pain, Indian Society for Study of Pain, Indian Association of Palliative Care, Indian Society of Anaesthesiology, Indian Medical Association, Medical Council of India and Indian Society for Critical Care Medicine, she runs a unique set up that explores multi-disciplinary, non-surgical options for any kind of chronic pain. She’s also an author and speaker at various seminars and conferences.

This love story is a slight, no, significant departure from the usual campus romance for the fundamental reason that both belong to different professions. In fact, she was the doctor and him,

the patient. No, this isn’t out of a movie, but the plain truth.

“I was supposed to undergo a minor surgery at the hospital she visited. As the Anaesthesiologist for the procedure she explained how they would use local anaesthesia,” shares Pankaj.

Hardly a cue for humour but being himself-he couldn’t resist. “I solemnly told her I wanted the finest; no local stuff would do.” She burst out laughing. And thereby hangs a tale.

He recovered soon enough but found other reasons to visit her-in hospital of course. Despite the different professions, there was much they shared: both were fellow Gujjus with a decided passion for education, exploration and fitness. “Besides, I thought he was witty and fun-

anderlust y map #w e never in an ar es ac pl True

We both believe that unless you are fulfilled as individuals, you are not likely to find fulfilment in any other relationship, marriage or otherwise. Only when you truly love yourTime with family keeps us self, can you truly love wanting more someone else - Poonam

ny,” recounts Poonam. (Always a welcome point, gentlemen please note!)

Gradually but inevitably, love blossomed.

Their families were happy enough, both had also been brought up in homes that encouraged individual choice be it by way of career or marriage.

Two little ones Divyanshi and Manan complete the circle of joy.

The mantras of matrimony

The mantras of a marriage

What followed, therefore, was the very antithesis of the big, fat wedding. “We had a different take on how we wanted to celebrate our • Shared goals big day,” they say. A small, intimate hered to in the Vasani household. and a common ceremony was followed by multiple “She does not cook and that is abvalue system dinners (note, not receptions) for solutely fine,” says Pankaj. “I am the their assorted friends with lots of one who is the enthusiastic cook. I • Not burdening good food, laughter, conversation always say: she’s great with kidneys, each other with and wine. but not kidney beans-so what?” expectations An unconventional start to an An erudite man himself with unconventional but rewarding degrees in chartered accountancy, • Respecting partnership. Allow us to explain management and law, he is neverspace -unconventional. “Both of us are theless in awe of his medico wife. narcissists,” says Pankaj in all seri“She’s been this academic topper all • Demarcating ousness, even as Poonam nods enthrough and I totally admire that in ‘Us’ time as a thusiastically. her,” he says. (She’s also authored couple multiple papers including one on Lest you think it’s an outrageous pain management.) statement-allow us to qualify that • Growing “In fact, it is our mutual love of further. “We both believe that unindividually, as education and growth that is the less you are fulfilled as individuals, well as together glue that keeps us together,” she you are not likely to find fulfilment smiles. “Living with him is an enin any other relationship, marriage riching experience; he’s not one to stay in the or otherwise. When you pursue your passions same space for long; evolution, both personal wholeheartedly, you are at peace with yourself and and professional is a continuous thing with him. that brings harmony and health to your relationIt’s amazing how he’s grown not just in the workship,” expresses Poonam. “Only when you truly place but also within the family - as father, huslove yourself, can you truly love someone else.” band and son in law,” she says.

A profound thought that can get as complex Fulsome appreciation on both sides inor simple as one chooses to make it. Luckily, both deed-err, how do they manage conflict? “It may have always been on the same page with regard seem like an odd thing to say, but in all these to this. “Honestly speaking, neither of us wastes years that we have been together, I don’t rememany time over silly expectations of each other. ber a fight,” he says. “I guess respect, space and There’s no...he/she should have done this or waitunderstanding go a long way in keeping the hared for me or joined me in our equation. It’s both mony. Looking at things from the other’s viewliberating and strengthening for the relationship point is also a useful habit to practice.” not to have this burden,” says Pankaj. “We both A strong support system in the form of a give each other the space to do our own thing joint family has value-added in a big way too. and never intrude.”

The young family lives with Pankaj’s parents and It helps that gender roles are not strictly ad-

none would have it any other way. “Elders and grandparents add a whole new dimension to the children’s lives and that is something we deeply appreciate,” they say.

Bringing up babies

With two little ones Divyanshi (8) and Manan (5), life is hectic but happy and rewarding. Having been great at academics herself, Poonam would love for both her kids to be doctors, but ultimately, agrees with Pankaj that it’s all about being happy and content with whatever profession one chooses to take up at the end of the day.

“One day they want to be a dancer, the next day, a fire-fighter and we are fine with what they do,” he smiles. What both are conscientious about is building up the reading habit in the children. “It’s come to the point that no matter how much we might want to give it a miss, no way are the kids going to lose out on story time before bed. They want to be read to by mummy or daddy, and that is that,” she grins.

Despite being financially successful both are mindful about keeping the kids grounded. “They learn what they see,” says Pankaj. “So it’s up to us to expose them to various situations that will help them grow. Sure, we both are successful but there is no pressure from us in any way. They must be themselves at all times.”

Amidst all this, the duo is particular about keeping their date night together once a month.

Like a wise man once said, ‘it’s the little things that are actually the big things’. kalyanisardesai@gmail.com

#Pulwamaattack Deeply saddened and shocked to hear the news of the terror attack in #Pulwama. My heart goes out to the families of the brave CRPF soldiers we lost today and praying for the speedy recovery of those injured. @vickykaushal09 March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 49

Campus Placement

A decent job and a

happy heart

A travel enthusiast, Abhishek Sahoo, currently working with Rustamjee Spaces as a Customer Relationship Executive, is making merry while the sun shines.

