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OUCEAA Activities
Alumni Talk # 1 Devendra Surana
Devendra Surana is an Industrialist, Managing Director of Bhagyanagar India Limited and Director of Surana Ventures Limited and Surana Group of Companies. At Osmania University, Surana completed a B. E. in Mechanical Engineering. He earned an MBA( PGDM) from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and was chosen as the“ Brain of the batch”. He is currently the president of the Telangana state council of FICCI.
On speaking about his views on the transformations that took place with time, Mr. Surana categorised these time frames as Durga, Laxmi and Saraswathi eras. He opined that Durga era was dominated by strength followed by Laxmi era where wealth was of importance and finally the Saraswathi era, in which education and intelligence were of high priority. He attributed the current speed at which things are changing exponentially to the Saraswathi era. Analysing this rate of change, he explained how people belonging to other eras get influenced. For instance, people belonging to the present Saraswathi era will be excited about new technology and growth opportunities while those from the older generations will be petrified. Mr. Surana also quoted his favourite example of how the Tata’ s empire was built by three generations whereas Flipkart did it in just 3 years. He wants the present generation not to stop learning and continue to innovate.
Mr. Surana also talked about how the population increase( by about 90 %) over the past 100 years has resulted in increased consumption, demand and price variations. Having said this, he stated that‘ The number of people being born today has been stagnant for the last 20 years’ but the only reason why there is an increase in population is‘ Longevity’. Going by these trends the population will freeze at 10 billion people. According to him, the world has seen an era of shortage till now and that people of this generation will witness an era of surplus where everything is in excess. This is attributed to digitalisation and communication.
Mr. Surana also mentioned about the trends in business today and how the firms are operating. By which, he meant that unlike the old ideology of a firm to meet customers’ requirements, today it is all about making a customer lazy. He mentioned that if a company can make its customer little lazy, in what-so-ever way possible, it can succeed in its business. Mr.- Surana brings a new concept called Anti-Fragile, the ability to grow from a certain class of random events, errors and volatility. Mr. Surana feels the world today needs more of antifragility in every step of life.