50 Most Powerful Women in Business

Chanda Kochhar tops Fortune power list

AGENCIES Posted: Wednesday, Nov 09, 2011 at 1756 hrs IST

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/chanda-kochhar-tops-fortune-power-list/873399/0 

 KOCHAAR

  SIKHA SHARMA

 KALANIDHI MARAN

 NAVEEN JINDAL

New Delhi: ICICI Bank chief executive Chanda Kochhar has been named as the most powerful woman in Indian business but when it comes to pay, Sun TV Network's joint MD Kavery Kalanithi is the highest earner with an annual salary of $13.09 million, according to Fortune magazine.

With a pay packet of $13.66 million, Jindal Steel chairman Naveen Jindal is the highest paid business man, followed by Sun TV Network chairman and Kavery's husband Kalanithi Maran, whose annual package is $13.09 million.

In the Fortune list of 50 most powerful businesswoman, Kochhar is followed by former ICICI executive and Axis Bank MD and CEO Shikha Sharma at the second spot.

Two other former ICICI executives -- JP Morgan India CEO Kalpana Morparia (16th rank) and Multiples Alternate Asset Management's founder and CEO Renuka Ramnath (20), also feature in the league.

TAFE's chairperson Mallika Srinivasan (3), Capgemini India CEO Aruan Jayanthi (4), AZB Partners co-founder Zia Mody (5) and Britannia Industries managing director Vinita Bali (6) feature in the list, which would be published in the magazine this week.

HT Media chairperson and editorial director Shobhana Bhartia is at the seventh spot, followed by National Stock Exchange joint managing director Chitra Ramakrishna (8), Biocon chairman and MD Kiran Mazumdar (9) and RIM India's former MD Frenny Bawa at 10th slot.

Interestingly, Kochhar, who is also ICICI Bank's MD, does not find a place among the ten highest paid women executives in the country.

Other prominent names in the power list include HSBC India group general manager and country head Naina Lal Kidwai (12), Apollo Hospital Enterprises MD Preetha Reddy (13), Facebook India head Kirthiga Reddy (21), HDFC Managing Director Renu Sud Karnad (35) and UBS chairperson and MD Manisha Girotra (48).

From entertainment space, there are at least two women – Joint Managing Director, Balaji Telefilms joint MD Ekta Kapoor (31) and Three's Company co-founder Farah Khan (42).

Among the top ten highest paid women executives, Peninsula Land chairperson Urvi A Piramal is at the second place with $1.74 million pay, followed by Preetha Reddy ($1.11 million) and Vinita Bali ($1.03 million).

With a pay of $6.23 million, Hero Motocorp MD and CEO Pawan Munjal ($6.28 million) is the third highest paid business man, followed by Hero Motocorp chairman Brijmohan Lall Munjal ($6.23 million).

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, who was once the highest paid executive in the country, does not feature in the list, since he has fixed his pay at around Rs 15 crore for the past three years, starting from 2008-09.

In 2007-08, he had topped the highest paid executives league with a pay packet of Rs 44 crore.

Meanwhile, Kavery Kalanithi might be the most paid woman executive, but her package is just about one-third of the highest paid US business woman -- Oracle president and CFO Safra A Catz.

According to Fortune, Catz's salary is $42.09 million.

The American list of highest paid women executives also features Pepsico's India-origin chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi at ninth position, with a pay of $14.03 million.

Fortune India’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business

1. Chanda Kochhar (MD and CEO, ICICI Bank)

2. Shikha Sharma (MD and CEO, Axis Bank)

3. Mallika Srinivasan (Chairperson, TAFE)

4. Aruna Jayanthi (CEO, Capgemini India)

5. Zia Mody (Co-founder, AZB Partners)

6. Vinita Bali (Managing Director, Britannia Industries)

7. Shobhana Bhartia (Chairperson and Editorial Director, HT Media)

8. Chitra Ramakrishna (Joint Managing Director, National Stock Exchange)

9. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon)