Corporate Citizen brings you more details By Ekta Katti

“N

ot all who wander are lost,” says Abhishek with the brightest smile. With that statement, it’s quite evident that he loves to travel. And his solo trip to Vizag, Andhra Pradesh from his hometown Bhubaneshwar, Odisha brought to him a plethora of experiences, filling his heart with joy. On a fine sunny morning of April 2017, the traveller in him made him pick up his bag of bare necessities and his car keys and drive off to Vizag —his first solo trip. “It was just as if the beaches of Vizag were calling out to me,” he exclaims.

The 500-km journey was an experience of a lifetime.

Cool breeze, sunny beaches, a joyous heart, clear mind and a shiny sky—he couldn’t ask for more. Sometimes unplanned events bring out the best in you. As he says, “It’s fine not knowing what’s in store for you. You don’t always have to plan your future. I feel that unforeseen events create some of the best memories. And quite frankly, I live for them.”

Humble beginning

Born to Manoj and Manika Sahoo in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, Abhishek’s modest upbring50 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

ing is a clear testament of his liberal attitude.

He completed most of his education in Odisha.

With the aim of flying high, he opted for BBA from Utkal University. Soon after his graduation, he took a year’s gap to actually understand what he wanted from life. “That one year opened several doors for me. I understood my-

self better, travelled places and spent time with my family and friends. By the end of the year, my mind was crystal clear and I was completely game for the upcoming events,” he says.

He also inherited the passion for exploring the roads less travelled from his father. “Every year without fail, my father used to take us on these amazing trips. Delhi, Shimla, Chennai, Vizag—we have seen most of India courtesy my father’s love for travelling. And that’s where I got the bug to visit new places,” he explains.

Clearly, for him, his father was his hero who taught him several virtues of life—one of them

being patience. Growing up, his father always preached about the importance of being calm and composed. “There were times when people doubted my capabilities in picking up my future, but it was my father who assured me that I should go with my gut. And look where I have landed—a decent job and a happy heart,” he says.

He always lives by his father’s preaching, “Stay calm, what belongs to you shall come back.”

Testing waters

College life for Abhishek was a great learning experience. Heading cultural fests in college gave him the opportunity to see life from a closer perspective. “For me leading the fests was a huge responsibility. It made me realise my capabilities. Successfully curating one of the biggest fests in Bhubaneshwar was an immense confidence booster,” he says. The tradition of leading fests continued while he was in Abhishek Sahoo during his annual class photo Pune for post-graduation at one of India’s “There were times when people renowned B-Schools.

There he ensured the doubted my capabilities in picking smooth working of up my future, but it was my father various dance shows who assured me that I should go organised by his college. with my gut. And look where I Time management have landed—a decent job and a was one of the few learnings that his colhappy heart” lege life taught him. “We geared me polish my communication skills. The work ommates all ran a tight schedule. It basics of cooking. ft) with his ro (le o ho Sa k Abhishe journey has been great so far and I am eager looked like a mammoth Her food melts my r a DJ night to know what’s in store for me next.” Describtask first, but later it be- up fo heart and fills my ing his work, he explains, “The CRE duties are came a part of my life. stomach with joy,” he smiles. Taking forward increasingly becoming pivotal. With the rising Managing college and social life became fun. his passion for food, he hopes to set up a fine demands of the customers, we need to update Not to forget, I made close friends during this dining restaurant. our knowledge as per the target market. That’s time who later became a part of my family,” he “Getting placed with the best company and where my interest peaks. While dealing with reminisces. learning as much as I can topped my to-do list customer needs, we ought to offer them ideas Everyone teaches you a lot, more so your then,” he says. Further adding, “I still rememand insights as a means of building a lifelong friends, he feels. When his life hit rock botber the day when I got the confirmation from relationship with them.” tom during his college days, only a few of his the company I had applied to. Awaiting a mail ektaakatti@gmail.com friends stuck by him. “Those days were tough. from them made me quite anxious hence I deNot knowing what to do, I derived most of cided to hit the gym. A few minutes into the my strength from my close friends Pooja and workout, the phone rang and my heart started Somya. Later, I gained confidence and picked racing. Things fell in place and I got the accepmyself up. All I learnt was to stay strong with my tance letter. That day will always be etched in head held high,” says an emotional Abhishek. my memory.”

Abhishek has been working with Rustamjee Spaces, Mumbai, as a Customer Relationship Foodie at heart Executive (CRE) for four months now. ResponAbhishek is a foodie who loves to gorge on sible for handling customers’ needs and wishes food at any time of the day. “My affection for pertaining to real estate, Abhishek’s experience food made my life beautiful. Food will never #Pulwamaattack has grown leaps and bounds just within a few disappoint you,” says Abhishek, who turns to Disgusted at the cowardly terror days. Elated with the work environment, he food be it any moment. He not only loves to attack on the #CRPF soldiers in says, “Working with this esteemed organisation eat, but his passion for food has turned him #Pulwama - my sincere condolences is a dream come true. Getting the opportuniinto an amazing home chef. After several atto the families of our brave jawans. ty to work at both the main and site office, my tempts, he mastered making the Mughlai Saddened. Angry. knowledge got a great boost. Interacting with Chicken and lip-smacking Chicken Biryani. @RanveerOffical people to understand their needs has helped “I get it from my mother. She taught me the March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 51

Survey

CEOs not upbeat about 2019 What do global CEOs feel about the future?

Multinational professional services firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers’s 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey of 1,378 chief executives in more than 90 territories explores that question and many others regarding the global business climate in 2019.

Corporate Citizen brings you the results Compiled by Neeraj Varty

The findings are a reality check After hailing the prospects for global economic growth last year, CEOs curbed their enthusiasm this year with a sharp rise in those indicating that global growth would ‘decline’. As noted, we went from a record jump in the percentage of chief executives projecting that global economic growth would ‘improve’ in 2018 (from 29% to 57%) to a record jump in the percentage projecting growth would ‘decline’ in 2019 (from 5% to 29%.

436% increase in the share of CEOs who expect global economic growth to 'decline'.

