Connecting the dots

"Your time is limited. . . . have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."--Steve Jobs

 “Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”—Steve Jobs.

Finished reading a book ‘Steve Jobs: The man who thought different’. Its catchy and realy made me to think about life.

From the start, his path was never predictable. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college after one semester, and at the age of twenty, created Apple in his parents' garage with his friend Steve Wozniack. Then came the core and hallmark of his genius--his exacting moderation for perfection, his counterculture life approach, and his level of taste and style that pushed all boundaries. A devoted husband, father, and Buddhist, he battled cancer for over a decade, became the ultimate CEO, and made the world want every product he touched.

This gracefully written biography of the founder and spirit behind Apple computers and the iworld covers is grand reading. Organizing her material around the three stories he told at his Stanford University commencement speech, author covers his life from conception and adoption to death as well as his remarkable career. There's plenty about the business world and about the development of personal computers but also details of his personal habits - eating, bathing, dressing - that will intrigue teen readers. Overall, she gets across the complexity of this flawed but visionary man. The book is thoroughly researched and documented with chapter-by-chapter endnotes

Author draws Steve Job’s convocation speach at Stanford University where he talks about connecting the dots. These dots are incidents of life and Steve Jobs believed that these dots connect somewhere. He says, dopping out from colleage, getting fired from Apple etc are such dots which ultimately resulted in to what he became or produced.

Our life has so many dots, which we never understand when we go through that phase. But, if we think back and try to connect the dots, the meaning comes out, the clear path comes out, then we understand why those dots came in our life at first place. Simply put we will understand all these dots contributed to what we are today.

Krishna says in BhagavtGita: ‘Nimitya matra bhav savyasachin’. He tells Arjuna, ‘everything is decided and you just become an instrument in my hand’. This is nothing but connecting the dots.

I don’t think our lives are different in anyway. Everything is predesided and we are supposed to be instruments and create a dot. Just think back on the number of dots of our life and all the dots have meaningful turns and have resulted in to where we are today. We seems not to understnd this and thus feel bad about the immediate results. But, in end, whatever happened, happened for good.

Connect those dots!!

Managing Customer Expectations

During my last business trip to Norway, I encountered a strange problem with FinnAir. I generally travel by Lufthansa, as I am member of ‘Miles and More’; but this time around due to schedule I had to travel by FinnAir.
The argument was that i have more weight in cabin bag and I was arguing that my total weight is much less then the limit plus I am not crossing the cabin bag limit by much.

Ultimately, I transferred some of my jackets to my check-in bag and managed to get out.

What prompted me to think is how important to have a better customer handling guy at those points where your company meets the customers. Be it front desk at a hotel, a bar tender in a restaurant or a customer relationship manager in any customer engagement activity.

The front desk lady of that airlines could have told me this in a totally different way, this is what happened when I was returning. Stockholm FinnAir handled me in totally different way (Not on the same issue though).

Imagine, you go to get any service and you are well treated and asked to have a seat and initially asked if what they can do for you? Take example of a saloon for a hair-cut, if the haircut reception doesn’t treat you well, however well the haircut may be you will think twice before you go again to the same shop.

Customer is a king and understanding the psychology of the customer needs a great art. It can be any industry. You need to have your best employees at those points where your company interacts with customers in order to do a better customer management and to have repeat customers.

Imagine, a ‘bad-customer-facing’ guy sitting at customer place and not able to manage the expectation. Your company will get a bad reputation and the whole company will be branded based on that experience. Resulting in to no further business or strained relationship.

On the contrary there are several examples where a great customer relationship management by certain individual has resulted in great business.

I have been arguing that India needs a better training to handle customers and especially when we are moving towards service driven industry. I personally feel we lack the art of handling the customers.

Cost of not learning it is high, so better learn it!

Billion Dollar Instagram and going down the memory lane

The buzword last week was Instagram and news that Facebook bought it for 1 Billion Dollars (A company, which is not making any money, just published one Apps and has only 13 employees).

