Short interview given by CBS Marketing Students for Jaya TV during the
CII S'Marketing Convention 2009
Courtesy: Jaya Plus TV
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
TiECON Chennai 2009- Creating Entrepreneurs, Shaping Minds!
This year’s theme –“Enterprising India – Creating Tomorrow’s Entrepreneur” attracted over 1000 entrepreneurs, investors and business school students and saw the cream of Chennai’s business elite and India’s investing community participating as panelists and speakers.
N Srinivasan, Vice-chairman of India Cements Ltd., inaugurated the one day conclave and also gave away TiE Chennai Entrepreneur Awards for 2009 starting with Kalainithi Maran of Sun Network who received the Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Winners of the other six categories of the awards were - Kami Narayanan of Pre Global Media - Woman Entrepreneur of the Year; P N Vasudevan of Equitas Microfinance - Start-up Entrepreneur of the Year; M B Nirmal of Exnora International - Social Entrepreneur of the Year; Satish Babu of Univercell - Extreme Entrepreneur of the Year; Ravi Appaswamy of Appaswamy Estates and the Residency Group of Hotels - Next Gen Entrepreneur of the Year and M V Subbiah of Murugappa Group - Family Entrepreneur of the Year. N. Srinivasan of India Cements Ltd. was chosen unanimously by the jury for Lifetime Achievement. Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman & MD of TVS Capital Funds Ltd. moderated the entire awards session.
T.T. Rengarajan, founder, Alma Mater, delivered a keynote address on leadership. Based on a research of 500 successful people across all walks of life, he listed seven characteristics that were common to all these successful people, which included the likes of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, and Leonardo da Vinci. The seven characteristics are: (1) passion, (2) mastery in communication, (3) team [a strong team to propagate/execute the vision of the successful person], (4) high energy levels, (5) faith, (6) value-based life, and (7) methodology of their own.
As flamboyant and unconventional that Kris Srikkanth is, he delivered a “quickfire keynote post lunch,” as J. Krishnan, Conference Chairman of TiECON 2009 put it, to keep the audience at their wit’s end and also deliver some valuable lessons. He stressed upon believing in oneself, passion, and decision-making as lessons from sports for entrepreneurs. For each of this trait, he had a story to relate.
C. K. Ranganathan, MD, Cavin Kare, the inspiration that he is today for young entrepreneurs, delivered his keynote with panache. His simple demeanor belied his stature of a successful and innovative entrepreneur, and his sincere expression of his life’s lessons made this keynote on timeless principles worthy.
The most valuable lesson he delivered was on tax evasion. When generally people in low-margin, high-volume retail business believed in evading the exorbitant 105% excise tax and a high 20% sales tax, C.K. Ranganathan stood a class apart by paying the taxes without evading. This helped him secure a loan without collateral from a bank manager who found his tax credentials worthy. Then, when people had faith in him, he soared to heights.
The sachet pioneer, [he bought the sachet into the shampoo industry by marketing Chik shampoo in a sachet for the first time to differentiate] also explained the importance of involving all ranks of staff in decision-making as each one of them could bring insights that would not be available at the top. He wished all the budding entrepreneurs the very best in their ventures, in conclusion.
Speaking after inaugurating the conclave, N Srinivasan, Vice Chairman & MD, India Cements Ltd., said, “Access to more funds, better and stronger relationship between universities and industry, flexible curriculum structure and schedule at educational institutions besides on-campus incubators will accelerate entrepreneurial growth in the country.” He also called upon governments and successful entrepreneurs to come forward and provide a funding base that will give impetus to entrepreneurship.
According to J Krishnan, Vice President, TiE Chennai and Chairman of the 2009 conference, “This year it has been bigger with more delegates and bigger names as speakers. The team has worked hard to create simply the single largest platform for entrepreneurs in Chennai and we look forward to being back next year even bigger.” A great learning from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders!
Contributed by Pranesh Padmanabhan, Marcom Varsity, CBS Batch 4, 2009-10
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Team Building is Fun!