In every region, the share of CEOs who believe global growth will ‘decline’ grew significantly Across every region, the share of CEOs who believe the global growth rate will ‘decline’ has grown significantly. The rise in relative pessimism evidenced in the survey is not that surprising. Most major economic models have adjusted their 2019 forecasts downward. In fact, many economists see a slowdown as overdue. International trade tensions, political upset and uncertainty, and stricter monetary and fiscal policy all play out differently but with the same general result across regions: a more cautious outlook on global economic growth.

Decline

52 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

Stay the Same

Improve

Global 5% 36%

Asia-Pacific 5%

29%

33%

2018

42%

2019

60%

2018

Africa

28%

30%

50%

2019

23% 32%

65%

2018

CEE

Western Europe

5%

5%

20%

28% 57%

Latin America

45%

2019

10% 48%

41%

2018

25% 35%

40%

2019

4% 31%

47%

45%

2018

36%

28% 38%

2019

North America 3%

33%

34%

2018

28% 34%

29% 58%

Middle East 10%

38%

37% 35%

38%

63%

37%

52%

28%

2019

2018

2019

2018

2019

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 53

Survey Confidence in organisations’ revenue growth prospects has fallen sharply as well 57%

52%

50%

50%

51%

47%

46%

46% 44%

48%

44%

42%

40% 36%

34%

39%

49%

49%

45%

39% 35%

2009

2010

2011

2012

Global economic growth (improve)

29%

18%

15% 2008

42%

35% 27%

2007

42% 36%

38%

37%

31% 21%

51%

2013

2014

2015

Confidence next 3 years (very confident)

CEOs’ confidence in their own organisations’ short (12-month) and medium-term (three-year) revenue growth prospects charted against their assessment of global economic growth. Unlike last year, when economic

2016

2017

2018

2019

Confidence next 12 months (very confident)

optimism surged but organisational confidence did not, this year the message is broadly consistent: CEOs anticipate subdued growth all across the board.

Threats that are top-of-mind are less existential and more related to the ease of doing business 2018 top ten threats

2019 top ten threats

1. Over-regulation

42%

2. Terrorism

41%

1. Over-regulation

35%

2. Policy uncertainty

35%

3. Geopolitical uncertainty

40%

3. Availability of key skills

4. Cyber threats

40%

4. Trade conflicts

34% 31%

5. Availability of key skills

38%

5. Cyber threats

30%

6. Speed of technological change

38%

6. Geopolitical uncertainty

30% 30%

7. Increasing tax burden

36%

7. Protectionism

8. Populism

35%

8. Populism

28%

9. Speed of technological change

28%

9. Climate change and environmental damage 10. Exchange rate volatility

31% 29%

10. Exchange rate volatility

26%

13. Climate change and environmental damage 23. Terrorism In general, fewer CEOs are ‘extremely concerned’ about any and all threats to their business, even as they demonstrate lower confidence in their own revenue prospects. CEOs are more mindful of what’s going on in their immediate purview as they await greater clarity on government actions and market conditions. Over-regulation, the perennial top threat since we began asking this question in 2008, maintains first place globally. It 54 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

19% 13%

is joined in the top five threats by policy uncertainty, availability of key skills and trade conflicts. All of these are more immediate concerns tied to the ease of doing business within the economic infrastructure of one’s own markets. Top of mind among CEOs’ concerns is what dominates the headlines. Terrorism events dropped off in 2018, while trade conflicts and policy uncertainty rose to the fore.

Look inside-out for growth Amid the wave of populist and protectionist sentiment sweeping across continents, CEOs have turned their focus inward, as they adapt to newly erected barriers between markets, both trade and labour. They are less bothered by the broad, existential threats that rose in the rankings last = change and are more ‘extremely year — for example, terrorism and climate = concerned’ about the ease of doing business in the markets where they operate. The revenue and expansion opportunities CEOs identify are also more internally oriented and closer to home.

62% 62%

Of CEOs who are ‘extremely concerned’ about trade conflicts, two-thirds are changing their strategy Of those CEOs who expressed ‘extreme concern’ about the trade conflicts of 2018, the one between the US and China overshadowed other protectionist moves as particularly worrisome, with 88% expressing concern. It outweighed other trade= tensions not only in the minds of Asia-Pacific and North America CEOs but also those in Western Europe.

Global

58%

45%

China

US

44% 40% 33%

30% 25%

23%

33%

23%

22%

23% 16%

15%

13% 8%

We are adjusting our supply chain and sourcing strategy

We are shifting our growth strategy to alternative territories

We are delaying capital expenditure (CAPEX)

We are shifting our production to alternative territories

We are delaying foreign direct investment (FDI)

We are adjusting our supply chain and sourcing strategy

CEOs appear to be less certain about their expansion plans outside their home markets 46%

33% 27% 24% 20% 15%

15%

13% 9%

8%

8%

8%

8%

7%

6%

7%

6%

5%

5%

1% US

China

2018

2019

Don’t know

Germany

India

When asked to identify the top three most attractive markets for investment outside their home territory, CEOs are strikingly non-committal — ‘don’t know’ at number three ranks higher than Germany and India.

And 8% of CEOs could not name three separate territories, outside their own, as important to their growth prospects in 2019, effectively choosing

No other territory

UK

Brazil

Global

France

nowhere over markets like the UK, Brazil, and France. Given the level of uncertainty surrounding trade and policy issues, it is not surprising that CEOs are hunkering down at home. Governments could view this as an opportunity to remind companies their countries are open for business. neeraj.varty07@gmail.com March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 55

Health

‘Fitting’ Fitness in a Business Schedule

Charting one’s entrepreneurial journey perhaps starts from the mind and this is exactly what the young scion of Videotex International Pvt. Ltd. did. Arjuun Bajaj is CEO and Founder of home brand ‘Daiwa’ under its flagship company, Videotex - one of India’s premier LED television ODM (original design) and OEM (original equipment) manufacturer, with a track record of over 33 years.

