Naseba Announces the Winners of the Indian CIO of the Year Awards

Naseba Announces the Winners of the Indian CIO of the Year Awards

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Thursday, June 12, 2008 -- (Business Wire India)
naseba, a leading international business information company listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, held the Indian CIO of the year awards ceremony in conjunction with the 2nd Annual CIO Strategies India forum. The ceremony took place on June 9th, 2008, at 7.30 pm at Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

The Indian CIO of the year awards recognize the leading Indian CIOs. The winners were selected by a jury consisting of Ashwini K Sharma, Former CIO, SBI and Markus Bell, CIO Analyst. This year, there were four categories with five CIOs competing in each category. The winners are:

1.Nirvan Biswas, CTO, Midday Multimedia - New Comer Award

Nirvan was selected based on his ability to implement new technologies integrated in web 2.0 to achieve massive cost savings for the overall company. These approaches are reflected in a new layout to SOA integration, communication products integration with the possibility of waste and lifetime data transmission. He also established himself as a leading business management personality, setting out new benchmarking systems and integrating all business units in the IT Architecture.

2.Navin Chadha, CIO, TATA Teleservices - Innovation Award

Navin has over 18 years experience in the telecommunications sector and in storage solutions and is a member of the advisory council for Sun Microsystems and CME Technology Advisory Group. Navin is very innovative in his approaches in the sector. He implemented Microsystems Configuration Manager 2007 to improve customer services and increase dataflow on an extensive configuration and collection of components to integrate business requirements and the management of IT Infrastructure. He is a pioneer, as this is one of the largest projects that has been carried out and reformed to the needs of business, this will revolutionise customer handling, business integration and IT architecture management over the coming years.

3.Anita Pai, Executive Vice President, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Ltd - Leadership Award

Anita was chosen for her outstanding approach in risk management leadership in implementing new technology in the telecom space and integrating all over team and unit in the process. While leading ICICI Prudential IT, Anita established a vast IT communications system, which guarantees security, compatibility to the system requirements and remote access in a highly secure data sector. Besides the integration of the technology, she established herself not only as an IT manager but also as a CIO, managing training cost calculations and the overall information flow throughout the company.

4.K Radhakrishnan, Head IT, Henkel India Ltd - Lifetime Achievement Award

The choice for this candidate was not only based on his work at Henkel, but also on his innovative approach in production, sales, data management and e-trade alignment integration of customer handling on a national and international scale. By using tools, integrating the business units and achieving an outstanding example of how to manage outsourcing and ERP systems over time, he laid out a perfect example of lean IT. In addition, he integrated training and business information in communication and data management for companies of various industries. Mr Radakrishnan has set an example on how to successfully outsource international companies on the Indian market and advanced the Indian economy by developing production and communication to a new level, giving India a competitive edge over other competing economies.

“I have always kept my focus on “Leveraging on Information Technology to Enable the Enablers”. Having held various offices with top MNC’s in India for over two decades now, I have realized that success starts only when business and IT alignment is well orchestrated, and I just converted the opportunity entrusted to me which has been well realized in all terms, to get to this milestone. With this award, while I have a sense of recognition of the achievement, I do understand the expectation being set of doing more of IT for the time to come. Thanks to the Jury, Naseba and the other partners to the event!,” explained K Radhakrishnan.

“We are proud to have organized and hosted the first edition of Indian CIO of the year Awards during our CIO Strategies India forum this year. The Indian CIO of the year awards ceremony provided awarded CIOs the chance to inform their peers about the technology innovations they used in their projects to achieve greater success for their organization,” concluded Shannon Mackrill, the event producer, naseba.

Please click on the link given below to download the list of nominees.
http://image.exct.net/lib/fefd1271766107/d/1/nominees%20page.pdf

About the CIO Strategies India forum

Working in strategic partnership with Business Wire India, Exchange4media.com, NDTV Profit, Outsourcing 2 India and Smart Techie, the second annual CIO Strategies India forum, organized by naseba, gave the opportunity for up to 100 CIOs from Indian companies to learn about the latest trends in the IT industry, to source customized solutions from leading solution providers as well as to network with their peers.

For more information, please visit www.ciostrategiesin.com

naseba

Established in 2002, naseba produces business platforms focused on re-education, networking and most importantly increasing deal-making opportunities for executive clients. With offices strategically located in five cities around the world, naseba employs over 250 executives from more than 30 nationalities. naseba group went public on the Paris Stock Exchange on October 5th, 2006.

