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DoMS, IIT Madras Played Host to Mr. B. Santhanam Department of Management Studies (DoMS), IIT Madras played host to Mr. B. Santhanam, Managing Director of Saint-Gobain Glass India for the fifth session of 'CEO Connect' on April 15, 2005. Mr. Santhanam had an interactive session with the students as he talked on the growth path taken by a Greenfield Startup - Saint-Gobain Glass India (SGGI). He highlighted the learning framework of the case, which included the key lessons learnt in terms of strategy, structure, systems, staff, skills and shared goals. He also took up the successful marketing strategy case to differentiate the Saint-Gobain Glass in the commodity market of India on the basis of quality, innovation and reliability. SGGI takes a lot of pride in contributing to the tagline of the entire Saint-Gobain Family - 'The future of glass since 1665'. Mr. Santhanam stressed on the need for organizations and managers to have the 'edge' to take critical decisions. A smart strategy, adopted by a company to align with the external competitive market, is as good as the way it is executed by its management. Therein lies the importance to have shared clarity in the organization, so that all actions are directed towards shared goals. Though the trend in businesses today is to move towards flat organizations, there is still scope and need for the management - both top level and middle level - to direct the company towards that shared goal. Moreover, to set goals companies have to have measurable benchmarks, which can be achieved by having quantitative and analytical systems, processes and procedures. Numbers as such are very rational, however, in actually setting a number as a benchmark there is a lot of fuzziness. Thus, the critical factor is the insights coming in from the people who are following these systems and procedures. Skills of the people in management practices, systems, technology, logistics and customer service is indispensable for success of the organization. Therefore, organization's culture should be such that it can achieve quality and strong technical and market leadership position by creating training and nurturing a talented high performance team. Replying to a query, Mr. Santhanam said his vision is to make Saint-Gobain's name synonymous with Glass in India. As a career advice to the management students of IITM, he asked them to focus on providing strong performance-oriented, ethical and socially responsible leadership. Concluded. Click here to post your views/ comments/ experince on this... Contributed by - |
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