Arjuun began his entrepreneurial journey in 2016 with his business plan to launch three sizes of smart TVs with an investment proposal of less than `5 lakh via online sales partnership and the rest as they say, is history. He shares his hands-on fitness tips which largely revolves around simple facts of eating right and being consistently active

By Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar

“I

n my daily workout, running is like a ritual, apart from which, I also bring focus to weight training and functional workouts; the benefits of which differs from other workouts because of the way it targets your body. These workouts prep your body for various forms of daily activities and helps build body strength and endurance”, said Arjuun Bajaj, CEO and Founder of DAIWA® (Videotex International Pvt. Ltd).

Sporty Triggers A basketball enthusiast since his childhood, he pursues this sport over the weekend. “Basket56 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

ball was my favourite sport and I was even a part of the basketball team in my college days.

So, my love for sports triggered me into fitness.

To play any sport, one needs to be fit and in a good shape. And for that, my friends suggested me to join a gym along with them. Working out has since become part of my routine. Now, my day feels incomplete without a workout, and so I make sure to start my day with a good workout session”, he said.

Always a sports lover, Arjuun has taken his fitness to a different level. He has lately developed a liking for bodyweight single legged squats and TRX (total resistance exercise) training. “This really involves all your muscles throughout the

workout and burns your fat down in just 45 minutes”, he said.

He believes that workout results vary with people as each one has different reasons for working out. “For me, the initial years of workouts (fitness routines) were primarily focused on losing weight and building muscle. However, over a period of time, my goal has evolved into keeping my mind and body healthy. The focus is on ‘getting fit and staying fit’ establishing the mind-body connection”, he adds.

The Daily Dose “My day starts at 6:30 am where I have hot lime water with honey and sometimes an apple with

Arjuun too. Even for a fitness enthusiast and entrepreneur, “Hitting the gym daily becomes a tasking job, considering my travel schedule.

These days I barely have enough time for the important things, so exercise often seems like “something else” you have to do. Not only does it take time to do it, but you have to pack the right clothes, coordinate the activity, exert energy and shower afterwards. Sometimes, the whole experience seems like a major hassle. Having said that, I have conditioned my mind and body to follow a routine, which includes fixed workout schedules, sufficient sleep followed by a fitness programme at work and sports. My guilt trip with sweets is a major challenge too”, he adds.

Fitness Challenge @Work Having had to face the usual fitness challenges as part of his busy schedule, he advocates taking the stairs instead of the elevator. “Besides, turn your work commute to exercise, take a meeting outside and walk (exercises mind too) and meet up with clients at the gym. Above all, eat right - as most of the fitness begins first with food,” he adds.

Having participated in a 30-Day Fitness Challenge, he said that each day, one should take up a different mini-challenge. “This beats boredom and works your muscles efficiently because your body won't expect the different exercises.

Whether you're new or skilled at working out; each mini-challenge is tiered to challenge any fitness level. The goal is to get you stronger, fitter, and healthier in a month—without getting bored, he said.”

Rejuvenation Mantra

it. I hit the gym by 7:15 am and do my cardio for 20 minutes which includes stair climbing/treadmill/cross-trainer,” he said. He follows it up with weight training or HIIT (High-intensity interval training) for 45 minutes. His weight training includes working around muscle categories of the chest/triceps, back/biceps and legs/shoulders. He alternates his workout with HIIT that includes bodyweight exercises and working out with Kettlebells and/or TRX. “Post workout, I do my stretches and back strengthening exercises such as Hip Bridges/ CAT/Camel or superman”, he adds.

The Challenges Exercising on a regular basis can be a task for

He follows a nutrition regime which tries to reduce processed foods. “Declare an outright ban on sugary drinks in the workplace which are often all too easily available. Make water your first port of call. You can bring it to work infused with citrus, ginger or mint. Choose herbal teas as your hot drinks at meetings or have homemade iced tea in summer. Stock up on nutrient-dense, fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts that are easy to snack right at your desk. Also keep easy options at hand like whole-wheat/high fibre crackers, salt and sugar-free peanut butter. These foods can keep for weeks at a time. This it makes healthy options the closest to hand such that when you are under (work) pressure, you will grab something that is really good for you,” he adds.

Arjuun Bajaj

“Turn your work commute to exercise, take meeting outside and walk, (exercises mind too) and meet up with clients at the Gym. Above all, Eat Right – as most of the fitness begins first with food” For youngsters, Arjuun says, “Take up a sport or activity that you enjoy like dancing, running, cycling etc. Walk or ride a cycle to work or to a friend's house, do exhaust your body physically and not just mentally. I would suggest being less virtual and getting outdoors to be more physically active, he adds.” sangeetagd2010@gmail.com

Arjuun’s Daily Diet An abundance of water, vegetables and a protein-rich diet.

Mornings: Protein shake along with eggs and oats; after two hours - a bowl of fruits.

Lunch: A bowl of rice, pulses and veggies.

Evening snack: nuts and yoghurt.

Dinner: Chicken soup/chicken (lean) with veggies.

#Pulwamaattack Such terrible news coming from #Pulwama. Today when people are celebrating love, hate raises it’s ugly head too. My thoughts and prayers for the martyrs and their families. @juniorbachchan March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 57

Pearls of Wisdom By Sadhguru

Love is simply... life longing for itself

This longing is essentially to become all-inclusive – boundless. It is only when love becomes all-inclusive that you touch the boundless. And that is when you realise a simple truth: the soul does not need a mate. It never has

M

any people subscribe to the idea that there is a single “right” person out there for everyone. Some believe that this is determined by the stars. There is also the pervasive notion of the “soulmate” chosen by the Creator Himself.

Implicit in both views is the idea that human love has its origins in the heavens rather than on terra firma.

What people forget is that the soul cannot befriend with anything or anyone. Nor does the soul need a mate. When we speak of the soul, we are speaking of the absolute and boundless.

