Human Resources

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 feb 2018

Social entrepreneurs utilize their skills and efforts to solve social issues and make world better. The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) India runs a 9 months long Social Start-Up Fellowship program, an initiative supported by PwC India, to assist social entrepreneurs develop and scale their social enterprise ideas and concepts. SSE recently felicitated 17 social enterpreneurs that graduated from the program. Attending the occasion, Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (PMO, Govt. of India), said, 'There is a sense of satisfaction when you witness, for the second year in a row, a new set of social entrepreneurs graduate with the skills to make a difference in the lives of others through their innovative ventures.' Satyavati Berera, COO of PwC India, said, 'Social entrepreneurship is steadily gaining momentum in our country and we are proud to be part of this journey which for PwC began its association with SSE India in 2016...Each mentoring opportunity helped our people interact with those working at the grassroots and built a different perspective, which will have a deep positive impact on the way we serve our stakeholders.' Shalabh Mittal, CEO of SSE India, said, 'At SSE India, we believe in bottom-up social change and help social entrepreneurs work in broken markets or in the poorest of communities...our learning approach has the ability to empower entrepreneurs to start, grow and scale.' Also present was Jaivir Singh, Chairperson of SSE India and Vice Chairman of PwC India Foundation. Website the-sseindia.org gives list of 17 social entrepreneurs felicitated - (1) Prem Kumar (Sambhawana Development Foundation, Livelihood, Non-Timber Forest Produce - NTFP) (2) Bharti Singh Chauhan (PraveenLata Sansthan, Women & Child Welfare) (3) Dr. Anirudh Gaurang (Rovnost Healthcare, Healthcare) (4) Sonali Patwe (Perseverance Infosystems Pvt Ltd., Technology) (5) Hemanta Gogoi (wowNE, Livelihood) (6) Lourdes Soares (SabrCare, Healthcare) (7) Dr. Sumedha Kushwaha (ATTAC, Healthcare) (8) Dr. Raunaq Pradhan (Saaras Foundation, Policy Implementation) (9) Abhishek Juneja (Adhyaay Foundation, Education) (10) Riddhi Dastidar (Riyaaz, Education) (11) Abhishek Jhawar (National Abacus, Education) (12) Ayushi Shukla (Sanima, Arts & Cinema) (13) Inderpreet Singh (SPEEE, Community Well-being) (14) Neharika Mahajan (Oryn, Environment & Livelihood) (15) Umang Shridhar (KhaDigi, Rural Livelihood & Khadi) (16) Vilas Gite (Praas Development Foundation, Rural Development) (17) Devaja Shah (Amiku, Mental Healthcare). Read on...

Businessworld: 17 Social Entrepreneurs Honoured By School For Social Entrepreneurs India And PwC India
Author: NA

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 11 jan 2018

India's growth trajectory can slow down if firms are not able to grow and banks are not able to lend. Restructuring can be an immediate policy solution for the twin balance-sheet problem. But, for the long-term growth and job creation, the causes of financial misallocation have to be deeply considered and mitigated. Growth needs more efficient firms to produce more output and use more factors of production, which includes ease of access to bank loans. Contrary to this in India, a case of financial misallocation is a common phenonmenon, where less efficient firms get more bank loans reducing the ability of more efficient firms to grow and scale up. The cause for India's financial misallocation is distortion in the land market, as less efficient firms can access more land consequently enhancing their ability to get loans. Land provides strong collateral to access bank loans. Financial misallocation is a bigger problem in the manufacturing sector, that is more land intensive, as compared to services industry. World Bank lead economist, Ejaz Ghani, alongwith Gilles Duranton, Arti Goswami Grover and William Robert Kerr, examined plant-level data on millions of formal and informal enterprises, in both the manufacturing and services sectors, in more than 600 districts in India and provided important insights into the geographic and industry distributions of financial and land misallocation in their World Bank research report, 'Effects Of Land Misallocation On Capital Allocations In India'. According to Mr. Ghani, 'Most bank loans in the manufacturing sector are taken up by large firms in the organized sector. The small firms in the unorganized sector, which account for nearly 80% of jobs, and about half of the value of land and buildings held in the manufacturing sector, pull in a very small share of bank loans. The value of financial loans reported in the informal sector is barely 2-6% of the value of total bank loans reported in the manufacturing sector.' Mr. Ghani explains, 'We computed an index of misallocation in manufacturing and services, and the organized and unorganized sectors, in the districts. The indices of misallocation for output, value added, and factors of production were computed individually for financial loans, land and labour. India is one of the most land-scarce countries in the world. Land and financial misallocation trumps labour misallocation. The former appears to be at the root of much of the misallocation of output in the manufacturing sector...poorly functioning land and financial markets explain why India has so few start-ups; entrants are constrained by financial misallocation, and incumbents don't grow in the manufacturing sector.' Mr. Ghani recommends, 'Policy makers need to pay more attention to addressing the underlying causes of financial misallocation. This would involve removing land market distortions, better land-use regulations, and more efficient taxation of properties. Faster growth requires marching ahead with even stronger policy reforms to promote competition and innovation, and enabling more efficient firms to grow faster.' Read on...

