The Vinod Gupta School of Management recently had the privilege of hosting Mr. Sambasivan G, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Sky for a guest lecture under the Vaarta, 17 series. Mr. Sambasivan spoke about the role of finance in organisations and business, how it has changed and is likely to change further.
The session started with a glimpse into the speakers own career. A chartered accountant at first, Mr. Sambasivan went on to complete his Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the prestigious IIM Ahmedabad. He started off his career at Procter & Gamble in the treasury and audits department wherein he gained a broad perspective on how these two quintessential areas of finance, the function of a controller is supposed to be carried out. He eventually moved to Reynolds, his role at the time was in the operations department and dealt with automation, process and customer satisfaction improvements. The experience helped him broaden his outlook towards business. He moved on from Reynolds to BPL mobile cellular limited and stayed there for a good 6 plus years, starting off as the head of finance at a circle and moving on to becoming the Chief Operating officer for the group. His career trajectory post that went to Hutchison Essar which was eventually acquired by Vodafone, and he spent the next 8 years focusing on implementation on an Enterprise Resource planning system, six sigma process improvements and automation for the whole company among many other roles. He said how bots, artificial intelligence and analytics are the tools which will drive transformation henceforth. He recommended a book called Deep thinking by Gary Kasparov to the students, for anyone who was interested in developments with regard to neural logic networks, machine learning, its roots and finally artificial intelligence.
Before concluding the lecture. Mr. Sambasivan spoke on the importance of recognizing the speed of change, updating ones skills was on prime importance today. Most practises and methods that form the basis of management today will soon be replaced by new and contemporary practices. He advised the students to learn to be the master of at least more than one field and concluded the day’s session with the words, “Learn, Develop and Improve”.