Robotic canines may replace CISF dogs at airports Digital ...rankersclasses.in/files/documents/33e5cce7-1bf3-41... · Rise of the machines: When bots take over the workplace At makemytrip.com,

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Current Affairs on OT during 2018-19 Robotic canines may replace CISF dogs at airports These industrial canines can sniff explosives at the airports as well as X-ray scan the luggage

of passengers with their eyes Currently, robots can be found at the airports of several developed countries like the UK, the

US, Canada, Japan, KoreaCISF wants to adapt new technologies considering the global threat to the aviation sector, increasing air travels and new methods of smuggling drugs, gold, explosives etc via air

The aviation experts also deliberated upon the need for risk-based approach to aviation security.

Digital is passe, focus on becoming intelligent enterprises: o According to the global software firm SAP, intelligent enterprises do more with less

resources and empower employees through the process of automation.In order to thrive, organisations should focus on becoming intelligent enterprises.

o In today’sfast-paced businesses, processing huge amounts of data in real-time and analysing them to make quick decisions is critical.

o Intelligent enterprises can deliver a best-in-class customer experience by proactively responding to customer expectations and invent new business models and revenue streams.

o Digital is the thing of past. It is still not intelligent technologies for corporates. And the next wave is incorporation of Machine Learning, of Artificial Intelligence (AI), of Blockchain, of robotic process automation, of conversational AI.

An intelligent enterprise brings together machine and human intelligence across all business functions... And this shows why the business model needs to evolve and the organisation needs to become intelligent.

To stay afloat, organisations across the world, including in India, need to challenge their status quo and existing business models, while feeding the ones which are working with investments. It will help companies if they challenge the way they do business, strive to be creative and try out new business models, SAP said.

Successfully applying intelligence to business processes will define the winners and losers in the years to come.

As organisations become intelligent, profiles for people in companies will change. It does not mean that less people will be required, but their profiles will change as the repetitive tasks would be done by the system automatically.

Technologiesalso allows organisations to test new business models so that they can check what works for their business and what does not. For this SAP has developed a methodology called ‘Design Thinking'.

Rise of the machines: When bots take over the workplace At makemytrip.com, Myra and Gia, workfor tourists.Myra and Gia are not flesh and blood

white-collar executives. They are bots.If tourists start booking Shimla holidays to enjoy the snow and traffic outstrips the number of rooms, the duo sends alerts to hotel chains in the region to increase online inventory. They forecast demand, answer customer queries and can even update on flight delays.


Whether cancellations or refunds from 12,000-15,000 customer interactions every day, about 60% are resolved by the duo and some of their other tech-savvy mates. And after all that, they take time out to share the workload of senior colleagues.

At Ping An Good Doctor, bots enable 700,000 consultancies, with 1,000 bots working alongside human agents. “Such scale is possible only with bots.

PolicyBazaar also uses bots. About half the motor covers are sold by bots. Thousands of bots will work alongside humans to book appointments with doctors, schedule

meetings, deliver customer support, help access records, assist in work and so on. EY predicts a five-fold increase in their numbers at the workplace in the next year.

The largest temp staffing company in India, TeamLease Services, has calculated that 0.1% of industrial jobs have been lost to robots, while 37% of the jobs that currently exist will change in some way. That change is coming about faster now, driven by bots or software applications that perform automated tasks such as searching online, paying bills, answering queries, fixing an appointment with a doctor or a plumber, helping in research, driving marketing campaigns, filing tax returns or checking for errors in documents without human intervention.

Bots and robots both do the same thing. But bots are software and robots are mechanical. Yet both excel at repetitive tasks – ones we call the daily grind, or tedious chores.Robots have mechanised manufacturing somewhat in the last few years but in their new avatar, bots are altering services companies. A car manufacturer such as Ford could be using robots on the factory floors to make cars just like they do at their Gujarat export plant, but in the corporate offices, bots can be devising multi-platform campaigns to sell those sedans or SUVs.

The scope of bots is wider:

L&T is using them for payable and contract management; Airtel for billing and customer services; TataSky for finance and supply chain functions. Bajaj Electricals has Paddy taking employee complaints and booking technician visits. EY has deployed 1,500 bots for clients across functions — finance, HR, IT or any

activity that has a set procedure (rule-based processing). At HDFC Bank, job applications from humans are screened by bots and the first video-

conferenced interview is also with one. Wherever there is a highly templatised, predictable, non-cognitive assignment, bots are taking over. At the same time, they are constantly upgrading. Like HDFC Bank’s Eva is helping users decide between recurring or fixed deposits. In some financial services firms, bots are advisors, cherry-picking bespoke investment and savings products for clients after mapping their age, risk profile, time horizon and several other parameters. Depending on the complexity, a single bot can cost from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore to develop.Earlier there were no alternatives but to throw bodies at mundane jobs. Now, bots are taking over while humans move to better quality, higherthinking jobs. Mindtree has reported the addition of 426 bots to its workforce.

There can be much fiery debate over bots snatching away humans’ jobs. But while each bot is as good as, or better, than 2.5 human workers, it needs at least 5-7 people to


develop, deploy and maintain it. But in a billion-plus country where only 10-12% of the 480 million workers are in the organised sector, intelligent automation — though inevitable — is bound to face backlash. In election season, farm distress and youth unemployment is already political ammunition.Getting humans and intelligent bots to collaborate and feed off each other’s insights will be key to evolution. Leadership Indian Railways to Use Emotional Intelligence To Serve Passengers Better: After adopting artificial intelligence to serve better food, handle queries or even prevent

mishaps, the Indian Railways are now on the path of incorporating emotional intelligence to improve customer service.

In an attempt to drive change through the process, structure and cultural reforms, the Indian Railways have been pursuing emotionally intelligent leadership as a key strategy for dramatic turnaround of Railways.

Workshops were arranged for top-level leadership using MHS EQI 2.0 as the anchor instrument for driving emotionally intelligent leadership in measurable and replicable way. Studies have shown that leaders with higher emotional intelligence are more effective in their work. Coping with stressful or difficult situations and believing that one can manage or influence situations in a positive manner is the main aim of the EI module.

AI can transform Indian Railways in terms of safety, passenger amenities, better revenues, growth and efficiency. AI has to be harnessed to find digital innovations for better customer interface and better service delivery. AI is about creating trains with brains.

Integration in Army In terms of conventional war, the Army will strive to achieve integrated planning and

conduct of “networked theatre battles” through synergised application of land, air and maritime components. All combat operations will be as IBGs.

The Army brass has already given the go-ahead for IBGs or integrated composite brigades, with five to six battalions each and a mix of infantry, armoured, artillery, air defence, signals and engineers, backed by attack helicopters, under the command of major-generals.

Man Machine Managers In Future If someone can do something, that you do, better and cheaper, you will cease to exist. You may as well cannibalise your own revenue. Very soon, many value-added services of today will start vanishing. In parallel, we need to start building other capabilities and being an integral part of customer’s business. From a service provider’s point of view, you can’t differentiate between being a technology company and a business company? You need to have both tightly integrated in your offering. Asked to comment on the workplace of the future, Mr. Chandrasekaran refers to Cognizant’s Future of Work team under the strategy function. A ‘man-machine manager’ is a job profile in the future. Today, we have HR professionals in IT services firms and production and operations managers in manufacturing facilities. We are beginning to see robots working alongside humans. So there will be new roles to determine what jobs can be assigned to the robot and which ones can be done by humans.


Says Mr. Chandrasekaran, “We increased our investments, when competition was trying to pull back in 2008-09. Talent acquisition was one such area. The crisis made available a number of people who were not earlier available to us. In that period, we hired some of the best talent from the market.” One of the big shifts we will see in the next 25 years is going to be organisations transitioning from being a business enterprise to being both a business and social enterprise. That is, how an organisation could take on a larger purpose and be more relevant to society through the work they do through. For us to be a truly social enterprise, we need the skills of our employees to be enhanced so that everything that they do impacts both business and society and try and bring in the culture of social consciousness among our employees. That is the reason why our employee volunteering base, Outreach is so important. Most organisations who are socially conscious do better in their business. If I look at our own attrition pattern, people who are part of our volunteering program tend to stick around much longer. That is, how could an organisation take on a larger purpose and be more relevant to society at large through the work it does through its clients or the communities it operates in. It was also our belief that BPO had to be an integral part of organisation. So we did not set up a separate entity.

About five years ago, we were not working with any born-digital companies — these are the largest of Silicon Valley companies. Now, we have publicly stated that we work with four of the top five born-digital companies. More recently we said that two of them are amongst our top ten clients today.

For many of these organizations, their business model is the underlying technology platform. So when business and technology are probably two sides of the same coin, if you don’t understand the business, then you are no longer relevant in the market.” Cognizant is enabling both clients and communities address some of the toughest problems in the marketplace. “For a large company that is focused on agriculture, we are helping them apply next-gen

technology such as IoT and artificial intelligence to increase crop yield while reducing water consumption.

We helped a pharma company in their clinical data management to accelerate the first human vaccine for H1N1.

We are working with the Department of Health in the U.K. to use big data for gene sequencing to find a cure for the rarest of rare diseases such as cancer.

For the University of New Castle in Australia, we are using augmented reality to help students of midwifery learn neonatal resuscitation in high-pressure ICU environments.

The next-generation technologies of today help us impact larger societal issues. This will get accelerated the coming years.And Cognizant believes that the nature of client engagement has itself changed in the past quarter century.Earlier, client engagement was about coordinating delivery and ensuring that we live up to our promise. Today, it is about deep understanding of the customer business, bringing in thought leadership proactively in any line of engagement and identifying opportunities that can lead to downstream revenue opportunities. Earlier, a client partner was only expected to manage client relationship; now that role is tagged with creating opportunities for engagement.

