Smooth Sailing; India Inc. has beaten the slowdown blues, and can look forward to more of the same

• Published in: Business today (New Delhi, India) India), 2007-11, p.17
• Main Authors: Nayak, Mahesh, Kaushik, Manu, Subramanian, Anusha, Kushan Mitra, Pande, Shamni, Balasubramanyam, K R, Mukherjee, Amit, Srivastava, Pallavi, Joshi, Rishi, Dagar, Shalini S, Adhikari, Anand, Mukherjee, Ritwik, Chandramouli, Balaji, Varadarajan, Nitya
• Format: Magazinearticle
• Language: English
• Subjects: Interest rates; Market entry; Price cuts; Profit margins; Profitability; Sales
• ISSN: 0974-3650

It's a market that's as big as bollywood and when India is not playing, bigger than cricket, too. And mobile telecom companies like Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Reliance and Idea are cashing in on the Indian obsession with astrology. "It's human nature to want to know what the future holds," says Harit Nagpal, Director (Marketing), Vodafone Essar. Although all the mobile companies declined to reveal figures, BT learns that it is one of the most lucrative value-added services for telecom operators. The service is also a money spinner for content providers. Says Raj Singh, Head (Business Development & Operations), Active Media, which operates in this space: "There is huge scope in this segment in the voice market alone. But this market hasn't really been explored properly." D'[Souza]'s motto is "think big, think global". An alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied management, he was recruited from the campus by Dun & Bradstreet. Cognizant is the offshoot of the IT arm of D&B, which D'Souza set up in 1994. He grew within Cognizant as a core member of the management team, progressing from Director (US Operations) to Vice President (North American Operations), to Senior Vice President, COO and now President and CEO. "If there is one thing in my life that has made a decisive impact on business in Cognizant, it is the multicultural experience I have gained and cherished." The son of an IFS officer, he has studied in seven schools around the world--in Panama, Zaire, New Delhi, New York, Trinidad, Hong Kong and Pittsburgh. His next goal: ramping up Cognizant's revenues to $2 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) in less than six quarters after hitting the first billion. Indian IT powerhouses Infosys Technologies and Wipro took eight to nine quarters. Can he do it? Watch this space. Harvard Business School (HBS) will launch its first Indian Executive Programme, "Building a Global Enterprise in India", in February 2008 in Hyderabad. The five-day programme (course fee Rs 1.8 lakh) at Hyderabad's International Convention Centre is specially designed for senior executives from India and the neighbouring countries. HBS says the programme is based on 10 years of extensive, on-the-ground HBS research in India and has case studies relevant to the specific needs of companies in India. Says Krishna Palepu, Senior Associate Dean for International Development, who's in India to promote the programme: "While the programme demonstrates Harvard Business School's commitment to India,