Book Announcement

Big Data for Big Decisions: Building a Data-Driven Organization – Krishna Pera, PGP 1992

About the Book

Building a data-driven organization (DDO) is an enterprise-wide initiative that may consume and lock up resources for the long term. Understandably, any organization considering such an initiative would insist on a roadmap and business case to be prepared and evaluated prior to approval. This book presents a step-by-step methodology in order to create a roadmap and business case, and provides a narration of the constraints and experiences of managers who have attempted the setting up of DDOs. The emphasis is on the big decisions – the key decisions that influence 90% of business outcomes – starting from decision first and reengineering the data to the decisions process-chain and data governance, so as to ensure the right data are available at the right time, every time.

Investing in artificial intelligence and data-driven decision making are now being considered a survival necessity for organizations to stay competitive. While every enterprise aspires to become 100% data-driven and every Chief Information Officer (CIO) has a budget, Gartner estimates over 80% of all analytics projects fail to deliver intended value.

Most CIOs think a data-driven organization is a distant dream, especially while they are still struggling to explain the value from analytics. They know a few isolated successes, or a one-time leveraging of big data for decision making does not make an organization data-driven. As of now, there is no precise definition for data-driven organization or what qualifies an organization to call itself data-driven. Given the hype in the market for big data, analytics and AI, every CIO has a budget for analytics, but very little clarity on where to begin or how to choose and prioritize the analytics projects. Most end up investing in a visualization platform like Tableau or QlikView, which in essence is an improved version of their BI dashboard that the organization had invested into not too long ago. The most important stakeholders, the decision-makers, are rarely kept in the loop while choosing analytics projects.

This book provides a fail-safe methodology for assured success in deriving intended value from investments into analytics. It is a practitioners’ handbook for creating a step-by-step transformational roadmap prioritizing the big data for the big decisions, the 10% of decisions that influence 90% of business outcomes, and delivering material improvements in the quality of decisions, as well as measurable value from analytics investments.

The acid test for a data-driven organization is when all the big decisions, especially top-level strategic decisions, are taken based on data and not on the collective gut feeling of the decision makers in the organization.

About the Author

With over three decades of experience in IT and business transformation consulting, Krishna Pera has worked across industry verticals. He has been Head of Global Business Services for a Singapore-listed $34bn Food & Agri-business company, and prior to that he was the Chief Operating Officer of a knowledge-process outsourcing company specializing in digital content solutions for global information media companies. During his career he has set up and scaled several businesses from scratch, and successfully turned around one midsized services company.

Krishna Pera has pioneering experience in setting-up and scaling Shared Services Centers, Captives, and ODCs for Fortune-500 companies, including the first ever in a validated environment. Decades of experience managing implementations and global rollouts of various enterprise technologies has provided him with a unique understanding of strategic information lifecycle management in transnational firms, as well as every conceivable issue faced by managers in making informed decisions.

Krishna has an in-depth understanding of ‘data’, both structured and unstructured, and building search-retrieval & repurposing solutions. Currently he runs a consulting entity focused on enabling companies on their journey to become data-driven organizations. His articles on data-driven organization published in Data Science Central are very popular with thousands of views, and are frequently quoted by noted Data Science Experts and Global consulting companies. Krishna considers working towards a ‘scalable process-driven-success’ as against ‘people-dependent-success’ as the biggest challenge in most organizations.

A strong believer in leveraging technology for transformation of business, Krishna mentors startups working on innovative products and solutions. Krishna Pera has a postgraduate degree in Business Management from IIM, Bangalore, and graduate degrees in Law and Engineering. 

The book is available on all Amazon and leading e-commerce platforms.


The Company We Keep: Insights Into Indian Corporate Culture – Divya Khanna, PGP 2002

About the Book

There are many challenges facing business corporations today-the pandemic we have barely moved on
from, economic recession, rapid changes in consumer behaviour and technological and competitive disruptions. These challenges stick out like the visible tip of an iceberg, while culture, the biggest challenge, is like the slow-moving, gigantic mass that lurks deep under the surface. We cannot deal sufficiently with superficial problems if we do not understand the depths that drive them.

‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’ is a widely accepted saying in the business world, often attributed to Peter Drucker. This is as true for corporate India as it is for its consumers. Yet, we spend more time
and money studying our consumers and their cultures than we do ourselves.

The Company We Keep is a market research-based exploration of Indian corporate culture. It looks beyond the glamour and jargon of the business world to individual stories that share real personal insights into the aspirations, vulnerabilities, pressures and possibilities of corporate careers and lives. These are
urgent conversations we need to keep having as we reflect, review and decide where we can go from here.

About the Author

Divya Khanna is an alumna of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB). Having worked with two of India’s largest advertising agencies-Lowe Lintas (now Mullen Lowe) and J. Walter Thompson (now Wunderman Thompson)-she has over 16 years of experience in advertising. She specializes in observing and analysing human lives and behaviour to develop insights and ideas that help build brands.

The book is available on all Amazon and leading e-commerce platforms.


Tata’s Leadership Experiment: The Story of the Tata Administrative Service – Bharat Wakhlu, PGP 1977

About the Book

The Untold Story of the Tata Group’s Most Ambitious Leadership Development Programme

In the mid-1950s, JRD Tata envisioned the creation of an exclusive management cadre for the Tata Group, christened the Tata Administrative Service (TAS). His vision was to create future leaders who would perpetuate the Tata values such as integrity, excellence, unity and responsibility throughout the Group. At the core of all these values was the agenda of nation building. Understanding fully well that leadership development is a dynamic phenomenon and continues to change over time, JRD was looking at leaders who would be constantly groomed for roles across Tata companies.

What led to the TAS becoming a natural choice among aspirants over the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), which, at any point of time, would give them the assurance of a stable government job? How did the TAS fare with creating leaders? Who were some of the brightest leaders that it created? Where is the TAS today and how does the future look?

In Tata’s Leadership Experiment, three former TAS officers, Bharat Wakhlu, Mukund Rajan and Sonu Bhasin, come together to find answers to these and many other pertinent questions. Based on extensive research and detailed interviews with former and current TAS officers, this book presents a fascinating account of an ambitious leadership experiment.

About the Author

Bharat Wakhlu is a thought-leader, a futurist, a leadership coach, a keynote speaker and the bestselling author of four books—covering Performance Excellence, Personal Growth, Ethics and Governance—and a novel. With over three decades of global corporate experience within the Tata Group and with Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, he offers a slew of unique capabilities to help leaders across diverse organizations deliver lasting, wholesome value. He is the co-founder of the Foundation for Peace and Compassionate Leadership, a not-for-profit that’s committed to a new paradigm of leadership. An avid drone hobbyist and golfer, Bharat is fluent in six languages.

The book is available on all Amazon and leading e-commerce platforms.