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What the CEO wants you to know
Last month I attended a SPIN Chennai program on Balanced Scored by Mr.Sudipto Marjit. Offline when I was speaking with Mr.Marjit he noticed the book I was reading (while waiting for the talk to start) – Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business by Mr.Ram Charan. Immediately he recommended that I also read Ram Charan’s What the CEO wants you to know?. I did exactly that this week and here is the review. The first thing that strikes about the book (USD 20, INR 428) is its attractive title and the second is its thin size (about 140 pages). Before I say anything about the book I must say that this is…
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Who says Elephants can’t Dance? by Louis Gerstner
I just finished listening to this Audio book. The book is by former CEO of IBM Louis Gerstner – the outsider who was responsible for IBM’s spectacular turnaround in 1990’s. The first time when I read the paper edition of this book was soon after its release in 2002. Those were early years in Vishwak, when I wanted to be more of hands-on in technology and I was reluctant to take up management responsibilities that were being thrown my way everyday as CEO of a company. This book along with Jack Welch’s (Jack: Straight from the Gut) definitely stirred up my interest in management, growing and winning. When I graduated…
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Carly Fiorina – Tough Choices
Last week just before my Sri Lanka short visit, I finished this audio book. It was “Tough Choices” by Carly Fiorina who spent nearly twenty years at AT & T and Lucent Technologies before working as CEO for HP from 2000 to 2005. The book is a must read (or listen) for people starting their career in a large organization and especially Women Executive’s will find themselves relating well to Carly’s experiences. The initial chapters are definitely inspirational for fighting against the odds in modern businesses. If you have read Who says Elephants can’t Dance Audio book by Louis Gerstner Jr., the former IBM CEO on how he transformed IBM,…
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Built to Last by Jim Collins
In a recent visit to Landmark, I purchased an audio book titled “Built to Last“. At the time of purchase, I didn’t realize it was the Audio version of the famous book by James C. Collins & Jerry I. Porras. Anyway, after listening to 6 hours plus of the audio I think it is one of the best purchases I ever made. The Audiobook turned out to be a more convenient format than the paper book because I could listen to it in portions every day while I drove my car. The best use of the traffic jams that are now becoming common in Chennai. This book is a classic and reviewed many times on…
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Made in America by Sam Walton
What a great book this has been. I picked this book a few weeks back, I started reading it immediately during my travels and I finished it yesterday night. What a book, the style and language are so well written and direct, that you feel Mr Sam Walton (Founder Walmart) is actually speaking to you. The recollection by the colleagues of Mr Walton who had worked with him during each of the key steps in the journey of Walmart was interesting and takes us to the moments in history. If the numbers that Wal-Mart have achieved ($53 billion in annual sales) when Mr Walton wrote the book were impressive and…
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Synergetics sells majority stake to Aptech
Yesterday when I heard the news that Aptech has bought a majority stake in Synergetics, I was happy for the promoters. Synergetics is a Mumbai based training company offering advanced programs in .NET. One of the founders of the company is a good friend of mine Sanjay Vyas – a dedicated trainer who is known in Microsoft technology circles for his brilliance on C/C++/COM/C# expertise. The existing board will continue to run the company and I wish them all the best in the years to come. Having a strategic investor like Aptech is going to help the founders in improving the business and removes them the trouble of cash flows and risk-taking.
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Microsoft Executive Summit 2006
Microsoft Executive Summit is an Annual event organized by Microsoft India – in this key enterprise and government customers (CTO) of MS are invited for a 2-day intensive business conference. Speakers include Microsoft Employees, Partners and Customers worldwide. Attendees and Exhibitors are only by Invite from Microsoft India. This year the event happened yesterday and today at Mumbai’s Renaissance Convention centre. Microsoft invited this year my company “Vishwak” to showcase our Mobility story. In our booth, we demonstrated our solution “MCDS” (Mobile Content Delivery System), MSN Hutch WAP Portal which we are running for last 3 years+ and our technology that makes content from “Sharepoint Server” and “Commerce Server” available in…
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The Creation of Wealth by R.M.Lala
Microsoft India conducts periodically a day of intensive technology onsite seminars for India’s Software biggies. MSDN calls these engagements with SI (System Integrators, as they are known in the Industry) as “MSDN Day”. I have known for years Jonah Stephen who is currently the MSDN Enterprise SI Manager in India. In the last few months for Jonah, I have presented in many MSDN Days in Chennai on “ASP.NET 2.0 & Visual Studio 2005”. This included MSDN Day for CTS, Satyam & TCS in Chennai. After the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) program, I was given a very thoughtful gift that I have received for a presentation. It was a book titled…