Government nod for Army reforms, including human rights wing


The defense ministry has approved the first batch of reforms in the Army to ‘flatten’ its headquarters in New Delhi, which includes: relocation of 229 officers to operational posts, creation of a new post of deputy chief for military operations and strategic planning, and setting up new wings for vigilance and human rights issues under major-generals. The creation of a new information warfare wing is being done in keeping the needs of

the future battlefield, hybrid warfare and social media reality in mind. The government has also approved merging of the separate verticals of the DCOAS (planning and strategy) and the Master General Ordnance (MGO) into one office of the DCOAS (Capability Development and Sustenance).

50% government IT workers to occupy roles by 2023 that don't exist now: Report Due to digital push, over half of govt IT workers by 2023 will occupyroles that don't exist

today, study shows. Gartner predicts that by 2023, over 80 per cent of new technology solutions adopted by

governments will be delivered and supported using an anything-as-a-service (XaaS) model.

The move to digital business also means that the IT organisation needs to adapt to new skills requirements.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies advance, machine trainers, conversational specialists and automation experts will slowly but certainly replace experts in legacy technologies, the report added.

‘Holacracy makes everyone a leader; defines people by roles not hierarchy: It is widely acknowledged that people leave managers, not companies. However, Holacracy, a new management framework that empowers organisations to self-manage without managers is gaining steam around the world. Holacracy is used by over 1,000 companies across industry verticals in Dubai, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Bengaluru, London, Las Vegas and Africa. How does Holacracy work? Holacracy is management without managers, where everybody is collectively

participating in the job of management in their own way, instead of putting that burden on one person. Holacracy turns everyone into a leader, it distributes authority and decision-making throughout an organisation and defines people not by hierarchy and titles but by roles.

There is no CEO, instead your job is defined by the collection of roles you fill. In my company, HolacracyOne, I fill 20 roles in 6 different teams. Right now, I am on a spokesperson role, as I am in Bengaluru to deliver a keynote for a conference. I have a trainer role, where I train people and companies all over the world in Holacracy. I have voluntarily taken on another role of booking travel for newer team members of my company as its a hobby, its fun and is stress relieving for me. We have a 20-people team who fill 200 different roles such as casting agent, quick win cowboy, agile leader, demo master and developer on-boarder and each person takes on an average of 7-10 roles.


Benefits of Holacracy Holacracy creates organisations that are fast, agile, engaged and productive by turning

everyone into a leader of their role and giving them access to tools that can get their job done. It enables speedy decision making, drives change in the organisation and reduces burn and overwhelm at the top.

Every individual acts as a ‘sensor’ for the organisation and has direct pathways for processing their challenges and opportunities into organisational change.After six months of adopting Holacracy, a department in the Washington State Government made a change in policy of the organisation in 20 meeting minutes, something they could not achieve before.Another company measured over a 90 per cent reduction in the number of meeting minutes spent to get an action/decision from somebody.

Reducing individual burden: A CEO of a fast growing company told me, he had not been able to comfortably take a vacation in seven years until Holacracy. After that, he took a two-week vacation, hiking in the mountains with no cell phone. Earlier he had to take all the hard decisions, he held everything together. After Holacracy, he had a team of people holding everything together, it wasn’t just his burden alone. And I feel that too, as a former CEO, I would never go back to it.

Better Job assignment and taping individual potential:In Zappos, a company which has adopted Holacracy, there was one guy who was hired for party planning. His role was called ‘fungineer’ but he had a passion for marketing. Before Holacracy, he could not find a way to do any kind of marketing work. He loved Zappos and his job and did not want to quit to take on a marketing role elsewhere. With Holacracy, he started watching the circles that were marketing related and watched when they created new roles. He eventually found one which he could do with 20 per cent of his time, pitched for the role and clinched it. He is now in charge of one of the most significant marketing initiatives in the company’s history. You don’t find job descriptions like that in companies.

Can you imagine the newest hire, fresh out of college asking the founder of the company who is also a seasoned CEO, to commit to a timeline? Holacracy supports that, because its not about structure, status, ego and politics. Most employees have no ability to change company policy. With Holacracy you can change policies, job descriptions, almost anything.

Mahindra and ford to develop C-SUP Mahindra Group and Ford Motor Company, taking the next step towards strengthening their

ongoing strategic alliance in India, have entered into a definitive agreement to co-develop a midsize sports utility vehicle (C-SUV).

The C-SUV would have a common Mahindra product platform and powertrain, thus driving engineering and commercial efficiencies.This will reduce product development costs and gain economies of scale for both the companies.

Leveraging benefits: The strategic alliance between the two companies is focused on leveraging the benefits of both the companies — Ford’s global reach and expertise and Mahindra’s scale and successful operating model in India.


The human side of ‘Industry 4.0’ Iconic visions of Industry 4.0 are robots and self-driving cars that will eliminate human

workers, and 3-D printers that can compress the capabilities of a large factory with hundreds of skilled workers into a small machine operated by a single person. A broader view of Industry 4.0 includes the rapid advance of digital computational and communication technologies that have created platforms, such as Google, Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb, that are disrupting service and knowledge industries,including the media.

Pervading through Industry 4.0, in manufacturing, service, and knowledge industries, are advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and ‘machine learning’. With these, Industry 4.0 is going beyond all previous transformational waves of new technologies (such as electricity and automobiles) which replaced human energy in the ‘doing’ of work, to replacing human minds in ‘thinking’. Therefore, the fear of who will be in charge in the future is rising. Human beings using machines? Or, machines using human beings?

This profound question should concern us. However, of more immediate concern for policy-makers and citizens is, how new technologies are changing employment patterns, and how industry-leaders are harnessing Industry 4.0. If we can learn to ride the bucking horse before it grows too powerful, we will be equipped to harness its power when it grows further.

CEOs of three manufacturers, leaders in applying technologies to improve their competitiveness, were asked these questions at CII’s AGM in April 2019. One was Toyota-Kirloskar: Toyota is a world-wide leader in the management of manufacturing. Another was Bosch, a global leader in the design and production of high-tech equipment for several industries. The third was Bharat Forge, one of India’s most successful component producing companies, who broke into global supply chains with its world-best ability in rapid prototyping, wherein computer-aided equipment enables the combination of flexibility with accuracy. Bharat Forge supplies to OEMs around the world and now runs plants in Sweden and Germany also.

All three said that the key to improving productivity with technology was people. Vikram Kirloskar emphasised that the fabric uniting Toyota’s supply chains remains the famous ‘Toyota Production System’, of collaboration between parts of the system to improve the reliability of the whole system. ‘People to people’ collaboration and trust enables ‘win-win’ improvement within factories and across firms’ boundaries in the supply chain. Teams choose new technologies as they are developed to improve the systems’ performance.

Bosch had the same solution. It assists its vendors — many of whom are SMEs — to experiment with and determine which ‘Industry 4.0’ technologies will enhance their competitiveness. Industry 4.0 is ‘pulled in’ by people, not ‘pushed on’ to them.

Baba Kalyani of Bharat Forge has been a path-finder in the automobile component industry, always ahead in using technology. He too re-iterated the necessity of human intelligence in improving the systems’ performance. Bharat Forge employs graduate engineers to run its sophisticated machines. Technical know-how is a base-line requirement. However, curiosity — a very human quality — is essential for innovation and for continuous improvement of the system, he said. The Toyota example The Toyota Production System was described as the ‘Machine that Changed the World’. Because Japanese companies applied its tenets of ‘total quality management’ through ‘small group activity’ on shop floors and offices, where workers used system analysis and simple statistical techniques for ‘zero defects’ and ‘just-in-time’ deliveries across supply chains. With


these methods, Japanese companies became world-beaters in many industries — automobiles, steel, chemicals, electronics, etc. Western companies began to imitate Japanese methods to catch up. However, often they could not see the ‘people-to-people’ fibers within the fabric that enabled the Japanese systems’ pace of continuous improvement, with which it had overtaken the rest of the world. American automobile companies hired Prof WE Deming, who had catalysed the total quality movement in Japan, to guide them. After a few years, when he was asked on US National Public TV whether the Americans would catch up, he replied very sadly: “They don’t get it. They think the solution is in the statistics. Whereas it is the people.” Industry 4.0 technologies are disrupting many industries. They are changing patterns of employment and are creating new jobs too. The gig economy, led by food delivery firms and ride-hailing firms, has created over one million jobs in the Delhi region, according to IIM(B). An estimated 56 per cent of new employment in India is being generated by the sharing economy across both the blue-collar and white-collar workforce, according to Team Lease. “The gig economy is an extension of India’s informal labour, which has been prevalent for a long time. These workers do not get any social security insurance,” ICRIER says. The flexibility in their employment, enabled by technological platforms, results in workers becoming mere tools in a technology-powered production system. Contrast this with the wisdom of the world leading manufacturing companies cited before, for whom the people who work are their sources of competitive advantage, with people using technologies as their tools to improve performance. Human beings provide the ultimate source of competitive advantage in enterprises. Enterprises are ‘socio-technical systems’. They combine a social/human side with a technology side. Indian enterprises must strengthen the human side of their enterprises. Indeed, India’s masses of trainable people, eager to earn, can be a source of competitive advantage for enterprises in India. Workers cost less in India than workers in many other countries, whereas technology (and capital) costs more. Therefore, enterprises in India would do well to strengthen their social sides. Employers (even in gig enterprises) must show more commitment to their workers’ welfare, and to their continuous learning, to get the best out of Industry 4.0 technologies. Government policies must enable, and induce, employers to do this rather than change laws to make it even easier for them to informalise employment. Finally, returning to the existential question of Industry 4.0. Humans must remain masters of technology; they must not let technology become their master with an excitement to adopt the latest Industry 4.0 technologies whatever its consequences. Bank of Baroda goes in for new organisational structure • Bank of Baroda—the recently created banking behemoth post its three ay amalgamation

with Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank—is going in for organisationstructure revamp to improve the overall efficiency of operations and have better control and monitoring mechanisms in the combined entity.

• For this purpose, this bank—which now in all has 9447 branches—-has decided to introduce a new layer in the organisational hierarchy by creating a position of General Manager—-Chief Coordination.


