I was invited by the Hindustan University to give a lecture on “Challenges for Indian Managers in modern era “on September 17, 2008.

The Hindustan Group of Institutions was founded in 1966 by the founder and Chairman, Late Dr.K.C.G.Verghese.  Realizing the need for an institution that offers non-formal technical education in 60’s.  He had established Hindustan Engineering Training Centre (HETC)  which helped in the evolution of Hindustan Institution of Engineering Technology (HIET). This educationist, industrialist and pioneer of the concept of non-formal technical education in Chennai (Madras) headed several other institutions. These institutions aim at imparting quality education in the fields of engineering, aviation, applied sciences and management. This Institute has especially earned a name for itself in the area of aeronautical engineering and applications. Now this Institute has become a deemed University and is one of the institute of repute.

In my lecture to the students I briefly  touched upon the following points:

1. How the organizations are   evolving into   more and more adaptive enterprise today and moving from predict and control to sense and respond mode. How this is made possible leveraging bio- technology, nano- technology and information technology.  Sharing examples of London Congestion charging system, Caterpillar GPS based equipment self health monitoring system, Wall mart supply chain solutions, GM On star telematics integrated applications. Intelligent electronics products like iRobot Roomba, iRobot Scooba etc.

2. While we stress so much on IT and ITES, next wave of opportunity is going to be in the field of Engineering Services where the global spend is going to touch USD 1.1 Trillion by 2020 when India can aspire to have 25-30 % market share. We must be ready to address this large opportunity. At present our share of this global opportunity is very small compared to how we would be doing in IT/ITES domain. Basically I wanted  the students to see the big picture which is beyond IT/ITES.

3. Shared innovation led solutions like iPod and Google. iPod enjoys 80 % of North America’s USD 4 Billion worth music  market, expected to grow by 100% and hoe a ten years old company Google is today over 17 Billion USD company with a market cap  exceeding USD 180 Billion. Innovation in itself is not enough. Innovation needs to be backed by a good business model and excellent execution.

4. Traditional walls of innovation are breaking down .Innovation for new products and services are no longer the preserve of  a company’s R&D department.Innovation is opening up giving way to cocreation like Gold Corp Inc ,Canada, P&G open innovation network and so on.

5. Discussed the new emerging areas apart from the existing IT and ERP such as virtualized services ,bio metrics, PLM  etc. Shared Gartner’s Hype cycle of emerging technology 2008 and shared with them how to stay tuned to  technology and applications  by appropriately tracking them.