10. Frenny Bawa (Former Managing Director, RIM India)

11. Meenakshi Saraogi (Joint MD, Balrampur Chini Mills)

12. Naina Lal Kidwai (Group General Manager and Country Head, HSBC India)

13. Preetha Reddy (Managing Director, Apollo Hospital Enterprises)

14. Amrita Patel (Chairman, National Dairy Development Board)

15. Harshbeena Sahney Zaveri (MD and President, NRB Bearings)

16. Kalpana Morparia (CEO, JP Morgan India)

17. Mira Kulkarni (MD, Mountain Valley Springs India)

18. Sujata Keshavan (Co-founder, Ray+Keshavan Brand Union)

19. Roopa Kudva (Managing Director and CEO, CRISIL)

20. Renuka Ramnath (Founder, Managing Director & CEO, Multiples Alternate Asset Management)

21. Kirthiga Reddy (India Head, Facebook)

22. Priya Paul (President, Park Hotels Group)

23. Jasmeet Kaur Srivastava & Gitanjali Ghate (Managing Directors, The Third Eye)

24. Rama Bijapurkar (Marketing Consultant)

25. Kaku Nakhate (President & Country Head India, Bank of America Merrill Lynch)

26. Rekha Menon (Executive Director, Accenture)

27. Neelam Dhawan (Managing Director, Hewlett-Packard India)

28. Sangeeta Pendurkar (Managing Director, Kellogg India)

29. Vedika Bhandarkar (Vice Chairperson, Credit Suisse)

30. Ekta Kapoor (Joint Managing Director, Balaji Telefilms)

31. Vishakha Mulye (Managing Director, CEO, ICICI Venture)

32. Reshma Shetty (Managing Director, Matrix India Entertainment Consultants)

33. Sminu Jindal (Managing Director, Jindal SAW)

34. Renu Sud Karnad (Managing Director, HDFC)

35. Ritu Kumar (Ritu Kumar Design)

36. Anuradha J Desai (Non-executive chairperson, Venky’s / Chairperson, VH Group of companies)

37. Vandana Luthra (Founder & mentor, VLCC Health Care)

38. Lynn De Souza (Chairman and CEO, Lintas Media Group)

39. Bala Deshpande (Country Head and senior MD, New Enterprise Associates India)

40. Suvalaxmi Chakraborty (CEO, State Bank of Mauritius (India))

41. Farah Khan (Co-founder, Three’s Company)

42. Meher Pudumjee (Chairperson, Thermax)

43. Ashu Suyash (Managing Director and Country Head, India, Fidelity International)

44. Radhika Roy (Managing Director and Executive Co-Chairperson, NDTV Group)

45. Rajshree Pathy (Chairman and Managing Director, Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals)

46. Swati Piramal (Director, Piramal Healthcare; Vice Chairperson, Piramal Life Sciences)

47. Manisha Girotra (Chairperson and Managing Director, UBS)

48. Meera Sanyal (Country Executive & Chairperson, RBS India)

49. Anita Arjundas (Managing Director, Mahindra Lifespaces)

PepsiCo CEO Nooyi - The Lady Boss Commands...

PepsiCo CEO Nooyi gets $17 mn in compensation

Reuters / Mar 24, 2012, 09:55 IST

 PepsiCo Inc Chief Executive Indra Nooyi had total compensation worth $17.1 million last year, up 6% from 2010, even as the food and drink company failed to meet its key internal performance targets.The increase is largely due to a 23% jump in Nooyi's base salary - her first raise in five years as CEO - and a gain in the value of her retirement benefits.

Nooyi, 56, has come under pressure from Wall Street for allowing PepsiCo's North American soft drink business to languish while  she focused on healthier products. Nooyi got a base salary of $1.6 million in 2011, up from $1.3 million before. The new salary is more in line with that of her peer group, PepsiCo said in its annual proxy statement, filed on Friday.

The change in Nooyi's pension value and deferred compensation was $3 million in 2011, up from $2.1 million in 2010, although her incentive compensation fell to $2.5 million from $3 million in 2010.
"Our net revenue, net income and earnings-per-share growth were slightly below the stretch targets established by the compensation committee under our incentive plans," said the maker of Pepsi-Cola, Tropicana juice and Doritos corn chips.Excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, PepsiCo grew its revenue by 13%, net income by 4% and earnings per share by 5% in 2011. Its targets called for gains of 14%, 7% and 7-9%, respectively.
PepsiCo's shares rose 1.6% in 2011, underperforming rival Coca-Cola Co, whose shares rose 6.4% during the year. The overall stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500 index, was essentially flat.
Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent also got his first raise in salary last year since becoming CEO in 2008. His base salary went from $1.2 million to $1.4 million. His salary will rise again, to $1.6 million, on April 1, the company said in its proxy, filed earlier this month.
Kent's total compensation package was valued at $29.1 million in 2011, up 17% from 2010.

 NOOYI with CHANDA KOCHHAR OF ICICIC BANK

Finance Minister-LIFE

‘Life for Finance Minister is not easy'


Press Trust of India
Delhi, March 16: “I must be cruel only to be kind.”

Invoking Shakespeare in his Budget speech with these famous words, Pranab Mukherjee tried to soften the impact of some economic decisions, saying some “painful” policy measures which are good in the long run have to be taken by the Finance Minister whose life is “not easy.”
“Economic policy, as in medical treatment, often requires us to do something, which in the short run, may be painful, but is good for us in the long run.
As Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, has said in Shakespeare's immortal words, ‘I must be cruel only to be kind.'”
Though 76-year-old Mukherjee's 110-minute speech marked by deft use of words had a rocky start with the BJP, Left and other parties protesting against the slashing of EPF rate, he had a smooth sailing thereafter with members listening to him in rapt attention.
Before beginning with his tax announcements, Mukherjee reached out to the Opposition.
“The life of a finance minister is not easy. Various players, including policy makers, politicians, agriculturists and business houses, participate in the making of the economy.
“When everything goes well with the economy, we all share in the joy. However, when things go wrong, it is the Finance Minister who is called upon to administer the medicine,” he said.

BUDGET fall

HARD PRESSED FOR TIME .....SOME TWEETS...........