Interestingly there is very good analysis written by Anshuman Bapna in EconomicTimes. There article is here..

Anshuman was my hostel mate when I was in IIT Bombay and its great to know the heights he has reached. He was a different thinker even while he was a student and started his company while in third year of B.Tech.

Further, he has very interesting presentation TEDx, about his ideas and his company.
The YouTube Video is here....

Feels good..

Why This is Emphatically Not the End of India’s IT Services Story

Related to my previous post, via 6AMPacific...

Why This is Emphatically Not the End of India’s IT Services Story

Growth of Indian IT Industry

I got a chance to talk about India IT industry while I was on a business trip to Norway and Sweden. The topic was more on how Indian IT companies driving the revenues and still managing the margins even while being so big in size and about how Indian IT business differentiator is being managed to win large deals. Also, how account management means a great element of importance to IT companies in India.

But, that’s not all about IT industry.

Indian IT Industry is set to cross a milestone: revenues will exceed $100 billion this year. This achievement is better appreciated when one recalls that just 20 years ago, its size was only about half-a-billion dollars.

Now providing livelihood to about 10 million people (including 2.8 million directly employed), it is the largest recruiter in the organized private sector. It is also amongst the biggest foreign exchange earners for the country.

These figures convey the outstanding success of this sector; yet, its qualitative impact is, possibly, of even greater import. First, it has transformed the global image of India and Indians: today, both are seen as winners. Second, it has energized the country's higher education sector, especially in engineering and computer science.

Third, it has contributed to social transformation by providing lucrative jobs to lakhs from small towns and even villages and gender equality, through its extensive employment of young women. Finally, and most importantly, it has brought hope to young people, who - thanks to the opportunities in this sector - view the future with optimism.

Looking ahead, it is clear that the Indian IT industry will face many serious challenges: technological, managerial and geopolitical. Competition from other countries will intensify, and supply-side constraints increase. Human resources, infrastructure and a comparatively adverse business environment - thanks mainly to unpredictable interpretation of tax laws by overzealous, collection-driven officials - will pose problems.

Yet, there are also growing opportunities: new areas of work, emerging markets, new technologies, innovation in product, process and business models. Amongst the most exciting of these are opportunities within India. Many of these have the potential of doing good while doing well, contributing to social benefit even as profits are made.

In this area of societal applications of technology, the possibilities in India are immense and limited only by imagination - and sometimes by regulatory barriers. The national e-governance programme (NEGP) provides many examples of how technology could be used to bring greater efficiency, transparency and even accountability in government activities, especially those related to citizen services

And I am happy to be part of this revolution.

‘Offshore’ : A Book Review

Just finished reading the book ‘Offshore’ by Gaurav Rastogi and Basab Pradhan. I follow Basab’s blogs and was expecting a lot from this book, ever since I read blog that this book is coming.

“How India got back on the Global Business map” is what the authors set out to explore or may be explain. The book tells you about what you probably do not know about the offshore industry if you are not a part of it. If you are a part of the industry, it tells you about the growth of the industry and how an account can be managed and grown. Now that defines the audience of this book very clearly: World – people in offshore industry – those who engage with the offshore industry as clients. Now, this audience can be divided into two – Indians and Non-Indians. I think the authors oscillated between these audience, sometimes they wanted to address the concerns of Indians and sometimes they wanted to explain small things about India the way only a non-Indian audience requires.

The book is an informative, and easy read. The people in the professional services industry and the client organizations will benefit the most in addition to people with interest in tracking the developments and evolution of professional services, and those who are intrigued by India's growth story in the services arena

The book details the secrets of Indian offshoring success with great fascination. The authors have done a great job in demystifying the "code" and explaining the success of India offshoring, in addition to outlining the current challenges and opportunities. The Indian social context that is a key underpinning to the success of the offshoring industry is well presented.

