The Secret: How To Become A Fortune 500 Top CEO?

By Steve Tappin (Guest Writer)

Being a Fortune 500 CEO is a privilege and one of the amazing jobs you could ever wish for. It’s also one of the hardest to get, and even harder to do well. Fans of the movie ‘Top Gun’ will remember that only 1 in 100 makes it as an elite naval fighter pilot. In the corporate world, those odds shrink to 1 in 100,000 in major company.

If you want it for the money, prestige and the power, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons and will probably not make it. If the ambition is too much around you, then it’s hard to bring an organization with you.

Bharti Group's Sunil Bharti Mittal on Lessons of Entrepreneurship and Leadership

By M H Ahssan

When Sunil Bharti Mittal started in business more than 30 years ago in Ludhiana in Northern India, he borrowed $1,500 to make bicycle crankshafts. Today, he heads the $5 billion Bharti Group, whose flagship company, Bharti Airtel, is India's largest mobile phone operator. Forbes magazine, which estimates Mittal's net worth at some $11 billion, ranks him among Asia's self-made billionaires. Mittal spoke with HNN in an informal meeting, explored on the leadership and entrepreneurial lessons he has learned during his career. Among them: When faced with a choice between perfection and speed, choose speed; perfection will follow.

HNN: You started in business in 1976 at age 18, with $1,500 that you borrowed from your father. I believe your first business was making bicycle crankshafts. Could you tell us about your earliest entrepreneurial experiences and what you learned from them?

Mittal: I was raised in Ludhiana, a very industrious town, where almost everybody is an entrepreneur of some kind. It is the bedrock of small-scale industry, the principal industries being cycles or cycle parts, hosiery, or yarn to make knitwear, and light engineering items. Coming out of college with a small amount of capital, one could only do what was allowed in the ecosystem there. I decided to manufacture bicycle parts, in particular crankshafts. It was a hot forging unit that I put up, and that's where I cut my teeth on business.

HNN: You moved to Bombay in 1980. At that time, your business plans were a little more ambitious. Could you tell us a little bit more about your business ventures at that time?

Mittal: I realized that one could probably make some modest success out of what I started to do in bicycle parts, but there was a limitation. At the end of the day, the manufacturers of bicycles decided how much -- at what price you could supply to them. And just making shafts wouldn't have made you a player of any size or scale.

So, it was very clear that I had to get out of Ludhiana into a much bigger place, Delhi or Mumbai -- Bombay at that time. And I spent about two, three years in Bombay importing a variety of products -- steel, brass, zinc, zip fasteners, plastics -- and eventually bought India's first portable generator. And that was the first turning point in my career.

HNN: Was that the venture with Suzuki?

Mittal: Yes, that venture was with Suzuki. That's how I got in touch with the Japanese, spent two to three years with them, learning their techniques and practices. I internationalized my concepts, learned the art of diplomacy in international trade. I would say that was the period which gave me opportunities, on the one hand, to make some significantly higher amounts of money than I could have done in cycle trade. More importantly, it gave me independence and experience in marketing, brands, international trade. That held me in good stead later on.

HNN: What were the main lessons you learned at that point in your career?

Mittal: I think, two or three things. I realized very early on that you need to tie up with some large entities -- much, much larger than yourself. From there on, we set up a string of partnerships, and they were all with very large companies, multi-billion dollar corporations: Suzuki, AT&T, Siemens, Lucky Gold Star (now LG). Suzuki Motor Company was there, of course. We also partnered with British Telecom and Telecom Italia.

So, that is the course I followed: Tie up with large companies. It's easy to say, but large companies intuitively don't ally with small companies or entrepreneurs. So, one had to persuade these large companies, assure them that they needed to be in the Indian market. We also had to convince them that we had a high governance structure despite being a small company, and give them the comfort to join hands with us to exploit and come into the Indian market together.

HNN: How did you enter the phone business?

Mittal: That, I would say, was happenstance. In fact, you could call it an accident, because the government banned the import of generators. One fine day, there was no business. All the business that I had developed was gone. My beat was Japan, Korea, Taiwan. I went back into those areas looking for a new product. And one of the theories that I'd built around my entrepreneurship was to do things that have not been done before. Because if you are competing with the big boys in areas where they are strong, there's no chance for you to succeed. My quest to look for the next big breakthrough product -- which also didn't need too much capital -- was met in Taiwan at a trade fair when I saw push-button telephones. I brought India's first telephone set replacing the rotary phone.

That became a huge success, and my romance with telecom started thereafter. So, it went onto cordless phones, answering machines, fax machines, and then India's first mobile phone.

HNN: India in those days was such a highly regulated market, and an especially challenging environment for somebody who wanted to be innovative. How did you navigate your way around those currents?

Mittal: Tough, but as an entrepreneur you get trained on everything. You understand import policy, you know how customs work, you know excise laws. You practically learn to do everything yourself. You hit roadblocks, you have difficulties. I had to open my own LLC, take my own consignment, taking the material on trucks myself to the market.

An entrepreneur gets a huge amount of experience. Then, you also know how to deal and move into the system. And the good news is that my excellence in the entrepreneurial area truly started happening alongside the breaking down of these barriers. The more the barriers dropped, the more we surged. So, 1992, in that sense, was the turning point, when the Narasimha Rao government along with now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- then finance minister -- decided to open up, [and] about 10 to 20 of us young entrepreneurs really moved in. Each one of us has created a fantastic business out of that.

HNN: In concrete terms, how did the business environment change so that it allowed this entrepreneurial surge to happen?

Mittal: Take the case of telephone manufacturing. The government completely regulated what you could import, what you could not import, how much you could manufacture. I got my first industry license to make cordless telephones; it had a limit of Rs. 2 crores of sales. I mean, it's ridiculous when you go back -- half a million dollars today. You could not manufacture more than two crores of sales. Now, if you see that number, what does it mean? Sub-scale operations, [a] small, tiny factory, and you don't manufacture telecom products like that. It's not a small-scale factory that you can put up. Suddenly, one day, the government said, "No licenses required." From controlling what you could do [snaps fingers] it was gone in one day. That, to my mind, was the first time the entrepreneurial energies were released into a more constructive arena of marketing, branding, doing the right things.

HNN: In just about 10 years, you have built Bharti into India's largest mobile phone operator. How did that come about? What are some of the main lessons you learned from your experience that could be helpful to other entrepreneurs?

Mittal: I think, very clearly, we could have never claimed that we had more capital or better technologies, because everybody was buying the same technologies; GSM is a set standard. We couldn't claim that we had massive brand or distinguishing strength in the market. The only thing that we needed on our side was speed, and we used that to great effect.

We were in the market ahead of competition. We brought new products on the market ahead of competition. We rolled out our networks. We begged, borrowed, stole, put things out. And while they were never near perfect, they were first. And that gave us, to my mind, a lot of advantage.

Our theory was: If you're caught between speed and perfection, always choose speed, and perfection will follow. You never wait for perfect positioning, because in business you don't have the time; especially if you're small, you can't do it.

And the large companies took their own time. They were months behind us, and that made us pick up a market niche for ourselves, which in turn made us big.

HNN: How did you position yourself against your competitors? Was your strategy based entirely on speed, or did you also have other tactics?

Mittal: No. I think one thing was that we were very, very passionate about our business. This was the only business we were doing. Other competitors had other businesses and this was one of the new businesses they were starting. Speed, new products into the market, close to the customer, knowing what the customer wants -- I think we lived that whole space ourselves, day in and day out. And that made all the difference.

HNN: How do you see Bharti's future in the mobile industry? I know you tried recently to merge with MTN in South Africa, but that merger didn't work out. What were your strategic goals for that merger, and what else might you be considering for the future?

Mittal: We believe that while India is not done in so far as rolling out networks, the process is done. We'll keep on adding two and half or three million customers a month until we get to a point where India has seven or eight million customers, management teams are in place, brand is very strong, distribution is in place, the company has no debt.

So, India is done. Now, what does the senior management team do? You have to create new opportunities of growth. And they lie in other emerging markets -- therefore Africa, the Middle East. And we have today a business model which is the best business model in the world -- the lowest costs with the highest quality.