Bammidi.NageswaraRao ‏ @BNRSTOCKS 16-03-2012

STT REDUCED, TAXES RATIONLISED BUT THE EXISE DUTY HIKE WILL HAVE ADVERSE EFFECT ON MARKETS. SO FELL TODAY AND WILL FALL FURTHER, WAIT TO BUY

Bammidi.NageswaraRao ‏ @BNRSTOCKS 13-03-2012

BOLD IN HIKING RAIL FARES AFTER 9 yrs LIKELY TO COST THE POST. NO MATTER WHAT, BE BOLD,LIFE TAKE IT'S COURSE or a game for midterm elections

Bammidi.NageswaraRao ‏ @BNRSTOCKS 11-03-2012


I ASKED TO BUY AT 5180, NIFTY TOUCHED 5170, NOW SELL HOLDINGS. THE STT WILL BE REDUCED,MORE IT EXMPTION WILL BE THERE BUT THE MARKETS FALL

Bammidi.NageswaraRao ‏ @BNRSTOCKS 09-03-2012
NOW USE NIKKEI IS FOR COMPARISON. SO LONG IT STAYS ABOVE 9385, THE MARKETS ARE IN BULL GRIP. THE INDIAN MARKETS MAY SEE BUDGET-VOLATILITY
 
Bammidi.NageswaraRao ‏ @BNRSTOCKS 07-03-2012


THE MAKETS ARE CONSOLIDATING BUT RELIANCE @ 791, IS NOW A CRUCIAL RESISTANCE FOR MARKETS TO ENJOY A BULLS SUPPORT. THE BOTTOM SUPPORT-5140

Bammidi.NageswaraRao ‏ @BNRSTOCKS -06-03-2012

THE ELECTION RESULTS DAMPED THE SENTIMENT BUT POSITIVE IS THAT BJP DID NOT DO IT EITHER BETTER. SO BE HAPPY. WILL RISE, CUES ARE STORED.

Successful AGE..continue...HARDWORK

Age is not a constraint to lead the team to achieve success......
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14 Mar, 2012, 12.10PM IST, The writer has posted comments on this articleIANS
At 84, Parkash Singh Badal begins fifth innings as chief minister
CHANDIGARH: In 1969, Parkash Singh Badal, then 42, became the youngest chief minister in the country when he took over the reins of Punjab for the first time. On Wednesday, at 84 and after 65 years in politics, Badal became the country's oldest chief minister when he took the oath of office for a record fifth time.
To make the swearing-in historic, the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) combine chose the ancient Sikh battlefield of Chappar Chiri near here which has the country's highest victory tower - Fateh Burj. It is dedicated to the warrior, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, who established the first Sikh state by defeating the Mughal forces led by Wazir Khan. Wearing a dark blue suit and a blue turban, the bespectacled Badal looked visibly happy as he mingled with the VIPs at the venue of the ceremony. He was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil.
Badal had earlier become chief minister in 1969, 1977, 1997 and 2007. In all, he has held office for nearly 14 years. This, in spite of spending a similar number of years in the political wilderness during the 1981-95 period of Sikh militancy in Punjab.
After Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela, Badal has been one of the longest-serving political prisoners in the world, having spent nearly 17 years of his life in jails. He was booked for a civil liberty agitation, sent to jail during Emergency (1975-77) and put in prison during the Dharam Yudh Morcha days of Punjab in the 1980s, fighting for the rights of Punjab and its people.
Badal courted controversy during one of the agitations when he publicly tore the constitution of India. He apologised for the action years later. Ironically, he has taken oath as chief minister five times under the same constitution. Born Dec 8, 1927, Badal, largely owes his fifth term to his son and political heir Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is the Shiromani Akali Dal president. Sukhbir steered the Akali Dal-BJP combine to victory in the just-concluded Punjab assembly polls. This is the first time in over four decades in Punjab that a political party has returned to office for a second consecutive term.
Badal is known for his mild mannerism, wit, grounded personality and his mass connect with people despite the huge security paraphernalia around him at all times.
He entered politics way back in 1947, the year when India got its independence, and has never looked back. Badal, who comes from a landed, farming family of southwest Punjab's Muktsar district, was first elected to the Punjab assembly in 1957 on a Congress ticket. During the run-up to the January 30 assembly polls, Badal clearly told people that this would be the last election of his political career.
Badal was married to Surinder Kaur, who died last year. They have two children - son Sukhbir and daughter Preneet. Badal's daughter-in-law Harsimrat Badal is the Lok Sabha MP from Bathinda. His son-in-law Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon is a minister in his government.

SUCCESS AND SUCCESSION.....NOT AN EASY TASK..!!!!

11 MAR, 2012, 10.38AM IST, 

Lesson's from AM Naik and L&T's leadership change 

Managing leadership succession is very challenging for all organisations, tougher for more complex entities. Unfortunately, in several cases, neither the incumbent nor the board wakes up to address this challenge early on.
Typically, in their hurry to grow the organisation, they either forget or do not devote adequate attention to such a strategically important matter before it becomes a crisis. The leadership change at L&T has attracted a lot of attention precisely for the same reason. There are several lessons from this experience.
Every Lap Counts
Leadership succession is like a relay race. Choice of the runners for each lap depends on the challenges ahead, the first and last runners being the fastest. There has to be adequate preparation and perfect understanding between runners about the timing of passing the baton.
The person handing over the baton should feel confident that the person receiving it has caught hold of it. The two runners have to have perfect understanding between them about each other. In a well-trained context, this happens in split seconds. Played out in slow motion, the same thing happens in leadership succession in corporations.
In this highly professionalised organisation, the board and management have always been aware of the need for finding a successor to Mr Naik, who is already 70. In fact, media reports that appeared about two years ago had described the dilemma that the company was going to face.
It is unfortunate that the board did not do much then or earlier about choosing the runner for the next lap with all the appropriate capabilities, and prepare the ground for a smooth change over. This was in spite of the fact that the entire team of executive directors was over 60 then! 