The clients will gain a deeper understanding of the motivations and aspirations of their offshoring partners (I should say partners with offshoring strategy since most successful companies like Accenture, IBM Global services have embraced offshoring to the scale of many Indian companies) and create more successful contracts and engagements. The client's quest to understand the wide spectrum of offshoring issues - cultural, social, and economical is addressed comprehensively.

The book is well packaged with thoughtful selection of the most important topics offering excellent insights. The book should help clients to design better partner programs (including offering inputs to their own captive strategy) and the sales teams to compete better in the market place. As an example, the chapter "The Hard Slog for Account Growth" is an amazing narrative of how companies like Infosys, TCS and others have built several 100M clients taking over market share from traditional services firms who were slow to react to the offshoring evolution.

The book reinforces the pride to everyone instrumental in creating and driving the offshoring strategy to great success for their organizations.

The Ability to Think Big

One of the fundamental qualities of all great leaders and CEOs, is ability to think big.
There is a story from old days of Infosys, when it was US 1 Million company. When management set to discuss the business growth for the next year; they set a target of US 2 million for next year. It might sound a very simple target now, but in that time it was actually doubling the company!!

Dhirubai Ambani’s ability to think big made him the legend what he is remembered today as.

Early part of my career or part of the management education; I came across few guys who drew my attention for their ability to think above the mass. They could able to look at a bigger picture and could project a much bigger business. Though; that time that projection looked more ambitious. But these were not just mere numbers, these guys had a execution plan in place, cementing my understanding that think big, is not only about thinking, but it also needs a bigger execution plan.

I have an interesting story of how changing the seating location helped us to think big!

When our business unit was about 30 guys, we were sitting in a location, sharing the floor space with other teams. Then we shifted to a new building of capacity of 150 seats, and all of a sudden we started feeling we are part of a bigger team, bigger company. I think, we really expanded our scope and went after the new business.

Then, the sense of big really occupied our minds. Though, I am not saying this was sufficient or we really know how to think big.

Now, within one month, we will be moving to yet another location, with much bigger space/capacity.

Need to see, if this fuels another wave of think big!

Indian Cricket and Sachin Tendulkar

What’s happening to Indian cricket?

Why our players have to fight through media? That too about the game strategy? Why all of a sudden senior players are looking so bad and non-performing?

Blame this on coach. The job of coach is to take the team together, like a business leader. This is not happening in first place.

Suddenly, media is asking for heads. And cricket Pundits asking for Sachin should retire. If my memory serves me correct, team management asked Sachin to play one day, he was earlier considering not playing them in Australia, I remember reading headlines like this. And all of a sudden he is looking so bad that he can’t even be considered as a player who contributed to game of cricket. He is a bad player?

Oh come on.

Every player has some special skills and he will contribute to the game accordingly. You can’t expect everyone is alike. Why there is no other Sachin then?

When we will start looking cricket as just a professional game?

Adaptation versus Rigidity: Kingfisher Airlines

What makes one company succeed, while another, in the same operating environment, falter? Sometimes, luck plays a role but in most cases in business history, the difference between survival and extinction is more about discipline versus excess, adaptation versus rigidity. Just look at the divergent stories of Kodak and Fujifilm—both legendary firms in the film business. While Fuji realised its days were numbered and managed to reinvent itself by launching new—yet unrelated—business lines in things like cosmetics and optical films for LCD flat-panel screens, Kodak is a shadow of its former self because it couldn’t articulate a strategy beyond images.

In India, a similar tale of contrasting approaches—and fortunes—can be seen in the airline industry. While Kingfisher airlines cannot be relegated to the dustheap of airline history as yet, its abysmal performance in the last few years makes it stand out in stark contrast to IndiGo—India’s most profitable airline. Why did one soar and the other plummet?