From Fire walk to Dance on the pool it was two full days of Fun, Fun and more FUN! Of course the learning was unlimited as well. Seiger group’s two day out- bound team build program was nothing less than a Super hit!
Day 1 started with Balloon toss which proved that individualistic objectives will take the team nowhere and thinking as a team should be the objective for any work that we do.
Kulamandu – This Marble pass game was creative indeed! We learnt that out-of the box thinking is necessary to find better solutions to our problems. It also showed us that every member in the team is equally important.
Longest link – Optimum utilization of resource is the key for any process was the learning. It also proved that for a team we can break barriers to any extent if the team has to win.
Gold Hunt – A real Brain storming activity. The importance of choosing the right route to success bypassing various situations which could dampen our pace. The mantra is Planning, analyzing and negotiation.
Day 2 started with an obstacle course which included ‘Electric fence’, ‘Tarzan swing’ & ‘Rope walk’. The objective was trust the team, face challenges boldly and rise up to the situation while the pressure is on.
It was too exhausting and thus demanded a dip in the pool. Following this we had the Moon Walk where the team had various handicaps like tied legs and being blind folded. We as a team had to go through a particular path negotiating with the opponents and reach our goal. Our ‘CBS Mimicry gang’ utilized the following break with their skills to imitate their class mates!
Hoopla was a real ‘flex yourself’ activity where we had to go through a spoke-less wheel without breaking the chain. It clearly proved how much we need to be flexible to meet the rising demands.
The highlight of the show was the ‘Fire walk challenge’ where we had to cross a ‘bon fire’. Yes! You read it right. Our heels were numbed by ice and we literally walked on fire! Courage to face any burning situation- quiet literally.
Curtains came down with all folks tapping to the tune on the dance floor. Two well-spent days worth a life time to understand our classmates better and work well as teams.
Contributed by Trisha Saxena, HR Varsity, CBS Batch 4, 2009-10
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Expect the Unexpected
After a day filled with assignments and classes we were all prepared for a guest lecture by Mr. Vijayakumar Rangaraju, Deputy General Manager - HR at HCL Technologies Limited. He began by saying that it was a refreshing change to meet young and vibrant people like us. We immediately knew that the next one hour was going to be intellectually stimulating as well as amazing fun!
Mr.Vijayakumar is truly the synonym for multi-tasking. We were listening in awe to the list of activities that he was currently pursuing and incredibly they were in different fields including Hypnosis, Handwriting analysis, Skit and play writing, Carbon Trading and finally Politics. The “Hot Seat” challenge he conducted is just an example of the various creative ways he used to deliver the message - “Expect the Unexpected”. The story about three rats was another innovative way to help us understand that we should all be prepared to face varied situations in life.
He went on to discuss the policies followed by HCL - “5 Principles” that represents the core values of the company, the first one being the Mirror – Mirror philosophy. This is about seeing things as they are and not attaching any fringes to them. This will help truly assess and accept ourselves to achieve set goals. The second principle laid stress on trust that employees have on the management and how this trust is created and maintained through Transparency. The third principle was “Destroy the CEO’s Office” which told us that HCL had an open mind regarding feedback about company policies and employees were encouraged to walk to their superiors with any issues they had. This also helped us understand the next concept which was “Inverting the Pyramid”. This once again showed that HCL was an open organization that appreciated communication across all levels.
The last principle was the best one of them all that said “Learn from the child”. He told us in the end that we should all listen to the child in us and think of creative and innovative ways to tackle a problem. These 5 principles gave us an idea about HCL as a company and the environment that exists there. Mr. Vijayakumar concluded the lecture by narrating another insightful story. The moral of this story was that if we stay in our comfort zone, the possibility of us learning or experiencing the many wonders of life is limited.
The one hour we spent with him made us think about the real world and we were extremely honored that he took time off to educate young minds and inspire us to expect the unexpected and move out of our comfort zones. It was a truly exciting and thought – provoking experience!
Contributed by Pavithra Chandrasekaran, Retail Varsity, CBS Batch 4, 2009-10
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