Clairvoyance-Evangelism-Oration | Dr. Ganesh Natrajan at SIMClairvoyance 2011

Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, the CEO and Vice Chairman of Zensar Technologies was the first speaker to open the session of SIMClairvoyance ’11 on 20^th August, 2011. He addressed the concepts of brand management, corporate brand building, internal branding and the emerging trends of media usage.

According to Dr. Natarajan, the lever of media has the ability to help the world, and used badly it has the ability to topple the world. With the impact the media has, it is imperative that this power be utilized responsibly. He believes the Anna Hazare campaign may not be able to solve the problem of corruption but it has become what it is because of the role the media played in inadvertently promoting the campaign.

One of the transforming factors in media came in the 1990s with the introduction of the internet, and with it came email, the World Wide Web and the availability of information. Where companies earlier used to use traditional forms of engagement like print media and television in their public relations campaigns, companies have now started to integrate the use of the internet in their media campaigns. Corporates and advertisers have started to recognize the importance of making people consume what advertisers want them to consume, rather than push too much at them. According to research, there was only a 6% pop up advantage last year indicating that people are now starting to actively resist push advertising.

The next big thing, on the internet and in media campaigns is social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and blog sites are the most commonly used social media platforms on the internet. Today, 66% of corporations, associates and CEO’s are adopters of social networks. Although less than 15% of corporates get any return on their investment in social media, advertisers and PR companies have recognized the need to integrate the mobile, internet and other traditional media into a consolidated PR campaign.

Dr. Natarajan, a chairman of the CII National Committee, a degree holder in knowledge management from IIT Bombay and declared “CEO of the year” by the Asia Pacific HR Conference in 1999, ended his session by sharing his views on what the term CEO means to him. As is befitting the occasion of Clairvoyance’11, he believes C signifies Clairvoyant or the ability to look towards the future, E for evangelist signifying the ability to make change happen, and O for orator or the ability to make active communication happen.

 (inputs from Leah George, MMC Batch 2013)