One answer has to do with Kingfisher’s schizophrenic approach to a business model. Kingfisher was launched as an all-economy, single-class configuration aircraft with food and entertainment systems. After about a year of operations, the airline suddenly shifted its focus to luxury.

On the other hand, IndiGo preferred to wait and have a solid business plan in place. Its plan was to stick to operating a single configuration aircraft, providing point-to-point connectivity. The airline launched with one aircraft and had a plan to add an aircraft every six weeks, giving them enough time to stabilize

An experienced and professional team in the cockpit is a basic requirement for any airline to be able to withstand stormy skies. Yet, things went out of control further because Kingfisher never had a professional airline management in place. IndiGo’s approach was more measured and professional. It’s first CEO, Bruce Ashby, was in India 18months before the launch, and an experienced team at the management/board level has been key reason of IndiGo's success.

Another difference between IndiGo and Kingfisher is in the former’s ability to strike savvy deals—especially for its aircraft. The 100 Airbus aircraft deal signed in 2005 was a game changer as they managed to get an exceptional price and gave them the strategic ability to leverage it significantly.

Some companies just fail to learn—either from the examples that its peers may have set for the industry, or from its own past mistakes. Now, Kingfisher has decided to change its model yet again—discontinuing its Kingfisher Red brand and completely converting its fleet to a dual class, full-service configuration.

The positioning of the Kingfisher airlines was also a problem since beginning. The image was aligned to the ‘Life Size’ image of its promoter, Vijay Mallya. Where as it should be like focusing on the operation make it work before taking next step. You can’t expand business without putting the operation in place.

This raises the question in mind, how important the management is? Why management has to have a clear strategy and focus on operational efficiency. And how it is important to have a management which understands the business?

Business is all about having the killer focus on business!!

Sarvam Dev Mayam Jagat: (This world is full of God)

This weekend; I was back to reading Bhagavad-Gita, which I used to do regularly earlier. I always turn to this epic whenever I feel low and need inspiration.

I started thinking, whatever we think is my/our achievement, does it really so? What is really our part in what we are today?

Actually speaking, if we start thinking that I am just an actor in the larger play of this whole world, it gives us maturity and a mindset to accept the things as is. Whatever happens in this world is pre-destined, good or bad, happy or sad; it was supposed to be in that way.

But, our mind starts thinking that whatever I am today is because of me and I am the super power, we feel we are successful because of my hard work, because of my intelligent; actually speaking; it was pre-destined that you are supposed to be successful and you did!

Bhagavad-Gita says, 9,17;

pitaham asya jagato mata dhata pitamahah
vedyam pavitram omkara rk sama yajur eva ca

Translation:I am the father of this universe, the mother, the support and the grandsire. I am the object of knowledge, the purifier and the syllable om. I am also the Rig, the Sama and the Yajur Vedas.

In this one verse, the role of superpower has been explained. Before we start feeling pride when we achieve something, we need to understand that there is a superpower behind everything and it controls the every single detail of what’s happening in this world.

The entire cosmic manifestations, moving and nonmoving, are manifested by different activities of super energy. In the material existence we create different relationships with different living entities who are nothing but super power’s marginal energy; under the creation of prakriti some of them appear as our father, mother, grandfather, creator, etc., but actually they are parts and parcels of that super power.

It was a really refreshing weekend, completely away from business numbers, sales targets, delivery headaches and but just to think about my favorite book and think on how insignificant I am in this universal manifestation of god!

It gave me a great motivation to go there and give my best in whatever I do, it slowed me down to think and it gave me that spiritual energy and momentary mental peace.

Out of phone!

I am out of phone, since last 5 hours. And there is only one thought in my mind, how much I have been depending on that small instrument!!

iOS is not re-installing on my iPhone and I kept on trying to install, without success. I did some research and reading on internet, but none of the articles gave any direction.

The new technology has given us great access to information all the times, ability to connect to the world and know. And I am been connected to internet just to substitute my phone off-time.