For more information, please visit www.naseba.com

Ode to Prof Ranjan Das - IIM C | The Strategy Academy

Ode to Prof Ranjan Das The Strategy Academy

I just finished my last blog entry and saw this Google Adsense ad of The Strategy Academy on my blog. And the first thing I remembered was Prof. Ranjan Das.

Anybody who would have studied at IIM Calcutta couldn’t have missed one personality on campus: Prof. Ranjan Das.

The One man who is passionate about education and strategy, and who with his charismatic leadership has helped so many leaders worldwide to excel in there careers. He has finally fulfilled his dream of entrepreneurship and started his own college, The Strategy Academy at this age.

I remember the time when he last spoke to me addressing the class and mentioning about his new venture of the Strategy Academy where he wanted to show the world a new path of why Strategy is important and how it is relevant in today’s business. He categorically said, you need to identify and challenge the status quo and finally move ahead to the desired state.

This is a perfect example of how leaders stand by there words and how Prof. Das has converted his vision into reality.

Hats off to you sir!

Marketing Communication Primer – What’s The Future? - Series

Marketing Communication – What’s The Future? - Series

Today I am starting this new series on my blog on Marketing communication, What’s the future?

Premise:-

With the B-Schools still teaching 4 Ps of marketing to MBA students while preparing them for businesses, the students face a stark reality when they sit for Interviews. They realize within 2 minutes of interview, that this is not what the companies are looking for.

Wow! “I worked my ass off to learn so much about marketing in my B-School and you are telling me this is not what you are looking for?” – This could be a reality check question running in mind of any B-School passout. Well the cruel answer is “YES”.

Do we blame the education for this mismatch? “No”. Then what do we do?

This series of Marketing Communication primer is going to help all fresh graduates, Marcom professionals, Strategic Marketing Professionals and Hiring Managers to see the difference in various levels of marketing, as well as, what’s the NEXT big things in Marketing to look for.

Causes for aberration:-

The prime reason why people get confused or are not well prepared for what they are looking for in their role in marketing is the lack of understanding about the two levels of Marketing.

Two Broad Levels of Marketing:
1. Strategic Marketing attempts to determine how an organization competes against its competitors in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competitors.
2. Operational Marketing executes marketing functions to attract and keep customers and to maximize the value derived for them, as well as to satisfy the customer with prompt services and meeting the customer expectations. Operational Marketing includes the determination of the marketing mix.

It’s very important for people to understand that Strategic Marketing is a function of a Sr. Marketing Professionals where the person in charge has very well mastered the Operational Marketing.

Demystifying Strategic Marketing:- In simple words it’s the Visioning Strategy linked with the execution planning. This would require the below mentioned functions:
a) Understanding Business Objectives / Goals
-Annual X % increase in revenue of a product line
-Retention and growth of Y accounts in Z geography.
-A % market share for this service / product.
-C no of competitor accounts to be captured etc.
These are some examples of wider business goals that a CEO would have in his mind.

b) Converting these business goals into plans like:- Annual / Bi-Annual / 5 Yearly, is what a senior Marketing Professional (marketing and sales director/VP/SVP) would look at and come up with a strategic plan to support the larger business objectives.
-Identifying milestones in the plan.
-Broad annual metrics to be achieved based on sales data from past or industry averages etc. these are few examples to illustrate.

c) Execution Strategy: - This is is one of the most neglected portion from a strategic perspective. Ram Charan, Author of book, Execution, stresses on this point in his book and calls execution as an essential part of strategy.
Without a clearly defined execution strategy all this is just a Bird’s Eye-view approach to say things. A very clearly defined execution strategy and plan is something which can really make these things happen. The execution strategy might look at various activities which can support the annual plans in the previous step.
-Resources required – Hiring/Training etc
-Commission and incentive buffers / Employee benefits
-Media strategy
-IT Infrastructure
-Strategic Alliances and partnerships etc.
-Tactical challenges and solutions

d) Handover of Plans:- Communicating the plans company wide to ensure effective information dissemination etc. Continuous follow-up etc.

Demystifying Operational Marketing:- In simple words, leveraging various channels / media, to generate demand and achieve organizational objectives.

4 Ps of marketing:
In popular usage, "marketing" is the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning which recognizes that marketing is customer centered. Products are often developed to meet the desires of groups of customers or even, in some cases, for specific customers. E. Jerome McCarthy divided marketing into four general sets of activities. His typology has become so universally recognized that his four activity sets, the Four Ps, have passed into the language.
The four Ps are:
-Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support.
-Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or services, e.g. time, energy, psychology or attention.
-Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
-Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or services is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.
I am not going to focus on these 4 Ps of marketing, however, I would keep them in mind as well as showcase the Future of Marketing Communication to all.