Only that which is limited needs a mate. Why would the boundless ever seek a partner?

The advantage of being realistic is that when you are confronted by limitations tomorrow, you will find a mature way to deal with them.

Why do people seek a mate? It could be for physical reasons; we call that sexuality, and it can be quite beautiful. It could be for mental reasons; we call that companionship, and it can be beautiful, too. It could be for emotional reasons; we call that love, and that has been legendarily extolled as the sweetest experience.

Certainly, physical compatibility, companion58 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

“Love does not need an object. Love is simply a quality. If the person you love is not in your physical presence, you are still capable of loving them” ship and love can make life wonderful, but if you are honest with yourself, you cannot deny the anxiety that follows such an arrangement.

It is wise to be honest about the limitations and conditions within which a relationship operates. The advantage of being realistic is that when you are confronted by limitations tomorrow, you will find a mature way to deal with them. But, most people create limitations. They employ terms like “soulmate”, or proclaim that their relationship is “made in heaven”. With this level of self-deception, disillusionment is inevitable.

Marriages are not made in heaven

Is there something wrong with marriage? Not at all! Marriage can be a very pleasant experience

as long as you know it is not the ultimate. If you have too many romantic delusions, even if you are married to the most wonderful person, it will definitely crash because you cannot delude yourself forever. If you want to live sensibly and joyfully, it is important to remember, marriage is a human arrangement, not a celestial one.

Love is not about what you do. Love is the way you are. It is true that certain karmic connections may draw people towards each other.

This does not mean, however, that these will be ideal relationships. The success of these relationships will depend on the maturity and sensitivity with which we approach them.

I am not being cynical about love—far from it. Love is one of the most beautiful qualities a human being is capable of. Many cultures have suppressed love; others have tried to export it to heaven. But love is of this planet, and it is deeply human. Why deny that?

Love does not need an object. Love is simply a quality. If the person you love is not in your physical presence, you are still capable of loving them. If the people you love cease to exist, you still continue to love them. This means you are using people around you as mere stimuli to find expression for this innate quality. If you bring sufficient awareness to your discriminatory intellect, love is the only way you can be.

Love is not about what you do. Love is the way you are.

Love is simply a life longing for itself. This longing is essentially to become all-inclusiveboundless. It is only when love becomes all-inclusive that you touch the boundless. And that is when you realise a simple truth: the soul does not need a mate. It never has.

(This article was originally published in www. isha.sadhguru.org.

Editor’s Note: Sadhguru shares the keys to forming lasting and joyful relationships, whether they are with husband or wife, family and friends, with colleagues at work in the ebook, “Compulsiveness to Consciousness.”)

#Pulwamaattack “It would be far-fetched to say that the Pulwama attack was an absolute intelligence and security failure. The advantage of choosing the place and time lies with the terrorists. Hence, in an ongoing fourth-generation war, terrorists can always achieve surprise. “ @GulPanag

Trend

The ‘Ideal Home’ Paradox

By Santhosh Kumar

B

y and large, the concept of an ‘ideal’ home is very relative in this country.

While everyone carries a picture of their dream home in their hearts, that image usually cannot translate into reality in this country.

People long to stay close to nature, yet also close to the excitement and opportunities of the city. They long for a home in an environment unpolluted by noise and vehicle emissions, yet depend heavily on public transport and roads to use their personal vehicles for commuting to and from work.

Even the richest of the rich have to opt to have their primary homes in the city so that they can remain wired into their various business interests -although quite a few can and do opt to live at elite addresses with better infrastructure, more greenery and no overcrowding.

That is not an option for the biggest chunk of middle-class Indian homebuyers, for whom home purchase always involves compromise on their vision of an ideal home for themselves and their families. Not only are they constrained in terms of how much they can afford to spend, but our cities themselves have several inbuilt constraints. In fact, the bigger they are, the more the constraints tend to be.

Indian homebuyers today need to be realistic enough to accept that the ‘ideal home’ is more or less unattainable, and are content with settling for the best they can get.

Pitfalls of yearning for the ‘Ideal Home’ In their search for the ‘ideal home’, Indian homebuyers can get carried away on quite a few fronts.

They may over-leverage their budget to buy a larger flat than their financial situation justifies, in locations which, while definitely having a certain social ‘feel-good’ factor may not necessarily deliver an improved lifestyle. They may give in to their aspiration to live in a less cluttered and less polluted area, and as a result, become stuck in a location bereft of basic facilities. Such homes will not see any real capital appreciation, eliminating the potential for putting them back on the market to move to another area. On the flip-side, they may lay excessive importance on the ability to commute to and from work conveniently and wind up buying a home in a polluted, stress-inducing area that compromises their physical and mental health.

RERA - a Ray of Hope, not a Dream Machine Lured by promises of their dream home at attractively low rates, countless Indian homebuyers fell prey to marketing hype in previous years and paid a heavy price. Now that RERA is in place, the risk of buying into a project that gets unduly delayed or does not take off at all has been greatly reduced, as has the potential for low-grade construction. Also, the current market presents buyers with the option of buying a de-risked ready-to-move property at a reasonable price which can be further negotiated.

However, the resale market is still risky for ‘ideal home’ seekers. True, the resale market can

offer properties in aspirational locations which saturated long ago and cannot support new supply. However, the resale market is not protected by RERA. Also, one may buy a flat in an old project which requires very high maintenance, or which turns out to be illegally constructed and may be demolished. Also, over-leveraging one’s budget via a home loan in the quest for the ‘ideal home’ without a very clear picture of whether one’s financial status will support it over the tenure of the loan can result in a major loss.