Start Early
The board should have started the process of identifying the successor at least five years back with a definite deadline, and intensified the search especially when it was clear then itself that there was no obvious choice available.
The company would have been better off with a younger top leadership to steer the organisation to achieve the 25 percent compound growth planned in the next several years. Such an approach would have guaranteed smooth transition of leadership at L&T, with an over lapping phase for the baton change to be trouble free.
Doubles Game
The current decision to split the responsibilities between chairman and managing director appears to be a convenient decision. The new duo of chairman and MD/CEO is going to face sharing the responsibilities of shaping the destiny of the organisation. It may not be easy for the new entrant to flourish when Mr Naik's shadow continues to loom large as the executive chairman.
Given that Mr Naik and Mr Venkatraman will play a doubles game for the next five years, it is critical for them both as well as the board to objectively discuss the roles they will actually play independently and jointly. The new MD should not become a figure head

Prepare Next Runner
Mr Naik has built L&T into a giant organisation, fighting several odds. He has a larger than life image. In such a scenario, it is for the incumbent to remind himself of the trusteeship role he is playing and prepare the organisation for the next leader. It appears that Mr Naik did not do it early enough.
By asking Mr Naik to continue as the executive chairman, the board has signalled its lack of preparedness for a change which is inevitable for anyone. Many leaders in business and politics do not believe that their time for retirement would ever come; they tend to think that they alone are capable of running subsequent laps. They do not recognise the need to prepare the next lap runner early on. Mr Naik and the board failed in their trusteeship responsibility.
Insecurity of Retirement
The longer a leader stays and the bigger the success, the greater is likely to be the challenge for his departure. Individual egos play a dominant role in refusing to accept realities. This is where some of the basic teachings of this country such as detachment, contentment and feeling of duty become all the more helpful. This is when leaders show their maturity.
National Institution
L&T is a national institution, respected and regarded for its professionalism by multiple stakeholders. The top team, representing all the stakeholders has a responsibility to ensure that it starts preparing for the next lap runner now itself. As trustees, they have to constantly remind themselves that no individual is indispensable.
(The author is Thomas Schmidheiny Chair Professor of Family Business & Wealth Management, Indian School 

LEARN from the LEADERS

V2- DO COMMIT, LEARN FROM THE LEADERS....