Livemint: Reducing financial misallocation in India
Author: Ejaz Ghani

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 13 dec 2017

Entrepreneurship as a thought process is to be inculcated at the very early stage among children. It is also essential to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem in India that brings all the elements together for entrepreneurship to thrive. In a recently held panel discussion in Hyderabad (India) on developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem, moderated by Ramesh Abhishek (Secretary at the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion), Patricia G. Greene (Director of Women's Bureau, US Department of Labour) said, 'This effort should begin right from the pre-school days in children where teachers can drive kids to become future entrepreneurs.' Another panelist, Ravi Kailas (Chairman at Mytrah Energy) said, 'The ecosystem has a huge impact on creating different types of entrepreneurs...Innovative ideas and ventures will always bring in funds.' While Amit Ranbir Chandra (MD and India Head at Bain Capital) emphasised the need for domestic capital to address the requirements of entrepreneurs and less dependency on government funding. Read on...

The Hindu: Inculcate entrepreneurship spirit from 'pre-school days'
Author: G. Naga Sridhar

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 oct 2017

India's future success will be defined on the basis of how its positive elements like demographic dividend, IT and software, manufacturing, agriculture, government initiatives (Make in India, Digital India, Skill India, Startup India) etc, gel together effectively and grow. Adding to all these, focus on research, design and innovation, will further propel creation and development of new and emerging technologies and concepts. Specifically, Indian auto industry does have R&D capabilities, but it is mostly driven by foreign collaborations and partnerships. Moreover, Indian operations of most foreign auto makers rely on their global development centers when it comes to technological innovations. But the dynamics of the industry are shifting, and companies are mobilizing resources and assets towards design and development also, in addition to manufacturing. The change is also visible in the electric vehicle segment with a strong policy focus. Recent conference organized by NASSCOM and Autocar Professional was directed towards discussing the design, R&D and technology based future of the industry. Sameer Yajnik, COO-APAC of Tata Technologies, says, 'Indian engineers, thus far, have brought together just a few parts of the jigsaw puzzle in terms of vehicle development, but this is set to be transformed. With EVs, ADAS, autonomous, connected cars, et al, there are a slew of technology-driven changes that need to be responded to and India is an excellent place.' Patrick Newbery, Chief Digital Officer of Global Logic, says, 'Design and engineering work best when coupled together, and the Indian start-up ecosystem has displayed a good show of that already...Amalgamating design and engineering, as well as with its ability to innovate and create as a response-stimulus to change, India holds a strong place in developing new future technologies, where even the US would be looking outside to outsource these innovative solutions. There is more likelihood of innovation coming out of such environment.' Current spend in automotive engineering and R&D of Europe is 35%, that of US is 25% and, India's is at 10%. This is expected to triple in next 3 years. Sanjeev Verma, CEO of Altran India, says, 'India holds a very important place in the whole jigsaw and especially can play a great role in designing passive safety and IoT systems...With the whole ecosystem springing up now, the next three to four years are going to be extremely transformational for the development vertical in the Indian automotive sector.' Commenting on design in India, Raman Vaidyanathan of Tech Mahindra says, 'Indian engineering is bound to be more frugal, compared to the rest of the world because of the country’s legacy in being cost conscious. This is very positive as it implies that a good quality product, designed and developed to a cost in India could be produced in the emerged markets, while the reverse is going to prove rather expensive.' The challenge of skilled human resources in design and engineering in India remains. NASSCOM has started a foundation course in integrated product development that has reached 1000 colleges since CY2015. Government, academica and industry has to come up with integrated strategies that need to be applied to upgrade the knowledge and skills of graduates coming out of technology institutes and ensure success of design, research and development in India. Read on...

