Future Generali India Insurance announces increment for all its employees

In the face of an ongoing economic crisis, Future Generali India Insurance Company Limited (FGII), the general insurance arm of the joint venture between retail giant Future Group and global insurer Generali, announced promotions, annual increments & variable payouts to all its employees. The company declared that there will be no layoffs of its employees during these unprecedented and volatile times.

They also made provision of an immediate relief fund of INR 50,000 to each of its business-active agents and their families if they are tested positive for COVID-19. 

With over 125 branches across India, the company has decided not to compromise on hiring and plans to recruit employees as per the business requirement. During this lockdown phase alone, FGII has onboarded over 70 employees across various levels using various digital tools for engaging, interviewing, enrolling, and inducting. The company will continue to hire as in any other year. 

 FGII has also taken multiple initiatives toward employee wellness and engagement during the lockdown period. The company has introduced a confidential counseling helpline for employees and their families to help them cope with changes brought about by the pandemic such as anxiety, stress or work-life balance. This is supplemented by live sessions promoting physical and mental health through yoga sessions. It has also organized various engagement programmes such as talent shows and conducted virtual training sessions for employees to help them connect and learn while they work from home. 

Anup Rau, MD & CEO, Future Generali India Insurance said, "We are a people-first company, period. We made sure that every single employee- right from the CXOs to our housekeeping staff - got their due credit and bonuses and increments in time. I don’t believe one can be a customer-centric company without being employee-centric; they are both congruent. Now, more than ever, our employees and partners need certainty and stability in their lives. We are building an organization for the long term and have the wherewithal to handle uncertainty. We are a fundamentally strong company and have the ability to respond to the new realities of the marketplace.”

Source: People Matters 8 July, 2020

Uptake of audiobooks and ebooks grows amid covid-19 pandemic

Audiobooks are expected to supersede ebooks as they are lot more convenient to use and allows the listener the flexibility to do something totally unrelated while listening to them at the same time

The prolonged unavailability of physical books due to covid-19 led lockdown has led to an uptake of ebooks and audiobooks. Sale of ebooks have doubled from its low base and audio books have seen a big jump from a base lower than ebooks during the post lockdown era, industry executives said.

“Even though e-book penetration in the market has been low and audiobooks as a category is just about taking off, we saw digital format sales increase during this period, more than doubling for certain genres and titles," said Niti Kumar, SVP, marketing, digital and communications, Penguin Random House India.

“New sign-ups to Kindle Unlimited increased significantly. Prime Reading, which offers hundreds of eBooks to Amazon Prime members at no additional cost, also saw increased usage. On KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), we saw significant growth in new sign-ups from Indian authors and it has also helped small publishers during these difficult times," said Amol Gurwara, Country Manager, Kindle Content India – Amazon.

To ensure that people continue to have access to books, publishers like Penguin Random House have launched many of their titles in digital version first. The publisher has also adapted publishing schedule and some of their recent launches have been e-books or audiobooks. During April, the publishing company also launched their first exclusive e-book store within the Kindle store. It carried a curated list of some of their bestselling e-books.

Audiobooks are expected to supersede ebooks as they are lot more convenient to use and allows the listener the flexibility to do something totally unrelated while listening to them at the same time.

Customers are finding new ways to incorporate audiobooks and audio content into their lifestyles, points out Shailesh Sawlani, Country Head, Audible India points. “Instead of a peak in listening during morning and evening commute, people were now listening to our content while doing chores, for early morning mindfulness, pre-bedtime relaxation, and/or short, screen-free mental health breaks throughout the work day," adds Sawlani.

Anish Chandy, Founder of Labyrinth Literary Agency feels, audiobooks might actually leapfrog ebooks. As working from home becomes a new norm, it is likely that people in India will start consuming more audiobooks.

According to industry sources, even after the lifting of the lockdown, sale of physical books is down by 80%. These are still early days and as the retail staggers back to its feet, physical books are likely to be back in vogue again. Many bookstores have received an enthusiastic response from the customers.