....................
9 Mar, 2012, 10.11AM IST, The writer has posted comments on this article Moinak MitraMoinak Mitra,ET Bureau
Ram Chandra Agarwal on what he learnt from Vishal Retail’s 10 big mistakes
A dusty street separates the head offices of Vishal and V2 Retail in the suburbs of Delhi en route to Gurgaon. And Ram Chandra Agarwal, erstwhile promoter of Vishal Retail who sold it off post-liquidation last year for Rs 70 crore, is in no mood to wait for the dust to settle. The proof lies in the cartons piled up at V2 Retail's office reception area.
Executives work the phones to jot down orders. Amid a warren of posters lining the front-desk, there's one outlining 'Obstacles to Success' - ego, fear of failure, life changes, no plan, doing too much alone, lack of focus, lack of formalised goals, lack of priorities and lack of commitment - in that order. The conversation with Agarwal revolved around the mistakes he committed at Vishal and what he learnt from them. Excerpts:
Mistake1: A company is still known by the people it keeps.
Ram Chandra Agarwal faltered while recruiting for Vishal Retail. "Too many bad people came into the organisation. I believed in people and employed too many of them without any background check. They did some wrong things in the organisation," he says.
He gives the example of an executive he entrusted with evaluating locations - "He was a big thief as he took money from landlords and finalised wrong locations, making a lot of money on the side."
Remedy: Agarwal has now instituted thorough background checks and pre-recruitment screening . His inner circle consists of loyalists from Vishal.
Meanwhile, he's entrusted a part of the finances to his wife and is awaiting son Akash's entry into the business after the latter finishes his MBA from Lancaster this year.
Mistake2: You need management bandwidth
Vishal recruited en masse from secondrung B-Schools, but did not have the right leadership within the organisation to guide the 300-400 odd MBAs it hired. "There was no strong leadership in senior and middle management," says Agarwal, adding that even the business schools need to firm up their act with more practical exposure.
"They (B-Schools) rely on theory and their students don't know basic things like planning or making entries in software." The lack of management bandwidth affected quality, a critical parameter to ensure retail success, as well. For Jagdeep Kapoor, CMD of Samsika Marketing Consultant and a close Vishal watcher, "not having a stake, was a mistake." In other words, he felt leadership was largely on autopilot with the cult of personality overpowering the rule of many.
Remedy: Agarwal says he has a senior management team in place at V2.
Mistake 3: Lack of planning
"We didn't plan in time," rues Agarwal, "And this led to certain wrong choices, like in-store ambience. From lighting and fixtures to flooring, nothing was right earlier."
Remedy: In his second innings, Agarwal seems to have his plan in place with an overall five-year horizon that can be brought down to a monthly level. "For me, the first thing is that my seven shops should make Rs 1,500 per sqft per month of sale.
It sits at Rs 600 per sq.ft. per month today." He is stocking up on a slew of "competitive products", though his role model for surging ahead remains foreign retailers whose average monthly sales per sq.ft. are in the Rs 2,000 region.
Mistake 4: Overconfidence.
It's hard to let go of success when it gets into the head. "I used to inaugurate four stores a week and such growth is impossible without management bandwidth. I opened four big garment factories and was confident about manufacturing too. In the end, I couldn't control all of that," says Agarwal.
Remedy: V2's philosophy is 'one step at a time'. The 7-store chain now sells only apparel. General merchandising and other articles at the SKU level are being worked out, but there's no hurry.
Mistake 5: Learning to manage scale
Vishal floundered beyond the Rs 500-crore mark. "Once you go beyond that, you need a professional hierarchy to share the load. You need corporate structuring and processes, which were simply missing. Ater a point, it cannot be a one-man-show."
Agarwal had zero corporate training and his humble beginnings in Kolkata's Lal Bazar ingrained in him the desire to do everything on his own.
"I started the store myself, I sold from the counter, I bought everything myself, I did the accounts. I believed that I could do everything efficiently but what I learnt was that even if your second in command does the same job half-efficiently, you should pass on the load." Amit Gupta, director at retail advisory firm Coralbay says leadership issues stem from the promoter in Indian retailers
unlike in the West where a Wal-Mart has a standard operating procedure manual. "It tells you what is to be done in a store of 'x' sq.ft, it gives specifications to the ultimate level," says Gupta.
Remedy : Agarwal has learnt the art of delegation and is following it to the hilt at V2. "Either Mansukh Tandon or JP Shukla will take over the reins of the CEO and will run the company on a day-top-day basis while I'll be the chairman...ultimately, you must empower people. You cannot do everything efficiently yourself," says Agarwal.
Mistake 6: Downmarket image
While there was connect with low-income consumers, changing aspirations were not factored in entirely. "Instead of downgrading the customer, he should have upgraded his brand," feels Jagdeep Kapoor of Samsika.
Remedy: Today, Agarwal claims his V2 stores are "a fresh change" from the old Vishal concept. He admits that variety is the flavour of the season with rising incomes and burgeoning demand, even at the low-tomiddle-income bracket he so fervently targets.
Mistake 7: Unprofitable growth
Vishal's growh was unprofitable. "Earlier, credit was cheap and I was expanding recklessly," says Agarwal, adding that in 2008, he set a ballpark target of Rs 5,000 crore to his employees within 1-2 years. Kapoor, too, vouches for profitable and sustainable growth as the way forward. He quips that it is akin to family planning -"You can't go on producing children, you must nurture them too."
Remedy: Agarwal is now going slow. "Once my model gives me Rs 1,000-1,500 per sq.ft per month of sales, I can easily expand 10,00,000-20,00,000 sq.ft. in two years."
Mistake 8: Reliance on cash
Vishal's transactions were all cash deals, be it sourcing from vendors or operational expenditure. Cash was king. But that's certainly not the way to manage scale. Large operations require multiple currency layouts, not just heavy reliance on cash.
Remedy: Today, Agarwal says that if the business model is good, money will follow. "There's a lot of money chasing a good business model," he says, pointing out that his reliance on cash now stands slashed by up to 50%.
 Mistake 9: Lack of management skills
Agarwal lacked the academic discipline to run a venture as large as Vishal.
Remedy: While he admits to having learnt quite a bit from management tomes, Agarwal talks about strengthening the back-end in V2, with a firm grip on processes. "The most important thing ion retail is fill rate, which is having the right goods at the right time at the right place, and a good fill rate is only possible through a strong back-end. Now I understand fill rate, product, choice of customer, pricing, marketing strategy much better," observes Agarwal.
Mistake 10: Inadequate technology backup
Vishal suffered partly due to an SAP issue, resulting in data loss. Besides, the critical standard operating procedure in retail was not followed at all. "In Vishal, the server was very small and there were issues with implementation of SAP, thereby creating problem in data extraction," says Agarwal.
Remedy: Agarwal has now hired TCS as IT consultant. Though he doesn't have such high-end vendors servicing V2's IT needs as yet, he is clear that once he reaches the Rs 1,500 per sq.ft. per month of sale milestone, he would require an outsourced IT vendor to run his retail 2.0

LONG TERM SUPPORT-LTRO WAY

LTRO-2 to power markets

Cheap funding for European banks from ECB may see some of the liquidity flowing to emerging markets

