RAILWAYS TO LET OFF STEAM AT ISB
By Pallavee Dhaundiyal Panthry
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: Monday, March 9 2009

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The five-year contract between Indian Railways and Indian School of Business to train top brass in the Indian Railways, signed last month, has started delivering results. The Centre for Executive Education (CEE) at the ISB, recently, conducted the first management training workshop for senior administrative officers in the Indian Railways.
The aim of the six day workshop was to get the top brass of the Indian Railways to develop competencies and skills that focus on three objectives - developing strategic thinking, developing crossfunctional perspective, and managing complexity and uncertainty in their current roles.
The course structure was geared to develop a general manager's perspective - decision making; develop understanding of own department's role within Indian Railways' overall goals; long-term thinking and planning; how to lead change, moving from ideas to implementation; financial evaluation of projects, etc.
Participant Sanjay Gehlot, chief commercial manager, passenger services, Eastern Railways said, "This programme gave us a good idea of where we stand and where we are heading for. We acquired a theoretical framework as to what we should be aspiring for."
He also pointed out a session that he found particularly interesting . "It was about how in order to have happy customers you must first have happy employees, and that employee orientation is equally important as customer orientation ," he said.
The workshop comprised sessions like one on operations and supply chain/IT strategies mentored by Medini Singh, customer focussed marketing strategy by Nirmal Gupta, leadership and change management by S Ramnarayan, and finally a session on strategic thinking and implementation by Atul Nerkar. All the