What matters most to me and why ?

I was born and brought up in a small city called "Vizag" located in Southern part of India. I belong to a middle class family. My father started his career as a constable in Andhra Pradesh State Police Department and now currently serving as sub inspector of police. My mother started her career as a clerk in Vizag Steel Plant and now reached up to junior officer level in the same organization. I have one elder brother and two elder sisters , all are married, and one younger sister who has just completed her undergraduate college.Even though we were five children, my parents have never let us down on any of our requests.Even though they were not highly educated, they believed in the power of education. They took several loans, borrowed money from others to support our schooling, and college. At a time when their colleagues and family friends were investing money in real estate , shares etc., my parents had invested in us. We were their assets , their shares, their investments vehicles. They instilled strong family values in us. So my family matters a lot to me.

Vizag was my whole world until my tenth grade.After my tenth grade, when my parents were contemplating on which junior college i should attend, i read in the newspaper about a new coaching center called "Kaizen Academy," started by Dr. K.V.Kumar . I insisted my parents to accompany me to see this new academy. I talked to Dr. Kumar for 15mins and i was spell-bound by his energy and enthusiasm. I knew that i found the right place. My parents were very reluctant as it was newly started. But they respected my decision and i got admitted in Kaizen Academy. The next two years were one of the most defining moments of my life as during this period i came in contact with several enthusiastic students in the academy and had a continuous improvement in my personality and perception under the guidance of Dr. K Kumar. He inculcated in me a sense of competition , inspired me on several occasions and instilled in me the thought of continuous improvement in every aspect of my life: personal or academic or social. Whether it was during good times , for example, when I secured high scores in X1th grade or during bad times , for instance when i suffered chicken pox right before my high school exams, he had always been supportive and encouraging. He ingrained the word KAIZEN in my mind.

Lessons from Art of Living

1) Opposite values complement each other.
2) Accept people and situation as they are.
3) Don't be a football to others opinion
4) Don't try to find intentions in others mistakes.
5) Present is inevitable. Whatever it is , it is. If you are at is , you are at ease. If you are not at ease, you are in disease

My favourite phrases or sentences

I like collecting good phrases or sentences (i call them structures) and using them in my speaking or writing. So i have decided to collect these good structures which i encounter in my day to day life activities.

1)Strategic intuition is the opposite: it’s thinking, not feeling.A flash of insight cuts through the fog of your mind with a clear, shining thought.
2)You might feel elated right after, but the thought itself is sharp in your mind.
3)That’s why it excites you: at last you see clearly what to do.

My favourite sites

Here is the list of my favourite websites

www.wsj.com
www.howstuffworks.com
www.businessweek.com
www.wikipedia.com

BEA"s Response to Oracle

	October 23, 2007 Charles Phillips President Oracle Corporation Dear Charles: We are in receipt of your letter of October 23, 2007. As we have previously informed you, the BEA Systems Board of Directors is unanimous in its view that your unsolicited proposal to acquire BEA at $17 per share is not in the best interests of BEA shareholders. BEA is worth significantly more than $17 to Oracle, to others, and most importantly to BEA shareholders. BEA's Board and management are committed to creating value for shareholders and regularly assess how best to accomplish this fundamental goal. Despite your statement that Oracle will withdraw its proposal, we simply cannot accept an offer that seriously undervalues BEA. BEA's Board has not indicated that it would be opposed to a transaction that appropriately reflects BEA's value, reached through a reasonable process. To the contrary, the Board is keenly aware of its fiduciary duties to shareholders and is acting accordingly. Indeed, BEA presented to Oracle standard and customary terms under which BEA would share information regarding a potential transaction, assuming Oracle were to propose a reasonable price, but Oracle has rejected such a process. If Oracle is genuinely interested in acquiring BEA, you are fully capable of proposing a reasonable price to the BEA Board or taking any offer you wish directly to BEA shareholders. Sincerely, William Klein BEA Systems

My Career Interests

Since i started thinking of doing MBA , i have been looking for various opportunity's that MBA provide. Surprisingly , MBA opens door to wide variety of opportunities requiring various functional skills.It has been very touch exercise to match my preference to the various careers available to MBA grads. Here is the list of careers i am interested in.

