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Cognizant Mr.Lakshmi Narayanan – IACC Talk
Today was the first breakfast talk for this year’s series in Tamil Nadu branch of The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. These talks are conducted under the title Meet Success First Hand. Today’s guest was Mr.Lakshmi Narayanan (Vice Chairman, Cognizant), I have listened to his talks many times in the past, but he never fails to energize and motivate you. His talks are never tiring and always fresh even though he may be saying the (same) Cognizant success story. Mr.Lakshmi spoke on how Cognizant (CTS) in the initial days (~1997 when they had about 500 people) itself consciously decided to focus on exceptional customer relationship & growth (in that order). He…
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Post Budget Analysis Meeting by IACC
This years’ Indian Central Government Budget 2013 was more of a non-event. Industries expected worse with a popular budget with eye only on the upcoming general elections, for that it turned out to be a pretty routine budget. Finance Minister Mr.P.Chidambaram due to his oratory skills seems to have won over the key constituents. But due to mastery of law he probably has masked the bitter sides. Unlike 5 years before, today India’s finance is not all rosy, there is a huge budget deficit and a sense of mutual lack of trust between industries/investors and the Government. But like the wise will say, what went up has to come down…
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Leadership by Dr Kannan Ramaswamy
Today Indo American Chamber of Commerce, Chennai (IACC) had organized a breakfast talk by Dr.Kannan Ramaswamy, who is William D. Hacker Chair Professor of Management in the Department of Global Business at Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona. He is a world renowned expert on global strategy, emerging markets – including India and South Asia, having done lot of work with the energy sector and multinational giants. Dr.Kannan shared his early school experience, where a teacher encouraged him to study more. How the gesture of the Dean in the US University he was studying picked him up from a bus station and made him coffee after reaching the Univ., which developed into a life long mentorship journey. What you…
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Listen to the leader – Manickam Mahalingam
Half awake at 8:30AM today I was sitting in the ball room of Vivanta Taj Connemara hotel – waiting for the IACC Breakfast talk by Dr.M.Manickam (Chairman of Sakthi Auto components & other group companies) to begin, I was not sure on the connection with the US market & Dr.Manickam. How ignorant I was about Sakthi group & Indian companies silent march abroad! Mr.Manickam is son of Industrialist and Philanthropist Dr.S.Mahalingam (who passed away recently). Mr.Manickam was introduced as a man wearing multiple hats with ease – led Sakthi group’s turnaround across industries (Auto, ABT, Sugar, Bottling), manages many colleges & an accomplished winner in Rowing competitions; I got impressed,…
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Listen to the leader – Vijay Amritraj
“Vijay Amritraj“, the name itself is an inspiration for every Indian who grow up in 1970s and 1980s. Long before Sunil Gavaskar , Kapil Dev or P T Usha put India in International sports map, it was Vijay who turned world attention to India for right reasons. I think it was 1987, when I got galvanized by Vijay’s world cup victory that I joined Tennis coaching in T.Nagar Ladies(!) club behind Holy Angels’ school in Pondy Bazaar. It was the popular Tennis coaching centre then, and this <1 year of Tennis coaching was the only sporting activity that I ever put in effort learning. My dear readers, if you are wondering how good I was with my Tennis back in 1987, I will…