Autocar Professional: Beyond Make in India - Design and develop in India now imperative
Authors: Sumantra B. Barooah, Mayank Dhingra

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 13 aug 2017

According to the Economic Survey 2016-17 (Vol. II), employment in India poses a great challenge in terms of its structure, with it being dominated by informal, unorganised and seasonal workers. It highlighted the deceleration in hiring being faced by the IT-BPM (Business Process Management) sector. It said, 'The IT-BPM industry is also feeling the pinch of the global slowdown and global political uncertainties as clients go slow on their decision-making and investment processes.' The survey cited McKinsey report, saying that nearly half of the workforce in the IT services firms will be "irrelevant" over the next 3-4 years and the bigger challenge ahead for the industry will be to retrain 50-60% of the workforce with a significant shift in technologies. The survey also noted that the growth in digital tech like cloud-based services is happening at a much faster pace and the companies have to learn new technologies and reskill. It quotes 2016 World Bank report that said, automation threatens 69% of the jobs in India, while it threatens 77% in China. The survey added that skilled labour force is essential to meet diversified demands of a growing economy, to tap the benefit of demographic dividend. According to India Skill Report 2016, the present demographic advantage of India is predicted to last only till 2040. Read on...

Indian Express: Adoption of new technologies, reskilling key for job growth
Author: NA

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 12 jul 2017

India's share of the US$ 54 billion global HR technology market is about US$ 600-700 million. Traditional human resource practices are undergoing tech-driven transformation. According to experts, use of modern HRTech can help India Inc improve productivity and save millions of dollars by optimal use of human resources. Recent study by PeopleStrong predicts that India Inc can save at least US$ 600 million annually by 2021 using HRTech. Jagjit Singh, Chief People Officer at PwC India, says, 'The shift to HR applications in the cloud and artificial intelligence to use predictive data analytics has the potential to transform the entire HR landscape by taking away transactional roles and replacing them with strategic partnering roles...' Anshul Bhargava, Chief People Officer at PNB Housing Finance, says, 'Backed by concrete information and more efficient processes, the hiring process and employee efficiency have improved with the application of analytics.' Dinesh R. of OYO says, 'HR function is increasingly relying on technology to drive results and more predictable outcomes.' Pankaj Bansal, Co-founder and CEO at PeopleStrong, says, 'The new world of work will see employees taking control of their digital landscape of work and will be the decision makers of what gets used by organisations...' Read on...

The Economic Times: India Inc can save millions by using HR technologies - Experts
Author: NA

