March 2013
2 posts
4 tags
THE DEATH OF GOOGLE READER
GOOGLE READER IS GONE ; What does it mean for you and me?
GOOGLE RECENTLY announced that it is sun-setting its web-based aggregator capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. While it has been around since 2005, Google has not been updating it as regularly as its other products. It also happens to be a free service, which does not provide a major revenue stream to Google. It...
6 tags
Leading from the front
YAHOO!’S CEO, Marissa Mayer, recently kicked up a huge controversy when she declared that she wanted all Yahoo! employees to turn up at office. In short, no more working from home. The memo went on to say “To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our...
February 2013
1 post
Cronyism rules
‘Recruitment scam: Ex-Haryana cm Om Prakash Chautala convicted, arrested’ read the headlines a few days ago. Chautala got involved in deciding who should be selected for the job of a lowly Junior Basic Trained Teacher(JBT) in Haryana. Of course, Chautala’s criteria for selection were anything but merit. Teachers who made it to his list were either from his hometown, from his caste, or they had...
January 2013
1 post
5 tags
A New Year ode to the crooked one
As I sit down to write my first piece for the New Year, I wonder what I should write about. Should I continue writing about how we need more innovation and entrepreneurship to change the country and the world? Or about how women are set to conquer the corporate world? Or share my tips on what you should do to climb the corporate ladder even faster?
But then, how do I write as if life is normal,...
December 2012
1 post
10 tags
THE YEAR GONE BY
DECEMBER 2012! We are at the threshold of another New Year brimming with anticipation about the changes it will bring. Time perhaps to take a step back and reflect on the events and milestones of 2012 that impacted our professional lives. Has anything changed majorly in the year that passed? Any disruption in the way we work? Here is my take on what I saw as the game changing trends in human...
November 2012
3 posts
5 tags
LAYOFFS IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
I was in the bay area when the dotcom bust of 2001-02 happened. I got to see, first hand, the pink slip mayhem that got unleashed right after. Start-ups folded up virtually overnight, with no funding in sight. Big companies saw their sales plummet, and had to re-size their operations if they wanted to stay afloat. The impact was not restricted to one sector or industry. As retail demand slowed...
14 tags
World Can Be Your Oyster
Multiple locations and learning new skills multiple times is going to become the norm
The year was 2000. My friend Satish’s company in Bangalore was acquired by a large US semi-conductor company, and he was asked to relocate to the Bay area. Satish did not fall into the “right out of college, going to do MS and explore the world” category. He had a family, with two young boys and a wife who was...
13 tags
Reimagining the world…
ARE WE ON THE CUSP OF THREE BIG TECHNOLOGICAL LEAPS — SOCIAL, CLOUD AND MOBILE?
I was visiting the San Francisco bay area after almost a year. I was excited about meeting old friends and looking forward to catching up with the new set of entrepreneurs and startups. There is no better place than Silicon Valley for ‘startup-watching’ as it throws up brand new ones unfailingly year after year,...
September 2012
1 post
6 tags
WHAT WOMEN WANT
HAPPINESS AT WORK IS NOT ABOUT LANDING THE BEST-PAYING JOB
STARTED MY career in the 80’s, when a majority of the girls around me chose to get married and settle down to a full-time ‘home-builder’ role. Blame it on ignorance, or destiny, I found myself in a sales executive role that demanded a significant amount of travel and external meetings — percent definitely not one of your predictable...
July 2012
3 posts
5 tags
Why this Kolaveri Di?
THE COLD-BLOODED KILLING OF AN HR MANAGER MAYBE THE MOST EXTREME EXAMPLE OF HOW EMPLOYERS ARE STRUGGLING TO MANAGE THEIR WORKFORCE DURING A TIME OF ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY; BUT IN ITS WAKE, IT ALSO DRIVES HOME IMPORTANT LESSONS IN REDUNDANCY MANAGEMENT
I WOKE UP in the morning last Thursday to read about the horrifying death of Awanish Kumar Dev, the General Manager (hr) of Maruti Suzuki. This was...
Dev Ghar ala re!
I have known Dev Khare for a while as the silicon-valley-based venture capitalist with Venrock, the iconic Venture Capital firm that lists companies like Intel, 3Com, and Mentor Graphics among its successful investment portfolio! Active in the mobile and web space, Dev’s investments included Slideshare (yes, that’s the company I wrote about recently, and that got acquired by LinkedIn), Appia,...