And I think that model is ready to go out. So, we would like -- whenever we get an opportunity like MTN -- to seriously attempt to put some assets together.

HNN: Would you look for partners in other parts of the world?

Mittal: Well, we keep on getting shown opportunities around the globe, and we remain open.

HNN: Let's turn now to the retail industry, where you have a partnership with Wal-Mart. Help me understand how you evaluated the retail opportunity and what your thought process was in making the decisions you did.

Mittal: We wanted to do something more in India. As we grow telecom outside of India, I think there are opportunities in India. And one of them, we felt, was in the area of retail. India's retail needs to get organized, and it will one day. It may take its own time, and everything in India does take time, but we will organize the retail to a point where $400 billion will come through organized retail stores.

We had opportunities to tie up with Carrefour, Tesco and Wal-Mart. And in fact, we were almost in the signing stages with Tesco when the Wal-Mart meetings started to happen and we liked the store model, we liked the same low-cost delivery mechanism, the values of Sam Walton. So, I would say that we are very, very pleased to venture into this area.

It has its own issues. Like telecom, this has resistances built in. There are barriers, there are issues. And we enjoy properly dealing with these issues.

HNN: Speed was the hallmark of you experience in the mobile industry, but of course the retail market is very, very different. How do you deal with those challenges?

Mittal: It's frustrating. I must confess that it's going much slower than what we originally thought. Speed is still what we like, but this is now a large company. We have a tie up with a large company. They believe that you need to tie up a lot of loose ends before you launch yourself.

The first three stores that have opened up with the assistance of Wal-Mart demonstrate that planning does make a difference. So, we are spending a lot of time planning; it's not wasted time. The supply chain is being built. The first distribution center has come up. The three stores are having in-fill rates of 95%. And they're having sales per square foot of 30% to 40% higher than the other top two or three operators in the country.

So, the start is good. It is surely slow. But, I think you'll start seeing some action fairly soon.

HNN: Are any political changes needed to make that happen?

Mittal: FDI must be allowed. We would rather have Wal-Mart right in there with equity rather than providing franchise support from the outside. So, we would like FDI to open up.

HNN: You have been quoted as saying that India needs a "football revolution." How exactly would that come about?

Mittal: It's a shame, and it in some sense saddens my heart that a country like India does not have any representation in world soccer. It's a sport which is watched by the largest amount of people in the world -- we're talking about hundreds of millions of people, topping over a billion people who watch soccer.

HNN: Did you play soccer growing up?

Mittal: No, we played everything else that kids in middle-class families do. I won't say football was my main sport, but it is for one of my sons. Both my sons play. My nephews play. And my son plays fairly competitive football. I enjoy watching it with them.

It's also, to my mind, a sport which can create a revolution of sorts in a country like India, very soon. One ball, one open field, a few kids, and it starts off. There are no expensive kits or equipment required to support this game.

And I also believe that India had a football base earlier on. In 1950, they were in the World Cup. They could not play because they didn't have shoes. They refused to wear shoes and they couldn't play. That was the last time India reached that point.

I see no harm in giving it one serious shot -- of carrying an Indian team into a 20-year team. I personally believe we can do it. Ten years is good time for us to plan.

HNN: Cricket has received quite a shot in the arm with the formation of the Indian Professional League. Is that in the cards for football?

Mittal: Yes, India is a cricketing nation. It's a cricket-mad nation. I think we need an alternative sport. We need something else to offset cricket. Will football have its own premier league? It will, certainly. In fact, the IPL (Indian Premier League) is a copy of the English Premier League. And that's the fundamental basis of football.

And yes, we will see something along those lines. It'll take a long time for people to switch from cricket to football, but younger people are watching a lot of international soccer. There is going to be the European Cup in Austria a few days from now. And you can see already some fever building up in India. The timing is right.

HNN: In all the years that you have been an entrepreneur, what is the single biggest leadership challenge that you have faced? How did you deal with it and what did you learn from it?

Mittal: It's hard to put down, in a single event, what would be the hardest decision. But, I would say bidding for a mobile license -- against all odds -- in 1992, when I was a rank outsider. I think the total sales were about $5 million in all, and going and bidding for a mobile license was tough.

But, we persevered, we went into it against the might of the biggest of the biggest in the country and in the world. And we ended up getting a license. More importantly, not only a license -- we rolled out India's first network and have now become India's largest.

So, that starting point of having, in a sense, defied the logic of, "This is only for the big boys. You need deep pockets. Don't even look at this." That defiance of the conventional wisdom, to my mind, was very important -- and being determined to challenge that thought that you can't do it as a young entrepreneur.

Bharti Group's Sunil Bharti Mittal on Lessons of Entrepreneurship and Leadership

By M H Ahssan

When Sunil Bharti Mittal started in business more than 30 years ago in Ludhiana in Northern India, he borrowed $1,500 to make bicycle crankshafts. Today, he heads the $5 billion Bharti Group, whose flagship company, Bharti Airtel, is India's largest mobile phone operator. Forbes magazine, which estimates Mittal's net worth at some $11 billion, ranks him among Asia's self-made billionaires. Mittal spoke with HNN in an informal meeting, explored on the leadership and entrepreneurial lessons he has learned during his career. Among them: When faced with a choice between perfection and speed, choose speed; perfection will follow.

HNN: You started in business in 1976 at age 18, with $1,500 that you borrowed from your father. I believe your first business was making bicycle crankshafts. Could you tell us about your earliest entrepreneurial experiences and what you learned from them?

Mittal: I was raised in Ludhiana, a very industrious town, where almost everybody is an entrepreneur of some kind. It is the bedrock of small-scale industry, the principal industries being cycles or cycle parts, hosiery, or yarn to make knitwear, and light engineering items. Coming out of college with a small amount of capital, one could only do what was allowed in the ecosystem there. I decided to manufacture bicycle parts, in particular crankshafts. It was a hot forging unit that I put up, and that's where I cut my teeth on business.

HNN: You moved to Bombay in 1980. At that time, your business plans were a little more ambitious. Could you tell us a little bit more about your business ventures at that time?

Mittal: I realized that one could probably make some modest success out of what I started to do in bicycle parts, but there was a limitation. At the end of the day, the manufacturers of bicycles decided how much -- at what price you could supply to them. And just making shafts wouldn't have made you a player of any size or scale.

So, it was very clear that I had to get out of Ludhiana into a much bigger place, Delhi or Mumbai -- Bombay at that time. And I spent about two, three years in Bombay importing a variety of products -- steel, brass, zinc, zip fasteners, plastics -- and eventually bought India's first portable generator. And that was the first turning point in my career.

HNN: Was that the venture with Suzuki?

Mittal: Yes, that venture was with Suzuki. That's how I got in touch with the Japanese, spent two to three years with them, learning their techniques and practices. I internationalized my concepts, learned the art of diplomacy in international trade. I would say that was the period which gave me opportunities, on the one hand, to make some significantly higher amounts of money than I could have done in cycle trade. More importantly, it gave me independence and experience in marketing, brands, international trade. That held me in good stead later on.

HNN: What were the main lessons you learned at that point in your career?

Mittal: I think, two or three things. I realized very early on that you need to tie up with some large entities -- much, much larger than yourself. From there on, we set up a string of partnerships, and they were all with very large companies, multi-billion dollar corporations: Suzuki, AT&T, Siemens, Lucky Gold Star (now LG). Suzuki Motor Company was there, of course. We also partnered with British Telecom and Telecom Italia.

So, that is the course I followed: Tie up with large companies. It's easy to say, but large companies intuitively don't ally with small companies or entrepreneurs. So, one had to persuade these large companies, assure them that they needed to be in the Indian market. We also had to convince them that we had a high governance structure despite being a small company, and give them the comfort to join hands with us to exploit and come into the Indian market together.

HNN: How did you enter the phone business?

