Life @ Great Lakes Inst. of Mgmt-Chennai

[Pioneer_2008]

Hi All,

We had a guest lecture from Mr.Ravi on 11th July 2008.

RAVI is an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur and south asia's first Dr Edward De Bono certified trainer in lateral thinking.He has vast work experience in public and pvt sectors in India . He has authored three books relating to thinking skills and creatiivty.
He is these days based in WASHINGTON D C and travels to India frequently.He enjoys talking to young people and has many young friends.
His youngest friend is 16 years old and she dotes on him as much as he dotes on her !
He talked in length to the students about the way we think and the way others think about us. He was at his humorous best when he cited his personal examples in life. he answered volley of questions thrown at him in his own style which was like by one and all.

[Pioneer_2008]

Mr.Suresh Balasubramani, CMO of Shasun Chemicals & Drugs Ltd., Chennai visited Great Lakes on 16th July 2008. Mr.Suresh is a graduate in chemical engineering from IIT Madras and an MBA from SIU Edwardsville, Illinois. He has traveled to more than 50 countries and done business in over 100 countries. He spoke on the topic of “International Business”. His speech was thoroughly inspirational and he covered various nuances of doing business in a globalized economy which has its own strengths and pitfalls. The highlight of his lecture was his case-study approach about a chemicals major which had just acquired another major company and was developing a strategy to grow at a rate which was double that of the industry average. His lecture was well-received which was evident from the tremendous participation from the students in the form of queries. In all, it turned out to be a memorable evening with a very high knowledge acquisition.

[twiceblessedman]

Mr. Ram Viswanathan, Chief Architect – Asset Development of the Global Business Solution Center (IBM) and Mr. Rajesh Radhakrishnan, Senior Managing Consultant and Sr. IT Architect at IBM, visited Great Lakes on 28th July 2008. Mr. Viswanathan is a graduate from Anna University and an MBA from Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. He carried a rich 23 years of industrial experience and currently provides technical guidance and direction to 800 technical professionals across India and Greater China Group in building Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Mr. Radhakrishnan is MBA from Old Dominion University and MS degree from University of Virginia. Both the speakers presented their view on the topic “Enterprise Architecture Introduction: Bridge between Business & IT”. Mr. Radhkrishnan spoke about Enterprise Business Model and how is it creating domains within IT industry. Mr. Viswanathan spoke about SOA and evolution path of technology to SOA. He also touched upon Software as a Service (SAS) as a concept. The lecture was well-received which was evident from the participation from the students in the form of queries. In all, it turned out to be a session with high knowledge acquisition.

[twiceblessedman]

Ms.Vandana Gopikumar, Managing Trustee of The Banyan visited Great Lakes on 29th July 2008. Her lecture was about ‘The Banyan’ and Social Entrepreneurship. Just like the banyan tree symbolizes shelter, support and hope; The Banyan provides all this and more to destitute and mentally challenged women. It also helps to reunite them with their family.
Ms.Vandana spoke about how she and her friend Ms.Vaishnavi Jayakumar went about creating the Banyan in 1993. ‘What started as a small initiative has now grown into a full-fledged organization’, she said. Ms.Vandana also narrated the challenges they faced in running the Banyan. She said that after running Banyan in a small house for many years they had approached the Government of Tamil Nadu and the then Chief Minister Ms.J.Jayalalithaa allocated several grounds of land in Chennai on which the new building of Banyan stands majestically today. In all, it was a very interactive session and inspired every one of us to be compassionate.

[twiceblessedman]

Mr. Pradeep Henry, serial innovator, entrepreneur and founder of Process innovation, IT value, Alignment, CIO perspectives, Innovation, Keynotes, Consulting, visited Great Lakes on 1st August 2008. Mr. Henry is an alumnus of Columbia University. In his 20+ year career, Mr. Henry has led business process improvement and process-centered user interface architecture projects for over 100 Fortune 500 and Global companies. He presented his views on the topic “Blue Ocean Strategy”. He gave an insight about the strategy and enumerated the key areas which strategy changes in any business. In order to create value in business, rules of the game need to be changed. This strategy helps in creating a “Blue Ocean (New framework)” out of a “Red Ocean (Existing framework)” by focusing on some key areas. The lecture was well-received which was evident from the participation from the students in the form of queries. In all, it turned out to be a session with high knowledge acquisition.

[mkinra]

Seems like you guys are having loads of Guest Lectures with some of the most known personalities...

[twiceblessedman]

Originally Posted by mkinra

Seems like you guys are having loads of Guest Lectures with some of the most known personalities...

Yes Sir....thats right, and we make sure the thread is updated. So, hows life post MBA?......by the way, we are organizing a HR summit on the 2nd of September....the BPR team is working hard to make it a success...

[twiceblessedman]

Mr. Sudio sudarshan began the session by involving the audience in a small experiment in perception and how others view us. Unknown to us, the impressions we make in our daily dealings leave a significant impression on those around us and how we often view ourselves is very different from how the world sees us. He then proceeded to connect us via videoconferencing to friends of his abroad and in India and the discussion between them audience and the remote speakers on middle management viewpoints was very interesting. Finally, Mr. Sudio Sudarshan spoke on how middle managers can be influential in the organization and how belief in one's strengths can push him or her to the top no matter what the opposition. His talk was especially relevant to the young budding at Great Lakes who would be joining large or small firms or starting their own businesses.

[twiceblessedman]

Dr.Raja delivered a very thought provoking talk on Global Branding. He started the talk by involving the audience in a discussion on the distinction between brands and products and what made up a brand. He laid out the key aspects of customer decision making and how companies were aggressively using that to market their products. Later on he moved on to discussing how the 10 biggest global brands in the world had managed to maintain their brand equity over the years and how young upcoming firms could learn a lesson or two from these corporate behemoths. He ended his talk by taking up the case of the one of the world's largest software companies and the steps it was taking year after year to ensure that it maintained its global domination.

[twiceblessedman]

Dr. Sharma, a highly accomplished and distinguished academician visited Great Lakes on 2nd August. Dr. Sharma has taught in IIT Madras and in Malaysian universities for 23 years and has over 7 yrs of experience in the metal industry. He is now involved in training and consultancy projects with Manufacturing and Service industries for productivity improvement using techniques like Theory of Constraints, Lean Manufacturing, Project Management, Operations Management etc.

Dr. Sharma presented an overview of Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, which focuses on identifying the major constraints to productivity and exploiting them one after another, providing us with a mechanism for continuous process improvement. The application oriented approach adopted by the professor made the talk very relevant and interesting to everyone present.