Last week I attended a panel discussion at IIM Bangalore along with some of my friends. It was hosted by the PGSEM group and Nasscom. This was the first IIMB-NASSCOM Leadership Summit.
The panelists consisted of Dr Ganesh Natarajan (Chairman of Nasscom), Mr. Sharad Sharma (CEO Yahoo India), Mr. Aravind Sitaraman (MD Cisco India), Dr. G Venkatesh (Exec Dir CTO&CSO), Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj (CEO DSCI) and Mr. Sridhar Jayanthi (Head McAfee India).
It was an enlightening experience with the speakers giving loads of insights on "Risk Mangement in the Emerging Business Environment". Though the dicussions went about two and half hours nobody wanted it to end.
One new term that emerged was of "Reputation Risk" that a company might face in the present scenario. The Satyam case was quoted in this context.
Mr Sharma gave his interpretation in terms of Chaos Theory . He said that minor disasters are actually good because the rot in the system gets exposed and they do not accumulate underneath. More like a forest fire that gets out-of-hand when vunerable dry tracts get created over long periods of time, major business vulnerabilities leading to large disasters what one needs to guard against.
Mr Aravind Sitaraman gave a new management take away : "Don't see whether the glass is Half full or half empty. ...... See how big the glass is".
Appropriate ! ... one cannot swallow more than one can chew.
Dr.Natarajan answering to a question said that what is important for companies, is to worry about EPS rather than P/E . Market price may not give clear and accurate valuation.
All-in-all the session was a great experience....hearing from the captains of industry.