Advice to homebuyers Homebuyers need to focus on properties which fall within their current and future budget. The home they buy now should fulfil their requirements for at least 4-5 years. For the next 2-3 years at least, it will be pointless for an end-user to enter the market with an investor’s mindset and hope to be able to upgrade quickly if the flat turns out to be a bad choice. For the same reason, it makes no sense to buy in a cheaper project or locality which lacks the basic ingredients of a satisfactory lifestyle. It is highly advisable to use the services of a reputable property consultancy, which can eliminate the guesswork and de-risk the final decision by allowing the buyer to examine all facets of every option with the benefit of expert guidance.

The concept of an ‘ideal home’ tugs at the heart-strings, but a home needs to be bought with the head, not the heart.

(The author Santhosh Kumar, is Vice Chairman, ANAROCK Property Consultants) March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 59

Mobile apps

The best apps for your

Smart TV Smart TVs are everywhere in 2019. Apart from watching cable channels in high definition, smart TVs can also be used to access content from streaming services as well as play games. This issue, Corporate Citizen brings you the best apps for your smart TV

By Neeraj Varty

neeraj.varty07@gmail.com 60 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

Netflix

YouTube

Video-streaming service, Netflix, is the perfect example of how an app can work seamlessly across multiple platforms and devices. As you switch from TV to phone to web browser and back, it remembers your preferences and keeps your place in all of your favourite shows.

While watching on your phone makes Netflix portable, those videos don't look great on a tiny screen. The smart-TV versions of the app lets you enjoy your favourite films and shows on a much bigger display.

The best part of owning a Smart TV is that you can watch YouTube on the big screen. Not only is YouTube the world’s largest video-sharing service, but also it offers content in an ultra-high definition which can be enjoyed in all its glory on a large-screen TV.

Amazon Prime Video

Alto's Odyssey

Amazon Prime has really taken off in India. Not only is it much cheaper than other streaming services but also offers a host of India centric content, which makes it a joy to watch. Just like Netflix, Amazon too produces their own exclusive shows are best enjoyed on a TV rather than your smartphone.

When you think of television apps, gaming might not be the first thing that springs to mind—but plenty of quality titles suit the bigger format very well. One of the newest and best games you should throw onto your TV screen is Alto's Odyssey. Gaming on a large TV screen feels much more dynamic than playing the game onto your phone. Normally, gaming consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox are expensive but with smart TVs, you can play games for free.

Unsung Heroes - 19

A Crusade against Child Marriage “Educating girls is one of the most powerful tools to prevent child marriage” Girls Not Brides— The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage

V

illagers scoffed at, neighbours jeered and relatives poked fun at Sarita Prabhakar Wagh, just because she was not married. Sarita, now 20, had learnt to live with all this since she was 14 years of age. She drew strength from her parents who stood by her rock solid as they knew marrying girls young was not a wise decision.

It was not easy, not to be married at 14 in Pachod Khurd village in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra. While Maharashtra is counted among the prosperous states, on most social indicators, this district has a tradition of marrying off girls very young. “Most of my friends were married at 14 but I did not want to, and I expressed this to my parents, who agreed.

They are educated and knew what early marriage could do to a girl,” Sarita told The Hindu at the recently concluded Women Deliver Conference where she participated and even spoke of her work and experience in the field of child marriage.

Even if the girls in Pachod Khurd wanted to study, there were no schools beyond Class V and there was no means of livelihood. The only thing parents did was marry their daughters off.

But, thanks to Sarita, this has changed. Braving criticism and taunts, she studied and joined Jeevan Kaushalya—a livelihood programme run by the Institute of Health Management at Pachod where she was imparted skill training.

Feeling empowered, she took up the task of convincing villagers not to marry off girls young. It was difficult to break centuries-old traditions but she left no stone unturned.

In the meantime, her 17-year-old friend died at childbirth which further strengthened her resolve. She would cite the example of her death to the villagers to try and change their opinion. Initially, the villagers tried to pressurise Sarita’s parents against her work, then they tried to negotiate with each other to work out means to prevent the movement from spreading. “Gradually, young girls of the village got together and launched a movement of sorts against child marriage. We launched Shanti Kishori Mandal or a group of 12-13 girls who pledged not to marry early. The

Sarita Prabhakar Wagh

movement spread and adolescent girls are now being trained in livelihood skills instead of being marrying off,” Sarita says proudly. Today, over 50 villages in Aurangabad are influenced by the movement and have pledged not to marry off girls before 18 years.

The girls raise issues of sex selection, child marriage and other social evils through streetplays to create awareness and involve the community. The percentage of child marriage was 82 per cent when Sarita took up the challenge.

It came down to 62 per cent within two years and now there are rarely any such incidents.

Lakshmi Sundaram, Global Coordinator of “Girls Not Brides” that took up the cause of child marriage in Pachod Khurd, says, “A country’s rate of child marriage is a well-defined, measurable indicator of the welfare of its adolescent girls.” Child brides usually drop out of school and are denied the opportunity to complete their education, significantly reducing their ability to earn. Girls who give birth before the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s; the children of child brides are 60 per cent more likely to die before their first birthday than the children of mothers who are over 19; girls who marry before the age of 18 are

more likely to experience violence within marriage than women who marry later. “Girls Not Brides”, a global partnership, was launched in September 2011 by The Elders, a group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela and including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Graça Machel and Mary Robinson.

The above story is featured in “Real Inspiring Stories” ISBN 978-81-8430-290-5 by Maj Pradeep Khare (pradeepkhare2011@gmail. com). It is published by Prabhat Publications, New Delhi.

#Pulwamaattack Deeply grieved on hearing about the Pulwama attack. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the Jawans martyred. @iHrithik March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 61

Dr (Col) A Balasubramanian

From The Mobile

T

A Mother’s Love…

here were days when my home used to be filled with laughter, arguments, fights, jokes and loads of mischief.

Pens and books all over, and clothes messing the rooms, thrown on the beds.

I used to shout at them to tidy up their mess.

In the morning, one will wake up and say, mama I can’t find my book.

And the other will say, I can’t find my perfume, And one will say, mama where’s my homework?

And another, mama, I forgot to complete my homework.