• The position of General Manager—Chief Coordination will be a rank above the General Manager and one level below the Executive Director and will be responsible for and drive multiple areas of operation instead of a single function.

• All the 9447 branches will now report to an unified Regional Office/Zonal Office structure of the bank and there will not be any separate ROs/ZOs of the individual three entities running in parallel.

• It is also proposed to gradually move to a city vertical structure in 5 cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Chennai, to start with.

Airtel culture helps attract top talent: • Culture of entrepreneurship and empowerment is what makes Airtel a talent magnet. • As a talent-retention strategy, telecom companies created CEO-level posts for every circle,

giving them P&L (profit and loss) responsibilities. The organisational design with several layers, however, couldn’t create further avenues of growth. Over time, there were cost pressures, which reduced the possibilities of better compensation as well.

Three giant steps towards a culture of innovation The ability to innovate is what keeps companies relevant. Firms that don’t innovate, eventually die. To succeed at innovation, companies need to consider three key incubators as part of their workplace strategy: 1. Foster an environment that allows ideas to germinate, early products to be nurtured

and the freedom to fail.Creating an environment that is collaborative and inclusive. 2. It’s important to allow innovation to move out of walled spaces or specified departments.

Being ‘Zero-Distance’ to your customer. 3. By creating a belief in every employee that he or she can innovate, the chances of an

idea blossoming into a product increase exponentially.Or transforming creative output into commercially successful products.

A collaborative and inclusive environment means that every individual is respected for the value they bring to the creative process. No consideration is given to how they look, speak or where they fit in the hierarchy. The more diverse a workplace, more is the likelihood that it will have out-of-the-box thinking brought about by different experiences.

Imagination is the first step towards innovation and diversity increases the ability to imagine. Since innovation works best when ideas snowball, you need superior communication — one that is clear, honest, respectful, and free-flowing. This allows ideas to spread and get improved. It also initiates new threads of thought.

In addition to diversity, workplace design is equally important. Ideas come from people meeting in hallways or having a chat late nights on a common problem. The workspace should provide for resources that people can use, including a portion of work time reserved for experimentation without expectation of tangible outcomes.

Understanding future customer needs comes from being close to your customer and anticipating change. It’s important to remember that the future is a continuum — not one big idea, but the next step, the next experience, the next customer need. Developing the ability to find the right problem is being halfway there.

Making money on the creative output is the last stage of the process. While you can be obsessive on creativity and innovation, close to 70% of innovations fail to make money for companies. Hence, it’s important to co-create with your client no matter at what touch point you are called in to innovate, whether to fashion a new user experience or modernise the core or prototype a new digital offering, you can find allied problems worth solving and earn money


out of this. The true measure of success of an innovation is in the long term, the revenue one makes.

The cycle of idea generation - idea conversion - idea monetization can help companies leverage the power of design thinking for both incremental and transformative innovation. It takes an honest acceptance that the ideas for the future could be hidden in the workplace of the present. Many companies have missed this for an important reason — they were either too hierarchical, process-driven or plain lethargic to have a culture of innovation, the closeness to customers and the ability to monetize built into everyday work.

By embracing trends and new technology while still staying connected to customers and the core foundation, companies can innovate and prepare for the future. And to do that you need the right people working in a creative environment. It is also about building an inclusive work environment where multicultural and diverse teams flourish.

Current Affairs on Organisation theory upto 2018

Unit 1

Five Parts of Organisations: According to Mintz berg organisations are formed of five main parts:

1. Operating core: Those who perform the basic work related directly to the

production of products and services. 2. Strategic apex Charged with ensuring that the organisation serve its mission in an

effective way, and also that it serve the needs of those people who control or otherwise have power over the organisation.

3. Middle-line managers Form a chain joining the strategic apex to the operating core by the use of delegated formal authority.

4. Techno structure The analysts who serve the organisation by affecting the work of others. They may design it, plan it, change it, or train the people who do it, but they do not do it themselves

5. Support staff: Composed of specialised units that exist to provide support to the organisation outside the operating work flow Pressures

Each of these five parts has a tendency to pull the organisation in a particular direction favourable to them.

NR Narayana Murthy views:


Question 1: What makes for the longevity of a company? Good governance is the foundation on which the longevity of a company rests. Such a

company will live healthily for over 200-300 years. Good corporate governance is about enhancing shareholder value on a sustainable basis

while ensuring fairness, transparency and accountability in every action vis-à-vis every stakeholder – customers, employees, investors, vendor-partners, government of the land and society.

Question 2: Between strategy and culture, what do you believe is more important? Peter Drucker, the famous management guru, once told me in the nineties that culture eats

strategy for lunch. Therefore, culture is the bedrock on which successful strategy rests. Culture is what brings you joy, what makes you sad, what makes you proud, what you

value in life, and how you spend your time and money. A good company’s culture is to seek respect from every stakeholder in everything it does.

Such a company will strive to ensure that honesty, decency, fairness, transparency, accountability, compassion for less fortunate colleagues, leadership-by example, concern for the society and excellence are on the front burner.

Communication is essential element of organization: Bernard AI technician sucked into engine: 'Communication gap' may have led to accident at Mumbai airport

Darwin’s theory at work in e-commerce space in India Flipkarts and Snapdeals are forcing Ambanis and Birlas of supermarket chains to join the

burgeoning e-commerce landscape. o At the same time, a knockout round is at play in the online as well as offline retail worlds

where ‘survival of the fittest theory’ is forcing weaker and smaller players to either close the shop or get merged with stronger rivals — a trend that is likely to consolidate further in 2016.

o This was exemplified by the likes of retail chain, Shoppers Stop, tying up with Snapdeal and Amazon besides ramping up its own website to increase its online sales.

o Mahindra Retail, which acquired Babyoye.com in February this year, integrated its entire e-commerce business into Babyoye.com and later re-branded its offline retail network from Mom & Me to Babyoye by Mahindra.

o Likewise, Aditya Birla Group launched its e-commerce portal for apparel, abof.com, as a one-stop fashion portal for apparel, footwear and accessories for men and women. The e-commerce sector is a sunrise sector from an investment point of view.

o The government had given a further boost to the e-commerce sector by opening up FDI in the business to customer (B2C) segment in a calibrated manner.

o While preparing for the e-commerce challenge, the brick and mortar operators also went on to fortify their traditional stronghold through consolidation. Aditya Birla Group merged all its apparel businesses from Aditya Birla Nuvo and Madura Garments Lifestyle Retail into one entity — Pantaloons Fashion & Retail, which was later renamed as Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd.


What is company’s agility quotient? ‘State of Agile’ survey, brought out by technology company Version One. According to

the survey, companies that ‘went agile’ were able to deal with changing priorities, increase team productivity and improve project visibility.

“Unlike the ‘V’ model where the entire responsibility of a project rests with the project head, in Scrum everyone is made accountable. He says in Scrum, client feedback is obtained in two weeks, as against six months in the ‘V’ model.

Although Scrum had its origins in the software industry, it is used today in almost every sector. “Filmmakers, educational institutions and an increasing number of manufacturing companies are adopting the Scrum framework. We help companies get their HR practices aligned with their current challenges,”. Agile methodologies are essentially people-oriented. “Agile is a philosophy where people matter over the process. Enterprises need to identify what business goals they want to achieve and then use Agile methods, practices, principles and values to reach the desired goals.”

Impact of IT on organisations: Control though IT: Uber drivers will now have to click a selfie before accepting rides Ride-hailing app Uber on Thursday launched a facial recognition ID approval system for

drivers that will require them to take a selfie before accepting rides. The move is to avoid duplication of driver details and to curb impersonation by

unregistered drivers. The features have been rolled out in cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai,

Pune, and Lucknow and will be rolled out to other cities too. Many drivers in India take shifts to drive a cab 24x7 making it unsafe for passengers who

don't know the details or ratings of the driver who is ferrying them.

Will insert IoT sensors in cabs Uber is planning to insert IoT-based sensors in the cars to ensure real-time monitoring of

the vehicle’s health. It will gauge the engine condition, will alert on hard-breaking, and detect zig-zag

movements to determine if the driver is rash. The company is also partnering with law enforcement agencies, NGOs, and the

Government, at both city and country level, to ensure better safety. Uber partnered with Delhi Police to allow quick access to Himmat - a women safety

mobile app. It also joined hands with the top bars in town to fight against drunk driving. E-tailers focusing on AI, virtual reality to cut logistics cost and fraudulent orders o E-commerce companies are focusing on artificial intelligence and virtual reality with a

view to cut logistics costs and identify fraudulent orders, said a report by global auditing and consulting firm PwC.


o E-commerce players are revamping their technology strategies to maintain their competitive edge. Most e-commerce platforms are upping their investments in areas such as conversational commerce, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR) and analytics technologies.

o It observed that to identify fraudulent orders, reduce return rate and also cut down on logistics cost, e-commerce companies are investing in robotics and AI heavily.

o Then there is advanced analytics that allows for better optimisation of stock management as well as customisation of content based on data-driven understanding of consumers' online behaviour and preferences.

o Also, there are block-chain technologies that improve fraud detection and enable companies to offer a secure and transparent online medium as it helps in determining authenticity in multi-party transactions and expedite payment settlement, PwC said.

o Frauds or data thefts cause not just financial loss but also reputation damage and consequently loss of business, which is detrimental in today's global digital economy.

Govt. testing ‘big data’ system to aid banks assess credit risks: The government is testing a new system that will assist banks in assessing credit risks and

the probability of frauds using big data analysis. The system is expected to help lenders, particularly rural and cooperative banks, tackle the issue of rising non-performing assets (NPAs).

Under the project, a statistical and machine learning algorithmic models has also been developed to predict probability of default with an aim to improve NPAs. A model has also been developed for predicting different types of frauds in the banking sector based on RBI guidelines.

One nation, one tax department: I-T takes cue from GST The one-nation, one-tax principle that underlines the goods and services tax (GST could be adopted in a much more broader sense by the income tax department through a path-breaking initiative on jurisdiction-free assessment.