Closing Remarks:- In my coming postings: while these 4 Ps might be the basis for operational marketing I will introduce the
-5th P of Marketing.
-4 “A”s of Marketing
-Web and Internet as Business Models of Future marketing
-Newer and Exciting Channels and Media of marketing
-New strategies for Business Development
-Strategic Advances in positioning

And more…Please share your comments to help me improve my postings.

Human Assets Expansion Congress 2007

www.humanassetsindia.com 19th - 20th November 2007 MUMBAI

Leading Business Information Company, www.naseba.com, is holding Human Assets Expansion Congress in India.

Innovative strategies in retention, attrition management, training and development, HR MIS systems, Performance and leadership management and more...complete Human Asset management is all what the Congress discusses.

Human Assets Expansion India is a C-level, strategic executive congress, which provides the opportunity for HR directors to meet with global industry suppliers and industry experts in a true business-to-business environment. With prescheduled one-to-one business meetings and educational sessions that are strictly limited to upper-level executives providing them a Real-Life Case Study Format with Ultimate Networking Opportunities.

Key Discussion Topics

• Innovation in Talent Retention, Development and Growth
• Back to Basics: Human Asset Management
• Defining and installing new values, attitudes and behavior within an organization
• Challenges of handling changing aspirational management of the new generation
• Leadership Challenges


Quick Links

• Event website
http://www.humanassetsindia.com
• Complete Agenda
http://www.humanassetsindia.com/index.html?pagecode=agenda
• Complete list of speakers
http://www.humanassetsindia.com/index.html?pagecode=speakers
• Event Testimonials
http://www.humanassetsindia.com/index.html?pagecode=testimonials
• Registration page
http://register.humanassetsindia.com
• Contact page
http://www.humanassetsindia.com/index.html?pagecode=contact


Key Speakers 2007

• JN Amrolia, Executive Director, Ashok Leyland
• Dr Anadi S Pande,VP of Corporate Planning & Strategy,Hero Honda Motors
• Muralidhar Rao, President & ChiefOperating Officer,NIS Sparta
• Sudheesh Venkatesh, Head of HR,Tesco
• Dr. Chandra Mauli Dwivedi,Group President Human Resources,Financial Technology Group
• Joji S Gill, Head of HR,Microsoft

What previous year's attendees said…

"Very impressed. I would be more than happy to present at any of
naseba's event functions."
HR Director, Honeywell

"This event is the perfect way for direct communication between
solution providers and those seeking development within their
companies."
HR Director, Gulf Air

"Great platform for knowledge and best practice sharing on the
available HR tools to streamline processes and make HR more
effective."
HR Director, Siemens

For any queries contact Charan Varghese - Project Director

email: charanv@naseba.com

tel: +91 80 30280562 - fax: + 91 80 30280555 http://www.naseba.com
____________________________________________________________

Goal Setting!

What will you achieve if you don't know what you want to achieve?

GOAL setting, timeline setting, steps break-up, milestone celebrations, motivation, inching closer to your GOALS. Well all this sounds more or less like a excerpt from a Project Management book at your B-School. No. This is simply the latest thing running in my office where all the employees have put together all their Goals on the wall:

1 yr goal

5 yr goal

10 yr goal

Lifetime Goal.

In the image some 32 Goal sheets are visible which says exactly this. I think its necessary and every company should do this. Get your employees to decide the goals. Set some timelines. Breakup the path to achieve those goals into smaller units. Self Motivate yourself. Keep working and celebrate the milestones. Achieve and Enjoy! Start your journey for the next goal.

What is naseba?

A lot of people have been asking me recently, what is naseba? Well here is your FAQ answered...

Q) What is naseba?

A) The word naseba comes from a Japanese idiomatic expression: "when there is a will there is a way." naseba can be translated, "if you make it happen." naseba is Business Information (BI).

We are committed to provide BI to the entire online community without them paying any charge for the same. We are a product company and our products are Strategic Business platforms like Congresses, Forums, Conferences or Expos.

Q) Is naseba Event Management Company?

A) NO

We produce, promote and host our own strategic business platforms using a conference, congress, expo or forum format - depending on the market - with the ultimate focus on ‘knowledge expansion’, ‘networking’ but most importantly maximizing ‘deal-making’ opportunities for all our executive clients.

Q) How are you unique from other similar events companies?

A) Let me answer this in bulleted format:

We are into providing you with Business Information for your strategic decision making.

We don’t host someone else’s events.

We host our own Strategic Business Platforms for business information exchange.

We give commitment in our contract, in black and white, the target number of people attending our event.

Pre-scheduled One-to-One business meetings.