Mittal: That, I would say, was happenstance. In fact, you could call it an accident, because the government banned the import of generators. One fine day, there was no business. All the business that I had developed was gone. My beat was Japan, Korea, Taiwan. I went back into those areas looking for a new product. And one of the theories that I'd built around my entrepreneurship was to do things that have not been done before. Because if you are competing with the big boys in areas where they are strong, there's no chance for you to succeed. My quest to look for the next big breakthrough product -- which also didn't need too much capital -- was met in Taiwan at a trade fair when I saw push-button telephones. I brought India's first telephone set replacing the rotary phone.

That became a huge success, and my romance with telecom started thereafter. So, it went onto cordless phones, answering machines, fax machines, and then India's first mobile phone.

HNN: India in those days was such a highly regulated market, and an especially challenging environment for somebody who wanted to be innovative. How did you navigate your way around those currents?

Mittal: Tough, but as an entrepreneur you get trained on everything. You understand import policy, you know how customs work, you know excise laws. You practically learn to do everything yourself. You hit roadblocks, you have difficulties. I had to open my own LLC, take my own consignment, taking the material on trucks myself to the market.

An entrepreneur gets a huge amount of experience. Then, you also know how to deal and move into the system. And the good news is that my excellence in the entrepreneurial area truly started happening alongside the breaking down of these barriers. The more the barriers dropped, the more we surged. So, 1992, in that sense, was the turning point, when the Narasimha Rao government along with now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- then finance minister -- decided to open up, [and] about 10 to 20 of us young entrepreneurs really moved in. Each one of us has created a fantastic business out of that.

HNN: In concrete terms, how did the business environment change so that it allowed this entrepreneurial surge to happen?

Mittal: Take the case of telephone manufacturing. The government completely regulated what you could import, what you could not import, how much you could manufacture. I got my first industry license to make cordless telephones; it had a limit of Rs. 2 crores of sales. I mean, it's ridiculous when you go back -- half a million dollars today. You could not manufacture more than two crores of sales. Now, if you see that number, what does it mean? Sub-scale operations, [a] small, tiny factory, and you don't manufacture telecom products like that. It's not a small-scale factory that you can put up. Suddenly, one day, the government said, "No licenses required." From controlling what you could do [snaps fingers] it was gone in one day. That, to my mind, was the first time the entrepreneurial energies were released into a more constructive arena of marketing, branding, doing the right things.

HNN: In just about 10 years, you have built Bharti into India's largest mobile phone operator. How did that come about? What are some of the main lessons you learned from your experience that could be helpful to other entrepreneurs?

Mittal: I think, very clearly, we could have never claimed that we had more capital or better technologies, because everybody was buying the same technologies; GSM is a set standard. We couldn't claim that we had massive brand or distinguishing strength in the market. The only thing that we needed on our side was speed, and we used that to great effect.

We were in the market ahead of competition. We brought new products on the market ahead of competition. We rolled out our networks. We begged, borrowed, stole, put things out. And while they were never near perfect, they were first. And that gave us, to my mind, a lot of advantage.

Our theory was: If you're caught between speed and perfection, always choose speed, and perfection will follow. You never wait for perfect positioning, because in business you don't have the time; especially if you're small, you can't do it.

And the large companies took their own time. They were months behind us, and that made us pick up a market niche for ourselves, which in turn made us big.

HNN: How did you position yourself against your competitors? Was your strategy based entirely on speed, or did you also have other tactics?

Mittal: No. I think one thing was that we were very, very passionate about our business. This was the only business we were doing. Other competitors had other businesses and this was one of the new businesses they were starting. Speed, new products into the market, close to the customer, knowing what the customer wants -- I think we lived that whole space ourselves, day in and day out. And that made all the difference.

HNN: How do you see Bharti's future in the mobile industry? I know you tried recently to merge with MTN in South Africa, but that merger didn't work out. What were your strategic goals for that merger, and what else might you be considering for the future?

Mittal: We believe that while India is not done in so far as rolling out networks, the process is done. We'll keep on adding two and half or three million customers a month until we get to a point where India has seven or eight million customers, management teams are in place, brand is very strong, distribution is in place, the company has no debt.

So, India is done. Now, what does the senior management team do? You have to create new opportunities of growth. And they lie in other emerging markets -- therefore Africa, the Middle East. And we have today a business model which is the best business model in the world -- the lowest costs with the highest quality.

And I think that model is ready to go out. So, we would like -- whenever we get an opportunity like MTN -- to seriously attempt to put some assets together.

HNN: Would you look for partners in other parts of the world?

Mittal: Well, we keep on getting shown opportunities around the globe, and we remain open.

HNN: Let's turn now to the retail industry, where you have a partnership with Wal-Mart. Help me understand how you evaluated the retail opportunity and what your thought process was in making the decisions you did.

Mittal: We wanted to do something more in India. As we grow telecom outside of India, I think there are opportunities in India. And one of them, we felt, was in the area of retail. India's retail needs to get organized, and it will one day. It may take its own time, and everything in India does take time, but we will organize the retail to a point where $400 billion will come through organized retail stores.

We had opportunities to tie up with Carrefour, Tesco and Wal-Mart. And in fact, we were almost in the signing stages with Tesco when the Wal-Mart meetings started to happen and we liked the store model, we liked the same low-cost delivery mechanism, the values of Sam Walton. So, I would say that we are very, very pleased to venture into this area.

It has its own issues. Like telecom, this has resistances built in. There are barriers, there are issues. And we enjoy properly dealing with these issues.

HNN: Speed was the hallmark of you experience in the mobile industry, but of course the retail market is very, very different. How do you deal with those challenges?

Mittal: It's frustrating. I must confess that it's going much slower than what we originally thought. Speed is still what we like, but this is now a large company. We have a tie up with a large company. They believe that you need to tie up a lot of loose ends before you launch yourself.

The first three stores that have opened up with the assistance of Wal-Mart demonstrate that planning does make a difference. So, we are spending a lot of time planning; it's not wasted time. The supply chain is being built. The first distribution center has come up. The three stores are having in-fill rates of 95%. And they're having sales per square foot of 30% to 40% higher than the other top two or three operators in the country.

So, the start is good. It is surely slow. But, I think you'll start seeing some action fairly soon.

HNN: Are any political changes needed to make that happen?

Mittal: FDI must be allowed. We would rather have Wal-Mart right in there with equity rather than providing franchise support from the outside. So, we would like FDI to open up.

HNN: You have been quoted as saying that India needs a "football revolution." How exactly would that come about?

Mittal: It's a shame, and it in some sense saddens my heart that a country like India does not have any representation in world soccer. It's a sport which is watched by the largest amount of people in the world -- we're talking about hundreds of millions of people, topping over a billion people who watch soccer.

HNN: Did you play soccer growing up?

Mittal: No, we played everything else that kids in middle-class families do. I won't say football was my main sport, but it is for one of my sons. Both my sons play. My nephews play. And my son plays fairly competitive football. I enjoy watching it with them.

It's also, to my mind, a sport which can create a revolution of sorts in a country like India, very soon. One ball, one open field, a few kids, and it starts off. There are no expensive kits or equipment required to support this game.

And I also believe that India had a football base earlier on. In 1950, they were in the World Cup. They could not play because they didn't have shoes. They refused to wear shoes and they couldn't play. That was the last time India reached that point.

I see no harm in giving it one serious shot -- of carrying an Indian team into a 20-year team. I personally believe we can do it. Ten years is good time for us to plan.

HNN: Cricket has received quite a shot in the arm with the formation of the Indian Professional League. Is that in the cards for football?

Mittal: Yes, India is a cricketing nation. It's a cricket-mad nation. I think we need an alternative sport. We need something else to offset cricket. Will football have its own premier league? It will, certainly. In fact, the IPL (Indian Premier League) is a copy of the English Premier League. And that's the fundamental basis of football.

And yes, we will see something along those lines. It'll take a long time for people to switch from cricket to football, but younger people are watching a lot of international soccer. There is going to be the European Cup in Austria a few days from now. And you can see already some fever building up in India. The timing is right.

HNN: In all the years that you have been an entrepreneur, what is the single biggest leadership challenge that you have faced? How did you deal with it and what did you learn from it?

Mittal: It's hard to put down, in a single event, what would be the hardest decision. But, I would say bidding for a mobile license -- against all odds -- in 1992, when I was a rank outsider. I think the total sales were about $5 million in all, and going and bidding for a mobile license was tough.