1. Marketing(Product Managers) :
   

All businesses need a plan and a process for marketing their products or services, and all but the smallest companies have professionals dedicated solely to this function. Marketing, along with sales, production, and finance, is a core functional area in most companies. Indeed, many businesses -- including some of the largest in the world -- rely on marketing strategy to drive company profits.

Marketing executives have a prominent place among the senior managers of any business. In fact, in many "marketing-driven" firms -- such as large consumer-products companies -- the most senior general managers typically advance to their positions from the marketing function.

Marketing professionals interface extensively with a company's other major business functions. For example: Marketing strategy affects the company's business development strategy (and vice-versa) and the allocation of advertising resources. Marketing works closely with the company's production or service delivery departments to ensure that product or service specifications will meet consumers' demands.

Marketing professionals must understand the company's finances and the costs and profits associated with a particular product or service. Marketers have to get involved in the company's long-term strategic planning, including assessing market changes and the potential that new business alliances may bring. Given the scope of business concerns that marketing professionals interact with, it's not surprising that marketing is often thought of as a "microcosm" of the entire business enterprise. Marketing managers must have strong skills in business analysis and a broad-based appreciation for business as a whole. Therefore, many people see experience in this discipline as ideal training for general management.

2. Private Equity

Jobs in private equity funds are typically divided into distinct areas, including: number crunching; appraising and executing deals; originating deals; and support roles such as marketing and finance.


Once the number crunchers have worked out how much a company is worth, a new set of people appraise whether the company is worth investing in at the asking price, and whether the fund is likely to be able to sell its investment in the company at a profit in the future. If price is right and a future profit looks likely, they will then help 'execute' the deal, doing everything required to ensure it takes place. This can involve anything from arranging the right legal documentation to negotiating the right price. The people who are involved in execution and appraisal are more senior than the number crunchers, and are known as 'principals'. Originators are at the top of the private equity tree. They are usually the fund's partners, who stand to make the most money if one of the fund's investments is sold at a profit. Originators oversee the deal while it is being done. They are also responsible for originating deals, or finding new companies for the fund to invest in. In pursuit of deals, they build strong relationships with company senior managers and advisors, and often spend a lot of time traveling.

The business of private equity doesn't come to an end once a deal has been done. The principals and partners in private equity funds also play a role in nurturing the company they have invested in. This can involve taking a position on the company board and steering a strategy that will lead to higher profitability, and increase the value of the fund's stake. When a fund sells its stake, it typically keeps 20% of any profits made above an agreed baseline. The remainder is returned to investors.

3: Venture Capital

venture capital firms ("VCs") are dedicated to investing their own capital in new companies in return for a hefty share of stock and future profits. These venture capitalists are more than financiers; they provide guidance, services and support to the fledgling business, and expect to be treated as partners. While not all VC activities are centered on new companies, and investors can be found seeking relationships with established firms, the majority of the industry concentrates on bringing new ideas to market.

How to make decisions ??

Decision making is very important skill in our life. In my opinion, it takes precedence over intelligence and hard work. A good decision will make your life easy and a bad decision miserable. So now questions comes , how to make sound decisions ?

In this article , i would go through a simple example where you need to make a decision in a day to day life. Lets say you planned to go to US open tennis final this evening . You made a proper plan to complete your office stuff by 4:00PM and leave the office. Everything is going as expected till 3:30PM , but at that time your boss comes to you and ask you to help somebody who is struggling on a production issue and need to make and Emergency bug fix. You know that you cannot solve the problem in the next 30 minutes. You need to make a decision now whether to help the struggling person or go to see the final.

