Stepping UP TO New Challenges

Whether you are starting your own business or joining an industry as an employee, it is important that you define a long term strategy of where you want to go and why the sector or the industry you have chosen is important. In the last 4-5 months due to Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, the job scenario, nature of work, business functioning has completely changed, shaping the new normal. In his insightful talk, Ashok Kumar Sangwan, Head-Cost of Delivery, Wipro Ltd, explores and analyses the challenges posed by present Covid-19 crisis in the business world and how does one step up to the challenges to successfully navigate the new normal. Highly accomplished IT service management leader with two decades of experience working with reputed organisations, Sangwan carries with him an exceptional track record of performing best delivery enabled functions at the business unit level and has a passion for developing people and helping them grow as a person and as a professional

Wareness Of Industry & Why It Is Important

A There are industries and then there are verticals across them. For example, Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), which is one of the biggest sectors across the globe banking, finance and insurance, they are three sectors coming under this sector. These three sectors are clubbed together with verticals created across. Across industries there are verticals created on the basis of the industry. You should be aware of the kinds of industries and verticals that exist across.

Another example is the Media and Telecom industry, earlier they were separate but nowadays these verticals are mixed and has become a global media and telecom sector. So, nowadays print media and broadcast media along with the telecom service providers have been clubbed together creating a vertical called Global Media and Telecom.

One more example is the hospitality industry the industries like airline, hotel and travel and tourism, were separate earlier, but now they are clubbed together and forms the hospitality sector. In the government sector also we have purely the government sector and the defence sector. In a purely government sector, we have the central and state enterprises or state owned sector. All these verticals are segregated on the basis of businesses. Coming to energy utility, it is purely related to energy and utility sectors. Companies in the energy sector are for example ONGC, Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and so on, and utilities are like power supply, gas supply all these verticals are clubbed together as one sector. You can call them verticals or define them based on industry. It is important to understand all these sectors and verticals of industries, because you should be aware of the industry you are entering into.

The last 4-5 months due to Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, the manufacturing industry was badly affected, there was a big impact on the hospitality industry, while the healthcare industry was performing well. Banking and the financial sectors were running smooth, you can say. The telecom and IT sectors were stable and especially the telecom companies did a good job to meet the rising demand across the world during the pandemic, enabling people to use online services and providing connectivity for remote working.

So, you should be aware of industries and how they are functioning in a given period of time and circumstance. Before completing your Master’s programme you should know where you want to go and why the sector or the industry you have chosen is important. Or if you want to start your own business, as an entrepreneur you should be aware which sector or vertical of the industry to enter. You can see the current market trends, do their analysis, and check the profitability and balance sheet of the particular industries. You can see which industries are doing good in the last few years—all this can help you define your long-term strategy when you decide to join an industry or start your own business.

It is important to do an analysis and research, take inputs from the industry sources and then make your decision of choosing a particular sector or vertical. Don’t go as per your assumptions, which can be wrong sometimes. Go with the data available, do some analysis in understanding which business is doing good. Check out last three years industry trend including the period during this Covid-19 pandemic and then understand which type of business is good for you to start or join any industry.

"After this Covid-19 pandemic, Business Continuity Management is the most important topic and most important action, which should be implemented across"

Business Continuity Management

Business Continuity Management or Disaster Management (also called Disaster Recovery Management), is important in terms of business. A business continuity is defined by all big and small organisations, their stakeholders, their owners, wherein accountability and everything is well-defined. If any disaster is there then how will you continue the business?

The recent Covid-19 pandemic is a situation or a crisis that is a surprise to all and is of a different kind. It was not assumed in the past hundred years that we will face such a crisis—a time wherein except for critical or essential businesses were allowed to operate, while rest all came to a standstill. So, in such a situation, how will you run your business or how will you enable your business? Such types of planning are done by all organisations.

The CIO or CTO of an organisation is accountable for the business continuity. In terms of IT, the CIO is wholly in charge to enable the business continuity plan. After this Covid-19 pandemic, Business Continuity Management is the most important topic and most important action, which should be implemented across. When there are no laptops for some employees and when they started remote working from home, how will you enable them with a laptop or how will you enable them a secure connection, to access their business applications or business IT infrastructure? How will the employees access from home? Many of the IT professionals who were working from the office on desktops, they were not allowed to have laptops due to the criticality of the business. So, how will you enable these employees to work from home? So, these kinds of activities were executed by the telecom and IT industry to enable the businesses to run their show, during the pandemic also. They enabled employees with internet connections, laptops, secure access to business applications and infrastructure. The IT and telecom sectors nowadays are considered as essential services, because it has become an important enabler.

Telecom is playing a major role nowadays, as many colleges and universities have started online classes and remote working has become a new normal. Recently in a webinar I attended, a telecom CTO was saying that the reach of broadband presently is only eight per cent. Which means there is a 92 per cent opportunity. As people are using 3G and 4G services for their mobile and other devices, and as the demand has increased manifold how the telecom industry is maintaining and meeting the demand, is an example of perfect strategy applied. Online classes are being operated smoothly almost everywhere. There is an overall boom in the telecom business, especially with the upcoming business of fibre connectivity. Even the government is giving importance to the fibre connectivity initiative under the BharatNet programme, which was initially targeted to connect 2.5 lakh villages with fibre optic network, but as per the recent announcement by the Prime Minister on 15 August 2020, the target is increased to connecting all villages across India. So, that is a strategy change all across and not limited to corporate or businesses.

