It was only the second meeting of the Board of the $ 43 billion-PepsiCo outside the US. CEO Indira Nooyi chose to have the meeting at Mumbai, India. Guess who spoke to this distinguished Board which includes the Chairman & CEO of Novartis and the President & CEO of Colgate-Palmolive?

Apart from hearing from Ratan Tata, CEO of the Tata Group and Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro, the 11 member Board of PepsiCo heard about supply chain management and Six Sigma from Mumbai’s dabbawalas! Their’s is an amazing success story. They deliver 200,000 lunch boxes to Mumbai’s hungry office -goers everyday with a 99.99 % accuracy.

I am proud to be an admirer of the dabbawalas. I am sure you will be one too after you read about their fascinating story here.

Board

What does India mean to you? No, not just to people who have visited here but the many others who have not. I read with interest a blog post by Kamini Banga in the Economic Times called ” Incredible India! And The Long Road Ahead”. Kamini is an expert in Marketing and Branding.

Apart from the Big Three of IT, Bollywood and Indian food that Kamini writes of- I think the world also now knows India for it’s cricket team- particularly after the advent of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and for cricket. This game is a big contributor- directly and indirectly to the economy. Also more recently, long awaited recognition is being showered on the ISRO- India’s Space Research Organization- for the recent discovery of water on the moon.

We have always known that India had some fantastic scientists working with rather limited means.

Another amazing area where India truly shines is it’s human resource potential. It has a huge population of youth. Estimates claim that as much as 51 % of India’s population is under the age of 25 and about 66 % under the age of 35. This has tremendous ramifications for the economy, more so when other countries have a relatively older “greying” workforce.

If we are able to harness the potential of today’s youth and provide them with the right skills and attitudes, there will be no stopping India and we will truly be “Incredible India”.

If the placement of headlines in the  newspapers these days are anything to go by, people like me- and I hope there are many- will be amazed at the misplaced priorities.

Today’s DNA- by the way, I ordinarily really like this paper- has an article on the first page which speaks of India’s cricket coach, Gary Kirsten exhorting his players that sex helps performance on the field. Tucked in much later in the paper is a news item that shocked me.

In the industrial town of Coimbatore, Roy George, a 45 year old Vice President of Human Resources at an auto parts manufacturing company- Pricol- was killed by striking workers. We don’t know the details so can’t really comment whether the management was justified or not in sacking some workers. Whatever be the cause, there is absolutely no justification for the striking workers to indulge in such a dastardly and deadly assault resulting in loss of a precious life.

Dealing with agitated workmen calls for enormous composure and skill. One doesn’t quite know what happened that day at Coimbatore- but it will go down as a black day in the annals of India’s industrial relations. As one among the HR community, my heartfelt condolences go out to Mr. George’s family.

It’s quite an absurd thought really but I couldn’t help thinking : if according to Kirsten sex gives rise to aggressive behaviour and more energy, these workmen in Coimbatore that day must have had lots of it.

Many raised their eye brows when Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro announced about a year ago that the Indian IT giant would henceforth have not one but two CEOs. Has the experiement worked? So it seems from this interview with Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani in the Economic Times.Wipro recently announced better than expected results with profits up more than 11 % and sales up by more than 6 % in a tough environment. Wipro has about 98,000 employees world wide and is looking to increase the percentage of locals in its international operations. Currently about 30 % of the employees abroad are locals.

Girish and Suresh have worked well together principally because their areas of operations are clearly demarcated. In addition, they are working in areas of their strengths. I am sure if there is any need to bring in an arbitrator, there can be none better than the Chairman himself.

Most of us have tried every search engine that has come up during the last few years- and stayed with Google. One more is set to compete with Google- this one is from a biggie- Microsoft. Named Bing the search- or should one say “decision”  engine is scheduled to be formally launched on June 3. Whether Bing will open with a bang remains to be seen.

It is estimated that Google has as much as 64 % of the search market. Yahoo is a distant second with 20.4 %. It will need something special for Bing to break into the search market. Whether Bing will -in due course- become a verb just as google and xerox have- remains to be seen.

We should not underestimate a product even before its formal launch. Let’s see how it goes. Yet a wag has mentioned that the name BING expands to an unfortunate acronym “But It Isn’t Google”.

