Month: April 2009

IPL 2009 To-do


IPL starts from 18th and more importantly it starts with Chennai Super Kings & Mumbai Indians… Last year I didn’t show much interest in the beginning but over days the tournament pulled me and also had opportunities to watch matches because of my friend Prasad’s influence with India Cements… This time I miss the tournament in India coz I can’t watch matches from the Stadium… Anyways let me do put a to-do list and make my schedule such that it doesn’t affect my work and watching matches…

 

  • Download Matches Schedule and Place it in Desktop & stick a printout of schedule in my table…
  • Subscribe for Sony Max in Sun Direct DTH… This is first priority and this must be done tomorrow itself…
  • Buy Chennai Super Kings T-shirt from Reebok…
  • Block Rs.10,000/- for betting with friends particularly with my twitter mate Sameer…
  • Change my caller tunes to Chennai Super Kings song…
  • If possible perform a special puja for Chennai Super Kings to win the cup this time…
  • Form a group in Madurai to watch matches… In Chennai there is no need as there are lots of group which I must choose and join…

Also last time we went with my MBA group for matches… This time there is a get-together on April 27, 2009 before the graduation day… So, I might not miss my MBA group this time…

Meet Capt. Gopinath


Meet Capt. Gopinath this Friday; listen to his views on Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Politics.

Capt. Gopinath has revolutionized the Aviation sector in India, how did he go about it, and what values, beliefs and methods did he use to do this and can he do the same with Politics?

The talk and interactive discussion will be moderated by Balaji Pasumarthy of Businessgyan Business Digest.

 

Venue

Hotel Nahar Heritage
St. Marks Rd.
Opposite Bishop Cotton’s Girls School, Bangalore.
Phone:- 22278731-736

 
 
 
 

Date

Friday the 17th April 2009

  

Time

3:45PM Registration

  

4:00PM to 5:30PM Talk and Interaction

  

 

Registration:  Rs.150/-

Do send your confirmation to:- balajiram@businessgyan.com, +91.9901357254

YOUNG CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR AWARDS


Young Creative Entrepreneur (YCE) Awards programme aims to develop a powerful professional network between creative entrepreneurs in India and the UK to inspire and facilitate the sharing of best practices in building skills and access to resources, professional development, markets, mentoring and resources thereby increasing opportunities for business between India and the UK.

A key objective is to sensitise the UK creative sector to the opportunities that come from working with creative entrepreneurs in emerging economies. A second objective is to better understand the dynamics of being an entrepreneur in the creative economy. Throughout the programme we seek opportunities to achieve both this sensitisation and understanding.

The International Young Creative Entrepreneur (IYCE) programme aims to celebrate the achievements and develop the potential of young creative entrepreneurs across the British Council’s international networks. India promotes enterprise awards in Music, Design, Fashion, Interactive, Screen, Publishing, Visual Arts, Communications and Performing Arts throughout the year.

Operating in parallel to the International programme, the UK Young Creative Entrepreneurs (UKYCE) awards was launched last year which seeks to create wider understanding within the UK of the potential of emerging economies as centres for trade, collaboration, cooperation and cultural exchange, and to provide leading young creative entrepreneurs with the opportunity to visit and interpret these opportunities for themselves.

The award programme, both international and UK, is unique in its focus on young creative entrepreneurs; recognising their centrality to the development of a competitive and sustainable creative economy. It is our intention to link the networks created through the international and UK awards, to amplify these opportunities. Quite simply, we believe that creative talent can be found anywhere and the next big idea can emerge from any country.

For more details you can email yce.india@in.britishcouncil.org

For more information about the UK YCE awards please visit http://www.creativeconomy.org.uk

Moments of embarrassment


Yesterday I met an acquaintance who happens to be common friend of couple of my friends… He has learned about lot of my bad side of mine thru my friends and he was talking to me telling that his friends had a Crazy bad guy as a friend and when I told him I’m that crazy bad guy, I got embarrassed and I was enjoying his facial reactions :)… Then I thought I can think of embarrassment I’d over come till date…

 

  1. Got caught with a COP while I was coming in one way… Didn’t want to waste time and I immediately offered him a bribe and only then came to know he was a honest cop and ended up getting advice for 30 min…
  2. Got caught with my MOM when I was stealing money from her wallet…
  3. When I was mimicking a faculty while he was standing behind me… The way he handled the situation embarrassed me further…
  4. Myself and Aravind went to a expensive restaurant and had milkshake and we got a bill of $2 or something, but we had only $1… Aravind faced the situation but still that was an embarrassing moment…
  5. When I lied a client telling I was not feeling well and didn’t come online… He said he was following me on twitter and he knew what all I updated… I’m happy that people are following me and also embarrassed…
  6. As a child I use to quarrel with my sister for window seat and she will give it up for me…

 

There are more moments and these are the ones I remember immediately… If you have any moment of embarrassment please post it as comment… So, the we can know how we got embarrassed and see how we can overcome these situation in future…

The Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions


One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan’s biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem.

Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems.

Interview with Mr.K.Balasubramaniyam, Founder Contus Support BPO Pvt. Ltd.


It is nice to be with Mr. Balasubramaniyam.K, Founder Contus Support BPO Pvt. Ltd. Bala is a good old friend of mine and he has been tried his hands on lots of ventures from his college days… His has his own share of failures and success and he has loads of experience to share at this young age… Come let us get back to him and know more about him & Contus…

 

Q. Hello Bala. Can you tell us about yourself?

 

Friends, it’s too early to talk about me or Contus Support.  We have a very long way to go, for now we just identified the path to walk and we have miles to complete.

 

I am a Mathematics graduate and had dreams about starting a company since my college days, along with my friend Sriram.  Even Anand invited us (myself & Sriram) to join his team in 2000, but we couldn’t join him for some reason. 

 

I am environmentally friendly person having great respect and love for nature. I spend most of my free time with likeminded people.

 

Q. When & how did your entrepreneur desire started & blossomed?

 

It started when I were in school, when I really didn’t know the meaning of entrepreneurship J…  After college I  had been to various ventures which includes Internet, Finance / Banking, etc., where I experienced a mix of Success & Failures. I always believed  the magical word “Dream” by A.P.J.Abdul Kalam.

 

It took us one long year to gather information, raising funds, building team. Finally Contus Support was born on Feb 2008…

 

Q. Tell us about your past ventures and let us know your experience?

 

My first entrepreneur dream came true in the year 2001 when I and Sriram took lease of Sify Iway  in Saidapet, Chennai.  Though it is not a big venture we learnt a lot there and it really helped us to keep the thirst of entrepreneur and that was the reason for the birth of Contus Support.

                                                                                    

Q. Tell us how Contus took shape?

 

As the name (Contus Support BPO Pvt. Ltd) says Contus was started as a BPO company last year and slowly transformed as Software / Applications provider after Mr.Amalraj and Mr.Balamurugan joined the team Contus.  Now Contus is in to Web Applications & Product development.

 

 

Q. Tell the challenges you faced (Pre formation & post formation)?

 

As I mentioned before we started Contus as a BPO and it required huge capital investment. We tried to raise capital for Contus before one year of its inception through friends, relatives and acquaintance.  We were also in discussion with Pentamedia for joint ventures through one of our Director Mr.Dinesh.S. 

 

All these attempts failed and that is when we decided to raise capital ourselves. We were able to raise capital money ourselves because of Mr.Thiaghu.R and Mr.Prakash (Directors) who gave the idea and motivated us on raising money.

 

After formation of the Company, things were not smooth like we expected.  We quickly realized weakness and we changed our business model from BPO to IT / S-A-S provider.

 

Q. Tell us about “Service” offerings of Contus ?

 

Contus Support offers three main services

 

è    Web Applications & Product development    (www.platoon.in)

è    Internet Marketing S.E.O.                              (www.webstreetsmart.com)

è    Technical Support Services                             (www.support1000.com)

 

Q. Have you accomplished everything you dreamt about Contus?

 

No.

 

Q. How did u raise capital for starting Contus?

 

Contus was founded by a team of five (Directors) and we all invested the money equally.    We raised money by applying personal loans from Bank.

 

Q. Will this recession have any impact in your plans? If yes how do you plan to overcome this recession?

 

We won’t have any impact for us because of this recession. Infact recession is a blessing in disguise. We are getting talented resource for an affordable package.

 

Q. What are your future plans?

 

It’s too early for now to say that.  But I can say we have fixed a very big milestone.  Our next step would be developing niche products which you can get the updates from our website (http://www.platoon.in) in the coming days.

 

Q. What is your advice for new startups and wannabe entrepreneurs?

 

è    Believe yourselves

è    Proper planning

è    New thoughts

è    Execute without delay

 

===========>End of Interview<=========== 


Thank you very much or sparing your valuable time with us Mr.Bala… you have a inspiring story and it was really inspiring to be with you. We wish you and Contus all the very best…

10 years back!!!


Couldn’t believe that was me and 10 years ran like a min… Almost 10 years back we went for a college tour to Ooty and I just checked those photos to live those moments :)… Me with Sun Glasses, to my right the half faced guy is Saravanan, then itz Vicky, on my left is Balaji and Sathish…

Still there are more pictures which I must scan and post it online… Ok let me go back and live those days…

anand2

A day out to Kodai!!!


