It was a moment of great achievement coupled with joy for the 14 children of the Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children (MNC) who graduated on 13 April 2006. All the 14 children completed the ‘Upanayan’, early intervention program at MNC. Of the two groups which graduated, one group of children will continue their education in special schools, while the other will enrol in mainstream institutions.
A graduation ceremony was organised at the centre and all the 14 children were felicitated at the function.Over 100 children and their parents were present at the graduation ceremony which coincided with the Tamil New Year’s Day celebration at the institution.
A group of children who passed out of MNC.
Suman Prava
Giri State topper in CBSE exam
Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School
Suman Prava Giri, Ashwini Subramanian, C Balaji
At the Senior Secondary examination conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi, in March 2006, Suman Prava Giri from the Science stream of Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, Adyar, stood first in the state scoring 488/500. and Ashwini Subramanian topped the Commerce stream securing 477/500. C Balaji with 469/500 was the school topper in Class X examination.
Sri Sankara Vidyashramam Matriculation Higher Secondary School
R Archana, S R Kaviya, V Venkatanathan, Rabecca Roslin.
At the Matriculation and Higher Secondary examinations conducted by the State Board in March this year, children of Sri Sankara Vidyashramam Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Tiruvanmiyur, fared well. The school toppers in Class X were R Archana and S R Kaviya who secured 1033/1100. In the Class XII examination, V Venkatanathan of the Science stream was the topper scoring 1173/1200 while Rabecca Roslin scored 1158/1200 to top the Commerce stream.
Two TAP (The Aware Professional) programmes were conducted by IMA for Sanmar senior management on 10 March and 21 April 2006. The March session featured three speakers who provided insights into retirement financing, financial markets and change management.
Retirement Financing - Mukul Asher, Professor, National University of Singapore
Mukul Asher
The robust growth in the Indian economy has cast an aura of expectancy and hope all around. But going with the current demographic trends will there be a situation when one wonders, where has all the growth gone? Why isn’t there an increase in per capita income corresponding to high growth? Asher’s presentation covered key issues in retirement financing and enumerated international experiences in this area.
He highlighted the course of demographic trends and the need for a rethink of retirement financing schemes. Construing retirement financing as a long-term financial contract, risk sharing and management becomes very essential. With globalisation, wage compensations have grown complex and it is essential to design retirement schemes with flexibility in altering parameters, ensure professionalism, strong regulations and emphasis on fiduciary responsibility.
Resurgence of Financial Markets & Trends in Regulation - G N Bajpai, Former Chairman, SEBI and LIC of India
As the stock markets rallied and rocketed, the general sceptics held their breath, waiting for an eventual bubble burst.
G N Bajpai
Bajpai’s presentation threw light on the strength, size and efficiencies of the Indian financial markets, how it compared with the US and other emerging Asian markets, and the wide range of products currently available at the exchanges. He also highlighted the regulatory trends in the Indian markets, the robustness of the prevalent control mechanisms, corporate compliance measures and systems. currently stipulated and observed, and the role played by SEBI in raising the bar in good corporate governance.
Sanmar senior management at one of the TAP sessions.
Dr S Ramnarayan
Change Management - Dr S Ramnarayan, Professor, Indian School of Business (ISB).
With increasing globalisation corporates are abuzz with change
and the need to manage change effectively. Time-tested practices can’t be done away with; yet, they have to go through a metamorphosis to be in sync with the current climate. Dr Ramnarayan’s presentation covered elements of change management - the drivers of change, challenges of change management, critical aspects of managing change and the leadership attributes required for each of these aspects of change and leadership process drivers.
The April TAP session included three speakers who spoke on optimising human resource potential, managing innovation in the organisation and best practices for manufacturing excellence.
Rajeev Dubey
Unleashing the Human Potential: Rajeev Dubey, President (HR & Corporate Services) and Member of Group Management Board, Mahindra & Mahindra.
The plots on the path to achieving organisational goals are strategic and diagnostic. Rajeev Dubey’s presentation plotted the path to ascertain what we can do to utilise the vast untapped human potential. More than resource planning and operational initiatives, the unused human potential costs the organisation a lot more than we acknowledge. The human source in an organisation has to be ignited to reach its fullest potential and this can be done only when leaders inculcate the spiritual path of realising the self into their behaviour in the organisation and change the leadership role into one of visionary leaders.
