The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Mixing business with pleasure

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 17, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Mixing business with pleasure

Priscilla Jebaraj

Networking was the order of the day at CII’s CEO golf tournament

— Photo: S.S. Kumar

N. Kumar, past president of CII (left), giving away a prize to P. Ashok, CEO, Sriram, EPC, winner of the CII-CEO’s golf tournament in Chennai on Sunday.

CHENNAI: The main conference of the annual Information and Communication Technology event, Connect 2007, tees off on Monday morning, but some business transactions may have happened over the weekend. Not in the conference hall, but on the golfing green.

On Sunday, over 50 business leaders got together for the Confederation of Indian Industry’s CEO golf tournament as part of Connect 2007. “More decisions get made on the golf course than in the boardroom,” says Ravi Santosham of the Santosham Chest Hospital, as he cools down in the clubhouse after completing the course.

Along with the conversations on birdies and bogies over a drink, one can overhear several business discussions at the clubhouse. And with the number of business cards being exchanged, it’s clear that networking is the order of the day.

“I didn’t know all these people from CII before. Now, the tournament gave me a chance to meet them,” explains Do Seung Hwan, director of the Korea Trade Centre. Four and a half hours with little to do but walk and talk on the greens can be productive, “but only if you have the right partners,” according to Chummar Verghese, managing director of FS Engineers.

Not everyone agrees. “No business on the course for me,” says P. Ashok, chief executive of Sriram EPC. Thanks, perhaps, to his no-business principle, Mr. Ashok won the Nett Stableford competition with 47 points. He refuses to talk shop on the greens, but does agree that the clubhouse is a good venue for networking.

The player list includes ICICI chairman N. Vaghul and film director Maniratnam, who took the third place in the Gross Stableford competition. At the prize distribution, there are no long speeches or formal felicitations. Instead, the applause is interspersed with good-natured heckling and tongue-in-cheek remarks.

N. Kumar, vice chairman of the Sanmar Group, is a keen player with a single-digit handicap, but on Sunday, he was the chief guest. “I couldn’t play, because who would give the prizes away if I had won,” he quips. He has his own take on why golf helps build business links. “You play against yourself and that’s important. You are not competing against someone else, no rivalry. So you can network and it’s a lot of good fun and fellowship,” he says.

“It’s a mind game, same as in business. And it’s a good excuse to meet people,” explains Vaidya Nathan, Global Innovation Leader at Cognizant. He admits that a course is needed for all the new golfing enthusiasts on Chennai’s IT highway.

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