Actually, phone is no more an instrument it was meant to, to get-receive the phone calls. It has been converted in to an instrument which keeps you hooked up, or wired up!! This is why per minute usage of each subscriber of all major telecom companies have increased much. Plus, there is a clear business model to sell more data services than voice.

Look at Bharati Airtel, how successfully Airtel have expanded in to Africa and mad Zen Telecom a profitable enterprise. It was an interesting business model and they have successfully put together the revenue and cost structure in place.

An interesting comparison here is Telenor. Telenor has been successful elsewhere in the World, wherever it entered. Except India; where Uninor has not been profitable so far and there seems to be some issues with that operation. Recent cancellation of 2G spectrum allocated to Uninor has put that business in to tighter spot. Its global experience seems not helping Telenor.

Question back is, how much we are depending on gadgets?

Indian Post Office

The old format of Post Office, that office which we have grown up seeing is fading fast.

The post office has been changing for several years now. It first got the strategy consultants McKinsey to work out a vision and road map towards reinvention, essential when the letter, the heart of the traditional post office, is rapidly disappearing. The department now has a new logo that signals that post office interiors have a new format, with prescribed appropriate furniture — and, critically, computers. It is on its way to connecting all “departmental” post offices through a core banking solution.
The strategic plan for Postal department to generate additional revenue has different plans.

One of the interesting things it started is to branch out in to life Insurance, in rural areas. Just like LIC but so far it is restricting itself to rural areas, with better and attractive return plans. There is much been invested in to training and other initial logistics without much hype. If done correctly, it will obviously generate huge revenue.

Recent to this is Department of Postal has decided to start a Bank of its own. The post office savings bank has huge deposits (totalling Rs 3.7 lakh crore at end-2009-10, nearly half of banking leader SBI’s) but also makes huge losses (net deficit 94 per cent of revenue in an exceptional pay commission award-burdened year, and 61 per cent in the more normal previous year, 2008-09).

It can be said that the post office savings bank does not get depositors out of its own effort. They walk in because of better (administered) returns and tax advantages. That is why collections fluctuate according to whether banks’ deposit rates appear more or less attractive at a given moment. This happens because, while banks and the entire financial sector have moved to market-determined rates which fluctuate according to the signals of monetary policy, small savings rates have been kept stable so as to encourage steady savings by common people.

The most important aspect is the leadership. Can Post Bank get the kind of leadership private banking has? Can Department of Post build kind of management like MNC banks have?

I think, it has clear advantage in terms of brand recall and the trust. Over the years Indian Post has been part of our common life and known for better returns. If done correctly, the bank promoted by Indian Post will have a very clear advantage.

It is a clear change time in Indian Post.

Australian Open 2012

Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal had just played the longest match in Grand Slam finals history.

It was a great match of tennis, a true exhibition of resilience, strength, patience, courage, toughness and persistence; throughout those 5 hours and 53 minutes of marathon.
This is how champions are made, through constant grinding and pushing up against the wall. Both the players were so drained out that they could barely stand during the award ceremony.

After coming back from 5-3 down to win the fourth-set tiebreaker, Nadal was up a break at 4-2 in the fifth set against Djokovic, who seemed to be tiring. But the No. 1-ranked Djokovic, who needed almost five hours to win his semifinal against Andy Murray, somehow responded. He broke for a 6-5 lead and saved a break point before finally claiming the win.

This was a true exhibition of never say die attitude from both the players, however the physical and mental strength makes the big difference at the end. This is the difference between a champion and a mediocre.

It was just a great game of tennis at the end of the day.

Leander Paes has won men’s doubles championship and is runner up in mixed-double, which is good news for all of us.

The smell of winning sweat is always great and that keeps the players motivated to give more.

Going Down The Memory Lane

Recently I was in my hometown on a vacation and I got a chance to meet few of old people.
First to mention was my 1st grade school master, who probably taught me first lesions in alphabet. He barely recognized me, obviously so!!