But, we persevered, we went into it against the might of the biggest of the biggest in the country and in the world. And we ended up getting a license. More importantly, not only a license -- we rolled out India's first network and have now become India's largest.

So, that starting point of having, in a sense, defied the logic of, "This is only for the big boys. You need deep pockets. Don't even look at this." That defiance of the conventional wisdom, to my mind, was very important -- and being determined to challenge that thought that you can't do it as a young entrepreneur.

Bharti Group's Sunil Bharti Mittal on Lessons of Entrepreneurship and Leadership

By M H Ahssan

When Sunil Bharti Mittal started in business more than 30 years ago in Ludhiana in Northern India, he borrowed $1,500 to make bicycle crankshafts. Today, he heads the $5 billion Bharti Group, whose flagship company, Bharti Airtel, is India's largest mobile phone operator. Forbes magazine, which estimates Mittal's net worth at some $11 billion, ranks him among Asia's self-made billionaires. Mittal spoke with HNN in an informal meeting, explored on the leadership and entrepreneurial lessons he has learned during his career. Among them: When faced with a choice between perfection and speed, choose speed; perfection will follow.

HNN: You started in business in 1976 at age 18, with $1,500 that you borrowed from your father. I believe your first business was making bicycle crankshafts. Could you tell us about your earliest entrepreneurial experiences and what you learned from them?

Mittal: I was raised in Ludhiana, a very industrious town, where almost everybody is an entrepreneur of some kind. It is the bedrock of small-scale industry, the principal industries being cycles or cycle parts, hosiery, or yarn to make knitwear, and light engineering items. Coming out of college with a small amount of capital, one could only do what was allowed in the ecosystem there. I decided to manufacture bicycle parts, in particular crankshafts. It was a hot forging unit that I put up, and that's where I cut my teeth on business.

HNN: You moved to Bombay in 1980. At that time, your business plans were a little more ambitious. Could you tell us a little bit more about your business ventures at that time?

Mittal: I realized that one could probably make some modest success out of what I started to do in bicycle parts, but there was a limitation. At the end of the day, the manufacturers of bicycles decided how much -- at what price you could supply to them. And just making shafts wouldn't have made you a player of any size or scale.

So, it was very clear that I had to get out of Ludhiana into a much bigger place, Delhi or Mumbai -- Bombay at that time. And I spent about two, three years in Bombay importing a variety of products -- steel, brass, zinc, zip fasteners, plastics -- and eventually bought India's first portable generator. And that was the first turning point in my career.

HNN: Was that the venture with Suzuki?

Mittal: Yes, that venture was with Suzuki. That's how I got in touch with the Japanese, spent two to three years with them, learning their techniques and practices. I internationalized my concepts, learned the art of diplomacy in international trade. I would say that was the period which gave me opportunities, on the one hand, to make some significantly higher amounts of money than I could have done in cycle trade. More importantly, it gave me independence and experience in marketing, brands, international trade. That held me in good stead later on.

HNN: What were the main lessons you learned at that point in your career?

Mittal: I think, two or three things. I realized very early on that you need to tie up with some large entities -- much, much larger than yourself. From there on, we set up a string of partnerships, and they were all with very large companies, multi-billion dollar corporations: Suzuki, AT&T, Siemens, Lucky Gold Star (now LG). Suzuki Motor Company was there, of course. We also partnered with British Telecom and Telecom Italia.

So, that is the course I followed: Tie up with large companies. It's easy to say, but large companies intuitively don't ally with small companies or entrepreneurs. So, one had to persuade these large companies, assure them that they needed to be in the Indian market. We also had to convince them that we had a high governance structure despite being a small company, and give them the comfort to join hands with us to exploit and come into the Indian market together.

HNN: How did you enter the phone business?

Mittal: That, I would say, was happenstance. In fact, you could call it an accident, because the government banned the import of generators. One fine day, there was no business. All the business that I had developed was gone. My beat was Japan, Korea, Taiwan. I went back into those areas looking for a new product. And one of the theories that I'd built around my entrepreneurship was to do things that have not been done before. Because if you are competing with the big boys in areas where they are strong, there's no chance for you to succeed. My quest to look for the next big breakthrough product -- which also didn't need too much capital -- was met in Taiwan at a trade fair when I saw push-button telephones. I brought India's first telephone set replacing the rotary phone.

That became a huge success, and my romance with telecom started thereafter. So, it went onto cordless phones, answering machines, fax machines, and then India's first mobile phone.

HNN: India in those days was such a highly regulated market, and an especially challenging environment for somebody who wanted to be innovative. How did you navigate your way around those currents?

Mittal: Tough, but as an entrepreneur you get trained on everything. You understand import policy, you know how customs work, you know excise laws. You practically learn to do everything yourself. You hit roadblocks, you have difficulties. I had to open my own LLC, take my own consignment, taking the material on trucks myself to the market.

An entrepreneur gets a huge amount of experience. Then, you also know how to deal and move into the system. And the good news is that my excellence in the entrepreneurial area truly started happening alongside the breaking down of these barriers. The more the barriers dropped, the more we surged. So, 1992, in that sense, was the turning point, when the Narasimha Rao government along with now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- then finance minister -- decided to open up, [and] about 10 to 20 of us young entrepreneurs really moved in. Each one of us has created a fantastic business out of that.

HNN: In concrete terms, how did the business environment change so that it allowed this entrepreneurial surge to happen?

Mittal: Take the case of telephone manufacturing. The government completely regulated what you could import, what you could not import, how much you could manufacture. I got my first industry license to make cordless telephones; it had a limit of Rs. 2 crores of sales. I mean, it's ridiculous when you go back -- half a million dollars today. You could not manufacture more than two crores of sales. Now, if you see that number, what does it mean? Sub-scale operations, [a] small, tiny factory, and you don't manufacture telecom products like that. It's not a small-scale factory that you can put up. Suddenly, one day, the government said, "No licenses required." From controlling what you could do [snaps fingers] it was gone in one day. That, to my mind, was the first time the entrepreneurial energies were released into a more constructive arena of marketing, branding, doing the right things.

HNN: In just about 10 years, you have built Bharti into India's largest mobile phone operator. How did that come about? What are some of the main lessons you learned from your experience that could be helpful to other entrepreneurs?

Mittal: I think, very clearly, we could have never claimed that we had more capital or better technologies, because everybody was buying the same technologies; GSM is a set standard. We couldn't claim that we had massive brand or distinguishing strength in the market. The only thing that we needed on our side was speed, and we used that to great effect.

We were in the market ahead of competition. We brought new products on the market ahead of competition. We rolled out our networks. We begged, borrowed, stole, put things out. And while they were never near perfect, they were first. And that gave us, to my mind, a lot of advantage.

Our theory was: If you're caught between speed and perfection, always choose speed, and perfection will follow. You never wait for perfect positioning, because in business you don't have the time; especially if you're small, you can't do it.

And the large companies took their own time. They were months behind us, and that made us pick up a market niche for ourselves, which in turn made us big.

HNN: How did you position yourself against your competitors? Was your strategy based entirely on speed, or did you also have other tactics?

Mittal: No. I think one thing was that we were very, very passionate about our business. This was the only business we were doing. Other competitors had other businesses and this was one of the new businesses they were starting. Speed, new products into the market, close to the customer, knowing what the customer wants -- I think we lived that whole space ourselves, day in and day out. And that made all the difference.

HNN: How do you see Bharti's future in the mobile industry? I know you tried recently to merge with MTN in South Africa, but that merger didn't work out. What were your strategic goals for that merger, and what else might you be considering for the future?

Mittal: We believe that while India is not done in so far as rolling out networks, the process is done. We'll keep on adding two and half or three million customers a month until we get to a point where India has seven or eight million customers, management teams are in place, brand is very strong, distribution is in place, the company has no debt.

So, India is done. Now, what does the senior management team do? You have to create new opportunities of growth. And they lie in other emerging markets -- therefore Africa, the Middle East. And we have today a business model which is the best business model in the world -- the lowest costs with the highest quality.

