2010 paves way to ISACGlobal...

With so many things happening already in the new year, it is showing the promise of the most exciting year for us. We welcome you to be a part of our world...

We are excited to ring in 2010 and are looking forward to a great year. We come with several new announcements this year. First and foremost, considering our global reach, clientele and expertise it is time we communicated the right messages. We are now ISACGlobal! This only makes us more aggressive and quality conscious. Being a customer centric company we have gone a step ahead in ensuring that we implement your business strategy and operations with utmost care so as to ‘comply’ to the global IT standards. To know more log onto http://www.isacglobal.com our new website that gives you a brief description about our expertise and work.ISACGlobal's new logo, designed by our lead designer Pramod, is ‘athletic’, signifying the skill, strength and agility we have built into our capabilities. The new logo also stands for ISACGlobal's focus on ideation and innovation to bring ‘out of the world’ solutions to our customer's doorsteps. We know that every customer is unique and needs a solution that fits his/her problem. Our Functional Specialist Group will map the needs of the customer in any industry domain to our solutions and products to ensure customer delight.

Also check out for our new product launches this year, starting from SiteAnalytix to ISACGlobal’s Procurement Management System. This apart the new branding exercise is also because we are growing at an amazing speed of more than 40% year on year, which has resulted in a team re-structuring so as to build the required bandwidth. While Haricharan, the face of ISACGlobal is excited about taking the company to new heights as the CEO, the new associate who joins the team to lead the S&M division has stunning strategies to effectively market our whole new range of products and solutions. She has immense experience in working with companies of varied sizes and she is known to be a go getter.

We are very fortunate to be associated with stalwarts like Dr Sridhar and Sri Lakshmi Thathachar. Their association brings both pride and confidence in us. Kishan, who is leading our analytics and consulting practice has successfully designed and implemented Dr Sridhar's brainchild: ‘high speed distributed computing architecture’ for multiple business applications. We are very eager to take this to market this year under the name of ‘SiteAnalytix’. Kishan and I are planning to concentrate on Data Analytics including phonetics to explore new business opportunities in the the internet, media and mobile domains.

Other exciting areas in which ISACGlobal will be scaling up its involvement will be in the areas of Linguistics, Sanskrit and Knowledge Management. To say that Venkat is passionate in these areas is an understatement. He has concrete plans to make ISACGlobal as one of the leading private limited companies working in this area.

Our expertise in procurement management processes and experience in building procurement management systems for large organizations will be channeled to launch a new international procurement management software product this year. Our technical architects Seetharam and Umesh, who have immense experience in this domain are gearing up to add new modules into the product this year that will make ISACGlobal a one stop shop for all vendor, procurement, contract and asset management needs.

With so many things happening already in the new year, it is showing the promise of the most exciting year. We welcome you to be a part of our world. Take a look at www.isacglobal.com to know more..Wishing you a very Happy and a Fruitful New Year!

Sudhir R Patavardhan, Chairperson and Founder, VP – Technology

Innovative Concept and Technology can’t take you all along!

Enterprises, at least most of them, seldom mistake the use of hackneyed differentiating factors to be marketing…

Recession is a period that brings about a vast change in the attitude and mindset of the working members. It is this period where people work AROUND things, a period that sees the birth of innovative concepts and ideas. Those that are evaluated and found worthy enough to be implemented go on to form new businesses in an economy. This is how enterprises are born. There is more to success than innovative ideas and just technology!

Enterprises are envisioned and built on the premise that all activities directly or indirectly generate revenue. However, challenges for smaller organizations / start-ups are more complex than people anticipate it to be. Most of the entrepreneurs attempt to build organizations purely on an innovative concept or /and technology. Enterprises seldom recognize the fact that it is the marketing and communication that provides the constant feedback to revitalize the company’s products/technologies and align to the market needs.

Time and again, enterprises are constantly challenged with responses such as ‘not a familiar player in the market, do not have the required references, not handled similar business situations and also suffer from - no guarantee of customer organization of business continuity’. Working in a start-up or smaller organizations this has been an evident situation that is confronted. The solution to this is not universal, that it can be prescribed to most of the start-ups/smaller organizations. Entrepreneurs/Organizations that have been prudent enough to invest in Sales and Marcom, early in their Life Cycle have shared higher probability of success and achieved significant growth rate.

Enterprises have tried to look at building partnerships that can put them in front of some large accounts, create some lighthouse accounts to be showcased to other customers in similar industry, allow customer to bite the quality of service at low costs, provide proof of concept in solving their pain area. These situations constantly remind the enterprises of its visibility and positioning in the market. It is at this time that Sales and Marcom as a function assumes the lifeline of the enterprise and helps to provide the necessary nourishment for the organization’s growth.

 

Enterprises, at least most of them, seldom mistake the use of hackneyed differentiating factors to be marketing. Factors such as flexibility, customer centric approach, competitive prices et al are definitely the USP’s but are far from being marketable factors!

Every entrepreneur and Sales and Marcom function has to refrain from using the standard selling techniques and innovate their approach to the customer.

Haricharan SM, Co-Founder and CEO, ISACGlobal

Attitude is everything…

Generally success of an organization is dependent on the profitability of every individual. In small organizations the profitability requirement per individual is generally higher compared to a larger organization. To achieve this high profitability individuals and team must innovate, which is possible only when individuals have the right attitude. Individuals who have positive attitudes generally also are good innovators. Innovation is one of the key elements on which small companies survive...

