Date: 21st of June 2011
Venue: Leela Kempinski, Mumbai

mPOWERASIA along with its consulting arm under Customerlab were one of the sponsors of the seminar on Mastering the Strategy Execution System held at Leela Kempinski in Mumbai on the 21st of June 2011. Dr. David Norton one of the co-founders of the Palladium Group walked the audience through the following modules with eloquence & purpose showcasing how BSC is the world's preeminent Strategy and Performance Management System.

Module #1: Managing Strategy is Managing Change, Dr. David Norton, Palladium Group

Module #2: Managing the Benefits through Cause, Dr. David Norton, Palladium Group

Module #3: Aligning the Organisation to the Strategy, Dr. David Norton, Palladium Group

Module #4: Creating Cross-Functional Governance, Dr. David Norton, Palladium Group

Case studies were presented by Mr. Sanjay Purohit of Infosys and Mr. Ashis Sen of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

Founded in 2000, the Palladium BSC Hall of Fame program today has a roster of 158 honorees-including the FBI, Merck & Co., Hindustan Petroleum, Infosys Technologies, Millipore Corporation, Motorola, and Volkswagen do Brasil-that span private and public sectors in more than 20 countries. Winners are selected based on the quality of their BSC implementation and the results they demonstrate over a period of at least two years.

The BSC is based on the simple premise that "what gets measured is what gets done." Created by Palladium Group co-founders Dr. Robert S. Kaplan and Dr. David P. Norton, the Balanced Scorecard links strategy to operations to drive business outcomes. The gestation period to see improved results is about three years. These results provide strong evidence that the BSC is an effective strategic management tool that leads to improved shareholder returns."

The Balanced Scorecard is equally effective in driving results in government and non-profit organizations. A focus on performance is critical for any organization, especially during challenging economic times. "Organizations committed to creating value for their stakeholders-whether public or private-are continually challenged to deliver performance results," said Robert L. Howie, Jr., Chief Marketing Officer of Palladium and Director of the Hall of Fame program. "Organizations using the Palladium Kaplan-Norton strategy execution approach are more likely to achieve premium returns."

Two top-performing organizations were inducted to the Palladium Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame for Executing Strategy®: Ansteel Group Corporation (China) and Reliance Industries (India). Both these Organizations have increased their revenue by more than 30%, profits by 15% and increase in both customer and employee satisfaction.

At the end of the session, questions were answered by a panel comprising of Dr. Norton, Mr. Ashis Sen, Mr. Sanjay Purohit, Mr. Mathew Tice & Mr. TM Nagarajan. The session ended with the day's summarization & closure by Mr. Nagarajan.

Date: 7th June, 2011
Venue: Majestic Ballroom, Intercontinental The Lalit

The Session began with Mr. Karan Bajwa GM, Enterprise & Partner group Microsoft encouraging the attendees to have a look at the insurance related solutions provided by their partner's also naming mPOWERASIA in the process. Mr. G. Srinivasan's opening keynote address threw light on the challenges faced by the Insurance sector as well as possible solutions. He also mentioned that it has the highest rising avenue of growth - growing to over 2 lac 50 thousand crores by 2020 hence it should be rated above the IT sector in terms of growth prospects.

Mr. G. Srinivasan dwelt on length on the capabilities and the reach of the Insurance Sector to be on a much larger scale than the current IT scenario. He highlighted areas of concern in the insurance field like low penetration of non-life products which hardly compares to 6% of the GDP. It includes all categories from the urban, semi-urban & rural segments with the semi-urban segment comprising of literate & non-literate consumers. A few other concerns are listed below:

• Lack of awareness
• Affordability
• Trust Gap
• Complex products
• Difficult procedures
• Claim Documents
• Insurance is Sold and not Bought
• Profitability to the Insurers
• Quality of underwriting
• Issues of claims management
• 3rd party claims

The Customer expects a lot from the intermediaries like Brokers, Bank Insurance and Corporate Insurance. They should have proper trainings in the subject and be well adept with the latest technologies.