And I think that model is ready to go out. So, we would like -- whenever we get an opportunity like MTN -- to seriously attempt to put some assets together.

HNN: Would you look for partners in other parts of the world?

Mittal: Well, we keep on getting shown opportunities around the globe, and we remain open.

HNN: Let's turn now to the retail industry, where you have a partnership with Wal-Mart. Help me understand how you evaluated the retail opportunity and what your thought process was in making the decisions you did.

Mittal: We wanted to do something more in India. As we grow telecom outside of India, I think there are opportunities in India. And one of them, we felt, was in the area of retail. India's retail needs to get organized, and it will one day. It may take its own time, and everything in India does take time, but we will organize the retail to a point where $400 billion will come through organized retail stores.

We had opportunities to tie up with Carrefour, Tesco and Wal-Mart. And in fact, we were almost in the signing stages with Tesco when the Wal-Mart meetings started to happen and we liked the store model, we liked the same low-cost delivery mechanism, the values of Sam Walton. So, I would say that we are very, very pleased to venture into this area.

It has its own issues. Like telecom, this has resistances built in. There are barriers, there are issues. And we enjoy properly dealing with these issues.

HNN: Speed was the hallmark of you experience in the mobile industry, but of course the retail market is very, very different. How do you deal with those challenges?

Mittal: It's frustrating. I must confess that it's going much slower than what we originally thought. Speed is still what we like, but this is now a large company. We have a tie up with a large company. They believe that you need to tie up a lot of loose ends before you launch yourself.

The first three stores that have opened up with the assistance of Wal-Mart demonstrate that planning does make a difference. So, we are spending a lot of time planning; it's not wasted time. The supply chain is being built. The first distribution center has come up. The three stores are having in-fill rates of 95%. And they're having sales per square foot of 30% to 40% higher than the other top two or three operators in the country.

So, the start is good. It is surely slow. But, I think you'll start seeing some action fairly soon.

HNN: Are any political changes needed to make that happen?

Mittal: FDI must be allowed. We would rather have Wal-Mart right in there with equity rather than providing franchise support from the outside. So, we would like FDI to open up.

HNN: You have been quoted as saying that India needs a "football revolution." How exactly would that come about?

Mittal: It's a shame, and it in some sense saddens my heart that a country like India does not have any representation in world soccer. It's a sport which is watched by the largest amount of people in the world -- we're talking about hundreds of millions of people, topping over a billion people who watch soccer.

HNN: Did you play soccer growing up?

Mittal: No, we played everything else that kids in middle-class families do. I won't say football was my main sport, but it is for one of my sons. Both my sons play. My nephews play. And my son plays fairly competitive football. I enjoy watching it with them.

It's also, to my mind, a sport which can create a revolution of sorts in a country like India, very soon. One ball, one open field, a few kids, and it starts off. There are no expensive kits or equipment required to support this game.

And I also believe that India had a football base earlier on. In 1950, they were in the World Cup. They could not play because they didn't have shoes. They refused to wear shoes and they couldn't play. That was the last time India reached that point.

I see no harm in giving it one serious shot -- of carrying an Indian team into a 20-year team. I personally believe we can do it. Ten years is good time for us to plan.

HNN: Cricket has received quite a shot in the arm with the formation of the Indian Professional League. Is that in the cards for football?

Mittal: Yes, India is a cricketing nation. It's a cricket-mad nation. I think we need an alternative sport. We need something else to offset cricket. Will football have its own premier league? It will, certainly. In fact, the IPL (Indian Premier League) is a copy of the English Premier League. And that's the fundamental basis of football.

And yes, we will see something along those lines. It'll take a long time for people to switch from cricket to football, but younger people are watching a lot of international soccer. There is going to be the European Cup in Austria a few days from now. And you can see already some fever building up in India. The timing is right.

HNN: In all the years that you have been an entrepreneur, what is the single biggest leadership challenge that you have faced? How did you deal with it and what did you learn from it?

Mittal: It's hard to put down, in a single event, what would be the hardest decision. But, I would say bidding for a mobile license -- against all odds -- in 1992, when I was a rank outsider. I think the total sales were about $5 million in all, and going and bidding for a mobile license was tough.

But, we persevered, we went into it against the might of the biggest of the biggest in the country and in the world. And we ended up getting a license. More importantly, not only a license -- we rolled out India's first network and have now become India's largest.

So, that starting point of having, in a sense, defied the logic of, "This is only for the big boys. You need deep pockets. Don't even look at this." That defiance of the conventional wisdom, to my mind, was very important -- and being determined to challenge that thought that you can't do it as a young entrepreneur.

Developing Your Critical Thinking Leadership Skills

By M H Ahssan

By taking responsibility for your own leadership critical thinking processes, you are taking action to analyse and adapt your approach to decision-making and problem-solving. You put yourself - and your company - in a much stronger position to lead and succeed in the "new normal" business world.

There is a growing recognition that the old, pre-crisis way of doing business is never coming back. In its place is the "new normal". While some classic leadership strategies and skills will continue to be effective, leaders in this brave new world will need to lead differently - and think differently.

Critical thinking enables leaders at every level to understand the impact of their decisions on the business as a whole and ensures both alignment with organisational goals and accountability for results. 

The "new normal" is a different kind of competitive landscape, buffeted by geopolitics and global instability, rapid technological change, unique financial pressures, a rising tide of data and information to filter through, and the proliferation of new corporate business models.

The mind-set that made leaders successful in the past probably won't ensure success in the future. In fact, several recent studies and surveys have identified critical thinking as the number one requirement for successful leadership in the 21st century. Yet there is mounting evidence that many current and emerging leaders lack this quality. And it is this competency gap that is shaking up and reshaping leadership as we have come to know it.

 Leadership in the "new normal"
In the wake of the economic crisis, we all know what a failure of leadership looks like. The companies that folded in the GFC serve as stark examples of what happens when decisions are based upon erroneous, partially false or incomplete information and when management fails to think clearly and strategically about the full implications of its actions. The resulting fall-out put an end to business as usual and created a "new normal" that looks markedly different from anything anyone has seen before.

Business organisations must be prepared to do things differently if they expect different results. In this demanding, dynamic landscape, it is only natural that they also require a different mind-set from those in charge.

The equation works like this: Thinking drives behaviour; behaviour drives results. So enterprises that want to change the results - and, indeed, change the organisation itself - can achieve the highest leverage by changing the thinking of leaders and managers throughout the organisation.

But what kind of thinking - or rather rethinking - will be required of leaders if they want to succeed in the "new normal"?

Why critical thinking is critical
Critical thinking appears to be exactly what is needed from leaders who are navigating the volatility of the "new normal". Diane Halpern, an award-winning professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College and a widely read author on the subject, offers this definition in her seminal book, Thought and Knowledge:

"Critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed - the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions ... it's the kind of thinking that makes desirable outcomes more likely."

If ever there was a time for clear, discerning, solution-centric thinking, this is it.

Every two years since 1983, Executive Development Associates (EDA) has conducted an extensive survey on trends, growth and the evolution of executive development. The 2009/2010 EDA Trends in Executive Development: A Benchmark Report revealed trouble on the horizon for corporations seeking future business leaders.

To gauge the readiness of the next generation of leadership talent, EDA asked senior executive development professionals to share their views on the strengths and weaknesses of the incoming leadership group - the people who are most likely to fill executive-level positions in the next three to five years - and the subsequent impact on executive development.

The survey identified "hot topics" in executive development for the next two to three years. At the top of the list was leadership, followed by "business acumen, honing skills in strategy execution, leading / managing change, and talent management."

But when asked "What competencies are your leaders lacking?" their responses indicated little confidence that leaders had what it takes to execute in these critical areas successfully. Here's what they said was missing:

 •Strategic thinking
•Leading change
•Ability to create a vision and engage others around it
•Ability to inspire
•Understanding the total enterprise and how the parts work together
What critical thinking looks like

Having established the need for a mind-set shift to more critical thinking, we need to be clear on what that means in the workplace.

