Message from Convenor

Dear Friends,

There are many fundamental shifts happening in the world of business and industry which will pose major challenges for firms operating in manufacturing, retail, financial services and IT and Business Process Outsourcing. The new era of intensified global competition will call for a new breed of managers, combining the best of technology and business skills with a clear vision of the future and the ability to lead teams towards it.

The academic institutions in our country have been put to the test before and will continue to be challenged by domestic and global corporations who have begun to look towards India as a source of talent. Unfortunately, except for the very top rung institutions, most technology and business skills have compromised on the quality of education with outdated curriculum, obsolete pedagogy and insufficient alignment to industry challenges resulting in an alarming low level of acceptability of their products in industry. A recent NASSCOM survey has shown that less than fifteen percent of the graduates are employable.

The time has come for a new category of institutions to emerge which will offer industry designed curriculum delivered by well qualified professionals through world class teaching techniques. These institutions will need to be created by and for the industry with the ability to sense and respond to all the challenges of today and tomorrow. The proof of that will be the desire expressed by global majors to employ the output of these institutions as soon as they complete their programme of studies.

The Business Transformation Analyst program offered by the Zensar Centre for Business Innovation is truly of this superior vintage and will soon become the benchmark for industry ready training and education in 2008. I welcome you to visit the Centre and appreciate the quality of thinking, collaboration and partnership that has gone into the design of this truly world class programme.

Best wishes,

Dr Ganesh Natarajan

* Dr Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of NASSCOM and Global CEO of Zensar Technologies Ltd. He has been one of the most successful professionals in the Indian Information Technology Industry, having earlier been part of two major success stories in IT Training and Consulting, NIIT and APTECH. During his ten year stint as CEO of Aptech he grew the company's revenues fifty times and listed it on the Indian and London Stock Exchanges. He is currently servicing as Chairman of NASSCOM. Dr Ganesh is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and the Harvard Business School.