Business Today April 10, 2016

In many ways, Vishal Sikka, the first non-founder CEO of Infosys, is the complete antithesis of N.R. Narayana Murthy, the man who picked him to take over the company that Murthy and his co-founders had built over three decades. Sikka is a big man with a deep laugh that emanates from his belly and an informality that one rarely finds in the corner office. Murthy is a far more buttoned-down personality, and every step that he takes is measured. He is precise to a fault. But the two men are more similar than most people realise. They have great passion and are workaholics. Both are excellent operational managers, though they represent very different generations of the technology industry. And they have a great appetite for risk. When Murthy and his…

King of Good Times, or Bad Times? This refers to your cover story on Diageo-USL (Splitsville, March 27). It’s a timely and analytical piece. The King of Good Times, the flamboyant Vijay Mallya, is in the “eye of the storm”. The king has fished out a whopping `9,000-crore kitty with his Kingfisher net from the “government’s pool”. But Mallya’s case is not the only instance that we should be worried about. Our country is proud to have so many business tycoons with bankruptcy tag. He is just another addition to the country’s numerous scams. It is the same process after every major financial bungling is exposed: days-long (in rare case, even months) heated debates on the floor of Parliament and a couple of protests with unruly scenes. And with the…

KINGFISHER HOUSE SBICaps moved to auction Kingfisher House, the erstwhile headquarters of Kingfisher Airlines in Mumbai. However, the banks might not get the proceeds from the sale as the I-T department has put forward its own claim. There were no bidders till the time of going to press. TONY FERNANDES The Air Asia chief says he has applied for the status of Overseas Citizen of India. That, he points out, will put him on the same footing for policy regulators as Naresh Goyal, who stays in London but continues to run Jet Airways. TRUMP RAISES LEAST MONEY The New York Times reports that Donald Trump’s campaign office was fifth overall in raising money for the campaign – a mere $27 million so far. Hillary Clinton’s campaign raised the highest --…

29 A BOOST FOR DEFENCE WHAT: Global Investors’ Summit ‘Make in India for Defence Sector’ WHEN: March 29, Goa WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The Assocham event is being organised in the midst of the DefExpo 2016 at Goa. Primarily to enhance private sector participation under Make In India and the new Defence Procurement Procedure of 2016. Expect participation from domestic and international defence majors, government officials and bureaucrats. 6 SUPPORTING MSMEs WHAT: 2nd Bankers Borrowers Business Meet Empowering MSME WHEN: April 6, New Delhi WHAT TO LOOK FOR: In the midst of the pressure on PSU banks for rising NPAs, the meet is a welcome confidence building measure for MSMEs to ensure timely financial support to the sector. Kalraj Mishra, Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises will be the…

Social media is a good platform to express views, counter opinions and provide feedback. But not all comments posted by users on a company’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages are complimentary. Those that are to the contrary—if not handled with maturity – have a tendency to morph from a trickle into a flood, within a matter of hours. So what should you, as a company, do when faced with those not-so-flattering comments on your pages? If you think ignoring negative comments is the best way out, you are being an ostrich. “Deleting these comments is not the solution. If a consumer can complain once, he or she can complain again, and the next one may be worse,” says Namrata Balwani, the Delhi head of customer engagement agency OgilvyOne Worldwide. That…

Most Eligible Tinder has released a list of professions that get most right-swiped on its app in India. According to the dating app, men who are founders or owners, managing directors or directors, and architects, and women who are general managers, founders or owners and executive assistants are most right-swiped on Tinder. Some other popular professions in the men’s list include project manager, consultant, financial analyst, software developer and photographer. The women’s list includes jobs such as a registered nurse, lawyer, accountant and flight attendant. The list was compiled based on the occupations of user profiles that received the highest ratio of right swipes over the past three months. In February, Tinder had released a similar list for the US. Pilot, entrepreneur and fire fighter emerged as the most right-swiped…