Achieving success in your career isn’t just about brains, talents and networking. It is also about attitude. Attitude is a person's perspective towards a specified target. Attitude is "a way of looking at life". What then is your way of looking at work? Your attitude at work determines your career, its quality and path. Is it positive…

Attitude towards work can be analyzed in two ways. Work Attitude Behavior and Work Behavior Attitude. While most people use these phrases quite interchangeably pointing to the same thing, its important to note that they are two different things in reality. To state the difference in a simple manner:

1. Work Attitude Behavior describes how an individual feels about his work and his approach towards work which is not measurable but felt by others.

2. Work Behavior attitude describes the way you do the work and the way you get the work done which is measurable.

To summarize, work attitude is the way you feel your work. It is how you feel about your work in the subconscious. Ex. Passion about work, happiness and joy about work etc. If your work attitude is positive, it shows in your expressions, body language while the enthusiasm spills out.

On the other hand, work behavior attitude refers to the implementation part or the physical part of your work. It could simply be called ‘your action at work place’. It refers to your acquired skills, the energy levels you show at work that gives you tangible results. If your work behavior attitude is positive, its obvious that the energy levels are always high and thus the work gets done faster. Obstacles in such a case seem far too minute to distract a person from the goal.

Though each of the attitude mentionedabove compliments the other, it does not necessarily mean that work attitude behavior leads to work behavior attitude. Well, most of the time it might not!

When you choose to be pleasant and positive in the way you treat others, you have also chosen, in most cases, how you are going to be treated others. Individuals with good Work Attitude behavior and good work behavior attitude generally perform better and contribute to the growth of the organization. Individuals who have positive attitudes generally also are good innovators. Innovation is one of the key elements on which small companies survive. Let’s take a quick look at what are the other types of attitudes that leads to work related positive attitudes.

1. Disciplinary attitude - People who value time and do right things at the right time and who do things on time.

2. Learning attitude - People who like to learn, keep an open mind, are willing to lend a listening ear to learn new things.

3. Polite attitude - People who respect others, who are polite, who treat everybody else just as they treat themselves.

4. Planning attitude - People who plan well, strategize and ensure that they have everything under control so that work gets done on time.

Group of individuals working together with these attitudes generally contribute to the growth of the organization. These groups are very important for small organizations. Its my observation that companies large or small which do not have groups of individuals with good work attitude generally fail. So it attitude of individuals becomes all the more important for the success of a small organization. After all, some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible….

Ramkishan B K, Co-Founder and VP - Analytix and Consulting, ISACGlobal

Knowledge Management at ISACGlobal

Knowledge Management at ISACGlobal is an effort to generate wealth from its intellectual or knowledge based assets. At ISACGlobal we encourage the employees to consider themselves to be knowledge assets. Knowledge Asset refers to anything that is valued without physical dimensions, that is embedded in people or derived from processes, systems and the culture associated within the organization.

As an organization the key drivers of knowledge management initiatives are

• to get the knowledge based assets i.e. the people to acquire knowledge,

• use the knowledge,

• learn and improve (innovate) and finally

• contribute & disseminate knowledge.

If this processes is accomplished with all stakeholders (internal and external) involved with any company, we can create wealth through knowledge.

How does this work at ISACGlobal?

1. Assess the current level of the organization in terms of knowledge management. The management has used a knowledge management self assessment tool which focuses on knowledge management initiatives both internal & external to the organization.

2. Envision and Strategize – A Knowledge Management Strategy is in place in the organization that attempts to make the Knowledge Assets acquire, use, learn, innovate, share, contribute and disseminate knowledge through formal and informal forums.

3. Measure and Incentivize Knowledge Assets – We are currently looking at incentives and rewards as motivating factors for enhancing a knowledge-sharing culture, communicating these measures and implementing these mechanisms. We slowly want to create a paradigmn shift in the minds of the Knowledge Assets so that knowledge sharing becomes a habit.

4. We are trying to achieve this at the individual level, project level & business levels. Creation of subject matter experts in line with the personal development plan at an individual level makes an individual focus on improving self knowledge. At a project level, strategies such as case studies, lessons learnt sessions with internal teams and with external stakeholders & clients are few examples that are being implemented.

5. Taxonomy of Knowledge Sharing & Creation of Knowledge Managers – At the company level, we are trying to create a system of categorization of knowledge so that the same could be easily managed. We are aspiring for the Knowledge Assests in our organization to become Knowledge Managers who learn different methods of knowledge creation and transfer, including skills building, training, modeling and methodology development, analyzing and repackaging information, and learning by doing.

6. We would like to come up with a Web Based Knowledge Management System – an intranet tool that would operate and sustain the process.

7. Finally we would like to measure how wealth is created in the organization through the knowledge management initiatives and re-strategize and re-innovate wherever required.

8. Support functions at ISACGlobal – Support functions like HR & finance are also tuned to this approach. One of the key parameters that is considered in recruiting new people at ISACGlobal, is their learnability & knowledge sharing attitude.

Knowledge Centric Organization

Creation and sustenance of knowledge centric organization is now becoming a proven way of differentiating organizational culture and the organization itself from its competitors. We, at ISACGlobal are traversing this path and would continue on this path and are confident that this would be yield success. When two organizations are transacting, what we have to realize is, it is ultimately the people who are transacting and it is the knowledge that exists in individuals that gets transacted; if this knowledge is constantly enhanced through an internal process within individuals and organizations and not allowed to rust under the dust, these individuals would be more powerful to innovate and create value to clients and stakeholders.

Venkatasubramanian P
Co-Founder, CKO and VP-Functional Specialists
ISACGlobal