JAB(....just another breakfast)

it was d 2nd time i had an opportunity to 've a conversation with the CEO of sasken.d first interaction was during freshers' induction programme.unlike dat meeting where i was 1 among 60 heads,dis time sitting in a group of 13 members took me a bit closer to him.when i entered d discussion room at 9.20 am, i got a bit ecstatic-nervous after tracing my name plate facing rajiv's.he joined us exactly @9.30,with a great sense of time.the meeting started with brief introductions from all gathered members regarding their experience with sasken n kinda of work they are involved in.he asked myriad questions to some seniors related to their field of work in dis company.then he initiated d discussion with a slight warmup,about T20 worldcup triumphant young indian cricket team,how they completed that odd journey with fully-planned strategies n showed leadership in workplace.he pointed us,"a lot can be learnt from these games.i want you guys to change the complete structure of dis company.its totally in your hand."
then he focused basically on high attrition rate of sasken putting incompetent managers as the sole reason behind it.Urged the managers to be utmost sincere and straight forward to their team guys and not play games. He brought in the concept of one to one interaction of managers with each team member at least twice every month.He also clearly told us that we have to project ourselves to customers as people giving the full solution to rather than in small bits & pieces.He stressed on the need for long term planning on how to capitalise on the experience/expertise gained by people.
on the whole meeting was fine but, mainly discussion was between the seniors n rajiv.being a fresher,I felt a bit left out when they started discussing some management strategies.he sighted some usual management problems n how to overcome them with simple illustrations.but,the CEO told nothing about his future strategies,his vision of a changed sasken. I found no time to request him (non-business) matters like poor toilet maintenance, poor canteen facility @ FAC B etc.the CEO satisfactorily answered all the questions posed by the guys. For one point that there was high attrition rate because of the poor quality of work found no proper answer from him.he defended this point by comparing pure RnD work of sasken with other IT giants.this way the whole meeting was conducted for complete 2 hrs.Such kinda of meetings should be conducted frequently.BTW dat awesome experience was not just another breakfast for me.


(note:- d author's seat was against to rajiv,so was nt clicked in d top 3 cliques ..so sad)

d following article was published on d news section of sasken website:-

"Breakfast with CEO"

‘Breakfast with CEO’ is an initiative of the Central Marketing Group that enables Sasians to get up close with Rajiv Mody. Conducted across the different centers of Sasken, Rajiv met with Sasians from Fac-B on the 26th of September.

The following Sasians were chosen at Fac-B: Amarender Choula, Robert Kingsly, Ranganayakulu Konduri, Srinidhi Koushik, Deepali Chourasia, Abhishek Srivastava, Vinay Rao, Swati Ravichandran, Nithin Sujathan, Anupama Sharma, Ashish Hegde, Dipti Panda

Dipti recalls ‘The first time I had met Rajiv, I was one among 60 people during my induction program. This time sitting amongst a group of 13 members took me a bit closer to him. I nervously entered the discussion room at 9.20 a.m. Rajiv joined us exactly at 9.30 a.m. with a great sense of punctuality. The meeting started with brief introduction from all the gathered members regarding their experience with Sasken and the kind of work they are involved in. He then spoke about the T20 world cup and the triumphant young Indian cricket team. He pointed out that a lot can be learnt from these games.”

Robert Kingsly relives a few moments “Breakfast with CEO of a company is usually a rare opportunity, hence is obviously exciting. In the case of Rajiv, his simplicity makes the event very attractive even to the junior most engineer of the organization. His ability to identify himself with the employees across various levels of hierarchy is quite impressive. Rajiv emphasized on the responsibilities of the managers, towards creating an Eco-system for the engineers to feel Sasken as a great place to work. Compensations alone may not keep an employee bound to the Organization.

Over a longer term of the career, ups and downs in compensations get evened out. Rajiv has a vision to grow Sasken significantly beyond what it is today. Most of the growth patterns do not follow the conventional logical sequences. They happen in a non-linear fashion as quantum leaps. Sasken's unique positioning as a complete end-to-end telecom solutions provider gives the necessary competitive edge for the growth to happen.”

Deepali in an excited tone, “It was one of the best breakfast conversations that I have ever had. It was good interacting with Rajiv on our plans to become "Better than our customers" and to start looking at improving the efficiency every day. It is really great that Sasken gives such wonderful opportunities to employees wherein they can directly talk to Rajiv to discuss issues and express views on how things are being done.”