“Even though ebooks sales of most publishers have jumped by 100%, it is still too early to say whether the crisis will play a catalytic role in fundamentally changing how reading happens in India. At some point we will move past the virus, whether it is one year or two years down the line. Print sales will come back but in what genres we don’t know that yet," said Chandy.

The lockdown has accelerated adoption of audiobooks or ebooks by bringing many new users on board who are very unlikely to give it up so soon. Kumar points out, we will emerge with some new audiences having tried these formats and having experienced the convenience that they offer. We do see growth happening in the consumption of digital formats however, these formats will co-exist with print instead of replacing it.

Source: Live Mint

3 Reasons Aspiring Executives Need a Degree in Tech Management

You may think digital transformation doesn’t apply to your industry. Think again. According to McKinsey, 70 percent of businesses will attempt a digital transformation, yet only 30 percent will succeed.

Why do so many otherwise successful companies fail to adapt to the tech-driven world? Chief among many factors is the digital skills gap impacting 54 percent of businesses. Most traditional business education programs simply haven’t kept pace with today’s technological demands, causing individuals who already have a MBA to seek out programs to learn more applied and specific digital skills. I’ve seen this trend first-hand. Thirty percent of students in the Executive MS in Technology Management at Columbia University came in with a MBA already on their resume.

In a dynamic marketplace where tech is king, I believe an Executive MS in Technology Management is the new must-have degree for business executives.

This is not to say the MBA is obsolete. The degree still has broad value in the business world, especially if you’re just starting a career. But due to the inseparable nature of technology and business, there is an urgent need to supplement MBAs with education and theories that can be applied to the current digital reality. If you’re an executive seeking continuing education, here are three reasons you should pursue a degree in tech management.

It’s not just for tech companies.

All industries have to leverage technology to survive, not just the Amazons of the world. Across 15 industries, ranging from manufacturing to energy, 47 percent of CEOs are challenged to make progress in digital business, according to a study from Gartner. Increasing efficiency – and profit – is the key driver. That same study found 56 percent of executives say digital improvements have already increased their profits.

An Executive MS in Tech Management provides students with the tools to increase a company’s bottom line. Programs emphasize the importance of using technology in business for strategic advantage and improved productivity.

Graduates typically assume such positions as CIOs, CTOs, CAOs, COOs, CEOs, CSOs, or CDOs. Steve Bandrowczak was named President and COO of Xerox while taking our program at Columbia University. Lauren Goodwin earned her Executive MS and was hired as BP’s VP of Digital Transformation.

Programs are specified to your needs.

Executives like Steve and Lauren succeeded because what they learned was specific to their needs. Digital transformation is not a one-size-fits-all process, so programs offer a variety of focus areas, such as C-Level Management, Cybersecurity and Data Management and Analytics. Executives can leverage this expertise to reach the next level in their careers.

Matthew Smith was a student at Columbia University’s program. As a lead architect for a digital transformation initiative at AT&T, he chose a focus in Digital and Business Transformation. Within a month of beginning our program, Matt’s responsibilities at his company increased. He later accepted a position with a leading global consulting firm as a Senior Business and Integration Architect, a job that came with a pay raise of 35 percent.

Mentors share real-world experience.

For every Netflix, there’s a Blockbuster that was too slow to adapt to digital trends. Since 2000, over 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies have been acquired, merged, or declared bankruptcy.

Individualized mentoring from an executive who has successfully led a digital transformation can help you lead your company to success instead of becoming another statistic. Unfortunately, legal issues sometimes prevent executives from getting one-on-one advice from CEOs or other leading technology executives.

This is not the case with Executive MS programs, where students benefit from one-on-one mentorships with a top-level executive. The aforementioned Matthew Smith credited mentor David Widup, a former executive and Principal at N. Allen & Associates, LLC, with helping him understand the intersection of business and technology.