Second was my high-school teacher, who remembered me and asked about my journey etc.
Third was my college professor who taught me few subjects.

The third was an interesting one as it appeared me that my young friends who are currently studying in that college where I studied do not have information about where things are going on outside corporate world, nor they have the direction required. It was almost similar affair while I was studying in there.

Few things never change!!

I also visited a village where I used to visit with my father when I was probably 6-7 years old. The houses, the people, the area where I played, where I fought with my sister; that all reminded me on my childhood.

It was kind of re-visiting part of my biography, like in movie ‘My Autograph’

Going down the memory lane, was perhaps describes it better!

The monk who got his bike!

First of all, I am not a monk, but I guess I am heavily influenced by Robin Sharma!!

Second, I got a bike as gift and have started riding it (like pro???). I got this dream of biking after I read Lance Armstrong’s biography and got the required push/motivation in time.

Let me tell you, it’s a great oxygen pusher, which pumps in lot of O2 in to your system and riding that little machine in the morning is a divine experience.

It’s little different than brisk walking, which I am used to. It’s much tiring comparatively and needs constant focus on the road in order to mitigate the risk of rash driving of others.

But, it brings in lot of energy and cheerfulness due to high oxygen intake.

And I am liking it…

Business trips and the time spent in reading.

Busines trips and the solitude time on the plane and airports gives lot of time to catch up on reading.

During my last business trip, i finished reading three books, in planes; between sleeps, on trams, on buses, cabs and in airports.

“The Secret Letters of the Monk who sold his Ferrari”

Jonathan Landry is a man in trouble. After a bizarre encounter with his lost cousin Julian Mantle'a former high-powered courtroom lawyer who suddenly vanished into the Himalayas.Jonathan is compelled to travel across the planet to collect the life-saving letters that carry the extraordinary secrets that Julian discovered.

On a remarkable journey that includes visits to the sensual tango halls of Buenos Aires, the haunting catacombs of Paris, the gleaming towers of Shanghai and the breathtakingly beautiful Taj Mahal in India, The Secret Letters of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari reveals astounding insights on reclaiming your personal power, being true to yourself and fearlessly living your dreams."

“The Leadership Code”

What is the leadership?

It's a question that has been tackled by thousands. In fact there are literally tens of thousands of leadership studies, theories, frameworks, models, and recommended best practices. But where are the clear, simple answers we need for our daily work lives? Are there any?

Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman set out to answer these questions--to crack the code of leadership. Drawing on decades of research experience, the authors conducted extensive interviews with a variety of respected CEOs, academics, experienced executives, and seasoned consultants -- and heard the same five essentials repeated again and again. These five rules became The Leadership Code.

In The Leadership Code, the authors break down great leadership into day-to-day actions, so that you know what to do Monday morning. Crack the leadership code--and take your leadership to the next level

“Unusual People Do Things Differently”

Unusual people are ordinary people who strive hard to do extraordinary things. They are sensitive to nuances, look to provide lateral solutions, dare to think out of the box, and often end up changing the rules of the game.

T.G.C. Prasad presents the views and experiences of sixty-five individuals, from well-known names like Mike Lawrie, Azim Premji and Mother Teresa to a chef, a masseuse and a service boy, with whom he has had meaningful interactions and who have inspired him. He includes people from a broad professional spectrum; CEOs, doctors, the director general of police, realtors, an attorney, a chartered accountant, a consultant and a sports coach are among those who make his list. Singling out a dominant factor from each person’s story, he outlines the journeys these people undertook and the behaviours they exhibited, and shows how these link up to the results they achieved.