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 may 2017

Design influences every aspect of human life. Pradyumna Vyas, Director of NID-Ahmedabad (India), says, 'From the minute you wake up and pick up your brush to the time you retire to bed, there is design touching your life every minute.' Sanjay Dhande, former Director of IIT-Kanpur and founder of Avantika University, says, 'Our education, curricula, pedagogy and assessment is all outdated. Avantika University will have courses like liberal arts, body and mind, creative arts and the like. Even economics and management will be taught keeping design in mind.' According to a report, 'Future of Design Education in India' by India Design Council and British Council, 'The market for design in India is expected to touch Rs 18,832 cr by 2020...Only a fifth of the design market is currently tapped.' A design industry survey finds that 57% of design school graduates find jobs with large and medium-sized businesses, with small and medium-sized enterprises employing about 17% of the students. Nearly 13% of D-school graduates work for individuals, 9% work for public sectors and 8% join academic institutions. Apart from the traditional architecture, interior, arts and crafts etc, there more newer design areas for career opportunities - Social Design; Industrial Design; Space Designing; User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) [Tangible Interactions]; Doodling. Nandita Abraham, CEO at Pearl Academy, says, 'Today , especially for young people, doodling has become a language and a way of communicating with each other expressively.' R. Sandesh, Associate Professor at Industrial Design Centre (IIT-Bombay), says, 'Design is an overarching discipline.' Read on...

The Times of India: No more offbeat - Careers in design define our lives
Author: Hemali Chhapia

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 04 may 2017

India's demographic dividend can only achieve full potential if its young population continues to update their skills, the private sector continues to upgrade its processes, technologies and management practices to remain profitable and growth oriented, and government continues to improve infrastructure, ease regulations to do business, and attract internal and foreign funds as investments in various industries and businesses. Approximately half of India's 1.2 billion people are under the age of 26. By 2020, around 64% of India's population will be in the working age group of 15-64 years, and it is forecast to be the youngest country in the world, with a median age of 29. Moreover, India is a US$ 2 trillion economy, growing at approximately 7% year on year. It has a strong domestic focus with approximately 75% of the GDP generated on domestic consumption. India's demographic dividend will work in favour of the Indian economy when its young, educated and healthy population, is trained, skilled and gainfully employed, giving rise to an upwardly mobile consumer class. Read on...

ilmeps/read: India's Demographic Dividend - Update Skills, Upgrade Industry, Uplift Infrastructure - For Development and Growth
Author: Mohammad Anas Wahaj

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 apr 2017

Education technology promises to increase access, lower costs and bridge the rural-urban divide, in learning opportunities. Aakash Chaudhry, Director of Aakash Education Services Pvt. Ltd, explains how educational technologies can bring the transformation in India's educational system. He explores the present scenario and what is expected in future for the education sector. According to him, 'With an overwhelming increase in mobile-connected devices, global data traffic and mobile video traffic, the EduTech sector is set to enter a new era...In India, where mobile penetration is counting a billion people with over 300 million connected to the internet and is expected to reach 550 million by 2018, we have immense potential to digitally educate the masses...EduTech companies are driving further development of data-driven education technologies, leading to fundamental changes in how school and college students as well as professionals seeking new skills are learning.' He mentions some of the technologies and methodologies that are driving the transformation in education - Online interactive platforms; Cloud computing; Data centers; Virtualization; Global high quality online content; Live braodcasts; Video content delivery; Virtual updating of textbooks; Video conferencing; Availability of content offline and at low internet connectivity; Mobile classrooms; Online tutors; Adaptive learning; Student-teacher interface in the form of mobile learning. He concludes, 'A country that depends on the development of its educational sector for its economic and social growth, a surge in switching to technology-driven education will amply propel rural India towards empowerment.' Read on...

iamwire: EduTech 2017 - Transforming Education in India
Author: Aakash Chaudhry

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 16 mar 2017

According to the NASSCOM Foundation report, 'Catalysing Change Through CSR', about half of the IT and financial services companies (70) interviewed have spent more than 70% of their CSR in education and employable skills initiatives. Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman of NASSCOM Foundation, says, 'Education and employable skills are the key to most of India's social problems. An industry, which has grown solely by investing into knowledge and key skills, realises the difference a skilled knowledge society can make and therefore, a major chunk of the CSR funds has been dedicated to education and employable skills.' The report finds that companies are placing greater importance on monitoring outcomes by integrating technology. Among the roadblocks cited by most companies was identification, selection and due diligence on NGOs and the absence of robust tracking process. Read on...

The Hindu: Education, employable skills form major chunk of CSR spend by IT firms - Nasscom Foundation
Author: NA

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