Everyone used to ask about their lost possessions. And I will say, but take care of your stuff, be responsible, you have to grow up.

And today I stand at the doorway of the room. The beds are empty.

All the cupboards have only a few pieces of clothes in them. And what remains is the smell of perfume that lingers in the air.

Everyone had a special smell. So I take in the smell of their perfume for maybe it will fill the empty ache in my heart.

62 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

All I have now is the memory of their laughs and their mischief and their warm hugs.

Today my house is clean and organised and everything is in its place, and it is calm and peaceful. But it is like a desert with no life in it. Do not become angry with your kids about the mess.

Every time they come to visit and they spend time with us, when they are ready to leave. They pull their bags and it is as if they tug my heart along with it.

They close the door behind them and then I stand still and think of the many times I shouted them to close the doors.

Here I am today, closing my own doors. Nobody opens it besides me. Each one gone to a different city or a different country. All left to find their own path in life.

They have grown up and I wished that they could stay with me forever.

Oh! God... Take care of them and all other children wherever they may be, for you are their guide and protector and always keep them happy.

Paraprosdokians The first time I heard about paraprosdokians, I liked them.

Paraprosdokians are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected and is frequently humorous. (Winston Churchill loved them.)

1. Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you… but it’s still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up... we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right, only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

9. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

10. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

11. I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.

12. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

13. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

14. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.

15. I’m supposed to respect my elders, but it’s getting harder now harder for me to find one now.

Drive safe…

1. Speed = 160 km per hour.

2. Distance covered in 1 second will be 45 metres.

3. A small deviation of 3 degrees in the steering wheel will make the car deviate to 20 metres from the straight line which has a huge potential of hitting the divider or getting out of the road. Hence, wheel alignment must be taken care while heading for highway travelling. It is very important for those high speeding vehicles.

4. Also avoid driving with a single hand when speeds are more than 120 kmph.

5. Don’t do multi-tasking like drinking, talking on the mobile or smoking while driving at high speed.

6. Don’t play loud music/sounds at high speeds which can make you deaf to the sounds and honks of other vehicles. Also, loud noise makes you tired very soon.

7. Always watch rear view mirror for every 5-10 secs. Watch and check the mirrors while overtaking.

8. While overtaking the other vehicles, calculate the relative speed of the vehicle which you are overtaking and accordingly you accelerate your speed to overtake. In case if find another vehicle speeding/up than anticipated, immediately you slow down but don’t rage by that situation.

9. After you over take the other vehicle, immediately you give away the signal indicators in which way you are driving left or right side of the road.

10. Never overtake any vehicle even a motorbike at the turnings. The banking angle of the Indian highways are designed only for 60 - 80 kmph but not for high speeds. On

high speeds, we cannot control the vehicle in the turnings. In case if you are driving on a single road then it’s even dangerous as we can’t see the opposite side of the vehicle. So never overtake in turnings.

11. Don’t pump your brakes continuously to apply sudden brakes. Just apply hard on the brakes. In case if apply hard, tyres will skid and finally will stop the vehicle. In case if you pump brakes multiple times then vehicle moves in the gap while releasing and applying brakes. So the vehicle may not stop immediately. In case vehicle loses its grip on the road, get skidding on the road and if any vehicle is in the same direction, then turn the steering to the safe side so that vehicle moves in that direction in case if the tyres get grip again on the road.

12. Always keep the windscreen and head lights clean and neat for good visibility of the road. Use high beam often while travelling at high speeds in the nights.

13. Never drive, not even for a single second, while you are drowsy or sleepy.

Pull the vehicle aside immediately and take enough rest before you start fresh. Either during day time or nights.

14. If you find any animal or people crossing the road, try to cross them from their behind so that you can avoid a clash.

15. Please don’t confuse other drivers on the road by travelling at high speeds without giving any proper signals. Communicate decently with other vehicle drivers.

16. Most importantly, don’t get raged or irritated by other drivers. Stay calm and be patient on the road, we are driving but not racing.

(Articles published in this ‘From the Mobile’ page are WhatsApp forwards. Corporate Citizen does not independently vouch for their authenticity. It’s a fun page. Enjoy!)

March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 63

Claps & Slaps Corporate Citizen slaps yet another episode of irregularities, non-compliance and illegalities in urban buildings

Corporate Citizen claps for Lieutenant Colonel Ranveer Singh Jamwal, as he became the first Indian and the first Indian army officer to have scaled seven highest mountains across 7 continents January 4, 2019, saw this youth icon summit Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica at 16,050 ft. which completed his record seventh climb. He then celebrated yet another victory by scaling six more peaks; all above 6,000m in Chile within a record breaking 10 days. The first of his seven adventures started in 2010 with Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and peaked with his final success at Mount Vinson. During this period, he also scaled Mount Everest, not once but thrice! A veteran of 39 expeditions in 15 years, despite being hit by blizzards, or getting ambushed by tribals, or losing a finger due to frostbite, he held on to his adventurous spirit. He also led an expedition of seven women army officers in climbing the Everest.

“I was not even aware big names like Tensing Norgay, Edmund Hillary, Captain Kohli. My first mountaineering expedition was climbing Mt. Machoi, a 5,000m-high mountain near Zoji la in 2007,” he said. Recipient of the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, Jamwal, a rescue specialist, served the country in rescue operations during the Nepal earthquake in 2015. His mountaineering journey began in 2003 when he enrolled for a course at the army’s High-Altitude Warfare School in Sonamarg, Jammu and Kashmir. “This was my karmabhumi. It was here that I first climbed a mountain as high as 5,000 metres.” He then joined the Army Adventure Wing that enabled him to climb higher ranges. However, tragedy struck in 2009 when he lost a finger due to frostbite as the team got stuck at Mount Mana in Uttarakhand. “For seven hours, we were in the open at 23,000 feet, due to a blizzard. The rope we had fixed for our climb was buried under snow. The only option for us was to wait it out. I was lucky to only lose a finger, otherwise we would have died.” The episode didn’t deter him, as he accomplished his now famous climb of Mount Kilimanjaro the following year!

