Update from Vivek

The last few weeks have been focused on getting our Operating Plan together, for a discussion with senior management. As we have grown in size, one of the prices we have to pay, is a higher standard of reporting and planning. (I welcome all of you with editorial ambitions to suggest how that last sentence could have been better structured). Anyway, Sudipta and Hitesh and all of the finance team slaved away to put the document in order. Thank god for mobile communication. I have had reviews in the office, late evening at my residence, from Bangalore airport and from my hotel room in Frankfurt.

Anyway, it all paid off, as our plans were broadly approved, and that means significant investments in a number of areas that will make us bigger and more profitable, as well as a better company to work for. On a public site I am not going to reveal details, but I hope to hold a series of meetings where I can brief you about our plans, and your role in them.

We have also lost some good people in the last few weeks. Sudipta has elected to leave the company to set up his own practice. Aman and Rajan both left our Production team to head production for other companies. I wish them good luck with their future careers.

I was able to hold an open house in Chennai, and I hope it was of some use to those who attended it. I continue to be surprised at the aspirations that Pearson has to be a great company, and while we may not be there as yet in India, we are working on it, and we will get there in the near future. I find these forums useful to understand how people are feeling, and what we need to do as a company. Unfortunately in Chennai I spoke too much, and there were fewer questions. However, it did become clear that we need to be more responsive as a corporate office, so that people in remote locations are given the support they need. We have made some headway in developing a service mind set to external customers; we need to bring that mindset to internal customers as well.

I am still hoping that more of you will write on this blog site. Again, the method is, if you send a mail to manav.y2j.pearsonindia@blogger.com it will come straight up on the site. Put your name somewhere in your mail, so that everyone knows who's writing.

I'm writing this in Bombay, grabbing a quick pav bhaji before a meeting, and it has just been placed in front of me, so I'm going to focus on eating...

Vivek
Sent from my BlackBerry