In general, critical thinking is the ability to deal with the contradictions and problems of a tumultuous environment in a reasoned, purposeful, productive way. Decisions are made using an approach that is fair, objective, accurate and based on information that is relevant to the situation.

Critical thinking is also reflective and focused, constantly evaluating the thinking process itself. It is thinking with a purpose. Critical thinking requires a healthy dose of skepticism and an equal measure of good judgement.

For decades, companies have relied on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, a widely used assessment tool for evaluating the cognitive ability of current and future leaders. Developed in 1925, the model identifies factors that are key to critical thinking and decision making and predicts judgment, problem solving, creativity, openness to experience and other leadership behaviours.

Five sub-tests measure critical thinking as a composite of attitudes, knowledge and skills:

 •Inference
•Recognition of assumptions
•Deduction
•Interpretation
•Evaluation of arguments

Professionals with high scores in these sub-tests are able to identify and examine the assumptions, influences and biases that might sway them. They stand back from the fray and strategically assess the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems. They make business decisions that answer the right questions, solve the right problems, mitigate risk and improve productivity. They also lead from a position of strength, being able to motivate and move people both inspirationally and intellectually by providing solid reasons for actions.

Whether they lead teams, departments or entire enterprises, leaders who apply the skills of critical thinking to their roles perform at a higher level and offer their organisations a distinct competitive advantage.

Critical thinkers think differently about their impact on the organisation - understanding how their decisions and actions influence business both inside and outside their narrow functional silos. These leaders are able to balance department or team issues with broader company issues and embrace a larger responsibility for the success of the organisation. This keen sense of accountability is what enables them to execute for results now while fulfilling their obligations to positively impact the future.

Leaders who engage in critical thinking also understand the total organisation and how the individual parts work together. Context is key. Now more than ever, business acumen is foundational to effective leadership. It is impossible to apply critical thinking skills to the business of making money without an understanding of the business drivers that connect day-to-day decisions and actions to key financial and strategic performance goals of the organisation. It is one thing to understand one's role as a leader. It is altogether another thing to understand how to set direction and directly affect the outcomes.

Critical thinking is big-picture thinking too. As Hagemann describes it, "Leaders need to be able to comfortably climb to the 30,000-foot view and analyse a dynamic system, while simultaneously and adeptly analysing information to quickly make decisions across levels." Critical thinkers operate from a broad perspective in order to make sure the correct problems are addressed and they are taking acceptable risk. They recognise the difference between short-term gains and sustainable, long-term results and lead accordingly.

The advantages of this kind of leadership behavior are readily apparent. Critical thinking enables leaders at every level to understand the impact of their decisions on the business as a whole and ensures both alignment with organisational goals and accountability for results. It's exactly the type of leadership behaviour demanded by the "new normal" - and exactly what's missing. And this disconnect is likely to intensify over time.

Given the critical-thinking competency gap exposed by the EDA survey and other research, the obvious assumption is that the traditional development process that businesses have relied upon in the past to prepare leaders simply hasn't kept up. So, what's the solution? To accelerate development and raise leadership accountability to a whole new level of awareness and action, there needs to be a new emphasis on critical thinking in leadership development.

Learning to think like a leader
The good news is critical thinking is a skill that can be taught. According to Halpern, "There is a large body of evidence showing that people can learn to think better. Of course, education makes us all more intelligent, but critical thinking is more focused. Everyone can learn to recognise and use the skills of critical thinking, and we can always get better."

New competencies, however, may require a deeper, more analytical approach. The challenge today is not to discard what has been learned in the past, but to build upon traditional competencies with a whole new and more complex set of skills, tools and sensitivities.

Leaders in the new normal need to learn how to be discerning, how to think clearly and wisely, and how to be accountable for their impact on the business.

Discovery learning in leadership courses
Critical thinking can be impacted by the right leadership courses. However, the process can be more challenging than improving a behavioural skill, because you can't easily measure it. Success is demonstrated in results.

As with any skill, intellectual or otherwise, the key to building critical thinking - and achieving successful results - is practice. Research has demonstrated that people learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process and engaging in the behaviours they want to learn. But what's vital in developing critical thinking skills is framing the concept of practice within a relevant, job-related context.

Acquiring critical thinking skills requires participating in learning experiences that force you to consider new ways of thinking about and acting within complex situations that are directly related to the work you do. You need the opportunity to respond to issues, reflect on and reframe your experiences, develop new thinking, and, in turn, engage in new behaviours and actions that are relevant to your position and objectives.

Developing your critical thinking skills
In addition to participating in these types of leadership courses, leaders can take charge of their own critical thinking development by taking these actions:

 •Get some feedback about your critical thinking skills from a trusted boss, colleague or coach
Are you jumping to conclusions or using a reasoned, analytic process as you work toward a goal? Are you able to put aside biases and assumptions during analysis and decision-making? What kind of "thinker" are you perceived to be and why?

•Challenge yourself to develop a deeper understanding of your company's business, especially its financial and strategic drivers of success
Are you clear about what drives the organisation's decisions, how financial success is achieved and how you impact both strategy and the bottom line? Are you making decisions that are aligned with this understanding? Is your knowledge of the business strong enough to drive behaviour and to engage teams and employees?

•Use multiple sources of data to form an "information web" before making a decision or forming a conclusion
Are you asking a lot of questions? Identifying stakeholders and their issues and opinions? Separating facts from assumptions? Are you using the Internet as "one" source of information rather than "the" source? Can you analyse information from different perspectives and viewpoints?

•Take time to think
Are you rising above the fray when it's important to make a decision, take action or form an opinion? Are you aware of the distractions getting in the way of your thinking time and taking action to minimize these distractions? Are you finding time and space to let your mind focus and reflect on important issues?

•Ask for input, critique and opinions from others as you analyse alternatives
Are you checking tentative conclusions with others? Using peers, coaches or mentors to critique your thinking process? Are you willing to open your mind to other ideas or alternatives?

::: ADVERTORIAL - Karvy Global Services :::

Karvy Global Services is a leading research and analytics services company providing knowledge process outsourcing services to global companies. We work with global corporations in the banking, financial services, insurance and healthcare industries to deliver insightful and impactful creative business solutions to fulfill their business process, investment analytics and market intelligence needs.

Business research services offerings
Our research coverage extends from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to Asia Pacific geographies. We provide independent research, analytical reports, thematic and subject expertorials in addition to financial and business consulting services.

We operate competency centers in the areas of equity and investment analysis, business and economic research, data and information services, and modeling and analytics. We also undertake custom, white-labeled and bespoke research for clients.

Market research and investment analytics outsourcing
We offer investment research and financial analysis services to a number of institutions including banks, hedge funds, financial media publications and third-party financial research providers. The breadth of offerings includes market reportage, market research, financial research and specialized services for bespoke requirements, including:

- Company research
- Sector research
- Equity research
- Daily market research and analysis
- Earnings bulletins and financial performance reporting
- Emerging market research
- Hedge fund research
- M&A research
- Business and economic research services

We offer comprehensive business research backed by experienced and qualified professionals armed with an array of analysis techniques and frameworks. The analysts are experienced in understanding a business considering both intrinsic and extrinsic factors while cross-referencing with market and industry trends, to further temper the analysis and make it more holistic.

Financial modeling
Our knowledge repository of proprietary modeling tools and indigenously developed valuation models puts us in the right spot to offer financial analysis capabilities to our clients. The flexibility of our models to accommodate specific client / market assumptions provides the desired balance between structure and customization.

Approach
Karvy Global uses proprietary research models, proven analytical techniques, and data from a variety of primary and secondary research sources to deliver incisive insight from information; customized to client needs. Our collaborative approach to partnering with clients through new-age knowledge (research and analytics) services augments the breadth of organizations to harness the power of business and market intelligence and cost arbitrages to the tune of 30-40%.

People and processes
Chosen as a preferred employer by leading business schools in India, Karvy Global today employs 100 analysts and research professionals. Our outsourcing operations are built on robust delivery models and proven processes which form a part of our quality and information security management systems. We are an ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 27001:2005 certified company (the first third-party outsourcing services company in India to achieve this new standard).

