The 1 day event was inaugurated by Dr.Bala Balachandran - Founder and Honorary Dean, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Dr.T.V Rao - Chairman, T.V Rao Learning Systems Pvt Ltd and Mr. R. Chandrasekharan - President and MD, Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt Ltd.
Dr. Bala gave the welcome address in which he mentioned that "India is standing tall because of its HR practices". Dr. Bala said that the times are changing very rapidly and talked about the changes in the next 3 to five years. Some of the changes he mentioned were "The change will be accelerating. The number of knowledge workers will outnumber the companies. The money value of time will replace Time value of money. In the times to come, jogging may not be enough, companies will have to sprint to compete and sustain their current levels of growth." He also talked about the importance of cross cultural and global hiring.
Dr. T.V. Rao, who is also the founder President of the National HRD Network and former President of the Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Science (ISABS), said, "HR today is termed as people whose work is recruitment and negotiates on salaries. In 1980s technology was a strategic variable for an organization. The focus on the variable changed to finance then marketing and in today's world and future the variable is Human resource. Human resource has become a strategic variable for a company's success." About the Current and future state of HR, he said "Short term priorities like recruitment play a more important role than the overall objective of talent management. HR in future has to be focused on cultural related issues. Professional bodies have to play an important role in this regard. They have to evolve in handling cultural related issues. And HR bodies have to understand what is it to hire from diverse cultures and retaining them."
Mr. R. Chandrasekharan said, "Globalization is no more by choice but embedded in the growth strategy." He talked about the importance of cost and intellectual arbitrage. Elaborating on intellectual arbitrage, he said "It is important to understand the DNA of Organization because the strategy has to be defined based on DNA. If DNA is not understood in the right spirit further processes may not be effective and put to best use. In the global sourcing of employees from different countries it's important to source talent at different locations. A key competence of the organization is ability to source talent from different countries. A key issue is keeping the different cultures motivated to work for the organization. Organization puts a global and open mindset in its HR policies. HR facilitates different teams interacting among in a virtual environment. With different cultures and value systems in place, it's important to ensure uniform performance standards across subsidiaries of the Organization."
The inaugural session was followed by keynote addresses on the theme "Integration of Corporate Cultures, and People Management Post-Merger". The panel for this session included Dr. Chandrasekhar Sripada - President HR, Capgemini Consulting India Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Allen Sequeira - Sr. VP HR, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Anuj Kumar - Associate Director HR, CSC, Dr. K. Prabakar - VP Corporate HR, Apollo Hospitals. The session was chaired by Mr. Ganesh Chella – Founder and CEO, Totus Consulting.
Mr. Ganesh Chella, while talking about the challenges in M & A's, mentioned that the prime Challenge in successfully achieving M & A's is of Cultural Integration. The challenges differ on the scale at which the M & A happen. Talking about the diversity within the companies being merged, he said that Diversity is good and that the challenge is not to erase it but to manage it.
Mr. Allen Sequeira started off by highlighting the fact that Great Lakes has established a name for itself. Talking about M & As, he said, "We're building a world where no intellectual barriers exist. The process of globalization is recent (1990). Indian companies are learning quickly and have handled mergers much better than others." He suggested, "Rules of engagement deployed for one country may not be applicable in another, taking into account local realities. Diversity issues can result out of culture, demographics, statutory requirements, leadership styles, management practices, values, relationships, workforce composition and operating philosophies."
Dr. Anuj Kumar explained 10 critical factors for a successful M&A that includes Clear intent Perseverance, Leadership and Accountability.
Dr. K. Prabakar said, "In the healthcare sector we need not only operations but also talent to address the boom in healthcare." Major challenges," he said, "for sustainability are now more on people's minds. Talent management: Doctors, nurses and paramedical staffs and other support groups, all have to be managed well. Reverse brain drain have started in this sector. Various doctors from UK have started coming back, Digital backbone: need to focus on technology, Employee engagement and incentive realignment: Tackling stress is very important and has to make sure that employees perform efficiently, Quality and safety standards: Apollo is credited with ISO, JCIA, NABH, NABL.
In the post-lunch session, Shri Prem Chand Gupta, Hon'ble Union Minister for Corporate Affairs, talked about India being a young nation with large cultural diversity and a diverse talent base, which is difficult to find anywhere else. He said that a country rich in natural resources may not be prosperous financially and it may be possible otherwise quoting Japan as a case. Such countries have good human capital base. Economic development in these countries has been preceded by the Human capital development.
This was followed by a session that had Industry-specific insights from representatives belonging to various sectors of the industry. The panel for this session included Mr. B. Venkatramana - Sr. VP HR, Reliance Retail Ltd., Mr. Steve D. Rich - Shared Services Manager Indian & ASEAN HR, Caterpillar, Mr. Lancelot Cutinha - VP HR, Big FM, and Mr. Boddapati Balaji - Director, ADP Private Ltd. Mr. C. Mahalingam - Executive VP & Chief People Officer, Symphony Services, chaired the session.
In the last session of the day, the distinguished guest of the event Mr. B Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel addressed the gathering. He said, "Industrial organizations are only babies in the context of human evolution." According to him, "HR function is not as well developed as other disciplines because we have paid less attention to it in comparison with other disciplines. In HR the world is moving towards measurements and CVs instead of creating the ambience and the right work culture." He suggested that people in the senior management should have a mix of some visionaries (theorists) and some executioners. The challenge for HR, he said, is how people with both these qualities can be developed, and more importantly how we can measure this.