4 tags
GROWING UP PANGS
INDIAN START-UPS SHOULD TAKE A FEW GREY HEADS ON BOARD, WHO CAN HELP THEM BREAK OUT OF THE PACK OF THE PACK
STARTUPS ARE in vogue, again. If Bay Area had its Facebook and Zynga, Benguluru has its Flipkart and InMobi. Not a day passes by without some new funding being announced and the promise of yet another hot start-up that is going to transform the landscape. Exciting times definitely for the...
June 2012
1 post
4 tags
SlideShare – Born in India! Yes sir!
I have followed SlideShare and its founders Rashmi, Amit and Jonathan, from afar since 2006. So, meeting Amit, when I happened to be in his neck of the woods earlier this week, was a no-brainer for me. Thank you Amit. For being very generous with your time, and for patiently putting up with all my curious questioning :-).
First, something about the company, and their offering. SlideShare is the...
May 2012
7 posts
12 tags
Primed up...for Hollywood?!
Ramki Sankaranarayanan glanced at his phone one evening, to see an SMS announcing the arrival of Namit’s baby boy. The year was 2007, and Namit was this absurdly young founder/CEO of Prime Focus, a company that dominates the post-production film business in Mumbai. Once a salesman always a salesman, they say, and Ramki true to his calling, immediately picked up the phone to wish Namit, his...
6 tags
The making of a "People's Bank"?
It was by happenstance that I came to learn about the Shriram Group and G S Sundararajan (Sundar), MD of Shriram Capital, the other day. Of course, I have known that Shriram was a huge player in the chit fund business and did a lot of truck financing. This only reinforced my image of the company as a traditional, Chennai based, family/promoter-run enterprise. Not the kind of company that I would...
12 tags
FreshDesk - A Whiff of Fresh Air!
I have met many entrepreneurs in my life, including my husband who I have seen through three start-ups. I’m always excited listening to their ideas, feeling their passion and their hunger to achieve success. But I often find it hard to figure out who will eventually succeed, or even go past their first or second round of funding. Most times, especially in India where the market is ripe for any...
9 tags
Brofounders of BankBazaar
I first heard of BankBazaar from Rajesh Subramaniam, who invested in them from Walden Ventures. He mentioned that they offered you the option of getting the best interest rates on loans, on-line without going place to place, something like what E-Loan does in the US. My interest piqued, I have been following up to see how they are shaping up since then. So when I got a chance to reconnect during...
In The Twitter-Tumblr World, Everybody Is A...
If you see yourself as a tech leader, be willing to put your money where your pen is MY FRIEND, who is a Vice-President with a technology start-up in Bengaluru, called me the other day with a problem. His company was growing fast and he needed to recruit aggressively. He was finding it hard to attract star programmers and architects he needed — his company was no Facebook or Google to...
7 tags
Our very own Startup Role Model
I am one of the lucky few who started my career with a start-up in India…a venture that grew rapidly, and could rival any bay area start-up of today in terms of excitement and energy! It is really hard to believe, today, that such a company existed in India and that too in 1983, but Wipro of those days was very much such a startup! (In fact, the global Indian IT companies we see today - a...
6 tags
Kumar at IndoUS
I started the week with a Monday morning meeting with a disarming Venture Capitalist, Kumar Shiralagi. Kumar is a Partner with IndoUS Venture Partners, a VC firm that is focused on early stage investments in India, and has backed some very interesting start-ups like Via, Myntra, Attero, SnapDeal, etc. Despite the fact that Kumar and I happen to be neighbors, and his wife Kalpana and I are good...
April 2012
2 posts
6 tags
Visiting Cards are passe', says Sanjay...
Sanjay Parthasarathy (http://about.me/sanjaypat) is back in India, this time in an entrepreneurial avtaar in Chennai. Last I had met him was in a totally different mode, when he was setting up Microsoft operations in India in the 90’s. The energy is still the same…rather more, considering that this is his own start-up! He has been working on it for over 2.5 years and is now at a take...
Are you LinkedIn?
Jobseekers are forsaking classified ads in favour of the social media route to landing a dream job. Illustration: Tanmaya Tyagi THE YEAR was 1996, and the only internet access that was available was a dial-up connection through VSNL. (Anybody remember VSNL now??) Indians, or rather, the young Indian software engineers who were looking to go to the US during the 90s, had discovered a...
February 2012
1 post
Changing Dynamics
There is an urgent need for MNCs to relook at their people strategy in India, says Anuradha Parthasarathy of Global Executive Talent
The case ends with the MD, Pradeep Saigal proposing to set up a call with Mark, the AMEA (Africa, Middle East and Asia) president of HR, for Uday to discuss his exit package. Here is a person who supposedly leads the country operations as the Managing Director and...
December 2011
1 post
Merry XMas and Happy New Year!