64 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

In the most recent fire incident at Delhi’s Karol Bagh’s Arpit Palace Hotel, the lives of the ill-fated 17 boarders could have been saved; had workable amenities been inspected regularly and not remained mere formality ‘on paper’. “This painful incident could have been “avoided” if the hotel management and the authorities concerned would have acted sincerely. This is indeed a “very serious case of violation of human rights”, said the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The rights panel has issued notices to the Delhi chief secretary, city police commissioner and the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) seeking a detailed report in the matter. Ironically, Arpit Palace had taken a fire clearance, but cops suspect that they adhered to illegal construction that used wood and fibreglass panels. Not surprisingly, the fire-fighting equipment was non-operational, and staff too were not trained to handle such life-saving kits. Most alarmingly, the hotel windows were sealed, and this made rescue operations an ordeal. To top it up, the hotel’s kitchen was housed on the terrace; strewn with cooking gas cylinders and other cooking material that closed doors to any possibility of a safe rescue mission, if at all! Notwithstanding, electrical systems too remained unchecked for its fire resistance properties. “We just took a look at the emergency exits. It’s all illegal. These are very narrow, not according to specifications. And they were closed at night.

According to information we have, those gates are closed at night and a guard sits outside. But we don’t know if the guard was there or not,” said KJ Alphons, Union Tourism Minister. These discrepancies and incidents eventually get buried once post-mortem reports are handed over to officials for closures. Unfortunately, unless there is a tragedy, rules don’t matter! Will the NHRC’s post-event actions against errant officers, actually prove a lesson and go beyond reprimanding this one solitary ‘Arpit Palace’ incident?

(Compiled by Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar)

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March 1-15, 2019 / Corporate Citizen / 65

the last word

Ganesh Natarajan

Egypt –

Beyond the Pyramids What makes a long tour of Egypt special, even for someone who has notched up eighty-seven countries and more travel miles than one likes to remember? It is the attention to detail that a country that has dedicated itself to tourism can provide with every place designed to delight

F

or many of us growing up in small towns in India in the sixties and seventies, travel abroad had many destination symbols – the Big Ben in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt would surely have featured in every person’s list of top ten tourist must-dos!

In my case after multiple business visits to Europe, an opportunity to do a quick visit to Cairo ten years ago with a delegation of other technology CEOs for a strategy offsite gave me the Pyramids and Sphinx for a tick in the box but a couple of days in a country with such a rich history and cultural heritage hardly did justice and I was left wanting for more.

And finally, the real opportunity came this year to do a relaxed tenday holiday in Egypt which must surely rank among the top travel experiences of our lives.

Our group landed in Alexandria as the first stop and after getting our first taste of Egyptian hospitality and capturing the sights, sounds and taste of the country, drove to Cairo for an evening cruise on the Nile and then a day and evening at the spectacular Pyramids with a cultural immersion at the fabulous Egyptian museum thrown in. The next day took us by air to Aswan with its bustling evening markets and the extraordinary High Dam on Lake Nasser followed by one of

Ganesh at Giza

Super guide Essam with the group

the high points of the tour, an early morning three-hour dash to Abu Simbel, the magnificent temple created by Ramses II in honour of himself. Boarding a two-day Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor with stops at various scenic points, our cultural immersion concluded with the wonderful temples of the boy king Tutankhamen who Luxor. Finally, a relaxed day at the became Pharaoh at the age of nine Red Sea in Hurgada and all too and died of malaria at nineteen. soon, a great holiday had ended.

The discovery of over 40,000 obWhat makes a long tour of Egypt jects from his tomb which are now special, even for someone who has displayed in museums all over notched up eighty-seven countries the world is probably one reason and more travel miles than one likes where this particular Pharaoh gets to remember? It is so much menthe attention to deEgypt must surely tion while his tail that a country deeds may not rank among that has dedicated match up to the the top travel itself to tourism can hype! provide with every It is rather experiences of place designed to sad that Egypt’s our lives delight and tourist position at the guides (thank you centre of all the Omar and Essam) who are well Middle East conflicts and the imtrained and passionate about their pact of Arab Spring have brought history and culture. tourism down to less than half of An incident with Essam parits earlier levels, though even toticularly stands out when he reday it contributes a healthy eleven sponded to a random query about percent to the country’s GDP. The a stone which had two figures devaluation of currency would othetched in it and gave us the enerwise have made this one of the tire folk lore about Alexander the world’s best places to travel. Our Great who was so besotted with last destination Hurgada offered Egypt that he got the God Amonus the Cleopatra Beach Resort, a min to give him a sperm that gave five star deluxe experience with all him Egyptian status. It was also drinks and food covered at an inamusing to note the slight scorn credible double room tariff of less that most Egyptians have towards than ninety dollars a day. And the

66 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2019

friendship towards Indians from India with frequent chants of Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan make this country a must visit for all Indians in 2019. Don’t forget to take Essan Ali Mahmoud’s number from me when you decide to travel for a truly rewarding experience.

One depressing reality of Egypt is the level of unemployment and poverty that prevails in the country. Imagine the sight of multiple rowing boats surrounding our cruise liner at one of the stops before Luxor with eager salesmen in Egyptian costume throwing up shawls wrapped in plastic to the fourth-floor top deck and requesting travelers to throw down seven or eight dollars if they liked any of the merchandise.

The haggling in the markets, the eagerness to sell something or anything to tourists barely conceals a sense of desperation that seems to pervade many Egyptians. In such a lovely country with such warm and friendly people, one can only hope that there will be less terrorism incidents like the bombing of the Vietnamese tourist bus or the shooting down of a Russian plane that throws the tourism numbers out of gear. Love you Egypt and yes, we will be back!

Dr Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of 5F World, Social Venture Partners India and Pune City Connect.

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