This would mean that a taxpayer in Mumbai could be assessed by an income tax officer located in Patna, a significant leap toward eradicating corruption by reducing the need for face-to-face contact between citizens and tax officials to the absolute minimum besides speeding up processing.

The move, which will require a change in the income tax law, would also end the relevance of various geographic divisions in the form of wards and circles with the whole country becoming one jurisdiction. This, it is hoped, will put an end to a system in which bribery is said to be used as a tool to ease processes through human intervention.

A high-level internal report of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) recommended the move, which is under active consideration. The government may consider implementing the process in the next financial year.

The key catalyst for such a significant reform is the massive shift toward e-filing of returns, which is already jurisdiction-free with returns going to the Central Processing Centre in Bengaluru. Multiple Benefits


In line with this move towards e-processing, the income tax department may even opt for e-scrutiny for all limited scrutiny cases where assesses can explain the transactions in question over email.

A complete jurisdiction-free environment would make geography redundant and the income tax department completely faceless for taxpayers. Any review or scrutiny of return could happen anywhere in India through an electronic interface, ensuring that the payee is not forced to interact with officials.

The board has in recent times taken a number of initiatives to reduce the face-to-face contact between tax officials and assessees and make the system non-adversarial.

Modern smartphones pose challenge for digital camera manufacturers

smartphone for everything and cannot understand why anyone would bother with a separate device for photos.

A rapid shift to picture-taking smartphones has torn into a camera sector dominated by Japanese firms including Canon, Olympus, Sony and Nikon—much like digital cameras all but destroyed the market for photographic film years ago.

130 million cameras were sold globally in 2011. Four years later, that figure stood at just 47 million.

Now companies are hitting back with upmarket options and offering web-friendly features, or in some cases simply moving away from the hard-hit business.

"The competition from smartphones has almost killed the cheapest cameras, but at the same time so many people are taking photos, as never before in human history.

Betting on nostalgia

Canon is offering more powerful zoom options. Sony and Panasonic have teamed up with German rivals, including Leica Olympus is pushing further into the medical equipment business as a leader in

endoscopes, which now eclipse camera sales. Konica Minolta is going into print and optical devices. Fujifilm has nearly put out of business by the drop in photo film sales, has also shifted

focus to health sector. IT impact Quote Delhi police examples such as Himmat, lost report app, automated eFIR etc that reduced work burden and improved efficiency. Desruptive Technologies Internet by light promises to leave Wi-Fi in the shade Connecting your smartphone to the web with just a lamp — that is the promise of Li-Fi, featuring Internet access 100 times faster than Wi-Fi with revolutionary wireless technology.

French start-up Oledcomm demonstrated the technology at the Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona. As soon as a smartphone was placed under an office lamp, it started playing a video.


The big advantage of Li-Fi, short for “light fidelity”, is its lightning speed. Laboratory tests have shown theoretical speeds of over 200 Gbps “Li-Fi allows speeds that are 100 times faster than Wi-Fi” which uses radio waves to transmit data, he added. two years down the line the technology can be commercialised and people can see its use at different levels.” Analysts said it was still hard to say if Li-Fi will become the new Wi-Fi.

Artificial intelligence The machines have taken over, almost Vast amounts of diverse data in disparate locations can be accessed and analysed often in real-time R. Pradeep Nair

Traditionally, computing systems perform tasks that humans programme them to do. But today, they can be trained to learn from their experiences and perform complex tasks.

This is possible as vast amounts of diverse data in disparate locations can be accessed and analysed often in real time, giving us mind-boggling insights.

Not surprisingly, machine learning is being widely adopted. The government of Andhra Pradesh uses Microsoft’s cloud-based predictive analytics service, Azure Machine Learning, to find out the students who are at a high risk of dropping out.

Wipro Holmes, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform developed by the IT major, can mimic human actions and is being used by financial institutions to automate tasks like KYC and credit-risk appraisal.

IBM has opened up its Watson ecosystem for business in India, by announcing partnership with two companies that will use cognitive technologies for tasks like identifying employees with leadership capabilities.

The insights can help the government allocate resources judiciously.

Machines, a threat? While artificial intelligence and cognitive computing have made our lives easier in many ways, there is also concern as to where it will all end up. Physicist Stephen sounded a word of caution. “Computers will overtake humans with AI at some point within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours,”

Investor Elon Musk sees AI as a threat: “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence.

It's all about being digital: TCS "The focus was completely on digital and the management reiterated that the

company has invested ahead of time in the digital segment. They also said that the employee base has been trained to address the digital needs of customers but more importantly, they now need to co-innovate with customers," said an analyst on condition of anonymity.

Since April 2015, TCS has trained more than 1,11,000 associates (against its target of 1,00,000 associates) through TCS Digital Learning Program.


Associates are trained on more than 400 tools and platforms for holistic development and equipping themselves with problem solving abilities.

TCS has also invested in creating next-gen delivery model that includes investments in Agile/DevOps, automation, RIO (Rigour in operation), digital, and security.

TCS is also tapping into the startup eco-system, the company is looking at more than 1,400 companies to collaborate with. IoT use in business processes With the increasing need for automation of business processes, the demand for IoT is rapidly rising as it significantly enables reduction of manual intervention. With growing cellular network coverage, connectivity challenges are greatly reduced, which in turn, is giving a fillip to IoT usage and deployment. In many manufacturing firms, IoT is being leveraged: to check for continuous monitoring of critical assets, private sector energy power producers are using IoT to better manage and predict supply

and demand. In the logistics industry, players like SafeExpress are using IoT to keep track of their

trucks and better manage delivery schedules. IoT would not only help the services industry in reducing costs but also prevent in

downtime of machines, improve efficiency, reduce energy consumption and enhance customer service.

IoT will also create automation opportunities in sectors where human intervention is difficult due to hazardous environmental conditions, such as mine fields.

Automotive players such as Hero MoroCorp, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors are actively using IoT in different forms. IoT could help its firm in improving the maintenance of plants. Most automotive firms have GPS-enabled their fleet.

JCB India, a firm which manufactures construction equipment, provides an IoT-based service to its clients, which ensures proactive maintenance of its equipment. JCB India’s telematics service allows users to remotely monitor the overall health and performance of machines in the field. Statistics such as fuel consumption, idle time and equipment usage can be studied and analysed, which in turn, can lead to better productivity. Moreover, a geo-fencing feature ensures that the machine does not go outside defined boundary conditions.

Infosys is using IoT-based solutions in its own campuses for monitoring the performance of various assets like chillers, air handling units, gensets and other critical assets. Energy consumption of each asset is monitored and optimised over the years realizing substantial energy savings.

Kerala Water Authority has deployed sensors in receiving alerts related to irregularities in water supply or repairs. The firm uses sensors to measure water turbidity, salinity and chlorine levels. If there is a change from accepted norms, then the team can immediately take corrective action.


IoT market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 28% during the period from 2015 due to demand for real-time monitoring and tracking of services and systems across diverse industry verticals to reduce operational and manpower costs.

Government projects such as smart cities, smart transportation, smart grids are also expected to further propel use of IoT technology in the country over the next five years. The entire ecosystem of smart cities – healthcare, education, infrastructure, agriculture and other industries would get a fillip. State governments are also working on blueprints and competing with each other to stay ahead of the curve.”

For Government IoT will not only just help in reducing costs and improve revenue by plugging all the leakages, but will also help improve the experience of service delivery tremendously. As the Indian government is actively pushing the concept of Digital India and smart cities, there will be a huge focus on IoT.

India has the 3rd largest smartphone market in the world, and is expected to progress from 200 million Internet users in 2013 to 500 million by 2017. This growth will soon be extended to other devices as well, and with the ease with which IoT connects devices like PC, tablets, cars, and wearables, IoT can be expected to be the largest device market. All in all, the digital transformation going on in India will be one of the biggest contributors of growth for IoT in India.

Looking at the growth opportunities in India, Cisco has partnered with Electronics City Industries Association (ELCIA) in Bangalore to set up Asia’s first ‘Internet of Things (IoT) Innovation Hub’. This project will lay the foundation for a new ecosystem to help Electronic System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) companies to develop solutions for City Infrastructure Management (CIM) including Smart Parking, Smart CCTV Surveillance, Smart Street Lighting, Smart Water Management/Leak Detection and Community Messaging.

The explosion in the number of banking and mobile related services has led to huge

deployment of ATMs and cellphone towers across various developing countries. These firms see in IoT, a great technology to help in managing assets. HSBC to close nearly half its India branches, focus on digital banking

HSBC will nearly halve the number of branch in India to 26 from the current 50 and turn its focus to retail banking through digital channels. “This change reflects changes in customer behaviour, who are increasingly using digital channels for their banking.

“We are investing in HSBC Premier in India to enhance the range of products and services available to select customers with more sophisticated needs. We have a big focus on digital and will be investing more in digital technologies, particularly in the payments space,’’ said an HSBC spokesperson in an e-mail response.

HSBC’s move comes after another foreign bank, Singapore-based DBS Bank Ltd, announced a digital banking campaign last month, through which it will acquire and service retail customers through digital channels rather than branches.

The race for digital supremacy in India comes as 11 payments banks are preparing to launch operations. These banks will have the infrastructure and technology to provide digital banking from day one. Private lenders and public sector banks have also stepped up their push for use of digital channels.


Among the various digital channels, the use of smartphones for transactions is the most popular in the country. Transactions on mobile phones have surged in recent months and most banks have been aggressively marketing mobile applications to their customers.

Experts believe that with the penetration of digital channels, branch banking will undergo a significant change. “There is clearly a focus on moving towards more digital for many reasons. The cost of digital banking is significantly lower than branch banking. Everybody has to move towards that to be more competitive,” However, with digitization and the possibility of closure of branches comes the threat of staff layoffs. 176-year-old photo studio in Kolkata shuts down Bourne and Shepherd, one of the country’s oldest photo studios, has closed shop here after 176 years, succumbing to the invasion of digital technology. Established in central Kolkata’s Esplanade area in 1840 by British photographers William Howard, Samuel Bourne and Charles Shepherd, the establishment is said to be among the oldest photographic studios in the world. “We closed it on Thursday. Things are not the same anymore. Technology has changed and I have grown old. How will I run it,” the studio’s owner Jayant Gandhi said.