Whether it is students logging on to online classes or employees working from home, due to this change the laptop procurement has increased over five times during this pandemic period. So these kinds of demands have come in the market and it will continue in the future also. Due to the pandemic, the whole process has changed and the adaptation of technology has changed. Those who were not ready to accept the technology applications earlier, now they are ready to accept it. All these new adaptations are possible due to business continuity management.

"The IT and telecom sectors nowadays are considered as essential services, because it has become an important enabler"

People Management And Conflict Management

As a business management student, if you are going to enter any organisation, you will work under leaders, with team members and supervisors also. So, across any industry, the relationship you maintain is very important. It should be three way with your colleague, employee, subordinate or boss is one; secondly, you should have a good relationship with your customers and thirdly, you should have a good relationship with your partners working for you on behalf of your organisation. In terms of people engagement and people relationship, you should have a good relationship with your colleagues, subordinates, boss, with your customer employees and partner employees.

If there arises any conflict, then conflict management is an art. So, you should have a good three-way relationship with a positive attitude. Your behaviour, attitude and three-way relationship always work across organisations, if you are working for an organisation or having your own business. In your own business, you should have a good relationship with customers, employees or service providers or partners. There is competition while working for any organisation and if you want to move to the next level you must have a good three way relationship.

In your professional and personal life, you face lots of conflicts and sometimes you have to accommodate others, sometimes avoid situations, sometimes you should be competitive, a celebration should be there, and you have to compromise sometimes. So these kinds of approaches to conflict management will help you in both ways, in your personal life and professional life. Always keep your professional and personal life separate if you want to maintain a good work-life balance. If you take your office issues home or bring home issues to the office, then it may disturb both. Three things that are more important in any service industry are the people, process and tools all three are required across any industry.

"In the near future, more work will be done by implementing robotic process automation and it will be used only for the repetitive tasks, where the physical presence is not required. But to implement and maintain the robotic process, people are required"

Information And Data Security

When you search some product on Google, say a laptop, you start seeing the related advertisement offers at other social platforms you visit, it could be your Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn account. How is this happening? It is happening because you are the one saving the information about your email-id, your mobile phone number, your locations, etc. You enabled everything by putting in Google search, then from the Google search, the information is going to do the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) or maybe in between e-commerce platform or maybe to the supplier of the products.

Another example is, say if you are booking a flight from Pune to Bengaluru for tomorrow morning and using an e-commerce platform. And later then you decide to not book now and check it after some time again. These e-commerce platforms are saving the information of you and your requirements, they are then saving it with the airlines industry. After an hour or two, if you try to book the same flight ticket, the rate gets revised and you will find a higher rate for the same flight. This is happening based on your request, based on the demand, and on the information you saved. You enabled and allowed the platform to save your data with the third-party service provider. So, the data will be utilised, your information and location will be utilised. When you are booking a car ride on Ola or Uber and your mobile phone charge has come to minimum say, five per cent, then they will give you a higher rate. Which indicates that they are reading your battery charge level also.

If your mobile SIM card is registered in Pune and you are going to Chennai for the first time. And when you reach there and book a cab, they will know that your registered mobile number is from Pune and you are a first time visitor to Chennai and they will charge you more for the cab. They will see that the person does not take more attempt to search cheaper cabs and select in the first attempt. All this shows that businesses are using the information you are sharing to make a strategy.

During this pandemic time, a lot of hackers are getting access to these data, due to which a lot of cyber threat cases are on the rise. There are many people who create clone Facebook accounts and who may approach you for some urgent financial need. One should be careful to keep your data and information safe. When you are going to start your own business or join any organisation, you are liable to keep the organisation data safe and cannot share the data in the public domain. In terms of information and data security, you are the owner and you can disable the settings of information sharing in your mobile phones. So, keep your data and information safe, it is a learning for all. As we are using more technology and more financial applications and making more online financial transactions, we should secure ourselves. You should be aware of all these kinds of cyberthreats.

Career Path And Roles

If you are doing a technical role or functional role, there are related roles available and there are various streams. Roles like HR, talent acquisition, billing collections, finance, sales, pre sales, asset management, governance, all these kinds of roles are functional roles. Transport, logistic management, resource management, these kinds of roles are available in the functional stream. Technical roles are purely technical IT, manufacturing plants, telecom, and project management.

The new generation is talking about new technologies like data decisions, data science, artificial intelligence, IoT, machine learning, and 5G. These kinds of new emerging technologies will take shape but they will take another 5-10 years to be successful. In the near future, more work will be done by implementing robotic process automation and it will be used only for the repetitive tasks, where the physical presence is not required. But to implement and maintain the robotic process, people are required.

Happiness

Happiness is only a choice and it’s in your hands. Mentors can guide you, teacher or your family member can guide you, but it’s in your hands as to how you can be happy in your life. For example, you are doing your Masters or under graduation programme and you have certain assumptions in your mind. Say, you assume, you will join Big-4 organisations after completing your higher studies, together with your four friends. You start putting your thought process and start planning, but when you get a joining offer, all four of you get postings at four different locations. Then your happiness level comes down because you had assumed something in your mind and planned but then the end results are not as per your plans. So, your happiness is somewhat linked with your postings, with your salary package, with the organisation as a brand and so on. Many students get into such a thought process but keep in your mind that happiness is something else. You should make a draft as to what kind of happiness do you need is it linked with location, roles, salary package or family priorities. All these aspects you need to see and define your top priority. This way you will be happy across your career journey.