Last week we had been to Kodaikanal for a day’s trip… Thanks to Major Karthik, Bala Subramaniyam, Boopathi & Sathick for sponsoring the trip… Ok itz wrong to tell it as sponsor as it is their Birthday treat… Since their birthdays fell within a month they thought they can join hands and give a memorable treat… Then boopathi took over and really rocked with his Admistration skills and finished the trip with less than 30% of the projected expense…

Asusual it got delayed because of me… I got up late and it took time to get ready, we were beyond schedule by 30 min… So all folks assembled in my house and this is the team excluding Senthil who joined us from Vadipatti…

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Left to Right: Bala Subramaniyam, Major Karthik, Yours Truly, Boopathi, Sathick

Then we picked up Senthil from Vadipatti and then we stopped at Vathalagundu to have our breakfast…

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415

 

 

 

 

Folks got down near the hotel, Hotel’s Entrance & Folks fighting… I just dank a cup of milk as I know eating too much will result in vomiting… But Sathick freaked with Vada, Dosa, Idly & Coffee and as expected he started vomiting… I was surprised to know that this was sathick’s first trip to a hill station…

 

Then we straight away went for site seeing… First was pine forest

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We at carrot & Ice-Cream here…

 

Then we went to Guna caves, suicide points and many other places enroute before returning for lunch to Hotel Hilltop… I over ate here and had a nice nap… We cancelled our plan to goto Liril falls and Dolphin nose because there was not much water in the falls…

These are some of the snaps we took on that day…

Twitter & me


700-followers

Last week i crossed 4000 tweets and got 700 followers in twitter.com… It is indeed a milestone as I’m a late entrant to twitter and just started being an active participant for less than 6 months, thanks to Sanj… From then on twitter has become an integral part of my lifestyle and I’ve immensely benefited because of twitter… These are the list of things I gained because of twitter;

 

 

 

  • Gained many project from twitter
  • Got many leads and references from twitter
  • My brand penetration, Eg: I got an Direct Message yesterday
    shrirambrDo you work in Cogzidel? Read your CFOs article in last months businessgyan. Pretty good.
  • Networking and lots of friends. I cant imagine if I could have gained this many friends physically… Out of 700 followers I’m in close touch with atleast 50+ folks…
  • I need not update about what I’m doing to 100’s people… One tweet reaches 700 of my friends telling what i’m doing…
  • I did couch surfing with some of twitter friends
  • If I need any help I just posted it in Twitter and I got the solutions most of the time
  • I get to know what is happening at a fast interval… Many times before it comes in TV or news paper… Eg: 26/11 Mumbai shootout came in Twitter first than it reached NDTV or other media…

I hope I experiment twitter more and I can let you know itz benefits in coming days… Please keep reading my blog regularly…

Special Invite for Brand YOU Workshop Intro – Create


YOU are a Brand. A Brand that needs to be marketed to the outside world with as much professionalism, as much Strategic Planning as other successful Brands that you see and use daily.

YOU are a Brand. Whether YOU are a Student, a Corporate Professional, an Entrepreneur or a Small Businessman. YOU mean something to the outside world. Whether YOU intend to or not, YOU are sending messages to the world about who YOU are, what YOU stand for, what your personality is, in what way YOU are different from others etc.

If YOU do not consciously make an effort to shape your image, the world will prepare an image about YOU, an image that may or may not work in your best interests.

Welcome to the world of Brand YOU. Want to learn more?

Attend the Brand YOU Workshop at Chennai, India and see how it can help YOU:

  • understand what your personal traits are
  • decide who YOU really want to be
  • work out a road map to get there

You can apply your learnings to:

  • stand up for what is important to you and stand out in a crowd
  • focus your energy on meeting your top priorities
  • make your career grow within your organization or your industry
  • improve your chances of getting a job
  • improve your business
  • improve the perception of YOU by your peer group or your business associates

In the Brand YOU Workshop you will learn proven Marketing and Branding Strategies used by successful brands all over the world and understand how to apply them to yourself so that you create your own successful brand Brand YOU. In this workshop you will not only get an exhaustive introduction to the world of Personal Branding, it will also help you work out (through interactive exercises) your own personal Brand YOU Action Plan

If you would like to know more about the Structure and Format of the Workshop, do drop in for a FREE Introduction to the Workshop.

The Intro will happen on

Date : 11th April 2009 (Saturday)

Time : 4.30p.m. to 6.00p.m

Venue:

Andhra Chamber of Commerce

First floor Hall,

“Velagapudi Ramakrishna Bldg”,

23, 3rd cross street,

West C.I.T. Nagar,

Nandanam, Chennai 600035.

Directions: If you’re coming from Saidapet on Mount Road, take left turn just before DSC Hyundai Showroom. It is the 3rd bldg off Mount Rd. If you’re coming from Nandanam signal on Mount Road, take U turn just before Saidapet Bus Terminus and then take the left indicated.

The Main Brand YOU Workshop is scheduled for 25th and 26th April, 2009 at Chennai, India. Pricing details of the workshop will be announced during the Introduction session of the workshop.

For more information, call Milind Jadhav on +91 98840 56988 or email him at writetomilind@gmail.com .

About the Organiser:
The Workshop is being conducted by Milind Jadhav, a seasoned Advertising and Marketing professional who is now into training as well.

You can see Milind Jadhav’s profile at the following link:
http://www.brandyouprofessionals.com/about/