This situation sounds very simple but happens very often in our day to day life. What should we do now ? Should we sacrifice our interests to help someone ? Typically people try to explain the situation to their boss and convince them. But very often people end up working on the EBF thinking about the final , which itself leads to another EBF !!!

In my opinion , there is no single solution to this situation. We need to take up every situation as an independent problem and dissect it to find out what really makes you happy. Actually there is catch 22 situation here. You need to make a decision which makes you happy. And sometimes your happiness depends on what decision you make. So how to come out of this loop !!!

We can come out of this loop very easily if we have clarity of thought on some of the fundemental truths in life. Happiness can be created in whatever we do. If you take interest and give your 100% in whatever you do, happiness gets generated automatically. Decisions once taken and executed cannot be altered. You have to act on your prior decisions.

So basing on above fundamentals , and going by your intuition , choose what makes you more happy : helping others or watching tennis. Once you decide , give your 100% on that decision and try to generate happiness on the new track.

The solution sounds very simple just like the situation. But it is very difficult to implement it . You need to practice it regularly to get the feel of it. Once you master it , you can forget it because a new character encoding pattern is formed in your new genes and now your intuition knows what you want.

Wonderful speech from Narayana Murthy

N R Narayana Murthy, chief mentor and chairman of the board, Infosys Technologies, delivered a pre-commencement lecture at the New York University (Stern School of Business) on May 9. It is a scintillating speech, Murthy speaks about the lessons he learnt from his life and career. We present it for our readers:

Dean Cooley, faculty, staff, distinguished guests, and, most importantly, the graduating class of 2007, it is a great privilege to speak at your commencement ceremonies.

I thank Dean Cooley and Prof Marti Subrahmanyam for their kind invitation. I am exhilarated to be part of such a joyous occasion. Congratulations to you, the class of 2007, on completing an important milestone in your life journey.

After some thought, I have decided to share with you some of my life lessons. I learned these lessons in the context of my early career struggles, a life lived under the influence of sometimes unplanned events which were the crucibles that tempered my character and reshaped my future.

I would like first to share some of these key life events with you, in the hope that these may help you understand my struggles and how chance events and unplanned encounters with influential persons shaped my life and career.

Later, I will share the deeper life lessons that I have learned. My sincere hope is that this sharing will help you see your own trials and tribulations for the hidden blessings they can be.

The first event occurred when I was a graduate student in Control Theory at IIT, Kanpur, in India. At breakfast on a bright Sunday morning in 1968, I had a chance encounter with a famous computer scientist on sabbatical from a well-known US university.

He was discussing exciting new developments in the field of computer science with a large group of students and how such developments would alter our future. He was articulate, passionate and quite convincing. I was hooked. I went straight from breakfast to the library, read four or five papers he had suggested, and left the library determined to study computer science.

Friends, when I look back today at that pivotal meeting, I marvel at how one role model can alter for the better the future of a young student. This experience taught me that valuable advice can sometimes come from an unexpected source, and chance events can sometimes open new doors.

The next event that left an indelible mark on me occurred in 1974. The location: Nis, a border town between former Yugoslavia, now Serbia, and Bulgaria. I was hitchhiking from Paris back to Mysore, India, my home town.

By the time a kind driver dropped me at Nis railway station at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, the restaurant was closed. So was the bank the next morning, and I could not eat because I had no local money. I slept on the railway platform until 8.30 pm in the night when the Sofia Express pulled in.

The only passengers in my compartment were a girl and a boy. I struck a conversation in French with the young girl. She talked about the travails of living in an iron curtain country, until we were roughly interrupted by some policemen who, I later gathered, were summoned by the young man who thought we were criticising the communist government of Bulgaria.

The girl was led away; my backpack and sleeping bag were confiscated. I was dragged along the platform into a small 8x8 foot room with a cold stone floor and a hole in one corner by way of toilet facilities. I was held in that bitterly cold room without food or water for over 72 hours.