I was wondering whether I really wanted to do the usual stuff of wishing everybody, sending tons of emails knowing fully well that it will get lost in the crowd and then I came across this message sent by my friend Anil Sachdeva. I decided I had to share it for even if only a few of you read it, I’m sure it will make a difference just like it did for me this morning on a warm sunny XMas...
October 2011
1 post
Wanted: Tech Mahouts
As companies grapple with leadership issues, one of the most critical responsibilities of the board is to identify the rainmakers, unfettered by conventional wisdom Remember the famous book by Lou Gerstner Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? that talked about how he turned around IBM? The book starts with IBM’s Board Member and Executive Search Committee Chairman, Jim Burke, pursuing Gerstner, who...
August 2011
1 post
Diamonds In The Rough
In order to build organisations which can be the models for an entire generation of businesses, one needs to discover the diamond in the rough Last week, I suddenly got a call from one of my good friend who I had known for a long time, though LinkedIn was mainly how we kept in touch these days. He was calling to get my advice on a new opportunity he was considering and was excited about. I knew...
July 2011
1 post
4 tags
The "Left Behind" feeling.....
I just got back to Bangalore after spending a coupe of months in Bay Area. This time around I could see and feel excitement and energy in the air there. An entirely new set of companies, businesses and people had moved in to occupy the old buildings left vacant by the Sun’s and Yahoos. San Francisco had been re-discovered by the younger, hipper crowd working for the likes of Twitter and...
May 2011
1 post
Bring On The Failures
The Silicon Valley has a history of spectacular failures paving the way for cutting edge innovation; in India the trail is yet to be embarked upon Last week, I met with someone who had been a part of the core start-up team of Asera,Inc. Asera, if anybody remembers, was identified by Forbes.com as the top Business-to-Business Company in 2001. The company was awarded the distinction of being a key...
March 2011
1 post
4 tags
Women 3.0 Or Women’s Lib 3.0
It is time women realise the need for fundamental transformations in the corporate environment to redefine their role in the power and knowledge economy. March 8, 2011 marked the centenary of the very first International Women’s Day. So it has been a 100 years since women decided to do something about getting their share of power and glory in the world. They have had their share of success in...
January 2011
1 post
We The People?
28 Jan 2011 | Business World Why is it that corruption has become such an intrinsic part of the Indian society and how we need to be honest and admit our role in the crime, as the people of this nation. The name screamed at me from the pages of the newspaper, but I still could not believe my eyes! The most talked-about insider trading case in the US had claimed its latest victim in my good...
December 2010
5 posts
Jump Off The Pyramid And Shoot For The Trampoline!
Why over 40 executives at the brink of career change should pursue their ‘real’ passion instead of looking for another job. Last weekend, I happened to catch up with an old friend in the US who wanted my advice on landing his next job. Close to 40, he sounded lost and anxious. He had lost his job with a Fortune500 a year before, moved cities and joined another company in a similar...
Time For An Indian Dream
I started my career with Wipro in 1983 recruited straight out of BITS, Pilani. I joined freshers from IIMs, RECs, IITs, and IISc, who Wipro had chosen for its newly formed Information Technology Division. During the next three months of orientation training, I heard many different folks from R&D, Sales, Quality, Manufacturing come and talk to us on different topics. We had an impressive sales...
2 tags
A Mistake In Time Saves Nine
A great career involves twists and turns before one discovers the true vocation The year was 1985. The newly minted engineer from IIT Madras arrived at Jamshedpur to take up his first job with TELCO as a Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET). Surely a dream job for a mechanical engineer in India those days. Sadly this engineer was soon to realise that his dream job was a bit of a nightmare waiting to...
Analysis: Power Of Choice
Women can, and should, demand a working environment that helps us give our best. “When you come to a fork in the road - take it” said Yogi Berra, a major league baseball Hall of Fame player and coach. I’m reminded of this as I sit down to analyze this case. Life is about making choices. It is no different for the women in the corporate world today. On one hand she can choose to...
3 tags
Investing In People
Two books that talk about re-orienting employee management strategies in diverse ways for both humanitarian and financial gain. 2009-10 has been a very difficult year for employers and employees. The Wall Street debacle has shown the high cost that society has to pay when compensation and benefits are structured to encourage greed at the top. There has been a hue and cry about bank CEOs taking...
September 2010
1 post
4 tags
Second Innings
My son had come down for his first vacation after leaving home for college. I assumed that he would want to relax, laze around and catch up on all the lost sleep. But to my surprise he had very different plans. I watched open mouthed as he got up at 5.30 am and left for work at an unearthly 6.30 am every morning including Saturdays. He told me about the villages he visited and the data that his...