The Challenges before the Insurance companies is quite daunting. They have to accept the fact that there are currently approximately 10 Crs. Internet subscribers and 71 Crs. Mobile users requiring 24X7 services.

• Internet, Mobile, Handheld tools, Electronic policies, CRM, BI Analytics, Banking
• Skilled Manpower and Institutions to train
• Financial Inclusion-As of now only Banks
• Public Disclosures
• Corporate Governance
• Unethical practices

Some of the prominent visitors to mPOWERASIA's stall were the following:
TATA-AIG: - Mr. Shyam Sundaram visited the stall and after an understanding of our offerings promised to pass the information to his colleagues from the concerned dept. so that a presentation can be arranged at a mutually convenient time and date.

TCS: Mr. Prasanth G, a consultant who was part of the TCS team attending the seminar promised to check on their insurance clients after visiting the stall.

Wipro BPO: Mr. Sharma, VP visited the stall and wanted to know how mPOWERASIA could help his Organization.

National Insurance Academy: Dr. Page was aware of the rising importance of BSC and requested for a presentation of mPOWERASIA's offerings.

Cognizant: Mr. Prasanth Phadke-Regional Manager, Western India regarding the avenue to explore a partnership between them & mPOWERASIA in the consulting phase for The Balanced Scorecard.

Date: 16th September, 2011
Venue: Hotel Vivanta by TAJ President - Mumbai

The Hotelier India HR Conference was held at Hotel Vivanta by TAJ President - Mumbai on the 16th of September 2011 and was supported by mPOWER Information Systems Pvt. Ltd. It was India's first comprehensive discussion forum to seek innovative solutions for optimizing talent acquisition and retention strategies for the Hospitality Sector.

The CEO panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Sudhir Nagpal (MD mPOWERASIA and Jt. MD PIEM Hotels). The CEO panel comprised of eminent hoteliers like Mr.Kamlesh Barot (President-HRAWI), Rajeev Kaul (President- Leela group), Kapil Chopra (Sr.VP -Oberoi Group) and Mr. Dilip Puri (MD. India & Regional VP, South Asia- Starwood).

Some of the key points discussed by the panelists are mentioned below:

Need for trained personnel

Kamlesh Barot discussed the shortage of trained personnel and how the requirement has jumped manyfold and how they can be overcome.

Mr. Sudhir Nagpal brought to the fore the need to look to other industries for talent acquisition especially Mall staff who are trained to be hospitable.

Kapil Chopra & Rajiv Kaul touched upon the fact if the hospitality industry is attracting top talent. Kaul also broached the paucity of trained manpower as even after years of being trained, professionals do not have the correct attitude for this industry.

Dilip Puri touched upon private investment to improve the quality of teachings keeping in tune with the changing times which would lay the ground for talent attraction.

Strategy Execution & Alignment

Mr. Sudhir Nagpal further got the audience thinking during his presentation in which he dwelt on challenges faced during "The Taj Experience" of Strategy Alignment and Execution using the Balanced Scorecard and the Performance Management framework and of scorecards.

He stressed on the importance of well defined strategic objectives that are driven by key Initiatives with clear and measurable outcome. He emphasized the need for cascading this focused scorecards to all hotel units and making the operational team accountable for this Objectives, Measures and initiatives, stating that implementation of such a scorecard framework involves passion and structure which go hand and hand at the Taj. mPOWERASIA has implemented 100 scorecards with 3000 users with a total of 500 days spent in BSC workshops involving the 3000 key executives, who drive the business across group. Select employees at each property were trained in using the tool effectively thus enabling online reviews on the critical objectives, key measure, generation of F&B and DBR reports at an organization level.The presentation was well received by the HR heads of various Hotels and they showed keen interest in the subject and concept.

Other presentations were done by distinguished members present from the hospitality industry, but the ones that caught the eye of the discerning participants were those of Mr. Sudhir Nagpal. Mr. Ashwin Shirali's of Accor Hotels interactive session was also one of the highlights. Mr.KC Menon of ITC spoke about the human Touch, Mr.David Naidu of Westin discussed CSR and Ms. Neesha Mohapatra of the "The Grand "initiated the presentation section with an HR presentation.