Differentiate in the market place

Differentiation is the essence of strategy, the prime source of competitive advantage. You earn money not just by performing a valuable task but by being different from your competitors in a manner that lets you serve your core customers better and more profitably

The sharper your differentiation, the greater your advantage. Consider Tetra Pak, a company that in 2010 sold more than 150 billion packages in 170 markets around the world. Tetra Pak’s carton packages extend the shelf life of products and eliminate the need for refrigeration. The shapes they take—squares and pyramids, for example—stack more efficiently in trucks and on shelves than most cans or bottles. The packaging machines that use the company’s unique laminated material lend themselves to high-volume dairy operations. These three features set Tetra Pak well apart from its competitors and allow it to produce a package that more than compensates for its cost.

All successful companies have this kind of well-defined and easily understood differentiation at the center of their strategy. Nike’s differentiation resides in the power of its brand, the company’s relationships with top athletes, and its signature performance-focused product design. Singapore Air’s differentiation comes from its unique ways of providing premium service at a reasonable cost on long-haul business flights. Apple’s differentiation consists of deep capabilities in writing easy-to-use software, the integrated iTunes system, and a simplicity of design and product lines.

You can find high performers like these in most industries. The cold truth about hot markets is this: Over the long run, a company’s strategic differentiation and execution matter far more to its performance.

But differentiation tends to wear with age, and not just because competitors try hard to undermine or replicate it. Often the real problem is internal: The growth generated by successful differentiation begets complexity, and a complex company tends to forget what it’s good at. Products proliferate. Acquisitions take it far from its core. Frontline employees, more and more distant from the CEO’s office, lose their sense of the company’s strategic priorities. A lack of consistency kills economies of scale and retards the company’s ability to learn.

The entire last week was spent in sales reviews, forecast meetings and building a new business model for a new market, where the thought process was to differentiate in the market place.

The outcome of that thought process is this article...

The TCS Story ... and Beyond : Review

When a man who has headed an organisation – and it happens to be India’s largest IT services provider – for 13 years writes a book, you feel compelled to read it to gain a better understanding of leadership and management strategies. The TCS Story ... and Beyond by S Ramadorai does not disappoint in this regard. Ramadorai, who was with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for 40 years, has not only given an account of his personal journey and the strategy that TCS adopted but also provided a deep insight into the Indian IT industry, and the beginnings of the offshoring model that has made India’s software exports an over $60-billion industry, and TCS an over $8-billion company.

The TCS story is one of modern India’s great success stories. In this fascinating book, S. Ramadorai, one of the country’s most respected business leaders, recounts the steps to that extraordinary success. The inside story of one of India’s premier corporate institutions, this is also in part a history of the rapidly developing IT software and services industry in India, told from the perspective of an industry leader.

Ramadorai highlights how the Y2K problem created an enormous opportunity for the entire Indian IT industry to expand its client base. He explains how the company went about its vision of becoming a multi-billion dollar firm. In 2003, for instance, around 90 per cent of TCS’ revenues came from IT services. So the TCS core team drew a single bubble and added the text “IT Solutions and Services” on a PowerPoint slide. Five more bubbles followed on the PowerPoint slide: Global Consulting, Engineering and Industrial Services, Asset-based Offerings, Infrastructure Services and IT-enabled Services (or BPO). There we were with six neat bubbles on a PowerPoint slide. “We declared we would grow each of these into a $1 billion plus business,” Ramadorai writes.

Ramadorai also gives an interesting insight into the manpower angle, which is now the strength of the Indian IT industry. Today, TCS has over 200,000 employees (including subsidiaries). And in recent years, excluding the 2008-10 downturn, TCS has recruited about 30,000 people each year. “I am often asked how the induction and training of such a large number of new recruits happens. This is a skill that TCS has mastered, developing a very well-oiled system that transforms young adults into confident and competent professionals ready for a global career,” he writes.

Towards the end of the book Ramadorai has put in his thoughts on education in India and how vocational training has to be brought in and strengthened as that would open up more avenues of employment for the students passing out of the numerous schools and colleges. It would give a different means to livelihood to the millions who today strive to find a job and then try to find satisfaction with whatever job comes their way rather than being able to select a job as per their abilities and likes.

