N.J Yasaswy Commemoration Lectures at ICFAI Business School (IBS campuses)

The N.J Yasaswy Commemoration Lectures are organized annually by The ICFAI Group in honour of Late Sri N J Yasaswy, its visionary founder. A pioneer in promoting higher education in the private sector, he was also instrumental in establishing many world class institutions and universities in India. Today the ICFAI group consists of 11universities and 6 Business Schools across India.

The second edition of N J Yasaswy Commemoration lectures in October 2013, were delivered by eminent speakers from the industry and academia. A synopsis for each is mentioned below:

ICFAI (IBS) Hydrabad Session:

This session was conducted on October 8, 2013 where Kavil Ramachandran, Thomas Schmidheiny Chair of Family Business and Wealth Management at Indian School of Business, former advisor to the Government of India, World Bank and SEBI was the eminent speeker.
He gave his speech on the topic: Institution Building: Challenges, Experiences and Learning”.

According to Ramachandran, the greatest institutes around the globe share a few common features, namely– a clear sense of purpose, values, being change agents as well as adapters, selfless and dynamic leadership and interpersonal trust amongst employees. While elaborating on the role played by various visionary entrepreneurs like the Tatas in India, he also lauded steps taken by organizations like IBM, Merck and IIM-A to build institutions par excellence. “They have overcome challenges like organizational politics, remained grounded and ensured the continuity of their institution’s growth with smooth leadership successions,” he said.

ICFAI (IBS), Pune Session:

This session was conducted on October 25, 2013. Anand Halve, Co-founder of Chlorophyll Brand & Communications Consultancy Ltd was the speaker who delivered his lecture on “Higher Education: Thought-Starters for Mind training”.
Halve advised the students “develop a view point and stick to it even if you have to take controversial decisions. You should be strong enough to back these with rationale and have the guts to stand by those convictions.”

He further mentioned the difficulties in transforming people in a hurry. As this does not happen in a day. One has to be patient to earn what one desires.
It is imperative to learn to differentiate between meritocracy and compassion; popular vs standards; friendship vs objectivity as it is definitely lonely at the top. Everything is a grey elephant. Memories are not short lived as you carry bags and baggage from the past. These are your precious learnings, he said.

ICFAI (IBS), Mumbai Session:

Conducted on October 29, 2013 this lecture was attended by Dr. F.C. Kohli, Former Deputy Chairman, TCS. He gave his speech on “Computerization for India- Challenges Ahead”
Dr. F.C Kohli highlighted that brilliant students entering engineering courses pass out as average engineers owing to outdated curricula being used by universities. He said that incorrect placements lead to mechanical engineers being placed in software designing jobs due to lack of hardware companies. “For India to grow in computerization, we need more hardware manufacturing companies, more translators who can translate from Indian languages into English.” Dr. Kohli added further.

ICFAI (IBS), Gurgaon Session:

Conducted on October 29, 2013 and Mr. M S Sahoo, Secretary, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India was the speaker.

Topic of the lecture was “Investor Protection in Indian Capital Market”

Sahoo gave an overview of the regulatory mechanism prevalent in Indian Securities Markets and highlighted the role that SEBI is playing in investors’ protection. According to him there are four pillars which protect the interest of investors in securities markets and help the market to mobilize savings of the surplus units of the economy.
Sahoo quoted the four pillars “Investor Education to create a class of knowledgeable investors in the economy, a well-developed regulatory mechanism to provide safety to the investors, presence of a system to rescue them in case of need and the regulator needs to control the miscreants in the market place.” His emphasis was full disclosure of information to the investing class so that they make informed investment decisions. “Rather than focusing upon KYC, we should focus on KYP (know Your Product)” concluded Mr. Sahoo.

ICFAI (IBS), Bangalore Session:

This session was conducted on October 31, 2013. Mr. Gerd Hoefner, MD & CEO, Siemens Technology & Services Pvt. Ltd was invited to give his lecture on the topic “Challenges & Issues in Cross-Cultural Management”

Hoefner believed that the Culture per se is not good or bad, it is simply different. Different cultural aspects may have pros and cons from one’s own perspective, it is important to be aware of and accept cultural differences. Today’s organization and Business contexts should embrace a global value system and intercultural training helps achieve this to a great extent.

While talking about the Indian management systems he quoted “In India agriculture is still dominating and 60% of the workforce is in agriculture, and in management we do have an ‘agree-culture’!”

Indian managers should pay increased attention to these cultural aspects and should be flagging known problems at the earliest, proactively solving the problem, and taking a firm stand towards customer situations.

ICFAI (IBS), Ahmedabad Session:

Ahmadabad session was conducted on October 30, 2013. Dr. Mallika Sarabhai, Publisher, Activist, Writer, Actor and Communicate, gave her lecture on the topic “Towards Success: The Path Less Taken”

Dr. Mallika Sarabhai made everyone realize that they are in this world for some purpose. She advised the students “to be responsible for your actions. Choose the path of your own self and same path will lead towards Success which is normally less taken.” Dr. Mallika Sarabhai further said that, the chosen own path will bring the biggest achievement of life and that is Happiness. “Choose the degree and job of your choice rather on somebody else’s say. Don’t keep hobbies, make them your career.”

She also shared the life experiences and the thoughts of the Late Vikram Sarabhai her father. Mr. Vikram Sarabhai advised her to choose between two paths. One will be decided by others for you, if you choose it, you will be loved by everyone, but if you choose the one decided by your own self then criticism might add up.” She also shared her life experience of choosing the path which was tough but had made her happy. She gave the message specifically to students “Have courage to be happy and keep looking at yourself. Do things which you want for helping people and nation.”