A complete delegate directory with contact information & pre-course questionnaire to help you uncover the needs of the prospective client in advance.

Open business meeting to ensure you do not miss out on meeting any delegates you would want to meet.

Table sponsorship opportunities to maximize your visibility.

Limited numbers of suppliers to ensure you are not surrounded by your rivals.

Hope this makes us as a “unique” company!

Q) What products does naseba have?
A) naseba provides 4 streams of international products:

Travel & Tourism Series - 10 strategic congresses focused on maximizing networking and deal-making opportunities for Travel & Tourism professionals.

CXO Strategies - designed exclusively for CXOs by CXOs providing a UNIQUE mix of best practice and knowledge sharing in a problem-solving environment.

Global Expansion Series - a dynamic two-day platform created for busy decision makers to conduct business in their respective infrastructure sectors through prescheduled, one-to-one business meetings interwoven with re-educational sessions and the ultimate networking parties.

Knowledge Expansion - a conference format with a networking approach, focused on dynamic re-education for busy upper-level executives who do not attend vendor-driven conferences.

Q) How old is your company, some company history details?

A) In order to climb to the next level and expand more aggressively - further proving to make things happen - naseba did a reverse takeover of MM Finance, a company listed on the Marché Libre of the Paris Stock exchange - therefore, on October 5th, 2006 naseba proudly went public.
Since inception in 2002, naseba has expanded its portfolio of worldwide executive congress and forums to 60 annual strategic B2B platforms covering 26 different industries.

As a leading global business information company with headquarters in Monaco, naseba has offices strategically located in eight cities around the world and employs over 200 executives from more than 30 nationalities.

We are multicultural, dynamic and focused on making it happen.

I have joined naseba

I have joined naseba last week. I joined as a Marketing Director for the India and Middle East markets. I am accompanied with my colleague Zafar who brings in his extensive experience in Middle East market. My role would be to work along with Zafar to set-up a marketing department for the company and help generate leads and generate revenue. I am reporting to Liam Findlay, CRM Director, who has envisioned this entire department.

naseba is Business Information.

naseba producec, promotes and hosts strategic business platforms using a conference, congress, expo or forum format - depending on the market - with the ultimate focus on knowledge expansion, networking but most importantly maximizing deal-making opportunities for all our executive clients. naseba is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The word naseba comes from a Japanese idiomatic expression: "when there is a will there is a way."naseba can be translated, "if you make it happen."

As a leading global business information company with headquarters in Monaco, naseba has offices strategically located in eight cities around the world and employs over 200 executives from more than 30 nationalities.

naseba is proud to be working in partnership with many leading press groups and local authorities such as BBC World, CNBC, Financial Times, Time, Al Arabiya, London Convention Bureau, the Principality of Monaco, the Abu Dhabi Government and the City of Prague, just to name a few.

I feel highly motivated with our CEOs statement: "The secret to our success is that we understand that all participants, both sponsors and executive delegates, must have a return on their investment - whether that investment is time or money. Our high rebooking rate of both executive delegates and sponsors is proving that we are delivering this ROI to our clients.” Scott Ragsdale, Chairman and CEO.

Changing Language of 21st Century Leader - Accountable Communication

As the 21st century leaders come in the field to lead and empower a team of high performers, they need to develop and inculcate the New Language to motivate and bring more accountability and personal integrity. I am sharing some of the New Language words which are set to change the boards.

Some important day to day examples which can help you excel in day to day conversation. These examples are nothing more than some well thought and well crafted sentences which can guide your way to growth. Initially you might find difficulty to implement these in your day to day dialogue, however with the positive mindset complemented by a conscious effort, you are bound to excel and bring more and more accountability in the system.

> Avoid: “You’re acting ridiculous. How can you expect me to respond to a question that has absolutely no logic to it and doesn’t relate to anything that we’re talking about?”
ü Replace with: “I’m having difficulty understanding how what you’re saying connects to the issue we’re discussing. Would you please elaborate…?”
Ø In short harnessed words are accountable!

> Avoid: “Everyone needs to get on board fast to handle this mess.”
ü Replace with: “I need everyone on board fast. I can’t do this alone. Together we can turn this situation around.”
Ø In this case, You are triggering action and not reaction!

> Avoid: “I’ve made a decision to move ahead with a program that will help us achieve better performance.”
ü Replace with: “I see a possibility for us to be the first group to lead the way in building a high-performance organization. I know we can accomplish this together.”
Ø Inspiring people is the key, not derailing them!

Do share more similar lines, words or sentences that you have seen effective in difficult situations.