Malini Bhupta / Mumbai Mar 03, 2012, 00:22 IST Earlier this week, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced that 800 banks had borrowed 530 billion euro under its second tranche of long-term refinancing option (LTRO). The ECB opened its long-term refinance window for the first time in December 2011, when European banks were severely cash-strapped and they did not have the required funds to repay maturing debts. As the risk of peripheral European countries defaulting zoomed, some action was required to prevent a banking crisis in the euro zone. The ECB loosened its purse strings through the LTRO, which enabled banks to raise funds for three years at one per cent. So, why is LTRO important for emerging markets like India? For starters, European banks are flush with funds and after an infusion of one trillion euro, they will not need capital till 2014. This means these banks will not sell assets (especially Asian assets) under stress. But more importantly, some of the liquidity released by the ECB, has found its way into emerging markets like India, pushing up asset prices. Barclays Capital expects the medium-term effect of LTRO-2 on emerging market (EM) asset prices to be positive. “However, the risk of profit-taking in the near-term cannot be fully discarded. Our analysis suggests that the historical initial reaction of EM asset prices to non-conventional monetary measures has been fairly muted (with some profit-taking bias), but that in the following months the additional liquidity in the system finds its way to support EM asset prices.” This probably explains why the market did not fall through the week even on weak GDP and PMI numbers. According to Kotak Institutional Equities, although Indian valuations are fair at 13.8 times earnings per share (12-month forward consensus), these liquidity-injection phases have stretched fair valuations in the past. The brokerage believes this second round of liquidity injection has exceeded its predecessor and may sustain Indian market sentiments in the near term. However, Kotak believes the signals sent by the government through the FY13 Union Budget will be critical in maintaining the positive momentum locally. If risk appetite continues to improve, the rupee, too, could hold on to its gains. After being beaten down last year, the rupee has outperformed its regional peers year-to-date. If risk appetite continues to improve, the rupee could appreciate further. However, Barclays Capital says, weak fundamentals are likely to limit the rupee appreciation. The first round of LTRO generally improved not only the health of European banks but also the general risk appetite. However, analysts are not very gung-ho about the second round of easing by ECB. The market is comparing both the LTROs with the two rounds of quantitative easing undertaken by the US Fed. While the first QE worked rather well, the second one did not. Explains Edelweiss Securities: “Undoubtedly, LTRO–1 has been a phenomenal success, particularly with regard to the banking sector outlook and general risk appetite in financial markets. In fact, it is by far the most aggressive and effective step taken by EU since the onset of the debt crisis. However, it is not yet clear whether LTRO has made any material improvement in the real economy.” THANKS TO THE NEW IDEAS TO SAVE FOR SOME TIME .....WHEN THE MARKETS ARE LOW GRAB.....WEAK HANDS TO DEEP POCKETS.....A FEW ENJOY....OFCOURSE AS ALWAYS.. THE RULE IS SIMPLE KILL ....PAINLESS WAY...

ICONIC RESHAPE...CITI NEVER SLEEPS...

SEE SAW MOVES AT MARKETS ARE COMMON TILL THE BUDGET PRONOUNCEMENTS ARE MADE. THE BULLS CONTROL IS INTACT AS I MENTIONED IN PREVIOUS POST- RELIANCE COULD TRADE ABOVE 803 AND TOUCH ( TODAY TOUCHED 828 H-804 L). SO THE GOING GOOD TO BULLS.

NOW THE ECONOMIC CONCERNS ARE WILD ACROSS THE GLOBE, OUR INDUSTRIAL OUT PUT IS SLOWING DOWN, DAY BY DAY, MONTH AFTER MONTH, GDP TOUCHED 6.1%. FOR A BRIEF PERIOD THE BANKS MAY UNDER PERFORM BUT THE RBI MAY CUT THE RATES TO PROMOTE INVESTMENTS AT AFFORDABLE RATES.

NIFTY SHALL NOT TRADE BELOW 4300 LEVEL DURING THIS WEEK CAN OFFER GOOD GAINS IN FUTURE....

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Terri Dial, Who Helped Reshape Citigroup After 2008’s Crisis, Dies at 62

By Laurence Arnold - Feb 29, 2012 9:04 PM GMT+0530Terri Dial, whose work on the reshaping of Citigroup Inc. (C) in 2008 culminated a three-decade banking career that made her a much-watched woman in business, has died. She was 62.

She died yesterday in a hospice in Miami, Karen Kaplowitz, a friend and family spokeswoman, said. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer.

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Terri Dial, late senior advisor at Citigroup Inc. Source: Citigroup Inc. via Bloomberg

In 27 years at Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Dial rose from teller to executive vice president and head of the San Francisco-based company’s California banks and business banking. The U.K.’s Lloyds TSB Group Plc hired her in 2005 to run its consumer banking. In 2008, as Vikram Pandit began assembling a new team to lead Citigroup from the ruins of financial crisis, he chose Dial to head its North Americanconsumer banking unit.

Forbes magazine in 2009 included Dial, at No. 73, on its annual list of the 100 most powerful women. On American Banker magazine’s 2009 list of “women to watch,” she was No. 10.

“Terri was kind of a bigger-than-life figure in banking circles,” said her friend and former colleague, Deborah Doyle McWhinney, chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Global Enterprise Payments division. “Globally she is probably one of the top five women in financial services” in the last 15 to 20 years.

Dial didn’t shy away from being seen as a role model for women aiming for the boardroom.

“Women will work themselves to death in the belief that if they do more and more, that will get them ahead, when it isn’t so,” she told the Wall Street Journal in 2004 for an article on why some women find it a struggle to advance. “They think, ‘If I do the work, my bosses will see it and reward me.’”

First Appointment

Women need to engage in self-promotion, which they are reluctant to do, she said.

“Good girls don’t advertise,” she told the Journal. “We feel dirty promoting ourselves.”