Impact of disruptive technologies on organizations A disruptive technology is one:

that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or a ground-breaking product that creates a completely new industry.

In other words: A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leading firms, products and alliances. The term was defined and phenomenon analyzed by Clayton M. Christensen beginning in 1995 Here are a few examples of disruptive technologies:

The personal computer (PC) displaced the typewriter and forever changed the way we work and communicate.

The Windows operating system's combination of affordability and a user-friendly interface was instrumental in the rapid development of the personal computing industry in the 1990s. Personal computing disrupted the television industry, as well as a great number of other activities.

Email transformed the way we communicating, largely displacing letter-writing and disrupting the postal and greeting card industries.

Cell phones made it possible for people to call us anywhere and disrupted the telecom industry. The laptop computer and mobile computing made a mobile workforce possible and made it possible for

people to connect to corporate networks and collaborate from anywhere. In many organizations, laptops replaced desktops.

Smartphones largely replaced cell phones and PDAs and, because of the available apps, also disrupted: pocket cameras, MP3 players, calculators and GPS devices, among many other possibilities. For some mobile users, smartphones often replace laptops. Others prefer a tablet.

Cloud computing has been a hugely disruptive technology in the business world, displacing many resources that would conventionally have been located in-house or provided as a traditionally hosted service.

Social networking has had a major impact on the way we communicate and -- especially for personal use -- disrupting telephone, email, instant messaging and event planning.

Emerging disruptive technologies: 1. Internet of Things. 2. LiFi to replace WiFi


3. Cognitive Technology developed by IBM. 4. Robotisation of operations including Robotic surgery, car assembly, routine office

services. 5. Self driving cars: 6. AI Platforms by IT companies such as Holmes by Wipro; Ignio by TCS and Mana by

Infosys. These AI Platforms can perform routine tasks like Loan Process approaval, detection and correction of errors like ATM related. Wipro Holmes, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform developed by the IT major, can mimic human actions and is being used by financial institutions to automate tasks like KYC and credit-risk appraisal.

Merits:

1. Efficiency and accuracy in working saving inputs costs. 2. Standardization and benchmarking of product and services. 3. 24 X 7 working. Saving of time. 4. Making predictions about environment, monsoon, rough weather conditions, mal-

functioning of plant, health condition etc. 5. Freedom from human errors and errors of judgment; frauds. 6. First mover advantage for the innovative organisation, environmental leadership. 7. Chitale Dairy uses IoT (RFID tags) to capture vital information about each cow or

buffalo and transmits this information back to the dairy’s data center. Farmers can access this information about their animals from the company’s database using their mobile phones. Farmers can use this information to track behaviour and the expected levels of milk or when vaccinations have to be given. The feeding and breeding of animals is now monitored by computers and by automating the collection of data from each farm, they have improved animal health, leading to increased milk yield per animal.

8. In healthcare, IoT would create the opportunity of remote patient monitoring that would change the dynamics of healthcare treatment.

9. For Government IoT will not only just help in reducing costs and improve revenue by plugging all the leakages, but will also help improve the experience of service delivery tremendously. As the Indian government is actively pushing the concept of Digital India and smart cities, there will be a huge focus on IoT.

The negative side: These new technologies will bring drastic changes in organization structure. The

concept of job will become redundant, structure become lean and thin. Automation to replace lakhs of entry, mid-level IT executives. Foxconn,

supplier for tech giants Apple and Samsung, reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers performing repetitive tasks with robots.

o Few persons will own and control resources. The competitive advantage enjoyed by developing countries may get inverted in favour of capital and technology rich organizations and countries. It is likely that it will exacerbate inequality if policy measures are not taken.


o A new report from UBS released in Davos predicts that extreme levels of automation and connectivity will worsen already deepening inequalities by widening the wealth gap between developed and developing economies.

General Motors is confronting the threat of driverless cars - another science fiction that has become science fact - or Banks facing competition from digital "fintech" start-ups.

Davos bosses brace for big technology shocks. Executives expect an artificial intelligence machine to be sitting on a corporate board within the next decade.

Large corporations are designed to work with sustaining technologies. They excel at knowing their market, staying close to their customers, and having a mechanism in place to develop existing technology. Conversely, they have trouble capitalizing on the potential efficiencies, cost-savings, or new marketing opportunities created by low-margin disruptive technologies.

It is not unusual for a big corporation to dismiss the value of a disruptive technology because it does not reinforce current company goals, only to be blindsided as the technology matures, gains a larger audience and market share and threatens the status quo.

Staying a step ahead of disruptive technologies Speed is a distinguishing feature of modern life. People buy homes faster. Children fly the nest faster. Youngsters decide on a career faster. Employees leave companies faster. Some call it a day faster. Processes in companies expire faster. Technologies lose relevance faster. Speed is by nature disruptive. And, disruption calls for readjustments. It calls for an ability to reset the compass and chart a new course.

Today, in the life of a corporate house, one of the uppermost challenges is dealing with disruption. When disruption happens, as it surely will, especially in companies that rely heavily on technology, is there a system in place that minimises uncertainty and damage?

Liquid workforce: Largely due to technological disruption, many companies are

opening up to the idea of having a liquid workforce. As per Accenture ‘having a liquid workforce would be one of the key competitive advantages over competitors’.

A liquid workforce is one that is responsive to change. It is always open to the possibility of having to unlearn old processes and adopt newer processes. It is open to being re-skilled. Impact of Liquid workforce:In the future, talent will be contracted. There will be outcome-bound contracts. Companies will be under greater pressure to deploy new talent quickly in line with the changing demands of their clients. Assignment-based employment will be on the rise. Companies will have a small core of permanent employees and hire the rest based entirely on current needs.To keep its workforce liquid, organisations have to create a culture of learning. Trend today: During hiring most companies now look for hires with learning agility. In IT recruiters focus: Does he have the technical foundation and programming skills to move to a new language?

But, even in a VUCA world, there are certain constants. There is something irresistible about an entity — company, a family or any other — that manages to have an unbroken link


with the past. A company with much of its workforce attached to it for long, inspires trust and confidence — especially if it is in the service sector. To retain people longer, they should be provided avenues for growth. A sense of purpose should come attached with their jobs.

Exciting additional assignments that push them to the limits and re-skilling programmes,

including sending them to technical and management programmes in premier institutions… these may help impart greater meaning to their jobs. Given that we are living in a VUCA world that is marked by speed and hurry, it’s a huge challenge. But, at the end of the day, it is a challenge that is worth taking.

Org goals How goals are achieved goal also matter, not just achievement. In the past, when business cycles were fairly stable, meeting goals against expectations was

a good enough measure for managers to assess an employee's performance. As complexity set in and businesses got intercepted with disruptions of a new kind, organisations are changing the manner in which employee performance is measured.

Today, not only are organisations looking at what goals employees have achieved, but also 'how' these goals were achieved.

As per Vikram Bector, chief human resources officer, Group "At the end of the year, we don't just measure the output, we also want to know how you achieved your goals. The 'what' part of outcome would be pretty clear from the financial sheet that would tell what goals were achieved. The how part, however, is a matter of discussion and it involves a 360-degree approach."

In the past, it would be safely assumed that achievers who meet or exceeded their goals are on their way to future success. Today, companies are closely measuring employee behaviour as well. "An individual may have met all his or her targets, but destroyed all relations with the team. Such an individual would not be able to claim a top rating. If an employee is uni-dimensional in his/her approach, and only deals with the line manager without collaborating with others in terms of sharing recognition and teamwork, it is not an acceptable behaviour.

KPMG in India urges its employees to not only assess the 'what' and the 'how' but most importantly the 'why'. If the individual purpose of an employee is aligned to the higher purpose of the firm, it can only bring out the absolute best in an individual.

At Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL), too, the focus is not just on achievements of the present appraisal cycle but also on the future potential of an employee and whether he has the competencies to achieve the same.

GOALS: Deaths in Armed forces Latest figures collated by TOI show that:


Road accidents claim the lives of over 350 soldiers, sailors and airmen every year, while ; Another 120 personnel take the extreme step of committing suicide. Other big causes are training accidents and various health reasons, which itself is a big

worry for the forces that are supposed to be fighting fit. Difference between Strategic & Operational Objectives

Well-managed small businesses usually start their planning process with a broad mission statement or vision. While this starting point is both necessary and admirable, it usually does not become useable by management until the mission is translated into a strategic plan that is then used to guide operations. Managers gain from an understanding of the difference between strategic and operational objectives because this distinction plays a major role in the conversion of an overarching vision into concrete, specific tasks.

Strategic Objectives: Strategic objectives are long-term organizational goals that help to convert a mission

statement from a broad vision into more specific plans and projects. They set the major benchmarks for success and are designed to be measurable, specific and realistic translations of the mission statement that can be used by management to guide decision-making.

Strategic objectives are usually developed as a part of a two- to four-year plan that identifies key strengths and weaknesses and sets out the specific expectations that will allow the company or organization to achieve its more broad-based mission or vision statement.

Operational Objectives Operational objectives are daily, weekly or monthly project benchmarks that implement

larger strategic objectives. Operational objectives, also called tactical objectives, are set out with strategic objectives in mind and provide a means for management and staff to break down a larger strategic goal into workable tasks. For example, achieving the strategic goal of a 25 percent increase in sales revenue requires the completion of the operational objective to develop and execute an effective advertising strategy along with other operational objectives.

As with strategic objectives, operational objectives also should be measurable and specific, though their focus is narrower.

Important Differences The most important difference between a strategic and an operational objective is its time

frame; operational objectives are short-term goals, while strategic objectives are longer-term goals.