I had lost all hope of ever seeing the outside world again, when the door opened. I was again dragged out unceremoniously, locked up in the guard's compartment on a departing freight train and told that I would be released 20 hours later upon reaching Istanbul. The guard's final words still ring in my ears -- "You are from a friendly country called India and that is why we are letting you go!"

The journey to Istanbul was lonely, and I was starving. This long, lonely, cold journey forced me to deeply rethink my convictions about Communism. Early on a dark Thursday morning, after being hungry for 108 hours, I was purged of any last vestiges of affinity for the Left.

I concluded that entrepreneurship, resulting in large-scale job creation, was the only viable mechanism for eradicating poverty in societies.

Deep in my heart, I always thank the Bulgarian guards for transforming me from a confused Leftist into a determined, compassionate capitalist! Inevitably, this sequence of events led to the eventual founding of Infosys in 1981.

While these first two events were rather fortuitous, the next two, both concerning the Infosys journey, were more planned and profoundly influenced my career trajectory.

On a chilly Saturday morning in winter 1990, five of the seven founders of Infosys met in our small office in a leafy Bangalore suburb. The decision at hand was the possible sale of Infosys for the enticing sum of $1 million. After nine years of toil in the then business-unfriendly India, we were quite happy at the prospect of seeing at least some money.

• ALSO READ: The amazing success story of Infosys

I let my younger colleagues talk about their future plans. Discussions about the travails of our journey thus far and our future challenges went on for about four hours. I had not yet spoken a word.

Finally, it was my turn. I spoke about our journey from a small Mumbai apartment in 1981 that had been beset with many challenges, but also of how I believed we were at the darkest hour before the dawn. I then took an audacious step. If they were all bent upon selling the company, I said, I would buy out all my colleagues, though I did not have a cent in my pocket.

There was a stunned silence in the room. My colleagues wondered aloud about my foolhardiness. But I remained silent. However, after an hour of my arguments, my colleagues changed their minds to my way of thinking. I urged them that if we wanted to create a great company, we should be optimistic and confident. They have more than lived up to their promise of that day.

In the seventeen years since that day, Infosys has grown to revenues in excess of $3.0 billion, a net income of more than $800 million and a market capitalisation of more than $28 billion, 28,000 times richer than the offer of $1 million on that day.

In the process, Infosys has created more than 70,000 well-paying jobs, 2,000-plus dollar-millionaires and 20,000-plus rupee millionaires.

A final story: On a hot summer morning in 1995, a Fortune-10 corporation had sequestered all their Indian software vendors, including Infosys, in different rooms at the Taj Residency hotel in Bangalore so that the vendors could not communicate with one another. This customer's propensity for tough negotiations was well-known. Our team was very nervous.

First of all, with revenues of only around $5 million, we were minnows compared to the customer.

Second, this customer contributed fully 25% of our revenues. The loss of this business would potentially devastate our recently-listed company.

Third, the customer's negotiation style was very aggressive. The customer team would go from room to room, get the best terms out of each vendor and then pit one vendor against the other. This went on for several rounds. Our various arguments why a fair price -- one that allowed us to invest in good people, R&D, infrastructure, technology and training -- was actually in their interest failed to cut any ice with the customer.

By 5 p.m. on the last day, we had to make a decision right on the spot whether to accept the customer's terms or to walk out.

All eyes were on me as I mulled over the decision. I closed my eyes, and reflected upon our journey until then. Through many a tough call, we had always thought about the long-term interests of Infosys. I communicated clearly to the customer team that we could not accept their terms, since it could well lead us to letting them down later. But I promised a smooth, professional transition to a vendor of customer's choice.

This was a turning point for Infosys.

Subsequently, we created a Risk Mitigation Council which ensured that we would never again depend too much on any one client, technology, country, application area or key employee. The crisis was a blessing in disguise. Today, Infosys has a sound de-risking strategy that has stabilised its revenues and profits.