Dial was the first senior appointment by Pandit after he became chief executive officer at New York-based Citigroup in December 2007 and began developing a strategy to reshape management along regional rather than product lines.

In her 21 months as head of consumer banking in North America, and as global head of consumer strategy, Dial worked with Pandit to group the worst-performing consumer units, including the CitiFinancial personal-lending business, in a new division, Citi Holdings, for disposal.

The challenge was formidable: Two months before her March 2008 appointment, Citigroup had reported a $9.8 billion fourth- quarter loss, the biggest in its 196-year history, and the industry was still reeling from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.

The Plan

Dial began developing a strategy to retool the North American consumer business as a so-called Bank of the Future, offering rejuvenated Internet and mobile-phone portals alongside branches, Bloomberg News reported in September 2009. She hired Michelle Peluso, the then-37-year-old former head of airline- reservation website Travelocity.com, to oversee the planning sessions.

As it turned out, the bank never announced a new consumer strategy. A proposal to shut or sell some of its 1,001 branches in the U.S. and Canada was scrapped.

Citing personal reasons, Dial stepped down in January 2010 and became a senior adviser.

Culture of Success

Dial “put together a management team that was largely new in their jobs, me included, that worked as well together as I’ve seen in a large corporation,” said McWhinney, a former president of Charles Schwab Institutional hired in March 2009 to lead personal wealth management at Citigroup. “We figured things out and supported each other, and that was the culture Terri created.”

Teresa Arlene Dial was born on Oct. 30, 1949, in Miami. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 1971.

Working as a teller at a Wells Fargo branch in San Francisco’s Mission District, she took on the male-dominated order by successfully challenging the practice of having female staffers clean the kitchen, according to a 1999 Wall Street Journal profile.

She was selected for Wells Fargo’s management-training program, in which she met her husband, Brian Burry.

Role in Merger

As an executive vice president, a title she gained in 1989, she was responsible for loans and banking services to small business across the U.S. She was made a vice chairman in 1996. After helping carry out the 1998 merger of Wells Fargo with Norwest Corp., she retired from the company in 2001 and served on several corporate boards.

“Terri has communicated a vision of the future for our California bank and her other businesses, and motivated her team to embrace and pursue that vision with great success,” Richard Kovacevich, Wells Fargo’s then-CEO said when she left the bank.

In 2005, Eric Daniels, the first American to run London- based Lloyds, hired Dial as group executive director for U.K. consumer banking. In that role, she pushed sales of Scottish Widows insurance and savings products, to capitalize on the retirement needs of older clients, while introducing services such as instant check clearing to win younger customers.

‘Human Cyclone’

British newspapers reported that she had been known as the “human cyclone” among her Wells Fargo colleagues.

“I don’t know where the nickname came from, but it’s not a bad thing,” she told American Banker magazine. “My pace is a little bit more aggressive than probably people have been used to, and I think they just go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, she’s that human cyclone.’ So it’s actually served me well.”

McWhinney said Dial kept her work in balance with her personal life. Dial’s passion was travel, and the southern region of Africa her favorite vacation destination, she told the San Francisco Business Times in 1996.

“Terri and Brian had the richest and most diverse set of friends,” McWhinney said. “You went to their house and had the best meals with the best wine. Life was just robust and fun and eclectic. It’s a lesson to be learned for all of us.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-28/terri-dial-one-of-banking-s-most-watched-women-dies-at-62.html

MOBILE MONEY -TELECO GAINS....

Bharti Airtel has roped in IT major Infosys to power its mobile wallet services. Under this partnership, Airtel will deploy Infosys' WalletEdge technology to support cashless payments.
The mobile commerce offering serves as an alternative to cash/ card payments online, after the user loads cash on to his account. The account can be recharged either through retail outlets- similar to recharging a prepaid account, or using net banking facilities from the user's bank account.
Once the cash is loaded in the account, Airtel customers can pay bills, recharge accounts, shop at over 7,000 merchant outlets, transact online through multiple channels including mobile phones, Interactive Voice Response, ATMs and Point of Sale.
The Airtel Money service is currently available in over 300 cities across India. “This will be our USP going forward as it helps in financial inclusion,” Mr Rohit Malhotra, CEO, Karnataka Bharti Airtel, told Business Line after the launch of the service in Karnataka. He added that with increased mobile phone penetration in rural areas, this could be a good market for the service.
INFOSYS PLATFORM
The Infosys platform is a scalable platform capable of supporting millions of transactions annually in a secure environment.Delivered through a private cloud, it creates a shared services framework that allows members of the ecosystem to process payment instructions seamlessly and cost efficiently.
Mr V. Balakrishnan Member of the Board, Infosys, said, “The game-changingmobile commerce platform will also unleash new market opportunities for Bharti Airtel in the digital commerce space.”
Mobile payment services are slowly but surely gaining currency in the Indian market, going by the spate of announcements in the last few days by global payment companies, banks, telecom vendors and mobile financial solution providers. All of them are keen to grab a slice of the Indian mobile payments market, which is seen as the next bastion of growth.
Global payments company MasterCard announced the launch of its open-loopWorldwide Mobile Money Partnership programme, in partnership with Comviva, a mobile financial solution provider. The partnership aims to help financially under-served consumers globally access mainstream financial services as also make purchases, transfer funds and pay bills via their mobile phones.
HDFC Bank and Movida had also launched a mobile payment service that allows customers to make payments through their mobile phones.
The trigger for these launches is the fact that there are more mobile phones in use in India than the number of bank accounts. Mr Sanjay Kapoor, CEO-India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel, said that national rollout of Airtel Money would accelerate mobile-based commerce in India. While an estimated 240 million people across India hold bank accounts, more than 90 per cent of country's population uses cash to pay for its daily needs.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/article2939074.ece

BEARS ENTERED, CAN THEY BREAK????