Strategic and operational objectives also function differently in practice as strategic objectives are still usually too broad to make sense as a specific set of daily tasks or weekly projects. Operational objectives, on the other hand, are specific and short term enough to be considered usable in everyday time and asset allocation.

Relationship between Strategy and Operations: Even though strategic and operational objectives are substantially different, it is important to recognize that they are closely related. An organization is unlikely to achieve a strategic objective if it fails to


effectively translate it into workable operational objectives. At the same time, operational objectives will lack cohesion with each other and with the overall organizational mission if they are not designed to affect the achievement of strategic objectives. Put simply, strategic objectives only become useful when translated into operational objectives and operational objectives are only effective when designed to serve a strategic objective. Goal effect of social changes Hectic lifestyles force companies to innovate with products: When time is of the essence, habits change quite easily. Having understood that today's consumer is in need of getting the desired results, albeit in a shorter duration, marketers are innovating with products and services to cater to this time-strapped buyer such as: While consumers are multitasking with buying groceries and hailing cabs on mobile phone

apps, food is getting delivered at record time and household chores are increasingly being outsourced.

Traditionally 'wet-meal' consuming double-income households are shifting to dry meals, giving rise to a new 'quasi' meals culture.

On-the-go packs of juices too are selling more than large in-home packs, indicating the shift in consumption patterns.

What's more, even salons are whipping up new express services that significantly cut down the time required for a certain grooming procedure (hair colour, facial, mani-pedi) to cater to the new generation of 'busy' consumers. Salons like Lakme are developing express services in manicure and pedicure, 10-minute hair colouring (as against the processing time of 40 minutes for regular colouring) and certain premium facials done in shorter durations which are priced higher than regular facials.

Time is the new currency. Customers are keen to get a great experience with efficient results, which are time-saving. The natural shift to mobile shopping indicates that customers today demand superior products and services that are extremely convenient to avail. And the meaning of convenience is almost synonymous to saving precious time.

Unit 3

Boundless Organization Delhi police taking service of citizens for enforcement of traffic rules under Traffic Sentinel service Delhi Police on Thursday launched a mobile app through which residents can keep tab on traffic violators and send their videos or photographs.

This will be an empowering tool in the hands of the common citizen who will get a platform to report traffic offences occurring on the roads of Delhi to the authorities.”

BOUNDRYLESS ORGANISATION US troops can use Indian bases: India and the US on have agreed "in principle" to a logistics exchange agreement to enable both militaries to use each other's assets and bases for repair and replenishment of supplies.

Unit 4 Mphasis to Decentralise its Decision-making Process


More Management Mphasis has identified 17 execs in the rung below its executive committee, empowering them to take decisions without higher level approval

Mphasis has begun a reorganisation programme to decentralise decision-making and to give greater control of the delivery organisation to executives placed onsite, as the mid-sized IT firm looks to surf the digital wave.

CEO Ganesh Ayyar told ET that the move to newer technologies such as cloud, analytics, mobile-based solutions and social media solutions required IT companies to compress the time they took to serve their clients.

“The idea is moving from being a boat to being 50 canoes. I am competing with large ships out there, but if I become a canoe, I can become more nimble. In a move to speed up decisions, Mphasis has identified 17 executives in the rung below its 10-member executive committee empowering them to take decisions without higher level approval.

“We have to create more management depth. This helps us do that. We can also create management bandwidth. Innovation is an outcome of a culture of experimentation.

As part of the programme, executives above a certain level will not have to get management approvals for expenses or management approval when they apply for leaves.

Mphasis has also created a top-level management group focusing on 16 of its customers, in which it sees most probability of innovation. Of these 16, six customers currently have their delivery managers sitting in their headquarter city. This manager is empowered to take all decisions related to the customer.

“We did a study and other IT firms also have a delivery person in the city, but the delivery organisation still mainly reports to the delivery head in India. We don't want this. When the client calls the delivery manager, he is empowered to take all decisions, even down to the appraisals of those delivering to his client.

Mphasis' `chemical change'comes at a time when the company has faced severe headwinds from decline of its business from owner Hewlett-Packard and falling margins.

DESIGN e units of commands India may get three unified commands for special operations: With the three services often engaging in turf-wars, India has only two existing unified commands till now.

India is now working towards creating three new tri-Service organizations to handle the rapidly-expanding challenges in the crucial domains of space, cyberspace and clandestine warfare, which will be headed by two-star generals, in a synergised manner.

The ball will be set rolling by the creation of the Defence Cyber Agency (DCA), which will be followed by the Defence Space Agency (DSA) and the Special Operations Division (SOD). These will be "interim arrangements" till the full-fledged Cyber, Aerospace and Special Operations Commands can take shape.

The need for unified structures to deal with threats in the new battlegrounds of space and cyberspace, after the traditional ones of land, air and sea, has now become urgent. China, for instance, has developed potent military space and cyberspace capabilities, ranging from advanced ASAT (anti-satellite) and directed-energy laser weapons to cyber-weapons. Some countries now even consider cyber-weapons to be the game-changing weapons of the future, almost akin to use of nuclear bombs for the first time in 1945. The cyber domain also offers an attractive option for asymmetric warfare in terms of offsetting conventional


superiority. Further, attacks on critical ICT (information and communications technology) networks can provide significantly higher military advantages than physical attacks.

Open System

Exchange strategy saves discoms Rs. 200 crore While there has been no response from the Ministry of Power on surrendering expensive electricity in Delhi as yet, power utilities have come up with an alternative to avoid buying it. The distribution companies are now engaging in “power banking” which is helping them save as much as Rs. 200 crore. Power banking, which means exchange of electricity between different States is turning out to be a popular means to avoid purchase from old and ailing generation stations. Under this arrangement, discoms in Delhi have begun to export power to various States during the off-peak winter months? of October to March and the same is imported back during the summer? months of May to September.? Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) has entered into power banking arrangements with at least three States, including Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya and Odisha among others. “Almost 200 MW to 250 MW of power is exported by TPDDL during the off-peak months and the same is imported back during the peak summer months. There is no money involved in this. It is plain barter system. It saved Rs. 200 cr.

For the period of October 2015 to March 2016, discoms have already tied up banking export of around 1200 MUs, mainly with States like Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Return banking against the same shall be received from May 16 to September 16. MAKING STRUCTURE FLAT TO END CORRUPTION: DDA cuts red-tapism Focus on timely possession, speedy conversions: In this direction, all Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors have been empowered to dispose of files at their level directly without following the conventional hierarchy of submitting all files from Assistant Director to Deputy Director. DDA is working for file-less system under which it would ensure less rotation of file to curb corruption.

Mutual Adjustment through sensitivity: PM Modi in three day DGP conference made a strong pitch for a "flexible instructional framework" under which police should establish links with local communities. "Sensitivity should be a vital element of policing and a flexible institutional framework should be built, which can help imbibe sensitivity towards citizens in the police force.

Design change: Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs merged with MEA In order to avoid duplication of work and to improve efficiency, the government on Thursday merged the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) with the Ministry of External Affairs.

DESIGN REDUCE INTEGRATION Honda CEO to shift gears, distance sales teams from car design process-sources


Honda Motor Co President and Chief Executive Takahiro Hachigo walks under the company logo as he gives a presentation at the 44th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, Japan, October 28, 2015.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nearly a year into his job, Honda Motor Co (7267.T) CEO Takahiro Hachigo plans a back-to-the-future shift at the Japanese automaker, driving clearer demarcation lines between those who develop cars and those who sell them, two senior company insiders told Reuters.

The thrust of the changes will be to reduce the influence of sales and marketing teams on car design. Over the years product development process became overly complex and slow, involving a huge number of engineers and sales and marketing people.

As a result, he plans a re-balance of power between engineers and marketing on car design, they said, noting sales people focus more on a car's affordability than its performance. "Tech people should design cars more freely, but take responsibility if the car isn't successful."

DECENTRALIZATION More powers to zonal railways for faster decision-making besides introducing

accountability. This includes defining key result areas (KRAs) for general managers and divisional railway managers to evaluate their performance. A single official would be made accountable for each train’s on-board experience to address passenger concerns; even as a third party audit will be conducted to ensure the quality of services on trains and stations.

How Your Organization Can Balance Employee Freedom With

Organizational Control When looking at something such as designing employee experiences one of the biggest questions and challenges that comes up is how to balance employee freedom with organizational control. There is no such thing as a single employee experience, there are many of them. In order to design employee experiences the organization and the employee have to participate in something I call, The Employee Experience Design Loop, which you can see below. I wrote an entire article about this which you can also read called, A Framework For How Any Organization Can Design Amazing Employee Experiences.

But in this type of a model there is a bit of a give and take. Essentially employees provide feedback on what they care about and value and the organization takes that information and designs experiences around it.

For this to work there needs to be some kind of balance. Not everything that the employees want can be implemented, after all, organizations

shouldn’t be expected or required to create “Pinocchio’s island.” On the other hand it’s also quite clear that what most organizations are doing today

isn’t working. So if employees can’t have everything they want but the organization still needs to bend and adapt while making sure that business goals are being met and that actual work is getting done, how does that happen? The answer is in the image below.

As you can see the key here is transparency. This is what allows the balance between employee freedom and organizational control to exist. A great example of this actually comes not from the inside of an organization but from the outside (customer centric) with Starbucks. Starbucks launched something a while ago called My Starbucks Idea which


allows customers from around the world to suggest ideas and improvements to the coffee giant. These ideas can be around products, experiences, or event community involvement and sustainability. As you can imagine Starbucks gets A LOT of ideas on a regular basis and there is no way that they can possibly implement every idea that comes there way (just like an organization can’t possibly implement every employee idea around experience), so what do they do? They share as much information as they can.

Starbucks allows customers to vote on the ideas that they would most like to see implemented. Starbucks then takes those most popular ideas and evaluates them but they do so in an open way. Customers can see which ideas are most popular, which ideas are under review, ideas that have already been reviewed, ideas that are coming soon, and those that have already been launched. Not only that but if Starbucks tries out an idea that doesn’t work, they will explain why.