August 2010
1 post
Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom
How India needs to consciously create an intensive environment for start ups to expand and usher in the era of Indian MNCs It is hard to believe now, but when I graduated in the ’80s, the most sought-after jobs were in the public sector, of course a distant second to the charms of USA. Freshly minted engineers would take a shot at the recruitment tests held by BHEL, BEL, ISRO, BARC’...
June 2010
1 post
Case Study: An Affair, An Agency And An Agenda
Give to a pig when it grunts and a child when it cries, and you will have a fine pig and a bad child. — Danish proverb Tula Bedi looked at the windmills in the horizon through a film of angry tears. She felt she had hit dead end, but as she often told herself: “I am a true-blue Sikh — we don’t take nonsense unless it saves lives or puts food into empty stomachs!” Tula was not giving up and she was...
April 2010
1 post
Is it luck that determines success in one's...
Often enough we believe that an element of “luck” is what gets some of us the lucky breaks while others get left behind in the “me too” category. I have always begged to disagree thanks to my inside view of the careers and decisions made by any number of successful executives. Taking risk at the right time, betting your all on what your gut tells you is going to be the...
March 2010
3 posts
A day in the life of a recruiter - interesting...
For those of us who think that a recruiter’s job is mere cakewalk, there’s more to it than meets the eye. A lot of sweet and toil goes into finding the ‘right candidate’ and matching the skills with the job in hand. It takes not only analytical skills but also tremendous emotional intelligence to really understand the candidate and fit him/her in the most suitable job. And you thought that...
Enough women in boardrooms?
Courtesy: The Hindu Business Line Author: D. MURALI Do women in corporate boardrooms continue to be an exception rather than the norm? “Yes, very true,” agrees Anuradha Parthasarathy, Founder & CEO, Global Executive Talent (www.globalexecutivetalent.com). Even the ones that are there are typically from the owner family, she adds, during the course of a recent email interaction with...
Transformational Leadership and its relevance to...
2009 was in many ways a watershed year for Indian entrepreneurs and investors. Pre 2009, growth was overwhelming – the challenge was to swim with the rising tide – making sure you were ready with the capital and people to grab the opportunity. Talent was scarce but we knew how to compete against the MNC’s and grab our share with the right mix of cash, stock and lure of an adventure trip. But the...
February 2010
2 posts
Understanding Your Company
Why the role of an HR head is not just a “nice to have” differentiator but is often a “make or break” parameter for the Genx organisations My husband was running an IT company in the 90s as a first time CEO. One of the interesting decisions he took was to move his HR manager to a field role as the Regional Manager heading sales and support operations in a region. I had seen line managers...
Reinventing HR - Is HR in India ready to march to...
The 21st century has brought more changes, more rapidly in the way businesses work in India — Growth rates are vaulting higher and higher; competition has moved from local to national to international; more companies are started by first time entrepreneurs than ever before; non-traditional and international investors like VCs and PEs have settled down to stay; cross Border M&As have become a...
January 2010
1 post
HR in India – A reality check
Change and fluctuations in Indian dynamics is the only thing constant in the present scenario. With a decade into the 21st century, all we can see is more changes, more rapidly in the way businesses work in India. For so long, HR in India has played a critical role, as Indian businesses and industry has leaped across the rate of growth post liberalisation and post the dawn of the internet era. A...
November 2009
1 post
Life after 50...
There is something about turning 50 which changes your career perspective. Often the truth hits that you have reached the plateau and you can only see more of the same in the next decade. Or you have been quietly left behind in the pyramid stakes. And you finally accept that your impact even within your company is more illusionary than real. This is also the point when Money doesn’t motivate you...
October 2009
1 post
Beyond the "C" suite
India is full of “Country Heads” - a designation and role which implies that you have climbed the career summit if you wish to stay in India. Yes there are always bigger brand names, bigger companies but it is still more of the same. But what happens if you have reached there in your 30’s and early 40’s! How long would you do this? The way to beat this perhaps is by moving away from MNC’s to...
June 2009
2 posts
Flat team structures will serve services sector...
The Indian services sector some day in the future will thank the global meltdown for helping it derive better value for its people advantage. It seems far-fetched now, even as the sector is grappling with the effect of the meltdown. But the services sector is sure to look back and mark the changes that were ushered in post the global meltdown. And the changes would sweep not just the export...
It’s time for manufacturing to grab the people...
Indian manufacturing sector, which has been riding the wave of global growth, remained literally a full generation behind the services sector in the crucial issue of talent. Yet, this got glossed over by the run-away growth. Today, the recession is shining a light on the sub-optimal decisions made during those days. Automobile industry, the poster child of manufacturing post liberalisation, saw...