I HAVE MENTIONED THE BAD NEWS WILL FLOW SOON....NOW ENGULFING....THE MARKETS ARE HEAVY AT THE TOP AND THE LITTLE PARTICIPATION FROM THE RETAIL INVESTOR DROPPED THE MARKET FROM HIGHS!!!

THE NIFTY IS GOOD ONLY WHEN IT CROSSES 5424 AND RELIANCE TRADES ABOVE 803.
SO FAR NO PROBLEM, THE NIFTY TRADES BELOW 5135 IN THIS WEEK WILL CREATE RIPPLE EFFECT....THE TATAMOTORS SHALL NOT TRADE & CLOSE BELOW 239-41 AREA ON ANY GIVEN DAY, THEN THE BULLS LOST EVERY THING....FOR SURE....

--------A GOOD THOUGHT....PLEASE.....READ...

Time for a portfolio clean-up (AARATI KRISHNAN )
Should I jump ship, join the party or just cruise along? That is the question many people seem to be asking after this New Year rally. But the profile of the top gainers shows that picking winners in this stock market move has been nothing short of a lottery.

Penny stocks have shot up faster than index heavyweights. Companies with high debt have been avidly bought, while those with tonnes of cash have been cold-shouldered. And sectors that are up against a bevy of regulatory or other problems have been eagerly lapped up as ‘value' buys. Backed as it is by foreign institutional investor (FII) flows, it is difficult to say if this up-move pre-empts better days for India Inc or is merely a pull-back from rock-bottom prices. After all, who can argue with liquidity? But irrespective of whether this rally continues or fizzles out, it offers investors a golden opportunity to de-risk their portfolio. Here is how they can do it.
Upgrade to XL
In a usual bull market, it is blue-chips that lead from the front. But this rally has been completely different. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained 23-24 per cent trouncing Sensex gains of 16 per cent. Thanks to this trend, the valuation equation has turned topsy-turvy. Today, while the Sensex sports a moderate price-earnings multiple (PE) of 18.5 times, the BSE Midcap index trades at 19 times, with the BSE Smallcap index poised at 20 times. Now, there appears to be no fundamental reason to accord smaller companies such a premium today. With the economic troubles within India far from over and interest rates still hovering at high levels, small and midsized companies are far more vulnerable to business risks than their larger counterparts.
Moreover, whenever valuations of mid and smallcap stocks have caught up with the Sensex in the past, it has always spelt trouble (or bubble!). This makes it a great time for investors to make switches in their portfolio. If you own small or mid-cap stocks that have run up sharply, switch into large-caps within the same sector. Looking at the recent set of gainers, this would mean switching from a UCO Bank to ICICI Bank or from a BGR Energy into BHEL.
Go for quality
Then there is the phenomenon of investors indiscriminately bidding up all ‘cheap' stocks trading below their book value or at single digit PEs.
Now, any true-blue rally usually begins with ‘value' stocks outperforming ‘ growth' stocks. But when investors completely ignore business risks that threaten the core operations or brush aside governance issues that had them paralysed just two months ago, it is certainly time to be cautious. After their 60-130 per cent gains in barely two months, it may be time to sell stocks such as Lanco Infratech, Indiabulls Real Estate, Jai Corp and Reliance Communications.
Even if recent expectations about improved coal supplies to the power sector, or a revival in real-estate demand do come about, investors can play these themes through better-quality stocks in the power or realty sectors. You may not get a better opportunity to replace such choices with safer names such as NTPC or Bharti Airtel.
Tread carefully on debt
A third trend in this rally is the sharp rerating of debt-laden companies — the same ones which bore the brunt of the market meltdown last year. Now, even if factors such as moderating raw material prices and a strengthening Rupee reduce the cost pressures on India Inc, it will be some time before companies with high leverage, foreign currency loans or FCCB out-standings will be able to clean up their balance sheets. For one, while interest rates have flattened out they are showing no signs of falling steeply from current levels. Two, with the global and sovereign credit crises still holding sway, refinancing existing debt at lower cost will also remain quite difficult for anyone but top-rung companies. While stock markets investors may be in the mood to take on risk, lenders may not immediately follow suit.
This again argues for investors to go for quality in their portfolio. Here, the so-called defensive sectors such as FMCG or pharma may not be an ideal choice, given their high PEs. But investors could switch from high-debt companies to those with lower debt levels within the same sectors. That may call for swapping Unitech with Oberoi Realty, Wockhardt with Lupin or a Shree Renuka Sugars with Balrampur Chini Mills.
A shift to quality on the above lines may not ensure quick gains if this rally carries on in the current vein. But it surely will protect your wealth better, if the FIIs decide that they will go thus far and no further.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/investment-world/article2932345.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home