Vinay Rao adds “On the whole, time just flew by and what added to the whole session was some wonderful breakfast”

Ashish Hegde remembers “It was not a mere one or two line introduction that Rajiv took from us. Instead he showed great interest in exactly what kind of work each one was doing here in Sasken. He seemed to know everything, from IC design technology to mobile application software!

After the elaborate introduction and a good tasty bowl of fruits, Rajiv chose to talk on forthcoming challenges that we Sasians will have to face because of the increasing Rupee value. He also showed his concern regarding the high attrition rate in Sasken. He suggested that Managers should have more one-on-one's with their reportees so that the employees’ problems get heard and solved on an individual basis. This, he felt, would reduce attrition considerably.”

And Swati up close “It was a wonderful experience and I feel each employee should go though it at least once. The most valuable takeaway was to understand the business scenario/challenges/areas of improvement for Sasken as a whole from Rajiv himself. It will surely help me align better with the larger vision/direction that Rajiv spoke about.

He was very open about answering all sorts of questions that came up. The breakfast itself was formal and almost ceremonial in nature, which makes it even more special.”

which category you are in??

"DEDICATED 2 ALL SOFTWARE ENGINEERS WHO TAKE UP CAT"
CAT-Common Admission Test... Probably the toughest exam to crack in the world today. The major chunks of people who take up CAT are SoftwareEngineers with an experience of 0-3 years. I have been also a part of this "Junta".Here are five reasons why software engineers treat writing CAT as"religion".


The first reason is some people hate to code. These are the group of people who don't get a shit out of Mainframe, Java or Dot Net. These are the people who are still confused between the difference of"Classes" and "Objects","C" and "C++". These are the people who get AT LEAST ten errors per line of code they write. These are the group of people who hate to hear terms such as "Defect","Enhancement","Unit Testing","integration testing".


The second reason why people take up CAT is "joblessness". Yes people on"Bench". Some of these guys wanted to be hot shot computer programmers,but end up just playing computer games to pass their free time. One of my friends used to dream of joining "Google" one day. He got a campus placement in one of the well known software companies of India. He was so good that he topped in his training batch. But would u believe me this guy is on "Bench"for the past one and a half years. First week on bench he played computer games. Second week he spoke to his Project Manager and asked him to install some software so that he can learn SOMETHING. His ProjectManager denied him giving a reason "Project Cost". Third week he just felt "helpless" sitting idle in office. Fourth week he decided to take Up CAT.


The third reason is "Money & Opportunities(travel & living)". As most of you would have been reading in various magazines and internet websites that average salaries in leading B-schools are more than 10 lacs pa. I can bet that any Software Engineer in any of the software service majors in this country cannot reach this figure in the next five years. Frankly speaking I feel that the job of software engineers is equal in challenge to the job of B-school grads. If the challenge is same ...why not the salaries...? When software engineers don't get an answer to this question, one day they decide to go for the bucks...and join a B-school.


The fourth reason is the reason which caused "Ramayana" and"Mahabharata".Yes you got it right "girlfriends". One of my roommates got a call from his baby just before his CAT exams and she said "DO WELL ATLEAST FOR ME,I KNOW U CAN". This guy got so excited that he ended up attempting 65 out of 75 questions in CAT last year. Another friend of mine says that he wants to pursue a technical career but he says that his girlfriend wants him to do Management. She told him that her brother has a MBA degree from a topB-school, so he should also have one. Bul l shit!! If I were my friend I would have ditched her that day coz you cannot get any silly reason for taking up CAT than this.

The last reason is "Following the crowd". These groups of people write CAT because everyone else around them is writing. These are the people who perform the worst in the exam and give a push up to other people percentiles.while i was in the queue infront of AXIS bank 4 buyin CAT form,the guy standin behind me asked "hii,can u plz tell me wht i've 2 do..like which form i've 2 buy 2 get into IIMB,i dont like CAT or XAT...they r too tough dude,i cannot even correct a single question there."i told him,"nice dude u want a degree only frm IIMB, k writting CAT is one way which u dont like,then simplest way is enter into IIMB campus thru their main gate without askin anybdy,u'll 've an interview session with sm professional interviewers(security personnel),if u can satisfy them ,then u'll get d ticket(gatepass) 2 IIMB." Whatever is the reason, one fine Sunday morning in November they would all assemble in some examination center in some part of the country to take up a challenge called as "CAT".