Many organizations focus on designing experiences for employees instead of designing experiences with employees. We need to stop being scared about sharing and opening up information. You cannot design great employee experiences and balance employee freedom with organizational control without transparency.

Organizational Integration The government has started the process to set up a National Committee on Trade Facilitation (NCTF). The NCTF, which is in line with the government’s “Ease of Doing Business” initiatives, is meant to institutionalise co-ordination on trade facilitation between the 35-plus central government departments, private players and state governments. The agreement is supposed to enable domestic manufacturers connect more easily to regional and Global Value Chains.

Standardisation: Were standard operating procedures violated? As the Army begins investigation into the deadly fire at its most important ammunition depot, questions are yet again swirling over the management of ammunition by the military. Senior Army officers are not willing to speculate on the reasons for the fire, but it is clear that there has been a deviation from the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in the installation where there is no room for errors.

SOPs are laid out for every step of handling, storing and using ammunition to prevent such accidents. It is still not clear what may have caused the Pulgaon blast. However, the fact remains that there is a recurring trend of depot fires. Since 2000 there have been at least six major fires in ammunition dumps killing scores.

Organization design Now, an outside expert in railway board

In a big move to overhaul colonial-era railway bureaucracy, the Central government has decided to allow lateral entry of external talent for one senior position in the railway board, reorganise the top decision-making body on functional lines and rework the policy of appointments of GMs and DRMs to eliminate discretion. The Appointment Committee Cabinet (ACC) decided to create a post of Advisor (resource mobilisation & development) which will be filled through lateral entry, aiming to accelerate the modernisation efforts to revamp the state-run transporter.


The ministerial panel, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also decided to reorganise the railway board on functional lines by creating post of member (infrastructure), member (rolling stock), member (traction).

At present, the board has members dealing with different departments such as engineering, traffic, mechanical, and staff apart from the financial commissioner. Over the years, inter-services rivalry has often resulted in blocking of key projects, impacting the government's efforts to upgrade decaying rail infrastructure. While reserving the post of members for different railway services, the panel also decided to create post of DGs in railway board for three services - personnel, signal and telecom and stores-which don't have representation as members.

The selection process for GMs and DRMs has also being changed drastically to eliminate discretion in top level appointments which were mired in controversy during the UPA regime due to alleged corrupt practices, highlighted by the arrest of railway board member Mahesh Kumar and delay in filling large number of vacancies. Lateral entry in Civil Services: Centre has opened the highest echelons of the bureaucracy to skilled individuals from the private sector and academia, inviting applications for ten candidates at the level of joint secretary across various departments. Joint Secretaries play a crucial role in formulating and implementing policy. These lateral entrants into the civil service will be offered a three-year contract, which the government can extend to five years depending on performance.

Pros of lateral entry:

1) The lack of specialisation across the top tier of Indian bureaucracy is a concern that has remained unaddressed until now.

2) Entry of seasoned professionals and experts into the service will cover deficiency of administrative judgement and capabilities.

3) Career promotions in the IAS move along seamlessly with few impediments along the way. Attempts to introduce ‘meritocracy’ hasn’t quite worked out. Bringing in experts from the professional sphere is expected to shake the IAS out of their comfort zone.

4) This isn’t the first time that the government brought in professionals from the private sector or academia into the top tier of government. Take a look at the Finance Ministry, Reserve Bank of India and even the current NITI Aayog, which have hired the likes of Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian and Arvind Panagriya to name a few.

5) With liberalization it has become more critical for the government to ascertain the impact its policy decisions have on various stakeholders such as the private sector, non-profits, and general public, i.e. those who have experienced government from the outside.

Concerns with lateral entry:


1) Lateral entrants from the private sector and academia may not work well with the bureaucracy. The same pretty much goes for any inter-sector scenario. Differences in work culture, turf wars and systemic inertia often come in the way.

2) Candidates coming from the outside may not know the nuances of the system which can be exploited against them in any number of ways.

3) The IAS establishment is likely to baulk at lateral entrants who haven’t made it through probably the hardest open competitive exam in the world, but because of privilege and social networks.

4) One of the distinguishing aspects that the current crop of IAS officers can hold up is their experience in the field, serving some of the poorest districts in our hinterlands. Those entering from privileged backgrounds and the private sector may have never seen a village school.

Infosys reshapes, to split into 12-15 smaller business units In a massive reorganization, Infosys is splitting itself into 12-15 smaller business units, each

with revenue of $500-$700 million, its own sales heads and P&L (profit & loss) responsibilities.

Currently, the organization is divided into four large verticals 1. banking & financial services and insurance, 2. retail & life sciences, 3. manufacturing & hi-tech, and 4. energy & utilities, communications and services,

Each of these will be split into smaller units. The four verticals are headed by four presidents — These overarching responsibilities will continue. But under each of them, there will be a greater number of independent units. The objective is to give its presidents more time to build CXO-level relationships and strategy to improve sales, than be bogged down by internal operational matters. This will help company in better market penetration and in client management. India may get a tri-service chief The country may soon get a new tri-service chief— a four-star general like the Army, IAF

and Navy chiefs— to ensure synergy in training, logistics, planning and procurements among the forces.

In the longer run, the country will have theatre commands to integrate its air, land and sea assets under single operational commanders for a greater military punch from limited budgetary resources.

This new post of CDS must be one with real teeth with priority over civilians giving advice on military matters.

A leaner military is on the cards


The government has approved a host of reforms in the military, with proposals to cut flab and improve financial management.

If the proposal to reduce deployment of active-duty soldiers in avoidable postings were to be implemented, retired officers and jawans will replace serving personnel in the running of the National Cadet Corps (NCC).

The committee has said that if its recommendations are implemented over the next five years, the government can save up to ₹25,000 crore from the current expenditure.

Performance audit: The committee has also recommended a performance audit of the

role of non-combat organisations under the Defence Ministry. The organisations include those dealing with defence estates and accounts, the Director- General of Quality Assurance, the Ordnance Factory Board, the Defence Research and Development Organisation and the NCC.

Army plans to raise inclusiveness Commanders’ meet says highly pyramidal set-up has been denying promotions to competent officers: The recently held in April 2017, Army Commanders’ Conference has debated ways of optimum utilisation of personnel as the Service has a “highly pyramidal structure” and hence over “50% personnel are not promoted despite being highly competent”.

Authoritarian Culture at Wolkaswagon responsible for scandal Volkswagen executives describe authoritarian culture under former CEO VW Group of America CEO calls on company ‘to bloody learn’ after Martin Winterkorn’s exit in the wake of emissions scandal

Like many chief executives, Martin Winterkorn was a demanding boss who didn’t like failure. But critics say the pressure on managers at Volkswagen was unusual, which may go some way to explaining the crisis at the carmaker.

“We need in future a climate in which problems aren’t hidden but can be openly communicated to superiors,” said Osterloh, who as chief of the VW works council represents employees on the board.“We need a culture in which it’s possible and permissible to argue with your superior about the best way to go.”

Management style fostered a climate of fear, an authoritarianism that went unchecked partly due to a company structure unique in the German motor industry.

4 types of organizational culture According to Robert E. Quinn and Kim S. Cameron at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, there are four types of organizational culture: Clan, Adhocracy, Market, and Hierarchy.

1. Clan oriented cultures are family-like, with a focus on mentoring, nurturing, and “doing things together.”

2. Adhocracy oriented cultures are dynamic and entrepreneurial, with a focus on risk-taking, innovation, and “doing things first.”

3. Market oriented cultures are results oriented, with a focus on competition, achievement, and “getting the job done.”

4. Hierarchy oriented cultures are structured and controlled, with a focus on efficiency, stability and “doing things right.”


There’s no correct organizational culture for an arts organization. All cultures promote some forms of behavior, and inhibit others. Some are well suited to rapid and repeated change, others to slow incremental development of the institution.

For example, Quinn and Cameron associate the lower two cultures (Hierarchy and Market) with a principal focus on stability and the upper two (Clan and Adhocracy) with flexibility and adaptability. A Hierarchy culture based on control will lead mainly to incremental change, while a focus on Adhocracy will more typically lead to breakthrough change.

The right culture will be one that closely fits the direction and strategy of a particular organization as it confronts its own issues and the challenges of a particular time.

Work Culture: People prefer work culture over salary hike. According to the survey by JobBuzz.in, the employer-rating platform powered by

TimesJobs.com, 90 per cent of working professionals said they would not accept working for a company that offered a big salary hike but was reviewed as having a bad work culture.

Today's high performance candidates even have two or more offers in hand and will only accept an employment offer if the company's work culture and its HR practices are appealing enough to their sensibilities" TimesJobs.com COO Vivek Madhukar said.

As per the survey, 66 per cent of respondents believe top management is to blamed if a company's work culture is seen as bad.

The JobBuzz.in survey further revealed that 65 per cent respondents would choose a company that actively advertised or promoted its work culture in comparison to a company that did not highlight its corporate culture.

This survey reveals the growing importance Gen Y and Z are giving to the work atmosphere and culture of an organisation when seeking employment.

Questions on Organisation Culture 1. What is the origin of organizational culture? Why do different organizations have different

cultures? 2. How do newcomers learn the culture of an organization? How can an organization

encourage newcomers to develop (a) an institutionalized role orientation and (b) an individualized role orientation?

3. In what ways can organizational culture increase organizational effectiveness? Why is it important to obtain the right fit between organizational structure and culture?

4. “An organization should always adopt a broad stance on social responsibility.” Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement.

CULTURE: India Inc hires CEOs with culture-fit clause

Shorter CEO stints are forcing companies to rethink on boarding exercises. There is a growing demand for transitioning CEOs with clear mandates to ensure a culture fit. While search firms were already involved in the process of CEO on boarding, the journey now begins even before the CEO formally takes charge, with a greater stress on culture fit. Recent examples of a change in leadership at Uber, and now Infosys, have further accentuated the trend.


Every organisation has its unique culture that gets defined by core beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that make up the organisation. While experience is of utmost importance when looking at CEO candidates, a poor cultural fit can completely eliminate all the good that comes from experience.