Behind the phenomenon called TCS lies a quest for excellence and an attention to detail—captured in the company’s motto ‘Experience Certainty’—that can benefit any organization. There is a great deal to be learnt from the TCS example, and Ramadorai outlines a vision for the future where the quality initiatives he undertook can be applied to a larger national framework. This is a book that every Indian who is committed to building a better and more productive future must read.

It's Not about the Bike

It's Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life is an inspiring story of Lance Armstrong, great US athlete, who won Tour De France seven times in a row and more importantly came back from cancer to compete.

I just finished reading this book.

'I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at seventy-five miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my wife and ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire: the perfect contradiction to my once anticipated poignant early demise. A slow death is not for me. I don't do anything slow, not even breathe.'

This talks about mettle of a winning professional, individual and character of a person who can think about winning from his cancer bed, think about winning Tour even when there were no sponsor to take him.

In 1996 twenty-four-year-old Lance Armstrong was ranked the number one cyclist in the world. But that October the Golden Boy of American cycling was sidelined by advanced testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain. His chance for recovery was as low as twenty per cent. Armstrong embarked on the most aggressive form of chemotherapy available and underwent surgery - including brain surgery - to remove cancer that the treatments could not reach.

Five months after his diagnosis he resumed training under a cloud of uncertainty. Armstrong returned to competitive cycle racing in 1998 when the United States Postal Service team invited him to join them, and from there he trained himself to victory in the 86th Tour de France in 1999.

Although scarred physically and emotionally, Lance Armstrong considered his cancer a 'wake-up call', one that crystallized for him the blessings of good health, family, friends and marriage

This is the story of a journey, from inauspicious beginnings through triumph, tragedy, transformation and transcendence. Filled with the physical, emotional and spiritual details of his recovery, It's Not About the Bike traces the remarkable journey of this great athlete to a singularly inspiring appreciation of life lived to the fullest.

This booked taught me one thing, never never give up. You can overcome obstacles in life though dedication, determination and hard work.

Salute to Lance, for fighting against all odds and showing a path !

Habit of winning

The habit of winning makes a difference and with which most of the business or the teams go for a kill!

When you take a hard look at India’s debacle in England you find that there are echoes of it in the world of business. Three companies in the last month — Yahoo, Apple and Research in Motion (makers of Blackberry) — considered giants at one point, are in the news because there are questions if they can continue to be major players in their businesses. Yahoo, because in spite of multiple CEO changes it hasn’t been able to break out of its rut for the past five years; Apple, because Steve Jobs has stepped down as CEO and Research in Motion because it’s fallen way behind Apple and Samsung in the Smartphone race.

Great teams do not surrender meekly. Look at Sony. The Japanese electronics giant had suffered a series of failures in the first half of the decade before it entered the high definition optical disc format war where its Blu-ray disc went up against HD DVD from Toshiba. The war could have been the death knell for Sony but the company triumphed. It came back from the brink when Toshiba admitted defeat and launched its own version of Blu-ray in 2008.

Some teams seem to get in to constant winning, for longer time. So does the business. There is lot of similarity how a sports team or business team work. It’s extremely important to have the momentum of winning going. Because, as winning is habit, so does loosing.

There are several factors that make a high performance team. If you change any one of them, the equilibrium of the team will change and it might take a shift in team dynamics to make it work again. The role of coach is to give the vision to the team, to give the direction to win, to build the habit of winning. Like a coach, a CEO or a head of function need to build this culture of winning.

Technically speaking, coach or CEO, are not part of the playing team (operational team); but their contribution is in building high performance teams, building the team which continue performing and producing results for long haul. A coach or CEO can’t be man of the match, but they produce match winners.

They stand at background and build the culture. That is what a great leadership is all about.

Someone asked me about role of change in coach of India cricket team in team’s debacle in England.

Time to think how Gary Kirsten managed to build that habit of winning?