Parentage
Established in December 2004, Karvy Global Services is an offshoot of the Karvy group, India’s largest integrated financial services company. Karvy Global Services is based in New York and has its global delivery center in Hyderabad.

::: ADVERTORIAL - Karvy Global Services :::

Karvy Global Services is a leading research and analytics services company providing knowledge process outsourcing services to global companies. We work with global corporations in the banking, financial services, insurance and healthcare industries to deliver insightful and impactful creative business solutions to fulfill their business process, investment analytics and market intelligence needs.

Business research services offerings
Our research coverage extends from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to Asia Pacific geographies. We provide independent research, analytical reports, thematic and subject expertorials in addition to financial and business consulting services.

We operate competency centers in the areas of equity and investment analysis, business and economic research, data and information services, and modeling and analytics. We also undertake custom, white-labeled and bespoke research for clients.

Market research and investment analytics outsourcing
We offer investment research and financial analysis services to a number of institutions including banks, hedge funds, financial media publications and third-party financial research providers. The breadth of offerings includes market reportage, market research, financial research and specialized services for bespoke requirements, including:

- Company research
- Sector research
- Equity research
- Daily market research and analysis
- Earnings bulletins and financial performance reporting
- Emerging market research
- Hedge fund research
- M&A research
- Business and economic research services

We offer comprehensive business research backed by experienced and qualified professionals armed with an array of analysis techniques and frameworks. The analysts are experienced in understanding a business considering both intrinsic and extrinsic factors while cross-referencing with market and industry trends, to further temper the analysis and make it more holistic.

Financial modeling
Our knowledge repository of proprietary modeling tools and indigenously developed valuation models puts us in the right spot to offer financial analysis capabilities to our clients. The flexibility of our models to accommodate specific client / market assumptions provides the desired balance between structure and customization.

Approach
Karvy Global uses proprietary research models, proven analytical techniques, and data from a variety of primary and secondary research sources to deliver incisive insight from information; customized to client needs. Our collaborative approach to partnering with clients through new-age knowledge (research and analytics) services augments the breadth of organizations to harness the power of business and market intelligence and cost arbitrages to the tune of 30-40%.

People and processes
Chosen as a preferred employer by leading business schools in India, Karvy Global today employs 100 analysts and research professionals. Our outsourcing operations are built on robust delivery models and proven processes which form a part of our quality and information security management systems. We are an ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 27001:2005 certified company (the first third-party outsourcing services company in India to achieve this new standard).

Parentage
Established in December 2004, Karvy Global Services is an offshoot of the Karvy group, India’s largest integrated financial services company. Karvy Global Services is based in New York and has its global delivery center in Hyderabad.

::: ADVERTORIAL - Karvy Global Services :::

Karvy Global Services is a leading research and analytics services company providing knowledge process outsourcing services to global companies. We work with global corporations in the banking, financial services, insurance and healthcare industries to deliver insightful and impactful creative business solutions to fulfill their business process, investment analytics and market intelligence needs.

Business research services offerings
Our research coverage extends from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to Asia Pacific geographies. We provide independent research, analytical reports, thematic and subject expertorials in addition to financial and business consulting services.

We operate competency centers in the areas of equity and investment analysis, business and economic research, data and information services, and modeling and analytics. We also undertake custom, white-labeled and bespoke research for clients.

Market research and investment analytics outsourcing
We offer investment research and financial analysis services to a number of institutions including banks, hedge funds, financial media publications and third-party financial research providers. The breadth of offerings includes market reportage, market research, financial research and specialized services for bespoke requirements, including:

- Company research
- Sector research
- Equity research
- Daily market research and analysis
- Earnings bulletins and financial performance reporting
- Emerging market research
- Hedge fund research
- M&A research
- Business and economic research services

We offer comprehensive business research backed by experienced and qualified professionals armed with an array of analysis techniques and frameworks. The analysts are experienced in understanding a business considering both intrinsic and extrinsic factors while cross-referencing with market and industry trends, to further temper the analysis and make it more holistic.

Financial modeling
Our knowledge repository of proprietary modeling tools and indigenously developed valuation models puts us in the right spot to offer financial analysis capabilities to our clients. The flexibility of our models to accommodate specific client / market assumptions provides the desired balance between structure and customization.

Approach
Karvy Global uses proprietary research models, proven analytical techniques, and data from a variety of primary and secondary research sources to deliver incisive insight from information; customized to client needs. Our collaborative approach to partnering with clients through new-age knowledge (research and analytics) services augments the breadth of organizations to harness the power of business and market intelligence and cost arbitrages to the tune of 30-40%.

People and processes
Chosen as a preferred employer by leading business schools in India, Karvy Global today employs 100 analysts and research professionals. Our outsourcing operations are built on robust delivery models and proven processes which form a part of our quality and information security management systems. We are an ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 27001:2005 certified company (the first third-party outsourcing services company in India to achieve this new standard).

Parentage
Established in December 2004, Karvy Global Services is an offshoot of the Karvy group, India’s largest integrated financial services company. Karvy Global Services is based in New York and has its global delivery center in Hyderabad.

The MBA Degree: Is It Really Worth For Career Prospect?

By John A. Byrne (Guest Writer)

Year after year, it’s the question asked by hundreds of thousands of people around the world: Is the MBA degree worth it?

Does it really make sense to quit a job you already have, interrupt your life for two years and assume a debt burden that can often exceed six figures for the MBA?

Many strongly believe it’s only worth the time and expense if you can get into a Top 10 business school. Others see much value in a far broader range of MBA programs. And a fairly good percentage have crunched the numbers to conclude they’re better off staying put and climbing upward in the companies that already employ them.

An Indian Origin 'Family Business' Spreads OverAll Africa

By Bernard Mulwa / Nairobi

East Africa's top level business Nakumatt Holdings limited, an Indian owned family business is one of the largest in the retail industry and continues to expand and increase the range of goods and services and improve East Africa’s economy by creating more local employment opportunities across the East Africa region.

Initially it was establish and owned by the late  Nemchand Shah Nemubhai who migrated to Kenya from India in 1947.  The business was first registered in 1987, an enterprise strictly dealing with selling of mattresses in Nakuru, so its logo Nakumatt was found. Nakumatt revolution evolved from a modest mattresses business which was taken over by the late Nemubhai way back in 1978. The business soon started expanding its product offering from mere mattresses to FMCG and later consumer durables.

According to the Managing director of Nakumatt Holdings limited,  Atul Shah Haku, said the first brand Nakumatt mega was opened in 1992 along the Uhuru Highway in Nairobi which was being run by the late father  Nemchand Shah Nemubhai and two brothers Maganlal Shah, his sons and 60 employees.

The driving force for this business,  Atul Shah said is the demand of retail market in Kenya, this is the secret behind his successful in doing business in Kenya.

Political Scenario: A 'Modi'-Fication' Of Indian Politics

By M H Ahssan | INN Live

The first time the world heard of Narendra Modi was following a 2002 religious pogrom in Gujarat - he was then, as now, the chief minister of the state. It is alleged that he fanned the flames of hatred by permitting the bodies of brutally slain members of a fundamentalist Hindu group to be paraded, and that he told the police to "let the Hindus vent their anger" on Muslims. 

Modi had of course taken an oath to uphold the Indian constitution, which includes the principles of protecting life and property. 

From TCS To Mindtree: How Indian IT Ignored Warning Signs At Their Own Peril?

By M H AHSSAN| INNLIVE

The world economy is in an uncertain space with Brexit ripples still to reach their crescendo. This combined with the complexity of automation and scare around immigration is expected to affect Indian IT industry adversely.

The first-quarter earnings that have come out until now paint a dismal picture of growth. As pointed out in this article a fundamental shift has taken place and it is becoming clearer now. With the changes in the technological space, disruption in the BFSI sector, and advent of automation and cloud-based services, the IT services business is caught in a perfect storm.