I’ve seen growing interest in Columbia’s Executive MS program since its launch, a testament to the demands of digital transformation. With every business needing to integrate technology into its operations and an increasingly large digital skills gap, expert knowledge in technology can help keep you and your business from falling behind. I encourage aspiring C-Suite executives to consider degrees that will make them indispensable leaders for tomorrow.

Source: Entrepreneur India  23 July, 2020

Academic view: What "sustainability" means in an MBA curriculum

Stuart Robinson of the University of Exeter Business School explains how an MBA curriculum can equip students with the skills and knowledge to implement sustainability

There is little debate about the responsibility of business schools to help achieve economic, social, and environmental sustainability by facing the global challenges of climate change, income inequality, urbanisation, migration, and an ageing population. What should MBA programmes do to develop managers with the requisite skills and knowledge? 

Addressing different aspects of environmentalism alone is far too narrow to equip managers with the expertise needed to address the full range of sustainability challenges we face. Rather, sustainability needs to be interpreted through several different MBA topics. A good example of this is the Global Risk Report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which looks at the most pressing risks facing the world. The report identifies environmental risks, but it also uses four other risk categories: economic, geopolitical, societal, and technological. Each of these  threatens, in different ways, the broader sustainability of our world and requires different knowledge and approaches from both individuals and organisations. 

At Exeter, we open our full-time MBA programme with an intensive discussion of the WEF risks and their implications for the world, and for individual students and their MBA goals. Our focus is looking at sustainability through science, innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. Science provides the knowledge base that inspires innovation; technology is the practical means to convert innovation into entrepreneurial projects. Finally, leadership enables entrepreneurs to build businesses for economic and social-wealth creation and to achieve environmental sustainability. 

We should not underestimate the difference between learning about sustainability and having the skills to create sustainable practice. MBA graduates need to be capable of leading change, often by challenging accepted practice. Theory must at some point become real. Everyone in a classroom will readily agree on the problem of our excessive use of plastics and the terrible threat to our oceans this poses. But implementing action that leads to an actual reduction of plastic use in organisations is a different matter. One of our MBA students is addressing this challenge now, and has started working with British retailer Marks & Spencer to look at how plastic packing across its supply chain can be reduced, while protecting shelf-life and product quality. 

Schools must find a way to integrate traditional, core business knowledge and practice with sustainable management techniques. For example, our students study circular-economy principles by using design-thinking techniques to reduce waste from a global fast-moving consumer-goods firm. The students’ proposals are assessed on how they apply principles from their economics, operations, and strategy modules—topics that sit squarely in a more traditional MBA curriculum. The exercise has the added benefit of creating a sense of shared purpose among the MBAs.

Partnerships are another vital component to the MBA, by allowing students to implement theory in the real world. Exeter’s approach to MBA teaching was initially developed in 2011 in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a charity, setting the foundation for our commitment to environmental sustainability. Since then we have engaged with a range of organisations and problems. These include understanding the implications of using synthetic microfibres for travel and adventure clothing with retailer Kathmandu, working with Coca-Cola to investigate circular-economy business models in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and carrying out a feasibility study for a “surplus-food-to-pig-feed” process. Our MBA students have worked in organisations’ sustainability teams, others in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.  

Partnerships also bring current challenges into the classroom. Some of Exeter’s students have worked with a local charity, Hospiscare, to help develop its business model, to maximise future sustainable income. Taking account of social and technological trends, the students produced a comprehensive business-model innovation report, identifying a range of ideas.

MBA programmes need to take an integrated, detailed, and practical perspective on the full range of global risks and challenges. The creation of sustainable practice is rapidly becoming the mainstream of industrial, societal, and technological progress globally. Put simply, companies that are perceived to be uncaring of the impact of their practices do not have a sustainable future. 

Stuart Robinson is the Director of the Exeter MBA, University of Exeter Business School

Source: The Economist