Bhupendra Sharma
Innovation – no longer a matter of choice: Bhupendra Sharma, Director and Senior Strategic Consultant, Erehwon Innovation Consulting
The audience at the TAP programme sat in rapt attention as Bhupendra Sharma shattered the idea that generating ideas is what innovation is all about. Mapping the ideas generated to the strike rate of these ideas being implemented is the best way to assess the success of innovation. He highlighted the mental maps and mindsets that hinder the innovation ‘insights’ and went on to detail the various types of innovation gravity and ways to confront them. We often align innovation to out of the box thinking, but the question is out of which box? The session was replete with interesting cases drawn from the real world of business and peppered with innovative ideas conducive to innovation like scapevelocity notion that challenges fundamental notions and many more.
Girish Baluja
Excellence in Manufacturing: Girish Baluja, Chief Operating Officer, Moser Baer.
What insights did the COO of an essentially date storage device organisation have to share with the heterogeneous audience of the Sanmar Group at the TAP session? Drawn from real experiences, he spelt out the best practices for excellence in manufacturing. In the manufacturing process, it is best to restrict complexity within the management discussion room and reduce the actual process to a simple on/ off feature. He prescribed sustainable manufacturing that encompasses environmental and economic sustainability.
by Ramkumar Shankar, Executive Vice President, Vishay Sanmar Limited Before 2 September 2005, whenever people at cricket-crazy Sanmar spoke of Lara(s), they were certain to be referring to the dashing West Indian batsman of that name and his exploits on the cricket field. 2 September changed all that.
That was the date when the Managerial Leadership Development (MLD) programme kicked off at Sanmar. MLD is a programme that is conducted by an established consulting organisation called Laras, set up by the very dedicated husband-wife team of Ramakrishnan and Latha. The programme is posited on the difference between leaders and managers, and the need for people at different levels to assimilate the characteristics of both. Thus arose the need for a managerial leader. While a leader is involved more in the strategising and the team-building activities, a manager is involved in the execution of the strategies.
The managerial leader bridges the gap between the top management who are involved in setting direction, and the front-line employees who are involved in the day-to-day steps involved in getting to the targets.The programme itself was spread over two batches, and six months. The two batches covered over 40 people and included business and functional heads. N Sankar, Chairman, The Sanmar Group, giving away a certificate to Ramkumar Shankar on his successful completion of the leadership training programme.
At the inception of the course, every participant took an online managerial leadership assessment test, to identify his or her strengths and improvement areas. This was then followed by ten modules of course work, with the participants having to spend a full day at the programme every fortnight during this six-month period. The modules started appropriately with preparing for leadership, and moved on to cover goal setting, change management, importance of attitudes, work-life balance, empowerment, mentoring and emotional intelligence. The course ended appropriately with a module on having fun at work.
At the end of the sixth month, every participant had to make a brief presentation on what he or she had gained from this programme and what he or she intends to do in the months ahead to take this learning forward. This presentation was made to an audience, which included the Group Chairman N Sankar, the Directors M N Radhakrishnan and B Natraj, and the Managing Directors of three of the Sanmar businesses, P S Jayaraman, P Natarajan and P Viswanathan. Apart from the valuable inputs on the transformation to managerial leaders, there were a few added benefits, which the participants derived. Every fortnight, the group started off with a success-sharing session where all participants had to share the successes that they had that fortnight. It was amazing to see how many successes (small, big or middling) actually happen every month – and how we unfortunately let the fast pace of our lives lead us away from the pleasures of recognising and celebrating every such success (howsoever small it may be).
This understanding of the power of recognising and celebrating successes was one of the biggest wins from this programme. Another major gain from this programme was the (re)discovery by many of the joys of reading. Yet another important takeaway from the programme was the power of goal setting and tracking, and the immeasurable benefits arising from the discipline in both of these. Over and above all of these, the camaraderie shared by the participants and the closer relationships forged by them led to a lot of them moving from being colleagues to becoming friends. Finally, the first batch had a ‘convocation’ dinner where certificates were handed out. This dinner, where spouses were present, was a great occasion for letting one’s hair down and having a lot of fun. The second batch has to wait a little longer for this – their programme extends for another six months. Ultimately, this programme just served to prove that there is a leader in every individual just waiting to be discovered. Hopefully, more such programmes will lead to the discovery of more leaders who will take The Sanmar Group to greater heights in the years ahead.
The Institute of Technology Management (ITM) Business School rated India’s greatest HR professionals and brought out a publication highlighting their achievements. Sarada Jagan, Chief Executive - HR, Chemplast Sanmar Limited, Sanmar Corporate Division, has been featured as “one among the greatest HR professionals in India”. According to the ITM Business School, Sarada has been responsible for ushering in several cutting edge HR policies in The Sanmar Group. Her major focus areas in HRD include:
• Aligning HR processes to business needs.
• Change management.
• Organisation development.
• Use of technology in efficient and effective functioning of HR.