Organization Citizenship Behavior

Organization Citizenship Behavior

“No employee in any organization is indispensable, every employee’s efforts to become indispensable brings foreword the citizenship”

In today’s competitive world we see the biggest challenge in front of a Leader would be managing and motivating people in an organization. People are one of the most important drivers of the business and no business leader can ignore this fact. People, who can be technology enablers, technology managers, sales enablers or sales managers, everyone needs to be motivated.

Another challenge faced by Leaders is to align the entire company to the business objectives. This is a major challenge posed to any Managing Director; HR Manager; Delivery Managers; as failing to align people in your company would essentially mean a Hay-wire execution which results in inability to meet business targets. This challenge of People Motivation and Alignment leads us to find out innovative techniques to achieve the same.

In my article below I run you through an innovative leadership technique which, out of my experience and interaction with business leaders from Fortune 100 companies has shown success.

Organization Citizenship Behavior or OCB is one human behavioral technique under research for improvisation in many institutions worldwide as well as tried and tested approach in many Fortune 500 companies. OCB is one way in which there is a direct involvement of the business leaders with the people in his company. There is an open communication channel and there is a clear understanding in every individual of their role in the organization.

You might wonder how come Citizenship is being talked about in respect of an organization. Essentially citizenship is considered in terms of States or Countries; however, there is a striking similarity between a state and an organization. Driven by a Leadership with values and distinct goals in mind, any state, works for the development of its citizens. In addition to providing rights to the citizen, it can motivate its citizens to contribute to there duties. Similarly, in an organization, driven by a strong leadership and distinct values one can help every individual to understand his or her roles importance in the organization and by fulfilling the basic rights of freedom of work it can drive them to go beyond there call of duty by making them the Citizens of the company.

What this leads to is, creation of a “Citizen” and not an “Employee”. Having a lot of employees in the company is not a great thing and not enough, what matters is how many citizens have been grown in the organization.

It’s a proven fact that any Citizen of the Company would perform much better than any employee. Every citizen would take decisions which are aligned with the company’s business objectives. The strategy and execution would work hand-in-hand delivering higher productivity, and increased business revenues.

I would categorize Citizenship behavior in an organization in two parts:
Self inculcated citizenship behavior
External Driven Citizenship behavior

Self inculcated citizenship behavior:

Such behavioral occurrences are due to an Individuals’ high understanding of the organization and personal belief in ideologies of the organization. The urge to get benefited on a long term basis for any individual drives them to co-operate as well as contribute. Thus drives a citizenship amongst themselves and peers to achieve long term goals and bring in long term discipline.

This behavior is not comfortably supported by an organization until the individual makes an extra effort to educate and influence others. The individual needs to communicate the same within a smaller group and hence find ambassadors to promote the same.

As an organization, starts seeing the benefits of this behavior, starts encouraging the cause and hence motivates the individual and the organization on a whole. This is the time when the individuals taking these initiatives creates a higher value for themselves in the organization and become indispensable.

External Driven Citizenship behavior:

In this kind of behavior, individuals are motivated by the management to inculcate an additional responsibility where they create enough awareness and need, to become a citizen of the organization rather than just being an employee.

Creating this culture in an organization requires additional efforts to educate all employees, to motivate them further and align them further with the company goals and objectives. To find ambassadors to promote this behavior, a strong sense of understanding is required along with a crafted communication message.

Organizations which are able to achieve such feats really have individuals working with them who are very passionate and committed. Such initiatives are then passed on from management to the employees and the employees finally become the ambassadors of the cause. This creates a lot of value for the managers. The ambassadors who practically implement such initiatives again draw enough attention from management and get recognition for the same.

Various ways which can lead to having lots of citizens in an organization can be as follows:


Leader Spending Time with Citizens
v Every Leader should spend enough time with its citizens to communicate the business goals of the organization.
v Spending time helps people understand, what is expected out of every individual, to achieve the business goals
v It gives freedom to the individuals to take creative decisions keeping in mind the business goals
v It again helps them to verify the decisions and check if they align well with the objectives
v As well as the leader should explain the importance of Contribution to the company as the next step to Learning

Citizens spending time to see the Bigger Picture
v Every citizen having understood there role in the organization should try to spend time in coming out of that frame and should try to understand the bigger picture.
v Post understanding the basic elements of there role the citizen should try to look at the importance of there role and how to improve and enhance productivity.
v Learning is a life long process, to emerge as a successful citizen there should be a focus on contributing to the company.

As an employee in an organization try to think
Am I Indispensable in this company?
If your answer is Yes try to do things which moves you closer to become a Citizen and
if your answer is No, you need to learn a lot more!