On NIIT's MD's Quality Club
The idea behind the MD's Quality Club, which is conducted between Januaryand December every year, is to bring in some of the brightest people tothink on the lines of the managing director. There are three meetingsduring the year. In January, the mission is identified and this isbrainstormed in other meetings. The whole idea is to create a body ofknowledge at the end of the year and to spread this knowledge to other partsof the organisation. The area of benchmarking is innovation and the team iscross-hierarchical and spread across geographies. Over a hundred people inthe organisation have already gone through this process and the MD's Club isconsidered to be the best form of recognition for the employees at NIIT.

On the theme of the MD's Quality Club for the year 2000
The theme is "measurement of continuous improvement". We have to rethinkquality to compete in the global market. Measuring customer satisfaction ismost important. How this can be obtained is a crucial issue and needs to begiven more focus. Of course, the human side to an organisation is alsoimportant. How can you, as an individual, measure the defects you have andas to how people identify a parameter, is essential.

On how NIIT benefitted from the Club
For instance, the SEI-CMM Level 5 which NIIT achieved, is part of the MD'sQC initiative. NIIT is the world's top 10 information technology companiesoperating at the SEI-CMM Level 5, which is the highest maturity level as perthe US-based software engineering institute's capability maturity level.

On the NIIT culture
It is open and informal which is conducive to innovation. People form theknowledge community here. The idea is to nurture, perpetuate and deepen it.We do not plan to change the culture, it is evolutionary. Our strength is3,800, and our's is the lowest level of attrition at about 10 per cent ascompared to the average industry rate of 25-30 per cent. All the qualityefforts are aimed at retaining people. NIIT's vision statement is: NIIT'speople, NIIT's quality and value, and NIIT's customer.

On the role of the CEO
Leadership is important in achieving processes. The Pied Piper way ofleadership does not work anymore, as you cannot expect people to follow youblindly. The following are the distinct set of issues to be followed.Firstly, inspirational leadership. It is the `inspiration' that leaderscreate to bring about `aspiration' among followers that is important.

Secondly, `respirational' leadership. It is how one gets to open up peopleshearts and open up their minds. And lastly, it is `perspirational'leadership which is to get the idea from the mind to the hand, ie.implementation. At NIIT, we also have a Leadership Circle. It is aimed atenabling the company to groom leaders and in nurturing the principles ofleadership.

On the critical aspect of a quality initiative
It is the individual excellence which is the most important aspect of aquality initiative. We had a debate amongst the employees as to whether itwas the people who came first or the customer. There were divergent viewsand the conclusion was that for the company it is the people that isimportant and for the people it is the customer.