A few questions for those in CXO positions amongst my readers. Do you have a handle on what exactly goes on in your organization? Do you really know what people feel about the way things are done? Do you know what it is to be far removed from the corner suite and listen to the grapevine for rumours? The best way to find answers for these questions is to see for yourself.

This apparently is what Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos did recently. Read how he spent a week working in one of the company’s warehouses. I am not sure what exactly he saw or heard. I am sure he would have gone away much better informed on what’s really going on.

Leading from the front takes many forms. By going down to the warehouse, Bezos demonstrated that the people who know the job best are those who actually do it.

The headlines said it all. The Tatas had delivered on their promise. India’s car for the future, the Tata Nano had been announced earlier creating a huge swell of expectations in Indian industry. Yesterday, at a major launch event in Mumbai, Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group announced that bookings were being thrown open for the car which could well change the lives of millions of people.

At the launch, the 71 year old Tata said the car would cost Rs. 100000 as promised. To the end customer the price would come to around Rs. 130000 after all the other taxes and levies. This price is confirmed for the first  100,000 customers – to be drawn by lots. The car will be released to the market in 2010 and is expected to be available to the Indian consumer in 3 variants, including an aircon version.

The company claims the car is strong on fuel efficiency- to deliver 23.6 km to the litre with a top speed of 105 km. With there likely to be a mad rush for bookings- the like of which perhaps has never been seen before- one wonders what will happen to the traffic problems already being faced by us in our Metro cities.

To give this perspective, Crisil projects that another 14 million families in India will become target consumers for the Nano based on its pricing. God help our commuters. The beneficiaries undobtedly would be an entirely new segment of car owners- and, of course, the Tatas.

You would have noticed in your blog as well as those of others that some posts seem to grab the attention of readers more than most. In my blog, a post about Anshu Jain’s work in Deutsche Bank way back in August 2007 continues to be a highly popular read. It was called ” High Flying Indian- Anshu Jain“.

Anshu is in the news again. This time, as widely expected, he has been elevated to the Board of Deutsche Bank- effective April 1, 2009. He is the very first Indian to get this distinction. The 46 year old Mr. Jain is the Global Market Head for Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank and one of the most successful in the world . It has over 80,000 employees in 72 countries.

It’s early days yet but his appointment leads us to believe that he could be a contender for the top most spot in Deutsche Bank. The current CEO, Josef Ackermann is scheduled to retire in May 2010.

A year fraught with economic turmoil. A year which could be the beginning of a new epoch. Most organizations have faced tough times – some more than others. Big names have vanished and most others wonder how to sustain themselves in uncertain times. Yet, there are a few organizations that are considered The Best Companies To Work For in 2009 as per Fortune.

Who are these?

We have  a new No. 1 in NetApp, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA. The data storage and management company which has featured in this list for the last 5 years was ranked 14 last year.

At No.2 is Edward Jones, a St. Louis, MO based Brokerage firm.

Tops among the big consulting groups is the Boston Consulting Group at No.3.

Google  falls to No.4. yet attracts 777,000 applicants each year.

At 5th place is Wegmans Food Markets, followed by Cisco Systems at No.6.

Genentech, a biotech leader is at No. 7, with Methodist Hospital System at No.8 and Goldman Sachs at No. 9.

The last place in the Top Ten goes to Nugget Market, a supermarket chain which has had no lay offs in 81 years.

An interesting mix of organizations. Underscores the point that you don’t have to be the biggest to be the best- especially when it comes to people.

The pressures of an economic crisis have added to the stress levels of many executives. A few examples of recent events typify this manifestation:

1. An executive hesitated to take the vacation he planned lest he return to find someone else occupying his place.
2. More outsourcing has led to teams carrying out multiple projects with tighter deadlines than ever before.
3. A senior manager reported that he had never seen his team members quite so willing to work hard over the last few months. The reason was not renewed enthusiasm but fear of losing their jobs -if they didn’t comply.

You may have your own list of such incidents. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you visit the site of Work Life Balance

This is a training outfit based in Atlanta, Georgia which specializes in this space. You may like to subscribe to their newsletter which features tips on the subject.

Disclaimer: I have no personal interest in this firm or its products:)