I want to share with you, next, the life lessons these events have taught me.

1. I will begin with the importance of learning from experience. It is less important, I believe, where you start. It is more important how and what you learn. If the quality of the learning is high, the development gradient is steep, and, given time, you can find yourself in a previously unattainable place. I believe the Infosys story is living proof of this.

Learning from experience, however, can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our prior actions.

2. A second theme concerns the power of chance events. As I think across a wide variety of settings in my life, I am struck by the incredible role played by the interplay of chance events with intentional choices. While the turning points themselves are indeed often fortuitous, how we respond to them is anything but so. It is this very quality of how we respond systematically to chance events that is crucial.

3. Of course, the mindset one works with is also quite critical. As recent work by the psychologist, Carol Dweck, has shown, it matters greatly whether one believes in ability as inherent or that it can be developed. Put simply, the former view, a fixed mindset, creates a tendency to avoid challenges, to ignore useful negative feedback and leads such people to plateau early and not achieve their full potential.

The latter view, a growth mindset, leads to a tendency to embrace challenges, to learn from criticism and such people reach ever higher levels of achievement (Krakovsky, 2007: page 48).

4. The fourth theme is a cornerstone of the Indian spiritual tradition: self-knowledge. Indeed, the highest form of knowledge, it is said, is self-knowledge. I believe this greater awareness and knowledge of oneself is what ultimately helps develop a more grounded belief in oneself, courage, determination, and, above all, humility, all qualities which enable one to wear one's success with dignity and grace.

Based on my life experiences, I can assert that it is this belief in learning from experience, a growth mindset, the power of chance events, and self-reflection that have helped me grow to the present.

Back in the 1960s, the odds of my being in front of you today would have been zero. Yet here I stand before you! With every successive step, the odds kept changing in my favour, and it is these life lessons that made all the difference.

My young friends, I would like to end with some words of advice. Do you believe that your future is pre-ordained, and is already set? Or, do you believe that your future is yet to be written and that it will depend upon the sometimes fortuitous events?

Do you believe that these events can provide turning points to which you will respond with your energy and enthusiasm? Do you believe that you will learn from these events and that you will reflect on your setbacks? Do you believe that you will examine your successes with even greater care?

I hope you believe that the future will be shaped by several turning points with great learning opportunities. In fact, this is the path I have walked to much advantage.

A final word: When, one day, you have made your mark on the world, remember that, in the ultimate analysis, we are all mere temporary custodians of the wealth we generate, whether it be financial, intellectual, or emotional. The best use of all your wealth is to share it with those less fortunate.

I believe that we have all at some time eaten the fruit from trees that we did not plant. In the fullness of time, when it is our turn to give, it behooves us in turn to plant gardens that we may never eat the fruit of, which will largely benefit generations to come. I believe this is our sacred responsibility, one that I hope you will shoulder in time.

Thank you for your patience. Go forth and embrace your future with open arms, and pursue enthusiastically your own life journey of discovery!

Spring in My Life

Its almost been two years since i came to US. I have experienced the second winter this year. Believe me New York sucks in Winter. Luckily this winter i shifted to a new apartment where we have various indoor courts like volleyball,squash etc. I remember last year i spent most of the winter watching snow or cars from my apt window,drinking 6 cups of tea everyday. Last winter was a good learning experience for me. I had to go to NYU classes in the evening when the temperature was below freezing .. I cursed myself for signing up for courses in spring last year. I didn't do the same mistakes this year.

Past four months i was hibernating ...Now experiencing the spring. Funny thing is that i was learning hibernation framework in Winter and spring framework now. Looks like my learning process is in sync with the seasons !!!

I have a lot of todo items in this spring... But this year spring is no worse than winter.. Temperature is still hovering around 32F. Looks like i need to push the items to Summer. Eagerly waiting for the dawn of the summer when i can leave my bulky jacket and loiter around freely in the newyork streets !!