"According to studies, almost half of an employee's success in the first 18 months on the job can be attributed to how the employee fits in with others in the organisation, while the rest of his success depends on his/her experience — that is, whether he can do the job. To change the culture of a company, one of the often adopted ways is to change the CEO. An example being Uber, where the board recognised the culture to have become too toxic and needed an overhaul. When a new CEO is hired, the door for change, including culture change, seems to open automatically, and it comes with a deadline and eventually will close, which means change may be much harder to initiate later on," said Raina.

While cultural fitment has become a "go, no-go" hiring decision, there are also growing demands from companies on how long a CEO would last. Organisations are no longer content just knowing the personality or emotional quotient of their leaders, they want to know whether they will deliver — not only in next one year but next two-five years."Cultural fitment is definitely rising in popularity.

Spencer Stuart maps organisations and individuals on its cultural alignment framework, not only to gauge their cultural fit to the existing environment but also to predict their impact on the culture — the latter enabling selection of leaders who can become catalysts that drive the strategic change agendas.

Sahiba Singh, who leads the leadership advisory services at Spencer Stuart, said, "We have seen that new leaders are often bombarded with information as well as expectations as soon as they join, and the pace and demands of those first days can feel overwhelming, even for those who have served before in the role in other organisations."

QWL & WORK CULTURE

IT companies mull mid-week break to cut stress level: Some major IT companies in Bangalore are moving towards staggering and spreading their two-day weekly offs by breaking up the weekend. o Multinational companies in Bengaluru are seeing a shift in their work culture and workforce

management. o Some major IT companies in the city are now moving towards staggering and spreading their

two--day weekly offs by breaking up the weekend, with a holiday mid-week, followed by a holiday on Sunday.

The majority of the workforce which spends on an average five hours on the road to commute between work and home, gets exhausted by Friday. Most of the workers are accepting and enjoying the midweek break concept as it gives us a chance to recharge and refresh.

Bad work culture troubles India Inc. employees the most: Times Jobs survey In the survey of more than 1,000 professionals across different sectors, nearly 50% cited bad

work culture as the most worrisome element of their workplaces.


However, nearly 47% employees also said unclear career growth path troubled them the most at their organisations and 30% said a bad boss or reporting manager was the most unpleasant thing to face at the workplace.

Nearly 22% of the surveyed employees said they felt a lack of learning and development opportunities and almost 70% of these stated they have no access whatsoever to learning and development tools to upgrade and upskill themselves.

Another 16% were upset about the lack of recognition at their workplace. Lack of Recognition: Of the employees who raised concerns about the lack of recognition at the workplace, 70% said they don't feel valued at work. In fact, 30% claimed they have never been appreciated for their contribution to the workplace while 50% said they are appreciated only sometimes. Sadly, of those who said they have never been appreciated, 35% have spent 2-5 years at their current organizations.

More than half of the employees who said they are unhappy with their reporting manager also stated unclear vision of the manager as the most annoying trait which hindered their growth, followed by favoritism (30%), rigidity (25%) and lack of domain knowledge (11%).

An engaged and motivated workforce is crucial in today's hypercompetitive environment to ensure success. So a dissatisfied employee is a liability that no organization can afford.

High attrition compelling startups to ensure candidates fit into their culture

Recent top-level exits and generally high attrition are compelling new-age companies to ensure that the people they hire fit into their culture. Apart from technical skills, this aspect that

includes soft skills is now part of prerequisites for hiring and companies such as Big Basket. o A majority of people who join the startup world are in it only for quick money; culture is the

last thing on their minds. But that seems to be changing with startups consciously absorbing talent that fits best with their culture.

o A founder of Paalak.in, says: “The churn in a startup is so fast that in a 10-year window, the entire workforce at the bottom and mid-levels would vanish, and only 20% would remain.” These 20% are the ones who are actually wired and culturally aligned to its work.

o At Bengaluru-based Chumbak, designated employees interview candidates exclusively to judge their cultural fit.

o While interviews are conducted by the departmental head and the HR team, the design brand has specific people to quiz candidates about their interests and motivations. One of the common questions they ask is: “If money were not an object, what would you be doing instead?”

o Paytm invites candidates to spend a day at its office, attend sessions with employees and engage in discussions. The company does not hesitate to turn down those who come with necessary skillsets and technical knowledge but don’t fit with the company’s culture, said senior vice president Amit Sinha.

o "People are realising that the startup world isn’t all money and glamour — it’s about hard work, being able to take ownership and build something from scratch,” he said. “It’s heartening that new-age companies are becoming more cautious and picky about the candidates they want to hire."

Chris Barbin’s officially planning a culture change at Wipro


Chris Barbin, CEO of Wipro’s cloud unit Appirio, has been elevated as the global culture officer of co. Wipro is the first player to have such a role.

IT services firms have talked about the need to be more nimble to survive the onslaught of technology changes and disruption, but analysts have pointed out that, unlike startups, large firms typically lack the culture to be able to change swiftly.

Wipro’s leadership is very clear about its desire to be a leader in the digital era, and the research is clear that leadership and culture are intertwined.

It is ‘different employment’, not unemployment, my dear Watson

In fact, a recent Price water house Coopers report predicts that 38% of all United States jobs run the risk of being wiped out by automation by 2030. In India, the figure stands at 69%, according to a World Bank research.

Most organisations tend to ignore that tech disruption also adds new jobs and creates more jobs than it erases.

Inflection point These technologies, which are the result of the fourth industrial revolution, represent an

inflection point, which will prove to be the hardest ever. The biggest inflection point ever witnessed by mankind was the time when motors

replaced physical human effort. Not only did this multiply the economy manifold, but it also boosted the output like never before. Of course, jobs were lost, fear was high in people’s minds, triggering protests from all segments. Yet, we are where we are.

The world is currently at the second such inflection point — when human thinking power is poised to grow at an unprecedented pace — thanks to breakthroughs in technology like quantum computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

This transition will be tougher than all the previous ones as the world’s population has doubled, and this wave will disrupt the normal a lot more.

Reasons for hope

The anxiety around job loss among businesses and talent alike is not entirely unfounded. However, organisations can take heart from these facts.

Even by a conservative estimate, the fourth industrial revolution will help create 250 million net new jobs by 2030. The third industrial revolution is testimony to the fact that new jobs are created despite the growth in population; that era saw a doubling of women in the workforce, in the West.

AI is expected to be a positive job motivator in the near future. According to a Gartner study, the technology will create around 2.3 million net-new jobs by 2020, and help generate $2.9 trillion in business value.

New roles Business leaders will do well to remember that the challenge arising from the fourth

industrial revolution goes beyond mere ‘unemployment’ and extends into the realms of ‘different employment’. More than one third of the global workforce will find new work that is yet to be defined or even named.

The ascent of AI and machine learning will eventually result in the creation of new roles and redefining existing ones. The CIO’s role will be augmented by the appointment of


Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers and Data Analysts. Other support functions like Administration, HR and Finance will also be transformed.

What’s more, at a time when traditional IT roles are facing extinction, new roles like Experience Technology Experts, Data Scientists, and Cloud Integration Specialists are emerging. Amidst this transforming scenario, companies that embrace and practice rigorous Human Capital Strategy will be two times better prepared than those who lag behind in this area.

Organisations admit that employees need to equip themselves with a higher level of education for every new job. But just how many of them are willing to take personal accountability, only time will tell.

Succession management in Government banks: Just when they need leaders, state-owned banks are headless.

Government-owned banks are becoming increasingly rudderless, just when they most need a firm hand at the top.

Four of the country’s 21 state banks have yet to appoint replacements for departed chief executive officers (CEO), and another has seen its CEO stripped of her powers due to fraud charges. Over the coming months, nine more of the lenders are due to lose their top executives, at a time when spiraling bad loans and an intensified crackdown on financial sector-corruption make the jobs less appealing than ever.

Attracting top talent to lead many of these state-run banks has become tough as an environment of fear is created. Lack of leadership leaves these lenders struggling to formulate strategies and meet government conditions to win more funds under a record public bailout.

Andhra Bank, Dena Bank and Punjab & Sind Bank have had no CEOs since the start of this year. Allahabad Bank is effectively headless as it stripped CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian of her powers after she was formally charged over alleged involvement in a multi-crore fraud at a previous employer, Punjab National Bank.

Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, UCO Bank, Indian Bank, United Bank of India and Corporation Bank are among lenders where the incumbent’s tenure will end by March next year.

POOR PAY, MORE SCRUTINY: Another challenge in finding replacements is the low salaries on offer at state banks, when compared with their private sector peers. Ananthasubramanian earned about Rs 30 lakh at PNB in the year ended March 2017, about 5 per cent of the Rs 6 crore earned by Chanda Kochhar, the CEO of the country’s second-largest private lender ICICI Bank. While this massive discrepancy was always the case, Kanoria said intensified scrutiny of state bankers has eroded the appeal of the jobs.

Current and former top executives at least four banks are being investigated by government authorities for allegations of impropriety.

About 30 top-level vacancies exist at state banks, including executive directors. FSDC reconstituted The government has reconstituted the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC),

the apex body of financial sector regulators, and made it more broad-based.


The FSDC was set up to create an institutional structure and mechanism for financial stability, financial sector development and inter-regulatory coordination. It is charged with financial literacy, financial inclusion and macro prudential supervision of the economy, including the functioning of large financial conglomerates. Since 2010, the FSDC has held 18 meetings, with the latest on December 29.

The council is headed by the finance minister. The reconstituted FSDC will include the chairperson of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) and the revenue secretary. Other members of the FSDC, which was constituted in December 2010, are the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, chief of Securities and Exchange Board of India, finance secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, secretary, financial services, secretary, chief economic adviser and chairpersons of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India and Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority.

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Robotic canines may replace CISF dogs at airports Digital ...rankersclasses.in/files/documents/33e5cce7-1bf3-41... · Rise of the machines: When bots take over the workplace At makemytrip.com,