Thought of the Day

   "Focus on a few key objectives ... I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I'm really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas"

Bharti Airtel Ltd.

About Company:-

Bharti Airtel is one of India's leading private sector providers of telecommunications services based on an aggregate of 82,748,790 customers as of October 31, 2008, consisting of 80,199,747 GSM mobile and 2,549,043 Telemedia customers. The company is the largest GSM mobile service provider in the country, based on the number of customers; it has an all India footprint, with mobile operations in all the 23 licensed jurisdictions (also known as

Telecom Circles). The company also offers an integrated suite of telecom solutions to its enterprise customers, in addition to providing long distance connectivity both nationally and internationally. The company has recently forayed into media by launching its DTH Services in October 2008. All these services are rendered under a unified brand “Airtel”.

The company also deploys, owns and manages passive infrastructure pertaining to telecom operations under its subsidiary Bharti Infratel Limited. Bharti Infratel owns 42% of Indus Towers Limited.

Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers are the two top providers of passive infrastructure services in India.

Effective communication in the workplace

Effective communication in the workplace is the backbone of any business. Without it, you could miss out on important opportunities, waste time and cause your employees and customers to become frustrated.

But not everyone is a born communicator, and there is always room to improve. That's why it's important to train your staff to create effective communication in the workplace.

Removing roadblocks to effective communication in the workplace

When a problem arises, it's often due to poor communication in the workplace. Particularly in this digital age when we rely so heavily on emails and phone calls to get things done, vital information can become lost or misinterpreted if not communicated clearly.

Arming your staff with good communication skills enables them to work efficiently, effectively and navigate any potential issues that may arise.

Glossary for hospitality

Ethics – the moral values and standards that guide the behaviour of
individuals and organizations.

Excursionists – people who take leisure trips which last one day or less
and do not require an overnight stay away from home.

Family life cycle – the stages through which people pass between birth
and death, that are thought to influence their consumer behaviour.

FIT – fully-inclusive tour.

CSR activity of Dabur India Limited

Company: Dabur India Limited
Income 2005-2006 =US$910 Million (Rs 4110 Crore) & Market Capitalisation of US$4 Billion (Rs 20,000 Crore).

CSR Activities:

For growth to be responsible, it should go beyond numbers. It should do good to the society, create a better world. That's the kind of growth that Dabur India Ltd. believes in, and constantly strives for.

At Dabur, company is commited to good governance, ethical conduct and social responsibility and is strongly aligned to create and increase value for all stakeholders. Company define CSR as conducting business in ways that provide social, environmental and economic benefits for the communities and geographies where organization operate.

Dabur’s CSR initiatives are driven through Sustainable Development Society or SUNDESH, an outcome of the vision of Dabur India Ltd founder Dr. S.K Burman.

Opportunity cost

Definition & Meaning

When economists refer to the “opportunity cost” of a resource, they mean the value of the next-highest-valued alternative use of that resource. It is the process of choosing one good or service over another.  The item that you don't pick is the opportunity cost. It has to do with what it costs a company to produce goods or services in terms of what could have been earned by using those same resources to produce different goods or services. Essentially, opportunity cost is all about comparing one production option to another production option. This involves determining the value received from one going with the production of one option versus what could be earned by choosing to go with a different option, using the same raw materials.

For example, corn is a common food commodity. The corn may be processed and sold in cans, or prepared with a slightly different process and sold in frozen packages. Alternatively, the corn could be ground into meal and packaged in sealed bags. The seller would want to investigate the relative merits of producing each product type from the same commodity, and compare the cost involved with choosing one line of production, or opportunity, over the other two.

Thought of the Day

"Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet, If you are the master be sometimes blind, if you are the servant be sometimes deaf"                        

The biggest challenge is availability of talent

Infosys Ltd chairman and chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy stepped down on Friday to become chairman emeritus.

Before a farewell event for employees and other guests at the company's campus in Banga- lore, Murthy spoke in an interview about the future strategic direction for Infosys, where the next levers of growth on scale might come from, the talent crunch, and the necessity to truly open up the Indian education sector to foreign institutions.

As Infosys globalizes in terms of its workforce, you have identified the ability of multicultural teams to work together as a key chal lenge for the future. Any ideas that you are leaving behind with Infosys on this issue?

In order to do this, Infosys has to understand the aspirations of local talent, understand how to attract and retain the best talent in those places, and it has to create a common, uni- versal value system around, honesty, decency and good work ethic. We have to de-emphasize differences and emphasize commonalities, and come out with systems and processes that will allow these people from different regions to work productively together. It is a big challenge.

IT GLOSSARY

Garbage:       

1) From a user's perceptual point-of-view, garbage is often used to mean anything on your display screen that looks unreadable or unviewable.

2) From a programming point-of-view, garbage is data that has been placed in random access memory space obtained from the operating system that is no longer needed. Freeing the space for reuse is called "garbage collecting."

Gateway

A gateway is a network point that acts as an entrance to another network. On the Internet, a node or stopping point can be either a gateway node or a host (end-point) node. Both the computers of Internet users and the computers that serve pages to users are host nodes. The computers that control traffic within your company's network or at your local Internet service provider (ISP) are gateway nodes.

Ghost

Ghost is a software product from Symantec that can clone (copy) the entire contents of a hard disk to another computer's hard disk or to storage media, automatically formatting and partitioning the target disk. This product is especially useful where one system is to be replicated on a number of computers or when someone wants to back up everything on their personal computer.

What brands can learn from Gandhi

Brands can adopt a few lessons from Gandhi's principles to make an impact in today's world.

Every year, around this time, we end up remembering the architects of our independence - among them stands a 'half-naked fakir' who always outshines the rest - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Ever wondered how much brands can learn from the greatest marketing campaign ever launched by an Indian?

Think about it - it was touted as a 'campaign' against the Raj and it drove them out of this country (and also brought about the timely demise of the British Empire!).

Here are a few lessons which we can learn from what Gandhi did and brands can adopt these principles to successfully make an impact in today's world:

1. Involve people - it's the participation economy honey!

Perhaps one of the things that Gandhi did remarkably well was that he mobilised the masses. At a time when there was no digital media, when television was a luxury which most of the country could not afford, and when literacy was a serious challenge, he made sure people did not passively receive his broadcasting, but reacted and participated in the movement. Everybody was urged to do their bit and participate in the cause.

Brands cannot afford to simply put themselves on a pedestal and broadcast messages. Brands need to involve consumers, like Pepsi did with The Game on television. For the first time in the history of Indian advertising, a series of television commercials were used to engage the consumer and get him to play the 'game'. It produced stunning results - millions participated in the gaming contest and it generated a phenomenal amount of word of mouth for the brand. Pepsi ranked as one of the top five in the Buzziest Brands that year.