The Hindu Business Line : `Management students must develop core competency'

These are some of the entry-level qualities that software companies look for from management graduates, said Mr Lakshmi Narayanan, President and CEO, Cognizant.

Students must come with the mindset to deal with uncertainties and ambiguities, Mr Narayan said.

"It is a competitive environment out there," he told the MBA students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.

Management students should develop core competency in any domain, such as insurance, banking, technology, strategy, operations and decision-making, the CEO said.

Consulting capabilities could be analysis and data driven. A strong communication skill is also required, and students should look at alternatives, said Mr Narayanan.

"People who have made good in Cognizant have the three basic capabilities," he said.

When a student asked him what his vision for Cognizant in the next five years was, Mr Narayanan said, "We want to be a meaningful player in the world stage. We want to be number one in the minds of our customers and we should be considered the best. Business succeeds by differentiation, and not by copying. We always want to be a differentiator."

On the risks to worry about, Mr Narayanan said size of the firm could be an important factor. The bigger you are, the faster the growth is. However, today, with about 12,000 employees, there is no major threat for Cognizant.

To a query on the outsourcing backlash in the US, Mr Narayanan said that the issue has softened since March.

"No matter who gets elected as President, economic sense would prevail over politics. Companies in the US today cannot ignore outsourcing," he said.

In the short-term, there may be some impact due to the backlash, but not in the long term, he said. The backlash has only created more visibility on outsourcing. This was evident from increased business for Indian software companies in the last two quarters. Many more US-based companies are looking at outsourcing, said Mr Narayanan.

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