How Technology Managed From India Is Changing the Complexion of Outsourcing

By M H Ahssan

It is a weekday, and Srinivasa Raju, 26, is at work at his high-security Electronic City office in Bangalore. He is in a large, cool, bright hall, surrounded by neatly arranged banks of computers, with biometric sensors and closed-circuit cameras recording every movement. Six clocks show the time in Sydney, Tokyo, Bangalore, London, New York and San Francisco. In front of him, projected on a giant screen, are a bunch of changing numbers, dials and graphs. The scene looks like NASA's space shuttle launch center; only a video monitor showing magnificent fuel plumes is missing. With Raju are a couple of other colleagues, roughly his age. It is 9 in the morning, but it appears as if not everyone has arrived for work. Despite the bright, tropical sunshine outside, you could be fooled into believing this is the graveyard shift. In many ways, it is.

Raju is at work in the global command center of a large technology company in India. He is monitoring the health of the computer network of a utility service in Europe, roughly 5,000 miles from where he is located. It is only 3:30 a.m. in the host country where the network is located, so it is accurate to say Raju is part of the graveyard shift. The next shift, which begins at 2 p.m. in India, will be buzzing as people filter into the utility company's European offices.

Such scenarios are being repeated at several high-tech companies in India that remotely manage IT infrastructure around the world, from computer networks of transportation hubs in Europe, to the world's largest private e-mail service for a global Fortune 100 organization, to ATM networks for Middle East banks, to storage devices for U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Engineers in India are monitoring, upgrading, healing and rebooting systems across the world to ensure that it's business as usual for end users of the IT infrastructure.

This relatively young high-tech business addresses architecture, design, engineering and maintenance of servers, storage devices, voice and data networks, desktops and mainframes, and services such as security, procurement, vendor management and database administration. The business goes by the unromantic name of remote infrastructure management services (RIMS).

The business has been driven by the rapid evolution in technology: virtualization, cloud computing, standardization of IT infrastructure, and the availability of sophisticated tool sets. It has also been driven by changes in customer demands and a mature offshore supply environment. Industries including telecom and banking, financial services and insurance have become early adopters. "The RIM industry is at a watershed in its development," according to a study by McKinsey that was released in March by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM). And as was the case with business process outsourcing (BPO), signs exist that India may be poised to gain a large share of this fast-growing market.

Raju is part of a new breed of engineers who will be coveted, just as the front-runners in verticals such as application development once were. The reason? People like Raju keep businesses running. And, especially important in these cost-conscious times, they contribute to bottom lines by shaving away inefficiencies.

How India Could Gain
India is seen as a major player in the global RIMS market because of three critical factors: experience in and reputation as an offshore destination; well-honed business processes; and the availability of low-cost talent. According to the McKinsey study, titled The Rising Remote Infrastructure Management Opportunity: Establishing India's Leadership, the market for RIMS is an estimated $96 billion to $104 billion, of which $26 billion to $28 billion is likely to be realized by 2013. Of this, the report says, India is positioned to capture $13 billion to $15 billion by 2013. Currently, India accounts for $3 billion to $4 billion of the total services offshored, according to the report.

A Gartner study in May noted that the top six India-based offshore service providers (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Satyam and HCL) accounted for 2.4% of the total worldwide IT-services market in 2007, compared with 1.9% in 2006. While application development and management services account for most of their revenue stream, RIMS has demonstrated the most significant growth. According to G. K. Prasanna, senior vice president of technology infrastructure services at Wipro, where infrastructure services accounted for $684 million in revenues in 2007-08, "Around 17.2% of our business is RIMS-based. It is the fastest-growing business across Wipro, and it is the largest practice after application development."

Prasanna is bullish about the future. He says Wipro has the opportunity to claim undisputed RIMS leadership in India. In September, to back its bets, Wipro acquired Infocrossing, a U.S.-based data center management provider, to enhance its ability to provide remote management of IT infrastructure. Similarly, Satyam has acquired U.S.-based Nitor Solutions and Cognizant has acquired U.S.-based AimNet Solutions to fill gaps in their offerings and reach. Ed Nalbandian, who was AimNet's CEO and now is a practice leader for Cognizant, notes: "AimNet's onshore consultants help give Cognizant the strongest onshore presence among offshore players." Another key area is AimNet's approach to pricing. "Cognizant has been able to leverage that quite a bit as clients are asking to move away from FTE-based pricing to a unitized, pay-for-what-you-use approach," Nalbandian says. Cognizant's experience is not isolated. Everyone in the business is racing to close service gaps.

The growing interest in RIMS is posing several challenges in India. Among them: The ability to improve the supply of skilled talent in new technologies and create strategic alliances with technology firms to provide better service delivery and operational process compliance, and to provide innovative pricing models. "It's clear that RIMS cannot be delivered by everyone," says Pradeep Kar, founder and managing director of Microland, a Bangalore-based pure-play RIMS provider with customers in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and India. "An Indian RIMS vendor specializing in this area would be able to provide enhanced quality of service as a result of aligning tools, processes and skill sets to industry needs."

The NASSCOM-McKinsey report uses Microland as an example of an offshore vendor with proprietary tools that help simplify IT management, improve governance, reduce costs and, significantly, create transparency. Among its customers is U.K.-based Serco Solutions, for whom Microland has created two dedicated RIMS centers. For RIMS users, the combination of cost control, improved service quality and the ability to scale (or de-scale, as the case may be) are key considerations.

The Role of Recession
Industry analysts believe that one of the most immediate drivers for RIMS adoption could be the threat of a severe economic downturn in the U.S., forcing a greater amount of outsourcing to control costs. But a U.S. recession may not necessarily be a boon. "Cost pressure on my customer is always good news since it increases risk propensity and forces a decision," Prasanna says, but this in turn means greater competition and immediate pricing pressure.

While an economic downturn could improve the climate for outsourcing infrastructure management -- "even make it socially more acceptable," in Prasanna's words -- the value proposition does not change. The decision to outsource will therefore depend on flexible pricing models and short-term deals.

While pricing and deal duration form the core of the decision, outsourcers may still be wary of depending on external RIMS providers. This is largely because of the psychological discomfort of working with a team located thousands of miles away. While compliance-related risks are coming down thanks to SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002) and SAS 70 (Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70), the RIMS business lacks mature governance models. The challenge is to develop these models and take them through their paces in a joint effort between vendor and customer.

Over the last eight years, as the RIMS business has spread globally, various pricing models have emerged. Microland, which acquired its first infrastructure management customer in 1999, has built a model that separates assets and management. Today, a variety of pricing models continues to be available, from the more traditional time-and-material-based model to element, or device-based, pricing, outcome-based pricing, and a shared-risk-and-reward-based model. "We pioneered the concept of device-based, or transaction-based, pricing," says K.S. Ganesan, Microland's chief technology officer. "What it does for the client is it fixes cost and reduces them year on year, putting pressure back on vendors like Microland to innovate newer ways of delivering the same set of services. Of late, we see many players adopting this model."

Competitive pricing will be just one factor in determining which companies will emerge as the most successful RIMS providers. Firms are sweating it out over creating tangible differentiators. Also important, says Prasanna, are game-changing alliances with global technology companies. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Cisco, Dell, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Red Hat are investing in Indian partners at the forefront of the RIMS business, helping them improve the size and capability of the talent pool to support the products and services they provide. While there are no monogamous relationships in the RIMS world, some service providers are more equal than others in the eyes of the OEMs. RIMS players understand the importance of such alliances, which give them early access to changes and enhancements in technology, quick access to technical assistance, and critical access to training facilities and materials.

Not surprisingly, RIMS providers often trumpet their alliances with technology majors. The emergence of RIMS has fostered joint go-to-market strategies by technology players and has driven the emergence of joint products, resulting in greater value propositions and lowered total cost of ownership for RIMS adopters. Cognizant's Nalbandian reflects a popular industry opinion: "We think this go-to-market model is going to be successful for us."

On the other side of the business, who are the most likely candidates to aggressively adopt RIMS? The McKinsey study says that Fortune 3000 companies are driving growth and are signing more -- and in several cases larger -- deals than their Fortune 250 counterparts. This is in striking contrast to the trend established by application development and business process outsourcing in the past, which was led by Fortune 250 companies. This shift is likely to have a major impact on the marketing strategies adopted by RIMS vendors. Among the many things on the cusp of change, the future of marketing in the high-end technology space is set for an interesting makeover.